Ladder-Balance-Data

On July 11 2012 01:50 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
How the hell did you get 45,000 games of data? Just really curious where you got that, it's a ton of data to work with.

Edit: 4% of that data is you?

So you have 1,800 of your own games in the data? Damn...

On July 11 2012 01:34 skeldark wrote:
The chance that -race independent- stronger players pick a specific race is near 0.

On July 11 2012 01:58 SDream wrote:


http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=334561

-----------------------------
Thanks for your time and effort man, I think that the mmr difference of only 3 victories is there mainly because TvZ/ZvT isn't the only matchup we have there at the moment, the imbalance for ZvT is probably larger and the balance for TvP and ZvP is probably fine, that results in these numbers I'd guess.

On July 11 2012 02:01 Malaz wrote:
Ok time for me as a random player to start crying about balance. Buff random already Blizzard!!

On July 11 2012 02:08 Stiluz wrote:
It would be interesting if you could divide this by league too.

On July 11 2012 01:50 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
4% of the games are from him personally.

On July 11 2012 02:03 Mendelfist wrote:


That's an unsupported statement. I don't know where I've heard it, but I'm pretty sure some Blizzard representative, maybe Josh, has explicitly stated that there is a preference for low level players to choose terran. Does it look the same if you exclude for example everyone below masters?

On July 11 2012 02:17 Chill wrote:

Agreed. The whole basis for this project is defeated by one realistic (in my eyes) claim that is dismissed. Also, why do we care about average balance? If Zerg is easier than Terran from Bronze - Masters, does it really matter to the members of this forum?

On July 11 2012 02:17 Chill wrote:

Agreed. The whole basis for this project is defeated by one realistic (in my eyes) claim that is dismissed. Also, why do we care about average balance? If Zerg is easier than Terran from Bronze - Masters, does it really matter to the members of this forum?

On July 11 2012 02:03 Mendelfist wrote:


That's an unsupported statement. I don't know where I've heard it, but I'm pretty sure some Blizzard representative, maybe Josh, has explicitly stated that there is a preference for low level players to choose terran. Does it look the same if you exclude for example everyone below masters?

On July 11 2012 01:50 1st_Panzer_Div. wrote:
Whoah, rechecked that, you have 149,000 games of data. And you are claiming 4% of that is you as well?

And why did you run the random deviation tests than only running 1,000 games, and not at least equal to the 149,000. (You actually should run random monte carlo's for whatever the estimated current userbase is to get some mock battle.net ladders from a perfectly balanced game). I could easily pick 1,000 games out of your current data and show significant imbalance towards any of the three races.

Also what are the dates your data is from?

This is a cool idea... the deviation bit is just not nearly enough random games to be accurate. What program did you use to run these tests, and was it length of the test that prevented you from doing a few hundred thousand?

. I could easily pick 1,000 games out of your current data and show significant imbalance towards any of the three races.

should run random monte carlo's for whatever the estimated current userbase

On July 11 2012 02:17 Chill wrote:

Agreed. The whole basis for this project is defeated by one realistic (in my eyes) claim that is dismissed. Also, why do we care about average balance? If Zerg is easier than Terran from Bronze - Masters, does it really matter to the members of this forum?

On July 11 2012 02:23 Moonalisa wrote:
I read it I cant say I understood all of it but I have one question.

If the race you are playing is under powered and MMR is created to match you with an opponent which have on an average the same MMR as you, would you continiously be matched up with opponents that technically are worse than you but compensated by the more powerful race?

Put it this way (possibly a bit simplified, but I hope you understand where Im getting at)

MMR = Skill * race power

Winrate = 50% regardless of your MMR.

On July 11 2012 02:19 OrbitalPlane wrote:

As far as i know he only/mainly uses data from diamond, master, grandmaster. These are the only players whose MMR is accurate.

On July 11 2012 02:29 Chill wrote:

He said "mainly". But he doesn't say what ratio.

On July 11 2012 02:18 Shiori wrote:

The fact that low level players might have a preference to choose Terran is not the same as saying that low level talented players have a tendency to choose Terran. If it's just low level players in general choosing Terran, then the average will be sustained by the fact that more untalented and more talented players will be choosing Terran. So the OP's claim is correct, because he qualified it by saying "stronger" players aren't more likely to choose Terran in the sense that they're no more likely to choose it than weak players.

On July 11 2012 02:11 Huragius wrote:


Or... Divide by zero ?!

On July 11 2012 02:25 skeldark wrote:
Than ANY balance is dismissed in your eyes. This is not a question about my data this is a question about the definition of balance!
like i said in my post the data is very biased toward skill. The average of the ladder is gold. The average of my data is high diamond!
Also last time i check everyone on ladder cared for balance at his level ^^

On July 11 2012 02:31 Chill wrote:

We can't just dimiss it. Imagine, for whatever reason, that there is a strong bias for new players to automatically choose Terran. The remaining players try all the races and determine which of the three fit their styles, making them more likely to win. Because you can imagine a situation where Zerg and Protoss average win rates are higher than Terran it must be addressed.

On July 11 2012 02:18 Shiori wrote:

The fact that low level players might have a preference to choose Terran is not the same as saying that low level talented players have a tendency to choose Terran. If it's just low level players in general choosing Terran, then the average will be sustained by the fact that more untalented and more talented players will be choosing Terran. So the OP's claim is correct, because he qualified it by saying "stronger" players aren't more likely to choose Terran in the sense that they're no more likely to choose it than weak players.

On July 11 2012 02:35 Chill wrote:

I guess so. I'm just wondering what effects from these results you want. Common sense says that balance at the highest level can be different from the average balance. If this is just for information then it's good to know, but I think a more focused approach would be more useful.

On July 11 2012 02:40 Mendelfist wrote:

I don't follow you here. The point is that new players choose terran because of the campaign, and some of them later in their career switch race. The switch is important, because that WILL cause an over-representation of terrans at lower MMR. It has been known for a long time, for example by looking at sc2ranks statistics. There is no easy way to remove these types of biases from any data that we have. We also don't know how far up the leagues this bias persists. Is it only in bronze/silver? I have no idea.

On July 11 2012 02:35 Chill wrote:

I guess so. I'm just wondering what effects from these results you want. Common sense says that balance at the highest level can be different from the average balance. If this is just for information then it's good to know, but I think a more focused approach would be more useful.

On July 11 2012 02:41 skeldark wrote:
About balance on skilllevels. At the moment i get enough data that i double the data i used here in 1 week.
So in 2-3 weeks i should have enough to do it only for master+

On July 11 2012 02:40 Mendelfist wrote:

I don't follow you here. The point is that new players choose terran because of the campaign, and some of them later in their career switch race. The switch is important, because that WILL cause an over-representation of terrans at lower MMR. It has been known for a long time, for example by looking at sc2ranks statistics. There is no easy way to remove these types of biases from any data that we have. We also don't know how far up the leagues this bias persists. Is it only in bronze/silver? I have no idea.

On July 11 2012 02:41 skeldark wrote:

Read my frist statement in the thread. I dont want anything. The last thing i want to do is to talk about how to blance or whine about units.
I got the data, i publish the result. Thats all. What to do with it can everyone decide for themself.


About balance on skilllevels. At the moment i get enough data that i double the data i used here in 1 week.
So in 2-3 weeks i should have enough to do it only for master+




There is one way to remove this type of biases. Its very complicated but i try to explain it.
you have different amount of group a and b but want to compare them.
You first add all the values of a and all values of b.
now comes the trick: divide them by the amount!
And suddenly it dont care how many there are in the group any more.
The miracle of average....

On July 11 2012 02:51 sevencck wrote:


The bias you're addressing is (presumably) independent of skill.

On July 11 2012 02:51 sevencck wrote:


The bias you're addressing is (presumably) independent of skill. The over representation of Terran at lower MMR has no bearing on an analysis correlating skill by race with MMR. He's not taking a snapshot of race at all skill levels and saying the Terran average MMR is lower (that would be easy to do, and wouldn't prove anything since the ladder is biased for 50% anyway), he's analyzing winrates between races but factoring in the "hidden" MMR rating. In other words, a 50% TvZ winrate may at face value appear balanced, but if the average MMR of the Terrans in that sample is statistically significantly higher than that of the Zergs, it suggests imbalance.

OP please correct me if I'm mistaken.

On July 11 2012 03:06 Ambre wrote:
Nice work,

We need more people like you, and less idiots that talk about shit they don't know.

On July 11 2012 02:58 skeldark wrote:

No. thats basic it.
Mendelfist i dont throw this coins.
What i do is:
take the avg weight of the 70% head coins and the avg weight of the the 30% tail coins .
And than i say : the coins that show head are 10g heavier than the coins that show tail.
I don't care how many of each are on the table.

On July 11 2012 03:09 Mendelfist wrote:


No, but the ladder throws coins. I don't understand how you can't see this. Imagine that when you buy the game you don't even have a choice. You are forced to choose terran. Then when you have played for a month the other choices open up. It's pretty clear then that low MMR's will be over-represented by terrans, right?

On July 11 2012 03:09 Mendelfist wrote:


No, but the ladder throws coins. I don't understand how you can't see this. Imagine that when you buy the game you don't even have a choice. You are forced to choose terran. Then when you have played for a month the other choices open up. It's pretty clear then that low MMR's will be over-represented by terrans, right?

On July 11 2012 02:17 Chill wrote:

Agreed. The whole basis for this project is defeated by one realistic (in my eyes) claim that is dismissed. Also, why do we care about average balance? If Zerg is easier than Terran from Bronze - Masters, does it really matter to the members of this forum?

On July 11 2012 03:12 Shiori wrote:

Except there's absolutely no evidence that this is occurring.

On July 11 2012 03:16 Mendelfist wrote:


Do you really mean that I need evidence for that new players who just bought the game often choose terran as their first race?

On July 11 2012 03:12 Shiori wrote:


Except there's absolutely no evidence that this is occurring.

On July 11 2012 03:12 Shiori wrote:

Except there's absolutely no evidence that this is occurring.

On July 11 2012 03:15 furerkip wrote:


It's only taken from Diamond, Masters, and Grandmasters of US/EU, he said that in his conclusion.

On July 11 2012 03:17 archonOOid wrote:
is it possible to create a graph displaying your balance data vs the skill level (MMR is a nice blizzard proxy for that or perhaps per level [bronze, platinum, etc])?

On July 11 2012 03:14 Thrombozyt wrote:

As his data is already biased to the users of his MMR calculation (and their opponents), we can rule out the "I'm so new I know only terran crowd". If that's not enough for you, a cut-off eliminating all data points below diamond league should do it, right?

On July 11 2012 02:31 Chill wrote:

We can't just dimiss it. Imagine, for whatever reason, that there is a strong bias for new players to automatically choose Terran. The remaining players try all the races and determine which of the three fit their styles, making them more likely to win. Because you can imagine a situation where Zerg and Protoss average win rates are higher than Terran it must be addressed.

On July 11 2012 02:58 skeldark wrote:

No. thats basic it.
Mendelfist i dont throw this coins.
What i do is:
take the avg weight of the 70% head coins and the avg weight of the the 30% tail coins .
And than i say : the coins that show head are 10g heavier than the coins that show tail.
I don't care how many of each are on the table.

On July 11 2012 03:20 Plansix wrote:


There is not a lot of evidence to chew on in the OP either. I see a ton of numbers with no league basis or any grounded data for me to latch on to. The MMR stats do not even tell me who is in what league or any information on the players themselves, beyond their primary race. It does not even show if they were off racing in that specific match. The data itself has is filled with players who have only play one game in a specific time frame.

I am not sure what to think of the findings, but my efforts to dig into his methods have not yielded the results I was expecting.

On July 11 2012 03:23 TsGBruzze wrote:
I must say that this is some impressive work!

On July 11 2012 03:28 danl9rm wrote:


Wait. Was this supposed to make me laugh?
Cuz I did.

I laughed real hard.

On July 11 2012 03:17 Shiori wrote:

You need evidence for new players who just bought the game and choose Terran as their race only to switch a few months into playing and contrast it with evidence showing that players who pick P/Z after buying switch less or not at all.

On July 11 2012 03:29 Mendelfist wrote:

There is no need for P/Z switching less for this phenomenon to occur. Try the experiment with the coins. If there is an initial bias for whatever reason, and people then randomly switch race for whatever reason, it's unlikely that the switches will preserve the initial bias. This will cause a change of race distribution over time. That's all it takes.

On July 11 2012 03:33 Shiori wrote:

Which only matters if some of the coins are more valuable than others and only the more valuable ones are showing up, so to speak.

On July 11 2012 03:41 Smancer wrote:
I am not a statistics guru but...

I think the question that really needs to be answered with this data, is as follows:

Does Race X on average win against Race Y even when Race Y has a higher MMR.

In other words the Null Hypothesis is that Race does not matter. A higher skilled player should be a lower skilled player regardless of the race.

This would show that certain races win over others even if the other player is more skilled. I don't think a flat average or races really is going to say anything.

On July 11 2012 03:41 Smancer wrote:
I am not a statistics guru but...

I think the question that really needs to be answered with this data, is as follows:

Does Race X on average win against Race Y even when Race Y has a higher MMR.

In other words the Null Hypothesis is that Race does not matter. A higher skilled player should be a lower skilled player regardless of the race.

This would show that certain races win over others even if the other player is more skilled. I don't think a flat average or races really is going to say anything.

On July 11 2012 03:29 skeldark wrote:
@mendel
http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all
so we can end this discussion. the all terran in low leagues was in the first 6 month of sc2. Not any more.

On July 11 2012 04:58 Zrana wrote:
Your calculation doesn't take practice time into account. In general the foreign scene plays less time and in a less disciplined way then the koreans. If protoss and zerg can show better results with less time-input than terran, does this mean T is underpowered? In my opinion, no it doesn't (although maybe the race needs some changes), the only balance that really matters is the balance when players of every race are putting as much time and effort into the game as possible i.e. the professional players.

On July 11 2012 04:44 Mendelfist wrote:

I'm not sure what you are trying to show me. There is a clear over-representation of terrans in bronze and silver compared to the other leagues.

On July 11 2012 05:39 slane04 wrote:



I think the point was that this game isn't new any more. There aren't that many new playes being added to the ladder, relative to release day. So a much smaller proportion of this "over-representation" could be made up of the bad/new players. Further, there is no way to say why there are more Terran at Bronze and proceed to drop off as you go up in leagues. At time progresses, the "noob" bias becomes much less significant. It's definitely still there, only OP with leagues breakdowns can tell us.

On July 11 2012 05:43 skeldark wrote:

you have way better data than league breakdown. you have mmr....
if i go for leagues this data would be so inaccurate i could do nothing with it.

I found a mistake. I put many opponent more than a single time in the file.
This is race independent mistake and should not affect the result.
However i will correct it and run the calculation. Could take several hours until he is done....

On July 11 2012 06:17 Aletheia27 wrote:
um... your random run and the terran so called "statistically significant" difference... Um, can I get some t-statistics to check for the random error? I mean.. I don't see any in your post, so i'm wondering where you're deriving the "significance" from. Also, the notion of skill independent of balance is a tricky matter in terms of interpretting data...but that's outside the scope of the post I believe anyway...

On July 11 2012 06:23 Tuczniak wrote:
Nice job. But balance at (average) diamond isn't that interesting. Even high master/gm at NA/EU/SEA almost don't matter, but it would nice to do it there.

On July 11 2012 06:30 nkr wrote:
So... are these stats a product of imbalance or metagame?

On July 11 2012 06:30 nkr wrote:
So... are these stats a product of imbalance or metagame?

On July 11 2012 06:26 CrY. wrote:
MMR is the best representation of data he could have possibly gathered for this particular project..I honestly think there are a lot of angry people here who are reading what they want to read and making a lot of silly moot points.

You know who you are.

On July 11 2012 06:28 Zeon0 wrote:
u really should get a Quality Poster Star

On July 11 2012 06:40 Itsmedudeman wrote:
Is it possible to show your results for specific matchups? PvZ, TvZ, and TvP? I feel like without that this data could be slightly flawed. Also, are you weighing certain matchups more often than others because of race distribution? Or do you have an even number of matchups when you take this data?

On July 11 2012 06:42 ThePlayer33 wrote:
i think do masters only as a subgroup, GM as a subgroup, and the same for korea only.

On July 11 2012 06:50 InfCereal wrote:
Glad you decided to release these, skeldark.

Any plans to retroactively gather people's race?

On July 11 2012 02:17 Chill wrote:

Agreed. The whole basis for this project is defeated by one realistic (in my eyes) claim that is dismissed. Also, why do we care about average balance? If Zerg is easier than Terran from Bronze - Masters, does it really matter to the members of this forum?

On July 11 2012 04:45 Jarree wrote:
I find it sad that a community member must do these calculations and post them. Then Dustin B. just says in an interview that everything in every ladder and server is 50-50 and in winrates in every matchup early game late game what ever still 50-50. Then he says they are monitoring a situation where last month there was a 0,5% imbalance. And everything without zero facts.

I hope you get more data (masters+). Presenting clear facts based on data is never wrong. Everybody can then make up their own mind about what's the cause and balance and so on. Keep doing what you're doing.

-Terran is statistic significant underpowered.
-Zerg is statistic significant overpowered.
-Protoss in possible overpowered but not significant.

On July 11 2012 06:26 skeldark wrote:

you play sc2? you are korean grandmaster?
if yes and no.
Would you like it to have EU grandmaster skill and play against bronce guys because you play the wrong race?
I extrapolate to show your, your extrapolation.

This game is not for pro player! this game is for everyone!
If this game would be only for pro players than , i would not be here


Btw most people ignore how close the numbers actually are.

On July 11 2012 07:57 Psychobabas wrote:
skeldark,
thank you

On July 11 2012 08:00 VyingsP wrote:
I might not understand because it is late, and I am quite tired, but isn't that well known already ? Sc2ranks has shown a deficit of Terran in the upper leagues for months now, and a surplus of Terran in the lower leagues. And MMR is related to the league, isn't it? So the Terran MMR is gonna be lower. Am I missing something ?

On July 11 2012 08:38 BluemoonSC wrote:


updated my post to provide clarity. MMR is quite literally a rating assigned to you based on how well you play and takes in no other factors except the wins and losses you have against other players with comparable MMRs and adjusts based on those wins and losses. it has nothing to do with balance and has been that way since the beta. i honestly dont understand why we're still looking at it.

On July 11 2012 06:37 Zrana wrote:


Ah, but is there a difference?

On July 11 2012 08:31 BluemoonSC wrote:
you had me until you claimed that MMR has something to do with balance - MMR is an indication of skill, not balance.

i could cheese my way to a better MMR, but does that mean that the game is balanced? uncertain.

i could use one build to get a better MMR, but does that mean that the game is balanced? uncertain.

you take the average MMR of players across gold-GM (if i read correctly), yet somehow this is an indication of balance? that is absurd. balance can only be determined under ideal conditions at the highest level of play and even then, humans are all capable of mistakes.

these are just a few of the problems i have with anyone using MMR (calculated skill) as a means of attempting to prove balance. watch some high level gameplay if you want to figure out whether or not the game is balanced bc, in my opinion, this study is completely irrelevant.

On July 11 2012 08:57 BluemoonSC wrote:


you can throw as much math as you want at the problem, it doesn't change the fact that you're looking at data that is dependent on player skill and doesn't look what actually happens inside each individual game.

MMR only looks at wins and losses.

On July 11 2012 08:31 BluemoonSC wrote:
you had me until you claimed that MMR has something to do with balance - MMR is an indication of skill, not balance.

i could cheese my way to a better MMR, but does that mean that the game is balanced? uncertain.

i could use one build to get a better MMR, but does that mean that the game is balanced? uncertain.

you take the average MMR of players across gold-GM (if i read correctly), yet somehow this is an indication of balance? that is absurd. balance can only be determined under ideal conditions at the highest level of play and even then, humans are all capable of mistakes.

these are just a few of the problems i have with anyone using MMR (calculated skill) as a means of attempting to prove balance. watch some high level gameplay if you want to figure out whether or not the game is balanced bc, in my opinion, this study is completely irrelevant.

But im still to 99,31 % secure Terran is underpowered -30.09

Timeline : Season 8 , start - 10/07

Deviation :
1000 times 4 random groups:

100% are in the area -+ 33.81:
99.15% are in the area +-25
96.6% are in the area +-20
88.88% are in the area +-15
70.3% are in the area +-10
39.7% are in the area +-5

Race groups:
Terran: -44.83
Protoss: +19.83
Zerg: + 38.53
Random: -187.70

On July 11 2012 08:57 BluemoonSC wrote:


you can throw as much math as you want at the problem, it doesn't change the fact that you're looking at data that is dependent on player skill and doesn't look what actually happens inside each individual game.

MMR only looks at wins and losses.

On July 11 2012 09:20 BluemoonSC wrote:


then he shouldnt use words like "balance" "underpowered" and "overpowered" if he's not talking about balance ;;

On July 11 2012 10:34 IshinShishi wrote:

1 player is statistically irrelevant, on average players will play standard games, that's why we need a big sample which is what we have here, people making very bad points to deny this without thinking them through made this thread really annoying to read.The other matter has long since been settled, regardless of data(you should just try them out),you had better give up by now.

On July 11 2012 02:17 Chill wrote:

Agreed. The whole basis for this project is defeated by one realistic (in my eyes) claim that is dismissed. Also, why do we care about average balance? If Zerg is easier than Terran from Bronze - Masters, does it really matter to the members of this forum?

On July 11 2012 08:57 BluemoonSC wrote:


you can throw as much math as you want at the problem, it doesn't change the fact that you're looking at data that is dependent on player skill and doesn't look what actually happens inside each individual game.

MMR only looks at wins and losses.

On July 11 2012 10:54 sevencck wrote:


In a perfectly balanced game, if you averaged MMR data by race, you would expect the average MMR of each race to be about the same, allowing for small random variation. As I understand it, OP's MMR data shows that the game is on average basically rating Terrans as being less skilled than Protoss or Zerg, and his results show this difference to be much greater than what would be expected from random variation. Assuming that in reality all three races are equally skilled (a reasonable assumption), how do you rationalize this MMR disparity? It suggests that Terran might indeed be UP, or at the very least is really struggling due to the metagame?

Since any imbalance gets inherently factored into the MMR, by extension we can infer certain things. Put simply, if all three races are equally skilled in reality (an assumption), and the game is on average rating Terrans as less skilled than Zergs (through MMR), then it implies that on average a Terran at equal MMR to a Zerg is in reality at least equally skilled, and quite probably more skilled than that Zerg. Thus, hypothetically, if this "averaged" T and Z at equal MMR ratings trade wins at a 50% rate, it in no way demonstrates that the game is balanced, despite a 50% winrate at equal MMR, since the imbalance is already factored into the MMR. I believe OP's point is that the way they're guaging "balance" may inherently be flawed.

Not really completely sure about any of it though, I'm still thinking about it all.

On July 11 2012 10:15 lazyitachi wrote:
Not sure what type of stats is this overgeneralisation

1) Can you show the breakdown by race for some MMR intervals to know the distribution of data used to derived these results?
2) Is it possible to further separate into submitter vs opponent data (I believe the MMR is calculated for both players in a replay?) for breakdown in (1)?
3) If you can identify submitter, then should we look at w/l ratio? At least to be certain that they submit at least a representative sample of their games and not ONLY their wins?
4) What does deviation mean?? Just means the deviation of MMR of the players within the replay? Seems to be some distortion going on just by looking at random either through submission bias or imbalanced distribution of "MMR".

On July 11 2012 09:34 lolcanoe wrote:
I'm confused here - why are there 4 random groups? Why not just lump them together?


Where the hell are you getting these numbers for? I'm assuming this 99.3 comes from some application of the normal distribution - have you been thorough established normality in MMR? Based on my understanding of the MMR system, you would not expect normality... As a stats junky, I'm very suspicious of the statistics here.

On July 11 2012 10:48 cskalias.pbe wrote:
(avg: 3 victorys behind)
OP: Could you explain this please? If I played a 100 games as Terran v Zerg with same MMR, about what would be my win%?

On July 11 2012 02:01 Malaz wrote:
Ok time for me as a random player to start crying about balance. Buff random already Blizzard!!

On July 11 2012 10:59 Buddhist wrote:

There's no reason to believe that the races have equally skilled players on average at any level of play.

On July 11 2012 10:25 Plansix wrote:


Yes, the word underpowered and balance infer things that the OP is not addressing. You cannot take into account a player like "BadHabit" who made it into GM by only six pooling(on a bet, but he still did it). There are to many other factors that effect MMR to say anything beyond "players of X skill level with Y race seem the a dip in MMR at Z point". But this data does not prove that terran is harder than protoss or zerg, like some posters are saying.

On July 11 2012 11:15 ErAsc2 wrote:
What a pointless thread, you call Terran underpowered just because they're higher populated in bronze. People pick Terran when they start the game because it's the standard race, the race from the campaign. WTF does that have with balance to do?

On July 11 2012 11:16 BuddhaMonk wrote:
I would just like people to keep in mind that when Blizzard talks about statistical balance analysis they do account for skill. I don't know how they do that, but when they say 50/50 win rates etc., according to their statements they do adjust for skill, something that OP has not done.

Nevertheless, good job OP very nice of you to gather this data for us.

On July 11 2012 11:17 skeldark wrote:


I just dont understand people like you.
You come in this thread have no idea what it is about. obvious did not read the op and if did not understand a single word but still you think you have to post how pointless it is....

On July 11 2012 11:17 skeldark wrote:


I just dont understand people like you.
You come in this thread have no idea what it is about. obvious did not read the op and if did not understand a single word but still you think you have to post how pointless it is....



I account only for skill not for winratio! blizzard does the same.
The point is the guys that give the interviews are not the guys who calculate it and most of the time just repeat the few words they can remember from last meeting.

On July 11 2012 11:24 BuddhaMonk wrote:


How are you adjusting for skill? MMR/Average MMR is not what Blizzard is talking about when they say adjusting for skill.

On July 11 2012 11:20 sevencck wrote:


Meh, don't worry about posts like that. This thread is above my head, but I've enjoyed thinking about it all. I'm sure lots of others have as well. I'm glad you posted it.

On July 11 2012 11:24 BuddhaMonk wrote:


How are you adjusting for skill? MMR/Average MMR is not what Blizzard is talking about when they say adjusting for skill.

On July 11 2012 11:28 skeldark wrote:

Yeah i know they do it with white rabbit blood. oO
I use the blizzard skill calculation system. You perhaps know it under the name MMR...


cant... cant hold it. The totalbiscuit in me wants out

On July 11 2012 11:31 Jimmeh wrote:


What is MMR other than (relative) skill?

On July 11 2012 11:35 Iron_ wrote:
Wow impressive amount of work done. I was so sick and tired of hearing how most races are 50% win rate knowing that is completely meaningless. MMR actually means something.

It's funny to see some zergs come in here and yell at you with nonsensical crap

On July 11 2012 11:38 VediVeci wrote:
Hi, great post! I found this to be very informative and interesting, very well done.

I do have some questions about your methods though, and please forgive me if you have already addressed these.

If I have found the correct formulas you are using, you appear to be assuming an ELO rating system? I was under the impression, after listening to speech from Josh Menke at UCI, that the MMR is actually a determined using Gaussian Density Filtering? Is there a source that someone can point me to clearing this up?
Regardless, your method should provide a decent approximation of MMR anyway, and ELO is certainly a valid ranking system in its own right.

You also seem to have ignored the possibility of confounding factors (again, just say so if I missed it).

EDIT: Also, you mentioned in a comment that you don't know if players are normally distributed, but doesn't ELO assume normal distribution? Assuming a similar distribution I don't think it would affect it too significantly though

On July 11 2012 11:50 XenOsky- wrote:
you don't have to be a genius to figure out that Terran is really under powered.... keep nerfin terran blizzard, i haven't played a TvT in ages...

On July 11 2012 11:55 shabinka wrote:
The MMR deviation is very tiny compared to overall MMR (it's about a win with some bonus pool for terran being UP), and with an average of 2 wins per ladder account it means nothing.

On July 11 2012 11:55 shabinka wrote:
The MMR deviation is very tiny compared to overall MMR (it's about a win with some bonus pool for terran being UP), and with an average of 2 wins per ladder account it means nothing.

On July 11 2012 02:39 Shiori wrote:

That sounds incredibly unlikely in the sense that you're suggesting, though. When Blizzard says that more new players choose Terran, they don't say or even suggest that those people choose their race in a different way than the people who choose other races. It's entirely possible (and likely, I'd say) that most people pick Terran because they're the protagonists and because they're human beings. The people who pick Zerg/Protoss at the noob level don't know enough about their "styles" to make a choice that really affects their ability to win, because it's not actually very clear from the start what the styles of the races even are.

The people who pick P/Z are probably motivated by the same thing that motivates players to pick Terran: they think the race is cool. It just so happens that there are fewer of them because aliens are less appealing than humans.

Besides, even if there were a strong bias for new players to automatically choose Terran, talented RTS players are talented RTS players, and weak RTS players are weak. I don't believe that players have an inbuilt magical bias to one race that influences them so much that they'd be incapable of playing the other races at a high level. If Terran is just more appealing to human beings in general, then it's going to attract all sorts with random distribution, meaning that the average Terran player isn't going to be any better than the average P/Z player because it's just a larger sample but is still evenly distributed.

Until you can show that there's a race which has a baffling number of good players but almost no bad players, the point is moot.

On July 11 2012 11:37 _Search_ wrote:
I'm really not understanding how the OP draws his conclusions.

Is he comparing the win rates of races where players have different MMRs? As in, Zerg is overpowered because players with lower MMRs are beating players with higher MMRs? If so, the conclusions are laughably overreaching. Despite all the esteem given to MMR, it's a terrible indicator of skill because it's based on win rates and averaged across the race. To put it concisely: balance dictates win rates, which dictate MMR, which the OP is using to determine balance. It's totally circular.

Also, certain races are just plain easier to win with using lower skill. Some races rely more on luck. How many Protoss wins can be attributed to a lucky DT timing? How many TvZs have been won by getting one medivac in the right place at the right time? Its widely accepted that Protoss is the easiest race to play and Zerg is the hardest. How does that factor into the OPs findings? Naniwa, for one, has said that the immortal sentry PvZ allin is far easier to execute than it is to stop, (though I think this description could be applied to most Protoss attacks, and to attacking in general, which helps Protoss the most since they have the strongest attacks).

It's also easier to cheese with certain races, and, assuming that a cheese win is a non-skill based win, that would give Protosses another undeserved boost in win rates, since they are doubtless the biggest cheesers. The OP treats all wins as equally legitimate, when many are clearly bullshit. I play Terrans on the ladder all the time who refuse to guard against a 6 pool, saying they'd rather lose. They go for a super greedy opening that plain straight up loses to a potential counter build. Others refuse to guard against DT openings. How are those games legitimate? These players will never be able to win against the same opponent twice!

I also totally reject the notion that each race receives an equal degree of skilled and unskilled players. Heck, just comparing the Korean to the foreigner Terrans one can see a readily apparent skill gap, one that isn't there with Protoss and Zerg.

Even then, most newcomers gravitate to Terran or Protoss (because of the campaign/because of the instant easiness). I have more than one friend who has abandoned SC2 entirely because Zerg was just too difficult to play.

Last, Zerg recently received a fairly significant buff, which means that, if the buff did what it was supposed to do, Zergs SHOULD be winning over higher MMR opponents right now. That was the point of the buff! To move Zergs up the ladder and give them higher tournament representation! In other words, something would be wrong if Zergs WEREN'T winning more! Did the OP take this into account? Did he calculate the win rates before and after the patch separately?

These are the issues I have the OPs method.

Edit: I would also love to see how this relates to the maps. Many of the maps in the pool have severe balance issues, which always affect Zerg most heavily. But those maps are being slowly weeded out and as more balanced maps enter the pool we see Zergs winning more. Most recently Korhal Compound and Metalopolis were removed (both of which were terrible for Zerg if they spawned close positions on Metalopolis). Every season the map changes have been a subtle buff to Zerg. How do the recent map changes affect the OPs findings?

On July 11 2012 11:55 shabinka wrote:
The MMR deviation is very tiny compared to overall MMR (it's about a win with some bonus pool for terran being UP), and with an average of 2 wins per ladder account it means nothing.

On July 11 2012 12:57 Niazger wrote:


Im sorry bro but you couldve saved a lot of time. You arent even close to understanding how the OP came to his results yet you post this wall of text.

Also your rant about luck is pretty retarded tbh. If getting a medivec in the right postion/dts are luck I guess we all should just roll the dice at the beginning of the game.

On July 11 2012 13:06 Cascade wrote:
First: nice work on putting these together! Must have been a lot of job.

I'm fine with everything you do, up to the point where you go from average MMR to balance. As many others. You have, very neatly, shown that the average MMR is lower for terran than for zerg. No more, no less.

Why are there more terrans at lower MMR? I don't know.
Because they are UP? Maybe.
Because casual (bad) players are more likely to pick terran due to single player? Maybe.
Because the good players switch away from terran as they perceive them as UP? Maybe.
Because people switch race from terran as they get better? Maybe.
Something else? Could be

Some comments:

1) Your result is essentially the same as in the sc2ranks link you provide.
I know that MMR is not exactly identical to league, but I think everyone here can agree that if there are more of a race at lower MMR, then that will very likely reflect in more of that race also being in lower leagues. And this is in fact what we see.


I even did a short calculation:
+ Show Spoiler +