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Balance Discussion Math(Best of N format analysis) - Page 2

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BobMcJohnson
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
France2916 Posts
August 22 2012 14:03 GMT
#21
Good post, not sure why it's counter-intuitive though. BoX series increases the chances of the better player the more X is big, and OP'ness makes one of the player artificially better, so it's logical that BoX series amplifies the difference.
Romanes eunt domus
Skwid1g
Profile Joined April 2011
United States953 Posts
August 22 2012 14:08 GMT
#22
On August 21 2012 23:31 imallinson wrote:
It's fascinating just how small the OPness can be to create a large skew in tournament results. It highlights just how volatile balance is even in a two race setup. It's also funny that having more games in a series actually increases the effect of OPness when I think most people's assumption would be that it decreases the effect.


No, it's pretty obvious that if you have a better chance to win it'll be amplified over a boX (where X is 3 or greater) rather than a single game. It's because of this that bo5/bo7s are preferred; the player who has a better shot at winning (usually through being a better player, sometimes through imbalance though) has a better shot of advancing as he's more likely to win games than his opponent.
NaDa/Fantasy/Zero/Soulkey pls
VGhost
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States3621 Posts
August 22 2012 14:51 GMT
#23
Interesting stuff.

Logically, this also ought to apply to player win probability - to pick a couple players at random, Grubby is far more likely to manage to win one game against MVP than a Bo3 series, and more likely to squeak out a Bo3 than string 3 wins together to take a Bo5, etc.

But - this is completely tangential to your point - this suggests there's a point at which the entertainment value of a tournament is better served by shorter series (higher probability of upsets), while "accuracy" of results (the "best player" wins) demands longer series.
#4427 || I am not going to scan a ferret.
Orek
Profile Joined February 2012
1665 Posts
August 22 2012 16:38 GMT
#24
On August 22 2012 22:52 Setev wrote:
First of all, very very detailed work by OP, and marvelous job done. But I keep getting confused by all those colours and graphs. IMO drawing all those colourful tables will confuse people instead of clarifying. Why not use probability trees instead? IMO I think they are much better diagrams than tables. Just my 2 cents =D

+ Show Spoiler +
Anyway, a simpler way to explain will be to use the Binomial Theorem.

Let P(A) = Probability that OP race wins a best of n series,
P(B) = Probability that UP race wins a best of n series

p = probability that OP race will win the match
q = 1 -p = probability UP race will win the match
n = total number of games played
rp = number of games won by OP race
rq = number of games won by UP race

P(A) = nCrp * (p)^rp * (q)^(n-rp) for rp = 1,2,3,..,n

P(B) = nCrq * (p)^rq * (q)^(n-rq) for rq = 1,2,3,...,n

We'll notice that P(A) - P(B) will get more apparent the higher the value of n.


You are absolutely right. Thanks for your input. It's just that what is easy to do on my notebook is not necessarily what is easy to upload on TL. I probably need to use scanner for my next math project to fully deliver the work.
As you pointed out, yes, Binomial Theorem plays an important role here. From Best of 5 onward, it is so much easier to calculate win rate that way.
General win rate of OP race is:
[image loading]
Using this equation, it is possible to calculate something like Best of 15 win rate.
Knowing this, I still thought using the excel table image was more intuitive at relatively small best of 5 or less.
nn42
Profile Joined April 2011
Sweden18 Posts
August 23 2012 15:09 GMT
#25
Interesting from a math perspective.
However, I don't see how this could add to the balance discussion as it is currently.
Blizzard provides the community with win-rates on ladder. TLDP brings win rates from tournaments.
We get the actual win rates from there.
Seeing as there's no mathematical way of separating player skill from racial imbalances these calculations quickly becomes irrelevant to the debate.
ie MKP would probably beat any mid master player as off race in an open bracket MLG. (and I saw Welmu (normally P but off raced as T) 2-0 Grubby on ladder).


BoN series stats would be interesting overall, because I believe the mental state of each player in the series accounts for most win rates, not the balance of the game itself. At least not in this state where the game is currently.
I'd like to discover if there's varying results in terms of win orders in comparison to race in a series. e.g. Zerg has a higher probability to come back from a 2-1 deficit in a Bo5 against Terran. Combine that with various game stats like time data, etc, for each game and I'd find that much more valuable to the discussion, more in depth stats.


I think most sports fans have accepted the idea of a extended BoN beyond Bo1 favors the "better" player/s. What you concluded here, atleast to me, is that a player with >50% win rate will increase his/hers win rate exponentially if the games played increases. As a math fan it might seem intriguing, as part of a balance discussion it just confirms what most people already figured out without the exact math to support it.


You might have targeted the math people on TL though, so don't get me wrong here
You bring up a great point though in all of this and that's peoples perception of imbalance is mostly based on the wrong data.
Kasu
Profile Joined April 2011
United Kingdom345 Posts
August 23 2012 16:00 GMT
#26
Good thread! If only we could make it required reading...
S:klogW
Profile Joined April 2012
Austria657 Posts
August 23 2012 16:04 GMT
#27
I like your thoroughness. You should make more threads. Thank you.
E = 1.89 eV = 3.03 x 10^(-19) J
Phanekim
Profile Joined April 2003
United States777 Posts
August 27 2012 20:12 GMT
#28
good thread. I thought though this point was quite...obvious though. just me. but i appreciate the backing of it up.
i like cheese
Gyro_SC2
Profile Joined November 2010
Canada540 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-27 20:41:44
August 27 2012 20:40 GMT
#29
You are only saying that a OP race has more chance to win if there's a higher (BO) Best of .


For exemple: next TSL no terran = underpowered
this thread informe me that is the TSL qualification would have a BO5 instead of BO3, there will be less terran.
Cheerio
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Ukraine3178 Posts
August 28 2012 09:25 GMT
#30
so if the OP race has the chance of winning 1 match 55% it has the chance to win bo5 around 58%. Not that big of a deal.
gondolin
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
France332 Posts
October 28 2012 14:10 GMT
#31
Sorry for bumping this thread, but I had missed it and your 8% gas thread made me read it :-)

As you said, a BOX is an amplificator of probability (that is if player A has p chance to win against player B, with p>0.5, then the player A has q chance to win against player B in a BOX with q>p). This is what we want in a tourmanent, that the best player win. Now of course the higher X is, the higher the amplification of probability will be, but more game will be played on average. One can aks if there are better system than a BOX in term of amplification by number of games?

For instance, one could look on X More Wins (XMW), where a player win if he has X more wins than the other. If each player are of equal strength, it will take on average X^2 games to designate a winner.

This blog post is pretty interesting in this regard
http://www.madore.org/~david/weblog/2012-06.html#d.2012-06-02.2051
unfortunately it is in French, but you can look at the graph which give in order:
BO1, BO3, BO5, 2MW, BO7, BO3 of BO3, BO9, 3MW

In particular, one case see that 2MW is a bit better than a BO5 as amplificator of probability. Moreover, if the player are of equal strength, it will require 4 games in average against 33/8 for BO5 (and more generally it will always require less games on average). The drawback of course is that in a BO5 there is a maximum of 5 games while in a 2MW there is no such limit, but I find the idea interesting.
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