April win percentages - Page 6

On May 02 2013 07:23 Goldfish wrote:


Yeah I agree. The game is mostly balanced besides hellbats and widow mines drops (which are really silly IMO).

Widow Mines should have cap on the amount of units it can hit (you can set it in the "Search" field, and set "Maximum Count" to any #).

The game where 1 widow mine took out 14 probes (sOs) and he lost just because of 1 WM was crazy.

Widow Mine blast should cap at like maybe 10 units or so.

Even as a mostly Terran player (playing random the other time), I don't like Widow Mines or Hellbats that much.

In BW, nothing was as random or could change the entire course of the game as a Widow Mine (for example).

Reaver scarab blasts were predictable and slow (both opponents could micro against it easily). The scarabs would dud and do no damage sometimes but that was only if the scarab traveled some crazy pathing (like trying to travel around a structure or something, as scarabs had ground pathing and could be blocked by ground units).

Plus, it's rare that 1 or 2 scarabs changed the outcome of the entire game (mainly because units didn't really clump as much) like Widow Mines do.

I say a cap of like 10 units max (again, it can be set in the search field of the data editor under "Max Count" or "Max Target").

Anything that makes the game end (or decides the entire game) due to 1 or 2 things (especially if they are random as widow mines) should be nerfed somewhat.

Randomness isn't a problem itself. I mean WarCraft 3 and Dota have randomness, but nothing in WC3 or Dota have randomness enough that you lose the game outright due to 1-2 bad rolls (there have been plenty of times in Dota where the entire team gets taken out due to something "unlucky", like being caught out of position but they still were able to make a comeback... in SC2 this rarely happens as much due to how 1 or 2 unlucky things, like a Widow Mine taking out 14 or your workers early game, can put you far behind that you probably won't make a comeback).

(Also it's not just Widow Mines either. I think Protoss in general has that problem where the whole investment is on one big Protoss army, and if they lose or win 1 big battle with that Protoss army, the game is decided there. That's why I dislike watching anything involving Protoss. TvZ is more back and forth and more gradual.)

While the game with sOs where 1 Widow Mine destroyed 14 probes is rare, something like that shouldn't be in the game.

tl;rd - Widow Mines should have a "Maximum Count" (editable in the "Search" effect) of 10 or less (rather than unlimited like it is now).

On May 03 2013 00:23 Mortal wrote:
Small sample makes statistics this close irrelevant.

On May 03 2013 01:03 Oukka wrote:
As people have already said for a few times Zergs having a bit lower winrate, especially vs Terran, will very likely correct itself soon enough. Zerg being the race that gains most advantage of extreme greed, due to "saving" of production cycles, has to wait and find a solution to aggression of other races. If Zerg is buffed now I think WoL will happen and we'll have something very similar to BL+infestor at the end of 2012.

On May 02 2013 02:52 Alryk wrote:

Please point out why the methodology is flawed; I don't see any inherent selection/etc. bias in the samples. I also don't see your reasoning about the sample size. Sample sizes of 1,000 are often used to properly represent the national population - they're usually seen as accurate as well. The problem is they need to be representative of the population. If this is supposed to reflect the pro scene, it does so well.

You don't actually want a large sample size. If the sample size gets too large, you actually increase your error. Smaller samples are almost always better as long as you get past the initial 50-100 sample size road block.

On May 03 2013 01:12 Crushinator wrote:


The samples seem quite large to me there are 400 tvz games in the data. Correct me if I'm wrong but I;m almost certain the 45/55 distribution found would lead us to reject the null hypothesis that each race has an equal chance of winning. That alone makes this pretty interesting

On May 03 2013 02:24 avilo wrote:
These stats mean nothing, the game is very new right now. Also it takes Zerg the longest time to adapt to new strategies due to the larva mechanic and their new units come into play later in games than the T/P equivalents.

People will probably jump on me for saying this, but it's actually a good sign that Zerg is slightly behind in these statistics because of aforementioned...it takes longer for Zerg reactionary play to develop compared to T/P play.

In a month or two we'll see Zerg winrates rise quite a bit because the game is more figured out. Zerg is the most reactionary race. Same thing occurred with wings of liberty, in which Terran was nerfed into the ground and Zerg was overbuffed at the same time.

So hopefully blizzard learned from wings and waits. Also, statistics have nothing to do with metagame/maps being involved with balance.

On May 03 2013 02:20 Sissors wrote:

Since you asked nicely, I will correct you.

The data found can be used to reject the null hypothesis that in the ZvT games the zergs had on average a 50% chance to win. Thats an important difference, lets say I play 100 games with terran vs life. Result is 100 wins for him, but you also cannot use that to reject the hypothesis that each race has an equal chance to win.

As said before, if you remove the WCS qualifier results everything falls within the uncertainty.