Sorry, but ladder statistics count for nothing. If Protoss would be having a 70% winrate on ladder against both Terran and Zerg, that'd show up as 50% winrate on the ladder, since the ladder is made so that people will have a 50% winrate. The only thing that does show is that a race could have one match up that is far better than the other one.
On January 10 2014 21:33 Plansix wrote: Oh man, the design arguments have started. Its only a matter of time before that word is used 20 times per page.
But the design, in some areas, really IS stupid. Economy is the biggest flaw of it all - not providing countermeasures to turtling players by expanding more is directly decreasing the enjoyment of the game for players and spectators alike. Just look at Starbow, that game is balanced even with things like warp gate and collosus. They made it all work, it is infinitely more fun to both, spectate and play and it's Blizzard stupidity and stuborness that they don't at least look at why a mod is better then their game.
By expanding you get more gas. More gas = better units. This might not always work out as expected, but saying there is no countermeasure to turtling is just plain wrong. Also, every mod that's ever been somewhat successful has been considered an upgrade by some. That's why people play it. That's why they made it in the first place. That doesn't say anything about how well or badly designed a game is. You can always create a mod to specifically cater to the wishes of one set of people. For those people, the mod must be an upgrade.
I was talking about something else. Players cannot make more workers then really necessary cause then they just straight up lose to turtling player when he finally moves out. 60 is the magic number in SC2, give or take (usually it is slightly more, because of various reasons). Now, when it is 60 against 60 workers, it doesn't matter if you have 5 or 3 bases - you are still mining the same. Yes, you can create few more workers and mine more gas, but it is directly influencing you army in a negative way (less supply for units). How it should be working is, that if you are 60 vs 60 workers and you have 5 bases while your opponent has 3, you should be mining more. Economy in SC2 doesn't allow this. I was not talking about creating more workers. I was saying that if you have the same amount of workers as turling player, it doesn't matter if you are on 3 or 5 bases. It should matter. It is just bad design.
That's not true really. The optimal amount of workers depends upon how much army-trading we see. If there is constant action, then 80+ workers is absolutely fine. But yeh, there is definitely a problem Sc2-econ as immobile race is always incentivized to take another base rather than attacking due to the "catch-up" issue.
80 worker is overkill 100% of the time for P/T if there is lots of action you cannot stretch yourself too thin or you die.
W/ constant action no players will be maxed all the time so your not behind in army supply. 80 workers is quite normal for zergs in TvZ actually.
On January 10 2014 22:24 Jerom wrote: Sorry, but ladder statistics count for nothing. If Protoss would be having a 70% winrate on ladder against both Terran and Zerg, that'd show up as 50% winrate on the ladder, since the ladder is made so that people will have a 50% winrate. The only thing that does show is that a race could have one match up that is far better than the other one.
Indeed and that's the reasoning for using top-/pro-level games to determine balance which after all I think Blizzard uses those stats more than ladder stats since the stats from those games are actually useful.
On January 10 2014 21:33 Plansix wrote: Oh man, the design arguments have started. Its only a matter of time before that word is used 20 times per page.
But the design, in some areas, really IS stupid. Economy is the biggest flaw of it all - not providing countermeasures to turtling players by expanding more is directly decreasing the enjoyment of the game for players and spectators alike. Just look at Starbow, that game is balanced even with things like warp gate and collosus. They made it all work, it is infinitely more fun to both, spectate and play and it's Blizzard stupidity and stuborness that they don't at least look at why a mod is better then their game.
By expanding you get more gas. More gas = better units. This might not always work out as expected, but saying there is no countermeasure to turtling is just plain wrong. Also, every mod that's ever been somewhat successful has been considered an upgrade by some. That's why people play it. That's why they made it in the first place. That doesn't say anything about how well or badly designed a game is. You can always create a mod to specifically cater to the wishes of one set of people. For those people, the mod must be an upgrade.
I was talking about something else. Players cannot make more workers then really necessary cause then they just straight up lose to turtling player when he finally moves out. 60 is the magic number in SC2, give or take (usually it is slightly more, because of various reasons). Now, when it is 60 against 60 workers, it doesn't matter if you have 5 or 3 bases - you are still mining the same. Yes, you can create few more workers and mine more gas, but it is directly influencing you army in a negative way (less supply for units). How it should be working is, that if you are 60 vs 60 workers and you have 5 bases while your opponent has 3, you should be mining more. Economy in SC2 doesn't allow this. I was not talking about creating more workers. I was saying that if you have the same amount of workers as turling player, it doesn't matter if you are on 3 or 5 bases. It should matter. It is just bad design.
That's not true really. The optimal amount of workers depends upon how much army-trading we see. If there is constant action, then 80+ workers is absolutely fine. But yeh, there is definitely a problem Sc2-econ as immobile race is always incentivized to take another base rather than attacking due to the "catch-up" issue.
80 worker is overkill 100% of the time for P/T if there is lots of action you cannot stretch yourself too thin or you die.
W/ constant action no players will be maxed all the time so your not behind in army supply. 80 workers is quite normal for zergs in TvZ actually.
did i mention Z. You can't have 4bases saturated with constant action because you can't protect those 4bases. if you do you're sitting back and the income means you max instantly (you can support 50 suppy of prod per cycle as T with this income lol).
On January 10 2014 22:24 Jerom wrote: Sorry, but ladder statistics count for nothing. If Protoss would be having a 70% winrate on ladder against both Terran and Zerg, that'd show up as 50% winrate on the ladder, since the ladder is made so that people will have a 50% winrate. The only thing that does show is that a race could have one match up that is far better than the other one.
I don't know if this is true, but I always thought that this was a weakness of the adjusted win percentages Blizzard gives. I might be wrong, but I think they're using Bayesian methods and a weakness of Bayesian methods is that you have to start out with an initial assumption that might be unfounded. For instance, if you start out with the assumption that the game is balanced and then check the data for imbalances, you might find that protoss is favored vs terran but not vs zerg, but if protoss was favored vs both terran & zerg it might not show up. However, this is quite advanced statistics, so I can't claim to understand if they have somehow accounted for this. Especially since Blizzard doesn't really explain the method they used.
I figured that maybe they could have a standard (gaussian) probability distribution for the skill of players and then assume that the players on the ladder fit this distribution. I think in that case the imbalance might show up after all. But this is again using assumptions that especially won't hold at the pro level. However, in that case they should probably care more about race distributions per league than they seem to do.
It's annoying, I really wish I had paid more attention during my machine learning course at university.
I never thought the problem was that Protoss was overpowered, but that it is to easy. Especially if you compare them to Terran. It allways seems that the Terran player, or even Zerg player, have to put so much more effort into the game then the Protoss player. They have such incredibly strong a move units in Colossi and Void Rays. Storms being so easy to use and so hard to dodge.
I don't want them to nerf Protoss strenght wise but I do wish they made them somewhat harder to play, it would also make Protoss more fun to play. Give the other races as many options as the Protoss have and make Protoss slightly harder to play and the game would be more fun and interresting in my opinion.
AGAIN: Win percentages on ladder are not a sign of balance, they are a sign that the MMR works and Players get promoted when they have good winrates, but while playing in that higher level their skill is worse although their race is better. You could outragously just buff Terran (lets say give marines 200 health), the ladder would still be balanced because at the higher levels there are ONLY terrans! Please Blizzard STOP balancing after statistics and make good game design by looking at the gameplay, because it is horrible right now! Just how easy it is to defend anything as a Protoss and tech-up mega-fast is ridicoulus, do I even have to say anything about Swarmhosts and how they destroy the game? Statistics should play a FACTOR in your discussions but not be the BASE! There are many more things i could "whine" about but those are the ones that most concern me. In German we have a saying: Dont believe ANY statistic that you havent rigged yourself!
On January 10 2014 22:07 ineq wrote: I think we need to look as much at the TvZ, if there's been the shit-ton of whine about protoss beeing even "broken" right now from alot of terrans. And while PvT has seen an advantage for protoss lately, look at TvZ, it's pretty damn close to the same statistics in favor of the Terran as what Protoss has agains Terran. How come that is never brought up to the same kind of light?
you know that the raw statistic for tvz was 49% for terran the month before the MINE NERF. and im 100% sure its worse now. Ive actualyl won just ONE macro game vs zerg this season whit MMMM, and that was because i damaged the zerg so much whit Blue flame helion first.
so yeah. blizz should take a look at tvz and remove the muta Regen! or rework the mine so its not completly useless.
This is the equation that Blizzard published for how they calculate adjusted win percentages. If anyone can tell me how it works they deserve a medal.
Where did you find this? I can probably tell you how it works if I knew what all the symbols mean.
I would be interested in a source as well. I know aligulac always makes posts like that, explaining in detail how their ratings come to be, but I've never seen Blizzard publish something like that.
This is the equation that Blizzard published for how they calculate adjusted win percentages. If anyone can tell me how it works they deserve a medal.
Where did you find this? I can probably tell you how it works if I knew what all the symbols mean.
I would be interested in a source as well. I know aligulac always makes posts like that, explaining in detail how their ratings come to be, but I've never seen Blizzard publish something like that.
@ 2:44
It doesn't explain anything though, which is why I hope that one of TL's resident geniuses can explain it to me.
- The game is quite balanced, but when will the collossus get out? - The game is quite balanced, but when will the swarm host get out or get interesting to watch? - The game is quite balanced, but when will ZvP stop having a horrible late-game? - The game is quite balanced, but when will PvT stop being a one way match-up for the terran (i.e. bio, bio, bio, viking/ghost lategame) 95% of the time? (Mvp vs Squirtle <3) - The game is quite balanced, but when will be implemented a really interesting micro potential like shown in the Depth of Micro video, something that's already feasible by just manipulating some unit's stats? - The game is quite balanced, but when will the corruptor be reworked/removed in favor of a more interesting unit? - The game is quite balanced, but when will we get rid of the really high damage/low hp ratio that makes battles end in seconds, and most of the time games with them?
That ship sailed early in the beta, WoL beta for most of these issues. Once a game hits beta, it's mostly done, it's about fine tuning at that point. Add in Blizzard's infamous stubbornness and echo chambers, and I really don't think changing the game in any meaningful way was ever really on the table, even in the early WoL beta. Blizzard is happy with SC2, and it turned out ok. Not great, but ok.
WC3 was a clusterfuck for years, it was more or less broken at the pro level. In the end, it was a rather inconspicuous mod that became the big thing from that game. Maybe SC2 can follow a similar pattern. Unlikely I know, but it's probably the best we can hope for. Otherwise, what we have is what we will get, a decent enough product that will sometimes be amazing, sometimes complete shit, and most of the time a lukewarm meh.
On January 10 2014 22:24 Jerom wrote: Sorry, but ladder statistics count for nothing. If Protoss would be having a 70% winrate on ladder against both Terran and Zerg, that'd show up as 50% winrate on the ladder, since the ladder is made so that people will have a 50% winrate. The only thing that does show is that a race could have one match up that is far better than the other one.
This. At least for ladder stats (nobody is saying Taeja can't win 50% of TvP against pros).
What concerns me the most right now is the fact that DK can obviously look up race representations in the top leagues, and is still choosing to talk only about win rate % (which the ladder is made to equal out by MMR if a certain race were not well represented), might be an indication that they are stalling to fix game mechanics in LOTV rather than believe HOTS can be fixed in any reasonable way (especially true for mech balance/viability).
If that has to be the case, so be it. LOTV will be for the long term. But, it is very disappointing that four years later we do not have a better game that can be balanced rather than fixed.
- The game is quite balanced, but when will the collossus get out? - The game is quite balanced, but when will the swarm host get out or get interesting to watch? - The game is quite balanced, but when will ZvP stop having a horrible late-game? - The game is quite balanced, but when will PvT stop being a one way match-up for the terran (i.e. bio, bio, bio, viking/ghost lategame) 95% of the time? (Mvp vs Squirtle <3) - The game is quite balanced, but when will be implemented a really interesting micro potential like shown in the Depth of Micro video, something that's already feasible by just manipulating some unit's stats? - The game is quite balanced, but when will the corruptor be reworked/removed in favor of a more interesting unit? - The game is quite balanced, but when will we get rid of the really high damage/low hp ratio that makes battles end in seconds, and most of the time games with them?
That ship sailed early in the beta, WoL beta for most of these issues. Once a game hits beta, it's mostly done, it's about fine tuning at that point. Add in Blizzard's infamous stubbornness and echo chambers, and I really don't think changing the game in any meaningful way was ever really on the table, even in the early WoL beta. Blizzard is happy with SC2, and it turned out ok. Not great, but ok.
WC3 was a clusterfuck for years, it was more or less broken at the pro level. In the end, it was a rather inconspicuous mod that became the big thing from that game. Maybe SC2 can follow a similar pattern. Unlikely I know, but it's probably the best we can hope for. Otherwise, what we have is what we will get, a decent enough product that will sometimes be amazing, sometimes complete shit, and most of the time a lukewarm meh.
dont judge to early... we still have one more add on to come and i hope this time it turns out to be a good add on....
This is the equation that Blizzard published for how they calculate adjusted win percentages. If anyone can tell me how it works they deserve a medal.
Where did you find this? I can probably tell you how it works if I knew what all the symbols mean.
I would be interested in a source as well. I know aligulac always makes posts like that, explaining in detail how their ratings come to be, but I've never seen Blizzard publish something like that.
It doesn't explain anything though, which is why I hope that one of TL's resident geniuses can explain it to me.
Ouch, I am always very suspicious of the people on conferences who hide behind a huge formula like that, without even the slightest attempt to explain it to the audience. Somehow they always make the impression of smartasses to me. :-/
But yeah, I don't know what the symbols means and I'm nowhere well versed enough in stochastic or game theory or whatever theory this is from, to start making educated guesses. So sry, I can't explain that to you.
I wish he would also look at build order flexibilty. Protoss has so much more viable options too choose from than the other two races. The game can be balanced on win ratio but it should also be balanced on playability imo.
- The game is quite balanced, but when will the collossus get out? - The game is quite balanced, but when will the swarm host get out or get interesting to watch? - The game is quite balanced, but when will ZvP stop having a horrible late-game? - The game is quite balanced, but when will PvT stop being a one way match-up for the terran (i.e. bio, bio, bio, viking/ghost lategame) 95% of the time? (Mvp vs Squirtle <3) - The game is quite balanced, but when will be implemented a really interesting micro potential like shown in the Depth of Micro video, something that's already feasible by just manipulating some unit's stats? - The game is quite balanced, but when will the corruptor be reworked/removed in favor of a more interesting unit? - The game is quite balanced, but when will we get rid of the really high damage/low hp ratio that makes battles end in seconds, and most of the time games with them?
That ship sailed early in the beta, WoL beta for most of these issues. Once a game hits beta, it's mostly done, it's about fine tuning at that point. Add in Blizzard's infamous stubbornness and echo chambers, and I really don't think changing the game in any meaningful way was ever really on the table, even in the early WoL beta. Blizzard is happy with SC2, and it turned out ok. Not great, but ok.
WC3 was a clusterfuck for years, it was more or less broken at the pro level. In the end, it was a rather inconspicuous mod that became the big thing from that game. Maybe SC2 can follow a similar pattern. Unlikely I know, but it's probably the best we can hope for. Otherwise, what we have is what we will get, a decent enough product that will sometimes be amazing, sometimes complete shit, and most of the time a lukewarm meh.
dont judge to early... we still have one more add on to come and i hope this time it turns out to be a good add on....
Pretty sure it will be kind of the same as HotS. Few units here and there, some improvements to the UI and/or Bnet, but apart from that.....
Diablo 3 add-on shows they kind of can do great things if they want, but even this add-on, which seems to improve D3 doesn't put the game on a level where it can compete with the indie guys that put up Path Of Exile (though I think these games haven't the same goal...)
On January 10 2014 21:33 Plansix wrote: Oh man, the design arguments have started. Its only a matter of time before that word is used 20 times per page.
But the design, in some areas, really IS stupid. Economy is the biggest flaw of it all - not providing countermeasures to turtling players by expanding more is directly decreasing the enjoyment of the game for players and spectators alike. Just look at Starbow, that game is balanced even with things like warp gate and collosus. They made it all work, it is infinitely more fun to both, spectate and play and it's Blizzard stupidity and stuborness that they don't at least look at why a mod is better then their game.
By expanding you get more gas. More gas = better units. This might not always work out as expected, but saying there is no countermeasure to turtling is just plain wrong. Also, every mod that's ever been somewhat successful has been considered an upgrade by some. That's why people play it. That's why they made it in the first place. That doesn't say anything about how well or badly designed a game is. You can always create a mod to specifically cater to the wishes of one set of people. For those people, the mod must be an upgrade.
I was talking about something else. Players cannot make more workers then really necessary cause then they just straight up lose to turtling player when he finally moves out. 60 is the magic number in SC2, give or take (usually it is slightly more, because of various reasons). Now, when it is 60 against 60 workers, it doesn't matter if you have 5 or 3 bases - you are still mining the same. Yes, you can create few more workers and mine more gas, but it is directly influencing you army in a negative way (less supply for units). How it should be working is, that if you are 60 vs 60 workers and you have 5 bases while your opponent has 3, you should be mining more. Economy in SC2 doesn't allow this. I was not talking about creating more workers. I was saying that if you have the same amount of workers as turling player, it doesn't matter if you are on 3 or 5 bases. It should matter. It is just bad design.
That's not true really. The optimal amount of workers depends upon how much army-trading we see. If there is constant action, then 80+ workers is absolutely fine. But yeh, there is definitely a problem Sc2-econ as immobile race is always incentivized to take another base rather than attacking due to the "catch-up" issue.
80 worker is overkill 100% of the time for P/T if there is lots of action you cannot stretch yourself too thin or you die.
W/ constant action no players will be maxed all the time so your not behind in army supply. 80 workers is quite normal for zergs in TvZ actually.
did i mention Z. You can't have 4bases saturated with constant action because you can't protect those 4bases. if you do you're sitting back and the income means you max instantly (you can support 50 suppy of prod per cycle as T with this income lol).
Ofc you can defend 4bases w/ 80 workers and constant action. Just watch pro zerg players - happens all the time.
- The game is quite balanced, but when will the collossus get out? - The game is quite balanced, but when will the swarm host get out or get interesting to watch? - The game is quite balanced, but when will ZvP stop having a horrible late-game? - The game is quite balanced, but when will PvT stop being a one way match-up for the terran (i.e. bio, bio, bio, viking/ghost lategame) 95% of the time? (Mvp vs Squirtle <3) - The game is quite balanced, but when will be implemented a really interesting micro potential like shown in the Depth of Micro video, something that's already feasible by just manipulating some unit's stats? - The game is quite balanced, but when will the corruptor be reworked/removed in favor of a more interesting unit? - The game is quite balanced, but when will we get rid of the really high damage/low hp ratio that makes battles end in seconds, and most of the time games with them?
That ship sailed early in the beta, WoL beta for most of these issues. Once a game hits beta, it's mostly done, it's about fine tuning at that point. Add in Blizzard's infamous stubbornness and echo chambers, and I really don't think changing the game in any meaningful way was ever really on the table, even in the early WoL beta. Blizzard is happy with SC2, and it turned out ok. Not great, but ok.
WC3 was a clusterfuck for years, it was more or less broken at the pro level. In the end, it was a rather inconspicuous mod that became the big thing from that game. Maybe SC2 can follow a similar pattern. Unlikely I know, but it's probably the best we can hope for. Otherwise, what we have is what we will get, a decent enough product that will sometimes be amazing, sometimes complete shit, and most of the time a lukewarm meh.
dont judge to early... we still have one more add on to come and i hope this time it turns out to be a good add on....
Pretty sure it will be kind of the same as HotS. Few units here and there, some improvements to the UI and/or Bnet, but apart from that.....
This is the equation that Blizzard published for how they calculate adjusted win percentages. If anyone can tell me how it works they deserve a medal.
Where did you find this? I can probably tell you how it works if I knew what all the symbols mean.
I would be interested in a source as well. I know aligulac always makes posts like that, explaining in detail how their ratings come to be, but I've never seen Blizzard publish something like that.
It doesn't explain anything though, which is why I hope that one of TL's resident geniuses can explain it to me.
Ouch, I am always very suspicious of the people on conferences who hide behind a huge formula like that, without even the slightest attempt to explain it to the audience. Somehow they always make the impression of smartasses to me. :-/
But yeah, I don't know what the symbols means and I'm nowhere well versed enough in stochastic or game theory or whatever theory this is from, to start making educated guesses. So sry, I can't explain that to you.
Yeh I agree w/ this. The real problem is, however, that David Kim trusts these numbers that the formula comes up w/, and most likely he doesn't have an intuitive understanding of them. Otherwise, I believe he would have explained how they come up with the skill-adjustments.
EPT
