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David Kim's Current Balance Thoughts - Page 4

Forum Index > SC2 General
1229 CommentsPost a Reply
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Fission
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada1184 Posts
January 10 2014 03:50 GMT
#61
Finally some hard evidence that TvP isn't broken.
Brian333
Profile Joined August 2010
657 Posts
January 10 2014 03:51 GMT
#62
On January 10 2014 12:48 ZenithM wrote:
I don't get how they would ever statistically know if something like "Protoss being 2 times stronger than both the other races" happens.
I mean, you just have no way of knowing, right? Except from watching how the actual game plays out :D


You'd know because at a pro-level, Protoss would have like a 99% win rate vT and vZ.
Veriol
Profile Joined October 2010
Czech Republic502 Posts
January 10 2014 03:51 GMT
#63
There is no need to be upset. They will NEVER make the radical changes that are needed. Just accept whatever they do. its not like it matters the game is broken and they know it .. but dont admit it.
"When you play, you have to start off with a mind to turn the game into a rape." -iloveoov
Stress
Profile Joined February 2011
United States980 Posts
January 10 2014 03:51 GMT
#64
What in the hell is "race strength" and how is that calculated?
"Touch my gosu hands." - Tastosis | | fOrGG // MC // Jaedong
T.O.P. *
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Hong Kong4685 Posts
January 10 2014 03:52 GMT
#65
On January 10 2014 12:18 itsjustatank wrote:
Show nested quote +
Please keep in mind these are not straight-up win percentages. They’re win percentages with player skill factored out. When we grab win/loss data for balance purposes, we categorize each game with 2 different variables per side: one being player skill and other being race strength. So by factoring the player skill out, we are able to more accurately check how each race is doing at each skill level.


Without an explanation as to what this actually means, statistically speaking, this sounds like like linguistic flourish justifying cherrypicking one's data to one's advantage, a component of lying with statistics.

Elucidation would be greatly appreciated, because I have to assume this isn't the case.

Perhaps because good players play more games, if you just present the data unaltered good players would make influence the winrates more than their proportion in the population.

But knowing this is a post by the sc2 team, I wouldn't be surprised if they did some bullshit.
Oracle comes in, Scvs go down, never a miscommunication.
ZenithM
Profile Joined February 2011
France15952 Posts
January 10 2014 03:54 GMT
#66
On January 10 2014 12:51 Brian333 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 12:48 ZenithM wrote:
I don't get how they would ever statistically know if something like "Protoss being 2 times stronger than both the other races" happens.
I mean, you just have no way of knowing, right? Except from watching how the actual game plays out :D


You'd know because at a pro-level, Protoss would have like a 99% win rate vT and vZ.

Hmm, no?
juvenal
Profile Joined July 2013
2448 Posts
January 10 2014 03:58 GMT
#67
On January 10 2014 12:26 Redfish wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 11:55 CutTheEnemy wrote:
On EU, 24% of masters players are terran now compared with 35% and 38% for zerg and protoss. How can he say its balanced considering this? His appeal to win percentages within leagues is highly misleading.

He's also been speaking for years as though he's ignorant of our main complaint- its isn't balance per se, its how hard and stressful it is to play terran and win. We know terrans can win once they go pro, but most of us aren't capable of sustaining the serious damage to our personal relationships, grades, hands and paychecks it takes in order to play the race competitively.


In what world does having the same number of people play each race equal each race being balanced?

Let's say that there are 20 terran, 90 zerg and 90 toss in GM. If the Terran in GM won 50% of both TvP and TvZ, would that really be imbalanced?

Would you still cry imba if those 20 terran out of 200 won 90% in non-mirrors?

actually the number of players of a given race and it's win rate balance each other quite straightforwardly. Assume MMR represents "skill" somewhat accurately - then those in GMasters are roughly of same skill. The 50% then is good, but means very little as we also can interpret the result differently: it takes more for a terran player to "reach the GM skill level" (i.e. to be able to win against GM opponents of other races) than for a protoss player, otherwise all other things being equal it should've been ~33% for each race. Of course when the player pool for a league is set the win rates will be "balanced" by definition, because that's how the league was constructed. I mean if there were exactly one terran player equally able to win vs 199 other guys as they are vs him, it would've looked the same in Kim's statistics.
Michael Probu
ssxsilver
Profile Joined June 2007
United States4409 Posts
January 10 2014 03:58 GMT
#68
On January 10 2014 12:48 Brian333 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 12:43 ssxsilver wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:28 ZAiNs wrote:
Glad that we're getting more constant updates. I wish he'd mention the Swarm Host though .

On January 10 2014 12:26 Chaggi wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:16 Bagi wrote:
So the mantra seems to be to stare at the winrates and as long as they fit a certain criteria, the games fine?

A bit depressing. TvP is a mess of a match-up loaded with unpredictable all-ins and an unplayable lategame.


It's painful because that's exactly what made PvZ so stupid in WoL

You either win with a soul train or lose to brood lord infestor. But it's okay! 50%!

Watch Proleague, PvTs are nothing like that...

But look at the Terrans being fielded in PL. You've got a total of 1 Terran whose never been in Code A+ at any point...


You act as if the PL coaches are just rolling a dice before games to decide who gets sent out.

Of course it is based on practice results, in-house training, and planning. If a player is bad, they will not be sent out. They might be taking a calculated risk in terms of guessing match-ups, but it's also not like they have no time to prepare even when they guess wrong (outside of ace matches and winner's league).

What does this have to do with anything I said?
My point was these stats are completely out of context. It's based off extremely unfavorable conditions of players of unequal skill. Hell Prime's Protoss are being field primarily off necessity (of a scrapped roster) and they account for 9 of the 24 losses in DK's statistic.
mythandier
Profile Joined January 2011
United States828 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-10 04:01:42
January 10 2014 04:00 GMT
#69
Funny thing about PR releases like this that give "info" through nothing but percentages -- it means almost nothing.

There is so much raw data behind each win/loss, not to mention the sample size and population, that just giving percentages doesn't really tell the whole story.

I'm not saying I want all of the data there is (because I frankly don't have time to run queries on it) but releasing a bunch of straight up percentages (I mean percentages with player skill factored out...whatever that means) just to try and placate the masses is just misleading.

Just my two cents anyway.
forsooth
Profile Joined February 2011
United States3648 Posts
January 10 2014 04:02 GMT
#70
Why oh why hasn't the oracle speed buff been removed?
Survivor61316
Profile Joined July 2012
United States470 Posts
January 10 2014 04:02 GMT
#71
On January 10 2014 12:26 Redfish wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 11:55 CutTheEnemy wrote:
On EU, 24% of masters players are terran now compared with 35% and 38% for zerg and protoss. How can he say its balanced considering this? His appeal to win percentages within leagues is highly misleading.

He's also been speaking for years as though he's ignorant of our main complaint- its isn't balance per se, its how hard and stressful it is to play terran and win. We know terrans can win once they go pro, but most of us aren't capable of sustaining the serious damage to our personal relationships, grades, hands and paychecks it takes in order to play the race competitively.


In what world does having the same number of people play each race equal each race being balanced?

Let's say that there are 20 terran, 90 zerg and 90 toss in GM. If the Terran in GM won 50% of both TvP and TvZ, would that really be imbalanced?

Would you still cry imba if those 20 terran out of 200 won 90% in non-mirrors?

http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/race

No one said that the same number of players had to play every race tool, but when globally 30.72% of players play Toss and 30.47% of players play Terran, the law of averages tells us that the number of people who play each race in each league should be much closer to being equal than they are..
Liquid Fighting
Brian333
Profile Joined August 2010
657 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-10 04:05:17
January 10 2014 04:03 GMT
#72
On January 10 2014 12:54 ZenithM wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 12:51 Brian333 wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:48 ZenithM wrote:
I don't get how they would ever statistically know if something like "Protoss being 2 times stronger than both the other races" happens.
I mean, you just have no way of knowing, right? Except from watching how the actual game plays out :D


You'd know because at a pro-level, Protoss would have like a 99% win rate vT and vZ.

Hmm, no?


In a bubble and in a scene built from a blank slate, you would be right. However, if suddenly Protoss was twice as strong as it is now, what would the win-rates of current Protoss suddenly be? They wouldn't lose.

I guess the win-rate would still be around 50% given that eventually there would be a lot of bad protoss "pros" that emerge and drag the win-rate down.
seak99
Profile Joined November 2013
Canada69 Posts
January 10 2014 04:04 GMT
#73
wonder if there is anyway we could get David Kim to release just straight up win/loss ratio of diamond+
EvilNW
Profile Joined June 2012
Russian Federation23 Posts
January 10 2014 04:07 GMT
#74
<3 Devid Kim. You are great man!
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
January 10 2014 04:07 GMT
#75
On January 10 2014 13:03 Brian333 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 12:54 ZenithM wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:51 Brian333 wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:48 ZenithM wrote:
I don't get how they would ever statistically know if something like "Protoss being 2 times stronger than both the other races" happens.
I mean, you just have no way of knowing, right? Except from watching how the actual game plays out :D


You'd know because at a pro-level, Protoss would have like a 99% win rate vT and vZ.

Hmm, no?


In a bubble and in a scene built from a blank slate, you would be right. However, if suddenly Protoss was twice as strong as it is now, what would the win-rates of current Protoss suddenly be? They wouldn't lose.

I guess the win-rate would still be around 50% given that eventually there would be a lot of bad protoss "pros" that emerge and drag the win-rate down.

So the moral of the story is that protoss is imba no matter what the data says? Am I right guys?
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
TL+ Member
Sabu113
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States11075 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-10 04:09:18
January 10 2014 04:07 GMT
#76
Wait I think David Kim just said....

STFU... Yeah STFU....

hah. All the clear reasons why this latest bout of terrans not winning absolutely everything is relatively Ok and not a terrible crisis.

edit: And seriously we'll never see the major changes to the core design everyone here wants regardless of balance. It's take it or leave it stage sadly.
Biomine is a drunken chick who is on industrial strength amphetamines and would just grab your dick and jerk it as hard and violently as she could while screaming 'OMG FUCK ME', because she saw it in a Sasha Grey video ...-Wombat_Ni
Brian333
Profile Joined August 2010
657 Posts
January 10 2014 04:09 GMT
#77
On January 10 2014 12:58 ssxsilver wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 12:48 Brian333 wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:43 ssxsilver wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:28 ZAiNs wrote:
Glad that we're getting more constant updates. I wish he'd mention the Swarm Host though .

On January 10 2014 12:26 Chaggi wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:16 Bagi wrote:
So the mantra seems to be to stare at the winrates and as long as they fit a certain criteria, the games fine?

A bit depressing. TvP is a mess of a match-up loaded with unpredictable all-ins and an unplayable lategame.


It's painful because that's exactly what made PvZ so stupid in WoL

You either win with a soul train or lose to brood lord infestor. But it's okay! 50%!

Watch Proleague, PvTs are nothing like that...

But look at the Terrans being fielded in PL. You've got a total of 1 Terran whose never been in Code A+ at any point...


You act as if the PL coaches are just rolling a dice before games to decide who gets sent out.

Of course it is based on practice results, in-house training, and planning. If a player is bad, they will not be sent out. They might be taking a calculated risk in terms of guessing match-ups, but it's also not like they have no time to prepare even when they guess wrong (outside of ace matches and winner's league).

What does this have to do with anything I said?
My point was these stats are completely out of context. It's based off extremely unfavorable conditions of players of unequal skill. Hell Prime's Protoss are being field primarily off necessity (of a scrapped roster) and they account for 9 of the 24 losses in DK's statistic.


My point is your comment about unfavorable conditions and unequal skill is not true. Prime might be an exception due to how small their roster is but you are acting like these coaches are sending out Protoss with sub-par win-rates in map-specific PvT for shits and giggles. Who knows how good some of their PvT win-rates are on those specific maps in internal practice? The coach, not you.
Headnoob
Profile Joined September 2010
Australia2108 Posts
January 10 2014 04:11 GMT
#78
Try again with SC3 at this point.
ZenithM
Profile Joined February 2011
France15952 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-10 04:16:23
January 10 2014 04:12 GMT
#79
On January 10 2014 13:03 Brian333 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 12:54 ZenithM wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:51 Brian333 wrote:
On January 10 2014 12:48 ZenithM wrote:
I don't get how they would ever statistically know if something like "Protoss being 2 times stronger than both the other races" happens.
I mean, you just have no way of knowing, right? Except from watching how the actual game plays out :D


You'd know because at a pro-level, Protoss would have like a 99% win rate vT and vZ.

Hmm, no?


In a bubble and in a scene built from a blank slate, you would be right. However, if suddenly Protoss was twice as strong as it is now, what would the win-rates of current Protoss suddenly be? They wouldn't lose.

I guess the win-rate would still be around 50% given that eventually there would be a lot of bad protoss "pros" that emerge and drag the win-rate down.

What I meant is that if Protoss is statistically significantly stronger than the other races (so, I don't need a ridiculous number like 2 times as I've said in my first post :D), you probably couldn't tell from the pro-level, because there are just too few of those players. So whereas a 55% winrate on the whole ladder is concerning (like, significantly concerning), 55% tournament wins is completely fine.

Obviously if suddenly you double the zealot's life and damage, things are not going to go well at all at high levels, but I was talking more of a slight edge that, while small, may be still there ;D
I don't know how they detect that edge. They seem to pretend that they can ("race strength factored out" and all that shit), but so far we don't know how they do it.

Edit: And btw, when DK pulls out the "skill adjusted winrates", they're never worse than 45-55%. Which is kinda weird because it would mean that Starcraft 2 was always almost balanced. We all know that isn't right :D
Gofarman
Profile Joined June 2010
Canada646 Posts
January 10 2014 04:12 GMT
#80
On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 10 2014 12:18 itsjustatank wrote:
Please keep in mind these are not straight-up win percentages. They’re win percentages with player skill factored out. When we grab win/loss data for balance purposes, we categorize each game with 2 different variables per side: one being player skill and other being race strength. So by factoring the player skill out, we are able to more accurately check how each race is doing at each skill level.


Without an explanation as to what this actually means, statistically speaking, this sounds like like linguistic flourish justifying cherrypicking one's data to one's advantage, a component of lying with statistics.

Elucidation would be greatly appreciated, because I have to assume this isn't the case.

Perhaps because good players play more games, if you just present the data unaltered good players would make influence the winrates more than their proportion in the population.

But knowing this is a post by the sc2 team, I wouldn't be surprised if they did some bullshit.


What do you mean by that? the SC2 team is full of shit and looking to mislead? That little star doesn't give you a pass to be rude when you feel like it, if anything that shit shouldn't be tolerated from someone who is a 'quality poster'...

Ingrate.

User was warned for this post
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