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I posted all nice and pretty and get no feedback at the top of page 5 and get no feedback... meh
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On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive.
And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least.
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On January 10 2014 13:29 ssxsilver wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:09 Brian333 wrote: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. I said all but 1 Terran being fielded has been Code A or better at one point or better and that 37% of the losses come from Prime (who everyone picked to finish dead last b/c of many reasons). Nowhere did I mention any of what you suggest I said.
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.
Then why even post in the first place? You were obviously saying that good Terrans were fielded and that is justification for them winning. I said in my initial response that you don't know if the Protoss opponents they faced weren't just as good or even better based on internal practice and in-house rankings, Prime being an exception.
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According to blizzard data the game was always balanced, even during BL-Infestor.
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I fear that Blizzard may want to pass off MMR as a measure of skill, whereas it's only just a way to get you someone you have 50% chance to beat. If I play Terran, I get a Protoss opponent I have 50% chance of beating, not who is as skilled as I am. ELO-like measures are only measures of skill when the sport/game is, by definition and design, unequivocally balanced (like tennis or something).
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Hong Kong9153 Posts
On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least.
I mean I'm sure the Kool-Aid tastes nice in your world, but I'll continue to question data presented to me as fact.
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On January 10 2014 13:14 Emuking wrote:
Perhaps someone can explain the correlation between a balanced match-up and a 50% win rate to me, because I do not think aiming for a 50/50 win rate is how to make a game balanced. A perfectly balanced game to me means the best player should win every time with small random variables being the smallest factor in victory or defeat.
I will try to make an analogy that might apply to this case that I hope makes sense. I hope this isn't racist..
Lets say African Americans = Protoss and Asians = Zerg and the game of choice is basketball. After a week of games played between Africans and Asians we find Africans win 60% of the games and Asians win 40% of the games. Is Basketball a balanced game? By Blizzards definition the answer is no; therefore we need to:
a) change the basketball court (map) to make it more favored towards asians
b) nerf Africans (take away their ability to jump)
c) buff Asians (give them bouncy shoes)
Lets say A, B, and C are all applied to the game of basketball and now after a week of games between black people and Asians, we find the games are 50/50. So is basketball balanced now that we've taken away the natural skillsets of Africans and improved Asians artificially? By Blizzards thought process, yes; even though the Africans are having to fight against an unfair advantage.
This is what's going on exactly in my opinion whenever they balance match-ups and it doesn't make sense to me. They see a 50/50 and think, "This is a balanced game now, on to the next project."
On a side note; imagine PvZ comes to a point where Protoss is scouted by Zerg overlords to check for a certain 2 base timing. That 2 base timing looks exactly like a macro build also. Zerg can prepare for a 2 base timing and hold and win, or guess wrong and get outmacroed. Zerg can also macro up hoping its a macro build and stay even, or macro up and die to a 2 base all-in. Its a 50/50 chance in this scenario and therefore leads towards a 50/50 win rate for both sides. How is this balanced? Are we just admitting that is what Starcraft 2 has become?
This is like the WORST analogy ever...It is wrong on so many levels but I will just point out one. Because before you are born, you get to go to a select screen and choose if you will be African or Asian, right?
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On January 10 2014 13:34 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least. I mean I'm sure the Kool-Aid tastes nice in your world, but I'll continue to question data presented to me as fact.
And your welcome to do so, just remember to keep the tinfoil hat on tight. It makes you immune to the Kool-Aid they are putting in the water supply.
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On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least.
It's even more silly when you consider we have multiple people who've charted win rates from professional tournament data as well (an admittedly smaller sample size, but still thousands of games), and in general, their stats are basically the same as Blizzard's.
Only in the tiniest of samples has the game's balance ever gone above 60/40 in any matchup (besides TvZ in the first months of WoL, IIRC).
I don't even know why people are arguing this as if there would be a point to deception, when they'd be deceiving us identically to real statistics we have access to. In that case, why even present us statistics in the first place when the mathematically-minded among us already can see that the game is statistically balanced? (Why are we even focusing on that?)
On January 10 2014 13:34 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least. I mean I'm sure the Kool-Aid tastes nice in your world, but I'll continue to question data presented to me as fact.
Except you're not questioning the data or its methodology in your latest posts; you've moved into paranoid ramblings about motivations.
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On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least.
It could simply be that they don't have the manpower to work on SC2 balance, so they would rather pretend that the game is mostly balanced, and don't release patches as often.
Edit: That's just a reasonable hypothesis, I don't think they're trying to deceive anyone either, Plansix.
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On January 10 2014 13:32 Brian333 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:29 ssxsilver wrote:On January 10 2014 13:09 Brian333 wrote: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. I said all but 1 Terran being fielded has been Code A or better at one point or better and that 37% of the losses come from Prime (who everyone picked to finish dead last b/c of many reasons). Nowhere did I mention any of what you suggest I said. Then why even post in the first place? You were obviously saying that good Terrans were fielded and that is justification for them winning. I said in my initial response that you don't know if the Protoss opponents they faced weren't just as good or even better based on internal practice and in-house rankings, Prime being an exception.
Seriously? Your rebuttal of internal rankings applies to every race. I nor you know whose performing better in-house. My points never address that because it's valid (albeit you're making your case on the assumption that only random Protosses are performing).
However, that doesn't supersede anything of what I said. Prime accounts for nearly 40% of PvT/PvZ losses and hardly any "random" Terrans are getting fielded. Do you not realize how huge those two conditions are?
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Hong Kong9153 Posts
On January 10 2014 13:36 ZenithM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least. It could simply be that they don't have the manpower to work on SC2 balance, so they would rather pretend that the game is mostly balanced, and don't release patches as often. Edit: That's just a reasonable hypothesis, I don't think they're trying to deceive anyone either, Plansix.
Except what you have just described as potentially going on would be deception, malicious or not. I actually don't care about their motives, but using statistics incorrectly, potentially on purpose to cover things up, is not good.
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On January 10 2014 13:41 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:36 ZenithM wrote:On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote:On January 10 2014 12:18 itsjustatank wrote:
[quote]
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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least. It could simply be that they don't have the manpower to work on SC2 balance, so they would rather pretend that the game is mostly balanced, and don't release patches as often. Edit: That's just a reasonable hypothesis, I don't think they're trying to deceive anyone either, Plansix. Except what you have just described as potentially going on would be deception, malicious or not.
Yes obviously. My edit just means I don't think it's true :D
But it's not unreasonable.
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On January 10 2014 13:36 ZenithM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least. It could simply be that they don't have the manpower to work on SC2 balance, so they would rather pretend that the game is mostly balanced, and don't release patches as often. Edit: That's just a reasonable hypothesis, I don't think they're trying to deceive anyone either, Plansix.
I think they are just responding to the recent theme throughout the community that Terrans are loosing on mass to protoss, but that they are seeing a slight advantage. Its mostly a, "hey we are listen and agree, but not to the same extent. But we are on it." Of course there is a set of people that are going to ignore what they say and just assume that its all a lie.
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Seems like DK and his team have a really tough job.. love SC2 though.. great work.
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On January 10 2014 13:14 Emuking wrote:
Perhaps someone can explain the correlation between a balanced match-up and a 50% win rate to me, because I do not think aiming for a 50/50 win rate is how to make a game balanced. A perfectly balanced game to me means the best player should win every time with small random variables being the smallest factor in victory or defeat.
I will try to make an analogy that might apply to this case that I hope makes sense. I hope this isn't racist..
Lets say African Americans = Protoss and Asians = Zerg and the game of choice is basketball. After a week of games played between Africans and Asians we find Africans win 60% of the games and Asians win 40% of the games. Is Basketball a balanced game? By Blizzards definition the answer is no; therefore we need to:
a) change the basketball court (map) to make it more favored towards asians
b) nerf Africans (take away their ability to jump)
c) buff Asians (give them bouncy shoes)
Lets say A, B, and C are all applied to the game of basketball and now after a week of games between black people and Asians, we find the games are 50/50. So is basketball balanced now that we've taken away the natural skillsets of Africans and improved Asians artificially? By Blizzards thought process, yes; even though the Africans are having to fight against an unfair advantage.
Your analogy falls apart when you stop and think for 2 seconds and realize that player skill has nothing to do with the faction that the player chooses to play as. Michael Jordan wipes the floor with a generic Asian scrub such as myself not because he is black but because he is better at basketball than I am. Playing as the 1992 US Dream Team in NBA Live and beating somebody else playing as the [insert worst team here] 80% of the time doesn't mean that the two teams you are playing as are balanced. Such a statistic also doesn't say anything about the relative skill levels of the players involved.
As others have alluded to in the thread, the single most important missing part of David Kim's claims is what exact mechanism they used to control for player skill when determining these win rates across matchups that are supposed to only account for "racial balance". They'd have to be very careful about confounding factors when choosing variable(s) for that measurement. For example, simply using MMR as a measure of player skill would be incredibly stupid because MMR is influenced, among other things, by the strength of the faction that you are playing as. Suppose that the unknown true "racial balance" between Terran and Protoss is heavily in favor of Terran. All else held equal, a Terran player of equal "skill" as a Protoss player would have an artificially inflated MMR compared to said Protoss player due to winning more easily and more often against Protoss players. This biased measure of skill would screw up any analysis trying to correlate win rates and "racial balance".
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On January 10 2014 13:35 vthree wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:14 Emuking wrote:
Perhaps someone can explain the correlation between a balanced match-up and a 50% win rate to me, because I do not think aiming for a 50/50 win rate is how to make a game balanced. A perfectly balanced game to me means the best player should win every time with small random variables being the smallest factor in victory or defeat.
I will try to make an analogy that might apply to this case that I hope makes sense. I hope this isn't racist..
Lets say African Americans = Protoss and Asians = Zerg and the game of choice is basketball. After a week of games played between Africans and Asians we find Africans win 60% of the games and Asians win 40% of the games. Is Basketball a balanced game? By Blizzards definition the answer is no; therefore we need to:
a) change the basketball court (map) to make it more favored towards asians
b) nerf Africans (take away their ability to jump)
c) buff Asians (give them bouncy shoes)
Lets say A, B, and C are all applied to the game of basketball and now after a week of games between black people and Asians, we find the games are 50/50. So is basketball balanced now that we've taken away the natural skillsets of Africans and improved Asians artificially? By Blizzards thought process, yes; even though the Africans are having to fight against an unfair advantage.
This is what's going on exactly in my opinion whenever they balance match-ups and it doesn't make sense to me. They see a 50/50 and think, "This is a balanced game now, on to the next project."
On a side note; imagine PvZ comes to a point where Protoss is scouted by Zerg overlords to check for a certain 2 base timing. That 2 base timing looks exactly like a macro build also. Zerg can prepare for a 2 base timing and hold and win, or guess wrong and get outmacroed. Zerg can also macro up hoping its a macro build and stay even, or macro up and die to a 2 base all-in. Its a 50/50 chance in this scenario and therefore leads towards a 50/50 win rate for both sides. How is this balanced? Are we just admitting that is what Starcraft 2 has become?
This is like the WORST analogy ever...It is wrong on so many levels but I will just point out one. Because before you are born, you get to go to a select screen and choose if you will be African or Asian, right?
So do you not get my analogy if its not a perfect analogy? What if the top 100 GM players in NA are all forced to play Zerg. After, lets say 5 months, the top 100 are not those same people then something is wrong assuming they were the top 100 skilled players. I believe If every pro in the scene switched to protoss; then after 1 year or however long it takes to get pro at that race, all you would see is protoss and you would THINK protoss is imbalanced when it really isnt.
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On January 10 2014 13:36 dcemuser wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote: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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least. It's even more silly when you consider we have multiple people who've charted win rates from professional tournament data as well (an admittedly smaller sample size, but still thousands of games), and in general, their stats are basically the same as Blizzard's. Only in the tiniest of samples has the game's balance ever gone above 60/40 in any matchup (besides TvZ in the first months of WoL, IIRC). I don't even know why people are arguing this as if there would be a point to deception, when they'd be deceiving us identically to real statistics we have access to.
Because just win rates doesn't mean much unless you have close to equal representation. If the Top 10 terrans are playing the Top 20 protoss and win rate is 50%, that is still imbalance. This is sort of what we are seeing in PL, more protosses are being fielded so their 'skill' is more diluted. Not to mention that when the coach looks at who to send in PL, they will field players that are better in vP (whether they are P, T or Z) just because the chances of getting a P opponent is much higher.
I think we will get a better picture once Code A is played.
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On January 10 2014 13:41 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2014 13:36 ZenithM wrote:On January 10 2014 13:31 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:27 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:25 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:22 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 13:20 Plansix wrote:On January 10 2014 13:16 itsjustatank wrote:On January 10 2014 12:52 T.O.P. wrote:On January 10 2014 12:18 itsjustatank wrote:
[quote]
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. Here's the thing though: all they do is present win-rates, and they already break down the win-rates by tier. Ignoring or weighting data based on their stated filters in this context is only done assuming you want to shape the data to your advantage. That assumes that your goal is to mislead the people you are presenting the data to, which David and Blizzard have almost no reason to do. In fact, they have numerous reasons to provide us with the most accurate information possible. Unless you believe that DKim is trying to mislead us and sell us on the idea that the game is balance when he knows that one race is over powers. I question all use of statistics, and it leads me to question people's motives when I sense bad methodology. I don't make the assumption that all data and interpretations of data presented to me are kosher, precisely because I know how easy it is to shape any data set to say whatever it is I want it to say and phrase it in such a way that few people will question it. Ok, but I am going to ask you the same question, why would they do that? You don't just imply that their data is incorrectly gathered, but they do so with purpose with the intent to mislead. Do you really think they want an imbalanced game? I don't really see any good reason for them to "cook the numbers" to make the game appear balanced. Having the public on your side, especially in this community, when you are trying to change things in the game is politically useful. You make assumptions about what is rational and not rational that come off as being pretty naive. And your assumptions seem overly paranoid since we are dealing with a video game that people play for fun. I find it hard to grasp the idea that someone is Blizzard is sitting there plotting to mislead us for "political reasons" through no balancing the game. And it would have to be quite a few people, because its a balance team. It seems extremely far fetched to say the least. It could simply be that they don't have the manpower to work on SC2 balance, so they would rather pretend that the game is mostly balanced, and don't release patches as often. Edit: That's just a reasonable hypothesis, I don't think they're trying to deceive anyone either, Plansix. Except what you have just described as potentially going on would be deception, malicious or not. I actually don't care about their motives, but using statistics incorrectly, potentially on purpose to cover things up, is not good.
But you have zero proof they are using them incorrectly or intentionally trying to mislead people. Literally zero. You question if the data is accurate, which is fine, but then you go the next step and try to say it is inaccurate on purpose. I am just pointing out that it sounds like crazy talk, since they work for a video game company. You can't not care about their motives and then claim they are trying to cover things up.
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On January 10 2014 13:29 MysticaL 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. ^ I think this is the point It's reflected everywhere that while there may be balance among the skilled players, people hate playing terran because it's too frustrating and hard. Although this sounds like QQ, it's shown by how many Terrans are still competing. Some examples: - Terran being under-represented in GM for several seasons in a row now - Terran being under-represented in Proleague (source: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2014_Proleague/Statistics)8/41 players that played in Proleague so far are Terran. Once again, the same counter-argument is there, "it's a small sample size." Well, it's going to continue being a small sample size. While I understand this small sample size argument... the truth is the entire SC2 pro-scene is a small sample size of the select few hundred players, and Terran is definitely under-represented in the pro scene. Whether win rates back it up or not, not many like playing Terran at the pro-level. Like I said, it's fine if you're extremely good at the game (shown by the god-mode skilled terrans like Maru, Flash, TY all doing well). The reason why we're seeing a lot of 50% in general is because you are matched with people your MMR. If one race struggles, the only impact this makes is every player of that race has lower MMR. It has nothing to do with "who is the better player" - in the game's perspective, the better player is the one with higher MMR, but we all know that's not true. The MMR system automatically adjusts your opponent so that you have a roughly ~50% win ratio. Ladder win ratios are a misleading indicator of balance. I'll repeat this as much as necessary to as many people as necessary:
The ladder matches you up to win 50% of your games, right? Great!
So it thus follows that your matchups will all approximate 50%, right? ...Not even remotely.
Most people have strong and weak matchups, so they may have a 50% overall, but a 60% TvZ, a 50% TvT, and a 40% TvP. So even if they win 50% of their games, they won't win 50% of their games in every matchup.
This actually makes it EXTREMELY easy to tell if there is an overall racial imbalance, because what you'll find is that even though there is a 50% winrate for the total populations, the matchup winrates will be more or less than 50% for the non-mirrors, as a population. Protoss appears to be (extremely slightly) overpowered vs. T at the moment, having just above 50% PvT winrates across region, skill level, and at the pro level. But it's nothing like the huge imbalance it's been claimed to be.
TL;DR: The matchmaking system's desire to put you at 50% winrate makes it extremely easy to spot racial imbalances across a population, because a Terran population-wide problem in TvP would require an increase in TvZ winrates to keep the population at 50%.
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EPT
