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On September 21 2023 16:10 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 03:28 Kreuger wrote:On September 21 2023 03:24 MM-yingxiong wrote:
is it ptr first or? "With the new Patch 5.0.12 released today, we've tried to the accomplish the following goals," I read it as its live, doesnt mention PTR. I dont play the game myself , only watches so cant confirm sadly. if you click through to the patch notes it says "PTR release", though. So I'll side with the idea that they aren't completely mad and releasing an untested balance patch straight into the live game.
Yeah noticed that later aswell. They edited the headline aswell so probably not the only one who got confused
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On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing.
This doesn't play. In a game with asymmetrical balance there's no way to know that someone should be winning a match, let alone an event. It feels right to you to think that Maru and Serral are more deserving because of the history that you have of watching them win. In a game that was unbalanced in favor of protoss you would have a history of watching herO or Maxpax win and there would be no way to figure out that Serral 'deserves' something else.
The only fair way to approach a game like this is balance, merit is a silly notion.
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France12779 Posts
On September 21 2023 18:31 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. This doesn't play. In a game with asymmetrical balance there's no way to know that someone should be winning a match, let alone an event. It feels right to you to think that Maru and Serral are more deserving because of the history that you have of watching them win. In a game that was unbalanced in favor of protoss you would have a history of watching herO or Maxpax win and there would be no way to figure out that Serral 'deserves' something else. The only fair way to approach a game like this is balance, merit is a silly notion.
It goes both ways though, except for particular build orders where you can quickly "see" if it's imbalanced or not, you have to accurately gauge players 'skill' to see if they should be evenly matched and judge if the game is balanced or not.
For example, it's easy to see now the gap in skill between Maru and someone like Mixu, so if you had a patch that made Mixu beat Maru several times without Maru being able to beat Mixu, you would quickly know the game has become really imbalanced. However, when the skills are close, like at the very top, it becomes harder to know what is due to balance and what is not.
Even looking at player names + maps is not always enough, since sometimes players actually play poorly: fresh example in my mind being herO in the GSL playing very poorly in PvP
You are right though that the "perception" of who "should" win events is affected by balance, since playing a race that is strong should help you get better results, which will make people think you are strong, then they will expect you to "deserve" these results no matter the balance. The opposite is true: if you are affected by balance negatively long enough, the perception of your strength from people should be lower, so they will think you don't deserve better results, no matter the balance.
It becomes tricky for players like ShoWTimE, who are strong and very skilled, but IMHO don't play protoss the optimal way to get the best results. Being too predictable / not being aggressive enough (his 4 gate blink build is for sure weaker than herO or MaxPax, despite it being one of the best tools in a PvT series)
Depending on how you buff protoss (ie. allow for super strong builds, or improve their overall macro game), not the same players will get the same "boost"
Looking at aligulac, you can see that the two players with the best PvT rating, by a large margin, are those capable of great blink stalker micro / the most aggro protoss, herO and MaxPax.
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On September 21 2023 15:50 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. So basically Protoss had one shitty year (2020), a perfectly average year ('21), a sligthly below average year ('22) and one really terrible year again thus far? That is...not that impressive? Not that tournament winnings is a real indicator. I honestly would be worried if through all the years the split of tournament winnings would be 33% exactly, because that would feel like player skill was eliminated completly from the equation... Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. herO? Obvious choice, but it isn't like he was an Uber-Tier player in the past. Classic? I think it is safe to say his performance in the WTL Code A wasn't a balance-issue. Creator? A guy that was a great ace for Prime, but hasn't done much else in his career? The half-retired Stats? Or is the tournament winning skill of Nightmare, Nice and Astrea really just burrowed under balance-problems? Who knows, but I somehow doubt it I mean if the game were to be perfectly balanced Maru would win 80%+ of the tournaments and it wouldn’t be super funny It’s alright to have a little bit of imbalance in order to keep things fun, the difficulty is to have the right amount in order to make the current scene as healthy as possible
Yes, the guy who wins one out of five tournaments he enters would in fact win four out of five if the game was balanced...
Of course balance will always affect merit. And I would never deny that Protoss might be underpowered, which on the highest level could be the last 1-2% that hinders a world-class Protoss to win a tournament. But if balance alone was the issue considering tournament victories (which again is a bad metric - if a terran wins a tournament against seven Protoss in the playoffs, it still would count as a "bad performance" for Protoss), the race is more like 10-20% behind...and that would show on every level, not just pro-play.
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I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here.
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France12779 Posts
On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here.
In terms of ratings (like a power rank) I would put:
herO - 95
MaxPax - 93 online, 0 offline
Classic - 90-93
Creator - 88-92
ShoWTimE - 85 - 90
Maru - 99
Cure - 96
Clem - 97 TvZ, 92 overall
ByuN - 87-94 (depending on wrists)
HeroMarine - 85 - 90
Serral - 99
Dark - 95
Reynor - 90 to 96 depending on prizepool/practice
Solar - 90-93
RagnaroK - 87-91
Total protoss: 451 - 463
Total terran: 459 - 476
Total zerg: 461 - 474
The top 5 of all three races are pretty close to each other, albeit there is a higher deviation between min and max for terran because of Clem being much better at TvZ than his other MUs, and ByuN sometimes dipping low when his wrist issues flare up.
The big issue for protoss is really just that MaxPax isn't KR (doesn't play in the GSL) + does not come offline, so for the biggest tournaments (GSL + international DH) protoss won't have their best or 2nd best player.
No amount of balance changes will fix that
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Lol.
User was warned for this post
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On September 21 2023 18:46 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 18:31 Nebuchad wrote:On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. This doesn't play. In a game with asymmetrical balance there's no way to know that someone should be winning a match, let alone an event. It feels right to you to think that Maru and Serral are more deserving because of the history that you have of watching them win. In a game that was unbalanced in favor of protoss you would have a history of watching herO or Maxpax win and there would be no way to figure out that Serral 'deserves' something else. The only fair way to approach a game like this is balance, merit is a silly notion. For example, it's easy to see now the gap in skill between Maru and someone like Mixu, so if you had a patch that made Mixu beat Maru several times without Maru being able to beat Mixu, you would quickly know the game has become really imbalanced. However, when the skills are close, like at the very top, it becomes harder to know what is due to balance and what is not.
The reason why you can tell that a patch that made Mixu better than Maru would be imbalanced is because there are a bunch of other zerg players who are doing better than Mixu. So if he beats Maru, that means a bunch of other zergs also beat Maru, and presumably none of the terrans are able to beat these zergs. If nobody was doing better than Mixu at zerg, then the fact that he could never beat Maru would be a sign that zerg has an issue.
A better way to put it is that what makes it easy to see that Mixu is not as good as Maru is the comparison with how zergs that are better than him fare vs Maru, not the comparison to Maru himself.
Apologies to Mixu that he gets used as an example there ^^'
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France12779 Posts
On September 21 2023 22:07 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 18:46 Poopi wrote:On September 21 2023 18:31 Nebuchad wrote:On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. This doesn't play. In a game with asymmetrical balance there's no way to know that someone should be winning a match, let alone an event. It feels right to you to think that Maru and Serral are more deserving because of the history that you have of watching them win. In a game that was unbalanced in favor of protoss you would have a history of watching herO or Maxpax win and there would be no way to figure out that Serral 'deserves' something else. The only fair way to approach a game like this is balance, merit is a silly notion. For example, it's easy to see now the gap in skill between Maru and someone like Mixu, so if you had a patch that made Mixu beat Maru several times without Maru being able to beat Mixu, you would quickly know the game has become really imbalanced. However, when the skills are close, like at the very top, it becomes harder to know what is due to balance and what is not. The reason why you can tell that a patch that made Mixu better than Maru would be imbalanced is because there are a bunch of other zerg players who are doing better than Mixu. So if he beats Maru, that means a bunch of other zergs also beat Maru, and presumably none of the terrans are able to beat these zergs. If nobody was doing better than Mixu at zerg, then the fact that he could never beat Maru would be a sign that zerg has an issue. Apologies to Mixu that he gets used as an example there ^^'
Not necessarily though. Before the last patch, Maru was nigh invincible in TvT: no terran could beat Maru in the match-up, but the match-up was perfectly balanced. It could theoretically happen to be nigh invincible in a non-mirror match-up despite the game being balanced, albeit it's not very likely, and that player would also probably be nigh invincible in the mirror match-up
Plus, with the Mixu thing, you can see a clear gameplay difference between the two players, without having to look at how other zergs are doing in the match-up: you could see macro not being "perfect", struggling to keep up with multitask, etc. Sure, it's easier to see that the macro is not perfect when you can compare the gameplay of Mixu with that of better zergs, but even without the other zergs you can see it
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On September 21 2023 22:10 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 22:07 Nebuchad wrote:On September 21 2023 18:46 Poopi wrote:On September 21 2023 18:31 Nebuchad wrote:On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. This doesn't play. In a game with asymmetrical balance there's no way to know that someone should be winning a match, let alone an event. It feels right to you to think that Maru and Serral are more deserving because of the history that you have of watching them win. In a game that was unbalanced in favor of protoss you would have a history of watching herO or Maxpax win and there would be no way to figure out that Serral 'deserves' something else. The only fair way to approach a game like this is balance, merit is a silly notion. For example, it's easy to see now the gap in skill between Maru and someone like Mixu, so if you had a patch that made Mixu beat Maru several times without Maru being able to beat Mixu, you would quickly know the game has become really imbalanced. However, when the skills are close, like at the very top, it becomes harder to know what is due to balance and what is not. The reason why you can tell that a patch that made Mixu better than Maru would be imbalanced is because there are a bunch of other zerg players who are doing better than Mixu. So if he beats Maru, that means a bunch of other zergs also beat Maru, and presumably none of the terrans are able to beat these zergs. If nobody was doing better than Mixu at zerg, then the fact that he could never beat Maru would be a sign that zerg has an issue. Apologies to Mixu that he gets used as an example there ^^' Not necessarily though. Before the last patch, Maru was nigh invincible in TvT: no terran could beat Maru in the match-up, but the match-up was perfectly balanced. It could theoretically happen to be nigh invincible in a non-mirror match-up despite the game being balanced, albeit it's not very likely, and that player would also probably be nigh invincible in the mirror match-up Plus, with the Mixu thing, you can see a clear gameplay difference between the two players, without having to look at how other zergs are doing in the match-up: you could see macro not being "perfect", struggling to keep up with multitask, etc. Sure, it's easier to see that the macro is not perfect when you can compare the gameplay of Mixu with that of better zergs, but even without the other zergs you can see it
Sure, but if there were no players who could do better than him as zerg that you could draw a comparison to, then it would make sense to me to conclude that zerg is much harder to play "perfect" than terran is, and the imbalance would lie there. It's a bit abstract to think about.
I think if you play perfectly protoss is quite strong, the main thing that impacts winrates of protoss is that a lot of mistakes cost them the game almost immediately or put them extremely behind, while mistakes from terran or zerg are less punitive.
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On September 21 2023 22:10 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 22:07 Nebuchad wrote:On September 21 2023 18:46 Poopi wrote:On September 21 2023 18:31 Nebuchad wrote:On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. This doesn't play. In a game with asymmetrical balance there's no way to know that someone should be winning a match, let alone an event. It feels right to you to think that Maru and Serral are more deserving because of the history that you have of watching them win. In a game that was unbalanced in favor of protoss you would have a history of watching herO or Maxpax win and there would be no way to figure out that Serral 'deserves' something else. The only fair way to approach a game like this is balance, merit is a silly notion. For example, it's easy to see now the gap in skill between Maru and someone like Mixu, so if you had a patch that made Mixu beat Maru several times without Maru being able to beat Mixu, you would quickly know the game has become really imbalanced. However, when the skills are close, like at the very top, it becomes harder to know what is due to balance and what is not. The reason why you can tell that a patch that made Mixu better than Maru would be imbalanced is because there are a bunch of other zerg players who are doing better than Mixu. So if he beats Maru, that means a bunch of other zergs also beat Maru, and presumably none of the terrans are able to beat these zergs. If nobody was doing better than Mixu at zerg, then the fact that he could never beat Maru would be a sign that zerg has an issue. Apologies to Mixu that he gets used as an example there ^^' Not necessarily though. Before the last patch, Maru was nigh invincible in TvT: no terran could beat Maru in the match-up, but the match-up was perfectly balanced. It could theoretically happen to be nigh invincible in a non-mirror match-up despite the game being balanced, albeit it's not very likely, and that player would also probably be nigh invincible in the mirror match-up Plus, with the Mixu thing, you can see a clear gameplay difference between the two players, without having to look at how other zergs are doing in the match-up: you could see macro not being "perfect", struggling to keep up with multitask, etc. Sure, it's easier to see that the macro is not perfect when you can compare the gameplay of Mixu with that of better zergs, but even without the other zergs you can see it
I don't think you can make that comparison. Maru was nigh invincible in TvT, but was vulnerable in TvZ. At the same time, Clem meanwhile got stomped frequently at TvT and was extremely strong at TvZ. Some playstyles just click better for some players than others. It's why you can't just tell a player like herO that he should switch to Zerg... his strengths as a player appear to fit better with Protoss than with Zerg. Those same style differences come into play in the opponents' race, albeit to a lesser extent. Clem's insane marine micro all over the map works extremely well against banelings, but it doesn't stop them from getting blown up by tanks.
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MODS: please edit the title of this thread to say "New PTR Patch".
On September 21 2023 21:18 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 21:07 Swaann wrote:
I took the 5 top ranked player by race on aligulac.
Toss : herO, Maxpax, Classic, Showtime, Creator
Terran : Maru, Clem, Cure, Byun, Heromarine
Zerg : Serral, Dark, Reynor, Solar, Ragnarok
Sorry but i don't feel this is same quality sample.
herO is good, but never has been considered a top top player like Serral, Maru, Dark etc. Maxpax is only doing online tournament. Classic still struggle since military. Showtime and Creator ...
So yeah, i think the real issue is here. In terms of ratings (like a power rank) I would put: herO - 95 MaxPax - 93 online, 0 offline Classic - 90-93 Creator - 88-92 ShoWTimE - 85 - 90 Maru - 99 Cure - 96 Clem - 97 TvZ, 92 overall ByuN - 87-94 (depending on wrists) HeroMarine - 85 - 90 Serral - 99 Dark - 95 Reynor - 90 to 96 depending on prizepool/practice Solar - 90-93 RagnaroK - 87-91 Total protoss: 451 - 463 Total terran: 459 - 476 Total zerg: 461 - 474 The top 5 of all three races are pretty close to each other, albeit there is a higher deviation between min and max for terran because of Clem being much better at TvZ than his other MUs, and ByuN sometimes dipping low when his wrist issues flare up. The big issue for protoss is really just that MaxPax isn't KR (doesn't play in the GSL) + does not come offline, so for the biggest tournaments (GSL + international DH) protoss won't have their best or 2nd best player. No amount of balance changes will fix that
if you continue being this reasonable while providing in-depth analysis to back your perspective you're going to end up getting banned from the internet.
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Northern Ireland24978 Posts
It’s the eye test that Protoss doesn’t pass, especially as the game scales there is just less a very skilled player can do with the race compared to the other two. In earlier skirmishes you see plenty of comparable feats of control.
Terrans can show off their bio micro for basically the whole game and multiprong with it. Zergs have a fast army to shark around with, and with the APM to spare can keep spreading creep and benefitting from good mechanics.
The current contingent has good professional BW players, a different game sure but harder mechanically again.
They’re easier to play up to a certain level, then they lack the tools to be competitive at the very tip-top level, it’s been this way for forever now.
And short of more radical changes that’s unlikely to flip around anytime soon IMO.
Terrans and Zergs have gotten so good at exploiting their race’s higher ceilings over the years that to get back to some kind of parity Protoss has to play differently in a more fundamental way, or be totally broken at levels below peak pro gaming to compensate and I don’t see either happening
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Northern Ireland24978 Posts
On September 21 2023 22:35 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 22:10 Poopi wrote:On September 21 2023 22:07 Nebuchad wrote:On September 21 2023 18:46 Poopi wrote:On September 21 2023 18:31 Nebuchad wrote:On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. This doesn't play. In a game with asymmetrical balance there's no way to know that someone should be winning a match, let alone an event. It feels right to you to think that Maru and Serral are more deserving because of the history that you have of watching them win. In a game that was unbalanced in favor of protoss you would have a history of watching herO or Maxpax win and there would be no way to figure out that Serral 'deserves' something else. The only fair way to approach a game like this is balance, merit is a silly notion. For example, it's easy to see now the gap in skill between Maru and someone like Mixu, so if you had a patch that made Mixu beat Maru several times without Maru being able to beat Mixu, you would quickly know the game has become really imbalanced. However, when the skills are close, like at the very top, it becomes harder to know what is due to balance and what is not. The reason why you can tell that a patch that made Mixu better than Maru would be imbalanced is because there are a bunch of other zerg players who are doing better than Mixu. So if he beats Maru, that means a bunch of other zergs also beat Maru, and presumably none of the terrans are able to beat these zergs. If nobody was doing better than Mixu at zerg, then the fact that he could never beat Maru would be a sign that zerg has an issue. Apologies to Mixu that he gets used as an example there ^^' Not necessarily though. Before the last patch, Maru was nigh invincible in TvT: no terran could beat Maru in the match-up, but the match-up was perfectly balanced. It could theoretically happen to be nigh invincible in a non-mirror match-up despite the game being balanced, albeit it's not very likely, and that player would also probably be nigh invincible in the mirror match-up Plus, with the Mixu thing, you can see a clear gameplay difference between the two players, without having to look at how other zergs are doing in the match-up: you could see macro not being "perfect", struggling to keep up with multitask, etc. Sure, it's easier to see that the macro is not perfect when you can compare the gameplay of Mixu with that of better zergs, but even without the other zergs you can see it I don't think you can make that comparison. Maru was nigh invincible in TvT, but was vulnerable in TvZ. At the same time, Clem meanwhile got stomped frequently at TvT and was extremely strong at TvZ. Some playstyles just click better for some players than others. It's why you can't just tell a player like herO that he should switch to Zerg... his strengths as a player appear to fit better with Protoss than with Zerg. Those same style differences come into play in the opponents' race, albeit to a lesser extent. Clem's insane marine micro all over the map works extremely well against banelings, but it doesn't stop them from getting blown up by tanks.
Yeah it’s a great strength of the game that even with very developed metas there’s still stylistic preferences and differences between players.
Which guides race choices but is even pretty apparent between players of the same race
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Thank god this patch isn't live. It's such a messy patch. Upgrades will have wonky values that cannot be predicted by its unit's damage. They want more interaction late game, while buffing Tempest/BL which are the most uninteractable units. Ultra is buffed because it's a worse option, which is obvious because BL/Inf and Lurker/Viper/Inf are broken late game comps. Ultas will now cost the same minerals as Immortals, which is laughable. Disruptor is alrdy a shit option of a unit and so nerfing it will actually remove mid game variety. The Inf is not a specialized unit, Fungal is the best spell in the game and vs. everything. BC's, Airtoss, Ghosts as well as vs. Marines, Lings, Banes and Blink Stalkers. Toss dies to Terran because they made Overcharge a glorified Chrono Boost. A 50% boost on a building's effect.
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On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. So basically Protoss had one shitty year (2020), a perfectly average year ('21), a sligthly below average year ('22) and one really terrible year again thus far? That is...not that impressive? Not that tournament winnings is a real indicator. I honestly would be worried if through all the years the split of tournament winnings would be 33% exactly, because that would feel like player skill was eliminated completly from the equation... Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. herO? Obvious choice, but it isn't like he was an Uber-Tier player in the past. Classic? I think it is safe to say his performance in the WTL Code A wasn't a balance-issue. Creator? A guy that was a great ace for Prime, but hasn't done much else in his career? The half-retired Stats? Or is the tournament winning skill of Nightmare, Nice and Astrea really just burrowed under balance-problems? Who knows, but I somehow doubt it
herO (GSL and Atlanta championships) and Creator (top 4 Valencia) were doing much better last patch before super battery and disruptor nerfs.
Comparing pre and post patch stats at a premier tournament.
DH Masters Atlanta 2022 Main event
ZvP - 45.6%
PvT- 45.7%
ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer Main event
ZvP- 58.6%
PvT- 33.3%
Regional results
DH Masters Atlanta 2022 Regionals
ZvP - 46.8%
PvT- 48.7%
ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Summer: Regionals Statistics
ZvP- 61.8%
PvT- 42.5%
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Honestly the medivac upgrade change is stupid too.
Keep the speed upgrade, i remember people saying it was actually good and useful, since Terran lacks mobility in the late game on big maps compared to Protoss and Zerg. It was a way to help give Terran more lategame mobility. It can even be used to help for Mech if you want to do Mech drops or micro with hellbat drops etc.
Just buff it, having medivacs that regen faster is weird... i guess maybe it's a way to help mitigate the effect of AOE splash on bio?
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On September 21 2023 23:59 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Honestly the medivac upgrade change is stupid too.
Keep the speed upgrade, i remember people saying it was actually good and useful, since Terran lacks mobility in the late game on big maps compared to Protoss and Zerg. It was a way to help give Terran more lategame mobility. It can even be used to help for Mech if you want to do Mech drops or micro with hellbat drops etc.
Just buff it, having medivacs that regen faster is weird... i guess maybe it's a way to help mitigate the effect of AOE splash on bio?
The only reason I can see for the change is that, aesthetically, it's unpleasant to have so many medivacs blocking the view of the infantry.
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I mean, at some point in the game, we saw too many medivac on the field and its cutting into the army supply of the Terran. So having the upgrade might allow Terran to get more fighting unit out. The cost 250/250 (Fusion Core + Upgrade) might be worth it at 3 base economy.
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On September 21 2023 18:31 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2023 14:28 Balnazza wrote:On September 21 2023 12:06 QOGQOG wrote:On September 21 2023 11:10 Balnazza wrote:
As for the other guy: Protoss might still have some great names around, but not only are a lot of them half-retired (like Stats or sOs), but they also already fulfilled their military service. While the top zergs and terrans in Korea (Dark, Cure, Maru, Solar) have competed without break.
And from all the Protoss that have returned I would argue that only herO has become better, a lot of them (like Classic) still struggle to reach former glories.
This is absurd. Protoss can't just be underpowered because Protoss players aren't playing well. How do we know they're doing poorly due to skill rather than balance? Uh, I dunno, you feel like they're just not that good. But that's definitely why. If Protoss had a dip in results for a few months, even a year, maybe I could buy what you're saying. But it's been much longer than that. Protoss won 1/13 International Premier events in 2020, 5/16 in 2021, 3/13 in 2022, and so far in 2023 0/6. That's 9/48 or a little under 19%. "Protoss players bad" isn't an adequate explanation. Just look at the list of Protoss players in the last GSL qualifier...which of these players in your opinion should be winning Premier events? And yes, I mean *should be*, so the level of the likes of Maru and Serral, who when they drop out before the Top 4 you would consider it a bad showing. This doesn't play. In a game with asymmetrical balance there's no way to know that someone should be winning a match, let alone an event. It feels right to you to think that Maru and Serral are more deserving because of the history that you have of watching them win. In a game that was unbalanced in favor of protoss you would have a history of watching herO or Maxpax win and there would be no way to figure out that Serral 'deserves' something else. The only fair way to approach a game like this is balance, merit is a silly notion.
Ehh, ofc there is. The game might by asymmetrical, but at the end of the day there has to be some form of notion of merit / skill otuside of the race they play. How fast are they? How well do they micro and macro? Is their strategic and tactical thinking top notch? Ofc the specific balance of each race plays into these things (because some skills might be more important than others in context), but there still needs to be some understanding of it, otherwise we might as well balance around players who truly are not good enough to win, just for them to win.
The notion that "balance" means that every race wins as much as the other at the top level is silly, balance is if players of 'equal strength' have equal chance to win.
The main problem of current day sc2 is that the player pool doesn't allow us to assume that we actually have players of equal strength throughout the races at the top level (not just thinking best vs best players either). There are no new players coming along who would challenge and replace people at the top level, we have a playerpool which generally gets smaller and smaller, and also a scene which is far from its height where one could also assume that people truly do their 100% to get results. The current environment simply isn't that, at all, so it almost becomes unlikely that we'd have players of the same calibre at the top level, equally distributed across the races. It's a fantasy.
How does one manage that? I am not sure, and i personally do believe that the races aren't equally likely to allow for consistent top results either, though i think both things are true at the same time. Balance / design issues, and players who aren't directly comparable in strength. Not that i can prove it (or anyone), but i think it makes sense if one realizes where the scene is.
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EPT
