[Cordance]

Ive been doing some thinking about Protos and the main problem. Ive been seeing in games is protos appears like a glass cannon race.

Firstly Id like to talk about FF probably the most complained about ability for protos. It can block ramps reshape battle fields. How ever I would like to complain about it from protos angle for once. FF must be used at the perfect moment for them to actually be useful and you must place them perfectly. This does two things. Limits your ability to micro and macro. How many battles have you seen lost because a FF wasnt perfect on a ramp or a second too late. Both in offense and defense require a very high maintenance on the army position to gain a balanced battle field. This is why a lot of people feel there is less micro going on with protos and why only the best protos seem to stand up against other people. The problem with the glass cannon is that when it works it smashes when it fails to crumbles. Which is why you end up with polarized games. For examples go watch most of MCs games when he is winning he looks like he is in total control when he is loosing he is getting shamed.

I feel Blizzard has failed to balance gateway vs warpgate. The cost is too cheep and the upgrade to important 33% quicker to all units seems wrong. I feel protos would be much more interesting and easyer to balance if defensive aka sentries got a benefit from coming from a gateway vs a warpgate. Here are 2 ideas. Sentries build time reduced to 20% quicker than warpgate at a gateway. Units with energy are warped in at 3/4 current energy, units built at gateway come in with 1and1/4s current energy. A variation on the second option would be bring back Amulets but only for gateway built units.

[TidaL]

is this meant to make me not wanna play protoss?

[Next_rim]

I feel protos would be much more interesting and easyer to balance if defensive aka sentries got a benefit from coming from a gateway vs a warpgate.

Looks like you've never done a 4-gate 6+ sentry push. Sentry is awesome in offense.

I feel Blizzard has failed to balance gateway vs warpgate.

Blizz have already explained (and I agree), that tweaking gateway and warpgate is very hard. If you reduce gateway build time, proxy gates become too strong. If you overpush warpgate, early game defense becomes weak.

What I've seen from high level players like MC is reliance on huge-risk tactics (phoenix, fragile archon or charge timings etc...) to win games. Same for Nony, Naniwa (especially Naniwa, his blood is always boiling for reckless head-on brute force attacks), and lately even HasuObs (aka "coward", as he was known for very turtly style in wc3). HuK has delivered well because he brought very steady and safe play most of his opponents weren't ready for.

Like in PvZ, most protoss try to cut corners, get that early blob of untis off forge-FE, and go put pressure, while expanding to 3rd behind it. Most don't do enough damage, and then get overwhelmed. They choose to do so because they have hard time defending a 3rd vs 3-base zerg. Well, mommaship + cannons make fast 3rd almost invlunerable, but really weakens your natural. But if zerg is droning hard at natural, why should you invest in natural defenses? And why do you make army, when zerg is droning? And why do you attack, when zerg has ability to pump stupid amount of units at will after droning all that time? Just seems irrational to me. I have 64% PvZ winrate.

In PvT, most protoss rely on tech. Colossi>>>terran, if they have no vikings. HT>terran, if they have no ghosts. But if opp does 1-rax expo, and you do 1-gate expo, and you are both equal on money, you have to chose one tech path, or you die to 2-base timing. Either HT(archons, w/e), or Colossi. What do "OP" terrans do? They mass some bio, then scan or scout with drop at a well-known timing, then build a counter and grab 3rd behind a superior army comp. And if you wait with tech, Terran T1>>>protoss T1 with equal food (unfortunately). Well, why would you play counter games with terran, who clearly has advantage at this? Do 1-base timings that punish greedy T's. I've been having some success with warp prisms and DT's recently, followed by double expo, but yet to figure how to make my build flexible enough to withstand very popular terran 1-base timings. My PvT winratio is 48% (bansees! arrrght).

I think protoss need safer, greedier builds with account for risks, and using all available tools, like motherships and warp prisms, to build walls of steel, or keep opp at base. Of course, I'm biased towards my favorite units, and it makes me sad panda to never see it in pro games.

[cruxSpoon]

My two cents! I skimmed most of the forum so sorry if I'm repeating some of it.

These are the things we are seeing from terran and zergs lately. Multitasking, scouting options, timings. These are the things protoss aren't doing. NSHoSeo Sage showed that protoss can play a bisu style game with constant scouting and proper reactions. That takes a hell of a lot of skill. Unfortunately most protoss are still playing under the concept of turtle up and deathball, whether it is Collosus play or HT play. As a terran player the only timing attacks protoss generally do are pressure from huk 1gate, and 6-7 gate against an 1raxFE. There are the 1 base 2 collusus pokes into expo, but if properly scouted also dismantled. Without going into more specifics (we could argue for ages) Protoss could be using other units more readily. I mean, the constnat argument for not having mass obs on the map is that you need robo build time. Here's a novel concept! Build a second robo, use it to get obs, warp prisms etc. Protoss drop play hasn't been fully explored yet and whilst more people are doing it, its not seen enough at high level play. It may be that it is used only on specific maps etc, but the mentality of turtle defend macro is why protoss aren't 'fantastic' at high lvls. Terran and Zerg have figured out how to move away from this mentality but protoss hasn't. (There are expceptions of certain players or games of course, but this is in general). The game is evolving and will do so for a long time. When people can figure out that x amount of units allows them to hold pressure for x amount of time they will be able to be greedy in other ways, cut 2 zealots from their builds and get a warp prism, to adjust play from i will get these things in this order and pressure at these points to ok i've done this damage i can set up a timing here, or i should alter my build to contain and take the map, or what have you. I hope this contributes to the conversation.

[TAScarecrow]

Originally Posted by Blind86

These are the things we are seeing from terran and zergs lately. Multitasking, scouting options, timings. These are the things protoss aren't doing.

I stopped reading here. I'm reluctant to throw my 2 cents in this thread as a GM protoss because i'm not confident I can add anything constructive that hasn't been said by better players. I don't know what possessed you to think you had anything to offer as a diamond terran. Clearly protosses aren't doing 'timings' or multitask and that's why they're struggling -.-

[cruxSpoon]

P.S - protoss have always been behind in the metagame since they have relied on 4gate for sooooo long whilst other races were evolving (j/k)

[cruxSpoon]

Your post is highly nonconstructive. You insult me purely based on my ladder ranking. You appear a bit butthurt, and I really dont see why.

What possessed me? The fact that I've made observations of my own. If i'm wrong please explain where, and let the debate flow organically so that we can come to a more acute conclusion as to the current state of the game and why protoss is 'apparently' under powered.

Has it occured to you that I may only be a diamond terran because I dont have the time to put in perfecting my mechanics? I may not have the time to theorycraft, to get the game experience necessary to execute builds perfectly?

The standard macro protoss play is turtle up and deathball. This has been shown in GSL/IEM/Blizzcon Qualifiers/etc. This is not to be confused with all ins, or map specific builds, designed to win the game outright (either by taking advantage of opponent build order, generally planned all in, cheese, etc).

All your post says is "i disagree because you are a diamond terran and therefore are incapable of thinking at competant lvl of starcraft".

If you felt you had nothing to contribute then why waste a post. You clearly did not care to understand what I had posted (because im a nooby diamond terran) or just didnt understand it at all. If you disagree provide an argument that relies on fact, evidence and logic, rather than ladder ranking credentials. Artosis is extremely knowledgable when it comes to sc2, but he doesn't perform well. More so with tasteless. Want more examples? Liquid'Tyler, amazing knowledge, poor results. I am not comparing myself to these people, just hoping to enlighten you to see the silliness of ladder rankings being an ABSOLUTE reflection of a persons knowledge and analysis of the starcraft 2 scene.

Maybe you should read the entire posts before you reply...

P.S:- load up todays "state of the game" podcast. They touch on alot of what I talked about AFTER i made these posts

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:	I thought both of you argued your points well and civilly, nice job :)
	TAScarecrow:	My post was one of frustration at how many times this thread is being bumped with off-race theorycrafting and generalisations. I don't have the time to argue every bad point you just like you dont have the time to get good at this game.

[TAScarecrow]

Originally Posted by Blind86

Your post is highly nonconstructive. You insult me purely based on my ladder ranking. You appear a bit butthurt, and I really dont see why.

What possessed me? The fact that I've made observations of my own. If i'm wrong please explain where, and let the debate flow organically so that we can come to a more acute conclusion as to the current state of the game and why protoss is 'apparently' under powered.

Has it occured to you that I may only be a diamond terran because I dont have the time to put in perfecting my mechanics? I may not have the time to theorycraft, to get the game experience necessary to execute builds perfectly?

All your post says is "i disagree because you are a diamond terran and therefore are incapable of thinking at competant lvl of starcraft".

If you felt you had nothing to contribute then why waste a post. You clearly did not care to understand what I had posted (because im a nooby diamond terran) or just didnt understand it at all. If you disagree provide an argument that relies on fact, evidence and logic, rather than ladder ranking credentials. Artosis is extremely knowledgable when it comes to sc2, but he doesn't perform well. More so with tasteless. Want more examples? Liquid'Tyler, amazing knowledge, poor results. I am not comparing myself to these people, just hoping to enlighten you to see the silliness of ladder rankings being an ABSOLUTE reflection of a persons knowledge and analysis of the starcraft 2 scene.

I hope my post was constructive in that it discourages other armchair off-race theorycrafters from telling Protoss what they are doing wrong.

Getting ranked up on the ladder isn't just about mechanics, it's understanding the game at a higher level. My mechanics are sub-par and I mainly end up relying on experience/understanding or game sense.

You give me examples of high level BW->SC2 gamers who aren't as mechanically inclined as some of their counterparts. These guys are vastly experienced and understand RTS concepts and SC in depth. A diamond Terran might have some basic understanding of their own race and be able to regurgitate stuff heard off day[9] or SotG but the chance of their off-race theorycrafting being plausible, original and useful at a high level is beyond laughable. You simply don't know enough to be aware of how shallow your understanding of the game is, the higher up you get the more you will realise how little you know. Flash says he's still learning and discovering new things ffs.

Besides I didn't discard your post because of your rank or race. Both of which I was unaware of as I read it. Of course I read the whole post, it was just an expression. I discarded it because the first three lines just spewed SC jargon and the rest simply added to my impression. 'Timings' is thrown around way too much these days.

As for the rest of your post:

Sage's play was awesome but difficult to replicate and very map dependent

Scouting options - hallucinate, obs, probes, hidden 2nd probes, stalker/zealot pokes, phoenixes, dt's are all forms of scouting currently being used by protoss

Then you provide personal anecdotes of what you see diamond protosses doing when you play them on SEA...

The argument against mass obs is build time but more importantly gas. If you played protoss you'd know how critical gas is.

Turtle defend macro is a mentality because the pro's have worked out optimal playstyles. Like Light said I'm sure they'd love to get all Bisuesque but alot of the time the risk-reward isn't there with prism play. It seems like a blind mentality only because the vast majority of protoss follow the professional trendsetters who work out how to best play the game. I'd love to see more innovative harrass but there's a reason it's not popular at pro-level. Terran and Zerg only surpass protoss in options, they have cheap low-tech, high dmg units (marines/banes) to harass worker lines and superior/easily available transports.

The last part makes sense but is pretty vague. Basically saying in the future X will allow Y. Alot of this stuff has already been worked out and the other races already harass alot. Professional P's aren't clueless, I assume they've just worked out that alot of the time having a bigger ball is better for applying pressure, defending or gaining map control at critical points in the game due to P unit synergy and exponential strength in numbers.

Just like you don't have the time to ladder, I don't have the time to respond fully every time someone makes a bad post in a topic I care about. This thread is meant to be a discussion between high level tosses. If you're not one, read and learn. Instead it's become a debate thread between players like Light and lowbie theorycrafters.

Quick Comments

TAEdarus:

Here here!

[nGenLight]

Why does Scarecrow seem offended? How would you like if a bronze Zerg came in here to tell you, that you are losing because you don't know how to multitask, don't know your timings and don't know how to scout.

You, like others before you, seem to think that you have all the answers (or direction of our answers) in 2 paragraphs. This makes you people seem very naive, and just downright obnoxious.

So are Protoss players really idiots that don't think about the game, or are we perhaps limited by the capabilities (or there lackof) and arsenal of units/mechanics at our disposal?

You have legit arguments/theorycraft Blind86. But without being able to play Protoss at "high level play"(which is where the debate is at), you clearly are not seeing the flaws of many of your theories/arguments. I don't have the time or the energy to debate or discuss your theories, so please don't ask that of me. Giving you something to think about, have you figured out why non of the top-tier Protosses have followed through with Sage's playstyle?

I am a firm believer that Protoss is indeed behind in the meta-game, and within the possibilities of the combinations of units/time/mechanics, Protoss can truly be dominant within this version of the game. The problem is Protoss have been behind in the meta-game for about the last 4 months, every time we figure something out, our Terran and Zerg opponents quickly finds a fix. The protoss evolution of meta-gaming seems to be moving much slower than the other two races, and most of these new meta-gaming has revolved around timings attack and deathballing, that you have said have come to define Protoss. Do you think this is more to do with protoss players just not being very innovative, or just that the cosmetics of the game right now only allows Protoss to be played a certain way (to be successful). Hence, right now I am also a believer that Protoss, like the infestor buff before us, needs a push in the direction in order to "catch up" to the Meta-game. I would love, if Blizzard gave me the opportunity to multitask a warp-prism as effectively as medivacs or have free warp-prisms that come in supply units for a particular race, without really being able to know if they have any units in it.

I understand that your intention is of good will, and I respect that. But the fact that you speak from a perspective that has never went through the difficulties and troubles Protoss players are reaching out from, and the fact that you are slightly insinuating that we Protoss players are just not multi-tasking, not being innovative, and moreorless just being inferior, makes it very difficult for the the Protoss players in this thread to welcome your "discussion".

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

I thought both of you argued your points well and civilly, nice job :)

[cruxSpoon]

I apologize if my comments seem to say 'protoss aren't doing these basic things (multitask, scout, timings)'. Naturally I respect the skill level and insight that comes with being a top protoss, and without being so myself I agree I wont understand the finer details.

Your comments on being behind the meta game is basically what I was getting at. I feel that this has resulted from very turtle heavy style play lately. I'm not trying to take anything away from protoss's in what I say. I believe that builds like the 1gate Huk expand is moving protoss in the right direction. Its a build thats greedy and generally very safe (albeit some maps). This is just an example.

In regards to scarecrow, I just felt his post didnt add anything to the converstation besides "you are terran nub therefore your points invalid".

Ill concede that my thoughts on the matter bear less weight than someone who has been playing protoss at a high lvl and as such will end any further comment in the forum here. I have much respect for you mr. NgenLight

P.S:- Sorry for any miscommunication that may have insinuated insulting the protoss race/players
PPS:- With regards to Sage's playstyle. I think its very fragile and therefore not as safe, but I do feel like once people figure out how to be safe with the build we will see it more often. Just like the many expands protoss have learn to do (Forge FE against Zerg for example). Again this is just an argument for the metagame.

[Tom]

The two stages in analysing balance

As I think I have said previously, there are really two stages in a balance discussion. Stage 1 involves identifying whether a balance issue exists. Stage 2 involves attempting to explain the facts that contribute to the balance issue.

To be clear, I am only looking at Stage 1 in this article. I will come out and say it, I believe Stage 2 should be left to the experts. By experts, I mean top tournament players or people whose results place them at the very top of GM League.

Some more explanation of Stage 1

As I said in my OP, I believe it is critical to look at data for Stage 1. What we are trying to do is eliminate the "noise" created by lots of players of varying skill level, and determine the effect that "race" is having on the outcome. To use an example, imagine you flipped a coin 1 million times, resulting in 600,000 heads tosses and 400,000 tails tosses. Would you say the coin was weighted towards heads? (In actual fact, in the language of statistics you would be extremely confident there was an issue with the coin, and although you could never ignore the "null hypothesis", the probabiliy of the results being explainable due to chance would be less than 1 in 10,000.)

Now the problem we have when doing something more complicated than coin flipping, such as Starcraft, is how does one account for variation in the skill of the players? Is it the case that one race performs better not because it is a stronger race, but because more skilled players tend to use that race? I would suggest that assumption is unreasonable in the absence of any compelling evidence that it is the case.

Comments that players of X race are more skilled/more innovative/more dedicated etc

Reviewing the posts in this thread, there appears to be a strong tendency for some people to attempt to explain the data by saying things such as:

- players of X race are more skilled, that is why the results are better
- players of X race are more innovative, that is why the results are better
- players of X race refuse to innovate, that is why the results are worse
- players of X race just cheese, that is why the results are worse
- players of X race practice more or are more dedicated to improvement, that is why the results are better

Some more coin flipping

Lets go back to the coin flipping example (sorry this will be an Australian currency example). Suppose you had three coins, a 50 cent piece, a $1 coin and a $2 coin. You then select three thousand people from the general population, and give 1/3 the 50c, 1/3 the $1 and 1/3 the $2 (leaving aside the expense). You then ask each person to flip the coin 1000 times and record the result. (This equals one million flips of each coin). The results come back, and it turns out that, overall, the 50 cent group flipped heads 500,000 times and tails 500,000 times. The $1 coin group flipped heads 600,000 times and tails 400,000 times. The $2 coin group flipped heads 400,000 times and tails 600,000 times.

How do you explain this? True it could be due to chance, but the likelihood of this is less than 1 in 10,000. I know we all like to believe we might win the lottery one day, but if we're realistic, we accept this is probably not going to happen. By the same reasoning, we should probably accept that the coin flipping results are not due to chance. So we look for other explanations.

Aha! (we say), the reason must be that people who flip $1 coins are generally more skilled at flipping heads. People who flip $2 coins tend to be worse at flipping heads, probably because they don't take the time to practice how to flip heads, and don't innovate with new methods for flipping heads. Does this seem likely to you?

Making the most reasonable assumption regarding skill/innovation/dedication distribution in the absence of data

It seems to me claims like this would be difficult to prove. I would invite anyone advancing such claims to offer evidence (capable of testing the claim) that they are in fact the case. If no such evidence is proferred, I would ask that people not raise them as explanations for the data. It seems to me that in the absence of data, the most reasonable explanation is that there is a roughly equal distribution of skill, innovation and dedication across all races.

[KaiserK]

I agree that it is sad that there are so few protosses in GSL and high level tourneys in general. Protoss are shiny and fun to watch! They also have an insane range of aggressive and defensive options against both races, and I'm hating PvP less these days .

However, a few points as to why balance discussions like this are inherently flawed:
1. The fact that there are so few top level protoss may just be reflective of personal bias among top level players. Maybe top level players don't like playing protoss? There is no way to verify this, but I think it has something to do with it, because playing protoss has the lowest APM requirement and thus feels "boring" to play for high level players, particularly on the macro side of things. (This is not to say Protoss is easy to play, they have high demands when placing forcefields perfectly, and also they have a high positioning requirement, e.g. zealots in front when they constantly lag behind, keeping the sentries safe, utilising guardian shield properly by moving sentries forward with zealots, etc...)
2. If Huk, Slayers_Alicia, MC, etc. are kicking arse on a pretty regular basis, how can you say that protoss is underpowered? Are you saying that these guys are better than their terran/zerg opponents, and the reason they are not winning every tourney cuz they are held back by their race? I think not... rather these players are examples of how good protoss can be.

Personally I believe that as with every race, being a top level player just requires dedication (to practice long and hard), speed (for maintaining macro, scouting and pressure at the same time), creativity for developing new strategies, and a keen situational awareness (when is the right time to attack/defend/expand etc).

EDIT: I don't post on these forums much, but as I do, people will come to know that I hate balance complaints...

Quick Comments

nGenLight:

If you dislike balance "discussions" you shouldn't be in this thread. Regarding your second point - Keyword is "IF".

[Next_rim]

Tom,

I think it's incorrect to reduce a game with many input from the player to a coinflip.

How about sprint runners? Let's pick 1 000 000 sprint runners from different leagues and levels (olympic, inernational, national, local). Make them all run 1000 dashes each. Now look at results. Say, UK runners do 10 sec, US runners pull off 9 sec, and South Africa's runners do it in 7 sec. Do you then say that UK runners just have bad body design and aren't made for 7 sec runs? And God should, perhaps, tweak 'em legs. That's what Light's and your's points look like to me at least.

[Tom]

Next_rim I suspect you may have missed the point. Perhaps go back and re-read what I have posted. (I sometimes place similar comments in my students' papers at uni ;p)

I am not saying player skill does not count. Quite the opposite, I think it is the most important variable. That should be obviously from my OP (please re-read). What I am saying is that it is unreasonable to assume an unequal distribution of skill across all races (eg by saying a particular race performs better because more skilled players tend to use that race).

I will attempt to explain, using your example. Assume there are three groups of runners, UK runners (generally slower), US runners (somewhere in the middle), and the RSA (generally the fastest). Now, assume you wanted to have three "teams", but members of each team would be randomly selected from amongst UK, US and RSA runners (say by drawing lots). You also decided that runners on each "team" would be given the same shoes, which would be different to the shoes given to members of other teams. Before the race, all Team A runners received shoes filled with led, Team B received no shoes, and Team C received state of the art sprinting shoes.

Remember that each team contains a random selection of US, UK and RSA runners. It turns out after the "dashes" that Team A generally performed the poorest, Team B's average results were somewhere in the middle, and Team C's average results were the highest. Some Team A beat some Team C etc, but on average, Team C's results were the best. Now, the question is, which of the below statements seems more likely to you:

(a) Despite the fact that teams were randomly selected, most of the RSA runners ended up in Team C, hence it performed best
(b) Each team received a roughly equal proportion of UK, US and RSA runners, but runners on Team C performed on average better than Teams A and B because they were given better running shoes

[Next_rim]

Tom, you completely messed up my example.

Team UK = protoss, Team US = terran, Team RSA = zerg (for example). And skill and talent = leagues. Olympic = pro, international = gm, etc. They all train in different countries, thus techniques and routines of training are different. To draw a parallel, you claim that terrans train just like protoss. But I say you can't compare RSA to UK training, because countries are different. As much as protoss is unlike terran. In your example, you basically claim that top protoss shows up at a tournament and choses zerg (aka RSA runner runs for UK). Alternatively, you give Steeve Vai a John Petrucci's MusicMan instead of Gem. He probably won't sound as fantastic. Because his practice is revolved around a different guitar with completely different technical characteristics. Or Steeve V and John P swap it (like they did at last G3). Do they play worse? They are still great musicians. But don't sound as good. Equipment in sports is almost the same. A double drop is a double drop, no matter what it comes on - speedlord, prism or medivac.

But somehow protoss don't do double drops, while terrans do. I personally don't see much difference in dropping 2x medivacs of MM vs dropping 2x prisms with DT and chargelots (with upgrade, faster than medivacs!). I can somewhat buy the argument that overlords are fragile and can be easily sniped, while medivac has more HP, but thats a thin ground for prisms. I do use prisms in my PvT, they come out earlier than even 7:45 medivacs, and they are pure awesomeness.

As for the topic itself. Ok then, so you are a sports spectator.You watch the games and see team UK lose. You don't then go - ooh, team UK must have had lead in their shoes. You never know. Maybe, they did have lead, but can't say for sure. A more likely outcome would be - they didn't train that hard. Or did train in a worse way. Or had to endure a 14 hour flight to Zimbabwe, and are still buzzy after long flight.

Do you see me now?

[Tom]

I messed up your example in an attempt to explain why it misses the point (unsuccessfully as it turns out).

I understand exactly what you're saying, but its not the point I am making. Its correct that you don't draw an inference about why a team lost after 1 game. You try as hard as you can to isolate the variable (or variables) to determine what effect they have on the outcome. Think about something as complicated as the health impacts of smoking. Some people smoke their whole life and nothing happens, whilst others appear to develop all sorts of problems. We cannot tell exactly what effect smoking will have on any particular person, because a range of genetic and lifestyle factors also significantly affect the result. But, after looking at millions of smokers, we can confidently state that, generally speaking, smoking is bad for you.

This is why, in looking at Starcraft, you should look at the results of thousands or millions of games, played on a range of maps, at a range of skill levels. If players using one race consistently underperform across these variables, it is fair to draw an inference that race is having some effect on the outcome (even though it would be difficult to use race to predict the outcome in any single case).

I am not going to waste any more time trying to explain it.

*************************

For the same reason that the GMs in this thread refuse to debate balance/gameplay with silver league players, I am no longer going to debate statistics/scientific method with anyone who does not hold (at least) an undergraduate degree in mathematics, engineering or science. Sorry to sound like a douche, but its just not worth the aggravation.

Whilst I am happy to debate genuine methodological flaws, I am getting tired of justifying basic principles of science/statistics over and over. Please read the OP!

[KaiserK]

Re: nGenLight's Rep comment (I don't know how to reply directly to this). I apologise, I admit that my "hate of balance complaints" comment may have been a bit aggressive... but I do intensely dislike statements such as "Unit X is imbalanced" or "Matchup XvY is imbalanced", because such statements are not productive particularly when the game is a year young and the statement to me reflects an unwillingness to figure out a way to beat X unit or X race. Still, I'm a bit hurt that I get a negative rep comment just for stating what I think... just because I dislike balance complaints (note I did not say I dislike the discussion) I can't participate?

Originally Posted by Tom

For the same reason that the GMs in this thread refuse to debate balance/gameplay with silver league players, I am no longer going to debate statistics/scientific method with anyone who does not hold (at least) an undergraduate degree in mathematics, engineering or science. Sorry to sound like a douche, but its just not worth the aggravation.

Whilst I am happy to debate genuine methodological flaws, I am getting tired of justifying basic principles of science/statistics over and over. Please read the OP!

Tom, I read your OP properly this time. I've missed most of the thread cuz I'm late to the party, and it's difficult to understand what alot of people are saying due to misunderstandings about logic and statistics. I see that some of what I said had already been brought up. Now I will state that I have an honours in physics and although my knowledge of statistical methods is limited I understand your basic premise.

Now if I understand correclty, the primary reason you are asking this question is the number of Protoss players at the top level. I again posit that this could be firstly due to a selection bias (i.e. the best players choose not to play Protoss) simply on the basis that Protoss is less interesting to them. A knowledge of the number of players applying for the tourney, the number of players in Code B etc, would allow better analysis of this theory. For now I will drop this proposition, since we can't really assess it.

I also note your comment that in all matchups the global tourney winrates are approaching 50%. Assuming there enough tournaments occuring to provide statistically useful results, such that player skill/dedication/innovativeness is not a significant factor, then this would imply no race is overpowered/underpowered. Of course we cannot make such a drastic assumption about skill etc not being a factor, but I think it is still the most telling piece of information. Even though less players are playing protoss at the top level, they are playing it to an equal level with their opponents, whether this is because of race or skill. I am going to focus on this statistic.

When I think about balance, I think about the "skill ceiling". It is impossible to reach the skill ceiling, because players cannot ever hope to control individual units to conduct perfect execution of strategies. However, I do believe in an approximate physical maximum APM for humans, as well as a maximum to the best decision making and the best APM allocation (spending APM to gain the best advantage). To me, these sorts of things represent a players true skill. They are impossible to evaluate, because APM measures in game do not tell you anything about APM allocation.

Suppose then we explain a players win probability as a combination of skill (or proximity to the skill ceiling) and race. Pretend we could actually make a formula: win probability = skill factor * race factor, where skill factor would account for both player's skill in a game, and race factor would account for each players race.

Now we know win probabilty ~ 50%. Suppose then we answer your question "Is protoss underpowered in high level play?" as "yes". This implies the "race factor" for protoss is lower than that for terran or zerg. That would mean that the "skill factor" for those protoss players is higher, in order for them to achieve the 50% win ratio. The protoss players who are performing so well in tourneys to give a 50% win ratio, are "better" than their terran and zerg counterparts. In part this might be true. I can't say for sure.

What are your thoughts on this analysis? I'm not sure where I'm going with this now...

PS: Like many others in this forum, I believe metagaming comes into it alot. Notice how all players at top level go through trends of playing a certain style. For example in TvZ, 2 rax was all the rage, and now its reactor hellions. Noone is actually sure which is better, but there is a tendency for all players to be a bit sheepish, follow the mainstream strategy because that is working for them now. Then other races adapt to that, and suddenly the strategy is less effective. I believe this affects all levels of play, but the important thing is, it may mean that right now, Protoss have some adapting to do, and when they do the challenge will flip back to T and Z?

[Tom]

KaiserK, I agree with your analysis (in particular, I agree that probability of win = skill factor * race factor, although I would also add "* map factor" to this formula). Of these factors, I think the skill factor value is likely to be the largest by far (in other words, player skill is far more important than race and map).

As you said, the international data was showing 50%. You then posited that to answer the question "is Protoss underpowered" as "yes" would imply Protoss players have a higher skill factor. Again this is axiomatically correct. However, the alternative (and in my view more reasonable) conclusion from that dataset in isolation, would be to reject the conclusion that Protoss is underpowered in high level play.

So far so good, but here's the rub. As I say in my OP bac in June, international tournament data was only one dataset, and it generally did not support the conclusion that Protoss was underpowered in high level play. However, the other datasets were showing underperformance (quite strongly in many cases). I therefore said we should wait and see whether a trend develops.

At page 9 of this thread, I re-examined the data for July/August. It shows the trend has continued (and in some cases strengthened). It also shows Protoss are now also performing quite poorly in the International tournament data. Accordingly, assuming skill factor has remained constant (and I don't know what other assumption we can make in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary), it now seems reasonable to conclude the Protoss is underpowered in high level play.

Now as to the argument that Protoss needs to "adapt", that is undoubtedly correct. Who is to say they are not? What I am saying in my more recent posts is that, in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, we should not presume Protoss players are any less innovative than players of other races. Players are only free to innovate within the parameters of the race. So, if poor results continue for many months, as they have, it follows in my view that we should start to question whether Protoss players are failing due to an inherent disadvantage with the race rather than a lack of trying!

[Next_rim]

we should not presume Protoss players are any less innovative than players of other races.

You can measure it, but it's going to take some time and effort. Someone on TL did an analysis of various types of PvZ forge-FE in MLG. He analyzed over 70 PvZ games and wrote down every single BO, then showed a breakdown by style. Turned out there were 4 major types with very minor stylistic variations.

If you open a replay with notepad, you will see a wall of text with a record for every action in game in the form of coordinates. With dedication and time, you can technically make a php replay parcer (someone in my clan made one for our website, it pulls apm, win/loss, race, player name, etc.). More complex parcers, like sc2gears, pull bo's.

Then use tournament replays of your choice for, say, last 4 month. You can develop your own cirteria, or use that TL approach. Then you can track different BO's, upload them into, say, excel, and run an analysis. I'm pretty confident you won't find much evolution in P, but a ton of change in T and Z.

I don't follow every single tournamets, but very few protoss players actually brought something new to the game since TSL3. Maybe 1-gate PvT expansion, and MC's phoenix (which Cruncher have been using forever). Still 0 drops, 0 motherships, 0 carriers. Nobody builds more than one voidray. Only one more non-protoss thing comes to mind that is underused in the game atm - it's the nuke. But even nuke got used in recent GSTL.

[Tom]

@Next_rim: It would be great if you would do that exercise and let us know the results. Its not much use saying what you "think" the results might show if you haven't actually looked at it. I think you would need to do this for all races, not just Protoss, so we have something to compare.

That example you refer to on TL.net (a link to the source would be great!) doesn't seem that surprising to me (ie the results *apparently* show four main Protoss openings in PvZ). I only really face 4 main Zerg openings in PvZ as well, with minor stylistic variations - 14/14 gas pool into expand, 16 pool gasless expand, expand before pool, and early pool.

You have also raised that old favourite, motherships and warp prisms. I am not going to comment on strategy/balance as I am not qualified. The only thing I would say is, if top tournament level players aren't using strats based around these units, don't you think there might be a good reason for this? (I'll give you a hint, its not because they're stupid.)

My guess is that top tournament players don't "experiment" in tournament games. They probably experiment and practice all sorts of wacky strats with practice partners and on ladder, use that time to work out what works and what doesn't, and then pull out the big gun strategies when it matters. When you watch a professional tournament game, you are seeing the one strategy that was selected, not the 1000 strategies that were discarded because they suck. But please don't assume a dedicated professional player hasn't also experimented with these other strats.