[Next_rim]

@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.

I could do it for maybe 3-4 tournaments in RO16 and further. That's ~200 games, maybe more, and the amount of games is reasonably small to attempt to do it manually through a conventional parser. For any better output, need to automate the parsing.

Here is a link on a project that attempted to build a C++ parser:

http://code.google.com/p/starcraft2replay/w/list

They figured out the codes for all actions in game, so if I only could break the MPQ part of the replay, then convert it to .txt, I could use VBA engine in excel to parse it and get BO's. The code string is standard 75-character string, with 4-5 bits of code meaning group (selected/deselected), time in half-seconds (lolwut?), action taken, and some other stuff. No need to dig coordinates, just parse for unit production, building production and time of action up to, say, min 8.

I only see a real problem with mass unpacking (have never dealt with MPQ) and mass coversion of code to .txt. I've had lots of experience from here, as I have to dig through client's stupid 150+ page transaction details that they send in a locked .pdf. I convert the data to .txt, import into excel, then use VBA to break it down into structured parts that can be sorted, searched and used for analysis.

[Bugalugs McScruffin]

Stop tempting me Next_rim. All of a sudden I want to see if I could build a decent parser. :S

Time in half-seconds seems reasonable. If a Street Fighter player can reliably hit a link with a 5 frame window (5/60ths of a second!!!) then half-seconds in an RTS are going to be important.

[Next_rim]

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.

And, btw, it didn't show 4x openings, it showed 4x ways to play forge-FE, not even covering the developments after cybercore, or things like 4wg or 3-gate. The guy looked at builds only up to cybercore. I'll get a link later tonight when I get home, since TL is blocked for me at work(

I'm guesstimating 100-150 possible combinations for protoss up to min 8, given you break down the timeline by logical "zones". 10 gate is not 12 gate, but 20 gas and 21 gas are probably same build, just normal fluctuations of it. I can't say for T or Z, since I'm no good with those, but I'd imagine T will have a lot more combinations, especially after I watched day9's guide to drop play recently (4x different ways to get dropships by moving around stim, CC, supply and addon timings, which have huge impact on gameplay).

Bugalugs McScruffin,

You probably could. Took my clanmate 2 days to build a simple php parcer:

http://www.bruteam.ru/index.php?opti...100&Itemid=129

Here, when you upload a replay, it adds it to the database with full info on player, race, result and map played. They are still debating whether they need apm.

[nGenLight]

Why aren't we making Motherships? Let's first ignore how freaking hard it is to actually tech up to it without dying or significantly giving up army/economic value, then lets think about how a single Neural Parasite turns the "oh so powerful" mothership against ourselves (WHATS HAPPENING WHY ARE THE ZERG UNITS SUDDENLY INVIS), and a single EMP renders the mothership completely useless.

Carriers? Let us again ignore how much map control we have to give up and how much initial army we have to suffer, and how easily we can just die to heavy 2/3 (T/Z) base aggression from our opponents, and consider how easily carriers are actually countered T2 vikings/marines, and by mass infestors - Which by the way gave Destiny the ability to destroy 7 x 200/200 food worth of ZENEXPuzzle's army to win with Puzzle literally pulling out every single tech and every single formation imaginable. Is Puzzle really losing on innovation? Or is there seemingly no answer to the mighty mass infestor.

Warp prism? This is the one unit I agreed needs to be used more, and I have seen it used in really cool fashion by some of the more creative Pro players (JYP, Kowi). However lets compare the harrassment/dropping potential between Protoss and the other two races. Firstly, warp prism cannot be mass produced because of how extremely important the Robotics facility is to us to continue creating Observers/Collosi, therefore the ability to get multiple medivacs and overlords to harrass/drop is much easier than the ability to get multiple warp prisms. Secondly, can you compare a warp prism with 4 zealots to a medivac with 8 marines, 4 blue flame hellions to 4 dts (Which by the way is a much later tech than hellions)? 20 overlords with 2 banelings? & Finally, how ridiculously easy it is to stop 1 warp prism (1 viking or 1 muta/corrupter will do), compared to stopping multiple Terran drop ships which can unloading anti-air marines in an instant, or free warp prisms that comes by the dozens in overlords (which are very vague in general because you never know if there are units in there, or whether they are just there to scout, you have to pull probes regardless). For zero food cost, Zerg has the ability to completely relocate a significant portion of my army.

Now I'm not saying warp prism shouldn't be used as I have seen it used many times effectively. But comparing the harrassment ability for Protoss compared to the other races is just silly, the strength of Protoss is in its army, and thats why we continue to play to our strengths (building a strong army) as to our weakness (ability to harrass / splitting army) whereas our Terran and Zerg opponents lately not only outdo us in the harrassment category but suddenly have come up with unit mixtures that stomps the "mighty" Protoss deathball, so how exactly should Protoss play if not resort to timing attacks?

So before you say "Mothership, carrier, warp prism" next time and how much they are underused, think about why they are underused and the actual meta-game before you start calling Protoss players blind or non-innovative for never making those units. For most of you, you don't think about it from a in-game perspective because you don't play Protoss at a high level, and as a result, everytime you say Mothership, carrier, or warp prism, I want to punch my computer screen and shove an infestor down your throat.

Noone is to say Protoss is not behind in the meta-game. But who is to say this is because right now we are being left behind due the limiting parameters of our race as opposed to idiocy of our players, it has been over 4 months. Any signs of emerging meta-game trend that favours the Protoss has been crushed, I believe it is time for a change.

Bring on 4 second stun to our storm!
(joke)

[Next_rim]

Light,

You assume a straight tech rush, which is wrong. Nothing stops you from getting carriers instead of colossi after a 2-base 6-gate. Refer to my PvZ thread for cost and timing calculation, it takes less time and just a little bit more money (like 100 mins/100 gas) to get a carrier out on the field compared to colossus with range.

And have you ever considered using mothership in a way other than carrying it for invis? And mothership actually costs only slightly more gas than a colossus with lance upgrade (all building costs cept for nexus factored in), and takes exactly same time to tech to (all building warp-in time included). I personally leave it at my 3rd base so lings can't just run in and kill probes, and use mass recall to save my fleet from infestor fungal when I attack. Zerg fungals and shits marines - I recall entire army to safety of base, regen shields, go in more. Infestors don't get to regen energy fast enough. It just blows my mind WHY nobody uses it that way. You engaged at bad angle? You got fungaled in the corner? You have split your army and the harassing party is far away when opp hit expo? Well, 1 click solves all these problems.

As for prism, you've said it. Only disadvantage is the dps. However, prism can drop stuff, run away, get field, warp in, load, drop more, while medivac has to go all the way back to base for new troops. And I'm actually yet to see a single pro game (cept for couple WhiteRa and TLO ones), where toss gets speed upgrade for prism or obs. And then you complain about ineffective harass. Speeded prism is as fast as mutas, and has more HP than medivac, and costs 0 gas.

[nGenLight]

When did I assume a straight tech rush? Did I say that or did you ASSUME that? I want to see how you possibly can maintain map control while attempting to getting a third base with Carriers as opposed to twilight or Collosi.

The way you just described using a mothership is how Kiwikaki used to use mothership about 5 months ago (same time everyone was using it), do you even know why he has abandoned the use of it? Sure the way you described the use of it is great, but you don't factor in map control, aggression, utility cost, opportunity cost that comes with getting these capital ships. All these things that make capital ships a very high risk and low reward investment that end up getting hard countered so easily. I find it very insulting that you are attempting to tell me that I don't know the the uses of mothership as you described above. I can probably pull out 50 or moreso replays of where I used mothership like you described, and I can tell you one thing, the investment is completely inferior to an earlier timing on whatever strategy you are using with that mothership, and it DOES NOT solve the issues that is haunting Protoss players.

I've used warp prism all the freaking time, until better players realise the moment they know a warp prism is on the field, they just patroled 1 viking/corruptor at the edge of their base and complete nullified my warp prism.

I'm really holding back on using the non-high-level-protoss play to suggest your lack of experience - I bet I've made 200x more carriers/motherships/warp prisms then you ever had. So please, go ahead and actually do the things you described at a high level play, release a replay pack of you being successful, and I will personally bow down to you as the savior of Protoss. But before that, your credibility is severely lacking.

Quick Comments

	TAEdarus:	Have my babies?
	Digby:

[Next_rim]

Light,

Can you post your replays with mommaship please? Very curious how other players get to it, especially in PvT.

So please, go ahead and actually do the things you described at a high level play, release a replay pack of you being successful

With all due respect, typical troll argument. Wasn't expecting to hear one from you.

[nGenLight]

I wasn't trolling??? Why do you keep assuming things? I meant exactly what I said. If you cannot produce evidence of consistent successful results with what you felt like you knew better than me about, it is really hard for me to respect what you have to say.

Regarding the replays, I don't have the time to help you out, sorry.

Quoting the words from Tom "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."

[SLCN.StoicWilly]

don worry blizzard will soon balance the game

[Tom]

See my post at http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=2113

Blizzard have confirmed the latest data for Masters League NA and Korean shows 60% win rate for Terran in TvP (well outside their "comfort zone"). Blizzard is concerned about this and keeping an eye on it. The results appears to be due to the dramatic shift in the metagame arising from the renewed use of the Terran 1-1-1 timing push. There is more than one hint that a balance patch may be coming soon.

[Imperial]

umad protoss?

owned

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nGenLight:

LOL

[Tom]

Link to chart of TLPD data for August 2011: http://i.imgur.com/Jvlvy.png

There is little change in the trend from July (ie Protoss is under performing overall and in both PvZ and PvT). Coupled with Blizzard's ladder data (as released a few weeks ago) showing significant under performance in PvT, it seems to me safe to conclude Protoss is the weakest race in tournament play and in high level ladder play (so much is acknowledged by the imminent release of patch 1.4).

The question "should we give Protoss a buff?" has now been replaced by the question "how much of a buff should we give Protoss?" I suspect Blizzard will be conservative (as they should be). However, it seems to me there is a real issue whether the balance changes go far enough in PvT (which on Blizzard's ladder figures is the most imbalanced match up in SC2 at Masters level).

I welcome the barracks build time increase the immortal range increase. I just wonder whether they go far enough, having watched Code S Protoss players getting taken apart by a variety of 1 base all ins (not just the 1/1/1) based around getting out a lot of early marines. It seems to me the immortal buff would do very little against many of the variations on the timing push.

EDIT - GSL SPOILER

MC knocked into Code A after a string of PvZs (and Alicia was knocked down a couple of days ago). A very sad day for me. I doubt I will be buying a GSL ticket next season, given my lack of interest in TvT and ZvT.

[NvJazBas]

Protoss coming back in the metagame!!

But really, reading some of stuff here, I find it really annoying to see low"er" level players speak as if they know more about the game and say "I just don't have time to put in to practice the mechanics needed by high level players". Everytime I see this kind of statement annoys me. If you don't play at the "high" level, you don't face the pressure, different mindgames, tweaks of builds, fakes that are NOT mechanical. Surely micro and macro side too but yeah. Like for example, we can see how bad Moletrap is (I'm a Moletrap hater) when he casts. One of the game he sees a pylon cancle from a protoss player while Nexus first on Dual Sight and it is pretty obvious from my point of view he was checking if zerglings can or cannot run by if he places the pylon in that certain location and they say its a mistake from the protoss player, his chocking etc. And also hiding 2nd probe in mineral like he thinks is a mistake and misrally or something.

Really, please don't say stuff like you didn't have the time to practice the mechanical side of it to get good. Because in SCII, unlike broodwar, mechanical side is not as important (It is important of course) and yes this is directed to someone.

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psygoh: