So, who wants to setup a "balance" tournament: an obnoxiously long series where top-ranking players need to play a TON of games against each-other as every faction (and combination), solely for the purpose of getting win:loss statistics? I'd suggest a similar format WCS, except each player matchup needs to consist of a "best of 5" of every faction combination (5x USF vs. Ost, 5x USF vs OKW, 5x etc....).
Really though, considering the player base of CoH2, getting a complete statistical breakdown of balance that's as accurate as it needs to be is very unlikely. If the game had daily concurrent player peaks over 100k it would be possible, since top-level play would actually consist of only top players. Unfortunately, even with the free give-away a little while ago, its only reached 22k peak concurrent players, and that average is now down to around 7k (based on steamcharts).
Even so, I still think the WCS is a better source of balance data than Automatch. Players in the WCS were all in the top 150 for 1v1, whereas in automatch it's not uncommon for top 100 players to be matched against top 300-500 players, since that's the closest available.
Sure, but thow out UKF because nobody is going to play it anyway. Then instead of having the #1 seed play the #32 seed in the first round, have the #1 seed play #2, #3 play #4, etc.
The early rounds in the WCS were usually mismatches because they were supposed to be mismatches (and the selection team did a good job). The finals were 3/2 splits because they really were the few elite players. They were the #1, #2, #3, and #5 seeds.
Well, as blvckdream correctly points out, automatch stats don't really work that way. It will not try match players of equal skill, but instead players of similar ELO, which in turn is a function of player skill AND faction performance. Basically, better players playing weaker factions will ideally be matched with less skilled players playing a stronger faction.
As Sander correctly mentions this breaks down at both ends of the ladder, because eventually there will be nobody strong enough available to perfectly match a player with a strong faction. However, as I also point out in the referenced article is that win rates on the ends are also strongly influenced by how many players in a certain skill range play these factions. E.g. if more games are played on axis side by high level players, they inevitably be matched with worse player, inflating their win percentage and so on.
Edit: Moved the other stuff to the appropriate thread...
I said *probably* because there are a lot of pitfalls, like you've pointed out. You're still more likely to get something usable out of the automatch results. You would have to throw out all of the games between mismatched rankings, take out matches where it took place on a map that produces biased results, etc, etc. You'd also have to put a limit on how high of a ranking you would want to use. Some things like T70 abuse don't really happen at 4 digit rankings.
Even then, one of the problems with ELO is that you can get to a ranking by being good or by being mediocre a lot.
Yeah, pick rates are at least a relatively solid measure of the player's perceived faction performance (distinct from the actual faction performance), so in itself those are already a pretty good measure of faction balance (within the parameters of the tournament).
And I certainly wouldn't say that you can "prove" anything with these numbers. Hence my formulation that the numbers at best could indicate a trend. I figured this would be vague enough, no? Thing is, this is kind of the best shot we get. We certainly also can check out automatch stats (and I did so in the past), but these come with there own set of problems. These can all be pieces in a puzzle.
Ok, thinking about this the other way around: Assuming that a certain faction IS actually OP. This certainly will have an effect on the win percentages, right? Now, as we probably all agree, there are soo many other factors that contribute to these numbers which will skew the results in one way or the other. So, at the end of the day you'd have to make a judgement on how much of the resulting number is due to the OPness of a faction and how much is due to other factors. If you think that all of the other factors have a much bigger impact on the numbers, fair enough. But to some extent the actual faction balance will be buried in there...
Btw, I was wondering about your 3-0 and 3-1 issue: True, the 3:0 tell you little about details of faction balance as those matches more likely were mostly decided by the discrepancy in skill level rather than faction performance.
Sidenote on 3-0 rounds:
But the 3-1: Well, actually I would consider these very interesting points. Clearly, one of the players was good enough to realistically beat the other as he showed in the one match he won. We still don't know whether it was faction performance, the map or luck (as we never do with these kind of stats), but I wouldn't know why you would consider this "datum" worth less than a 3:2 round or even an outlier.
Some disclaimer here: I'm a reliability engineer so I analyze industrial processes instead of any type of sport. Normally I have access to lots of historical data, which is good because I'm normally looking for small differences. When you look for small differences, you have to throw out results that are far from the mean (or sometimes median). At work, I would throw out the 3-1's because they're far from the mean and I can always get more data. Here, it isn't that simple and I'm sure if you ran a bunch of tests with similarly skilled players, you would probably get some 3-1 results. On the whole, it still seems like the effect of the player is *probably* more than the effect of the faction in a 3-1 match. To make a more informed decision, I'd need faction, map, pick, and match length at a minimum. Match length would be especially helpful because equal players usually seem to battle longer.
Today's data scientists know more techniques and might be able to get something more out of it than I could, but I think even they couldn't get around the small observation size and multiple independent factors. If the balance was horrible, the small data set wouldn't be such an issue.
Also, I wasn't trying to say that OST definitely isn't UP, just that there isn't enough data to say it with such certainty. Doomlord might be right but this tournament isn't a good proof either way.
auto macth stats ? no cause they are random and u get put with lower skill lvl
stats? nope cause they are tailored to the factions
roster ? nope cause each faction is unique
how do we do it ?
Automatch stats are probably better because automatch tries to get equally ranked opponents. In tournaments, the highest seeds play the lowest so the skill level difference is as large as it can be within the pool of players. Most of the matches were 3-0 or 3-1. You can't combine a bunch of mismatches and then make conclusions on balance.
Also, I don't think any amount of tuning would greatly increase people playing UKF in these tournaments. It seems almost fashionable for players to dislike playing UKF.
Now its a mistake and not a shout-box worthy lie? Okay.
Redo your bombing run tests with a PIV with the bombing run parallel to the axis of the tank like people would use it in game. Then come back here and post the best and worst results, instead of just saying that it does 960 damage (or whatever number you claimed). The on-axis results that I got were usually in the 160-320 range, which isn't good for 180 munitions. You had to have ran the tests a bunch of times and know when it doesn't work well, so, IMO, you were misleading when you said it's great. It would be like taking a couple of UKF or OST victories from the WCS tournament and then saying there was nothing wrong with the faction, because somebody won with those.
Then run that same test with the strafe from the new airborne doctrine that costs about the same.
Hi everyone, I wanted to understand how in the 1vs1 tournament there were little used factions (ukF and OST) after OST was also upgraded?
Is OST as bad as a faction?
In general, I think Storm and Doom are right. Also, I don't think OST is terrible, but OKW has a stock counter (Puma) to LV play while Ost doesn't. In a tournament, the last thing you would want is to be left without a counter to a core unit. If someone picks OST, and then Mobile Defense for the Puma to counter the T70, what would they do when the IS2 comes out? Most players wanted a Tiger so it seemed like many of them went OKW with mechanized and the Grand Offensive commander, which gave them all of the tools.
stuff
The Commander is not bad by any definition. Just because it's not the very top of the meta doesn't mean it's bad
Just out of curiosity, is this the first time you've caught someone being incorrect about something? I see people like Vipper do it all the time. What I don't see people Vipper do is take it to the shout box, calling the person a liar, then bringing it up in every thread about the subject. Also, when you back up the obsessive, insulting behavior with angry demands for respect, you're probably not going to get what you want.
Also, no matter how much you insist, this commander isn't competitive. I've never seen it in a tournament or even any high-level replays. If you're that convinced it's good and I'm a lying troll, put out a poll on it.
Pretty much this. UKF's core design is missing a ton of basic "tools" all other factions have access to (mobile mortars, snares, etc.), and on top of that, is designed around broken and/or gimmicky mechanics that don't really fit into CoH2's base gameplay (cover bonus, mutually-exclusive tech, etc.). Without allowing a full re-work similar to OKW's a while back, I don't see UKF ever being competitively viable - I could be wrong about this, but I don't see how.
This, plus the it seems like they have fewer viable core units than other factions so UKF goes from OP to UP really quickly, mostly depending on how the AEC and Tommies are tuned.
Simply put, Bolster is a huge can of worms that we don't really want to open. Changing or removing it would require huge changes to the faction, while having no idea what implications it'd have and what would be needed to compensate for it. Which is something we can't really afford and/or aren't allowed to do at this point. Relic (rightfully) wants changes to be as simple as possible at this point in the game's lifecycle.
Couldn't you simply require T3 before bolster, then adjust Tommies so they're okay early game?
Im fine with the artillery, just the camo needs to be changed or removed. Its a disadvantage
Tank Hunters is much worse than Guard Motor or Mechanized for Tank Hunting - no Mark Target, no advanced medium or heavy TD. It doesn't have tank traps which makes it more difficult to use mines effectively, stun mines aren't anywhere near as good as Tellers. The camo is great for Cons but not good for Su85's.
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