Time: 19:37:23 CET 10:37:23 PST 13:37:23 EST 02:37:23 Seoul 01:37:23 Beijing
NEWS
IMBA, as Seen by the Professionals
Few other topics have been discussed as often and as vigorously as the question of racial imbalance in Warcraft III. After almost every big event, the debate starts again, and opinions on the subject differ greatly. The main problems have always been two: The people that give their opinions on this are often not really qualified for an evaluation on a world class level of gaming and, maybe even worse, virtually everybody is biased towards seeing his own race at a disadvantage. About two weeks ago, I observed another discussion about which race has an unfair advantage over the others among some WC3L players and, as usual, everyone involved just complained about his own race and blamed other races. I made a joking remark to u5.PaTo, who seemed least fixed on defending his own race, that everybody should be allowed to complain as much about imbalance as he wanted, just never about his own race. Saying that, an idea was born to eliminate the bias in this discussion. People are only biased about their own race, so ask them about other races! Also, I was already in the right surroundings to ask competent people: The WC3L 1on1 players. I considered this idea for a while and came up with the following: I wanted to ask WC3L players for their opinion on the most imbalanced racial matchup in this game, but they could only name matchups excluding their own race.
By Carsten 'Storch'
Mar 4, 2006 11:06
Few other topics have been discussed as often and as vigorously as the question of racial imbalance in Warcraft III. After almost every big event, the debate starts again, and opinions on the subject differ greatly. The main problems have always been two: The people that give their opinions on this are often not really qualified for an evaluation on a world class level of gaming and, maybe even worse, virtually everybody is biased towards seeing his own race at a disadvantage. About two weeks ago, I observed another discussion about which race has an unfair advantage over the others among some WC3L players and, as usual, everyone involved just complained about his own race and blamed other races. I made a joking remark to u5.PaTo, who seemed least fixed on defending his own race, that everybody should be allowed to complain as much about imbalance as he wanted, just never about his own race. Saying that, an idea was born to eliminate the bias in this discussion. People are only biased about their own race, so ask them about other races! Also, I was already in the right surroundings to ask competent people: The WC3L 1on1 players. I considered this idea for a while and came up with the following: I wanted to ask WC3L players for their opinion on the most imbalanced racial matchup in this game, but they could only name matchups excluding their own race.
With this premise, I quickly realised that I would have to ask the same amount of players from each race, to make the poll a fair one. So my first step was counting the number of players from each race that had so far been used in the lineups of the WC3L clans, this (ninth) season.
The numbers were quickly gathered. At that time, there had been 10 Humans, 11 Orcs, 16 Undeads and 24 Nightelves playing 1on1 games in the league. There had also been two players with changing races, whom I could not really ask the question I had planned.
I wrote all of them down and started to ask players from the races with the least players, Humans and Orcs. Quickly I saw that I would not get hold of all of them, actually the number I was able to reach was 8, and so I asked only 8 Undeads and Nightelves either, overall a number of 32 players from 16 countries and 4 continents.
Here is the list of all players I asked:
Human (Hu)Nightelf (NE)Orc (Orc)Undead (UD)
fnatic.Bjarke fnatic.Creo SK.ElakeDuck play.Abver
SK.Insomnia fnatic.DIDI8 4K^Grubby u5.Canuck
u5.NilknarfLP mTw-Hanf u5.IncInerator 4K^FuRy
verGe.SonkiE SK.HoT u5.Newbiee mouz.HasuObs
mouz.Spell u5.PaTo fnatic.Rholle mTw-Protois
T.mH]Storm verGe.Rainman fnatic.RotterdaM T.mH]Susiria
4K^ToD mouz.SaSe mTw-Tak3r fnatic.Vankor
play.XyLigan LFan.SatiiNi SK.Zacard fnatic.WinneR
Here are the results of the poll, and keep in mind that the maximum number of nominations for each matchup is only 16, as two races (times eight players) are always involved in any matchup.
Most imbalanced matchups:
1. NE > Orc15
2. UD > Hu6
3. Hu > Orc3
3. Orc > UD3
5. NE > UD2
Three players said that there was no imbalance at all in the matchups they could chose from.
The results are pretty clear, but also interesting. Only one single matchup (Hu vs NE, I'm of course not counting the four mirror matchups) wasn't named, at all.
NE vs Orc is currently seen as the by far most imbalanced matchup, it got only one vote less than the maximum possible number.
Not surprising on a second place we see UD > Hu, considering that NE and Orc players can both vote for that matchup but not for NE vs Orc, this was quite expected, too.
Maybe a little surprising are the three nominations for Hu > Orc, I personally expected the "classic" imbalance of Orc > UD to get more votes than Hu > Orc.
Also interesting and maybe surprising is the NE > UD on #5 because Korean players generally tend to see that matchup imbalanced in the exactly opposite way.
After this lengthy article, I hope people don't mistake this for a final truth for game balance. This is only a snapshot in time, which tries to avoid bias as far as possible, but still cannot really give one universal truth, because the game is always evolving and opinions change.
Anyway, it might help understand what professional players see in the matchups at this moment.
At last, I would like to thank all players who took the time to answer my question. I got much positive feedback from them, which motivated me to complete the poll and news.
Special thanks go out to Nordahl and Enrique, who both helped me get answers from some of the harder-to-reach players.
The numbers were quickly gathered. At that time, there had been 10 Humans, 11 Orcs, 16 Undeads and 24 Nightelves playing 1on1 games in the league. There had also been two players with changing races, whom I could not really ask the question I had planned.
I wrote all of them down and started to ask players from the races with the least players, Humans and Orcs. Quickly I saw that I would not get hold of all of them, actually the number I was able to reach was 8, and so I asked only 8 Undeads and Nightelves either, overall a number of 32 players from 16 countries and 4 continents.
Here is the list of all players I asked:
Human (Hu)Nightelf (NE)Orc (Orc)Undead (UD)
fnatic.Bjarke fnatic.Creo SK.ElakeDuck play.Abver
SK.Insomnia fnatic.DIDI8 4K^Grubby u5.Canuck
u5.NilknarfLP mTw-Hanf u5.IncInerator 4K^FuRy
verGe.SonkiE SK.HoT u5.Newbiee mouz.HasuObs
mouz.Spell u5.PaTo fnatic.Rholle mTw-Protois
T.mH]Storm verGe.Rainman fnatic.RotterdaM T.mH]Susiria
4K^ToD mouz.SaSe mTw-Tak3r fnatic.Vankor
play.XyLigan LFan.SatiiNi SK.Zacard fnatic.WinneR
Here are the results of the poll, and keep in mind that the maximum number of nominations for each matchup is only 16, as two races (times eight players) are always involved in any matchup.
Most imbalanced matchups:
1. NE > Orc15
2. UD > Hu6
3. Hu > Orc3
3. Orc > UD3
5. NE > UD2
Three players said that there was no imbalance at all in the matchups they could chose from.
The results are pretty clear, but also interesting. Only one single matchup (Hu vs NE, I'm of course not counting the four mirror matchups) wasn't named, at all.
NE vs Orc is currently seen as the by far most imbalanced matchup, it got only one vote less than the maximum possible number.
Not surprising on a second place we see UD > Hu, considering that NE and Orc players can both vote for that matchup but not for NE vs Orc, this was quite expected, too.
Maybe a little surprising are the three nominations for Hu > Orc, I personally expected the "classic" imbalance of Orc > UD to get more votes than Hu > Orc.
Also interesting and maybe surprising is the NE > UD on #5 because Korean players generally tend to see that matchup imbalanced in the exactly opposite way.
After this lengthy article, I hope people don't mistake this for a final truth for game balance. This is only a snapshot in time, which tries to avoid bias as far as possible, but still cannot really give one universal truth, because the game is always evolving and opinions change.
Anyway, it might help understand what professional players see in the matchups at this moment.
At last, I would like to thank all players who took the time to answer my question. I got much positive feedback from them, which motivated me to complete the poll and news.
Special thanks go out to Nordahl and Enrique, who both helped me get answers from some of the harder-to-reach players.
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If they meet a better player, thet just have to go Warden solo.
#113 You don't know a shit! You are som extremly wrong it makes me want to cry!