I apologize that this treads such similar grounds to two of my posts ago,
But no. I would not take this as confident evidence on its own. I wouldn’t even take it in context as particularly evident of my claims overall, because -
As I have said numerous times, there are multiple weird and interesting things about the data that we have. The MMR bubbles don’t make sense with what we know because they deviate ridiculously from standard bell curves, oddities that are very unlikely to be linked to a single cause.
Which, again, I’ve spent multiple posts writing out ways in which multiple effects uniquely more influence Terran in this regard; but also I have pointed out more distant in the past how that doesn’t really add up to the levels of deviation we see.
What that means in turn is that even if one more factor tips to the other side, there’s still too many outliers for me to be ‘happy’ with that as a conclusion - because of the stated base assumption that I have, that the game is mostly balanced at most play levels.
The reason I hold this belief against what you say is evidence to the contrary is because when you look at that same evidence from other angles, the data just as much say other weird statistical things – see earlier comments about There's just a ridiculous over-population of Bronze Terrans and how that doesn’t correlate to the effect that wheasy asserted of If a player switches off of Terran they'll gain 300 MMR very fast.
This isn’t how that works.
What the fact you outline says has multiple possibilities. For example, suppose the following race distributions between seasons:
+ Ter | Zer | Pro
Pop | 100 | 100 | 100 | 300 = players in S20
Pop | 105 | 95 | 95 | 295 = players in S21
Now, the player base has shrunk by about 1.7%; and Terran’s representation went up from 33.33% to 35.59%. The other races shrunk from 33.33% to 32.20%.
There are a ton of ways for these numbers to be reached.
For example, 10 players of each race quit, with an influx of 15 new Terrans and 5 new Protoss and Zergs.
Or only Z/P players quit or swapped races.
Or each race got 10 new players, but only 5 Terrans quit compared to 10 Protoss and Zergs.
And these are all visually going to result in the same data.
This is why I keep harping on that the data do not say what you assert they say and why I kept implying the distinctions that I was drawing.
Of the limited number of new players, a huge number of them pick Terran.
The number of players who are new to the game who are bad are very high.
The number of players who stick out the game’s learning curve are very likely to switch races as they learn information, which means there’s a decent chance that the mid ranks will have a disproportionately small number of Terrans - while as they continue to learn and excel they are also likely to switch back to maining Terran, creating a drop-off for the other races.
That entire ladder of events leads to the same conclusion you drew! The average Terran - due to the declining general population - has played longer. It fits the data of the MMR brackets that we have looked at.
But it also shows an explanation for the oddity in Bronze to Silver ranks, as story-based as it is; that lines up with all the utterances from the data.
And, most importantly of all;
I’m not saying this, have not said this, and probably will not say this!! As Miro said;
You are continuing to not acknowledge the bullet that’s being said. It’s not that they’re newer! It’s that, to new players, they have high appeal. Because new players are likely to be bad players, a wildly disproportionate number of new-and-bad players, the players who come and go after just a bit, are Terrans.
The players who stick around and improve are likely to switch races - but these players are also plenty likely to switch into Terran or return to Terran.
I’m not saying “Terran’s population is newer”, I’m saying “The new population is significantly more likely to pick Terran over the other options”.
Do you see how this is frustrating; that I am having to clarify something that Miro made very explicit, in this second instance ten days or eighty posts prior?
Re-ordering the words does change the meaning, and I pick my words carefully precisely because I’m trying to not be misunderstood.
And everyone else in the thread has understood that meaning! Please stop putting words in a poor girl’s mouth.
Not at all. Sounds to me like players who are bad are less willing to experiment with all the races, because they want to maximize their familiarity with their tools, get a feel for the things they can do, instead of learning a whole new set of strengths and weaknesses - at least, until their game knowledge is shored up.
Harstem in particular has made this comment many times, that switching races - for him - makes him feel like the other race plays itself, because of his strong mechanical foundation already being present. He then goes on to make pretty simple mistakes, but is exceptionally mirthful and relaxed - and frequently makes observations of things that he can bring back to his Protoss.
That’s the phenomena to which I refer to. It’s not harder - it’s that switching off what you started with changes your paradigm and makes you think differently, realize new things and that process requires a certain degree of skill to begin, and some people don’t ever end up bringing it back, but keeping with their switch.
I’ve decided to go with stories not because facts clearly don’t work but because I am just tired of trying facts.