Globally, Protoss has the highest distribution in both Master and GM, with Zerg having the highest distribution in Diamond.
Terran has the highest distribution in platinum and below, with Gold and below being quite a drastic increase in the amount of terrans there are compared to Zerg and toss.
It’s only in KR that Terran has the highest % in diamond and above.
Zerg has the least players in masters, it’s true. They have the highest player count in Diamond though (again, outside of KR specifically), and have more GM players than Terran does, in both NA and EU.
This is reflected in the global % of each race in the various leagues we see as well. Zerg has the most in diamond, the least in masters and the 2nd most in GM. Protoss has the least (marginally so, but still) in Diamond, and the most in both Masters and GM, with masters being significantly higher than both Terran and Zerg, and GM being significantly higher than Terran and marginally higher than Zerg.
KR specifically has, historically, always had a large number of Terran players as well though, in part due to the popularity of players like Flash early on, making them somewhat of an outlier (though not to completely disregard them, they do still impact global standings of each race.
The link you provided shows Zerg as the lowest in GM globally (and in US, KR), and only second lowest in EU, unless I’m misreading it?
Edit: Oh I see it reflects what you said if you hit ‘normalise’ though I have no idea what that actually does? I’m not really one for statistics so if someone could explain that would be great.
How strange. I Didn’t hit normalise when I posted the link.
I honestly cannot tell you what it does, but I think it removes the players who play a single game only to keep their rank, as they aren’t statistically significant? Not really sure, and the site doesnt explain it.
I am pretty sure it is supposed to eliminate redundancies and inconsistancies across data to make data actually comparable and usable.
Bro you typed incorrect and linked me to another page that has different statistics then that shown in the post, obviously the conclusions will be different if were using different data.
But the conclusions I drew from the data provided in the original post were not incorrect.
As someone who has watched the graph closely for the last 2 years because of a certain discussion, its actually the first time that happend. Terran had the (slight) upper hand in all leagues but gm (having a big lead in lower leagues to having a much smaller lead as leagues progress). In recent times protoss and terran were pretty much equal in masters, they changed positions often. Sometimes protoss would lead, sometimes terran would lead.
Its also pretty early in the season too and currently the api is more borked than ever 0o
People are choosing the harder race (Terran) whether they know it or not. People who still play terran choose it.
Terran has always had the largest player base because of casuals and still does and that is the only reason why the bottom of the ladder is filled with Terran. You can check the website NONAPA for starcraft race populations over the seasons.
Since the bottom of the ladder is filled with Terran the population % is skewed, that’s my point. The population base is full of casuals that increase the population base and thus drag down the population %.
Like I said, terran in bronze/silver/gold is 33% larger than zerg and 22% larger than protoss because they have the most amateurs.
You are right but it’s purely an assumption without the data to back up the claim. Here is that data:
https://imgur.com/a/TTrEa7S
If terrans were in bronze due to a balance issue, there would be no difference in demographics. Bronze players are older, slower (100ms vs 25ms for gm), and basically never use hotkeys.
haha “casuals” , calling terran player base casual when youre playing easy race. hilarious.
no such thing as “casuals” , theres tens of thousands of games being played in lower league buddy. Nothing “casual” about it when they are active players. It’s just a harder race. What’s casual is your IQ kid , really room temperature
haha “casuals” , calling terran player base casual when youre playing easy race. hilarious.
I’m a Diamond 3 Terran player, this is just an objective take. What rank are you btw?
no such thing as “casuals” , theres tens of thousands of games being played in lower league buddy. Nothing “casual” about it when they are active players. It’s just a harder race. What’s casual is your IQ kid , really room temperature
No need to get mad, its just basic algebra. The race isn’t that much more difficult than any other.
I think when Protoss and Zerg are normally distributed and you have 1 race that isnt normally distributed its pretty indicative of alternative influence.
You would never judge a games balance by the way the game is played at its lowest level unless you are part of its lowest level. It’s the same with league of legends and CS:GO. Noobs complain about the race, champions, guns, etc.
I think when Protoss and Zerg are normally distributed and you have 1 race that isnt normally distributed its pretty indicative of alternative influence.
Of course like you said we dont have the data, but you would never judge a games balance by the way the game is played at its lowest level as is the same with every competitive game.
the indication is that there are tens of thousands of games being played at lower leagues more than the upper leagues. That means these players are not “casuals” as you say . The evidence is clear that these players have trouble ranking up and are stuck fighting each other at the lower MMR
None of them are normally distributed: https://i.imgur.com/crhSWo1.png
EDIT: included protoss in the graph.
A theory of balance should be able to explain the lowest bronze all the way up to serral. This is required to meet the consistency and specificity and proportionality requirements of the bradford hill criteria.
A good example is Hupsaiya. He was frustrated after a loss and so I explained to him my theory of fun. Stop using minmaxed builds and accept lower mmr so you can have fun doing diverse strategies. He proceeded to rage to his chat that I was a psychopath, called me a scumbag and a terrible person and a long list of other insults because I was “smurfing to ruin the game for other people”. So, using strategies that make you weaker, giving your opponents a higher winrate against you, is “ruining the gaming experience” according him and this crime is so extreme that he feels justified to verbally assault his opponents. And all this for the “crime” of giving him some advice on how to have fun.
There are truly mentally unstable people in the sc2 competitive scene and anyone with an ounce of common sense stays far away from it. If you are mentally stable, having fun, you will become the focal point of every mentally unstable rando on the internet. That’s the reward of high level competitive sc2 – constant harassment, never ending slander and libel.
True but all races have positive skew in your image. Do you have some alternative conclusion from your graph? looks to me like the average player across every race is d3-d2.
A theory of balance should be able to explain the lowest bronze all the way up to serral. This is required to meet the consistency and specificity and proportionality requirements of the bradford hill criteria.
Yeah but thats simply theory. In practice it is never the case that low level players will use a min-max strategy. It could be possible that in bronze - gold zerg and protoss are easier, but it looks like the average player across all races is around d2/d3.
If it has to explain all the way up to Serral, then what about the era of Maru’s dominance? The ranked proportions were the same then with a disproportionate level of bronze, silver and gold Terran players yet the best player was Maru.
Continuing that today, I dont think Serral has taken a set off Clem in a major for a year, yet we still have the same issue.
the indication is that there are tens of thousands of games being played at lower leagues more than the upper leagues.
The data does not show this. You can play 5 games and be in bronze and play 100 games in plat and both of those players receive equal weighting. There is no indication that there are more games being played at lower elos, simply that there are more players in those elos.
Lots of things can be learned from it. Positive correlation between mmr and activity. Mmr is a zero sum system. Large uncertainty for median ranked players. The game has unusually low activity in the below average ranks (game is elitist). The waviness is probably the product of pressure waves pushing mmr up or down the system much like pressure and velocity in physics (in that analogy, player activity is equivalent to heat). Ideal mmr distribution is very likely normal if activity were accounted for.
Nope, if race is the cause then performance must correlate inter-racially. If performance is intra-racial, then race isn’t the cause, but it still aggregates into player performance. A theory of balance must be able to describe both bronze and serral, and that requires identifying the intra-racial performance trends and the inter-racial performance trends or you simply can’t say if performance is intra-racial. You have to do both.
Partly a lack of practice on serrals part and partly a highly terran favored map pool. Mostly it’s the map pool. This map pool is insanely good for terran. If you ranked it on a bell curve it’s sigma 2 at least in terms of terran favor-ability. They have guaranteed protoss will never win a premier this year from the map pool alone. TvP just won’t allow it: https://i.imgur.com/BFVkxlQ.png. Those are the HSC 26 win-rates. Terran is busted on this map pool.