Rarefaction Profile Joined April 2011 United States 19 Posts Last Edited: 2011-04-06 23:29:48 #1 Hello TeamLiquid Community,



tl;dr I'm interested in doing a statistical analysis of SC2. I need as many people as possible to send me their ENTIRE AUTOSAVED replay folders at StarcraftNeedsSpreadsheets@gmail.com. Please include your name, character code and league in the email. No, I cannot go to replay sites and download all of the replays because then my data would have a huge selection bias.



The Starcraft 2 community routinely has incredibly heated debates about balance, correct openings or army composition but these debates are intractable because they are based on nothing but anecdotal experience. Usually, these arguments devolve into people claiming they know better because they are in a higher league or a progamer has expressed their viewpoint. At best, people will cite unit statistics or tournament results to support their point. I want to more deeply understand this game. If I get enough replays I will happily share the fruits of my analysis.



For those of you still with me, I assume you want to hear what I plan on doing. I'm building an application on top of SC2Gears which will let me parse replay files to find juicy statistical morsels like "People who made X sentries by the Y minute mark in Platinum PvZ won 150% more games than people who made X+3 sentries or X-3 sentries."



The first few things I plan on looking at are:

1) Efficacy of army compositions vs. race (this is hard but really interesting)

2) Building timings esp. in PvP (low hanging fruit imho. i.e. what is the "perfect" 4-gate)

3) The effect of APM on win %

4) Are there hitherto largely unplayed strategies that are actually highly effective (potential metagame shifts)?



If you are a statistician and want to look at these data too or you can think of other things that can reasonably be gleaned from this dataset, please feel free to email me as well. Keep in mind that replay files are literally just all the actions that occur in a game; I don't own the source code to the game engine so I won't be able to tell exactly what is going on in the game esp. if weird stuff happens with lots of buildings being destroyed or canceled.



Thank you for your time and your replays,



Zander



p.s. please feel free to comment and let me know what you think of my project. Speculation is useless when the tools of certainty are available

Hellie Profile Joined April 2010 Sweden 94 Posts #2 Wow, this is a huge undertaking, props to you for doing it. This'll really be an intresting read when it's out. I'll be sure to send you my pack! It's the least I can do.

StRyKeR Profile Blog Joined January 2006 United States 1702 Posts #3 I have one question for you: I was wanting to do something similar, but needed an SC2 replay parser. I couldn't find an effective, open-source replay parser.



How are you going to parse the replays? Ars longa, vita brevis, principia aeturna.

ThaZenith Profile Blog Joined October 2010 Canada 3082 Posts #4 Great idea, I hope lots of people participate. I for one love statistics, can't wait for results.

thrasher. Profile Joined April 2011 67 Posts #5 On April 07 2011 08:31 StRyKeR wrote:

I have one question for you: I was wanting to do something similar, but needed an SC2 replay parser. I couldn't find an effective, open-source replay parser.



How are you going to parse the replays?





Yo Stryker,



Try out sc2reader:

Yo Stryker,Try out sc2reader: https://github.com/GraylinKim/sc2reader . It's a python based interpreter for replay files. What kind of project were you thinking of? Feel free to shoot me a pm; working on a project of my own.

jamesr12 Profile Blog Joined April 2010 United States 1549 Posts #6 This will have selction bias just like using a replay hosting site, people who visit teamliquid is far from a perfect sample of people who play SC2. Still should yeild some interesting results if you get it done, Im interested in the APM thing the most. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=306479

NoisyNinja Profile Joined February 2011 United States 991 Posts #7 I will send you my replays, but how do you want me to do it? Just mass copy and paste the links to sc2replayed here or is there a specific way you want it done?



I support your project, I just need to know how to send in my replays because I have replays from when I was a newb and replays from when I know what I'm doing.

jcroisdale Profile Blog Joined October 2010 United States 1540 Posts #8 On April 07 2011 08:38 jamesr12 wrote:

This will have selction bias just like using a replay hosting site, people who visit teamliquid is far from a perfect sample of people who play SC2. Still should yeild some interesting results if you get it done, Im interested in the APM thing the most.



But for the sake of bettering ourselves and the game people from teamliquid should be more then adequate. But for the sake of bettering ourselves and the game people from teamliquid should be more then adequate. "I think bringing a toddler to a movie theater is a terrible idea. They are too young to understand what is happening it would be like giving your toddler acid. Bad idea." - Sinensis

omgCRAZY Profile Blog Joined January 2010 Canada 550 Posts #9 On April 07 2011 08:38 jamesr12 wrote:

This will have selction bias just like using a replay hosting site, people who visit teamliquid is far from a perfect sample of people who play SC2. Still should yeild some interesting results if you get it done, Im interested in the APM thing the most.





He may be getting these replays from other communites as well.



This is very cool and I am looking forward to what you find out. Going to send my files. He may be getting these replays from other communites as well.This is very cool and I am looking forward to what you find out. Going to send my files. THIS NEEDS FACE!

Rarefaction Profile Joined April 2011 United States 19 Posts #10 I'm totally aware that TL readers is not free from selection bias but it is infinitely more reliable than all of the ZOMG epic games posted to replay sites. I don't want results telling me that the most effective possible army is a combination of Broodlords, Infestors and Colossi that you built after NPing a probe. Speculation is useless when the tools of certainty are available

SoLaR[i.C] Profile Blog Joined August 2003 United States 2969 Posts #11 I deleted my auto-saved replays from the previous season, would you be interested in those that have been saved since 1.3 only?



Also, if you're worried about selection bias, you could easily come up with a declustering scheme. I do it all the time for dealing with oversampling in specific spatial regions and it works like a charm.

Wr3k Profile Blog Joined June 2009 Canada 2533 Posts #12 Done, though I only had replays since 1.3

Rarefaction Profile Joined April 2011 United States 19 Posts #13 On April 07 2011 08:55 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:

I deleted my auto-saved replays from the previous season, would you be interested in those that have been saved since 1.3 only?



Also, if you're worried about selection bias, you could easily come up with a declustering scheme. I do it all the time for dealing with oversampling in specific spatial regions and it works like a charm.



SC2Gears has no trouble parsing replays before 1.3, therefore I will have no problem doing stats on them! Please submit all autosaved replays that you have regardless of version type! SC2Gears has no trouble parsing replays before 1.3, therefore I will have no problem doing stats on them! Please submit all autosaved replays that you have regardless of version type! Speculation is useless when the tools of certainty are available

StorM__ Profile Joined June 2010 Germany 88 Posts #14 Done, send my replays folder since patch 1.3

Dissonance23 Profile Joined September 2010 United States 259 Posts #15 On April 07 2011 08:40 NoisyNinja wrote:

I will send you my replays, but how do you want me to do it? Just mass copy and paste the links to sc2replayed here or is there a specific way you want it done?



I support your project, I just need to know how to send in my replays because I have replays from when I was a newb and replays from when I know what I'm doing.





lets you upload whole replay packs if you don't want to do everything individually. http://drop.sc lets you upload whole replay packs if you don't want to do everything individually.

Informat Profile Joined July 2010 Canada 45 Posts #16 Wow, so much work you're gonna have to do. I respect you for that! Good luck!

Rarefaction Profile Joined April 2011 United States 19 Posts #17 On April 07 2011 09:05 Dissonance23 wrote:

Show nested quote +

On April 07 2011 08:40 NoisyNinja wrote:

I will send you my replays, but how do you want me to do it? Just mass copy and paste the links to sc2replayed here or is there a specific way you want it done?



I support your project, I just need to know how to send in my replays because I have replays from when I was a newb and replays from when I know what I'm doing.





lets you upload whole replay packs if you don't want to do everything individually. http://drop.sc lets you upload whole replay packs if you don't want to do everything individually.



Most people are just sending .rars or .zips to me at Starcraftneedsspreadsheets@gmail.com which is preferable. Please remember to include your character name, code and league so I don't have to look these things up!

Most people are just sending .rars or .zips to me at Starcraftneedsspreadsheets@gmail.com which is preferable. Please remember to include your character name, code and league so I don't have to look these things up! Speculation is useless when the tools of certainty are available

cowsrule Profile Joined February 2010 United States 79 Posts Last Edited: 2011-04-07 00:10:03 #18 Do you really want pre-1.3 replays though? I feel that balance fixes would affect the patterns you are looking for (i.e. a particular strat was popular - 5rax reaper - but now you never see it).



Edit: I think its a cool idea, and I'm sure you can filter 1.1 vs 1.2 vs 1.3 etc in sc2 gears so it may not matter.

Rarefaction Profile Joined April 2011 United States 19 Posts #19 On April 07 2011 09:08 cowsrule wrote:

Do you really want pre-1.3 replays though? I feel that balance fixes would affect the patterns you are looking for (i.e. a particular strat was popular - 5rax reaper - but now you never see it).



Edit: I think its a cool idea, and I'm sure you can filter 1.1 vs 1.2 vs 1.3 etc in sc2 gears so it may not matter.



Yes, SC2Gears lets me filter by version. Yes, SC2Gears lets me filter by version. Speculation is useless when the tools of certainty are available

imPERSONater Profile Blog Joined April 2010 United States 1323 Posts #20 Well I sent one zipped pack, the other one was too large :/ Good luck! I'll be interested in the results Fan of: IdrA, Sen, Stephano, Snute, Axlav, Hero

1 2 3 4 Next All