Artosis Profile Blog Joined June 2004 United States 2114 Posts #1



To make the point on why you shouldn't take map stats seriously, I will now explain the most obvious flaw to map stats: Nostalgia.



Many people say that Nostalgia was the most balanced map ever. It's progamer map stats back that up as well. With a huge amount of games played on the map, all the matchups were really close to even with each other.



The problem is, progamer skill wasn't balanced at the time.



When Nostalgia was popular, the best 3 players in the world were NaDa, Boxer, and iloveoov. They had been the best players in the world for a while, and they continued on afterwards for a while still.



I shouldn't have to say this, but the best players in the world contribute most to map stats, because they play the most official games (they make it further than everyone else and qualify for more and are invited to more and play more in proleague etc etc etc.).



In addition to this, they were strategic leaders for the world. While the terran domination was in place, there was a huge racial imbalance in Korea. Far more highly skilled terrans than players of other races. I'm not going to look it up, but we can safely assume that during this era the KeSPA top 30 was dominated by the terran race.



Now, if we have the 3 best players in the world as terran players, and the top 30 of KeSPA being dominated by terrans, a balanced map should have win % stats in FAVOR of terran. Nostalgia has terran winning at approximately 50%, and thus is a very imbalanced map. The stats alone for this map mean nothing. Don't ever let anyone tell you that Nostalgia is balanced. Because its not.



Map stats are not completely useless. When you know a lot about the progaming scene, current top players, and the current evolution of popular strategies, then you can read between the lines and figure out a map's real balance.



I notice when people discuss map balance, they often quote the progamer's map statistics as proof as to whether or not a map is balanced. This has always been faulty. Map balance is a very complex thing to analyze, and to pretend that a group of statistics from professional games can sum it up is ignorant.To make the point on why you shouldn't take map stats seriously, I will now explain the most obvious flaw to map stats: Nostalgia.Many people say that Nostalgia was the most balanced map ever. It's progamer map stats back that up as well. With a huge amount of games played on the map, all the matchups were really close to even with each other.The problem is, progamer skill wasn't balanced at the time.When Nostalgia was popular, the best 3 players in the world were NaDa, Boxer, and iloveoov. They had been the best players in the world for a while, and they continued on afterwards for a while still.I shouldn't have to say this, but the best players in the world contribute most to map stats, because they play the most official games (they make it further than everyone else and qualify for more and are invited to more and play more in proleague etc etc etc.).In addition to this, they were strategic leaders for the world. While the terran domination was in place, there was a huge racial imbalance in Korea. Far more highly skilled terrans than players of other races. I'm not going to look it up, but we can safely assume that during this era the KeSPA top 30 was dominated by the terran race.Now, if we have the 3 best players in the world as terran players, and the top 30 of KeSPA being dominated by terrans, a balanced map should have win % stats in FAVOR of terran. Nostalgia has terran winning at approximately 50%, and thus is a very imbalanced map. The stats alone for this map mean nothing. Don't ever let anyone tell you that Nostalgia is balanced. Because its not.Map stats are not completely useless. When you know a lot about the progaming scene, current top players, and the current evolution of popular strategies, then you can read between the lines and figure out a map's real balance. Commentator http://twitter.com/Artosis