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Balance Battles is making its return on Saturday November 17th on NA! New location on ZanderFever.tv!
I'll start by saying that I don't consider this a "Tournament" so this isn't being posted in the SC2 Tournament section. I consider this more along the lines of a fun event so I'll post this in SC2 General, similar to Kings of Tin or Off The Record in terms of "general fun". And as far as advertising goes, I'm not making(or planning to make) a single cent off of this event! Anyways, enough with that...
Presents! BALANCE BATTLES!Reigning Champion:Anopob - Random - Diamond - 3 Wins - Episode 1 Mokomi - Protoss- Masters- 3 Wins - Episode 2 Previous episodes: + Show Spoiler +
Have you ever had that higher league friend that you want to play against but it just isn't fair? Ever have that lower league friend that you impose restrictions on yourself to play? Then you know exactly what I'm talking about for this event!
Hi, I'm feardragon. I'm a diamond level Protoss player and amateur caster attending Purdue University. This means I have the privilege of casting Purdue University's CSL(Collegiate Starleague) games every week, but unfortunately we got knocked out so I'm looking for something new to do on a weekly basis so I can continue to improve my casting! This is why I came up with the idea for Balance Battles!
What is Balance Battles? Well Balance Battles is a King of the Hill style arena that is live-streamed on my channel! In this, two randomly selected players will face off and the winner will stay for the next round. The objective is to stay as many games as possible. The map will be chosen from the map pool at random. But wait, why would anyone not in masters league enter this?
That's where the fun comes in! I've created a list of handicaps that will be imposed on players based on their and their opponent's league. What this means is, a bronze level player will have a fighting chance of taking out a masters league player, and so on and so forth! Sounds more interesting now? Well take a look at the list of handicaps I've come up with for now. I'll note that a "unit" means a non-worker unit and that a "worker" involves anything that can mine(MULE's included): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aku9XbcmLY70dHZfQW9NSDQwRldrQmlPTHloLXZFaHc
Well what do you win? For now, I don't intend to have a prize. This first event is going to be a test run to see how things go, and to give some of these handicaps a chance to be balanced out a bit. If there is enough interest, I will start to offer out some fabulous prizes(most likely small amounts of cash). There has been some suggestions to give the winner some space on my stream or do an interview that I'd play during the breaks and such to give them some fame and air time! I really like that idea so let me know what you think about that! But don't fret about money! Participation in the event is completely free so there's no reason not to join!
So come on over! The next event will take place on Saturday November 17th, 5pm Eastern, 2pm Pacific. Here's the link to the stream everything will take place on: http://www.twitch.tv/zanderfever2
To participate: Go ahead and join the chat channel "BalanceBattle" on Starcraft when the event starts. Unfortunately for now, this event will only take place on North America. If this somehow magically garners enough interest, I will look into doing this on the EU as well!
Some Other Notes: Restrictions are still up for balancing so please feel free to put up suggestions and comments about the current restrictions before and after the event. Keep in mind when making suggestions that only restrictions that can be monitored can be used. For example, I would love to do an Off The Record style restriction of putting someone in a bear suit or telling them they can't use their keyboard, but because I have no way of monitoring this, I can't impose these restrictions. Participation in the event is completely free and no ads will be run on my stream. I'm doing this because I absolutely love casting and want more opportunities to practice it, so this is going to be a weekly event!
Additional rules and definitions: In the ruleset, I'm considering a unit anything that does not mine with observers and overseers excluded. Workers are considered anything that mines(including MULEs). Queens do not break the unit restriction as long as there is only one per hatchery. If a player wins two matches in a row, they will be subject to a higher league handicap or their opponent will have a lower league handicap. In the case of this with Masters vs Bronze, two restrictions will be applied to the Masters player. The caster also reserves the right to call a winner in a draw-situation. Voting from the chat for said situation will be likely.
Lastly, if you're interested in checking out some of my casting, you can find my youtube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/feardragon64 . I consistently release Starcraft casts there so if you like my commentary, please follow me on my twitch channel and subscribe to my youtube page. =]
Hope you guys decide to participate and/or tune in! I'm highly accepting of feedback on both the event and my own casting so please feel free to leave it in the comments and I'll be sure to read it! Thanks! <3
Edit: Changed image of handicaps to an excel spreadsheet for easy changing.
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Too bad it's NA only. Also you should've posted this into the Tourneys section, PM a mod to move it EDIT: Took a look at your handicap table, there's one that's pretty bad, gold vs bronze, may not use any detection at all. So basically the bronze player can just make a dt/banshee and win, nothing the goldie can do about it?
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Thanks for the quick response.
Hmm, I felt this wasn't really a tournament. More just a fun event but I suppose if it really just comes across as one, I'll ask a mod to move the thread.
As for the handicap you pointed out, I see your point. Maybe I should change it to only static detection such as cannons, turrets and spore crawlers(no observers, ravens, overseers or scans)? Let me know what you think!
P.S. I'm thinking that for a more dynamic way to show everything, I might just link an excel spreadsheet that I can update with the handicaps instead of having to update an image.
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On April 15 2012 07:39 feardragon wrote: Thanks for the quick response.
Hmm, I felt this wasn't really a tournament. More just a fun event but I suppose if it really just comes across as one, I'll ask a mod to move the thread.
As for the handicap you pointed out, I see your point. Maybe I should change it to only static detection such as cannons, turrets and spore crawlers(no observers, ravens, overseers or scans)? Let me know what you think!
P.S. I'm thinking that for a more dynamic way to show everything, I might just link an excel spreadsheet that I can update with the handicaps instead of having to update an image. Yeah static detection only would be ok for a hancicap. Looking like this might be pretty fun, I'll surely check it out as it's something new and exciting
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This sounds entirely hillarious, the NA constraint will deny me access though,
Very much good luck and i sincerely hope that the sucsess will expand this great undertaking to feudal and occasinally tribal europe
Much respect to you sir!
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I understand that this event is purely for fun, yet those handicaps are really imbalanced ^.^
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On April 15 2012 07:50 Quimstr wrote: I understand that this event is purely for fun, yet those handicaps are really imbalanced ^.^
If you try to watch some bronze players, for example on lifesaglitchtv, you will come to realise that this will still be an upphill battle for the fine alloy people out there
Also OP i think you should try to take really hard precausions against smurfs in this tournament, as they are experts in the craft of ruining the fun of these kinds of events.
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The only one I have a problem with is that Gold vs Bronze, gold can not use any form of detection.
Seems kind of insta win if Bronze just makes one Dark Templar
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This seems pretty interesting! However I would recommend changing the masters->diamond handicap in someway, right now it seems like every attack will have to be all-in and that probably won't make for any interesting/fun games (I'm thinking for example TvZ 2rax all-in every game). Also, the 50% handicap I think is too strong, but I'm not sure how much you have tried these handicaps so nvm if you think they're okay :/
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The master vs plat handicap of 50% hp units is pretty hard... you pretty much have to go P and hope your opponent isn't P. The gold and silver handicaps are easier challenges even if you had them while playing a plat.
I would take out the "may only have 20 supply army" as that's sorta hard to regulate(you just dq them if they make one unit too many?) and it doesn't really help the silver that much anyways unless you add no rush to it. I think the plat level challenge would probably be more appropriate for silver vs master.
I like the idea though ^^ and it's a cool way of having it so everyone can play.
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Thanks for the feedback! It's good to see there's some interest outside of NA! I do have two accounts and if there is enough interest, I will look into moving one of my accounts to EU to hold this event there. So stay tuned and express interest if you're on the EU server! You can at least check out the stream. =]
Updated the handicap list to an excel spreadsheet for easier updating of ideas.
On April 15 2012 07:59 Nibbler89 wrote: The master vs plat handicap of 50% hp units is pretty hard... you pretty much have to go P and hope your opponent isn't P. The gold and silver handicaps are easier challenges even if you had them while playing a plat. Hmm, I'll look into this one. Thanks for the feedback! I'll see if I can make it a bit more fair. Maybe you would suggest swapping them around?
On April 15 2012 07:59 Nibbler89 wrote:I would take out the "may only have 20 supply army" as that's sorta hard to regulate(you just dq them if they make one unit too many?) and it doesn't really help the silver that much anyways unless you add no rush to it. I think the plat level challenge would probably be more appropriate for silver vs master. The way I intended to regulate a lot of these was if a rule was broken, I would(as a ref in the match) tell them that they had to kill off some of their army. A similar thing would work for a lot of the other rules such as: you can't expand until you scout your opponent's expansion. I would tell them in chat they needed to cancel/kill their own expansion or they would be dq'd. I will look into swapping the handicap with the Silver vs Master matchup though! Thanks!
On April 15 2012 07:59 Nibbler89 wrote: I like the idea though ^^ and it's a cool way of having it so everyone can play. Thanks! I hope you decide to come or tune in! =D
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oo this sounds like an awesome event!
I have one suggestion tho. If all the handicaps are preset, then each player will be playing a very similar game each round. Why don't you have a large list of minor handicaps, and then the lower league player choose a number of handicaps equal to league difference. Then players can strategize according to chosen handicaps, and maybe even find good combos between handicaps.
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50% hp units is completly broken, just a move your workers = freewin. Even 90% is still broken and i think a platinum player can pull off a 12drone rush.
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On April 15 2012 08:03 Chairman Ray wrote: oo this sounds like an awesome event!
I have one suggestion tho. If all the handicaps are preset, then each player will be playing a very similar game each round. Why don't you have a large list of minor handicaps, and then the lower league player choose a number of handicaps equal to league difference. Then players can strategize according to chosen handicaps, and maybe even find good combos between handicaps. I really like this idea! I might try this in the future but the only thing I'd be wary about would be that every handicap would have to be pretty equal or the same issue would come up with people picking the same set of handicaps every game anyways. But thanks for the suggestion! It's definitely something I'll look into.
On April 15 2012 08:12 idonthinksobro wrote: 50% hp units is completly broken, just a move your workers = freewin. Even 90% is still broken and i think a platinum player can pull off a 12drone rush. I'll look into this one. From personal experience, I was in Plat for a while and I've played, between super macro and better micro, it's doable but do you think maybe the handicap should just lowered to 70%?
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Master still easily beats a platinum player with 70% handicap. I have done multiple games vs diamonds with 70% handicap and won them all but could see how I could possibly lose at least. No way a platinum would beat me if I only had a 70% handicap (maybe with some crazy cheese though but those would be a waste to cast)
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Wow, this sounds really intersting.
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So a master vs a bronze means the master player must defeat the bronze player with workers, and once the bronze player has air units, it's GG?
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On April 15 2012 08:46 Tarz wrote: So a master vs a bronze means the master player must defeat the bronze player with workers, and once the bronze player has air units, it's GG? This is actually a really good point. I'm going to have to think about this one. Going into that, it will also really limit detection for a protoss player. Maybe no defensive structures until the 12 minute mark? I mainly want to prevent players from just cannon rushing, but I suppose if it gets to the 12 minute mark, it's going to be near impossible to win without some kind of damage dealing unit. I think that if there is a cloaked unit or an air unit, a masters player should be able to out macro the damage before they can get up the cannons against a bronzie. =] Does that sound fair?
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Seems like a very good concept. Props.
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A lot of these handicaps are absurd. I can tell you now that the gold/silver handicap is broken, any silver can win that match with no effort. Perhaps change it to "only units out of one type of building at a time"? [EG: Terran: Starport, Protoss: Robo Facility, Zerg: Lairtech]
I also feel as though the handicap is a little too severe for diamonds facing plats, as it encourages all-ins and that manner of not fun things.
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