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The Case for "Zerg is Not Underpowerd" (SC2) - Page 2

Blogs > ZapRoffo
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Tabbris
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Bangladesh2839 Posts
September 20 2010 21:24 GMT
#21
On September 21 2010 06:23 Chill wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 21 2010 06:11 Tabbris wrote:
On September 21 2010 05:41 Chill wrote:
On September 21 2010 05:29 PH wrote:
Terran in BW definitely require more "skill" to play in a mechanical sense...regardless of the way the game was balanced throughout the years, that's definitely how it is now.

And Protoss require the most intuition and Zerg require the most flexibility. So in that sense it was balanced.

If one race is significantly easier to win with than the others, then the game isn't balanced. I'm not saying SC2 is imbalanced, it's just a general statement.

What? explain how protoss required the most intuition? Its More like Terran had the hardest mechanics an not much decision making and zerg required a little less mechanics and greater Decision making. And protoss was just simple. That was why most foreigners where protoss. (My opinion)

That aside The matchup where totally harder for one side over the other. PvZ was harder for P and TvP was harder for T. Without the proscene you would never get the sense of balance Because it seemed like you had to be better than your opponent to win certain match ups

Protoss required the most intuition because there were a lot of early game times where they were vulnerable but couldn't scout, so they needed to make the right assumptions to prepare properly.

Ah True -.-..
ZapRoffo
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States5544 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-20 21:28:57
September 20 2010 21:28 GMT
#22
Oh yeah, the final part of the Blademaster story: Tons of people move to SC2 as their "serious game" because WC3 never really achieved the balance/depth/lifespan (not only b/c of the blademaster obviously) of BW.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, your opinion man
Tabbris
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Bangladesh2839 Posts
September 20 2010 21:30 GMT
#23
On September 21 2010 06:28 ZapRoffo wrote:
Oh yeah, the final part of the Blademaster story: Tons of people move to SC2 as their "serious game" because WC3 never really achieved the balance/depth/lifespan (not only b/c of the blademaster obviously) of BW.

Yeah i heard that game was majorly imbalanced. I like WC3 tho it was fun. I was never completive tho
SubtleArt
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
2710 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-20 22:26:03
September 20 2010 22:24 GMT
#24
Game knowledge is referring to a continually building sense of the interactions between all the strategies that have been developed, what timings exist when any of them meet, etc.. Really has nothing to do with how many units there are, since it basically requires just as much knowledge of the enemy's units and timings as your own.


This just sounds like some vague and generic stuff a game developer spews out in an inteview. Less units means less variation in unit composition, less builds and army compositions to explore, etc. If the second part of what you're saying is true, that you require knowledge of your enemy units as well, then I think you're contradicting the first part of your argument (theres so much complexity + game knowledge required with Zerg compared to every1 else), because this just means that the level of understanding should theoretically be the same for both races in a matchup. Now, if Zerg requires more awareness and more adaption than the other races, then to me that's a flaw in the game too.

That is evidence that at our current level of play, Terran is stronger. Whether that's because they are absolutely stronger or because Zerg requires better mechanics and sense of timing, and their power scales with player skill more (and requires higher than what exists currently to really realize the results), what evidence is there to say one or the other?


No, the wins I was referring to are all higher level tournaments of varying importance (check the tournament roundups). The fact that Terran is dominating all higher level tourneys, as well as most rankings (check EU's top 20), and low level play, is pretty telling. Honestly I don't know how much more evidence you'd like.

Show nested quote +
On September 21 2010 05:47 SubtleArt wrote:

The reason Zerg was the best in the beginning was because in Starcraft 1 Terran was by far the worst race and Zerg the strongest. As a result way more people played Zerg in Sc1, and so Zerg was the top race when BW debuted because it was already played by an overwhelming majority, and therefore people were used to it more. So few people even touched Terran before BW, so it's understandable that in the beginning they were clueless on how to play it.


Also, that fits exactly what I'm saying. Look how Terran turned out. Which is why it is a mistake to overreact to the current state. React: good to an extent, with caution.


What? No it doesn't. Theres very little difference between the amount of time and the amount of people have played Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. If anything, Zerg was the most common race during Beta. By "most people played ZErg in Sc1" I mean 90% upward. Other races were almost non existent during the time, so no, there's a big difference between the 2 examples.

Morrow on ZvP: "I'm not very confident in general vs Protoss because of the imbalance (Yes its imbalanced, get over it)."
red.venom
Profile Joined October 2002
United States4651 Posts
September 20 2010 22:24 GMT
#25
On September 21 2010 06:22 Saracen wrote:
I think it's not so much Zerg being underpowered as Zerg having less options...


I mean I agree with this in a way, there are only so many variations you can do to get to lair with 2 hatcheries on 2 bases buuuut the ground units aside from baneling cost for cost perform pretty terribly vs Terran

and vs toss before hive tech its pretty easy to get put into situations where you will lose 10% or more of your army just for feinting an attack and getting forcefielded. Not that the units cant compete vs Toss but just saying that if P hits critical mass before you even coming near the opponents army = dead.

I guess what I think Z lacks is a solid defensive option. Spines don't do shit and the maps are too open to really place them perfectly and outplaying a "ball" of Protoss or Terran from a behind position is ridiculously hard even vs the most a-moving 50apm player
Broom
SubtleArt
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
2710 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-20 22:28:56
September 20 2010 22:27 GMT
#26
On September 21 2010 07:24 red.venom wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 21 2010 06:22 Saracen wrote:
I think it's not so much Zerg being underpowered as Zerg having less options...


I mean I agree with this in a way, there are only so many variations you can do to get to lair with 2 hatcheries on 2 bases buuuut the ground units aside from baneling cost for cost perform pretty terribly vs Terran

and vs toss before hive tech its pretty easy to get put into situations where you will lose 10% or more of your army just for feinting an attack and getting forcefielded. Not that the units cant compete vs Toss but just saying that if P hits critical mass before you even coming near the opponents army = dead.

I guess what I think Z lacks is a solid defensive option. Spines don't do shit and the maps are too open to really place them perfectly and outplaying a "ball" of Protoss or Terran from a behind position is ridiculously hard even vs the most a-moving 50apm player


I also think Zerg lacks scouting. as a terran I really find it unfair how easily I can scout Zerg and prepare a variety of obscure pushes and tech rushes, while the Zerg really can't do anything sneaky to me unless I suck.

I still agree with the less options part though. I played Zerg during the late stages of Beta and first 2 weeks of retail but I found there was no way I could effectively pressure Terran without over committing or going all in. Wall + bunker shuts down and early pushes, and thors completely crush an air harass.
Morrow on ZvP: "I'm not very confident in general vs Protoss because of the imbalance (Yes its imbalanced, get over it)."
ZapRoffo
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States5544 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-21 00:20:17
September 21 2010 00:15 GMT
#27
On September 21 2010 07:24 SubtleArt wrote:
Show nested quote +
Game knowledge is referring to a continually building sense of the interactions between all the strategies that have been developed, what timings exist when any of them meet, etc.. Really has nothing to do with how many units there are, since it basically requires just as much knowledge of the enemy's units and timings as your own.


This just sounds like some vague and generic stuff a game developer spews out in an inteview. Less units means less variation in unit composition, less builds and army compositions to explore, etc. If the second part of what you're saying is true, that you require knowledge of your enemy units as well, then I think you're contradicting the first part of your argument (theres so much complexity + game knowledge required with Zerg compared to every1 else), because this just means that the level of understanding should theoretically be the same for both races in a matchup. Now, if Zerg requires more awareness and more adaption than the other races, then to me that's a flaw in the game too.

Just because the information that is relevant to both sides is similar doesn't mean they have to have the same degree of knowledge. If there's a timing window for Zerg that's quite small, they have to be very precise and accurate in knowing what to look for, but if it's more devastating when they hit it right and could force big changes in other races play, it doesn't mean they are less powerful. It just might not be discovered yet with our low knowledge of the game and all the matchups. Or they require better mechanics than people are currently at. Whereas for example, a Terran timing window might be larger, requiring less knowledge to identify, and we see those results now.

Show nested quote +
That is evidence that at our current level of play, Terran is stronger. Whether that's because they are absolutely stronger or because Zerg requires better mechanics and sense of timing, and their power scales with player skill more (and requires higher than what exists currently to really realize the results), what evidence is there to say one or the other?


No, the wins I was referring to are all higher level tournaments of varying importance (check the tournament roundups). The fact that Terran is dominating all higher level tourneys, as well as most rankings (check EU's top 20), and low level play, is pretty telling. Honestly I don't know how much more evidence you'd like.

You are not understanding what I'm saying, that "high level" you talk about is really not that high. Think about Flash's level at BW terran in mechanics and understanding of the race and strategy and Jaedong's leval at BW Zerg, compared to Tester's level at SC2 Protoss and Morrow's level at SC2 Terran. In the scheme of things like that, Tester and Morrow are not high level. We haven't reached high level.

Show nested quote +
On September 21 2010 05:47 SubtleArt wrote:

The reason Zerg was the best in the beginning was because in Starcraft 1 Terran was by far the worst race and Zerg the strongest. As a result way more people played Zerg in Sc1, and so Zerg was the top race when BW debuted because it was already played by an overwhelming majority, and therefore people were used to it more. So few people even touched Terran before BW, so it's understandable that in the beginning they were clueless on how to play it.


Also, that fits exactly what I'm saying. Look how Terran turned out. Which is why it is a mistake to overreact to the current state. React: good to an extent, with caution.


What? No it doesn't. Theres very little difference between the amount of time and the amount of people have played Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. If anything, Zerg was the most common race during Beta. By "most people played ZErg in Sc1" I mean 90% upward. Other races were almost non existent during the time, so no, there's a big difference between the 2 examples.


OK I see what you are saying, but right now I'd say it's starting to lean in that direction (not as drastically), Zerg is making up a small % of the upper level play, so developments at high level might be slower. Saying Zerg was popular in the beta is like 1 month at the very beginning is similar to saying maybe people liked Terran at the very, very start of SC1, before people quickly realized they sucked balls. It's an inconsequential amount of time in a totally different game (1 food roaches). [/quote]

People think Zerg is hard/bad, so fewer people are playing it, slowing strategy development. People had little experience with playing Terran/it had a small player base at the start of BW, slowing strategy development.
Both are considered the hard races to play mechanically.
BW Terran with some balance tweaks ended up as probably the "top race" with the most famous/dominant players and most starleague wins.
Future of Zerg: Depends a lot, but we don't know. What I don't think should happen is for it to go the way of Orc in Frozen Throne (considered weak but turned out to have been overbuffed--discovered quite a while after the buffs happened--once people figured out how to abuse their strengths).

Of course there's not enough time before the expansions for that whole cycle to happen, so it's all moot, I'm being theoretical now. It'll matter after the last expansion I think.

Might as well adjust the foundations to have a good future now instead of getting into nitty gritty balance details, and make the races more comparable in difficulty.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, your opinion man
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