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Note: I'm not saying this is what I believe, I'm only presenting an argument, sort of as a devil's advocate to the general consensus that seems to exist nowadays.
There are three facts people are mostly in agreement on right now:
1. The game is not very developed and people are not very good at the game yet.
2. Zerg is more challenging to play and is less forgiving of major mistakes.
3. Zerg has been performing poorly at most levels of play, but most interestingly to us, the top level is included.
Now the story that Zerg is weak and underpowered is consistent with these observations.
I want to present an alternative story that is also consistent with these observations:
People are not good enough to play Zerg well, they do not have enough game knowledge and experience and micro -> the total package that's necessary to handle Zerg well enough for its power to be realized. This is also consistent with the observation that after almost every game people are very easily able to identify weaknesses and errors in the Zerg player's play, even at quite high level games.
I don't know much about very early Brood War (right after release), but it's my understanding that at some point early on people believed Terran was weak and Zerg/Protoss tended to win more? If this is a true observation, than it presents a case that could be similar, where it took longer for Terran play to develop (and Terran was/is generally thought of as a harder race to play, compared to Protoss in particular). At high levels of play and game development, though, we see (and saw after a little while too, notice the race distribution of the bonjwas) the power of Terrans.
Now is Zerg too hard comparatively/the other races too easy? Very possible and I'd say probable, we want new players to pick up Zerg too, so the player base grows evenly, and we see interesting games with all 3 races along the way. But there's not yet evidence to say they are weak. We just don't have the information. But if the players of SC2 were of BW Flash level of mechanics and were familiar with 12 years of strategy development in the game, do we know that Zerg would be the weakest? That there wouldn't be a Zerg bonjwa ruling?
Anyone have any good counter-arguments to that?
 
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I think what you mean to say is that "It is not clear that zerg is underpowered."
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Baa?21244 Posts
If one race requires substantially more "skill" to play then there's at the very least something flawed with the design, regardless of balance/imbalance.
Also Terran was weak and got majorly buffed while Zerg/Protoss got nerfed in BW. Please don't further the myth that Terran players just "learned2play" and magically discovered super secret strategies to rape face with. They had Blizzard's help with that.
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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.
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Top 20 players on EU and NA are always only 2-3 Zerg. Explaination?
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On September 21 2010 05:27 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
If one race requires substantially more "skill" to play then there's at the very least something flawed with the design, regardless of balance/imbalance.
Also Terran was weak and got majorly buffed while Zerg/Protoss got nerfed in BW. Please don't further the myth that Terran players just "learned2play" and magically discovered super secret strategies to rape face with. They had Blizzard's help with that.
I agree that it's slightly flawed.
But looking at how BW turned out, might it be fair to say that there was a very, very slight over-reaction and that Terran was over-buffed by a small amount? TvZ has historically been above 50% slightly (with short term fluctuations obviously), most of the very biggest names have been Terran, Terran has the most starleague wins. I don't know TvP historical rate btw, if that's significantly below 50% then point taken.
So I'd say there's at least a little reason to be wary of overbuffing Zerg.
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Calgary25990 Posts
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.
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believed Terran was weak and Zerg/Protoss tended to win more? If this is a true observation, than it presents a case that could be similar, where it took longer for Terran play to develop (and Terran was/is generally thought of as a harder race to play, compared to Protoss in particular).
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.
People are not good enough to play Zerg well, they do not have enough game knowledge and experience and micro -> the total package that's necessary to handle Zerg well enough for its power to be realized.
If a race requires way more skill to play than the other races then there's still something wrong.
Even so, I don't notice anything particularly difficult for Zerg. The micro is certainly not too much more difficult than what Terran has to do, and in all honesty the micro for all races is almost a joke compared to what was required in Brood War so I definitely don't think that's an issue.
As for "game knowledge"....Zerg has the least amount of units (9 vs Terran and Protoss' 11), and honestly the least variation in their build orders. If anything Zerg is the race I'd expect to be "figured out" first.
But there's not yet evidence to say they are weak. We just don't have the information.
The fact that Terrans have won a total of 19 golds and Zergs only 3 doesn't seem like evidence to you? Terrans are owning leagues left and right, and Protoss aren't too far behind. Zerg? Almost non existant.
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it seems telling to me that sc2 terran has way cooler shit than bw terran and sc2 zerg has way less cool shit than sc1 zerg
imbalanced or not, what's up with that?
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I would say that zerg was the most played in korean servers during beta and has 3 less units which allowed them to be used to their full potential early on, so theres not much to discover. And the reason why terrans got so good was because of their continuous buffs
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On September 21 2010 05:47 SubtleArt wrote:As for "game knowledge"....Zerg has the least amount of units (9 vs Terran and Protoss' 11), and honestly the least variation in their build orders. If anything Zerg is the race I'd expect to be "figured out" first. Show nested quote +
But there's not yet evidence to say they are weak. We just don't have the information.
The fact that Terrans have won a total of 19 golds and Zergs only 3 doesn't seem like evidence to you? Terrans are owning leagues left and right, and Protoss aren't too far behind. Zerg? Almost non existant.
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.
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?
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by the way, you haven't made a case for zerg not being underpowered
all you've done is say maybe zerg isn't underpowered
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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.
On September 21 2010 05:55 csfield wrote:
by the way, you haven't made a case for zerg not being underpowered
all you've done is say maybe zerg isn't underpowered
True. But I stated the case that someone saying "They are not underpowered." would use. I just put it in the context of not being able to prove it.
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On September 21 2010 05:41 Chill wrote:
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.
Subtly put. 
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Calgary25990 Posts
On September 21 2010 05:59 ZapRoffo wrote: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. Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 05:55 csfield wrote:
by the way, you haven't made a case for zerg not being underpowered
all you've done is say maybe zerg isn't underpowered True. But I stated the case that someone saying "They are not underpowered." would use. I just put it in the context of not being able to prove it.
Unfortunately if you want to follow that line of reasoning then we can never say one thing is easier than another since we might not be good enough to use them. We can say that until the end of time. At some point you need to draw the line and compare effort in versus results out, instead of just looking at the image of perfection.
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On September 21 2010 05:41 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +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
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On September 21 2010 05:59 ZapRoffo wrote: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. Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 05:55 csfield wrote:
by the way, you haven't made a case for zerg not being underpowered
all you've done is say maybe zerg isn't underpowered True. But I stated the case that someone saying "They are not underpowered." would use. I just put it in the context of not being able to prove it.
I dont think you get the point. Zerg WAS imbalanced in sc. It wasn't Till BW when Terran got medics and Goliaths weren't shit that terran started to do well.
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On September 21 2010 06:09 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 05:59 ZapRoffo wrote: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. On September 21 2010 05:55 csfield wrote:
by the way, you haven't made a case for zerg not being underpowered
all you've done is say maybe zerg isn't underpowered True. But I stated the case that someone saying "They are not underpowered." would use. I just put it in the context of not being able to prove it. Unfortunately if you want to follow that line of reasoning then we can never say one thing is easier than another since we might not be good enough to use them. We can say that until the end of time. At some point you need to draw the line and compare effort in versus results out, instead of just looking at the image of perfection.
Yeah, that's true.
The reason I sort of am trying to get people to think about it a bit is that the community has generally expressed a desire to have as few patches as possible and end up like Brood War which has had no balance patches in a long, long time. So if we are trying to go the same route, don't we want to be pretty careful about what goes into those patches, since the results very well could last the lifetime of the game. (Although maybe with the expansions in the pipeline, it's not as big a concern. I sort of forgot about that.)
This as opposed to say, WoW, which has constantly added content throughout its life and had constant balance fiddling. So it's much more likely for patch changes to not last.
I mean, in The Frozen Throne, the Blademaster sucked for a long time. You couldn't walk through units with Windwalk was the main thing. They patched to be like it is now, he can walk through units and it turns out, he's ridiculous, but it took quite a while for his power to be fully realized.(Frozen Throne released July 2003, Windwalk buff Sept. 2004, People really start saying "Hey, Blademaster is sorta overpowered, Orc becomes considered the strongest race" : 2008-2009) He was overbuffed, but WC3 is done with balance patches, so it's never going to be fixed.
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I think it's not so much Zerg being underpowered as Zerg having less options...
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Calgary25990 Posts
On September 21 2010 06:11 Tabbris wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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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 -.-..
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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EPT
