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Contrary to what many responses to this have been, this blog is NOT 'Why does Idra play Zerg?' I didn't ask that, as not only does it not matter to the question I pose, and we already know the answer.
Last night, I was watching the State of The Game, thoroughly enjoying Idra being his typical self. I think he's a great addition to the show- his knowledge and opinions bring something extra to the table that I don't think anyone else could match. But while he was talking to Sean about balance and whatnot (which I enjoyed for the first 3 minutes or so before it got a little less friendly and less productive), my girlfriend asked me something. I think she normally doesn't really know what they're talking about, but sometimes pays attention to the discussion. But the importance of this question shouldn't take that into account.
Her: "What does he [Idra] play?"
Me: "Zerg."
Her: "Why does he play it if he thinks it's the worst one?"
Me: "He... well, it's like.... He, umm... I couldn't tell you."
Such a simple question, and yet it requires such a complex answer.
So the question I'm asking is not why does Idra play Zerg, but rather what causes a progamer, even perhaps one of the best professionals in the world, to think that their race is the weakest one? I remember watching Huk's stream at one point, perhaps a month ago, and he was talking to Dayvie Kim about professionals and balance whining. Kim told him that his theory was that every professional will gradually start to think that their race is the most UP the longer they play it. Huk responded to this by saying "But I don't think that," and if I remember correctly, Kim said that he would, eventually, if his theory held true. There are certainly many professionals that don't cry UP about their race, but a lot do.
I've got a couple theories, but I want to know what you guys think. One is that they just only want to play the race that they love, but it shouldn't really apply to professionals, as they are trying to win tournaments and love for a particular race shouldn't factor into what race they play. Another is that they become hyper-aware of the weaknesses of their race and less aware of the weaknesses of other races that they have much less experience with- making their race appear to have the most weaknesses and even flaws.
 
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he practices zerg. not terran and toss. his terran and toss are worse than his zerg.
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On May 05 2011 03:39 Diglett wrote:
he practices zerg. not terran and toss. his terran and toss are worse than his zerg.
never thought about it like that. so he does not practice protoss because he practices zerg, thats why he doesnt switch.
i think he just cant switch, he has toi much self respect. he switches -> everyone bashing on idra ^^
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If you play a race a lot, you will feel like there are certain things that you can't deal with and those linger in your mind. This causes you to believe your race is weak. Thats what Dayvie is saying.
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In my opinion it's just pride. He is proud to always be an underdog to himself. Switching races would go against everything he's been saying for ages.
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Because he still thinks Zerg are awesome?
It's like somebody who plays Skaven in Warhammer fantasy; he knows they're weak but doesn't care because they're awesome. Sure you could play High Elves or Lizardmen or something boring like that, but where's the fun?
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When you play a certain race, you become more aware of the things that will kill you. For example, as a Protoss player, I get shit scared thinking about how to deal with baneling drops combined with multiple attack paths from a Zerg player would probably destroy me. I can also see how from the Zerg point of view, and endless maze of force fields would be extremely annoying, making your units feel useless.
I guess my answer would be that as you play your race more, you'll start to really become aware of when you feel the weakest, knowing that if your opponent chose that moment to attack it would be game over.
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EDIT: Whoops wrong thread.
Go and check out "NaDa's Body" in BW General and the Most Sexyful one in SC2 while you're at it
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Nice name. 30 rock reference? Yeah you raise some
interesting points. I guess Zerg just felt the most comfortable to him. That's why I chose the race I play.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
He's been making comments about balance, how would it look if he switched race. You have fans that are connected to the race you play. Most zerg players will root for other zerg players and so on; they have somewhat of a connection with one another just as other races do.
Switching would mean to a lot of people, backstabbing. All the time he would be so vocal about other races advantages and then switching to those races would make him seem very hypocritical. Like comments where he would say something like the person won because of their race, not by skill. He would look dumb if he decided to switch to protoss after making comments like that.
edit: Pride has a lot to do with it too
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1) The game will always be unbalanced
2) Takes a lot of time to get good with a different race
So can either choose to:
a) play catch up by playing the flavor of the month race. And be always bad due lack of practice
b) gamble that someday the one race you're practicing will be balanced "enough", and you'll be competitive
Most people choose the gamble and pick option b).
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It could simply be answered as he has the most fun playing Zerg. In the end, only IdrA really knows the answer.
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I assume people want to play the race they actually enjoy, despite them feeling it may be underpowered. The motivation to improve is probably less if you don't even enjoy the race you're playing, but only play it because you consider it overpowered.
Besides, if it actually is imbalanced and it gets fixed in future patches, all that time learning a new race and ALL the timings will be pretty much wasted as you will probably switch back to the race you actually enjoy.
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I'm pretty sure when he was first panning through races to use he chose zerg becuase he thought it played torwards the macro oriented strengths he developed during BW.
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Ego seems like a big one. I'd do it, say that its the worst race and then play it and destroy people-
means balance is nothing to your skill level. Or its just him not wanting to look like a turncoat (also another valid reason lol).
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why did Artosis switch to Protoss?
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IdrA has honestly answered this question a million times.... Go do some research before making a thread about it.
Blizzard will eventually patch zerg, so why would he switch races and have to put a TON of time into learning this new race? He's waiting it out, it's better.
This is what idrA has stated multiple times
/thread
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If hes switches right now, he wont be ever as good in protoss or terran as he is now as zerg. Its too late for him. Artosis sucks after he switched races and will prolly never come back.
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He's already stated before that the reason he doesn't bother switching race is because he's spent so much time practising zerg that it would take ages for him to get to the same level with T or P. Then also the fact that Blizzard is still patching the game so it's possible that zerg won't be the worst race (in idra's opinion) at some point in the future; making all the time he spent trying to learn another race a complete waste of time.
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Because he's been playing Zerg ever since the beta came out, which is basically a year at this point. It would be a huge waste to switch now after all this time, especially considering the game's flaws should be addressed soon. On top of that he says he likes Zerg and its fits his style. Not sure why you didn't just do a search, Idras answered this like 10 times already.
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Idra took the race he thought the most disadvantaged in BW. He did so again in SC2. He likes complaining about both yet still plays them.
I say he's a masochist.
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why do people bring this up, he's explained it hundreds of times -_-
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Idra started playing Z because him and artosis thought it was going to be the best race and it fit his play-style better, he kept playing it because of his pride. I think I would agree with david, its easy to feel weekness in your race because you can see your weaknesses and what your having a hard time with
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I honestly think he is just using his position to try and influence balance changes by Blizzard in the future.
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Why did you neeed to make a blog about this, he has answered this question many times. Or you could have just used comon sense to deduce that 1) It would take a long time (months and months) to good enough with another race to be competitive and 2)There's always the chance that blizzard fixes something and then he'd just have just switched for nothing.
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On May 05 2011 06:01 ExquisiteRed wrote:
Why did you neeed to make a blog about this, he has answered this question many times. Or you could have just used comon sense to deduce that 1) It would take a long time (months and months) to good enough with another race to be competitive and 2)There's always the chance that blizzard fixes something and then he'd just have just switched for nothing.
didn't he say that a few months ago? he would've profited from switching. then again Terran was probably OP back then
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I recall him saying the exact same things like 2 months after SC2's release, too. If he just switched back then, maybe he wouldn't continue to be sitting around waiting for a miracle to happen?
Its nothing but ego. He wants to feel like he's superior, and that he's just getting held-back because the powers-that-be haven't figured it out, yet.
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On May 05 2011 04:38 NoobSh1t wrote:
IdrA has honestly answered this question a million times.... Go do some research before making a thread about it.
Blizzard will eventually patch zerg, so why would he switch races and have to put a TON of time into learning this new race? He's waiting it out, it's better.
This is what idrA has stated multiple times
/thread
As well as him saying Zerg fits his playstyle more than T or P. Can't believe so many noobs don't realize this.
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The entire SC2 mess aside, we're talking about a person who has claimed, since forever, that Terran is the weakest race in Brood War, and that Brood War is imbalanced but that somehow, mysteriously, everything comes together nicely.
The way he perceives "imbalance" or, recently, "bad game design" makes it impossible to reason with him on the subject. If he sees balance issues in Brood War after over a decade of it being a professional esport played on a very high level, no matter which game you have him play, he will find balance issues in it as well.
It's in the nature of many gamers to perceive every game problem that they don't know how to solve as a balance issue. Here are 3 basic steps in Idra's imbalance logic:
1) Describe the latest gameplay problems of his race.
2) State that he doesn't know how to solve these problems.
3) Declare imbalance.
4) Challenge anyone who disagrees to solve the problems.
He literally makes an instant jump from "I/We/You don't know how to deal with this" to "it's impossible/unfair".
I guarantee you that he will NEVER be happy with the state of the game balance-wise (not in this game, not in any other game). Even if he switched race to Protoss, the moment Zergs find a way to deal with Protoss late game maxed army or a patch comes out and the moment current Protoss standards (which are really bad by the way) stop working, he will once again declare imbalance as he will see no way Protoss can keep up in economy while turtling, or whatever.
Ultimately, his idea that you should be able to play Starcraft completely "safely" without paying for that safety (by ether having a bad economy or being unable to do any aggression or scout) will never be implemented in the game, because it is contrary to Starcraft principles.
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It's been already mentioned quite often that most of the pros during beta felt that Zerg would have the most options overall and had a higher skill ceiling. Idra since says that it takes a long time to successfully transition out of his current level and game knowledge to a different race.
Edit:
I also want to point out:
On May 05 2011 06:36 Talin wrote:
1) Describe the latest gameplay problems of his race.
2) State that he doesn't know how to solve these problems.
3) Declare imbalance.
4) Challenge anyone who disagrees to solve the problems.
He literally makes an instant jump from "I/We/You don't know how to deal with this" to "it's impossible/unfair".
If you listen to that podcast again it never really gets heated, but Idra asks two simple questions of Day9; how can Zerg scout efficiently in the early game (when Protoss and Terran can) AND/OR if they can't obtain that intel, how can Zerg defend efficiently without it being at best 50/50 (especially since they cannot wall-in).
I KNOW that nobody can answer this question, or they would be already a wildly successful Zerg to which there are currently none (Idra admits he won IPL since it was filled with very weak players - the only competitors were Kiwi and Select pretty much).
Day9 could not answer it plain and simple, I love Day9, but biases aside he at best said we need to approach it from different angles. As one-sided as Idra is, I'm more tended to agree with a progamer than a theorycrafter.
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On May 05 2011 03:38 Docta Spaceman wrote:
[...] But while he was talking to Sean about balance and whatnot (which I enjoyed for the first 3 minutes or so before it got a little less friendly and less productive)[...]
For the discussion's sake, how could you not enjoy the last part of the IdrA-Day[9]-argument? I thought it was absolutely productive showing that IdrA made some points that Day[9] could not address. It's like we finally know that (at least the members of SotG) can't argue with him other than ridicule him or saying "the game is young" (which again, doesn't contradict any of IdrA's points).
Call me a fanboy (I am). But I just love those moments in discussions when the one side has pushed the other side in a corner, displaying that there's no arguing about a certain point. You never get to see that in politics =)
edit: oh yeah, and what the poster above me said!
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Okay guys, I didn't make a blog asking why Idra plays Zerg. Nowhere in the OP did I ask that. Nowhere. I was hoping people would answer my actual question, which actually has merit and probably hasn't been thoroughly discussed. Which is what I would like to do.
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On May 05 2011 04:38 NoobSh1t wrote:
IdrA has honestly answered this question a million times.... Go do some research before making a thread about it.
Blizzard will eventually patch zerg, so why would he switch races and have to put a TON of time into learning this new race? He's waiting it out, it's better.
This is what idrA has stated multiple times
/thread
I'm not asking why he chose Zerg. I'm asking why pros often view their race as UP.
As Idra described last night, the problems he sees with Zerg are not balance related, but rather a 'fundamental game-design problem.' Not that roaches are too weak, or that Ultras are useless, or any of that nonsense, but rather a fundamental problem with Zerg DESIGN, related to early scouting and early aggression. He explained that last night on SOTG. He knows, just like everyone else, that Blizz can't just patch that. So he isn't waiting for Blizzard to patch Zerg. He knows its a problem that can't be changed. Blizzard can't patch that problem without creating a new game. But I don't know why I'd even go into that, as this isn't even related to what I'm talking about in the OP.
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On May 05 2011 05:39 o3.power91 wrote:
Idra took the race he thought the most disadvantaged in BW. He did so again in SC2. He likes complaining about both yet still plays them.
I say he's a masochist.
But did he pick the race because he thought it was weak, or did he think the race was weak after playing it for a long time? I think it's the latter, and I'm wondering why that occurs with many professionals.
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On May 05 2011 06:01 ExquisiteRed wrote:
Why did you neeed to make a blog about this, he has answered this question many times. Or you could have just used comon sense to deduce that 1) It would take a long time (months and months) to good enough with another race to be competitive and 2)There's always the chance that blizzard fixes something and then he'd just have just switched for nothing.
Because I never asked that question. I'm actually asking a legitimate question, which I wish you had read. I wish we could have a discussion about what I asked and throw out the statements of "Blizz will patch it so why switch" which is clearly not compatible with what Idra said last night on SOTG.
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On May 05 2011 07:11 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2011 03:38 Docta Spaceman wrote:
[...] But while he was talking to Sean about balance and whatnot (which I enjoyed for the first 3 minutes or so before it got a little less friendly and less productive)[...] For the discussion's sake, how could you not enjoy the last part of the IdrA-Day[9]-argument? I thought it was absolutely productive showing that IdrA made some points that Day[9] could not address. It's like we finally know that (at least the members of SotG) can't argue with him other than ridicule him or saying "the game is young" (which again, doesn't contradict any of IdrA's points). Call me a fanboy (I am). But I just love those moments in discussions when the one side has pushed the other side in a corner, displaying that there's no arguing about a certain point. You never get to see that in politics =) edit: oh yeah, and what the poster above me said!
Well, I thought that ultimately their points begin to boil down to two different things. From how I saw it, Idra's point came down to him believing that there was a fundamental game design fly, while Day9 was saying that eventually, everything will come to a balanced state. Those statements aren't contradictory, so the discussion wasn't that great. They were arguing about different things that were based on judgments on each other's assumed views.
But it was something we rarely get to see- a professional gamer debating with the thought hammer. The fact that it happened was great, but I thought they weren't really on the same level.
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