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So I've always hated the state of ZvT, but I kind of figured it was personal bias due to playing Zerg but I have recently had some interesting discussions with a friend who's new to the game.
Let me start by giving some background information on my friend:
He is a long time competitive gamer, starting back in CS 1.6. This isn't to say he's pro, or has ever been, but he plays games at a relatively high level and enjoys all the same things any "sub-pro" would about competitive gaming in general.
He got in to starcraft through watching and is only now starting to play. I suggested he start with Terran since he has never played an RTS in general. I set him up with a few builds and sent him on his way.
He discovered he doesn't really like RTS games.
They're just not his cup of tea when it comes to actually playing the game, but he still enjoys watching the pros play. What playing the game HAS done is give him an appreciation for just how much is going on.
This past week, he was telling me he's gotten bored with the game: "Terran is too OP, its boring to watch."
Amazed that he would come back with that, I probe a little deeper before I open my own flood gates.
He talks about both TvZ and TvP. Not 2 rax or 1-1-1, but the flow of the game in general.
"Terran always holds all the cards. They have a better economy through MULEs, their units are more cost effective, and they can't really be counter-attacked. Every game I see a TvX and there is a successful counter, Terran just wins immediately because the other guy can't hold the push. To make matters worse, Terran is the only race that can make a come-back. If you see a Z or P lose 80% of his army to kill 40% of the T army, that game is over. But Terran can throw his units away, virtually guaranteed to do enough damage, and reproduce faster than his opponent because he has so much production."
I was amazed... and delighted that I'm not the only one who sees this. I have been bitching about this since day 1, but most people don't seem to share my sentiment.
Does it just so happen that my friend is in the same minority thought-group as me, or is it real, and other people are finally seeing the same bullshit I've been bitching about for a year?
 
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I totally disagree on he remacroing part. Sure if you lose all your scvs, you get your mules, but it's balanced out by how Zerg can have banked larvae to have simultaneous worker production. It's also much easier to remax as zerg, while terran and toss take a while to remax, especially the power units
But yes, Terran does have more options, and the other race has to react to it.
And if you don't like it, play Terran 
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That is kind of my fear.
One year into the game, I feel top Terran players are starting to leverage those options into constant lose/lose situations for their opponents.
Bigger than my own issues with ZvT, I don't want to watch SC2 evolve into nothing but TvT but that seems to be the direction its going. The overwhelming number of Terrans at the top in korea only seems to be growing, and I don't see 1.4 doing anything to address the core issues.
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Damn, guess you can't counterattack Terran. Someone tell Julyzerg!!!!
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I hate the fucking stigma that terran can just 'throw away their units lol because they reproduce so fast.' terran has effective units with slow reproduction rate. larva and warpgates are much better than production facilities in regards to remaxing. out of all the things people can complain about regarding terran, their 'overwhelming production capability!!' should probably be the last
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On September 04 2011 02:24 Entropic wrote:
Damn, guess you can't counterattack Terran. Someone tell Julyzerg!!!!
Hey man, backstabbing is cheating
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On September 04 2011 02:32 101toss wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2011 02:24 Entropic wrote:
Damn, guess you can't counterattack Terran. Someone tell Julyzerg!!!! Hey man, backstabbing is cheating
DRG makes his living off backstabs, cheaterzerg.
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I play P and in my experience terran is really really good at remacroing, I'll go even with a terran and he'll have a really powerful MMM ball back up in a minute, that said I'm not nor do I think I'm at the level to judge this and I certainly don't think you're friend who doesn't even play is at a level to judge this so I'm going to wait until there's a serious feeling from the pros that Terran is OP not that they just have a bunch of good top level players.
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I've had the same with a friend who is a big broodwar fan and has been for a long time. We looked at the units, the tech trees and the ability to harass/turtle and he said: terran is gonna be the dominant race for a very long time. Just by looking at the flexibility of the race and it's tech tree.
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Sooooo....your buddy who is a pretty good player in other games tried starcraft for a brief period of time, didn't like it, watched some pro's, and determined that terrans are tearing it up? It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out...
Personally, whenever I watch high level ZvT I don't feel the zergs are playing the right style. Muta/ling/bane is incredibly gas-heavy and hellion harass limits quick thirds. T spends all their gas on tanks and upgrades and all their minerals on marines. It's incredibly cost-effective off two bases ESPECIALLY with good micro, which the top players have. I fell that a meta-game shift in zerg strategy is the only thing that's going to swing the supposed imbalance.
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I don't agree with the remaxing part, as others have pointed out Z and P have much quicker ways of producing units. Muling is supposed to be countered by Protoss Chronoboost and Zerg larva inject mechanics.
However what makes T very powerful IMO is the combination of Muling which can provide a large boost to the mineral income, and Marines, which only cost minerals and no gas. Marines as a range unit become much more powerful as you get a ball of them (I think Idra called it an avalanche effect) and they have very high DPS/cost of unit. P and Z tier 1 high DPS units are all melee, which get relatively worse the more you have of them.
So imagine the game has reached mid-game, and a huge battle occurs in which all the armies of both sides die. During this battle very little macro has occured, so maybe 3 orbitals have gained energy, and there is a little bit of gas available for both players. In this scenario Mules provide a sharp boost to the economy which can be readily used in marine production together with 1 or 2 power units. This small force is much more powerful than anything P or Z can produce in the same amount of time.
It's tough to have a balance debate without groaning and accusations of whining, but I think it might be possible.
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On September 04 2011 02:51 Servius_Fulvius wrote:
Sooooo....your buddy who is a pretty good player in other games tried starcraft for a brief period of time, didn't like it, watched some pro's, and determined that terrans are tearing it up? It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out...
Personally, whenever I watch high level ZvT I don't feel the zergs are playing the right style. Muta/ling/bane is incredibly gas-heavy and hellion harass limits quick thirds. T spends all their gas on tanks and upgrades and all their minerals on marines. It's incredibly cost-effective off two bases ESPECIALLY with good micro, which the top players have. I fell that a meta-game shift in zerg strategy is the only thing that's going to swing the supposed imbalance.
The question isn't whether or not Terrans are winning. That much is a known fact. The question is whether or not Zerg and Protoss are capable of competing with the tools available to their respective races.
As far as whether or not muta/ling/bling is effective vs Terran, I would agree that it doesn't feel like a dominant strategy, but what else is Zerg supposed to go for in that MU?
Infestors being the obvious answer is wrong. The only notable pro-level player using infestors early in ZvT right now is Destiny. Not only can he not make it past round 2 in the last MLG and didn't bother showing up to this one, he has said over and over on his stream that ZvT has become his worst MU with all the hellions running around.
Roaches are too slow and don't deal enough damage.
Hydras are even slower and literally get countered by EVERY terran unit except the viking.
Broods and ultras both come too late for mid-game play.
Muta/ling/bling may be ineffective, but Zerg has no other options.
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On September 04 2011 02:12 101toss wrote:I totally disagree on he remacroing part. Sure if you lose all your scvs, you get your mules, but it's balanced out by how Zerg can have banked larvae to have simultaneous worker production. It's also much easier to remax as zerg, while terran and toss take a while to remax, especially the power units But yes, Terran does have more options, and the other race has to react to it. And if you don't like it, play Terran
I agree with this. Terran is unarguably the hardest race to re-macro with. Their army comes far more slowly than Zerg (mass Larvae) or Protoss (instant Warp-In's).
That said, I would definitely agree that Terrans hold most (if not all) of the cards the way the metagame currently stands. Terran can lose, but only if their opponent reacts really well. Terran basically gets to make all of the decisions in both TvP and TvZ. It's rather annoying and it is making the game not fun to play at all, even if I am Terran.
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What? Terran has the least production, or atleast on par with protoss. Sorry, I hate to sound like an ass, but this is just factually wrong.
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At what level did your friend play?
1. Better economy through MULEs? Only if Zerg/ Protoss isn't using their macro mechanics.
2. Can't be counter attacked ... ? How can you have played any Terran whatsoever and claim you can't be counterattacked -_-'
3. Terran can throw away their army and reproduce faster ...what?
Seems like you just found a cheap excuse to whine, maybe you should put some energy towards something constructive.
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"Terran is the only race that can make a come-back. If you see a Z or P lose 80% of his army to kill 40% of the T army, that game is over. But Terran can throw his units away, virtually guaranteed to do enough damage, and reproduce faster than his opponent because he has so much production."
I don't think it is the remaxing part of what he said that matters, I think it is more significant that the units are almost guaranteed to be cost effective because they are cheap and have high dps. Generally, any engagement where a protoss army gets EMPed, the terran may lose the battle but still have killed an equal or greater cost of his opponent's units. And with zerg, any engagement where banelings do not connect with marines, the terran army may still lose but will still be cost-effective. Looking at the core units of each race's army, marines are great in most aspects, stalkers are painfully cost-inefficient and roaches are painfully supply-inefficient.
Also, the decision making part is really true. Scouting should be important but it shouldn't become "Well I was going to do this in my PvT/ZvT but his composition won't let me; I'll auto-lose." Terran's versatility (gained through a strong economy from mules, strength of rax units, generally high dps/cost ratio, number of frightening all-ins, ability to switch add-ons, the combination of every tech into a single, direct tree) usually prevents them from having this problem.
That's how I see it anyway.
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Unless your friend made it to a high masters mark in the bit he played. He has only shitty players to go off of and at those low levels there really is no way to give a general evaluation on the state of the meta game without being very experienced at the game. Especially since macro and good mechanics are such a rare things in those leagues and as such shouldnt be taken as any kind of use to evaluate OP or not.
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On September 04 2011 02:02 Jermstuddog wrote:
"But Terran can throw his units away, virtually guaranteed to do enough damage, and reproduce faster than his opponent because he has so much production."
what lol
just because your friend is good at other games doesn't mean he has some kind of insight into a game he's hardly ever played before as well.
i played guild wars gvg at a competitive level but that doesn't make me an expert on how dota works just because I mess around in dota for a few games and watch a couple pro games.
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On September 04 2011 04:11 Tollhouse1 wrote:
Unless your friend made it to a high masters mark in the bit he played. He has only shitty players to go off of and at those low levels there really is no way to give a general evaluation on the state of the meta game without being very experienced at the game. Especially since macro and good mechanics are such a rare things in those leagues and as such shouldnt be taken as any kind of use to evaluate OP or not.
He said from watching pro's play... not from his own experience... Anybody can actually watch and understand the game properly, attacking his friend because he's new is immature even if you do think he's wrong. The fact Terran has been winning every major tournament for the last 2-3 months also doesn't help your point. It makes it seem like his friend knows more than you do =/
@OP I think what you and your friend are missing is that yes T is currently dominating however as a Protoss player from broodwar I can tell you as blizzard keeps making changes it will get better. I think we might just be seeing a Flash / Jaedong scenario and people mistake it for race imba instead of player skill. (in the form of MVP, DRG, and Nestea) Players just need to keep shifting the meta-game as things continue and wait it out.
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On September 04 2011 02:02 Jermstuddog wrote:
"Terran always holds all the cards. They have a better economy through MULEs, their units are more cost effective, and they can't really be counter-attacked. Every game I see a TvX and there is a successful counter, Terran just wins immediately because the other guy can't hold the push. To make matter worse, Terran is the only race that can make a come-back. If you see a Z or P lose 80% of his army to kill 40% of the T army, that game is over. But Terran can throw his units away, virtually guaranteed to do enough damage, and reproduce faster than his opponent because he has so much production."
This made my day, Lol.
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Sounds like whining with a poor cover story?
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Playing terran like pro is way harder than it seems... sadly. Only at high level Terran player with Micro/macro and good multitasking can pull victories like we see in pro matches.
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"But Terran can throw his units away, virtually guaranteed to do enough damage, and reproduce faster than his opponent because he has so much production."
wha
what. you sure your friend wasn't playing zerg or protoss? warpgates and larvae are so much better when it comes to units. terran is all about unit efficiency in tvz and tvp, not about remaxing. think about marine tank, drops and stimmed bio ball. they all scream efficient. that's why units like ht and infestors are scary, they kill the terran units so fast and the super strong terran ball is messed up.
terran scvs are actually extremely valuable due to how much time it to reproduce them. you can argue that mules are all you need but honestly i prefer being able to scan sometimes.
i'm not arguing terran isn't op, because quite frankly i believe it's the best race by a moderate amount. however the strength of terran is it's versatility, not crazy macro or holding all the cards. terran have so many styles of play. they've got standard defensive macro, all ins, etc etc. blizzard tried to cut that by making bbs ineffective but it still stands.
once zerg figures out builds that are refined to hell terrans will rely more on defensive macro games vs z then we'll see what happens. as games go on defensive races have more of an advantage because it's the defensive guys who figure out the timings for defense.
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On September 04 2011 04:43 OmniEulogy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2011 04:11 Tollhouse1 wrote:
Unless your friend made it to a high masters mark in the bit he played. He has only shitty players to go off of and at those low levels there really is no way to give a general evaluation on the state of the meta game without being very experienced at the game. Especially since macro and good mechanics are such a rare things in those leagues and as such shouldnt be taken as any kind of use to evaluate OP or not. He said from watching pro's play... not from his own experience... Anybody can actually watch and understand the game properly, attacking his friend because he's new is immature even if you do this he's wrong. The fact Terran has been winning every major tournament for the last 2-3 months also doesn't help your point. It makes it seem like his friend knows more than you do =/ @OP I think what you and your friend are missing is that yes T is currently dominating however as a Protoss player from broodwar I can tell you as blizzard keeps making changes it will get better. I think we might just be seeing a Flash / Jaedong scenario and people mistake it for race imba instead of player skill. (in the form of MVP, DRG, and Nestea) Players just need to keep shifting the meta-game as things continue and wait it out.
Maybe but you have to look at the invitee list of the these major tournaments the people who run the tournaments all invite Koreans and the density of most bad ass Koreans are Terran. Which are also far and above their foreign counter parts so it is no wonder that the general Terrans are winning alot.
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Hard to say.
People are pointing at the fact we almost had 4 Terrans in the semi, but is that down to the race or just luck of the draw? The best Zerg and the best Protoss got eliminated early, due to Nestea meeting MVP in the quarters, and MC sticking MVP in his group for reasons only he can fathom.
Also, you have to ask, how many of the Korean Protosses have actually figured out how to play the race properly? There dont seem to be as many solid Protoss Koreans as there are Terran and Zerg.
All that said though, I do feel Terran is the strongest when played properly at the moment, or at least they have the most options. Blizzard have to bring the other two races up to Terrans level though, not nerf Terran.
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So to summarize your post , you have been whining about terran forever and then your friend who watches the game thinks terran is really good so you use this as some sort of evidence that terran is OP.
You can see what that's pretty stupid right?
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Zerg can easily throw away their army and get a few lucky bane hits and comeback, that's so much BS lol. Burrowed banelings, baneling bombs on mineral lines, crackling drops in the main, I employ almost all these to get back in games where I'm behind. Not to mention that Zerg can overdrone to get back in the game, then get a single lucky engagement (catch a Terran unsieged or out of position or do a runby) then come out in the lead.
This is coming from someone who plays both races, GM NA Zerg last season.
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On September 04 2011 06:06 FabledIntegral wrote:
Zerg can easily throw away their army and get a few lucky bane hits and comeback, that's so much BS lol. Burrowed banelings, baneling bombs on mineral lines, crackling drops in the main, I employ almost all these to get back in games where I'm behind. Not to mention that Zerg can overdrone to get back in the game, then get a single lucky engagement (catch a Terran unsieged or out of position or do a runby) then come out in the lead.
This is coming from someone who plays both races, GM NA Zerg last season.
But the op's friend has competitive CS 1.6 experience. He can't be wrong about starcraft two 
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On September 04 2011 06:06 FabledIntegral wrote:
Zerg can easily throw away their army and get a few lucky bane hits and comeback, that's so much BS lol. Burrowed banelings, baneling bombs on mineral lines, crackling drops in the main, I employ almost all these to get back in games where I'm behind. Not to mention that Zerg can overdrone to get back in the game, then get a single lucky engagement (catch a Terran unsieged or out of position or do a runby) then come out in the lead.
This is coming from someone who plays both races, GM NA Zerg last season.
I thought we established that backstabbing was cheating
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I don't know what to tell you, your friend is has no idea what he's talking about. I'd prescribe a healthy dose of game playing, that should fix him right up
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At least you had the good sense to post this in Blogs. Although you seem to lack the even better sense to not post this at all. This is balance whine and not cool.
That said, watching TvZ's, it always seems that a Tank Marine push takes the whole of Zerg's army to deal with, and by the time that's done, Terran has had enough time back at home to build up another force and even expand if the timing is right. The Zerg is sometimes very far behind while Terran pushes out with another huge force. This might give the illusion of Terran having better production, but all ceteris paribus, Zerg and gateway units outproduce Terran by far, Zerg being able to produce more and warp gates being able to produce immediately.
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EPT
