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P > T > Z > P. This is the mantra by which we have lived for most of the life of Brood War. Sometimes the imbalances stretch out, and we claim P >> T = Z > P or P = T >>> Z > P, or P > T > Z >>> P, or whatever the metagame shifts bring in as the flavor of the day. Sometimes a brilliant master of one race turns the tables, for himself or for a time, as when  sAviOr wrecked the leading Terran players of the day, or  Bisu provided a template for Protoss to wreck Zergs with (even if no one else did it as successfully). Other times a particular player refuses to live by the overarching balance, like YellOw[ArnC] who made a living crushing Terrans but demonstrated a peculiar hamfistedness in Zerg's "easy" matchup against Protoss. Of course, the reverse is far more common: we see  firebathero or Casy bringing the hammer down on Zergs but dying oh-so-easily to competent (and incompetent) Protoss; Jaehoon's final maturation to an A-class player has still left his PvZ incredibly weak.
In the end, though, we have a game that we call "balanced", because it is balanced far more than any other game that has received any significant play time. Maps help; thirteen years of ten hour practice days help; but the game is really a marvel. The greatest players can go up against one another, even in a poor matchup for one, and the issue is in doubt. There is no impossible win – and the ones that come closest are in the mirror matchups, where "balance" plays no part, merely luck.
(An aside: I would enjoy a variant of chess, played with similarly imperfect information: a piece can only see where it can move. Is there such a thing yet existing? Would it affect the balance? Increase White's advantage?)
No doubt many reasons could be given for this asymmetric balance produced by cyclical imbalance. I note one in particular, which is clearest with Terran. Against Zerg (the favored matchup), Terran simply builds marines (the basic unit), and adds on from there: medics, firebats (occasionally), tanks, vultures (if desperate), vessels. But the heart of the composition remains the marines. Of course, it is quite likely this would not be as feasible without medics, but this only underscores the difference in the matchup against the Protoss. Except for the rare timing-based plays, the Terran infantry is next to useless against Protoss even with medic support. Storm and reavers massacre infantry: even zealots and dragoons are too much. Practically the only unit Terran marines fare well against is carriers, since the marines' DPS knocks down interceptors with incredible speed. Instead, Terran relies on heavier units: tanks for damage, with a shield of vultures and mines; goliaths for anti-air... and the advantage still lies with the Protoss.
The other races don't show as great a contrast in style, though with the Zerg it is still relatively easy to see: against Protoss, the masses of lings and (of course) hydralisks destroy Protoss's base zealot-dragoon combination, at least assuming the upgrades stay even. Hydralisks can and do overrun many Protoss in the early game. Against Terran? Sure, zerglings are used, and hydralisks are often around for anti-air: but normally the first real attack a Zerg can make against a Terran is with mutalisks. A real offensive requires Hive tech.
Protoss is the hardest to distinguish: the odd tech tree leaves them with no options for a base composition except zealots and dragoons, no matter the matchup. But compare the use: in PvT, zealots and dragoons can normally trump Terran compositions: the Protoss support units counter the Terran support as much as they actually contribute directly to the fight. We've seen Protoss win games without storm, of all things. Against Zerg, except for the few like Movie who can find dragoon timings and other oddities, the zealots and dragoons are little more than tanks for the real damage dealers: templar of both kinds, archons, reavers. Doubt this? Watch a Protoss who doesn't protect his templar collapse after a suicide mutalisk snipe.
In all of these contrasts, there is a constant. In a given matchup, the race which can use its basic – "Tier 1" – units more effectively has the advantage. A Zerg can hold a Protoss a long time or defeat him with nothing but hydra-ling; the same combo collapses against marines; which are a disaster against zealots. Was this planned? Of course not: read battle reports of early games and the number of ludicrous strategies (by today's standards) tried by early players makes it clear they may not have even realized these "obvious" facts about the game, far less have had the time to conduct the elaborate trials and errors of a dozen years of games which have led to today's balance.
I am not really trying to draw any conclusions here: mainly detailing a pattern I only recognized a short time ago. At the same time, I feel like I ought to address the subject which people like speculating on: Starcraft 2. Only problem is, I do not much watch the game, except mainly on MLG weekends, so offering an opinion also seems somewhat idiotic. As a result, I only have two observations to make.
The first is that it seems to me that the "tier 1" Terran composition – marine-marauder-ghost – is stronger than both the Protoss zealot-stalker-sentry and Zerg zergling-baneling-roach. I could be totally off-base, but if I am right – or really if any basic composition is stronger than both the other two – I think the game will prove incredibly hard to balance even on the BW cyclic model.
The second is that we really cannot say anything about SC2 balance yet that we could not have said equally about vanilla Starcraft a month after release. Patching is still going on, and expansions are still coming out. So until we have something resembling a final build, anything I might say is just speculation.
 
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I missed the days when people lost and realized they could have played better to win. It was so satisfying losing a long game and realizing how good the opponent was.
Nowadays, when people lose they complain 
<3 bw
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Tier 1 Terran is just marine marauder. Reapers are absolutely useless in an army now Ghosts come ~ tier 2 and i'd pair them up with infestors/HT.. as those 3 are each races respective "caster" unit.
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Yes, Blizzard released an expansion and many patches afterwards to 'improve/balance' SCBW, but the true spirit of 'balance' came from the tireless innovation from professional players and mapmakers. A moment of appreciation for the 10+ years of amazing dedication from BW professionals 
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On December 23 2011 06:34 OpticalShot wrote:Yes, Blizzard released an expansion and many patches afterwards to 'improve/balance' SCBW, but the true spirit of 'balance' came from the tireless innovation from professional players and mapmakers. A moment of appreciation for the 10+ years of amazing dedication from BW professionals
I'd have to agree with this whole hearted, lots of hard work , blood sweat and tears were poured into BW, nothing could ever come close! <3 BW , Nice writeup.
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On December 23 2011 06:20 ReketSomething wrote:I missed the days when people lost and realized they could have played better to win. It was so satisfying losing a long game and realizing how good the opponent was. Nowadays, when people lose they complain <3 bw
I'd say it's also because the options are limited.
Where in BW I saw - oh I slipped my macro, my dragoon micro was sloppy, that storm was off, my expansion timing was not so good, I could have made a shuttle for harassment, I could have scouted better, my positioning was wrong, my arbiter tech was too late, my army composition was wrong, etc.
In SC2 I see - oh I slipped my macro, my stalker blink micro was sloppy, that storm was off, my expansion timing was not so good, I could have made a shuttle for harassment, I could have scouted better, my positioning was wrong, my storm tech was too late, my army composition was wrong.
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BW professionals, be they players or mapmakers, are what made BW the most balanced game ever.
But also should be noted the units in BW were so well designed, unlike many of those that we see in SC2.
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Interesting, never thought about it. Imbalance probably comes from the different degrees of difficulty controlling an army. The favored race can mass up a Tier1 unit, while the other race has to defend/attack with a higher tier more difficult to micro unit.
Marines, Medics -> Mutas, Defilers
Hydra, Lings -> HT, Reaver
Zealots, Dragoons -> Tanks (lol), Vultures, SV's
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Marines are pretty crap without stim, range, and medics. Like someone who doesn't know how to stop a 9 pool would have a hard time winning any TvZ.
M&M is actually pretty good against Protoss Gateway, it's just that storm and reavers kill them quite easily (Later Tech). Tanks and Vulture are good for defense, and when you have enough of them, you can do a timing attack.
OP you shouldn't compare Tier 1 against Tier 1 or units against units. You should compare APM/skill usage. It is commonly accepted that ZvT is more APM intense for the Zerg side, and TvP more APM intensive for Terran side.
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Why do people keep saying that P beats T, T beats Z, and Z beats P?
That was true a long time ago. Then T became equal to P. And then Z became equal to T. And then finally, P became equal to Z.
That cycle of imbalance hasnt been relevant for a long time.
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Haha, your signature says otherwise.
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In the beginning, if you lost a game and thought it was because your race was weak, you just switched races. It nullified all complaints. Then when you lost vs someone using the race you thought was weak, you realised you could just play better and still win with that race, which was exciting.
I think balance talk is ok if you are a map maker or game designer, but if you are a player it is your choice what race you play and if you think the game is fun, so don't blame the game all the time. If one race seems better than the others, play that race you noob. If you think the game is rock, paper scissors, why do you play it? If there is imbalance in Brood War is it very small, and certainly not the main reason one player is a loser and one player is a winner. What determines that is a combination of skill, confidence, and knowing the game. In a finals they always say 'map imbalance means nothing at this level' and it's true. A good strategy is far more important than what happens in games played 'standard.'
If Brood War was a plate which each race took a third of, and you put it on a stick, sure, maybe it would fall one direction more than another. Maybe it can never be 'perfectly balanced.' But what makes Brood War interesting and what makes it a good game is that no matter which race you choose, you have many ways to win vs all other races. If Terran has 1000 wins to win and Zerg has 997, does that really mean the Zerg is at a significant disadvantage? It's a ridiculous question. Only a huge nerd loser would think he lost because his opponent was Terran and he was Zerg. You were never evenly matched. If you were better you would have won... That's all there is to it. If you are mediocre, predictable, like many players, sure patterns of 'balance' are bound to appear. That's what mediocre and uninteresting players obey these stats. But then you have specialists and S class players who don't fit the mold. You say it's because they're 'so good they overcame imbalance' but really it's just because they are better than hoards of mediocre players that don't think outside the box.
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On December 23 2011 06:20 ReketSomething wrote:I missed the days when people lost and realized they could have played better to win. It was so satisfying losing a long game and realizing how good the opponent was. Nowadays, when people lose they complain <3 bw
I still keep that mindset and it works out in sc2 as well. People who bitch about how underpowered their race is when they bank 2k resources and then lose to something they scouted I shall never understand =/ I personally find PvT extremely hard to play but its because I'm bad at that match up. It seems people can't have a bad match-up anymore and it's just the other players fault for playing their race. Sad days
Edit: I feel I must add I had like 27% win ratio in PvZ on broodwar but never hated the zerg players. I hated the mu with a passion and equally hated SaviOr and July for doing that to me xD
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BW seems to have been balanced by building Terran first, then balancing the TvZ and TvP matchups. Those two matchups seemed to be the most balanced and well thought out. PvZ is balanced on a knife's edge around Storm. The mirror matchups are entertaining now only because they've all matured so much that we can recognize patterns in play and marvel at the insane mechanics and abilities of players.
I mean...the game is still incredibly balanced, even PvZ. There's really no objective way to look at it, though. The main reason for that is that there's honestly no way to compare them without looking at maps. At the highest levels of play, maps decide the balance of BW, and with the rate at which maps are cycled through, there's really no time to sit down and look at just the racial balance by itself anymore.
Personally, I love this. I love BW. Man, I'm sad now.
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OP, I agree with your overall argument (that in BW, the disadvantaged race generally uses tech units to counter tier1 units of the advantaged race), but there are a lot more factors that influence the balance cycle.
For example, think about ease of scouting. In TvZ, Terran gets academy quickly and so gets pretty fast scanners, which makes it simple to scout the zerg build. In TvP, Terran is in the dark longer because academy doesn't fit in well with mech builds, which makes it harder to figure out what Protoss is doing. The are similar patterns for the other races: observers are good for scouting Terran (since they are obtained quickly for mines anyway and since Terran skimps on detection and anti-air early on) but bad for scouting Zerg (because of overlord detection, hydralisks and scourge); overlords are good for scouting Protoss but less good for scouting Terran.
That's one reason that corsairs have been so important in bringing PvZ closer to balance: they improve Protoss's scouting while making it harder for Zerg to scout with overlords.
Edit: But of course players of BW shouldn't care much about racial balance, because player skill and map balance are much more important factors in who wins.
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On December 23 2011 06:09 VGhost wrote:
No doubt many reasons could be given for this asymmetric balance produced by cyclical imbalance. I note one in particular, which is clearest with Terran. Against Zerg (the favored matchup), Terran simply builds marines (the basic unit), and adds on from there: medics, firebats (occasionally), tanks, vultures (if desperate), vessels. But the heart of the composition remains the marines. Of course, it is quite likely this would not be as feasible without medics, but this only underscores the difference in the matchup against the Protoss. Except for the rare timing-based plays, the Terran infantry is next to useless against Protoss even with medic support. Storm and reavers massacre infantry: even zealots and dragoons are too much.
Actually doesn't MnM crushes pure zealot/dragoon (without storm/reaver/dt/archon support)? Far more cost efficient and greater DPS.
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EPT
