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Well it's time we wrote some of this down. There are too many QQ threads about TvP. The match-up is hard.
Hard.
+ Show Spoiler +Guys, I'm not complaining about the balance at all. I'm saying that playing Terran in the matchup is Hard and it forces players to use mechanics which are considered "basic" in BW.
There's nothing wrong with a player needing to do 100 different things correctly in order to survive. If anything its Good.
More of the game should be like this.
Do you know what also is hard? Running a sub 4 minute mile.
That used to be impossible.
Do you get the point? No?
This match up forced me to start using hotkeys for army control. Something I'd been putting off much too long, and I'm grateful. I'm not going to lie. Winning in the late-game without good army control just isn't going to happen anymore. And that's the way it should be, and I hope we never go back. Why? Because it feels so damn good when I do everything right.
And because it's good for e-sports.
TvP Basics
+ Show Spoiler +Simply having vikings, MMM, and ghosts on separate hotkeys (and using them) makes the challenge 10x more manageable.
Then start putting marauders in front, work on making larger concaves, get cloak for your ghosts, keep the marines out of colossus range, use ghosts and vikings to poach ahead of your army, engage with vikings over his army (if he storms he storms his own units).
Remember that thread about SC2 being more boring than BW because neither player is doing much other than Stim + 1a. Well, I think we're finally starting to find that SC2 isn't as "simple" as it first seemed.
It's finally getting to the point where great players have to do things, that everyone else cannot learn to do in a couple of hours. That is something that we all can appreciate when see it. Sure it's unfair to non competitive players, but that's how these things work. It's "unfair" that I (or anyone else) will never have the ability to run the colts offense like Peyton Manning. I also won't be able to speed skate like Apollo, run like Usain Bolt, or write a symphony.
"Unfair" is the reason why I would pay money to watch a Colts football game, or Usain Bolt run a 400 meter dash (I really really hope he runs a real 400m dash someday).
If we want Starcraft 2 to grow and become profitable, we need a game that requires perfection, we need the players to have to perform the impossible every single game. Why would I pay to watch MLG or GSL if I can open my replay folder and see myself perform exactly the same things as the Pro's?
Casters and personalities will only push e-sports so far, and we're getting to the point where they can't get us any farther. Without context to back them up.
Just like any other thing in this world there are two kinds of people. Experts. And everyone else. Experts by definition do what is impossible to everyone else. That is why we pay them. What they do is valuable to us because we cannot do it ourselves.
The more difficult something is, the more prestigious and appealing it is to everyone.
Notice that? Once you get over the initial disappointment of not being able to do something yourself. You can finally sit down, pay a few bucks and enjoy others doing the impossible.
So we have a few choices.
1. Whine more and create a game which everyone can play at high levels.
2. Work at it and learn how to do what is challenging.
3. Enjoy the game for what it is, and watch others do the impossible. (possibly even pay a few bucks for the pleasure)
That's right. The pleasure.
The gap between the experts and the average players needs to grow. If it doesn't the fan base will never become a profitable one.
TvP is good for esports.
+ Show Spoiler +
  
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Well I actually sort of agree with the spirit of the blog (even though this sounds like a bit like a balance whine).
But TvZ is a lot more watchable than TvP. TvP confrontations in broodwar are downright awesome!
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Yeah I have to agree with you doesnt make me hate TvP anymore though lol, I have stopped going bio in TvP and so far is has been working well for me. It's nice to have to micro like a mad man in TvP.
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Good point but like the others say TvP is less watchable than the other matchups. And when a terran does accomplish "the impossible" as you say by beating a toss, its more about the fact that they won than how they did it, or rather, the thrill of the chase.
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To be honest, recently I have been on both sides of the PvT match up. In TvP I like to 2 rax pressure into expand into 3 rax medivac. I can normally do enough damage with my medicvac push to support my third and transition into the late game. If I dont MICRO during my attacks, I will surely die to zealots, however if the Protoss lays down bad ff then it make it even easier for me to WIN. Therefore both sides need to MICRO in the match up, something that brings joy to me that a MU can sway on such a thin line which makes it exciting.
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On February 26 2012 20:20 SpeCtor wrote:
To be honest, recently I have been on both sides of the PvT match up. In TvP I like to 2 rax pressure into expand into 3 rax medivac. I can normally do enough damage with my medicvac push to support my third and transition into the late game. If I dont MICRO during my attacks, I will surely die to zealots, however if the Protoss lays down bad ff then it make it even easier for me to WIN. Therefore both sides need to MICRO in the match up, something that brings joy to me that a MU can sway on such a thin line which makes it exciting.
Micro can be spread out over the course of a game in a long and interesting fashion if the design is good. If it is bad then all hope hinges on a few seconds of micro, which is frustrating more than anything.
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The matchup basically forces you to be significantly better than your opponent in micro, macro, and multi-tasking in order to win. Koreans have a chance at doing this, although they're also getting destroyed lately. Foreigners? Low chance.
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You Have a point there buddy. But lately it is really favored for protoss. We terrans need to micro hard but protoss just needs to 1a.
User was temp banned for this post.
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This blog would've been good minus the matchup whine. Seriously, you can't complain about anything if you weren't even hotkeying your units. Try PvT'ing without control groups and see how you do.
On February 26 2012 21:16 vnlegend wrote:
The matchup basically forces you to be significantly better than your opponent in micro, macro, and multi-tasking in order to win. Koreans have a chance at doing this, although they're also getting destroyed lately. Foreigners? Low chance.
On February 26 2012 21:20 Ace1123 wrote:
We terrans need to micro hard but protoss just needs to 1a.
Stop making excuses, the mu's not imbalanced, you're just playing worse than your opponent. Accept that, focus on improving and you'll be back to winning 50:50 in no time.
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On February 26 2012 22:03 Scarecrow wrote:
Try PvT'ing without control groups and see how you do.
Got to diamond as protoss, only hotkeys robo and nexus. Took like 1-2 months after buying the game.
Dropped 2 leagues after swapping to terran. Box a-move doesn't work ;/
Not saying that protoss is op, just more newbie friendly.
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While I agree the match isn't imbalanced, the tone of your post is WAY too aggressive for the state of the game, for this reason: just because it isn't imbalanced, doesn't necessarily mean it's GOOD. If I told you in a theoretical RTS that a matchup winrate was 50-50, but 100% of games from between 10-20 minutes were won by 1 race, and all other games were won by the other race, but the matchup win rate was still 50%, that would make a balanced game, but a shitty one.
(Note: That's not how TvP is, unbunch your panties. Though you'll hear a lot of people complain that's how TvZ is....  )
Let's get the obvious out of the way -- Protoss has MUCH stronger cheeses than Terran does. Between 4gate (the weakest of the bunch), immortal busts, VR all-ins, blinkstalker rushes, and proxy 2gate zealots, there are a ton of different early game options that all require the Terran to do something slightly different, or just die.
Then comes the midgame. Terran has WAY more midgame options than protoss does -- if the protoss spreads himself too thin, a good terran can drop him to death. Certain bio timing pushes will destroy greedy protoss play. The 1/1/1 isn't as frightening now as it was in the middle of last year, but it's still a deadly option.
So far it sounds a lot like TvZ, where Terran has a lot of early game options to screw with Zerg, while Zerg is just trying to hit the midgame on even footing so it can start doing its muta harassment and mass expanding. Cool! That's absolutely fine. TvP is a really enjoyable matchup for the first 20 minutes or so.
Now....when the endgame comes, there's a MAJOR problem. First, protoss upgrades scale WAY better than Terran upgrades do. Assuming both sides are 3/3, here's the damage the major units will do compared to their 0/0 vs. 0/0 equivalent
Marine -- unchanged
Marauder -- gains +3 total damage vs armored, unchanged damage vs. everything else
Viking -- unchanged
Ghost -- gains +3 total damage vs. light, unchanged vs. everything else
Zealot -- Unchanged
Stalker -- Unchanged
Colossus -- gains +6 total damage vs ALL targets, all linear splash damage
Archon -- gains +9 total damage vs biological targets, +6 total damage vs everything else, plus radial splash damage
When it first gets to the late game, the effects are noticeable, but hardly gamebreaking. When it gets to the "extreme" late game, where everyone is remaxing with their perfect compositions, and we're getting into un-EMPable numbers of archons replacing the relatively supply-inefficient zealots, that becomes EXTREMELY difficult to deal with.
"So just get more ghosts! Problem solved." Well, then they remax with colossi next time and you don't have enough vikings. "So just get more vikings! DUH!" Yes, every Terran is aware of this. And that's why Terran is piss hard right now in the late game -- if you don't have, literally, the PERFECT number of vikings, and the PERFECT number of ghosts, you will lose the engagement. You have to have a way to keep recon on the number of colossi, templar, and archons they have, and be able to counter that perfectly. It's not easy. It's damn hard. It's doable. But is it what we want?
Now, for the other reason Terrans cry about the matchup -- let's say we get that perfect money mix of units and beat down an army. We have maybe 30 seconds - 1 minute of time to get as much damage done as we can before the reinforcement warp-ins will crush what's left of the army, so we poke in, kill a nexus and maybe some probes, then have to pull back out, and the better of us are also dropping at the same time so that our drop can do some damage while the reinforcements are focused on pushing out our main force. Great! Win a battle, do some damage, but the game isn't over by any stretch. But when a protoss wins a SINGLE engagement vs. our forces with that same handful of units left, 1 warp-in round is added, and they park on top of our production facilities and the game's over.
And that is our main problem -- in the late game, it's balanced on a precarious knife's edge for ONE side of the matchup only. The terran has to have the perfect composition, good recon, perfect number of vikings and ghosts, and the perfect amount of micro to make it all count. And if we succeed in that, we get a little bit of damage done, and get to do it again. Once the protoss breaks the terran's army ONE time, the game is over.
Does that make the game balanced? Win rates would say yes. Does that make it fun? FUCK no. There has to be a way to make Protoss midgame stronger and make Terran endgame stronger to compensate, to make a game that's actually balanced all the way through it.
But I'm not a balance designer. I'm a player. And I play with the tools given to me. And if I want to bitch and rage out about it once in a while, that's my right. XD But I still keep playing it anyway. And the reasons above are why you see so many Terrans going for a 2base bio timing or a 1/1/1 or some such other nonsense -- if the advantage is ours in the midgame, and the late game is SO much harder to handle, why would we want to drag it out to a long macro game ever? It just makes so much more practical sense to do as much damage as we can in the midgame before Protoss gets out of control.
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Guys, I'm not complaining about the balance at all. I'm saying that playing Terran in the matchup is Hard and it forces players to use mechanics which are considered "basic" in BW.
There's nothing wrong with a player needing to do 100 different things correctly in order to survive. If anything its Good.
More of the game should be like this.
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I really like your mindset. It seems that lots of terrans just whine "Toss 1a move ez mode" and then don't think about their own mistakes.
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On February 26 2012 22:52 HungrySC2 wrote:
Guys, I'm not complaining about the balance at all. I'm saying that playing Terran in the matchup is Hard and it forces players to use mechanics which are considered "basic" in BW.
There's nothing wrong with a player needing to do 100 different things correctly in order to survive. If anything its Good.
More of the game should be like this.
I agree! So why isn't it like that for both races then? What's the incentive to play Terran if the Protoss side is so much easier?
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TBH, at a pro level, TvP seems to have finally developed into a wonderful and entertaining game. But lets bring it back to bronze level. I don't believe that protoss is any easier to win with than terran. Thats rediculous. You can die from your mistakes at any moment with both races.
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TvP would be good for esports if PvT lategame was equally hard. Which it's not and you're delusional if you think so.
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I don't follow sc2. But I took a quick look at the results for major tournaments in Liquipedia and they say that Terrans are doing much better trophy wise than Protoss. Terrans won twice as many major tournaments in 2011 and 2012. Complaining about "imbalance" in a matchup is silly when these kind of results are happening.
When Terran was considered the weakest race, a player named Boxer came and changed that.
When ZvT was considered impossible for zergs, a player named Savior changed that.
When PvZ was considered impossible for tosses, a player named Bisu changed that.
When protoss were dominating everyone, Flash and Jaedong came and changed that.
"Imbalance" can be turned on it's head in a very short time. Do things differently, or get better.
EDIT: If the problem is deathballs, don't let them happen. It's as simple as that. If you let the other player get to 4 base mass colossus or 5 base hive unmolested then you pretty much deserve to lose.
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I don't think TvP is imbalanced but I think in the current metagame of lower level players (me included), TvP seems impossible. I think we're just too used to some of the concepts that have gotten us to this point, and we need to adapt.
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I disagree with the OP. A matchup being hard for one race vs the other is just an imbalanced matchup no matter how you try to word it. You can come up with a million blogs and try to make an imblanaced matchup sound good but in the end its still an imbalanced matchup and blizzard screwed up.
By the way, if more Terrans used 1/2 base all ins the matchup would appear to be more balanced because terrans strength in in their early to mid game. Terrans late game is garbage compared to toss's.
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EPT
