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There have been many posts like these and they usually aren't popular, but I feel the urge to try to put things around here in perspective a little bit. Stick around with a nostalgic lurker who spent the last 14 years of his life with StarCraft, will ya?
Brood War take on terran being UP
This isn't the first time we rally about a race being UP and unplayable. For those of us who haven't been around here when Brood War was in its prime and only heard about it. BW has been considered perfectly balanced and been used as one of the main arguments in our community for good 3-4 years now, right? Let's go into some relevant "facts" in how I recall them with some help of Liquipedia:
- OSL and MSL pretty much never had more than a 20-25% protoss representation on average. Try to imagine GSL with 2-8 terrans/protoss/zerg on average for 11 years (or make it ~7 based on the number of GSL seasons per year).
- There were a few periods of time when no protoss would win an OSL/MSL. Think not a few weeks. Think 3 years.
Fun facts: between 2004 and 2011 there were only 2 protoss OSL winners... and 18 terran/zerg winners. In 9 years of MSL only two protoss players managed to squeeze in a win: Nal_rA and Bisu with 4 titles between them... and 13 terran/zerg players who in total took 22 championships.
- There was a time (good 4-5 years according to my memory) where zerg was considered unbeatable in ZvP. Zerg players would tell protoss players to be innovative and stop going certain strats (like 2gate openings) and get bashed relentlessly for "not having a clue" and playing the obviously "OP race". One day Bisu came around and turned the matchup upside down with the unlikely FE/FFE style into corsair/dt harass. That gained him the nickname "The Revolutionist". It happened 8 years after the game was released (how do those ravens sound now, for example).
- And while I'm at it. There is this SCII "mech not viable in TvP" argument: it was also considered not viable in TvZ (with bio being the only accepted standard and non-gimmicky choice), but for ~9-10 years. Then it was figured out, just like that.
Are we getting this right? Does it even matter?
I could put in more examples, but the point I'm trying to make is that balance (especially when it's so tight in SCII) matters very little in comparison to how much we can do with the game and how much we have to explore to make things work. Sure it's easy to come and complain about every subtle "obvious sign of OP/UP". Blizzard will buff to do the job for us, right? To me the point of a complex and competitive strategy game is to put thought into things and be creative. It may be different for you, of course, but that's how I see it and how I feel most of us used to see it in the Brood War community. It's pretty apparent that the "issues" we like to blow out of proportion in SCII are not as big as we make them out to be.
Why is he talking about BW? We are much smarter and experienced now!
You could also say those examples don't apply, cause we are so much smarter now, SCII is not much different from BW, and we have years of experience in competitive RTS. Are we and do we though? Looking at how SCII is currently played, in reality, are we actually that much smarter? Have we reached the skill cap? Have we explored all strategies and options we have at our disposal?
We've been wrong so much in the past with the metagame predictions and how certain changes would affect the game. Think roach 4 range buff and protoss FFE "not being viable anymore". Think vortex nerf that "killed" the archon toilet. Think khaydarin amulet nerf that made high templars "dead and unusable" and storm "impossible to use". Think barracks after supply nerf that made terran "early aggression impossible" (11/11 *cough*). Think EMP nerfs that were supposed to kill this ability's effectiveness forever. Think void ray nerfs that were supposed to make this unit worthless. And the phoenix gliding shot buff that was going to effectively deny any muta play. And so many other changes where we would overreact to and where we would rally with our pitchforks up high, while in retrospect we see those changes as fine and good. We even laugh at how some of those things used to work, don't we?
Why did I even write this?
I felt the urge to speak up. I might not be a pro, but I've played for many years. I was an "A" zerg player on ICCup, I play SCII casually in high master, (made GM a few seasons ago \o/ <shameless brag>) with all three races. I've been a lurker for years, but I love our community and identify myself with it. As a community we are awesome and very special. We get things right, we bring up concerns, we get stuff done for our beloved game. Hey, we don't even hurt eSports; we actually grow it. But while we like to always believe that we are perfect, we get a lot of things wrong and forget about them instead of taking notes and learning from them. Blizzard makes mistakes too, just like we do, but they are more open to admitting them than we are. As it's our duty, how about we become more constructive to help make the game even more amazing, if they are willing to listen?
TL;DR: Look at BW history and SCII history, get perspective and be honest with ourselves. Less QQ, more Pew Pew.
 
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You are a genius. I've hoped that someone with more BW knowledge than me would be able to speak out on some of these subjects, and you are now a guy like that. Its like when people just say how shit the game is and how much better BW is. BW has had 12 years of pioneering to get to its near perfect state. Luckyfool made a video on youtube about how BW was before patch 1.08, the patch that effectively brought balance to the game and all the patches after that, the patches that stopepd BW from becoming a mess of 4pools and 2gates. People seem to be quick to forget about the period of building up that BW had, the very, very long period it had and want SC2 to have 12 years of pioneering instantly, and it just doesn't work like that.
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your Country52797 Posts
You said everything I wanted to say, and even more than that in some places.
+1
I didn't ever watch BW but you make a very convincing and easy to understand argument in that area.
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I must say, you think about things in a much more advanced way than I do. I can't even begin to comprehend the genius behind the argument you have just made. 5/5
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I agree with your logic but I disagree with the way you present them. Yes you learn a game and it evolves with you but comparing BW and SC2 is not a good thing. Especially because they're way more different than people believe. BW was less balanced than SC2 imo. This is because, when they started balancing BW and designing it, they didn't have a huge fan community expressing their opinions and Blizzard didn't even take any input from them. And the game evolved so much from the way BW was balanced. For example, I can bet you the original BW developers never predicted that in TvZ, Terran can secure 3 base with MnM and then switch to Mech, max out at 200/200 with mines, turrets, tanks, and slowly choke the Zerg to death.
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
I didn't know BW existed before SC2, but once I read up on its history most balance whining seems so strange. People constantly confuse current trends with absolute balance.
Lets say Toss has a bad month, no tourney wins, dropping out of Code S, not being played in team leagues.
The community's defacto response to this is: TOSS UP, Blizz plz patch, pros go off on twitter, threads are made, tears are shed, shit is flung.
And thats without ever looking at the causes, whether its to do with map pools, whether a certain timing was figured out, whether a couple of key players were slumping.
Not saying imbalanced shit doesn't exist (hyper DPS fungals, old blue flame hellions, Insta warp in storms) but people take current trends and whine as though they dictate ultimate game design.
Good blog.
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I've thought about this before, but it seems difficult to know when the game has been patched to a kind of middle-ground where "revolutionary" play and innovation from different races keeps all the matchups balanced. Perhaps we were a little lucky BW managed to keep reasonably close to this middle-ground with revolutionary play from the different races? Or perhaps SC2 could be less open to this play with the larger focus on unit composition and beating your opponents unit composition with your own?
Very well written, 5/5
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Words of wisdom.
However, there's this thing. In the past, in SC:BW times, the concept of community - "we" - wasn't as weighted and established as it is now. It was therefore hard to criticize (constructively or not) anything, since there wasn't really a "we".
Moreover, Blizzard itself wasn't really open. It was more like "here, take this patch we thought will be good" than "we heard you, Oh, Community, and we nerfed X or adressed Y problem" which is the current typical stance of Blizzard.
What I mean by that is yes, by all means, you are right, we shouldn't overreact and years will do their job no doubt about it. But, you cannot really stop people from reacting to everything because 1) its what people that share the same interest do, talk about it and 2) it appears that Blizzard itself is encouraging it by reassessing the "community" "we care" "we heard" "we read" etc.
My 2 cents, hoping I'm not derailing anything, the OP is filled with good intentions.
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Completely agree. Whining about balance is dumb anyway 
The only thing I kind of disagree with is the comparison between bw mech in TvZ and sc2 mech in TvP. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't TvZ mech in bw considered not viable because it was too expensive? While in sc2 TvP mech is said to be unplayable because it's highly ineffective (chargelots and immortals being hardcounters). Those are too totally different problems and I feel like WoL TvP mech won't ever be considered viable. Maybe HotS mech will change things but I don't see any ammount of innovation making WoL mech any good against toss
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brilliant blog. i can only imagine how the game will be played 3 years from now.
im gonna shamelessly link another blog where i post a few times about balance whining and my thoughts on it
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=357110
my only true balance worry is terran inability to remax as much/as quickly as z and p. maybe this is true imbalance maybe it is just a down period for terran but like this author shows us. you never know when that player will show up with an idea and just change a matchup completely. and its much more exciting to wait for that to happen or try to be the one to make that happen than to whine and hope blizzard will change something.
dont get me wrong i do believe true imbalance to be a possibility like the one example i mentioned above, but determining if it is truly fundamental imbalance is much harder work than just looking at a months worth of games
and yes it is widely considered that bw is now perfectly balanced but how long did that take? and thats only at the highest levels of play. there hasnt been enough brood war data across all skills levels for years if even at all.
edit: to OP: perspective. great word for the context. we all could use more
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And to answer the question asked in title, I think it's very basic and was true in SC:BW, too. Terran requires a ton of micro (kiting, splitting, mutlitasking) to be effective.
With perfect micro, they should be the most powerful race because of the range advantage. Their units could basically kite all day long and be very, very cost effective. Very skilled players like Taeja show what micro and multitask can do to Terrans... (boy is he good... unreal).
That however is absolute strenght, maximum potential strenght, "skillcap". If we consider the strenght of races in this absolute fashion, I think Terran is ahead.
Problem is... well it's freaking hard to pull out, hence the majority of human beings, including myself, tend to be disappointed at how weak Terran can feel on their "not Taeja" hands.
Edit : It was a bit less pronounced in SC:BW because of the better static power (stronger tanks + spider mines). Terrans could "sit" a bit better and therefore rely a little bit less on bio kiting. But this begins to fall under the practice you aim to discourage, so I'll stop here. Time, and HotS, will tell.
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I wonder how SC2 would have been without all the huge nerfs and all the buffs.
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^^
this is why its so hard to balance across ALL SKILL levels. if u make drops easier at a diamond level then taeja becomes even better. but if u buff pros ability to defend taeja drops then anyone not a GM terran suffers.
this is why u have to look at bigger more general issues when talking about balance across all skill levels. if u want to look at individual units and their abilities in certain situations i dont really see another choice than to balance it at the pro level even if that means a platinum terran can rarely beat platinum HT. because at the platinum level you should just be trying to improve your mechanics to get extra/earlier ghosts.
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On August 01 2012 11:27 GinDo wrote:
I wonder how SC2 would have been without all the huge nerfs and all the buffs.
right? i mean how many BW patches until the spawning pool was increased? i seem to remember it taking a bit long. someone correct me if im wrong. the point is we shouldnt rush to decisions and let the players figure it out. it makes for more exciting games anyways right? gumiho anyone?
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On August 01 2012 11:31 ParkwayDrive wrote:
^^
this is why its so hard to balance across ALL SKILL levels. if u make drops easier at a diamond level then taeja becomes even better. but if u buff pros ability to defend taeja drops then anyone not a GM terran suffers.
this is why u have to look at bigger more general issues when talking about balance across all skill levels. if u want to look at individual units and their abilities in certain situations i dont really see another choice than to balance it at the pro level even if that means a platinum terran can rarely beat platinum HT. because at the platinum level you should just be trying to improve your mechanics to get extra/earlier ghosts.
/off topic
Yes I totally agree.
Problem and probably frustration being that for a given level (say platinum) where people should be, well, on your level, it feels like the Terran has to put more efforts to compete on equal feet vs the AoE/tier3 fiesta. This is not race balance. This is "micro/multitask required to play race at X level" balance, if that makes any sense, and I hope it does.
Not an easy thing to balance indeed... especially since it's related to the very essence of terran, being ranged, fragile but hurtful.
To loop back on topic, of which I feel I'm defeating the purpose : this is what it feels NOW. Maybe in a while, things will change. I feel that people still have some legitimacy in expressing their current concerns though, because present is... well, what makes you play / enjoy the game.
This blog could help alleviate those concerns by... giving some hope, I guess.
Edit : I just realized I basically repeated what I already said in my first post. Sorry.... tired.
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If Blizzard wasn't bandaid patching all the time it wouldn't have been an issue.
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agreed. we live in a time of instant transfer of information instant gratification. both our community and blizzard suffer from this. we overreact on an issue and the blizzard overreacts with their fix because they are terrified of losing players. if both sides just took a moment to chill and just enjoy the game for what it is and revel that is actually as balanced as it currently is so early in its lifespan i think we;d be better off. and i do wish blizzard would give a little more time before making a balance change. it seems like they react to an issue we bring up without actually thinking about how it affects everything else.
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On August 01 2012 10:44 swim224 wrote:
I must say, you think about things in a much more advanced way than I do. I can't even begin to comprehend the genius behind the argument you have just made. 5/5
This. This blog post has a way more convincing argument than I could ever make.
The only problem I could see, is that he talks about balance changes and how we overreact to them. The point I would focus on would be the Blue Flame Hellion MLG, because it's a better metaphor for the bisu build. For those who don't know, Blue Flame Hellions were discovered by the entire team of slayers and they brought it to MLG and toasted(pun totally intended) up the TvT matchup and TvZ and TvP. By the second day, TvT was hellion wars with positioning wars and tanks to counter hellions and thors to counter tanks and hellions. It was crazy. TvZ Idra died to MKP going 3 reactor fact 1 tech lab fact blue flame hellions, even though he made lots of spines and turtled to mutalisks. TvZ also had a drop where BFH were on the low ground and marines on the high ground and the hellions covered the marines. It was revolutionary, and too bad they nerfed it. But it was soo exciting because I was basically like "What am I seeing?" and I stayed glued to my computer than entire MLG.
Too bad Blizz nerfed it, because it ruins the comparison.
Edit:
On August 01 2012 12:01 Murlox wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2012 11:31 ParkwayDrive wrote:
^^
this is why its so hard to balance across ALL SKILL levels. if u make drops easier at a diamond level then taeja becomes even better. but if u buff pros ability to defend taeja drops then anyone not a GM terran suffers.
this is why u have to look at bigger more general issues when talking about balance across all skill levels. if u want to look at individual units and their abilities in certain situations i dont really see another choice than to balance it at the pro level even if that means a platinum terran can rarely beat platinum HT. because at the platinum level you should just be trying to improve your mechanics to get extra/earlier ghosts. /off topic Yes I totally agree. Problem and probably frustration being that for a given level (say platinum) where people should be, well, on your level, it feels like the Terran has to put more efforts to compete on equal feet vs the AoE/tier3 fiesta. This is not race balance. This is "micro/multitask required to play race at X level" balance, if that makes any sense, and I hope it does. Not an easy thing to balance indeed... especially since it's related to the very essence of terran, being ranged, fragile but hurtful. To loop back on topic, of which I feel I'm defeating the purpose : this is what it feels NOW. Maybe in a while, things will change. I feel that people still have some legitimacy in expressing their current concerns though, because present is... well, what makes you play / enjoy the game. This blog could help alleviate those concerns by... giving some hope, I guess. Edit : I just realized I basically repeated what I already said in my first post. Sorry.... tired.
In BW, from what I hear, Protoss could basically be C level vs Terran just by macroing, whereas terran had to make a ridiculous skill increase. I'm a subscriber to highest level balance disregarding skill level problems.
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