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Good evening, everyone!
I'm worried. I have been noticing that, as of late, Starcraft 2 is boring me as a spectator. I've been wondering why. The level of play has never been higher and is still increasing; brood war pros are coming over, which should be interesting; Europeans are showing they're not that far behind the Koreans. Perfect recipe for a Starcraft 2 esports fan, on first sight.
Well yes, and no. There's one thing that's just destroying the enjoyment I'm getting out of the game: zerg. I've been following SC2 since the first day of beta. I've been cheering at home for Fruitdealer when he won the first GSL against all odds. I've read pages upon pages of zerg balance complaints, both on teamliquid.net as on the battle.net forums. A lot of nerfing and buffing happened, new maps came out, and it all lead to the current state of the game.
I won't beat about the bush: ZvT and ZvP have become very boring match-ups. Why? Because they're predictable. All I've seen Zerg do as of late is get three bases early (without worrying they'll be punished for it), hold off any aggression, try to keep their opponents from expanding too much, maintain map control. Behind all that, tech to Brood Lords and Infestors. When you finally have them attack and overrun your opponent. If the first wave fails, get a second one. If that fails, get ultralisks. It's the same thing over and over again. ZvT and ZvP are basically "no rush 20mins" games, in which both players max out their armies, and then throw them against each other. Battle of the death balls. I've noticed that even the casters are quickly running out of things to say during the build-ups. I don't really watch the games anymore either: they're unfolding in the background while I'm doing other stuff. It's something I don't do during TvP, TvT, PvP or ZvZ.
The reason it worries me is that this state of the game will end up destroying the game's strategic potential. It isn't really an RTS anymore if all you do is the same build (with or without a small variation thrown in for good measure) over and over again because it's the only viable thing to do. A good RTS gives players multiple good options to choose from.
I don't have the expertise nor the experience to propose a balance fix. I'm not good enough for that, I'm merely a spectator.
Just my two cents.
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I completely agree, Zerg has become boring to watch. It's not that Zergs are playing boring-ly... it's because the best way to play Zerg is boring. Boring yet highly effective, effective enough so that European Zergs can quite commonly take down Korean Terrans and Korean Protosses.
TvZ... I have faith. At first it was Marine/Tank vs Ling/Bling/Muta, but Zergs evolved and Terrans were having trouble with Zergs again. So they developed Bio/Mech (strange combos like Marine/Marauder/Hellion/Thor). More recently, Terrans were having huge problems with Zerg... so MarineKing comes out and goes pure bio. Then, Terrans have more trouble... Mvp showcases more mech. I love how the flavor of the month can be Marine/Tank, Bio/Mech, Mech, Bio, Sky Terran, you name it.
HotS gives me hope because the Viper + Speed Hydras + Burrow Ultras = different perspective on the lategame. C'mon, seeing speed hydras with speed banes going everywhere with Vipers sounds a lot more fun to watch than BL/Corrupter/Infestor/Spine slow march vs. Marine/Tank/Viking or Stalker/Mothership/Archon.
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I have just watched the TSL Ro of 8 for the first time since 6 months of not watching any SC2. And to be honest, I loved how the game has evolved. Both ZvZ and ZvT seem to be action packed matchups with a whole lot of spectator value. I actually quit spectating because as a Zerg player, it hurt watching all the aggressive Terrans plow through their Zerg opponents.
I think the only thing missing is making Nydus play more attractive (lower gas cost?). That would probably create a lot more interesting games. And as for Infestor-Broodlord: It's just the Zerg counterpart of the deathball, I see nothing inherently wrong with it (i.e. it's the opponents mistake if they fail to prevent it).
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I can't watch any replay from the Zerg's perspective. For me there are no solid indicators of what the hell they should be doing barring the extremely obvious. In a TvP for example if the Protoss rushes to 2base Colossus and is scouted there is two slightly different things the Terran can do: either skip the first two medivacs for faster vikings or not; and that is extremely intriguing for me on which they choose and how it affects the Terrans outcome. The ever so subtle variations is what keeps the game interesting. Whenever I watch a ZvP (from Z's point of view) the subtle variations don't exist because of larve. A common example again would be the Protoss once again going Colossus. The Zerg will make X corrupters and it won't affect the Zerg in a subtle negative way.
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Well, this game was designed terribly after all.
User was warned for this post
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I think if you tally up the average time for TvZ and ZvP, they both increased significantly since 2011 and that sucks. I would like to see a 3 rax stim timing attack but with the current large maps even 1 base plays into expand is easily defended by a econ build. Did you know that 1 rax expand + 2 bunker can defend a 4 gate?
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EPT
