It's just is not what it used to be before the queen change(and to a lesser extend the infestor change). BUT WAIT!!! Before anyone scrolls down now to the reply window and posts stuff like "lol iknorite queen totally op" or "go elsewhere with your whining" please hear me out, because what I'm about to say isn't a balance issue.
It's more of a timing thing that makes this matchup incredibly stale and boring to watch at the moment in my opinion. See what used to happen in a "normal" TvZ before those changes mentioned above was you had:
the early game, in which an all in could happen, harassment was seen often as well.
the mid game, where the Terran used Marine/Tank/Medivac to be highly mobile, go arround the map and try to outmultitask the Zerg, while the Zerg fended off those Moves with Muta/ling/bling, and meanwhile tried to harass with the mutas himself.
then, after a long and drawn out midgame, there came the late game, maybe at the 25-30 minute mark Zerg felt comfortable enough to get his greater spire and some broodlords out.
But since the queen patch there the whole (!)timing(!)-balance of the matchup is completely overthrown. Zergs just use queens to kill all early game harassment potential. Because there is no actual unit that the terran can use to fight against queens and zerglings cost efficiently, no Zerg has a reason to ever "waste" gas on banelings, therefor they can get to the midgame much quicker. At which point they have all the gas they need to get the infestors out ASAP. I've seen multiple games where the zerg has literally nothing but Lings and infestors before he has his hive. Sure they might have the tech to build banelings in case they needed them, but that's just 50 gas less. And by that time they are most likely comfortably on 3 bases, and can start the hive almost immediately after getting infestors out.
A year ago Broodlords came into play at the ~25 minute mark earliest, unless the zerg was "weird like that". Today Broodlords by the 18 minute mark could be considered "late". And instead of the awesome action packed harassment by the terran in the midgame mostly they just defend their ridiculously early 3 bases, then try to get a 4th base up while trying to hit a kill-timing just before hive is up, in which they either win immediately or lose so much that they will most likely die to the broodlord follow up.
Just watch this game and compare it to the things we watch today. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but i hope not.
As for the solution for this problem, so far i don't have one. I mean, It's not like Zergs would waste gas on other stuff than what makes them win, I get that. I guess it's on the terrans to maybe figure out timings that somehow force zergs to stay in the midgame for longer (maybe snipe the zerg's tech frequently)?
Maybe the thing Bogus (Innovation) did in GSL Ro16 this week is just the thing TvZ needs, this was actually the first thing I've seen in a long time that made me actually think that it could make zergs cut back a bit on the greed. Because with the army he moved out he can definetely kill a hatch in a short amount of time if his opponent is not prepared (unlike that Banshee/Hellion opening for example).
While TvZ may not be fun for you anymore, your recollection of the glory days is terribly misconstrued. You would know this if you played zerg back then. Actual zergs hated the type of ZvT you seemingly cherish.
On November 16 2012 11:53 CosmicSpiral wrote: While TvZ may not be fun for you anymore, your recollection of the glory days is terribly misconstrued. You would know this if you played zerg back then. Actual zergs hated the type of ZvT you seemingly cherish.
well I'm not only talking from a player's perspective, that type of ZvT was more fun to watch as well. I did not play zerg back then i admit though
On November 16 2012 11:53 CosmicSpiral wrote: While TvZ may not be fun for you anymore, your recollection of the glory days is terribly misconstrued. You would know this if you played zerg back then. Actual zergs hated the type of ZvT you seemingly cherish.
well I'm not only talking from a player's perspective, that type of ZvT was more fun to watch as well. I did not play zerg back then i admit though
It was fun to watch and terrible to play. TvZ was terran-favored from beginning to end.
15 minute hive timings were quite common back in winter 2011, six months before the queen patch. They were weeded out by 2/2 anti-hive timings.
On November 16 2012 11:53 CosmicSpiral wrote: While TvZ may not be fun for you anymore, your recollection of the glory days is terribly misconstrued. You would know this if you played zerg back then. Actual zergs hated the type of ZvT you seemingly cherish.
well I'm not only talking from a player's perspective, that type of ZvT was more fun to watch as well. I did not play zerg back then i admit though
It was fun to watch and terrible to play. TvZ was terran-favored from beginning to end.
well now it's terrible to watch, and not really much more fun to play either imho. Actually even less fun from a Terran perspective. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I had an 80% winrate as Terran at the time and want that back. Quite the opposite actually, i sucked in TvZ substantially more at that time, but still. Playing against ling/bling/muta or even ling/bling infestor is tons more fun than the lategame viking vs corruptor battles to me.
On November 16 2012 11:53 CosmicSpiral wrote: While TvZ may not be fun for you anymore, your recollection of the glory days is terribly misconstrued. You would know this if you played zerg back then. Actual zergs hated the type of ZvT you seemingly cherish.
well I'm not only talking from a player's perspective, that type of ZvT was more fun to watch as well. I did not play zerg back then i admit though
It was fun to watch and terrible to play. TvZ was terran-favored from beginning to end.
well now it's terrible to watch, and not really much more fun to play either imho. Actually even less fun from a Terran perspective. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I had an 80% winrate as Terran at the time and want that back. Quite the opposite actually, i sucked in TvZ substantially more at that time, but still. Playing against ling/bling/muta or even ling/bling infestor is tons more fun than the lategame viking vs corruptor battles to me.
I know it sucks right now but the dark ages of ZvT weren't much better. People don't want to go back to either of them.
lol remember when muta-ling-bling was the "standard" composition by zergs, and everybody loved the matchup? Yeah... Obviously infestor-ling is more efficient and a better composition in general, but TvZ was fun to watch in part because of all the potential for both sides to do lots of harassment, and terran marine splits. Unlike now, it's all fungal. You can just compare MMA vs Dimaga at IEM Kiev to MMA vs Dimaga in NASL.
On November 16 2012 11:53 CosmicSpiral wrote: While TvZ may not be fun for you anymore, your recollection of the glory days is terribly misconstrued. You would know this if you played zerg back then. Actual zergs hated the type of ZvT you seemingly cherish.
I loved playing ZvT. I was a low'ish masters zerg, and had so much trouble with all different things terrans could cook up from behind their 2 marines on a cliff-edge, but gaining the upper hand with all of your fancy flanks, tricky traps, and superior muta micro was so friggin AWESOME.
I can't believe they haven't already reconsidered that patch. When they hit us with it, I remember Jinro and everyone else being so damn confused. Why? Why why why...
On November 16 2012 11:53 CosmicSpiral wrote: While TvZ may not be fun for you anymore, your recollection of the glory days is terribly misconstrued. You would know this if you played zerg back then. Actual zergs hated the type of ZvT you seemingly cherish.
I loved playing ZvT. I was a low'ish masters zerg, and had so much trouble with all different things terrans could cook up from behind their 2 marines on a cliff-edge, but gaining the upper hand with all of your fancy flanks, tricky traps, and superior muta micro was so friggin AWESOME.
I can't believe they haven't already reconsidered that patch. When they hit us with it, I remember Jinro and everyone else being so damn confused. Why? Why why why...
Yeah as a Zerg I enjoyed it aswell. Yeah it was awful to have some random all in kill you, or to misread something or make a small mistake and have the Terran crush you for it. But as the blog poster said, this isn't about balance. It was so much more interesting imo when you weren't guaranteed to get Broodlords out by 15 minutes, let alone even see them in the game. I long so much for the pre-queen patch days.
Yeah TvZ used to be my favorite matchup because even when my entire army got raped I could at least tell myself I could've split that better, sieged my tanks in better positions, whatever. Now its kinda like OOPS U MOVED 2 INCHES TOO FAR FOWARD, ALL UR MARINES ARE DEAD. The other fun part was how damn aggressive you could be, it wasn't uncommon to start attacking and never stopping until someone eventually won the game.
The huge viking corruptor blord infestor battles can be fun if you go mech... that's just my experience. That mech games are a lot funner, especially with ghosts. It really is about multitasking your opponent.
Ravens, drops, ghosts, and battle micro get crazy fun, just in a different way.
Plus occasionally the 3 hellion at a time with blue flame just fucking kills them
EPT
