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There’s been an innumerable amount of balance complaints, whining, and doomsaying in recent weeks. I personally haven’t been left emotionally unscathed of this whirlwind of winrate melodrama. The complaints don’t just come from the depths of battlenet lower leagues. The anger induced musings exclusively (not) of bronze leaguers who are on tilt after educational ladder sessions filled from DT auto losses, blink all ins, and of course, everyone’s favorite - oracle's casually bending your scvs over your mineral line whispering ‘take it’ among other sweet nothings into the ear of our helpless civilian contingent. Times are hard. Even the most naively optimistic of our terran brethren are being pushed to that invisible line in the sand that separates NERD QQing and the infinitely more respected ‘constructive balance perspective.’ It’s all a little muddled, and the gravity of the situation gets completely lost in midst nerd-revenge-syndrome, personal agendas, and the TAKE IT LIKE A MAN protoss anti QQ cortiere.
Scan more, they say. Scout more, they say. Marco more, they say. Mirco more, they say. JUST STOP SUCKING ASS U TERRANS ARE GAWD AWFUL PROTOSS PLAYERS ARE BETTER NOT THE RACE I SWAR U NOOBFACED GOOBER NOOBER.
They.
Say.
Sometimes this game doesn’t make any sense in relation to what we expect out of RTS games. Or should be say balanced (or well designed) games. As a terran I feel a collective outrage borne out of fear. Maybe its fear of storms dissapating over your maxed 3-3 army and that helpless feeling knowing there’s nothing there anymore. Fear of giant cliff walking, laser emitting, tripod looking motherfuckers that your vikings never seem to kill fast enough.
Fear that if I macro I’m just not going to have enough ghosts to stop these rampant templars. Am I wrong in seeing the gold standard is there’s usually not enough to emps to stop the storms? Is it just me? And what if I get aggressive? Makes sense right? I can’t just sit here, invest so much in defense, because my tech just isn’t as good as his as the game progresses. Maybe blizzard wants me to attack? The best form of defense is attack, they say. Cloak banshees was my first go to. They’re invisible I thought. I tried this for two games. First game I got oracled. I didn’t know about the build until the oracles were in my mineral line just like the toss didn’t know about my banshees because he didn’t do secondary scout with his MSC.
So far, so good. Even footing, right? I saw the oracle on the periphery of my base in time to pull workers before his oracle was doing work. I had reactor on rax enough rines in place but he still got six kills for workers and a couple of marines that just spawned. He barely took hull damage in return. Okay, that’s cool. I’ve had worse happen. We’ve all had. My turn right? Time to fuck some shit up! Cloak’s done, banshee finishes but then I was let in on a dirty little secret. Banshees SUCK. Nexus overcharge is activated before I kill one worker and of course it shoots up. Second oracle comes back home for safe measure and even though he has no obs, oracle provides detection, BOOYAH, now THAT'S balance, right?
I don’t think its balanced that we both defended as well we could but my investment wasn’t cost efficient in the slightest but with toss am I wrong to think the oracle is ALWAYS cost efficient unless you have the control of a noob? Even if you don’t get worker kills it’s so fast AND it has revelation? I’ve seen the BEST terrans stimming from here to yonder cause they think an oracle got close enough to be taken down but its so fast it STILL usually gets away, with the pilot yelling ‘u mad, u mad bro’ out the window. Is that *speed* really necessary? And sometimes when the toss is doing something else, and the oracle literally is suicided into marines or is somehow miracliously warded off without any kills, that it doesn’t seem to put them behind like the investment into cloaked banshees are for terran? Am I just another crazy noob and its ‘all in my head?’
And why is the banshee so much harder to control and/or keep alive if the investment in tech is so much more of a hitch in the terrans ability to mass up bio or be greedy. It’s like the toss with the oracle can be greedy, CAN FAIL, and outright hold counters because of nexus charge?
And the widow mine drop? Is that only viable period when there’s no robo? Why is it toss are making less and less cannons? Even when they don’t have detection they have a tailor made AGGRESSIVE proxy opening that will also usually defend mine drops with minimal losses no static D needed NEVER EVER? All terran can hope for is the toss doesn’t pull his workers in time? Why is everything terran does seemingly predicated on toss making some sort of colossal blunder?
Why is it, I consider it a win that I get a toss to make a cannon. Its good to know he at least feels some sort of fear. Because right now I feel like every TvP is like army of rabbits armed with weapons my six year old sister made with construction paper verses Jason Fucking Vorhes with a light saber. And not the regular Jason either. The OP one that went in space and got fucking upgrades to boot.
Don’t think that you can mirco and use early pressure to a positive winrate against protoss when you get to the point that you’re playing toss that are ‘good.’ We don’t have tools blizzard. I understand why. I was initially a protoss. I remember WoL. I remember fucking having sentries slaughtered because I didn’t cycle through my hotkeys fast enough and I have a handful or marine, marauders than just simply end the game, no questions asked. But boy oh boy did blizzard go fucking ham on the buffs. So much so if you even see a sentry or a cannon, or defensive immortal it’s a rarity. You might as well have found the holy grail. The defense is so strong that Rain doesn’t look like the protoss god he used to be. Before it was a defensive predicated on his OP decision making, positioning/army movement, and marco.
He was, the best MECHANICAL protoss player and it fucking showed. Now, his legend dies because it’s not about mechanics or multitasking or even decision making… protoss defense is entirely reliant on the MSC. Your units out of place? No worries, we can RECALL too.
Polt did something crazy. He said fuck it. He got over the fear of the blink all in and yolo swagged the toss before it was done to him. We made a little leeway thanks to the Prime’s Optimus. But terrans, we have a long way to go.
But look on the but hey, look on the bright side, the way the game is, IF you have a stronk mentality to not let the negativity gets the best of you this is the best training you’ll ever get. You become a good TvP’er now, when the game actually gets balanced…
...we’ll all be TvP godz.
BTW the second game I realized DT's fuck shit up way faster than banshees. I considered just floating my buildings to delay the inevitable but I just GG'ed humanely. Now that I've gotten that off my chest I feel better. Less cra-cra even. I'm going to try floating some rax in protoss main cause I'm at the breaking point trying to figure out a way to attack them like they do us. We can just be sitting in our bases building bunkers, getting upgrades blind to the world beyond our supply depot wall spamming random scans hoping we see SOMETHING, ANYTHING. We MUST FIGHT for our Terran Pride. We provide the most beautiful moments in Starcraft I honestly believe that and balance be damned there must be a way for us to succeed... thanks Polt for doing us a solid. Not since Soulkey have I seen a nerd put his foot down like that I hope there's some way the rest of us noobz can follow suit.
 
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"as soon as the game is balanced well all be tvp gods"
seriously though how awful would it be that if the game was actually balanced and terrans started winning tvp because weve been subject to this current matchup for so long that we get better from it? would blizzard have to buff the oracle again just to get the winrates back to 50/50?
actually no that would never happen, blizzard doesnt give a flying fuck about lower level leagues
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Trial by fire? I feel like there's way more I can do to counter act design/balance issues at my substandard level because yeah, platinum/gold/diamond toss makes mistakes. At the highest level, if two players are playing so good and so fast the their minimalizing mistakes, optimizing marco, and mircoing as best as possible when they progress neck and neck economically I just feel the terran is at a disadvantage in all facets. That's the likes of Flash and Innovation's problem. I mean I watched Innovation get ROLSTOMPED by HerO because his standard play couldn't stand up to some pretty cheesy protoss builds.
Think about the implications of that, Inno standard play can't handle protoss cheese. Makes me feel better for a moment cause its all too familiar but then in retrospect I just get sad cause if he can't then I can only ascertain its just fucking op. Are we supposed to know, scout, and identify these cheese builds before they happen. Are they saying its OK for toss to play blind while you have to move heaven and earth to find out the fucks going on while they calmly set up their cheese out in the middle of the map? Is the new TvP meta going to degenerate into a shitton of bad terran all ins in the hope we can get the toss who like to marco to be LESS greedy? What can we do? I feel like we need to do that shit to them to keep them honest but it's like they get their cake and eat it to because of the mothership core. Right now, unless you heavily nerf units oracle needs to have revelation removed so we can at least punish these robo less builds. They're not pigeonholed into anything anymore all tech options open and viable and with no viable terran scouting its hard to know.
For fuck sakes DT's straight up end games if a terran is too greedy with mules and no turrets banshees haven't ended a game since fucking Wings.
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On February 19 2014 12:36 Aveng3r wrote:
"as soon as the game is balanced well all be tvp gods"
seriously though how awful would it be that if the game was actually balanced and terrans started winning tvp because weve been subject to this current matchup for so long that we get better from it? would blizzard have to buff the oracle again just to get the winrates back to 50/50?
actually no that would never happen, blizzard doesnt give a flying fuck about lower level leagues
... or the players just were not good enough. A friend of mine likes to say that the players balance the game, not blizzard. And I dont see why not.
Also getting better in a mu because you trained it is not something unusual. 90% of the high-winrate-all-ins like t 1-1-1 and immo-sentry in pvz were beaten more and more bc the defense against it was trained. Two-rax bunker rush, 4-gate... most of them werent nerfed to oblivion, just people getting better at holding them.
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I think everything will get figured out. You just need to practice and be able to identify it. For the most part, if you can scout it you, you can stop it. Now I will admit I sometimes feel helpless against protoss on the ladder as a Terran, and start to think its a balance thing. But then I usually just try to up my harrassment of them early/mid game and things play out better in my favor. The hardest thing about SC 2 is admitting that the guy who beat you won because they are better, and the mind will come up with every excuse in the world to avoid that.
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On February 19 2014 13:46 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2014 12:36 Aveng3r wrote:
"as soon as the game is balanced well all be tvp gods"
seriously though how awful would it be that if the game was actually balanced and terrans started winning tvp because weve been subject to this current matchup for so long that we get better from it? would blizzard have to buff the oracle again just to get the winrates back to 50/50?
actually no that would never happen, blizzard doesnt give a flying fuck about lower level leagues ... or the players just were not good enough. A friend of mine likes to say that the players balance the game, not blizzard. And I dont see why not. Also getting better in a mu because you trained it is not something unusual. 90% of the high-winrate-all-ins like t 1-1-1 and immo-sentry in pvz were beaten more and more bc the defense against it was trained. Two-rax bunker rush, 4-gate... most of them werent nerfed to oblivion, just people getting better at holding them.
I know I'm not good enough when I get schooled. But when players like Innovation who is clearly, even for us noobs, existing on an entirely different mechanical plain than the rest of us mortals made to LOOK LIKE MY LAST three ladder games where I was the victim that's when shit needs to hit the fan. Because in a balanced game there should be absolutely nothing that can warp reality in a way that makes AcerInnovation look like a total noob from platinum like me.
Especially when the counter strategy employed is just the simplest of cheeses. Terran skill ceiling is so high that you can tell the differences between the tiers of players relatively easily, we can agree with that right? What excuse can they have for lowering the Protoss ceiling being so low that me, as a viewer, is robbed of the delightful intricacies that makes watching Inno play sc2 so much more fun as opposed to me playing.
These games are getting so bad we're being robbed on a more continual basis of seeing more exciting gameplay from the supposed imba fourth race of sc2... the korean terran. And I just don't want the game to continue down this path of suckititude because as a spectator what incentive is there for me to continue watching? I could just open up my own replays.
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On February 19 2014 14:07 HeeroFX wrote:
I think everything will get figured out. You just need to practice and be able to identify it. For the most part, if you can scout it you, you can stop it. Now I will admit I sometimes feel helpless against protoss on the ladder as a Terran, and start to think its a balance thing. But then I usually just try to up my harrassment of them early/mid game and things play out better in my favor. The hardest thing about SC 2 is admitting that the guy who beat you won because they are better, and the mind will come up with every excuse in the world to avoid that.
That's the scariest part of all. Maybe I'm going crazy and all the protoss naysayers are right and all my terran hero's that I've watched since this game was in its infancy just aren't that good anymore despite the apparent myth of the invulnerability of the 'Korean Terran.'
That all the best players, aren't divided by the Korean border anymore but by the protoss racial divide? I dunno if I'm ready to accept that yet.
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I just play mech and random and have fun.
Every matchup, every race have their own uber frustrating moments.
In pro level, it is all about how to play with maximized efficiency, but you don't have to do that in ladder play.
I just open up widow mine defense and drop (it's not about probe kills, it's about applying some pressure. you can just land the widow mine onto the toss's third as well) and never had any trouble dealing with oracle.
As for blink stalkers all in, I play mech, I get early factories and tanks anyway.
The things that I die to? At least I don't have to seek agreements on forum that protoss is imba because of all those openings and game is fun even if I lost :p
For example, you comparing banshee to oracle? I use a lot of banshee in my mech to harass and force them make stalkers.
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tQmbDpx.jpg)
Pictured above:
1) Balanced wine.
2) Fine wine.
3) Fine balance.
Conclusion: Balance wine is fine.
On a serious note, there is a big difference between logical balance discussion and vitrolic rants. That being said, it is also very hard to truly tell whether a game is balanced. If you look at BW, there are many long periods where a race is underpowered, then somebody comes up with a revolutionary strategy and that race becomes dominant.
Also, people balance whining from personal experiences shouldn't even be taken seriously unless they can play at Code S / PL level.
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One of the biggest indicators of balance whine is imagining other races making ridiculous arguments and imagining yourself as some oppressed class.
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I feel the same way about zvt.
Just played a macro game (20 min). I had twice his workers, twice his apm, half his average unspent resources, and still lost ez.
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personally i just whine to vent, it's a kind of mini therapy so i don't tilt on ladder
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On February 19 2014 18:06 Pangpootata wrote:Pictured above: 1) Balanced wine. 2) Fine wine. 3) Fine balance. Conclusion: Balance wine is fine. On a serious note, there is a big difference between logical balance discussion and vitrolic rants. That being said, it is also very hard to truly tell whether a game is balanced. If you look at BW, there are many long periods where a race is underpowered, then somebody comes up with a revolutionary strategy and that race becomes dominant. Also, people balance whining from personal experiences shouldn't even be taken seriously unless they can play at Code S / PL level.
You just won the thread.
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
actually no that would never happen, blizzard doesnt give a flying fuck about lower level leagues
To be honest, with the relative ease of getting to diamond/masters (making it to the top 0.1% in a game is thousands times harder than making it to the top 10%) i think a lot are in agreement that messing up balance at pro level for the sake of people who don't practice or play nearly as much and have other options to do better in the game (unlike the pro's, who play for their life and money and can't just practice more) would not be the best idea.
Even when there were two toss ro16 GSL (when GSL really, really mattered) and season after season there was massive dominance in TvP with 1-1-1 and a few other all-in's thrown in, people still balance whined almost as much about templar/colossus/warpgates/forcefields/etc - there's no winning here. If there's a valid reason for discussion, good, but i've learned from TL that people really, really, really really really really would rather see some kind of problem or issue with anything but themselves when they fail to live up to their expectations
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On February 20 2014 11:25 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +actually no that would never happen, blizzard doesnt give a flying fuck about lower level leagues To be honest, with the relative ease of getting to diamond/masters (making it to the top 0.1% in a game is thousands times harder than making it to the top 10%) i think a lot are in agreement that messing up balance at pro level for the sake of people who don't practice or play nearly as much and have other options to do better in the game (unlike the pro's, who play for their life and money and can't just practice more) would not be the best idea. Even when there were two toss ro16 GSL (when GSL really, really mattered) and season after season there was massive dominance in TvP with 1-1-1 and a few other all-in's thrown in, people still balance whined almost as much about templar/colossus/warpgates/forcefields/etc - there's no winning here. If there's a valid reason for discussion, good, but i've learned from TL that people really, really, really really really really would rather see some kind of problem or issue with anything but themselves when they fail to live up to their expectations
See I'm not any false pretensions. Balanced for pro's and pro's only. Most of us can only gauge the balance of the game from our limited playing experiences and situations and comparing them to the pro games. The pro games is the final frontier, I'm no balance expert nor am I rts designing genius. But I honestly believe shit has to be pretty glaring for a plat noob like me to be able to point out. You have more inherent natural RTS skills than me, that's something I presume because of your statement in how 'easy' it is to get to master.
I'm so bad that when I see pro terrans looking like me that's when alarm bells start ringing. Fuck my ladder rank and balancing gameplay for casuals. The beauty in the gameplay, the difficultly in it was what endeared me to starcraft and I think we're losing that because people aren't putting their best foot forward because their main interests are defending their race, or THEIR ladder rank, or wanting their favorite protoss to keep on sweeping the tourney's. Some of us terrans actually want to game to be as watchable as broodwar and protoss painting all terrans with the same brush only serves to distract from the problem and the issue never gets looked it.
People are skipping completely over the examples and situations that terrans are giving in great detail citing their own experiences comparatively to that of professional terrans and for the most part people seem to get defensive and skirt the issue usually not acknowledging the complaints at all. Some take the 'well terrans acted like dicks when they were op so' route and I'm not sure comments inspire much faith in the harmony of the community going forward. Some go great lengths to find obscure and mostly irrelevant stats just to make it seem like everything's just peachy.
I guess it just pisses me off that 'everything being peachy' starts and finishes with how their race is doing balance, design, and spectator aspects be damned. And what's fucked is that this same thinking unless it stops is going to rear its ugly head again and maybe next time its protoss that's getting fucked. Maybe then and only then you'll see it 'our' way.
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This was actually a really enjoyable read.
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On February 20 2014 12:44 LibertyRises wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 11:25 Cyro wrote:actually no that would never happen, blizzard doesnt give a flying fuck about lower level leagues To be honest, with the relative ease of getting to diamond/masters (making it to the top 0.1% in a game is thousands times harder than making it to the top 10%) i think a lot are in agreement that messing up balance at pro level for the sake of people who don't practice or play nearly as much and have other options to do better in the game (unlike the pro's, who play for their life and money and can't just practice more) would not be the best idea. Even when there were two toss ro16 GSL (when GSL really, really mattered) and season after season there was massive dominance in TvP with 1-1-1 and a few other all-in's thrown in, people still balance whined almost as much about templar/colossus/warpgates/forcefields/etc - there's no winning here. If there's a valid reason for discussion, good, but i've learned from TL that people really, really, really really really really would rather see some kind of problem or issue with anything but themselves when they fail to live up to their expectations See I'm not any false pretensions. Balanced for pro's and pro's only. Most of us can only gauge the balance of the game from our limited playing experiences and situations and comparing them to the pro games. The pro games is the final frontier, I'm no balance expert nor am I rts designing genius. But I honestly believe shit has to be pretty glaring for a plat noob like me to be able to point out. You have more inherent natural RTS skills than me, that's something I presume because of your statement in how 'easy' it is to get to master. I'm so bad that when I see pro terrans looking like me that's when alarm bells start ringing. Fuck my ladder rank and balancing gameplay for casuals. The beauty in the gameplay, the difficultly in it was what endeared me to starcraft and I think we're losing that because people aren't putting their best foot forward because their main interests are defending their race, or THEIR ladder rank, or wanting their favorite protoss to keep on sweeping the tourney's. Some of us terrans actually want to game to be as watchable as broodwar and protoss painting all terrans with the same brush only serves to distract from the problem and the issue never gets looked it. People are skipping completely over the examples and situations that terrans are giving in great detail citing their own experiences comparatively to that of professional terrans and for the most part people seem to get defensive and skirt the issue usually not acknowledging the complaints at all. Some take the 'well terrans acted like dicks when they were op so' route and I'm not sure comments inspire much faith in the harmony of the community going forward. Some go great lengths to find obscure and mostly irrelevant stats just to make it seem like everything's just peachy. I guess it just pisses me off that 'everything being peachy' starts and finishes with how their race is doing balance, design, and spectator aspects be damned. And what's fucked is that this same thinking unless it stops is going to rear its ugly head again and maybe next time its protoss that's getting fucked. Maybe then and only then you'll see it 'our' way.
Can you rephrase that in such a way that it makes sense?
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On February 20 2014 12:58 ninazerg wrote:
This was actually a really enjoyable read.
Thanks means a lot!
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On February 21 2014 15:35 Aveng3r wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 12:44 LibertyRises wrote:On February 20 2014 11:25 Cyro wrote:actually no that would never happen, blizzard doesnt give a flying fuck about lower level leagues To be honest, with the relative ease of getting to diamond/masters (making it to the top 0.1% in a game is thousands times harder than making it to the top 10%) i think a lot are in agreement that messing up balance at pro level for the sake of people who don't practice or play nearly as much and have other options to do better in the game (unlike the pro's, who play for their life and money and can't just practice more) would not be the best idea. Even when there were two toss ro16 GSL (when GSL really, really mattered) and season after season there was massive dominance in TvP with 1-1-1 and a few other all-in's thrown in, people still balance whined almost as much about templar/colossus/warpgates/forcefields/etc - there's no winning here. If there's a valid reason for discussion, good, but i've learned from TL that people really, really, really really really really would rather see some kind of problem or issue with anything but themselves when they fail to live up to their expectations See I'm not any false pretensions. Balanced for pro's and pro's only. Most of us can only gauge the balance of the game from our limited playing experiences and situations and comparing them to the pro games. The pro games is the final frontier, I'm no balance expert nor am I rts designing genius. But I honestly believe shit has to be pretty glaring for a plat noob like me to be able to point out. You have more inherent natural RTS skills than me, that's something I presume because of your statement in how 'easy' it is to get to master. I'm so bad that when I see pro terrans looking like me that's when alarm bells start ringing. Fuck my ladder rank and balancing gameplay for casuals. The beauty in the gameplay, the difficultly in it was what endeared me to starcraft and I think we're losing that because people aren't putting their best foot forward because their main interests are defending their race, or THEIR ladder rank, or wanting their favorite protoss to keep on sweeping the tourney's. Some of us terrans actually want to game to be as watchable as broodwar and protoss painting all terrans with the same brush only serves to distract from the problem and the issue never gets looked it. People are skipping completely over the examples and situations that terrans are giving in great detail citing their own experiences comparatively to that of professional terrans and for the most part people seem to get defensive and skirt the issue usually not acknowledging the complaints at all. Some take the 'well terrans acted like dicks when they were op so' route and I'm not sure comments inspire much faith in the harmony of the community going forward. Some go great lengths to find obscure and mostly irrelevant stats just to make it seem like everything's just peachy. I guess it just pisses me off that 'everything being peachy' starts and finishes with how their race is doing balance, design, and spectator aspects be damned. And what's fucked is that this same thinking unless it stops is going to rear its ugly head again and maybe next time its protoss that's getting fucked. Maybe then and only then you'll see it 'our' way. Can you rephrase that in such a way that it makes sense?
A lot of protoss are pretending the game is balanced because its beneficial to their winrates. A lot of them know whats up and are defending it by pointing out it happened to them before. They dont care about the terrans, they dont care about the neutrals, and they dont care about the negative implications it has on starcraft 2 growing as a spectator e sport. In short, a lot of people are acting selfish because they cant take anything good about the game unless it directly correlates to their winning. And that brings out the little raging nerd in me more than getting raped on ladder by protoss ever could.
And Im taking it us terrans acted the same way when we were on top I dont claim to know because Ive only began following the scene in depth recently. I hope that this somehow is acceptable and decipherable to you and I apologize for not being clearer prior. Right now MC should be rolling terrans then reenacting the ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED Gladiator scene cause some passages of gameplay would make me feel dirty if I was a protoss. I maybe wrong and the only nerd in the world that feels this way but its how I feel bro.
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