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I guess it also depends on what kind of a player you are. If you are an aggressive player, I dare say that zerg is definitely the hardest race to learn.
- Zerg economy is much more difficult to learn than terran's or protoss'. You need to know when it's safe to drone, when you have to make units and how to make sure you have enough larva.
- A lot of zerg units with the exception of mutalisks are a lot harder get extra value out of. It's much easier to be effective with a group of marines and some medics than it is to be with a group of lings and some lurkers. Anyone can stim and snipe a lurker while retreating. The constant burrowing and unburrowing with lurkers while trying to avoid losing any and blocking marines with lings is a lot harder.
- Science vessels are flying. Defilers are not. High templars at least aren't as fat as defilers, they get blocked by anything. I've seen pro zergs lose games because a defiler didn't get into the nydus at time because it was running around like an idiot. I even have firsthand experience with it.
- Any engagements in the open field as zerg are a nightmare versus protoss when they have storm. The discrepancy in micro needed is ridiculous.
- As Day9 firmly believed and so do I, ZvZ is the hardest match-up in the game.
So to summarize, I'm not making any claims here that zerg is the hardest race at the highest level but I do believe zerg is the hardest race to learn from the ground up.
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On March 08 2016 18:59 vOdToasT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 12:43 L_Master wrote:
To take it one step further...can we really be sure that classic T>Z>P>T isn't just inherent to map balance, at least at top levels of play.
The fact that post 07' TvZ sits at 54%,PvT at 52%, and ZvP at 54% could in theory be a result of inherent features of map-making playing into that. How do we rule this out? We know that balance is based on maps. I can prove it logically. Every match up has to be played on a map, and the map can favour either side. So it can not be said that a match up is imbalanced in general. It has to be specified on which map it is imbalanced. For example, PvZ is 50% on fighting spirit. It is protoss favoured on Blue Storm and Bloody Ridge, and Zerg favoured on Electric Circuit.
Yea, I agree with this.
What I'm getting at is more the focus of the conversation. The discussion is primarily centered on why terran is better on higher levels, as in what aspects of terran make them the best on higher levels.
My argument is, what if terran being possibly the strongest race at the ultra top has nothing at all to do with features of the race, but rather the features that are generally used in popular map-making (not saying these are causes, but think things like minerals in bases, shape of naturals, general macro structure, etc.) inherently set up balance seen at pro level.
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How is ZvZ the hardest match up? Most games are decided early on with micro play and decisions, there's way more shit to do and decisions to make in pretty much all the other match ups lol.
We don't know terran is the strongest race at the highest level, because flash just makes it seem like that.
Watching flash play tvz makes zerg look like a garbage race but I bet savior did the same for terrans back in his day.
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zvz is mechanically intense, but i personally think zvt requires a lot more strategic nuance to have a consistent winrate against terrans like flash or fantasy... that said, i'm also not jaedong so i dont really feel comfortable about talking about S level zvz lol... zvt, however, i feel comfortable talking about!
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On March 09 2016 06:14 Slayer91 wrote:
How is ZvZ the hardest match up? Most games are decided early on with micro play and decisions, there's way more shit to do and decisions to make in pretty much all the other match ups lol.
We don't know terran is the strongest race at the highest level, because flash just makes it seem like that.
Watching flash play tvz makes zerg look like a garbage race but I bet savior did the same for terrans back in his day.
This is precisely the reason why ZvZ is so hard. Every detail is important. Every single drone and zergling can matter to secure a victory. The fact that it relies a lot on micro and requires you to be attentive to your army and base every second is precisely why it's such a difficult match up to be consistent at.
Other match-ups are not decided by losing a single drone or even losing 2 zerglings in a small engagement, ZvZ can be decided by that. There's also a lot of trickery and deception going on in ZvZ and it requires you to have excellent game sense.
Besides, I trust Day9 since he was one of the best foreigners at the time and showcased an excellent understanding of the game.
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Every detail is important in other matchups too, it's just less noticeable to most people because the games are longer. and there are more opportunities for both sides to make mistakes because of this. However games can easily snowball because you lost a few workers when you shouldn't
ZvZ just highlights errors because a short game time with mirror races makes people think more about the tiny differences that made someone win
the pros have an understanding of these details that allows them to just get more shit than someone without doing anything fancy and its one of the reasons they can roll over an inferior player so easily
Maybe it's just because I've always found ZvZ to be the easiest of the zerg matchups and it's just personal thing.
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Well, what do you mean when you say easiest? Is it your best match up in terms of win percentage? Are you able to beat "better (higher ranked)" opponents consistently?
For me, when I say ZvZ is the hardest, I mean it's the hardest to be consistent at. To give an example, I picked up this game august last year and a few weeks ago I beat trutacz in a ZvZ game. I'm nowhere near his skill level but I did an effective run-by and then had a favorable first engagement with mutalisks which made me win the game.
I don't think I would ever be able to beat one of the best foreigners in any other match-up than ZvZ.
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On March 09 2016 08:38 B-royal wrote:
Well, what do you mean when you say easiest? Is it your best match up in terms of win percentage? Are you able to beat "better (higher ranked)" opponents consistently?
For me, when I say ZvZ is the hardest, I mean it's the hardest to be consistent at. To give an example, I picked up this game august last year and a few weeks ago I beat trutacz in a ZvZ game. I'm nowhere near his skill level but I did an effective run-by and then had a favorable first engagement with mutalisks which made me win the game.
I don't think I would ever be able to beat one of the best foreigners in any other match-up than ZvZ.
I won killer hero miso calm larva beast and some others and im the worst zvz player u can find,zvz so ... Btw imo zerg players are hard workers,thats why they are much better than the rest,u see the protoss terran players they are just lazy making 10 free mistakes.
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On March 09 2016 08:38 B-royal wrote:
Well, what do you mean when you say easiest? Is it your best match up in terms of win percentage? Are you able to beat "better (higher ranked)" opponents consistently?
For me, when I say ZvZ is the hardest, I mean it's the hardest to be consistent at. To give an example, I picked up this game august last year and a few weeks ago I beat trutacz in a ZvZ game. I'm nowhere near his skill level but I did an effective run-by and then had a favorable first engagement with mutalisks which made me win the game.
I don't think I would ever be able to beat one of the best foreigners in any other match-up than ZvZ.
Hardest=requiring most skill to win.
tic-tac-toe has optimal play and once you know that optimal play you are as good as any of the best players and since it's easy to memorize it doesn't require much skill.
It's really hard to be consistent at flipping a coin, does that mean it's the hardest game? You are basically proving my point in that you can beat the best foreign zerg in ZvZ therefore skill matters less than it does in the other matchups.
You seem to be saying that either your skill doesn't translate as well to results which means it's luck based OR that you have extremely high variance in that you can beat a much better player or lose to a much worse player and variance doesn't have much to do with skill. It's like saying poker is the hardest game because the pros can lose to anybody given some bad luck.
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Your analogy to tic tac toe is irrelevant, as is the coin analogy since one is deterministic and a turn-based game, while the other purely luck based.
Skill matters even more is my point, trutacz could have won that game fairly easily if he had reacted faster to my run-by. Or if he had actually seen the run-by by positioning his overlords better.
There's variance precisely because ZvZ is the fastest match-up in the game that demands the best reflexes, the most attention to micro and excellent game sense. The match up is hard because nobody is good enough to come back from all build order disadvantages (even though it is possible), nobody is good enough to react instantly to any run-by or trick that's being pulled (lings attacking natural, mutalisks attacking main),... People make bad decisions and in ZvZ bad decisions are much more punishing.
Finally the poker analogy isn't the best either. You area dealt a certain hand and certain cards are on the board, which would be equivalent to build order openings but in starcraft you actually can do more than mere bluffing and using mental stragtegies/tricks to still win the game. Poker has too much influence from external factors.
Anyway, I enjoy the discussion.
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On March 09 2016 22:15 B-royal wrote:
Your analogy to tic tac toe is irrelevant, as is the coin analogy since one is deterministic and a turn-based game, while the other purely luck based.
Skill matters even more is my point, trutacz could have won that game fairly easily if he had reacted faster to my run-by. Or if he had actually seen the run-by by positioning his overlords better.
There's variance precisely because ZvZ is the fastest match-up in the game that demands the best reflexes, the most attention to micro and excellent game sense. The match up is hard because nobody is good enough to come back from all build order disadvantages (even though it is possible), nobody is good enough to react instantly to any run-by or trick that's being pulled (lings attacking natural, mutalisks attacking main),... People make bad decisions and in ZvZ bad decisions are much more punishing.
Finally the poker analogy isn't the best either. You area dealt a certain hand and certain cards are on the board, which would be equivalent to build order openings but in starcraft you actually can do more than mere bluffing and using mental stragtegies/tricks to still win the game. Poker has too much influence from external factors.
Anyway, I enjoy the discussion.
Just because the analogies aren't perfect doesn't mean that they are bad. That's why they are analogies and not examples. The point is you were linking how hard a matchup is with consistency, which doesn't make any sense.
Your point: It's hard to win consistently therefore ZvZ is hard.
Coin flip analogy: You can't win consistently therefore coin flipping is hard.
Your point: Nobody can come back from being behind due to a build order advantage all the time regardless of skill, therefore ZvZ is hard.
Tic-tac-toe analogy: Nobody can come back from 2 sub-optimal early moves in tic-tac-toe therefore it's really hard.
If the entire game was decided by a 6 ling vs 6 ling micro match, yes it's technically deterministic and yes small micro trick/mistake by over microing can make you win or lose by 2-3 lings but it doesn't mean it requires more skill than anything else.
Things like reaction times and overlord positioning are fairly dependent on "luck" as you have incomplete information you don't know when's the right time to be watching your lings or what area to watch with your 1 free overlord.
What we're seeing is that there are a lot of "tightrope" situations in ZvZ where you make a small mistake and it's over, where as in other matchups you have a defenders advantage that gives you a "behind but can come back" situation which doesn't exist so much in ZvZ due to incomplete information and only rush distance as defenders advantage.
If reaction time or other tiny "tightrope" decisions/moments decide the game then how does that mean it's more skilled? The normal matchups test you on a wide variety of stages e.g early/mid/lategame macro/micro multitasking strategy etc so someone more skilled in most of these areas will nearly always win even if he makes smaller mistakes. In ZvZ you're being judged under a narrower skill criteria. It's easier to see the few moments where you have a chance to make or break the game with micro or a larva decision and so its easier for a weaker player to get these right. Yes the stronger player will get them right more often but if there are a 1000 things you have to do right it's much harder to identify and correctly execute them. This comes back to the poker analogy. A weaker player might win over 10 hands but over 1000 hands it's much less likely.
There are equal opportunities to showcase your skill in ZvZ but because they are low in number it's like playing a low number of poker hands so even though the skilled player will win most of the time it's not the same as winning nearly all the time.
It's like if you have a 60% chance to win a bo1, you have maybe a 65% chance to win a bo3, and probably like 99.999% chance to win a bo50.
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On March 08 2016 20:38 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2016 18:13 vOdToasT wrote:
I see a lot of discussion about which race is the easiest, and which is the hardest.
The truth is that it depends on the skill level. Since I have played all races at various skill levels, I have experience in this matter.
At very low levels, Protoss is the easiest. I experienced this myself when I started playing the game.
But, what many people don't understand, is that eventually, Zerg becomes the easiest. I believe that this is why Zerg users win most foreign tournaments.
What do you think? i agree. i spend more time playing Terran than the other races. And yet, Zerg is my best race. I've just accepted that I'll not be as good with Terran.
Terran has a high skill floor, but once you get past it, the race is great
I went through that when trying to learn Terran for the first time, and I doubted that I was capable of doing it at all
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On March 09 2016 01:21 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2016 18:59 vOdToasT wrote:On March 08 2016 12:43 L_Master wrote:
To take it one step further...can we really be sure that classic T>Z>P>T isn't just inherent to map balance, at least at top levels of play.
The fact that post 07' TvZ sits at 54%,PvT at 52%, and ZvP at 54% could in theory be a result of inherent features of map-making playing into that. How do we rule this out? We know that balance is based on maps. I can prove it logically. Every match up has to be played on a map, and the map can favour either side. So it can not be said that a match up is imbalanced in general. It has to be specified on which map it is imbalanced. For example, PvZ is 50% on fighting spirit. It is protoss favoured on Blue Storm and Bloody Ridge, and Zerg favoured on Electric Circuit. Yea, I agree with this. What I'm getting at is more the focus of the conversation. The discussion is primarily centered on why terran is better on higher levels, as in what aspects of terran make them the best on higher levels. My argument is, what if terran being possibly the strongest race at the ultra top has nothing at all to do with features of the race, but rather the features that are generally used in popular map-making (not saying these are causes, but think things like minerals in bases, shape of naturals, general macro structure, etc.) inherently set up balance seen at pro level.
It's a combination of the race and the map. Just like a human being growing up to be a just champion or a wicked arse hole is a combination of his genes, and his environment.
However, the game can certainly be balanced by altering only one of the two - maps, or the races themselves.
This is good for us, since it means that we can fix any imbalance by altering maps.
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I think the most effective way to analyze the difficulty of a race is with regards to how punishing it is for similar mistakes. That is, which race is more affected by losing half their drone line, misplacing an important spell caster, missing a round of macro, missing a sequence of micro, etc.
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On March 10 2016 00:06 Slayer91 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2016 22:15 B-royal wrote:
Your analogy to tic tac toe is irrelevant, as is the coin analogy since one is deterministic and a turn-based game, while the other purely luck based.
Skill matters even more is my point, trutacz could have won that game fairly easily if he had reacted faster to my run-by. Or if he had actually seen the run-by by positioning his overlords better.
There's variance precisely because ZvZ is the fastest match-up in the game that demands the best reflexes, the most attention to micro and excellent game sense. The match up is hard because nobody is good enough to come back from all build order disadvantages (even though it is possible), nobody is good enough to react instantly to any run-by or trick that's being pulled (lings attacking natural, mutalisks attacking main),... People make bad decisions and in ZvZ bad decisions are much more punishing.
Finally the poker analogy isn't the best either. You area dealt a certain hand and certain cards are on the board, which would be equivalent to build order openings but in starcraft you actually can do more than mere bluffing and using mental stragtegies/tricks to still win the game. Poker has too much influence from external factors.
Anyway, I enjoy the discussion. + Show Spoiler +Just because the analogies aren't perfect doesn't mean that they are bad. That's why they are analogies and not examples. The point is you were linking how hard a matchup is with consistency, which doesn't make any sense.
Your point: It's hard to win consistently therefore ZvZ is hard.
Coin flip analogy: You can't win consistently therefore coin flipping is hard.
Your point: Nobody can come back from being behind due to a build order advantage all the time regardless of skill, therefore ZvZ is hard.
Tic-tac-toe analogy: Nobody can come back from 2 sub-optimal early moves in tic-tac-toe therefore it's really hard.
If the entire game was decided by a 6 ling vs 6 ling micro match, yes it's technically deterministic and yes small micro trick/mistake by over microing can make you win or lose by 2-3 lings but it doesn't mean it requires more skill than anything else.
Things like reaction times and overlord positioning are fairly dependent on "luck" as you have incomplete information you don't know when's the right time to be watching your lings or what area to watch with your 1 free overlord.
What we're seeing is that there are a lot of "tightrope" situations in ZvZ where you make a small mistake and it's over, where as in other matchups you have a defenders advantage that gives you a "behind but can come back" situation which doesn't exist so much in ZvZ due to incomplete information and only rush distance as defenders advantage.
If reaction time or other tiny "tightrope" decisions/moments decide the game then how does that mean it's more skilled? The normal matchups test you on a wide variety of stages e.g early/mid/lategame macro/micro multitasking strategy etc so someone more skilled in most of these areas will nearly always win even if he makes smaller mistakes. In ZvZ you're being judged under a narrower skill criteria. It's easier to see the few moments where you have a chance to make or break the game with micro or a larva decision and so its easier for a weaker player to get these right. Yes the stronger player will get them right more often but if there are a 1000 things you have to do right it's much harder to identify and correctly execute them. This comes back to the poker analogy. A weaker player might win over 10 hands but over 1000 hands it's much less likely.
There are equal opportunities to showcase your skill in ZvZ but because they are low in number it's like playing a low number of poker hands so even though the skilled player will win most of the time it's not the same as winning nearly all the time.
It's like if you have a 60% chance to win a bo1, you have maybe a 65% chance to win a bo3, and probably like 99.999% chance to win a bo50.
Good post. I know what you mean, but I tend to see it in a different way. As of now, people just aren't skilled enough yet to win ZvZ consistently. But then came Jaedong for example who got a 75% win rate in ZvZ. What I'm trying to say is that it is possible to win every single game of ZvZ by making the right decisions at the right time notwithstanding any initial disadvantages imposed by build orders.
ZvZ gives you less room for error. It requires you to be on your tippi toes at every second of the game.
Anyway since you like analogies a lot, here's one of mine:
What do you think is harder? Ronaldinho scoring 3 out of 3 times, precisely when it matters. Or him missing during a lot of important moments but scoring more goals overall because he received more opportunities to do so?
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i agree with the idea that protoss is the easiest race to play for low levels
the units are generally high risk high reward, with the reward factor paying off a lot more at low levels.
an easy example would be units like reavers or templars
in low levels one reaver or templar can do massive damage for extended periods of time and they alone will probably rattle your opponent enough for you to a click to victory
in high levels its so much harder to do damage with these units and if you make a mistake and get these units sniped, in a lot of cases you probably just outright lose to some sort of timing push.
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On March 10 2016 21:27 B-royal wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 10 2016 00:06 Slayer91 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2016 22:15 B-royal wrote:
Your analogy to tic tac toe is irrelevant, as is the coin analogy since one is deterministic and a turn-based game, while the other purely luck based.
Skill matters even more is my point, trutacz could have won that game fairly easily if he had reacted faster to my run-by. Or if he had actually seen the run-by by positioning his overlords better.
There's variance precisely because ZvZ is the fastest match-up in the game that demands the best reflexes, the most attention to micro and excellent game sense. The match up is hard because nobody is good enough to come back from all build order disadvantages (even though it is possible), nobody is good enough to react instantly to any run-by or trick that's being pulled (lings attacking natural, mutalisks attacking main),... People make bad decisions and in ZvZ bad decisions are much more punishing.
Finally the poker analogy isn't the best either. You area dealt a certain hand and certain cards are on the board, which would be equivalent to build order openings but in starcraft you actually can do more than mere bluffing and using mental stragtegies/tricks to still win the game. Poker has too much influence from external factors.
Anyway, I enjoy the discussion. + Show Spoiler +Just because the analogies aren't perfect doesn't mean that they are bad. That's why they are analogies and not examples. The point is you were linking how hard a matchup is with consistency, which doesn't make any sense.
Your point: It's hard to win consistently therefore ZvZ is hard.
Coin flip analogy: You can't win consistently therefore coin flipping is hard.
Your point: Nobody can come back from being behind due to a build order advantage all the time regardless of skill, therefore ZvZ is hard.
Tic-tac-toe analogy: Nobody can come back from 2 sub-optimal early moves in tic-tac-toe therefore it's really hard.
If the entire game was decided by a 6 ling vs 6 ling micro match, yes it's technically deterministic and yes small micro trick/mistake by over microing can make you win or lose by 2-3 lings but it doesn't mean it requires more skill than anything else.
Things like reaction times and overlord positioning are fairly dependent on "luck" as you have incomplete information you don't know when's the right time to be watching your lings or what area to watch with your 1 free overlord.
What we're seeing is that there are a lot of "tightrope" situations in ZvZ where you make a small mistake and it's over, where as in other matchups you have a defenders advantage that gives you a "behind but can come back" situation which doesn't exist so much in ZvZ due to incomplete information and only rush distance as defenders advantage.
If reaction time or other tiny "tightrope" decisions/moments decide the game then how does that mean it's more skilled? The normal matchups test you on a wide variety of stages e.g early/mid/lategame macro/micro multitasking strategy etc so someone more skilled in most of these areas will nearly always win even if he makes smaller mistakes. In ZvZ you're being judged under a narrower skill criteria. It's easier to see the few moments where you have a chance to make or break the game with micro or a larva decision and so its easier for a weaker player to get these right. Yes the stronger player will get them right more often but if there are a 1000 things you have to do right it's much harder to identify and correctly execute them. This comes back to the poker analogy. A weaker player might win over 10 hands but over 1000 hands it's much less likely.
There are equal opportunities to showcase your skill in ZvZ but because they are low in number it's like playing a low number of poker hands so even though the skilled player will win most of the time it's not the same as winning nearly all the time.
It's like if you have a 60% chance to win a bo1, you have maybe a 65% chance to win a bo3, and probably like 99.999% chance to win a bo50. Good post. I know what you mean, but I tend to see it in a different way. As of now, people just aren't skilled enough yet to win ZvZ consistently. But then came Jaedong for example who got a 75% win rate in ZvZ. What I'm trying to say is that it is possible to win every single game of ZvZ by making the right decisions at the right time notwithstanding any initial disadvantages imposed by build orders. ZvZ gives you less room for error. It requires you to be on your tippi toes at every second of the game. Anyway since you like analogies a lot, here's one of mine: What do you think is harder? Ronaldinho scoring 3 out of 3 times, precisely when it matters. Or him missing during a lot of important moments but scoring more goals overall because he received more opportunities to do so?
It depends on how many unimportant goals we're talking about. Scoring 3 imp goals is harder than 4 unimp ones, due to the pressure, but what about 5 unimp? Or 6? There's going to be a number where it becomes harder to score the unimp ones, and the same with actions in a ZvZ vs other matchups, which is your point from what I understood.
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User was banned for this post.
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At low levels, Protoss > all.
At high levels, Zerg > all.
At S-class levels, Terran > all.
Has pretty much been the history of BW, and the data, tournaments, legacy all support this trend.
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On March 08 2016 07:00 Slayer91 wrote:
It seems to me that protoss has always been much less popular in korea, though, but maybe for that reason who knows.
PvT is usually thought of as more unfair than TvZ I think. At least, Zergs still enjoy the romance ZvT, where lots of Terrans get bitter about TvP. I think if you're going to dedicate a lot of time to the game, you probably don't want to deal with people complaining that you only one because of imbalance, regardless of the truth of the claim. So Z and T are generally going to seem better options for the dedicated player. And people love overcoming obstacles / setting themselves up to have an excuse if they lose. So if at low level P is imba, you can feel like a champ when you rise above it.
But really, think about the most romantic rivalries in BW. That's going to really be what dictates the popularity of a race in BW. Jaedong Flash, Yellow Boxer, Nada Savior. When it comes to our Protoss heros, Reach, nal_ra, Stork, Bisu, Jangbi, it's a little harder to pinpoint the rivalries. Stork Fantasy is pretty real. The rest kind of seem hero vs All. I don't think of Bisu Jaedong as a rivalry, even though I got super excited about their matches. Honestly I don't consider Stork Fantasy that much of a rivalry either. Not really sure why. I wouldn't call Jangbi Flash a rivalry either, even though Jangbi's story has an important Flash component to it. Even Stork Fantasy really seems like two individual tales of ultimate silver surfers. Bisu can't be JD's rival because JD is stronger and his real rival was Flash. That's not necessarily the tale of their stats, but it's the tale of meetings in finals. JD Bisu fight in the proleague as aces, but their rivals only in as much as every ace is a rival with every other ace. I could almost think of Bisu Stork as rivals, but they're still individual stories to me.
I love thinking about StarCraft this way though  More fun to think of it in terms of the romance of the players than in the abstract idea that one race might be easier to win with than another.
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EPT
