On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
Never said Bw balance is perfect, but I do say that it is more than fine. And like I've said many times already. Change the map pool by removing maps like circuit breaker and fs and use maps like chain reaction or pathfinder instead and you would see a big difference.
"I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already"
That's the thing, there is a way to change the maps and make them unfavorable for terran, but for some reason they aren't doing it. Remember the savior era? Where every single zerg struggled to get a win against terrans because of the ridiculous map pool heavily favoring terrans but savior was the only one who managed to overcome all these obstacles by playing non-standard and figuring out ways to take advantage of terran weaknesses. He was smart and didn't let the map pool affect him. BUT imagine if the map pool would have been zerg favored instead? It would have changed everything and potentially made savior even more dominant.
The maps make a big difference and we could certainly use more 2p or 3p maps that can potentially make terrans unfavored. Or with less cliffs. Or with shorter rush distances. Or with an easy to get 3rd gas for zerg.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
Never said Bw balance is perfect, but I do say that it is more than fine. And like I've said many times already. Change the map pool by removing maps like circuit breaker and fs and use maps like chain reaction or pathfinder instead and you would see a big difference.
"I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already"
That's the thing, there is a way to change the maps and make them unfavorable for terran, but for some reason they aren't doing it. Remember the savior era? Where every single zerg struggled to get a win against terrans because of the ridiculous map pool heavily favoring terrans but savior was the only one who managed to overcome all these obstacles by playing non-standard and figuring out ways to take advantage of terran weaknesses. He was smart and didn't let the map pool affect him. BUT imagine if the map pool would have been zerg favored instead? It would have changed everything and potentially made savior even more dominant.
The maps make a big difference and we could certainly use more 2p or 3p maps that can potentially make terrans unfavored. Or with less cliffs. Or with shorter rush distances. Or with an easy to get 3rd gas for zerg.
Again, if BW doesn't change, it'll still be great. I completely agree. But at the same time, that's not an argument against change. Go is a wonderful game that's still trying to find perfect balance with their rulings.
I have no idea why you would pick Chain Reaction and Pathfinder of all maps. Not exactly the paragons of balance.
Aight, work with me here for a sec. Let's assume that Terran has an advantage against Zerg. What if it was the other way around? But Flash is amazing so he still wins against Zerg. Flash is the only one who manages to overcome all these. He's smart and doesn't let the map pool affect him. But imagine if balance was in Terran's favour? He would've been even more dominant.
See, this argument is silly. Savior's ZvT even at his prime was nowhere near as good as top Terrans against Zerg. And he didn't play non-standard, he created the new standard. The one that everyone plays today. And unless I'm missing something, it's been standard for a good 10 years now and no one's come up with any significant improvement on it. Refinement, yes, lot's of refinement. But nothing like Bisu's PvZ revolution (which eventually was solved btw) and most certainly nothing like the TvZ 5 rax into mech switch.
These are all balance suggestions I'm well aware of. I made and analyzed maps for a good 3 years back when Kespa around. But I simply don't think there's a way to aid either ZvT or PvZ balance without screwing up the other matchups.
Terran mech attack upgrades are mediocre, aside from the Goliath's anti-air. The scary part isn't that they get +5 damage on a 70-damage sieged tank. The scary part is that your armor upgrades barely matter against mech because the mech units do so much damage per hit. You're trying to scale against mech's weapon and armor upgrades, and only your weapon upgrades really count.
On May 16 2017 20:27 Essbee wrote: The game was considered to be balanced for almost 2 decades and now that the remaster has been announced, then MAGICALLY bw is supposedly not balanced and terran is super op.
Every single person I've seen saying that terran is op and bw is imbalanced are people who registered on TL post-2010.
If balance do happen, it's gonna kill the remaster and everyone is just going to go back to 1.16, and honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Hi.
Though to be fair, I'm not saying Terran is OP, I'm saying Zerg has problems against Terran and Protoss has problems against Zerg. So I suppose you could be technically right.
But people saying stuff like "BW balance is perfect, why are we discussing this?" are as bad as people yelling "Terran OP! Stupid game!" Check the stats. It's not balanced. The balance is very good, but there are clear problems. I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already.
Never said Bw balance is perfect, but I do say that it is more than fine. And like I've said many times already. Change the map pool by removing maps like circuit breaker and fs and use maps like chain reaction or pathfinder instead and you would see a big difference.
"I've said before, if there was an easy way to solve the problems with maps, it probably would've been done already"
That's the thing, there is a way to change the maps and make them unfavorable for terran, but for some reason they aren't doing it. Remember the savior era? Where every single zerg struggled to get a win against terrans because of the ridiculous map pool heavily favoring terrans but savior was the only one who managed to overcome all these obstacles by playing non-standard and figuring out ways to take advantage of terran weaknesses. He was smart and didn't let the map pool affect him. BUT imagine if the map pool would have been zerg favored instead? It would have changed everything and potentially made savior even more dominant.
The maps make a big difference and we could certainly use more 2p or 3p maps that can potentially make terrans unfavored. Or with less cliffs. Or with shorter rush distances. Or with an easy to get 3rd gas for zerg.
Again, if BW doesn't change, it'll still be great. I completely agree. But at the same time, that's not an argument against change. Go is a wonderful game that's still trying to find perfect balance with their rulings.
I have no idea why you would pick Chain Reaction and Pathfinder of all maps. Not exactly the paragons of balance.
Aight, work with me here for a sec. Let's assume that Terran has an advantage against Zerg. What if it was the other way around? But Flash is amazing so he still wins against Zerg. Flash is the only one who manages to overcome all these. He's smart and doesn't let the map pool affect him. But imagine if balance was in Terran's favour? He would've been even more dominant.
See, this argument is silly. Savior's ZvT even at his prime was nowhere near as good as top Terrans against Zerg. And he didn't play non-standard, he created the new standard. The one that everyone plays today. And unless I'm missing something, it's been standard for a good 10 years now and no one's come up with any significant improvement on it. Refinement, yes, lot's of refinement. But nothing like Bisu's PvZ revolution (which eventually was solved btw) and most certainly nothing like the TvZ 5 rax into mech switch.
These are all balance suggestions I'm well aware of. I made and analyzed maps for a good 3 years back when Kespa around. But I simply don't think there's a way to aid either ZvT or PvZ balance without screwing up the other matchups.
Chain reaction and Pathfinder are not balanced but it doesn't matter since terran are supposedly overpowered. So by using maps that could potentially unfavor terrans, it could prove terrans are not as op as people seem to think. Balance is not my point at the moment. My point is that if you can make a race stronger than others just by changing the maps, then how the hell do you expect to achieve perfect balance by changing the units? It's never going to end and to be honest, trying to achieve "perfect" balance is silly and impossible. The game balance is "perfect" for what it is and if everyone is sick of seeing terrans overachieve (which is not so true), then just make the maps unfavored for terrans for a while and let people complain about races until they realize the never-ending outcry will never ever end.
Even if you change the units, then maybe suddenly terrans are not as strong. But then you can just make a map that favors terran by a lot and yo uwould be back to the same problem. And what do you do after this? You nerf then again? You nerf them again until the maps can't help them anymore and realize the mistake you have been making all along and just go back to 1.16?
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make about flash vs zergs, I was specifically talking about maps, not the general matchup.
And if terrans are changing their standard strategies with 5 rax into mech, why can't other races adapt and also change? What's good about something that has been "standard for a good 10 years now" when the other races aren't using the same builds from 10 years ago? And maybe the standard is still good but maps like circuit breaker doesn't allow it to be good? Like, I am not a pro or anything but I've been following this game for long enough to know that every single race has something unfair to it that's how the game is balanced. Starting to nerf everything is just going to lead to a game that's going to get progressively worse (in term of balance and fun).
Like people have said, the racial advantage at the start of the game can be completely based on the map, the game is not inherently unbalanced. You want to make maps that zerg has huge edge on ZvT? Make main without ramps and make path from main to natural big enough that you can't wall.
I still don't understand why they never even tried, and never seriously considered the use of specific maps for specific match-ups. A tournament could have a set of 3 maps for zvp, 3 for pvt and 3 for tvz plus 2 maps like cb/fs. I think this is the best way to improve the quality and reduce the balance whining.
It's certainly much easier to create a balanced map for a specific match-up, and much more creativity could be involved (island maps?) while giving good chances to both players. And it's not like we lack the choice of maps.
On May 17 2017 14:42 arbiter_md wrote: I still don't understand why they never even tried, and never seriously considered the use of specific maps for specific match-ups. A tournament could have a set of 3 maps for zvp, 3 for pvt and 3 for tvz plus 2 maps like cb/fs. I think this is the best way to improve the quality and reduce the balance whining.
It's certainly much easier to create a balanced map for a specific match-up, and much more creativity could be involved (island maps?) while giving good chances to both players. And it's not like we lack the choice of maps.
I don't understand why the map pool is not more varied.
It's not mere whining, when statistics show terran has been dominating for most of broodwar and no one can deny that Protoss has the least titles by a large margin.
I also agree that the map pool should be more varied to be balanced among the races in each respective match up. If they would make vultures at least 85 minerals and 15 gas that would be fair. They are too dispensable, fast and agile, get 3 spider mines that could potentially take out a half control group of units or severely dmg them from 1 UNIT. This is why zerg have a tough time against Terran in mech builds that are trending. Zerg has to toss away lings and suicide to clear mines. Vulture harass is 90% of the harassment in TvP and are so cost efficient.
This would make ZvT more manageable, and PvT I'd say is the fairest match up imo. So vulture cost may hurt TvP match up but we could test it for some time to see how it affects the match up. If it affects the match up perhaps just make vultures 100 minerals.
I feel like protoss winrates are lowered by the fact that its so difficult to win against zerg, i'm amazed that protoss is apparently slightly worse than terran statistically.
On May 16 2017 23:30 Crisium wrote: Protoss are the worst race because Scouts are not a viable opener ever unlike Mutas in all 3 matchups and Wraiths in 2. Clearly this is the most important and only metric that matters.
i hope your joking by posting this? Well, if not let me make it clear: Kolll "the german Wunderkind" was quite a talented german player who started playing in 2007 (iirc) and quickly became very good. It's common knowledge he hit B- in his first or second ICCup season [which meant way more than it does today; for a couple of reasons im not gonna delve into] and he was able to beat some of the Ger-A Players by 2009, namely GoOdy and Horror in the old German King of the Hill edition.
To get to the point: even tho he was a talented foreigner; it would be very nonsensical to link his game vs Stork as an example or "proof" why scouts are valid in the MU. Stork is an S class progamer. By comparison you could say Scouts are valid because a player like Bonyth can defeat D+ zergs on ICCup with it. That's just wrong. In Broodwar, you can defeat players who are way worse simply by superior mechanics, execution and understanding of the gameflow, despite your opening being very sub-par.
But i think you are trolling.. so i just wanted to make it clear in case it wasn't obvious to some people. (;
Just because Scouts are not used EVERY game does not mean they are useless. Just like Queens were not used AT ALL and now they are getting in 50% of the games. Same goes for Valks. Just because YOU say something it doesnt make it true... Game is still evolving and I am sure Scouts would return some day. I can see them being used to Snipe Science Vessels. The micro you can do with them combined with their insane range is pretty sick actually. OPEN YOUR MIND AND HEART TO THE SCOUT
Yeah, clearly this was standard play back in 2009 and not just a surprise strategy that usually doesn't work. All the top Protoss players nowadays are fools for not going scouts every game.
P.S. Sorry I can't find a better version of this VOD. I searched "arena kal forgg" and checked the old violetak account but couldn't find it.
I would argue that people who complain about BW imbalance by using matchup winrates and titles don't know very much about the nature of statistics. The game frequently underwent significant changes in areas that affect the results.
Meta Roughly once a year on average there was a major meta shift that flipped established knowledge on its head. Terran was known as the most tactical and micro-intensive race, and sometimes surprisingly aggressive, during Boxer's era. He defined terran with his creativity and unit control. His macro was highly conservative, and lacking, which is where NaDa excelled. Then iloveoov appeared and highlighted that terran heavily benefits from powerful macro and upgrades. A new breed of maro-oriented terran players appeared, like Sea. A few years later Flash perfected both aspects, invented and fine-tuned new build orders, and broke Stork's TvP dominance. Fantasy then gave terran the final touch, showing that TvZ can be won with certain mech builds. Protoss was an unfortunate race due to Garimto's early departure. Call me a fanboy, but I think he had a brilliant mind like Bisu and a very great talent was lost when he left the scene. Nal_rA fought tooth and nail against zerg, but even he couldn't find a response to everything. At least terran players got a run for their money thanks to Kingdom and Reach, then Pusan, then Stork. It took many years until the great savior of the protoss race appeared - Bisu. Not only did he single-handedly even out the heavily imbalanced PvZ matchup, but he did so against the most dominant zerg of all time: Savior. And he did so after openly announcing that he was going to use DT's to win! Without Bisu, protoss might be seen as an inferior race until today. I am 100% sure people would be bitching about PvZ imbalance today, demanding a patch. This is one of the main reasons why many people, including me, are against any and all balance changes. Zerg has had very consistent results and progresses. Yellow was all-around great. JulyZerg highlighted the aggressive nature of zerg, also thanks to muta stacking, which completely changed the meta. Savior completely dominated the scene. Jaedong replaced him when Savior brought shame to the game.
Map pool It is known that pure island maps are a nightmare for zerg. I myself would argue that Yellow could've had greater success than Boxer without island maps. Other factors that can break the balance are close starting positions (favoring terran with few exceptions), wide main/natural entrances (favoring zerg), no vespene gas at the natural (usually favoring zerg. (Edit) Correction: It favors zerg over protoss), easily defendible 3rd gas base (favoring terran), highground advantage (favoring terran), irreclaimable terrain (turrets in the center favor terran over protoss), long ground distance between expansions (e.g. Katrina, favoring protoss over terran), lack of alternative routing (Blue Storm, favoring protoss over zerg), and many other things. Mix the wrong things and you'll get really bad map imbalances. Do it right and you can create the perfect map. While variety shouldn't come short, balance has always been more important. Map makers have done so many incredible things, they can't be praised enough. They make or break the balance of the races, while trying to build a small world that allows for entertaining games.
Race popularity During Boxer's era, Korean terrans greatly outnumbered protoss. I'm not exaggerating. Zerg players were also somewhat outnumbered, although not as much. The popularity of terran, along with Boxer's creativity, pushed the terran meta forward very fast, while especially protoss was lacking in the strategy department. Historically, protoss has been the least played race in Korea. Whether that has changed since Bisu's appearance, I don't know. But I do think it has a negative effect on the progress that protoss has made so far. People just don't like losing, and if the right person doesn't come along and breaks a stereotype, significant change to racial balance will likely not be made. Bisu's PvZ revolution is the perfect example.
Throwing games (Savior era) and military services While this probably has a smaller effect on matchup stats, it's still a factor that can't be denied. How much more successful would zerg have been with a continued Savior era? How much could a player like Garimto have influenced the protoss matchups? This is just something to think about in regards to how much weight the matchup stats actually have when other factors are also in play.
It would be good to group the result by era. At the very least, separate the period for modern starcraft (i.e. post-savior / bisu's victory over savior up to present).
On May 17 2017 19:00 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote: It would be good to group the result by era. At the very least, separate the period for modern starcraft (i.e. post-savior / bisu's victory over savior up to present).
On May 17 2017 13:05 NerO wrote: Has anyone ever used the Dark Archon +50 energy? Replace it. Make HT faster for late game.
Yeah and legs for reavers as well? If you think HT's are too slow, you can use shuttles. Making high templars faster would make them significatly stronger, which is not needed. They're very strong already as they are. I hope you were not serious about this proposition :D Imagine how much harder it would be for workers to run away from storm drop if HTs were faster? Or terrans and zergs to snipe them? Protoss army would be way more mobile if HTs has a speed upgrade..
Fact without discussion: Protoss is not as strong (read: successful) as other races on the highest level of competition. Probably because they can, even when playing standard, easily die to BBS, Hydra busts, build order loses in PVP, etc. Compare this to Terran which is almost impossible to rush if he is playing standard and can recover from almost anything.
1. TvZ Do something about the Medic (build time, cost). Changes nothing in other matchups but gives Zerg a bit more air regarding Sunkens/3rd.
2.ZvP Decrease Cannon build time by a few seconds. Minimum changes to other matchups but makes Hydra busts less likely.
Plus Decrease vision of mines.
As for the other things... Ghosts, Nukes, Scouts, ZvZ... I'm afraid it's too late. Eventhough I like ZvZ, it could have been by far the best mirror in the game because of the defensive capabilities of Lurkers, it just never gets that far. I would have loved to see extra damage on Hydras vs Mutas.
On May 16 2017 23:30 Crisium wrote: Protoss are the worst race because Scouts are not a viable opener ever unlike Mutas in all 3 matchups and Wraiths in 2. Clearly this is the most important and only metric that matters.
i hope your joking by posting this? Well, if not let me make it clear: Kolll "the german Wunderkind" was quite a talented german player who started playing in 2007 (iirc) and quickly became very good. It's common knowledge he hit B- in his first or second ICCup season [which meant way more than it does today; for a couple of reasons im not gonna delve into] and he was able to beat some of the Ger-A Players by 2009, namely GoOdy and Horror in the old German King of the Hill edition.
To get to the point: even tho he was a talented foreigner; it would be very nonsensical to link his game vs Stork as an example or "proof" why scouts are valid in the MU. Stork is an S class progamer. By comparison you could say Scouts are valid because a player like Bonyth can defeat D+ zergs on ICCup with it. That's just wrong. In Broodwar, you can defeat players who are way worse simply by superior mechanics, execution and understanding of the gameflow, despite your opening being very sub-par.
But i think you are trolling.. so i just wanted to make it clear in case it wasn't obvious to some people. (;
Just because Scouts are not used EVERY game does not mean they are useless. Just like Queens were not used AT ALL and now they are getting in 50% of the games. Same goes for Valks. Just because YOU say something it doesnt make it true... Game is still evolving and I am sure Scouts would return some day. I can see them being used to Snipe Science Vessels. The micro you can do with them combined with their insane range is pretty sick actually. OPEN YOUR MIND AND HEART TO THE SCOUT
well, you can believe what you want. I didn't say you should listen to MY argument "why scouts are bad", because I actually presented none. I just said; your linked video is not meaningful in the discussion, because Stork is an S class progamer and Kolll was merely a good foreigner. If the players are unequal, a lot of bad tools can get the better player the win.
EPT
