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Beyonder
Netherlands15103 Posts
Hello everyone,
I've been watching a lot of replays and vods, and I have played quite a few games as well. Recently I've rolled a bit as random, trying to experience each race and enjoy the beta to the fullest, however protoss seems to be my thing most. I don't feel necessarily stronger or weaker than the other races though that might be my inexperience thus far.
Regularly I hear and read cries of imbalance and gameplay. 'Protoss is such an a-click race', 'Zerg just masses!' or 'Force Fields are so OP!' Just a few examples, there are tons more (just watch orb's stream).
Anyways, on to the point of this thread. What I'm really wondering is, what is your opinion regarding balance and the races. Why am I wondering? Because honestly, I feel this game is more balanced than people give it credit for. Or at least not as imbalanced as people state it is, or was. I feel the 'imbalance whines' are illustrative for this: they generally cover each race and are largely inconsistent.
1. The balance in total: which is the strongest race overall?
2. Which race is favored in which matchup? PvT, ZvT, TvZ
3. What is the easiest race to play? P? T? Z?
I'm a sucker for statistics and really curious what the opinion is regarding these questions. The statistics should provide us with interesting information. Of course flawed due to the available maps, which are somewhat flawed, and differences in level of play (i.e. this might be totally different at the high level than low level). Try to view these questions for the entire population.
Of course, feel free to elaborate. Polls inside the spoiler:
+ Show Spoiler +Poll: Strongest race overall?Protoss (195) 42% Zerg (164) 35% Terran (109) 23% 468 total votes Your vote: Strongest race overall? (Vote): Zerg
(Vote): Protoss
(Vote): Terran
Poll: What is the easiest race to play?Zerg (205) 48% Protoss (154) 36% Terran (64) 15% 423 total votes Your vote: What is the easiest race to play? (Vote): Zerg
(Vote): Terran
(Vote): Protoss
Poll: The TvZ matchup is favored forTerran (223) 61% Zerg (92) 25% Equal (51) 14% 366 total votes Your vote: The TvZ matchup is favored for (Vote): Terran
(Vote): Zerg
(Vote): Equal
Poll: The TvP matchup is favored forProtoss (246) 67% Terran (88) 24% Equal (32) 9% 366 total votes Your vote: The TvP matchup is favored for (Vote): Terran
(Vote): Protoss
(Vote): Equal
Poll: The PvZ matchup is favored forZerg (196) 53% Protoss (130) 35% Equal (42) 11% 368 total votes Your vote: The PvZ matchup is favored for (Vote): Protoss
(Vote): Zerg
(Vote): Equal
I've left out the 'balanced option' here and there to entice an opinion.
Extra disclaimer: elaborate or don't post-- simple 'X is OP' replies will receive a ban. I don't want a shitty thread.
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Roaches still > all
[User warned for this post] -- if you don't have something interesting or elaborative to say, don't say anything at all. //bey
Guess I shortened my post too much. The rest was in my head. Sry.
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On April 19 2010 19:58 ghen wrote:
Roaches still > all
Marauders completely rape roaches, it's not even close lol
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MMM ball still > all
Tip: select all units in a ball and issue an attack-move. colect ur win :S
sorry but was bein sarcastic due to a previous post.
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In a match where no gimmick move like really fast void ray or banshee or some shit is used it feels like zerg is ahead if game goes on past 15 mins or so.
Two things make zerg extreamly powerful right now.
Spawn larva
Creep tumors and overlord creep.
Spawn larva is just too good when you have saved up your larva on all hatches late game to instantly make another 150 supply in 20 sec. Protoss and terran have to spend shitloads of gold on production buildings where its allmost free for zerg. Playing late game macro war is downhill battle against zerg.
I think invisible creep tumors really make scouting and mobility too good for zerg. For 25 energy you can cover half map in creep. Possible fix would be to make max 2-3 extra creep tumors off one. It doesnt feel like much of a sacrifise for zerg to use creep tumors now, like it is with terran and mule/scan. Maby increase energy for creep tumors to atleast 50 would make it a harder choice.
I also think overlord scouting is a little too powerful now. Zerg is supposed to use overseer changeling etc, but there is no need for it as fast and cheap you can get overlord speed you will have all info you need for 50/50, a upgrade you would get anyways. Seems like zerg scouting in general is just really powerfull.
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I think its funny how when TL makes a poll like this, it's legit. However when blizzard released beta survey's asking pretty much the same questions everyone went apeshit on them.
That the OP worded the polls a lot better than blizzard did =D
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Beyonder
Netherlands15103 Posts
Very interesting results already :D So far it isn't really positive for terran it seems? I wonder if this is due to it needing more creative play, making it both harder and averagely worse.
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I've been playing terran over the weekend, and despite my macro/feel of the race being absolutely horrible, im still beating 1700 Platinum players with ease just by making marauders. so I dunno, I dont understand how people think terran is so weak.
If I play more then 10 games of them, and learn the race and play enough to make my macro smooth with them, I might switch to terran fulltime
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TvP
Terrans can't compete against toss.
immortal timing pushes with well used chrono boosts can end the game if the terran early scout is removed. If Terrans use scan to counter the timing push they wont have the units to back it up because the mule option is gone.
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I think that "which race is the hardest" is a very subjective topic. It seems to be really personal. For example i find Zerg the hardest, then Terran and my main race the Protoss the easiest. But I've been playing protoss for what.. 10 years. And still I don't think that's the main reason ..I just feel more comfortable with T and P style macro. For the matchups: I'm fond of statistics too but in my opinion right now the only advantage in a matchup is because of trend builds. To be able to have a stronger argument of which race is favored allot more games have to be played.. and it is still a subjective matter. With all that said they are all good topics for discussion which never hurts, only heps come up with stuff. 
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Beyonder
Netherlands15103 Posts
On April 19 2010 20:49 Talic_Zealot wrote:I think that "which race is the hardest" is a very subjective topic. It seems to be really personal. For example i find Zerg the hardest, then Terran and my main race the Protoss the easiest. But I've been playing protoss for what.. 10 years. And still I don't think that's the main reason ..I just feel more comfortable with T and P style macro. For the matchups: I'm fond of statistics too but in my opinion right now the only advantage in a matchup is because of trend builds. To be able to have a stronger argument of which race is favored allot more games have to be played.. and it is still a subjective matter. With all that said they are all good topics for discussion which never hurts, only heps come up with stuff.
For sure. I try to base my feelings mostly on games watched and knowledge rather than personal experience. It might even out with a big N though, unless there are big statistical differences in races played.
I feel the same way with the maps. Some maps really just don't cut it and I feel that in order to properly balance the game, truly good maps are required.
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For reference, I'm in Bronze so a lot of my opinion may be off, but I played Terran every match and would win about one or two for every one match I lost.
I have since switched to Toss and suddenly I've won 7 games in a row and am now in Silver.
I know that it is fundamentally wrong to think of one race as overpowered against the others, as there is always something you could have done better as a player to secure your win, but let me explain why I may be having an easier time with Toss.
In their tech tree there isn't a whole lot of diversity necessary to scout AND build tier 2 units. One building allows you to build observers, arguably one of the best scouting units in the game, and immortals, which absolutely destroy units with hardened shield and +30 bonus to armored units. Then, if ground units got ya down, just grab some colossus.
The only thing they lack is anti-air, but I'm not convinced that this is much of a problem considering the amount of pressure they can put on other players early game, requiring people to stall their builds and make defensive units. With enough scouting, a good banshee rush should be spotted and easily countered with 4 stalkers and an observer. The observer comes out just as the first banshee comes out, so it shouldn't be an issue for toss.
Also - forcefield is incredibly useful because it can be used right out of the box and is indestructible. It can push a lot of units such as roaches out of range as well. It is excellent for defense on ramps, offensive separation of units, and it's just a perk that they do so much damage.
The downside is that Toss units are extremely expensive, but less units that are stronger may mean easier micro for people, which is why they appear to be so good.
I think Toss is a very strong match to play against right now, but not impossible. I've been winning as them, but I wonder if that's because of how much more scouting I do thanks to observers, or if the culmination of all of my previous points make it an easier race for me to manage.
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The poll is somewhat biased. If you look at the poll the great majority favor Zerg so it should come to no surprise in TvZ people voted for T favored. Same for other matchups. You can't have a subjective poll with a big chunk of players leaning towards a certain race.
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On April 19 2010 21:19 Black Octopi wrote:
The poll is somewhat biased. If you look at the poll the great majority favor Zerg so it should come to no surprise in TvZ people voted for T favored. Same for other matchups. You can't have a subjective poll with a big chunk of players leaning towards a certain race.
Complaining about statistics when the poll was created 2 hours ago is bad form. Details, it's all in the details.
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I'm Silver so I think at my level we can improve our play to overcome most problems. The ease of playing a race then makes the most difference. I personally find Protoss the easiest to play. They have a easy to use buildings system, warp gates and solid units like the sentry and immortal. Zerg is next with a great production but timing of drones vs military is still kinda hard. I'm playing Terran atm and I find that even simple stuff like a probe harass puts me off my game and defending a immortal push is hard. Anecdotal evidence from encountering far more Protoss players than anyone else and looking at my ladder make it seem as if others consider Protoss easy as well, at least in my little corner.
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Im fairly high platin with about 700 games so far and I've played every race for quite some time (Zerg the least I have to admit) and my opinion is:
- Zerg is by far the best race in a macro-game but it can be hard defending against timing-attacks, but that's mostly the players fault.
- Terran has a huge advantage over Protoss cuz of Marauder+EMP. although, if it get's to the lategame with lots of High-Templars for the Toss, it even's out a bit but just end's up in storms and EMP being dropped all over the place, which is quite ridiculous.
- Protoss is the race that is the worst abusing high-yield minerals and has the hardest time securing other expansion, jsut because they don't have mules and can't fly their buildings around and repair them (like Terran) and they don't have cheap hatcheries and a very fast army like the Zerg.
- Terran plyers most of the times just do some cheesey strategy with Thor-Drops, fast-banshees or timing-attacks and Protoss msotly win just by all-in timing-attacks, so I guess it's harder for those two races to have a solid macro-oriented build that favours good mechanics over cheesey stuff, or it's jsut easier to cheese with those races I guess...
Though I don't think there is just one race that's far superior or easier to play, but all the races favour another playstyle I guess... Zerg is very Maco-oriented and you need to have good mechanics and defend well (so you have to know the enemys timings for the attacks very well), Protoss facours a more creative and micro-oriented playstyle and Terran is somewhere in the middle I guess...
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Well, let's answer in the order you presented.
1. The balance in total: which is the strongest race overall?
This is tough, because the answer is hugely dependent on player skill. Since I'm assuming that you're referring to high-level play, I have to say Protoss. They are extremely micro dependent, but once that micro is in place they have the most powerful tools to alter battles with. On the flipside, if you do not possess the micro to use those abilities properly, Protoss ends up being farily weak.
At low-level play I'd say Zerg is probably the most powerful. More info on that in part 3.
2. Which race is favored in which matchup? PvT, ZvT, PvZ
PvT - P favored. It's really the Protoss game to lose, Terran will be on the reactionary end for the whole game.
ZvT - T is probably favored slightly due to a general Z lack of tools to deal with MMM ball, but this one is very close. If the Z takes the initiative and keeps up the harass, he can easily take it down.
PvZ - P favored. I'm sure many will argue this, but overall I'd say P is definitely favored. The later the game goes, the more of a chance Z has if he macroes up properly, but even then, the P force just has a lot more tools to wipe out a Z.
3. What is the easiest race to play? P? T? Z?
Zerg are most certainly the easiest to play. I base this on the fact that their army simply doesn't require much micro. The Zerg army is pretty much all attack-move. They lack on-use combat abilities, and their only caster is more or less a joke in it's current state. The only micro they have to do in combat is positional and targeting, which everyone else has to do as well. It is also easier to keep up the Zerg macro during combat, since one hatchery control group will give you access to all larvae, and thus the entire production chain.
That said, they of course have a lot of room to expand efficiency in high-level play, and are by no means weak. As Day[9] put it, Zerg are the most mechanical race, requiring less thought but more repetitive action. Consequently, they are also the strongest in low-level play, since T and P players won't have the precision required to make their armies effective.
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I was always a zerg player even in bw but I switched to random after the ladder reset. I actually found terran to be super easy to play, and toss to be the hardest by far imo. When I first started sc2 I was a silver zerg, but if I started as terran I'd say I'd be gold, and a low level silver as toss.
As far as balance of the game goes I agree with the op that everyone cries about the game when in reality I thought sc2 would be much worse than it is now. I think I'd have to be a top tier random plat player and play a million games before I had an concrete ideas if something was unbalanced or not. I'd probably have to do something like keep a spreadsheet of races, bo's, skill level of opponent, and the outcome of the game.
I've seen in a few older threads people claiming that the winrates with each race was almost exactly 33%. Is that true? I think this was after patch 6 was released, but if those numbers are true then we don't have anything to be complaining about. How many people complaining about imba have even played 100 games after each patch? What if the game truly was 90% balanced at the moment, would we even know?
To throw in another poker analogy, it's like people who say poker's not beatable when statistically it's hard to be a winner but it's more than possible and there's lots of people whose primary income is from poker.
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if only random players were allowed to vote (in theory) it would be even more representative.
most people tend to be quite egoistical about their own race and its standing / balance 
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On April 19 2010 20:56 rewsky wrote:
For reference, I'm in Bronze so a lot of my opinion may be off, but I played Terran every match and would win about one or two for every one match I lost.
I have since switched to Toss and suddenly I've won 7 games in a row and am now in Silver.
I know that it is fundamentally wrong to think of one race as overpowered against the others, as there is always something you could have done better as a player to secure your win, but let me explain why I may be having an easier time with Toss.
In their tech tree there isn't a whole lot of diversity necessary to scout AND build tier 2 units. One building allows you to build observers, arguably one of the best scouting units in the game, and immortals, which absolutely destroy units with hardened shield and +30 bonus to armored units. Then, if ground units got ya down, just grab some colossus.
The only thing they lack is anti-air, but I'm not convinced that this is much of a problem considering the amount of pressure they can put on other players early game, requiring people to stall their builds and make defensive units. With enough scouting, a good banshee rush should be spotted and easily countered with 4 stalkers and an observer. The observer comes out just as the first banshee comes out, so it shouldn't be an issue for toss.
Also - forcefield is incredibly useful because it can be used right out of the box and is indestructible. It can push a lot of units such as roaches out of range as well. It is excellent for defense on ramps, offensive separation of units, and it's just a perk that they do so much damage.
The downside is that Toss units are extremely expensive, but less units that are stronger may mean easier micro for people, which is why they appear to be so good.
I think Toss is a very strong match to play against right now, but not impossible. I've been winning as them, but I wonder if that's because of how much more scouting I do thanks to observers, or if the culmination of all of my previous points make it an easier race for me to manage.
just a comment, this does not necessarily mean imbalance(it still could). in SC1 most people thought that toss was much easier to pick up and play, while terran required much more micro at the lower levels. but at higher levels they were much more balanced when you could multitask and micro properly.
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EPT
