EPTI understand that every race is supposed to be different, it's what makes the game so entertaining to watch and fun play. However I do not feel like Zerg wins or loses games for the right reasons. I also understand that not every match, series, player, etc. are the same and things happen that can be used to counter statements I make later on so I'll tell you now, everything I say should be taken as a general statement. If I say something like, "Nobody uses Ghosts in TvZ", you can find a game where someone does use them and say, "AH HA! you are wrong!" But keeping in mind I'm speaking generally my statement still holds. If I say something like, "Jinro is the best Terran player in the world" You could say, "This guy I know, his name is Foxer..."(This is the guy that has insane marine vs. baneling micro in case you didn't know) My statement is still generally correct because while you may not consider him to be 'the best' you cannot deny he could definitely earn a nomination for the title. In fact, just to clear up any suspicion I'm biased toward hating non Zerg races, I honestly feel Jinro is possibly the overall best overall [not a typo] StarCraft 2 Players in the world.
[/preface]
I feel zerg wins/loses games the wrong way, let me Explain:
There is a tipping point in every game where one player gets so far ahead it would be nigh impossible to lose. In physics there is a principal that states that if an object's center of gravity moves beyond its base you get 'topple'. When speaking concerning Zerg the tipping point is so delicate it makes winning a tightrope walk, even a small breeze will blow you over and you'll lose the game. They have effectively zero stalling techniques when something goes wrong and no tech to fall back on. When Zerg smashes, say, a moderate Terran push oftentimes a siege tank and a bunker is all he needs to get right back into the game. Now if Terran smashes a Zerg attack they can immediately push to the Zerg base and will nearly always do fatal damage even if they are eventually repelled.
The next problem, along the same lines, is how Zerg units attack. Most of the Toss army and all of the Terran army has range; meanwhile the Zerg units that do have range are VERY weak or extremely short ranged and usually only shoot up or down. For instance take the way Toss can set up expos, it really sucks for ultras (and most other Zerg units) to have to kill a wall of pylons, then gateways, and then cannons to get to a nexus and mineral line. In the reverse situation Zerg's opponent might have to attack some spine crawlers, but with the range and bonus damage against armored these are rarely a problem.
Now lets talk about all-in's. Say a Toss 4 gates and you are finally able to hold it off and you even have an expansion up. At this point one single voidray can prevent you from attacking for a minimum of 150 seconds while lair is teched, a hydra den is made, and hydras walk their slow asses across the map, giving toss time to stabilize. While most of the time Protoss does lose after a failed 4 gate, recoveries are far from rare. If Zerg does a similar type of all-in and it fails, recoveries are almost unheard of. The closest tech Zerg has that can cause trouble for someone unprepared is roach burrow but it's effectiveness is marginal.
Zerg: "Haha, I've thwarted your tasteless banshee harass!"
Terran: "That's okay, I needed the Starport anyway"
Right now you may be thinking, "Well my win/loss ratio is almost 50%, obviously Zerg doesn't walk that much of a tightrope." My answer to this is simple, due to the matchmaking system if someone played a race that was much stronger than the others, they would be paired against MORE skilled opponents on a consistent basis since weaker players would be on even footing because of the race they play.
There is another thing that really adds to the 'topple' effect. Against certain strategies banelings are REQUIRED. We'll take the mass marine example for the sake of simplistically. First, the Zerg MUST spend gas to counter a mineral only army. Since Terran has, as Blizzard has stated (and that is obvious), the best mineral harvesting capabilities if Zerg doesn't spend their gas and use their banelings perfectly -on a repeated basis within the same game- the mass marine will wipe you out with ease. Marines are just too cost effective and the one time you fail to stop a push with banelings the marines will eat you up. It's also important to note that marine production is [laughably] faster than baneling production. Zerg cannot keep trading armies because Terran will pull ahead. Keep in mind I've not even mentioned tanks.
"According to my theory if you take a player of a certain skill level who plays Zerg, that same player will be rated higher if he were to play another race instead. Example: See LiquidTLO"
Another way of looking at all of this: Zerg does not rely so much on solid gameplay as it does their opponent making a massive mistake, or a long series of small ones (See preface). Along this same line of thought I feel, especially at a professional level, most Terrans don't use their race to the fullest. How many Terrans do you see abusing the utility of sensor towers? LiquidJinro comes to mind, but that's about it and even he doesn't use them to the fullest. What about the +2 building armor for Terran? I don't think I've ever seen that upgrade in a pro match or otherwise. Turret range increase upgrade? Another rare one and the list goes on. As for Protoss, how often do you see hallucinations? Sometimes but not near as much as you should. This is not to say Zerg doesn't have underused tactics because they do. Things like contaminate and nydus are terribly underused, but I don't believe these things are easily 'abusable' nor do they provide the same utility as the others in most situations.
Another very large issue is the way Zerg scouts. Do not misunderstand what I'm saying, Zergs map awareness is fantastic, but army and base scouting is definitely the worst out of the three races. Terran have scan and while it costs them ~270 minerals, it is available very early on and it is guaranteed to scout zergs entire base until lair tech (when generate creep becomes available). I've seen many games where an SCV fails to scout and without missing a beat a scan picks up the critical information the SCV failed to get such as the nydus network, roach warren, etc. The Protoss scouting early game is almost as bad as Zerg's except this is made up for once midgame hits where they have the best scouting in the game (especially after patch 1.2). Zerg is easily the most susceptible to secret tech early game from both of the other races and they have terrible scouting methods both early and late game, however this only realistically applies to the higher teir of players. First you have the overlord sac; this is largely negated by proper perimeter scouting of the opponent as both Toss and Terran T1 shoot up and kill ovies fast enough for them to miss critical information. So the Zerg is down 1 larva and 100 minerals for almost nothing. It's also worth noting that for only 50 minerals more Terran has a similar scout that has tons of hp AND flies faster; this scout is known as the barracks (in some cases an unneeded factory). Next up is the changeling and as stated before not viable at high levels (See Preface); the thing is spotted and killed very easily.
Unfortunately Zerg units just aren't cost effective in the vast majority of situations. I don't really know how to put this one into words but I will try. When a player gets a collosus (See Preface), it is always useful. When a player gets a thor, it's always a good thing. When a player gets an ultralisk, it is usually more damaging than good, even when fully upgraded but especially when it's not. When a non-Zerg gets a ground only attacking unit, it's damn good at it's job (See Tank, Maurader, Collosus, Zealot, etc.). When they get an air only attacking unit it, too, is damn good at its job. When they get ranged units they actually have RANGE. None of these things are true for Zerg units. Zerglings(unupgraded)do LESS dps than marines(unupgraded) and marines are ranged. You may be thinking, "Well you get double the dps for the same price with zerglings" but you have left out a few super important details! First, zerglings are kiteable. Secondly, the more ranged units you have the more efficient your army becomes, (varies depending on range of unit, DPS, and collision radius) whereas melee units have horrid diminishing returns on larger numbers. Even units that are supposed to have the most 'cost effective potential', namely splash damage units, are the most terrible in the game: The Baneling and the Ultralisk. The baneling is a SUICIDE unit, meaning that even if you do max damage you are guaranteed to lose resources. The other is the Ultralisk and it has a similar problem that the baneling has: It's only good at melee range, except there is one caveat...THING IS FRICKEN ENORMOUS! I admit this adds to the 'bad-ass' characteristic of the ultralisk and is personally my favorite unit, but this is not useful in battle unfortunately (although seeing an army of scary ultras may induce [unmerited]panic in your opponent, which could prove beneficial at times). Compared to the Toss and Terran splash units both of Zergs splash units are terrible. Terran's splashers, the tank and the thor (only air splasher in the game), does tons of damage per shot and has unbelievable range. The Toss splasher does plenty of damage itself but its pathing is unaffected my all units and most terrain.
I cannot even count how many times my equal cost Zerg army fights against Toss or Terran's army and gets vaporized while only scratching theirs. This can be obvserved by looking at the 'graphs' tab at the end of the match. Conversely I can only pull this off in very few, very specific instances such as muta/ling vs a nearly all zealot army. I could spend time on every unit but I think a sufficient amount has been said on the subject.
Zerg: "I cannot believe I'm going to lose because of hellion harass"
Terran: "Who said you need gas to GG a Zerg?"
Last but not least is the little problem known as 'The Blizzard Ladder Map Pool'. The fact that most of the maps available to play on (from Blizzard) are horribly in favor of Zergs opponent and the abusable map features, coupled with many things earlier stated, make playing on many maps a nightmare. (Keep in mind Zerg nightmares involve buttered biscuits and gear in their rear; yeah, not good...) Playing a Terran on Lost Temple and winning, for instance, involves guessing weather or not a tank/thor drop on the high ground is coming (as stated earlier it's effectively impossible to scout), not getting close positions, him making at least one major mistake or several small ones, and you playing at the top of your game. (See Preface)
In conclusion, it's not at all impossible for Zerg to win a game, they just tend to win games in a way that doesn't feel satisfying. At the same time I very rarely lose a game and think, "Wow I was definitely outclassed here." In fact i usually feel the opposite. I'll lose to players that just flat out play like garbage. They'll do stuff like land a Command Center at a base and mine it out without touching the destructible rocks that are in the way or I'll watch the replay and I'm intensely microing a battle that the other player didn't even notice was happening and his equal cost army demolishes me. I want the game to feel like I definitely outclassed my opponent when I win outright or he definitely outclassed me when I lose outright. Or in the case of even skill I want games where it's neck and neck, back and forth, and one of us slowly edges closer and closer to victory where the other player always has a chance to turn the tide with a good play. Also, please understand that I've only skimmed the surface, there are many more problems and much more details that can be discussed and this is only meant to be a general outline.
About me: I am a Zerg player with very near 2,000 games played since release (Kerrigan, here I come!), I watch almost every GSL match and Day[9] daily, and I'm a high diamond that should be in masters shortly as right now I'm making and testing new builds and timings (Like Day[9] says, "You can 4-gate to the top of ladder, but you wont get any better at the game). I'm not a pro by any means but I still feel like my opinion carries some value.
Thank you for reading, please comment and tell me what you think! ^_^
tl;dr
Losing a game simply because you literally cannot scout your opponent is the wrong way to lose.
Winning because you correctly blind countered your opponents strategy is the wrong way to win.
Losing the game because your opponent made ten minor mistakes and you only made one is the wrong way to lose.
Winning because your opponent made a massive mistake is the wrong way to win.
Losing because your opponent has less ability/skill but plays a stronger race is the wrong way to lose.
Winning the game because your opponent fell asleep from of how boring/easy it is to beat you is not the right way to win.
Losing because you got close spawns on a map is the wrong way to lose.
Winning because RootDrewbie let his kid sister play his account is the wrong way to win.
Losing because of horrible map design/balance is the wrong way to lose.
Winning because you are the better player or losing because you are the inferior one is how things should be and hopefully, through game evolution or balance patches or both, this can be achieved.
Edit: Horrendous, repetitive spelling errors corrected. Thanks AngryMynock ^_^ Damn that spellchecker!
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