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at my skill level zerg seems to shit on terrans t.t Infact i feel like GSL is a bit skewed since its close positions all the time (seemingly). Id prefer to see how these guys deal with far positions and see their game plan compared to mine. And basically everyone I have talked to on NA in the same echelon as myself seems to agree. Maybe at the top korean level its different or something.
I cant believe people are letting the double bunker below the ramp get it....if i try it it never works t.t
I also notice the majority of what people complain about involving terran is strictly when they dont know something is coming and or reacted poorly. Very rarely do people seem to complain about the straightup army composition its almost always moreso the all ins.
Zergs also seem to complain more about playing against P, maybe since their muta/ling/bling easybutton ball isnt effective
Also this idea that Zerg cant come back is ridiculous. I dont know about PvZ, but TvZ seems to be rooted in a midgame push where if you lose it perse you are absolutely doomed. Any early marine losses ruin you and you lose map control which is horrible. I feel like its the exact opposite, if you lose units as terran youll never match the zerg in macro again if they play properly. Ive had tons of games where the zerg suicided some shit so i figured id march in and go own them, but dammit the people i was playing were good and already had banes and lings etc ready for me the moment i unsieged and moved in. Consequently my army is crushed and im dead because harassing is quite difficult against zerg with mutas on the map and good creep spread.
T.t
top 200 for about a month now
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Sounds like a QQ treath to me, and my best race by far is Zerg, the only reason Zergs feel they are playing blind is because of lack of understanding of why they scout, some others seems to believe than they being attacked before they can saturate both bases is imba.
Map pool sucks, thats for true, but it doesn`t mean that you can not know what is coming to you, just by watching VODs you should be able to know what is coming at you when you play, otherwise i would recomend reading the basic BOs for T and P.
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I go back and forth. Sometimes I think zerg is almost okay, sometimes I think the race is fundamentally flawed and terrible.
But I do think it needs some kind of early game buff, because in a lot of situations it's way too easy to GG a zerg.
Maps will help. But I don't know if they'll fix it completely.
By the way, the OP was actually not very good. Full of anecdotal evidence masquerading as profound insight by way of an interesting but ultimately useless observation about how you think zerg wins and loses.
Also, whatever spelling you used for the word "Definitely" got consistently spell-checked to "defiantly." So that's funny too.
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The only thing that pisses me off is how you could teach an ape with a mental disability to 4gate, but a single mistake on the Zerg's part ends in not being able to hold the attack.
Just using 4gate as an example, this applies to any allinish build. It's just a thousand times worse in ZvP though where you actually have no advantage as the defender.
edit: Its actually absurd how every 8 in 10 or so Master league P's I play actually attempt to 4 or 6gate me, even if I just played them in a previous match where they did the same thing.
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I think most zerg losses come from one or two big mistakes, where the mechanics of T and P are much more forgiving at lower levels. This is frustrating because even if you do get a seemingly insurmountable econ lead...the pop cap is still 200. You have to do something with your units, and God forbid you actually have some of the wrong units and get mauled by a much lesser pop army. I've resorted to killing my own units lately to make room for hive tech units.
When you do fight and lose that big battle, it is most likely at the center or at your front. No matter how fast you can reinforce, it still takes some time, where the P or T army can smash them while rallying to defend. If T or P loses that battle, he's more likely at the opponent's front and has time and mechanics to defend any possible counter.
Even pro's who have a million billion dollars and are constantly maxed just barely win while T or P can take a ton of damage to their base/worker count, and still win with a superior army. Zerg cannot recover from base damage, pure and simple. Once the zerg starts losing hatches and/or tech buildings, its over. T and P can lose Cc's and unit production buildings and remake. The optimal producing hatchery takes time to get the use out of.
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Zerg has problems because of these ridiculous close positions on the maps, when a terran army is 3 seconds away from your ramp and you are always having to decide how to spend your larva based on scouting and intel weather it should be drones or attacking units. when good players deny scouting which is fairely easy to do with a couple marines or stalkers placed well in your main it easy to all in a zerg for that reason. Because it's a guessing game for the zerg, if you are all inning and you get to my main in 3 seconds then I lose if I havent been constantly making units, but if you were playing a macro game and I have no way of knowing if you deny scouting keep in mind and ive been making just units then im basically dead or extremely far behind because of how useless zerg units are. They die so quickly it just so easy to deny attacks of aggresion from a zerg until lair tech comes into play.
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I'll agree that Zerg is harder to play well enough to win with than the other races. I don't know that this means there is an imbalance in the game, but it definitely accounts for the huge lack of Zerg players overall.
Possibly the biggest problem is that Zerg's options are limited, scouting is difficult, and you have to prepare for specific builds that your opponent is going with very limited information about what they are even doing. Various harass like Banshee/Void Ray/Hellion/Bunker/Cannoning out/etc. can completely win a game outright and due to walloffs it's very hard to punish those slow teching players before their harass comes out. Allins don't cost other races anything, while Zerg's allins are pretty awful and an auto loss of unsuccessful. More or less this is just saying that Z is a macro/defensive race, but it's also really skill intensive to pull off compared to strategies from the other races.
By the way, I'm not high ranked. I win quite a bit, but I don't play tons of games, so this isn't any kind of personal whining. It's just very true. I tend to stick to gas pool, as it helps get early map control and keep the hatch safe from any cheese. Some Zerg players need to be less greedy and more cautious, because they know very well that SCV allins and bunker rushing are all the rage lately...
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I play main Zerg after a few hundred games as random and i really don't feel that way. There are a million ways for Zerg to win and while, yes, the 200/200 army of others is usually stronger, you can build faster than any other race, especially if you throw down extra hatcheries in mid/lategame.
I play a pure macro game, i have horrible micro, horrible decision making and my army composition is usually bad, i often even forget to get corruptors against colossi or banelings against marines... and i still win in mid-diamond just by having a ton of stuff, losing my first army and killing only half of his... and a minute later i have the same army again and kill the remainder of his army while at the same time killing his expansions with 20 of the extremely mobile speedlings.
There are some strategies that are hard to deal with, but so are some Zerg strategies for other races. I heard a lot of Protoss complain about Zergs always going 7RR and winning with it... Terrans are scared of baneling busts... Terrans _and_ Protoss complain about muta/ling being almost impossible to beat...
It's more a problem in the Zerg mindset that says "i have lost" the moment they read Terran or Protoss on the loading screen.
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I'm a Protoss player and I somewhat agree to what you're saying...
The major problem(s) IMO besides the overall balance is some of the current maps:
some of the map are really fueling on these balance problems, however I see it very problematic to address these issues adequately until a expansion comes (introducing new units that can lessen the "imba gap"?).
Maybe with more balance patching they can make it better...
Though I think that the problem(s) might go deeper than just balancing the current state of the game.
I'm no expert, but thats the feeling i get from the game right now. I might be totally wrong.
But my guess is that Terran probably will continue to dominate until a/the expansion(s?) are released and adjustments are slowly tweaked to balance.
Hopefully the game will improve due time, remember: SC1 wasn't balanced or perfect in any way from the get go.
Btw im not saying that there is a really HUGE imba or anything, but i think there are some minor issues that is tipping both protoss and terran in favor in certain situations, and i think its really obvious in some high level games i've seen.
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On January 25 2011 13:05 Yogurt wrote:
i think the lurker loss is the cause of a lot of problems
lurker and sunkens were the zergs way of being defensive
terran has bunkers and tanks and planetary fortress etc
protoss has cannons and templar and sentry etc
zerg has... spine crawlers?
Absolutely agree. Without lurker zerg just does not have defenders advantage the T or P has.
Also chokes would favor zerg much more than now if lurker was alive.
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Very insightful thread, but its depressing to be honest. Its not the units health/dps/speed/cost that makes zerg underpowered its the fundamental issues with the race itself.
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only issue I see is the maps
I truly think that's it
op is awful also
but to say zerg is harder to play is just buying into this whole thing that I don't believe is true... I think people have built up the idea so much in their head that they'll never be convinced otherwise. like the idea that z can't beat t, or that t can make mistakes left and right and it doesn't matter. there's always loads of complaints in these threads that don't -really- make sense but people just can't seem to get over them.
when there are new maps in the gsl I think things will change and make a lot more sense. and then maybe people will calm down and realize they can win some games, and it'll work because zerg have a lot of strengths to go with their weaknesses just like the other races.
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On January 25 2011 17:46 Alpina wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 13:05 Yogurt wrote:
i think the lurker loss is the cause of a lot of problems
lurker and sunkens were the zergs way of being defensive
terran has bunkers and tanks and planetary fortress etc
protoss has cannons and templar and sentry etc
zerg has... spine crawlers? Absolutely agree. Without lurker zerg just does not have defenders advantage the T or P has. Also chokes would favor zerg much more than now if lurker was alive.
hydras just got that much nerfed...no hydra speed, no lurker aspect wtf wtf..
the kolossus is way too strong vs zerg. to fight those kolosusses we would need the swam but no defielers.
In bw Zerglings were the main damagedealers of the zerg army... in sc2 they have the same about of hp and while every other unit got damage increas AND the Kolosuss was added (who deals with a infinite amout of zerglings with one hit).
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On January 25 2011 11:08 Steel wrote:
Very nice post. It is what I struggle with too. I would say that especially recently, 90% of my losses are due to 1 base all-ins or other very low economy timing push.
The classic 4 - blue flame hellion into cloaked banshee is pretty easy to execute (I showed this build to my gold player friend, he doesn't lose tvz and tvt anymore) and is so insanely hard for zerg to stop on a majority of maps. I could counter with the roaches I made, but the reality is one marine will stop me and I'll probably die to banshees now.
As zerg it's almost impossible to punish a T or P while a zerg can lose a game because he made a few too many drones.
1 base all-ins are incredibly hard to scout because people have learned to place pylon, bunkers and ranged unit at proximity of their base. I've lost games to 3 gate robo rush because my queens couldn't wobble fast enough to kill the transport before it spawned 3 zealots and dropped two immortals, while 3 stalkers were attacking my front. Don't even get me started on warpgate/stargate all-ins. It seems I manage to defend it so I can start dronning again (because if he expands he will catch up) to realise he stayed on one base and got blink and now all my roaches were useless. By the time he I have a 16 lings he has a sentry and uses force field. Most games I feel helpless and scouting only makes things slightly better.
I've seen SO MANY zergs switch to protoss only to 1 base all-in everyone. I pretty much win macro games, lose to 1-base all-ins and lose the occasional ZvZ. It's pretty aggravating, and it's hard to ask for help because it is really situational. I just played this ZvP where he had a zealot blocking his choke and one stalker patrolling the ledge so I guess stargate play and he simply arrived with like 14 zealots into my base, which i barely held with well micro'd roaches I had barely made. I still lost my queens and he simply expanded and according to the graph we were at the same economic level. He made 4 stalkers so my roaches could do nothing, and the game progressed into a normal game. Needless to say I crushed him in a macro game.
This protoss practice partner, who I repetitively crush has been in masters league for about a week now. I'm still in Diamond in an endless cycle or winning and losing to all-ins, and it's getting pretty aggravating. I looked at his match history when he told me he had been promoted to see about 10/15 wins using 4 gate. I honestly don't think that's normal. I can't stop it without being behind on Delta, Steppes, Blistering Sands, Close position 4player maps and Jungle Basin is impossible for zerg to win on. I can only downvote 4 maps.
I'm pretty mad and your post outlines why pretty well.
And I haven't even mentioned 2 barracks play...
What can zerg do to be tricky, all-in ish or to force anything, at all?
I'm a master zerg, sorry but 4gate is not an easy win. Ok with 4 gate you easily win against someone who don't know what to do, but if you know how to counter it, it's very doable and the protoss actually is hurting himself with this 4 gate.
For the moment the only problem there is between zerg & protoss is more mid game and end game: void ray + colossi is untouchable unless you have like a hundred corruptor, who sucks bad against void rays.
Obviously the only zerg counter to void ray is hydra, but they get so badly countered by colossi that you just can't make any.
Terran all-in is another story: they just don't exist anymore. I get bunker rush like EVERY damn game against terran, and i lost to it like once in my 150 loss. But the terran goes for bunker rush AND EXPAND at the same time. How is it possible ? So early to rush and to expand ? Most of the time he loose like all his marine poorly, and a pair of SCVs, and still is untouchable by my zergling force. I need roach, and by that time he have already bunkers up, marauder, and it's already not possible to push.
OP is right in my opinion, Zerg is more a micro race actually: army position, focus firing is so important! I see some people saying it's not a good idea to move units from the storm in TvP, OKAY MAYBE, but if you have like 15 hydra, and you don't move from storm, just try it damn you will have a nice grin on your face. I always loose because my army get roflstomped where it should not, like killed by an equal cost army that don't loose anything at most.
Basically: the game is balanced, but zerg can't punish for mistakes, while it is the easiest race to punish especially in the 10 first minutes. On way to fix it would be to lower spire construction time in my opinion, giving a easiest way for zerg to go muta harass.
The only timing I have basically against Protoss is when I have roach speed. It's almost the only moment I can attack knowing my attack should be effectiv (which mean actually deal damage and not fail poorly). In ZvT I see no timing (when i just have muta ? he put down 2-3 tower and your windows is already closed, on your nose).
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people need to stop with the "oh its just a preconceived notion" or "it's just a mindset that zergs are having"
people are genuinely having these problems against protoss and terran where it feels like 1 mistake loses them the game, and it usually does. I'm sure all zergs have been at the point where theyre like 6 bases vs. 2-3 base and they go ultra baneling ling, or broodlord baneling and just because of a stupid move where you somehow send banelings towards tanks and MMM kite ultras you lose the game where you were ahead. Or where you kill all but 15 marirnes that just destroy and muta you have. you dont see that many stories the other way around.
I'm not saying it's imba, but it's extremely frustrating and sometimes ridiculous and for some people to say, stop overreacting it's all in your head, is beyond me.
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Really good well thought out post, It pretty much was a perfect sumation of why Sc2 has lost some of the pizazz when it first came out, and in beta. Now me being a z player alot of wins feel unrewarding, and nearly every loss feels like it wasn't my fault, although I did make mistakes, it just feels like I can play better and still lose the majority of the time.
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btw just saw gomtv.net fox moon vs hongunprime and he even though having an advantage the whole game long denying expansions haveing more bases, killed many stalkers etc..
the toss just run up with mass stalkers and 3 koloss and raped the zerg lololol style.
blink stalkers, 9 range kolossus... sup zerg xD
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I am printing this, then to read 
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On January 25 2011 13:48 Cerpher wrote:
i agree with avid on is that no t1 zerg unit can shoot air
protoss and terran can always overlord hunt in the first couple of minutes but we cant pylon hunt or depot hunt becuz no terran or protoss are stupid enuf to place it randomly in the middle of the map
Terran and Protoss almost always wall off against zerg
if zerg is supposed to be the race that "overruns" the enemy doesn't this directly counter the purpose??
Also Zerg needs at least 2 structures to build units(tech and hatch)
If the terran does a drop and snipes your spawning pool and roach warren and then flies away you wont be able to make any attacking units for at least another minute(early on in the game)
I've had this happen to me a couple times >_>
Or another example protoss goes void rays gets 2 or 3 and then snipes ur hydra den and target fires your queens. they can still "defend" counterattacks easily with a sentry forcefield
^^^That one ive lost plenty of times to
There are plenty of "imbalances" in MY OPINION but Terran and Protoss take them for "granted" like its not an "imbalance"
Its not the same if a terran snipes a roach warren and then a zerg snipes a barracks somehow someway... but either way lets just pretend so... the terran player will still have more racks and continue to make units as the zerg has to rebuild that tech structure
thats all i got for now...
You can make any race seem overpowered or underpowered by selectively listing its strengths or weaknesses like that, because each race does have its unique strengths and weaknesses. Case in point: your roach warren vs barracks kill. Yes, if you lose your roach warren, you can't make any roaches - but the upside of that is that you only need one roach warren and can have 50 roaches a minute later, while terran needs to build an assload of barracks to macro up an army like that. Same applies to any tech choice terran makes - he needs the production facilities if he wants to mass a unit. All Zerg will ever need is the one tech building.
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I just want larger maps thats all i ask for... after that give it some time to determine tweaking, I'm okay if my race is difficult and at TOP200 it sure is but i feel its because of reaction and open spaces. Flanking means shit on a map like xel naga where every 5 feet is a choke, it's literally a gamble on whether to drone or not on any close position vs a good player.
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EPT
