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[Preface]
I 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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Wouldn't "buff my race" get the same message across?
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I agree with you as a toss player. There are so many ways for a BO loss for zerg. Zerg players really need to play at perfection atm.
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On January 25 2011 08:40 Bagi wrote:
Wouldn't "buff my race" get the same message across?
No it wouldn't, not if something has to be done on Blizzards end. The only way to effect change is to make well thought out reasonable argument, otherwise you just sound like you are whining.
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Less QQ more pew pew
User was warned for this post
Right it's obvious that zergs have to be much better than other races to compete at diamond, masters, and the gsl. Bullshit. This is just another long-winded beat-around-the-bush buff zerg post - utterly worthless.
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nice post, sadly it will probably be bashed to ground anytime soon. However, it also explains the frustration people get while playing zerg, while not when playing other races (I'm not the only one with this feeling, there's been some other thread). Winning when enemy plays terribad is not satisfying, losing when enemy plays terribad is just frustrating. Ah well. Always choosing the hard path 
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Bagi, I would say the difference is, besides the end of the post he provided an actual argument.
This elevates the credibility of his complaint rather than being like "OMG T IS OP" or something of the sort.
As a Zerg player I feel similarly a lot of times.. and I think he expressed all of the frustration quite well.
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On January 25 2011 08:53 gogogadgetflow wrote:
Less QQ more pew pew
In the case of zerg, Less QQ more nom nom.
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I can see where you're getting at but Zerg have the dimension of larva instead of unit producing structures. Zergs can very easily lose a game by overdroning (it happens to everyone at some point) and can be quite annoying.
Saying "buff my race" doesn't get blizzard anywhere; Buffing/nerfing the right units is what makes a balanced game.
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It has some good arguments,
but some of em are bad too.
All in all a good post, and i can share your point on some ends.
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Good read. put a lot of effort into this one ^^. I especially agree on the topple effect, a protoss/terran on 4 base is usually gg for the zerg no matter what, but a zerg on 6 base can still lose easily because of the strength of 200/200 army.
And hidden tech is so hard ESPECIALLY when they bottom of the ramp wall off, making it impossible to scout. so many things need so many different responses (in ZvT at least) that scouting is crucial, and its impossible to scout if they just have something at the bottom of there ramp.
Why do people bash such well constructed opinions with stupid one-liners? >.>
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All that room to try and explain something and you still make no sense. This simply looks like a post that is about 3000 characters too long to say zerg is UP.
So what I am going to boil this down to is, if you do not want responses like this, stop beating around the bush that you want buffs rather than just saying you think T or P is OP.
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all your reasons are why i like playing zerg. walking that tightrope of defending harras and stuggling for a 3rd is the fun. i agree with your bling statement though. its alot of gas to try and live through a mineral only marine terran, that can kite.
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Read the entire post and have somewhat similar feelings... but am not worried. I used to care about balance more, but I honestly think improving the map pool and very minor tweaks here or there are all that is needed to actually "balance" the game out. Perhaps zerg will be forced to remain reactionary as a race, but that doesn't mean anything will be broken. While I think the balance of the game should be obvious to everybody at the moment, I don't actually think harping out the same points does much good. People who want to believe their is balance or imbalance wont change their mind easily and it only leads to stupid comments from both sides like "less QQ more pewpew."
I'll cross my fingers this thread wont go into the shitter, but I wont hold my breath.
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On January 25 2011 08:57 Bearrorist wrote:
Bagi, I would say the difference is, besides the end of the post he provided an actual argument.
This elevates the credibility of his complaint rather than being like "OMG T IS OP" or something of the sort.
As a Zerg player I feel similarly a lot of times.. and I think he expressed all of the frustration quite well.
People like Idra can really pinpoint where the zerg race is having trouble. This felt like 5 pages of nonsensical rambling filled with assumptions and anecdotal evidence, picking at weaknesses that may or may not exist within the race. All topped off with pretentious writing and a sense of entitlement that the OP is actually better than the people he loses to.
I get it, some zergs are frustrated... But come on.
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On January 25 2011 08:53 gogogadgetflow wrote:
Less QQ more pew pew
yoep, especially in the lower leagues (not master) it's just not the case, that zerg loses to terran if the players are equally skiled.
fun fact: 46,7% win ratio in TvZ in the GSL :-D
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On January 25 2011 08:59 Akuemon wrote:
Good read. put a lot of effort into this one ^^. I especially agree on the topple effect, a protoss/terran on 4 base is usually gg for the zerg no matter what, but a zerg on 6 base can still lose easily because of the strength of 200/200 army.
And hidden tech is so hard ESPECIALLY when they bottom of the ramp wall off, making it impossible to scout. so many things need so many different responses (in ZvT at least) that scouting is crucial, and its impossible to scout if they just have something at the bottom of there ramp.
Why do people bash such well constructed opinions with stupid one-liners? >.>
Well another point is 'hidden tech' is often quite pointless, because in contrary to T or P, 1-3 units of some type alone won't win you the game. It's not like.. 3 burrowed moving roaches win a game, or 3 infestors alone, or 3 hydras, or 3 broodlords, or whatever.
Banshees, void rays, dts can ruin the day quite easily even in small numbers.
I think balance is okayish, it just really feels frustrating when you compare the effort you put into your game and then you get steamrolled by some guy that doesn't scout, one bases and makes a push just at the moment when you start building next batch of drones using up your larva and are 2-4 supply from being capped  etc etc
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I only skimmed through the OP but, that "tightrope" effect is the entire game of SC2, not just Zerg.
In SC2 you need UNITS to stay alive, because there is absolutely no defender's advantage. There's no high ground, there's no units that can be used defensively (reavers, good psi storm, spider mines, lurkers, defilers, for example), and you can fit your whole 200/200 army through a choke point or ramp in 2 seconds rather than several more.
The bottom line is, no matter what race you are, 99% of the time if your opponent has more units than you, you are going to automatically lose if either one of you engages, and end up losing the game because of it. And if that is what you were going for in the OP, then yes I agree with you that it's ridiculous.
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I would disagree that winning as Zerg is largely unsatisfying. If you have a terrible opponent that happens to harass or all in well and you manage to barely hang on and come out with a win, it feels good in that moment. Of course you go back to the replay and discover that "wow, this guy was bad..." and suddenly those intense feelings you had during the game seem almost silly.
I have had some unrewarding wins, but I think that's basically because I like to be calm and focused during a ladder session and being elated at a 'standard' win isn't helpful and may make you take losses harder. Sometimes, though, you just win so easily against a passive two basing opponent that there's just no reason to celebrate except you macro'd well for 15 minutes.
Anyway, about the rest of your post, I agree in general. I still have losses due to difficulties in scouting, etc., but I try to correct that for my next game. I specifically have troubles against close position LT. You send that first OL in exactly the wrong direction, so it's way out of position by the time you scout with a drone, and often I will simply forget to move that OL across the map in time to scout. So I simply change my OL scout pattern: instead of leaving that OL in an empty main or moving it to the corner of the map (where I'll forget about it and not move it soon enough), I just move it to the center of the map over some high ground.
Is that a perfect solution? Of course not, but it's something I can do now to make me play and react better.
I think as Zerg players we have to be able to read our opponent at the ramp since our OLs won't always get the info we need. We have to read the opposing army's composition and decide what it means, we have to figure out what the buildings at the ramp wall-in mean, etc. Sometimes we do have to blindly build units and structures and sometimes we'll lose because of that, but if that early mid-game scouting was much better, Zerg really might be OP because of our strong counter capability.
Overall, I think looking at the races too closely on paper makes Zerg seem really weak and almost impossible to play, but such is the magic of StarCraft that it actually somehow works out in-game. There MAY be some minor issues at pro-level play, but those issues will be ironed out in time. I don't expect that the overall concept of Zerg will change, though, so do what you can to get better, scout better, and read opponents better.
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I think alot of the frustation zerg players feel comes from the fact they have no units that can win the game outright before hive tech. Protoss has strong units that require a prepared zerg - voidrays, blink stalkers, dts.. Terran has strong openings that can deal alot of damage for minimal risk - 2 rax marines, hellion harass, banshees.. Zerg does feel weak when having to be prepared for so much with so little options.
When the game progresses, however, a good zerg can be very hard to beat. If harass proves largely unsucessful, if you mismicro just one attack, if you lose an expansion to banelings - zerg will just roll over you. Zerg has alot of options to show skill and win the game with smart plays in the midgame.
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If you had just made a post saying "Zerg is too linear compared to other races" you would have saved a whole bunch of my time.
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On January 25 2011 08:59 Competent wrote:
All that room to try and explain something and you still make no sense. This simply looks like a post that is about 3000 characters too long to say zerg is UP.
So what I am going to boil this down to is, if you do not want responses like this, stop beating around the bush that you want buffs rather than just saying you think T or P is OP.
This.Whats funny is that every zerg try to justify their qq post by making it really long . Everyday a new LONGGGGGG post about how bad zerg is.
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To be honest, whenever there is a thread like this, is should really only apply to top players. I'm confident that very few masters, and no diamond or below ranked people are losing because of an imbalance. So many mistakes are made by players except the very top that it's an inefficient way to spend your time. Couple this with the subjective experience evidence, and this makes for a thread that is frankly unnecessary.
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On January 25 2011 09:10 storm44 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 08:59 Competent wrote:
All that room to try and explain something and you still make no sense. This simply looks like a post that is about 3000 characters too long to say zerg is UP.
So what I am going to boil this down to is, if you do not want responses like this, stop beating around the bush that you want buffs rather than just saying you think T or P is OP. This.Whats funny is that every zerg try to justify their qq post by making it really long . Everyday a new LONGGGGGG post about how bad zerg is.
Funny thing is you don't see any T or P QQ posts.. and this is my last response in this thread
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I understand the post, and appreciate the effort put into it. Much of this I agree with, and while I play Protoss, I feel the pain of the OP watching many a zerg in GSL/etc losing to these similar problems. One thing I do disagree with, however, is the concept that one big mistake shouldn't lose you the game. Granted, with qualifies as that for zerg is a little ridiculous, but just like building the wrong unit for anyone, make a colossal misjudgement in tech will lose you the game. For any race.
I do not believe the units of the race are the problem. Part of the reason zerg units are meant to be less cost-effective is the rate at which you build them. Untouched, zerg should always hit max first. If the units were even equally cost effective, the power of the instant reinforce 200/200 army may too be much, and then "zerg is OP" would pollute the forum.
Personally, I believe this to be a map pool problem, not a race problem.
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On January 25 2011 09:10 storm44 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 08:59 Competent wrote:
All that room to try and explain something and you still make no sense. This simply looks like a post that is about 3000 characters too long to say zerg is UP.
So what I am going to boil this down to is, if you do not want responses like this, stop beating around the bush that you want buffs rather than just saying you think T or P is OP. This.Whats funny is that every zerg try to justify their qq post by making it really long . Everyday a new LONGGGGGG post about how bad zerg is.
Haha ive started noticing this trend too, it was a good post with quite a bit of effort obviously put into it but it literally comes down to a buff zerg thread.
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On January 25 2011 09:03 supersoft wrote:yoep, especially in the lower leagues (not master) it's just not the case, that zerg loses to terran if the players are equally skiled. fun fact: 46,7% win ratio in TvZ in the GSL :-D
Fun fact terran has had 3 players in the semi finals everytime I believe (except in GSL 3 which was 2 toss 2 terran)
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There are two possibilities.
1. Zerg isn't imbalanced. The game is fair.
If this is the case, you should spend your time getting better at Zerg. If you get better, you'll be able to sidestep the strategies and tactics that are ruining your day. You'll lose less and figure out more stuff to improve on.
2. Zerg IS imbalanced. The other races are stronger.
If this is true now, it won't always be the case. The game is young. 2 expansion packs are on the way. Blizzard has a group of employees whose SOLE job is to balance the game.
If this is the case, however, you should spend your time getting better at Zerg. If you get better fending off these "unfair" strategies, when the game is balanced and normalized by Blizzard, you'll be that much farther ahead of the game.
TL;DR: Stop complaining; play more; get better.
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On January 25 2011 09:18 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 09:03 supersoft wrote:On January 25 2011 08:53 gogogadgetflow wrote:
Less QQ more pew pew yoep, especially in the lower leagues (not master) it's just not the case, that zerg loses to terran if the players are equally skiled. fun fact: 46,7% win ratio in TvZ in the GSL :-D Fun fact terran has had 3 players in the semi finals everytime I believe (except in GSL 3 which was 2 toss 2 terran)
Maybe because there are a lot more terran players than there are zerg and toss players?
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I think "better" maps that are more open and has easy to take expos would help alot. Pretty much all laddermaps are ball friendly.
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This was recently discussed at Gosucoaching's show on justintv. Incontrol, Idra and Gretorp discussed ZvT and the general feelings were that Zerg had too little scouting opportunities, too few options early game, too prone to early harass/attacks to effectively go into midgame, and the current map pool had too small maps to allow zergs to react appropriately. That's what I can remember at least.
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Um... you know Z units aren't supposed to be cost effective in large engagements...? That's why they're all short ranged/melee. Zerg is supposed to win by superior economy.
Not even going to adress the rest of this QQing.
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On January 25 2011 09:19 Toxigen wrote:
There are two possibilities.
1. Zerg isn't imbalanced. The game is fair.
If this is the case, you should spend your time getting better at Zerg. If you get better, you'll be able to sidestep the strategies and tactics that are ruining your day. You'll lose less and figure out more stuff to improve on.
2. Zerg IS imbalanced. The other races are stronger.
If this is true now, it won't always be the case. The game is young. 2 expansion packs are on the way. Blizzard has a group of employees whose SOLE job is to balance the game.
If this is the case, however, you should spend your time getting better at Zerg. If you get better fending off these "unfair" strategies, when the game is balanced and normalized by Blizzard, you'll be that much farther ahead of the game.
TL;DR: Stop complaining; play more; get better.
You honestly think if there is a problem with balance it is acceptable to wait a year+ for an expansion to solve it...?
On January 25 2011 09:35 Mercury- wrote:
Um... you know Z units aren't supposed to be cost effective in large engagements...? That's why they're all short ranged/melee. Zerg is supposed to win by superior economy.
Not even going to adress the rest of this QQing.
I hope you don't address the rest of the "QQ" because your arguments are probably loaded with stupidity. Look dude, if Zerg needs to win with economy then why should one blue flame hellion drop completely shut it down while a Terran can lose everything and then drop the 20 Mules they forgot about and still win?
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On January 25 2011 09:36 ckw wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 09:19 Toxigen wrote:
There are two possibilities.
1. Zerg isn't imbalanced. The game is fair.
If this is the case, you should spend your time getting better at Zerg. If you get better, you'll be able to sidestep the strategies and tactics that are ruining your day. You'll lose less and figure out more stuff to improve on.
2. Zerg IS imbalanced. The other races are stronger.
If this is true now, it won't always be the case. The game is young. 2 expansion packs are on the way. Blizzard has a group of employees whose SOLE job is to balance the game.
If this is the case, however, you should spend your time getting better at Zerg. If you get better fending off these "unfair" strategies, when the game is balanced and normalized by Blizzard, you'll be that much farther ahead of the game.
TL;DR: Stop complaining; play more; get better. You honestly think if there is a problem with balance it is acceptable to wait a year+ for an expansion to solve it...?
There will be a new balance patch in a couple of months. No worries.
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On January 25 2011 09:19 To tourneys more and maxigen wrote:
There are two possibilities.
1. Zerg isn't imbalanced. The game is fair.
If this is the case, you should spend your time getting better at Zerg. If you get better, you'll be able to sidestep the strategies and tactics that are ruining your day. You'll lose less and figure out more stuff to improve on.
2. Zerg IS imbalanced. The other races are stronger.
If this is true now, it won't always be the case. The game is young. 2 expansion packs are on the way. Blizzard has a group of employees whose SOLE job is to balance the game.
If this is the case, however, you should spend your time getting better at Zerg. If you get better fending off these "unfair" strategies, when the game is balanced and normalized by Blizzard, you'll be that much farther ahead of the game.
TL;DR: Stop complaining; play more; get better.
I disagree and i couldn't disagree more to be honest with you.
Imo switching races is just the better choice. Specially at pro-level just watch people like idra nestea dimaga or darkforce loose to almost no-names on some maps again and again it.
Alot of the big names could have won 10+ tourneys more and could have made a lot of money.
Just look at morrow he is at a decent level with zerg now. He won tourneys when he was at that level with terran. He wont win tourneys with zerg atm :/
Switching races is the smart choice. It will take ages for blizz to fix this. You can still switch back later..
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I hate QQ as much as the rest of you, but it really seems like he put some effort into that, and it seems to be more than just a random BUFF ZERG, TERRAN IMBA post. I think that the zerg as a whole are mostly fine, but two things put zergs behind. Compared to the other races, zerg has a really difficult time scouting the opponent. This means that silly cheeses like banshees, void rays, DTs and so forth have a much greater success chance because it is much more difficult for the zerg player to see it coming. Also, I feel as if many of the maps are part of the problem. Maps such as steppes of war and delta quadrant have tiny distances between the mains, making timing pushes very hard to prepare for. The difficulty in securing thirds also plays an important role in many maps.
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This post is very biased, I don't even know where to start. No one gets Overseers, together with overlord speed they are the best scout in the game, not observers. Zerg has the best ability to scout the front early on, let me just run my marine up and down the front of your map, oh wait. Close spawns forces good timings and making units, it means that you actually can't overdrone without the potential to be punished, it is not an instant loss, it is just hard; like how winning cross on metalopolis v zerg as anything else is hard but not impossible.
Tl;DR Less QQ more pew pew
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This thread is wrong on SO many levels. You never once spoke about Z's map control via mutalisks in the mid/late game (at least in the Terran MU) and proceeded to rage about Thors and siege tanks. I don't understand what you're trying to say? To me your message in this thread is one which claims T and P are unbalanced (not true).
Sure the maps have a pretty big role to play atm, but don't forget how powerful Z gets with its Larvae mechanic past the 18 minute mark.
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On January 25 2011 09:43 cozzE wrote:
This thread is wrong on SO many levels. You never once spoke about Z's map control via mutalisks in the mid/late game (at least in the Terran MU) and proceeded to rage about Thors and siege tanks. I don't understand what you're trying to say? To me your message in this thread is one which claims T and P are unbalanced (not true).
Sure the maps have a pretty big role to play atm, but don't forget how powerful Z gets with its Larvae mechanic past the 18 minute mark.
How many Ts or Ps intentionally let the game get to that point? Noone plays for the late game vs zerg. If the game gets that far, then 95% of the time it's because T or P screwed up enough to let it get that far.
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Wow guys.
This guy obviously puts alot of effort into this post, at least an hour if not more, giving a long, fleshed out explanation of a PARTICULAR problem he thought was a problem in the zerg race. He decided to devote a large portion of his time to writing a post on TL writing about why he feels there is an intrinsic problem within the zerg race as a whole, such as units not being good in all situations and the current ladder pool not fitting well with the zerg race.
How about instead of just spouting "QQ MORE NUB" you guys actually respect this guy, that these are valid opinions that people can have, and he's not being disrespectful to you in the slightest?
In response to the OP:
1.Part of what you are saying I feel is wrong. For example, you say "I can't scout" but alot of times you can. Overlord positioning is an art in itself, and you always have to be constantly scouting in order to adjust your army. Keep in mind that zerg is reactive/adaptive, not proactive.
I do however agree that I feel there is less room for error for zerg than there is for terran. For example, lets say your initial push fails. You can still survive, remacro up, because of terran fortification of seige tanks/bunker.
If zerg loses a battle, then (partly due to the maps) there just isn't enough time/innate defense to defend yourself. For example seige tanks are good even up to tier 3, but spine crawlers fail even against stim. Then you have expensive, fragile units that are a must to keep alive(mutas), that you always to be careful of. You even lose 5, that can cost you the game(as you need them to take out tanks/other stuff.)
As to the maps, enough has been said on that. I think almost everyone is in agreement the maps need to be redone.
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I'm sure the expansion will give zerg more harrass abilities, which I think is the only real problem with zerg. I'm not saying they are UP, just that they lack diversity until later on. Toss and terran can rush tech and have more unit possibilities, zerg not so much.
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I totally agree, where zerg has some strong points, they have a lot of weak exploitable points. Terran and protoss have less weak points. Now sometimes as a zerg you can capitalize on these strong points and win, but if you misjudge a weak point you lose.
Honestly I just feel like the zerg race is poorly designed overall, but hopefully it will get remodeled in HoTS
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more harass ability's?
I suggest you go play terran or protoss and go deal with a flock of mutalisks.
Or nydus worms when you move out, zerglings that run into your main/nat when you move out.
Or even baneling drops.
And yes things like that can be stopped, but you can also stop drops/banshees/etc, it's just how you manage to deal with it.
I don't get what you want (ibreakurface, not the Op) you want zerg to be the best macro-race, and at the same time have the best harass ability's in the game, and all of that on all larger maps?
Yes, that is gonna turn out well...
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i dont think any zerg player really cares about the race being linear in regards to the unit variation. you dont really hear about macro terrans complaining about only playing biotank. it would just be nice to not lose games due to fundamental flaws within the structure of the race.
what can you do if someone is just abusing their race by patrolling the edge of their base with marines/stalkers and a walloff?
you cant zergling scout or overlord scout and they can kill you with 4-5 different openers that all require very different responses and you cant know which one to pick which just essentially gives you a 20-25% of guessing right. sure if you drone scouted you have a reference point to work from, (worker count, available chronoboosts, etc) but that right there isnt even a matter of unit balance its just a flat out flaw in the structure of the game.
EDIT: I'd agree with a buff to overlord base speed or lowering ovie speed to t1. It's not that I can't deduce what one base they're doing when I can actually see it, its that i can never really see it against "good" players.
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I agree that losing because your opponent made a lot of mistakes is not the right way to win. The strength of Zerg comes from reacting and exploiting the few mistakes your opponent does make(and everybody makes mistakes, if your opponent plays perfectly you are going to lose no matter what race)
I do agree that it seems unfair that a T or P can just blindly one base and if they happen to push out its GG, but just saying it is unfair does nothing. you need to give constructive criticism, such as "Ovies are too slow and their speed should be buffed to make scouting more effective" or something like that
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On January 25 2011 09:22 Torumfroll wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 09:18 blade55555 wrote:On January 25 2011 09:03 supersoft wrote:On January 25 2011 08:53 gogogadgetflow wrote:
Less QQ more pew pew yoep, especially in the lower leagues (not master) it's just not the case, that zerg loses to terran if the players are equally skiled. fun fact: 46,7% win ratio in TvZ in the GSL :-D Fun fact terran has had 3 players in the semi finals everytime I believe (except in GSL 3 which was 2 toss 2 terran) Maybe because there are a lot more terran players than there are zerg and toss players?
And why would that be if zerg is beating terran more? Although in GSL3 there were 3 more zergs then terran players and toss was at like 15 or something low.
While I personally think tvz is fine on good maps I feel like zvp is insanely harder and I do feel like toss might be a little too strong in pvz but I could be wrong ^^
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Who said Zerg was the best macro-race? Protoss macro is pretty beastly and Terrans aren't slouches when played in a macro-style either.
The difference is that Zerg can't be successful NOT playing a macro-game (there's no Zerg equivalent to T & P strong 1-base pushes).
But I do agree that Zerg harassment is there -- it's just not used. Be honest: when was the last time you researched drop tech?
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On January 25 2011 09:43 confusedcrib wrote:
This post is very biased, I don't even know where to start. No one gets Overseers, together with overlord speed they are the best scout in the game, not observers. Zerg has the best ability to scout the front early on, let me just run my marine up and down the front of your map, oh wait. Close spawns forces good timings and making units, it means that you actually can't overdrone without the potential to be punished, it is not an instant loss, it is just hard; like how winning cross on metalopolis v zerg as anything else is hard but not impossible.
Tl;DR Less QQ more pew pew
Hey bro, I have a cool story for you; Overseers and Speed upgrade for ovies is T2 and by the time you get them you're roffle-stomped by a 4gate or banshee or 2 rax or anything else.
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On January 25 2011 09:59 Toxigen wrote:
Who said Zerg was the best macro-race? Protoss macro is pretty beastly and Terrans aren't slouches when played in a macro-style either.
The difference is that Zerg can't be successful NOT playing a macro-game (there's no Zerg equivalent to T & P strong 1-base pushes).
But I do agree that Zerg harassment is there -- it's just not used. Be honest: when was the last time you researched drop tech?
depends on the player, i research drop tech in probably 3 or 4 of every 20 games or so.
On January 25 2011 09:43 confusedcrib wrote:
This post is very biased, I don't even know where to start. No one gets Overseers, together with overlord speed they are the best scout in the game, not observers. Zerg has the best ability to scout the front early on, let me just run my marine up and down the front of your map, oh wait. Close spawns forces good timings and making units, it means that you actually can't overdrone without the potential to be punished, it is not an instant loss, it is just hard; like how winning cross on metalopolis v zerg as anything else is hard but not impossible.
Tl;DR Less QQ more pew pew
This post is absolutely retarded. Plenty of players get overseers including myself to contaminate robos etc., just saying they don't doesn't make it so. I get overlord speed in just about every macro ZvT and ZvP right after lair finishes so T/P players need to stop saying "X thing is underused". You act like T and P are using everything at their disposable to improve and Z players just sit in some cave moaning not actively trying to fix issues. Scout the ramp? Really? This is your solution to scouting issues? What if they, I don't know... build shit in the middle of their base far away from the ramp? And please, it doesn't have to be close positions to die from overdroning, it can happen pretty easily in any positions because Zerg as a race is extremely dependent on scouting for the mid/early game.
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People are just constantly turning things in their way.
I advise you: Go look at some random diamond/master terran streams and go look how many actually die to the "economic" 2 base baneling bust.
Or protoss'es trying to FE and dying to roach/ling allins.
Or how many are really suffering from muta's.
People should just realize that they should stop making excuses for their losses in balance.
YES we aware that zerg has problems, YES the maps are completely retarded atm, but goddamn, play the game, deal with it, get better, wait for things to change around.
But all this is just getting very, very tiresome, everytime there is an interview with Idra it's always about how zerg has problems, if you open a thread it's always the same thing over and over and over again.
The Op is just things that are common knowledge at this point, he just made a very long post about it.
Last thing I am gonna say:
Go play the other 2 races for a good amount of games (untill you are around your old level, wich shouldn't be hard since everyone thinks T is so easy anyway). and then come back and compare them.
And the allins/hidden tech/autolosses, it's not a zerg problem, it's a thing that the whole game suffers from.
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On January 25 2011 09:01 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 08:57 Bearrorist wrote:
Bagi, I would say the difference is, besides the end of the post he provided an actual argument.
This elevates the credibility of his complaint rather than being like "OMG T IS OP" or something of the sort.
As a Zerg player I feel similarly a lot of times.. and I think he expressed all of the frustration quite well. People like Idra can really pinpoint where the zerg race is having trouble. This felt like 5 pages of nonsensical rambling filled with assumptions and anecdotal evidence, picking at weaknesses that may or may not exist within the race. All topped off with pretentious writing and a sense of entitlement that the OP is actually better than the people he loses to. I get it, some zergs are frustrated... But come on.
I agree with Bagi. Even though I agree with some of the Zerg-is-underpowered sentiments, this is too much complaining. If the OP really thinks that Zerg is THAT bad then he should change race, because no amount of balancing will satisfy a person like that.
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On January 25 2011 09:50 Pandain wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Wow guys.
This guy obviously puts alot of effort into this post, at least an hour if not more, giving a long, fleshed out explanation of a PARTICULAR problem he thought was a problem in the zerg race. He decided to devote a large portion of his time to writing a post on TL writing about why he feels there is an intrinsic problem within the zerg race as a whole, such as units not being good in all situations and the current ladder pool not fitting well with the zerg race.
How about instead of just spouting "QQ MORE NUB" you guys actually respect this guy, that these are valid opinions that people can have, and he's not being disrespectful to you in the slightest?
In response to the OP:
1.Part of what you are saying I feel is wrong. For example, you say "I can't scout" but alot of times you can. Overlord positioning is an art in itself, and you always have to be constantly scouting in order to adjust your army. Keep in mind that zerg is reactive/adaptive, not proactive.
I do however agree that I feel there is less room for error for zerg than there is for terran. For example, lets say your initial push fails. You can still survive, remacro up, because of terran fortification of seige tanks/bunker.
If zerg loses a battle, then (partly due to the maps) there just isn't enough time/innate defense to defend yourself. For example seige tanks are good even up to tier 3, but spine crawlers fail even against stim. Then you have expensive, fragile units that are a must to keep alive(mutas), that you always to be careful of. You even lose 5, that can cost you the game(as you need them to take out tanks/other stuff.)
As to the maps, enough has been said on that. I think almost everyone is in agreement the maps need to be redone.
Pandian, even if you were the only person to reply to my thread I would still feel it was worth writing. Thank you for addressing the worthless criticisms so I don't have to. ♥
It is not my goal for people to necessarily agree with me but if they disagree, in whole or in part, then please give more than one sentence saying why. To those who said I have a 'better than tho' attitude you are mistaken. I posted my rank and experience to give at least some credence to what I'm saying and because I'm not a regular poster for all anyone knows I could be in bronze with 100 games played.
I'd also like to take the time to remind people what the main argument I'm trying to make is: Zerg is not only losing the wrong way but also winning the wrong way.
Thanks to everyone who has posted so far and found this helpful. Also I appreciate everyone who recognizes the effort I put into this, weather you agree or not♥♥♥. It just blows my mind when people say it's too long! I always saw team liquid as a place to make long well thought out threads! Besides, I have a tl;dr at the bottom ^_^
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That is quite an OP... Need to read it a second time.
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Zerg is weak early game only. However i think currently even Zerg pros overcompensate. You do not have to get a 30% economy advantage by 7 minutes. its sufficient to get a 10% advantage and have an army + some additional production capacity (e.g. macro hatch). After a first army trade, Z can build safely 10-15 drones within some seconds. I am bad so this might be terribly wrong, but looking vod's you see Z loosing because of overdroning most of the time. Z T1 is quite cheap and effective, so Z does not need the eco advantage early on.
I think Z needs some "safe" openings, which are not that risky and allow to fend off early harras even when unscouted (e.g. preemptive 3rd/4th queen for anti air, some preemptive army).
Still waiting for the game to evolve, currently most succesful pro Z players favor that risky hyperdroning, but possibly there we'll see different styles of Z play as the games evolves. For me Z does not feel UP, i just get the feeling when i watch pro games ..
One additional reason for Z qq might be the fact, that playing Z forces a quite reactionary playstyle. A loss seems to feel harder if you fail to adapt/react and get killed. Loosing as the agressive part of a game just is not that depressing 
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while i agree with some of your arguments and i think theyre well presented, i find others to be a little fluffy. as in theres a lot of talk, but not a lot of evidence.
for example i totally agree that zerg is punished way more for a failed cheese than terran, however i disagree with the idea that theyre more punished than zerg. if a 4 gate fails its just as punishing as if a roach fails. in general 4 gate is more effective, but theyre both still fairly all in.
the problem with terran is the combination of cheap, extremely effective units, those units costing little to no gas, mules, wall offs, and repair all allow terran to "all in" without actually all inning. 2 rax is of course the first example that comes to mind. if a terran 2 raxes, bringing say 5 scvs, and is completely shut down by the zerg the game is no where near close to over. in fact terran may be ahead because of the amount of lings zerg had to produce instead of drones to simply not die. not to mention terran can have expanded behind this 2 rax and just throw up a couple of free bunkers if zerg considers a counter. not to mention all of this is minerals, terran can 2 rax, expand, and bunker up to protect his expo without even making a geyser. all zerg and toss cheeses besides 6 pool and 2 gate proxy/cannon rush require gas and these are 100% all in. there is no way anyone should recover from a failed 2 gate proxy or 6 pool
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As a Zerg i agree with most of the statements you said. However Terran and Toss users are going, be completely up in arms over your statements.
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Yet another person tries to write a formal article without the spelling and grammatical foundations to back it up. end result? I read up until "defiantly" and stopped.
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To the OP,
You spent a lot of time on this, but I think the push-back is coming, because your arguments are poorly constructed. You establish a bunch of premises, but then you move on before proving them. If you cant prove a premise, then the premise stays false until you do.
You say things like, "When Zerg smashes, say, a moderate Terran push often times a siege tank and a bunker is all he needs to get right back into the game.”
Well, fine. PROVE IT.
Did the Terran not bring all the tanks for the first engagement? What was Zerg doing while Terran was putting up the bunker? Why was Zerg unable to take out the SCV? Give data, be specific.
Without evidence, it’s just conjecture.
You do this throughout your post.
You have a valid opinion, but for it to become a Resolved Conclusion, you have to back it up with more than personal experience, opinion, and apparent frustration.
I am not saying you are wrong; you just haven’t proved that you are right.
If you are a young dude, consider taking up debate.
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Your just gift wrapping tired old arguments about Zerg lacking things.
I think alot of this has to do with IMMVP's win against IMNestea on Shakuras. Yea, I thought he was fucked too; No I don't think there are balance implications.
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Nice book  Read through it. Slightly more subdued version of the glorious TvP rant thread some time back. Agree with OP in most parts, and i think:
1. Nydus tech should be buffed
2. Ultras should be reduced in size or have some sort of ability for better pathfinding and spacing
3. Make Overlord initial speed faster since they not autodetectors anymore
4. If OP feels so bad about balance in sc2, there is still that EPIC AWESOME game called SC:BW!
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On January 25 2011 10:45 PukinDog wrote:
To the OP,
You spent a lot of time on this, but I think the push-back is coming, because your arguments are poorly constructed. You establish a bunch of premises, but then you move on before proving them. If you cant prove a premise, then the premise stays false until you do.
You say things like, "When Zerg smashes, say, a moderate Terran push often times a siege tank and a bunker is all he needs to get right back into the game.”
Well, fine. PROVE IT.
Did the Terran not bring all the tanks for the first engagement? What was Zerg doing while Terran was putting up the bunker? Why was Zerg unable to take out the SCV? Give data, be specific.
Without evidence, it’s just conjecture.
You do this throughout your post.
You have a valid opinion, but for it to become a Resolved Conclusion, you have to back it up with more than personal experience, opinion, and apparent frustration.
I am not saying you are wrong; you just haven’t proved that you are right.
If you are a young dude, consider taking up debate.
Hi PunkinDog, thanks for your response. I agree, I was vague but this is intentional. I would refer you to my 'preface' as it addresses why I constructed my arguments this way. My goal was to be, overall, more right than wrong. I tried my best to avoid specifics because of people's tendency to pick at small things and add 'if' arguments.
For example:
Person A: Banshees are too good vs. hydras.
Person B: Not if queens are there to back them up.
Person A: But they will probably have cloak so it doesn't matter.
Person B: But overseers only take 17 seconds to morph!
Person A: Terran already has a starport, all he has to do is make a viking.
And it goes on to infinity. I've literally seen arguments go from zerglings vs zealots to carriers vs vikings in the same way as my example. I constructed my argument to provoke thought while avoiding as many silly counter-statement responses as possible. The method seems to have been somewhat successful as many of the detractors attack the length of the post or say nonsensical things like 'less qq, more pewpew'.
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I feel as there is no in between in my games. It's either I get completely crushed because I failed to read my opponent with the incomplete information at my disposal, or I win effortlessly through massive economy/production.
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On January 25 2011 09:06 Angra wrote:
In SC2 you need UNITS to stay alive, because there is absolutely no defender's advantage. There's no high ground, there's no units that can be used defensively (reavers, good psi storm, spider mines, lurkers, defilers, for example), and you can fit your whole 200/200 army through a choke point or ramp in 2 seconds rather than several more.
The bottom line is, no matter what race you are, 99% of the time if your opponent has more units than you, you are going to automatically lose if either one of you engages, and end up losing the game because of it.
Absolutely nothing you said is true.
The defender's advantage is huge. There are siege tanks that can be used defensively. Yes there are high grounds, everywhere (and EVERY main base), and you need vision. No, you cannot fit a 200/200 zerg army through a small choke. Try fitting ultras anywhere, on any ladder map. No, you do not lose 99% of the time your opponent has more units than you ; for example, forcefields, storms or colossus can compensate for a 30-40 supply gap against a roach-hydra army.
Do you even play the game?
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IMO Zerg isn't UP, or OP, they just need alot of practice to be good with.
I'll agree that the current 1v1 map pool blows if you're Zerg, and that scounting against effective wall-in's with Cannon/Bunker backup in the Early-Mid game can be difficult. All these things I think could be easily fixed though with minor mechanical tweaks.
:The scouting problem:
I think this one should be relitivly easy to fix. OL speed...Perhaps instead of Lair requirement, change it to Spawning Pool or Evo Chamber or something??? Keep the cost the same, just change the requirements to make it availeable earlier in the game. Should help to make OL sac's worth it occasionally, and the speed boost proves wonderful when you can dart OS into your Opp's base for changeling drops. Like so many other people have already said, Zerg just need reliable early-mid game scouting method.
:The Map Pool:
There isn't really much we as players can do about this, other than forward our concerns to the Blizz development team. They'll get around to fixing the Map pool for sure, it's probably just gonna take a little time. In the mean time though, ICCUP have a few maps available that are really interesting and fun to play on. It's not ladder but what the heck...
My two cents.
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The thing is, Terran possesses the best mineral-only units in the game, and the game engine works directly against the other races' mineral-only units because of the way units clump together.
I wouldn't go as far to say that Terran is overpowered, but it is DEFINITELY the easiest race to pick up and play simply because of how mobile and how much dps a Terran bioball can dish out in tandem with how robust it actually is.
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On January 25 2011 09:58 GT wrote:
i dont think any zerg player really cares about the race being linear in regards to the unit variation. you dont really hear about macro terrans complaining about only playing biotank. it would just be nice to not lose games due to fundamental flaws within the structure of the race.
what can you do if someone is just abusing their race by patrolling the edge of their base with marines/stalkers and a walloff?
you cant zergling scout or overlord scout and they can kill you with 4-5 different openers that all require very different responses and you cant know which one to pick which just essentially gives you a 20-25% of guessing right. sure if you drone scouted you have a reference point to work from, (worker count, available chronoboosts, etc) but that right there isnt even a matter of unit balance its just a flat out flaw in the structure of the game.
EDIT: I'd agree with a buff to overlord base speed or lowering ovie speed to t1. It's not that I can't deduce what one base they're doing when I can actually see it, its that i can never really see it against "good" players.
i agree, here.
Most of the games i loose because i didnt scout well enough, or more importantly COULDNT scout at all.
While on maps like Blistering Sands where the main is kinda big, you can sneak in on Ovie. Try that on maps like Xel Naga, Steppes etc.
With situations like this a smart player WILL block you before you get to T2 with OvieSpeed and Overseer, which will die, so you have to invest 100/100 Speed, 50/100 for Overseer and 100/0 just for scouting the crucial information ONCE, other races get away with 50/75 and is invisible (and you won't always see them) or getting 270 minerals a bit later . After that its still 150/100 for Zerg
And don't tell me with an expo you can't have units in your main. If the Zerg goes Muta/Ling, you can defend your Nat with surprisingly few units, and at the same time have some marines/stalker in your base to deal with Mutas (though you can scout with them either way or force T to stim or P to blink).
do you go Roach/smth or smth entirely else, they can still hide units and leave a few at their main, they will most likely spot you either way before the battle is about to begin.
In Lategame this might not be true, but by then you dont have too scout that much anymore.
The thing is, its ridiculously easy to deny a Zergs scouting.
Front/ramp scout, hide units in your back so Zerg guesses wrong, spread rines (their dps is insane, 4 rines max and the zerg wont see anything at all) out in your base.
While i agree that Protoss doesnt have too many stalkers you can scout, but the tech can be hidden and you dont see anything at all.
You have 2 options either he proxies, in that case you will always find the tech, though its on time.. well thats another point, but its manageable or he hides its well enough in his base, so you have to sac 2 ovies, and you still might not see a thing.
For a race that has to REACT to almost everything the opponent does, its hard to believe that their T1 scouting is so incredible bad.
I play Terran offrace sometimes and Zerg as a main race and i'm fairly high ranked (though that doesnt mean im pro or smth), but almost never a Zerg can scout my whole Army and / or my tech, while i laugh at them saccing ovies left and right.
the only thing zerg excels in scouting is, wether your opponent goes 1 base (allin) or 2 base play.
When Terran and Toss will learn that 1 Ctrl Syndrome is bad, and hiding tech/units is good (or showing "more", which could indicate to another BO), Zergs scouting will be much much more costly.
Changelings will get spotted immediately on high levels, and while contamination is good (not for scouting but for delaying, you have to use your overseers ability somehow^^), its only good vs players who keep all their units @ one spot.
Thats enough ranting, while i might have exaggarated too much on some points, its mostly true.
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In general I disagree with your post. I think it's accurate to say that Zergs win and lose in different ways than Terran and Protoss.
Let's start with the failed all-in scenario. Terran bunker rushes you, you get proxy 2-gated, whatever it is. Now they put up a bunker/tank/void ray/whatever it is. At this point, what's preventing you from expanding, droning really hard, teching, or taking any number of advantages that don't involve attacking and killing them? I mean that's the most basic premise of Zerg, "if my opponent can't attack me, then I can build drones."
You wipe his mid-game push and have units left over? Great, time to expand. No need to attack that front wall of pylons cannons and bunkers that he's invested into heavily. I mean yeah you might not win immediately, but you can make them dead in the water. Every time I see a 2 rax marine push I smile, because I've practiced that crap out of defending it and I know I've got an advantage once it's defended.
I don't see anything wrong with a race being able to gain large economic advantages in order to win. Zerg is not a death-ball race. It never was even in Brood War, so I don't understand why it should be able to win like one in Starcraft 2.
To the point of not having stalling techniques, you can use that Zerg mobility you highlighted to do just that. Zerglings can backstab, Mutas can harass, you can cut off rally points, all sorts of things to delay an attack and make the death ball head back toward its base. You can now raise flags like "but what if he has cannons/bunkers/tanks?" Then great. That means your opponent has already delayed his own push by investing in those things before pushing out.
I do agree with your point about ultras. I think it mostly has to do with me not knowing when it's safe to transition to them, but I do seem to lose a lot once I start building them. I don't know that it's their size so much as movement speed off creep that needs some help, but I digress.
I don't think ultras and banelings are necessarily supposed to be the most cost effective units. Like you said banelings suicide and ultras are high resource and feel clumsy, but what about brood lords? What about roaches and nydus late game? I mean it's not like you don't have effective ways of spending that money.
Also you don't talk about being able to attack multiple places because of mobility. You can split off units, attack, and still bring them back in time to defend a push. There's a lot of ways to take advantage of Zerg mobility and economy mechanics to be able to win. Just because you can't a-move your way to victory doesn't mean it's the wrong way to win.
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good post. reflects the main problems zerg players have with the race.
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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?
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I play random, Z is harder to win with in early game scenarios where T and P have stronger pressure options, if you get to the midgame skill determines winner. The game is 80% balanced imo, maps will solve most issues, the two expansions that are coming will solve any other problems.
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Man, based on the topic title, I was expecting something interesting of people noticing a trend in how zerg players talk about their wins and losses. Instead I was greeted by a huge balance whine that states nothing new. Allow me to restate your tl;dr:
Losing a game simply because you literally cannot scout your opponent means zerg is underpowered.
Winning because you correctly blind countered your opponents strategy is unsatisfying.
Losing the game because your opponent made ten minor mistakes and you only made one means zerg is underpowered.
Winning because your opponent made a massive mistake is unsatisfying.
Losing because your opponent has less ability/skill but plays a stronger race is lolol zerg is underpowered!
Winning the game because your opponent fell asleep from of how boring/easy it is... what?
Losing because you got close spawns on a map means zerg is underpowered.
Winning because RootDrewbie let his kid sister play his account is...what?
Losing because of horrible map design/balance means zerg is underpowered.
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There is a big difference between zerg and the other races and that is that T and P are heavily reliant on Build Orders. Zerg is basically drone as much as you can while trying to react to what your opponent does. Too often do I see zergs say "I'm gonna do X" and they just fail. You can't just do "X", you have to react to "Y" and "Z" and play accordingly. This is why so many zergs fail, they can't react or don't know how to react which is why experience is everything.
Also I don't really agree with what you say about zerg scouting. Zerg has lings for watch towers, and overlords for the places in between those towers where you can't see making zerg very effective at watching an enemy army. Sure toss has observers and terran has scans but that's all balanced out in the end by what zerg has. Get to lair and suddenly a bunch of stuff is available to you, overseers who are fast by themselves, changelings who can track an army and then there is overlord speed making all your overlords good scout tools. Sure zerg has a disadvantage in a certain part of it's scouting but so does Terran (has to sacrifice mules for a scan) and so does Toss (has to tech to robotics to get any kind of detection).
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On January 25 2011 08:33 avidday04 wrote:
Winning because you correctly blind countered your opponents strategy is the wrong way to win.. [/b][/i]
I agree Z is lacking in design, however the tightrope that is balance is not as skewed as you seem to make it seem. You fail to look at maps inherently causing imbalance.
And to those that have placed BW on a pedestal as the shining knight of pureness and racial equality:
1. Its not 100% fully balanced on every map for every MU. On some maps its far from it.
2. The mapmakers are to thank for that, the game on blizzard released maps is still imbalanced.
BW has consistantly been active about new maps in competitive competitions which allow for a variety of styles to be utilized. From cheese to timing push to macro games. major games have come down to 4 pools or 6 pools in BW tournaments.
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On January 25 2011 09:57 Icx wrote:
more harass ability's?
I suggest you go play terran or protoss and go deal with a flock of mutalisks.
Or nydus worms when you move out, zerglings that run into your main/nat when you move out.
Or even baneling drops.
And yes things like that can be stopped, but you can also stop drops/banshees/etc, it's just how you manage to deal with it.
I don't get what you want (ibreakurface, not the Op) you want zerg to be the best macro-race, and at the same time have the best harass ability's in the game, and all of that on all larger maps?
Yes, that is gonna turn out well...
You know fuck all bout Zerg if you think those kinds of Harasses are anywhere near as cheap, quick or viable as any harass Terran or Protoss can do and do do on a regular basis.
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i completely agree with all your points in this thread....
blizzard should seriously copy+paste this and make it their goal for life
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On January 25 2011 11:05 LunarC wrote:
The thing is, Terran possesses the best mineral-only units in the game, and the game engine works directly against the other races' mineral-only units because of the way units clump together.
I wouldn't go as far to say that Terran is overpowered, but it is DEFINITELY the easiest race to pick up and play simply because of how mobile and how much dps a Terran bioball can dish out in tandem with how robust it actually is.
couldnt have said it better
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On January 25 2011 11:01 avidday04 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 10:45 PukinDog wrote:
To the OP,
You spent a lot of time on this, but I think the push-back is coming, because your arguments are poorly constructed. You establish a bunch of premises, but then you move on before proving them. If you cant prove a premise, then the premise stays false until you do.
You say things like, "When Zerg smashes, say, a moderate Terran push often times a siege tank and a bunker is all he needs to get right back into the game.”
Well, fine. PROVE IT.
Did the Terran not bring all the tanks for the first engagement? What was Zerg doing while Terran was putting up the bunker? Why was Zerg unable to take out the SCV? Give data, be specific.
Without evidence, it’s just conjecture.
You do this throughout your post.
You have a valid opinion, but for it to become a Resolved Conclusion, you have to back it up with more than personal experience, opinion, and apparent frustration.
I am not saying you are wrong; you just haven’t proved that you are right.
If you are a young dude, consider taking up debate.
Hi PunkinDog, thanks for your response. I agree, I was vague but this is intentional. I would refer you to my 'preface' as it addresses why I constructed my arguments this way. My goal was to be, overall, more right than wrong. I tried my best to avoid specifics because of people's tendency to pick at small things and add 'if' arguments. For example: Person A: Banshees are too good vs. hydras. Person B: Not if queens are there to back them up. Person A: But they will probably have cloak so it doesn't matter. Person B: But overseers only take 17 seconds to morph! Person A: Terran already has a starport, all he has to do is make a viking. And it goes on to infinity. I've literally seen arguments go from zerglings vs zealots to carriers vs vikings in the same way as my example. I constructed my argument to provoke thought while avoiding as many silly counter-statement responses as possible. The method seems to have been somewhat successful as many of the detractors attack the length of the post or say nonsensical things like 'less qq, more pewpew'.
I understand, OP. BTW, its "Pukin"Dog, after the Navy Fighter Squadron of the same name.
It is difficult, when you have counters to counters, to counters, to form an argument of merit.
I personally think Zerg is played wrong also, but I have nowhere near the energy to put down my arguments supporting my opinion, as you did.
When I think Zerg, I think SWARM. With Terran, I think Offense, with Protoss, I think Defense.
Zerg need to be everywhere, all the time, which is why I think Zerg Cheese is valid strategy. How to fix? Leave everything the same, except bring back the Lurker, and see what happens.
That is my humble opinion.
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I recently switched from zerg to protoss, and it has been so laughably easy to win games. My strategy so far has been make a bunch of stuff, throw it at opponent, win. I have almost 0 real understanding of each matchup, yet after a week I am already at the skill I was at with zerg (which I have been playing since beta). With zerg it is so easy to lose games, I've had a 3 base advantage and have lost because I couldn't stop their 200 food push. Thank you for outlining my complaints with the race.
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I love the post. I wholeheartedly agree with everything. However, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD its definitely not defiantly.  Spell check has done you wrong sir.
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It's not that zergs can't scout, they can. It's not that zergs can't harass, they can.
It's because zerg cannot win unless they have a macro lead. How many games have you seen zerg win when they are behind in the worker count when the GG comes out?
(not that it doesn't happen but its very rare and much more common among the other races)
The other thing is zerg cant throw units at their opponents base like the other races can. Send your ling/roach/hydra (whatever) army at the enemy base and watch it enter the meat grinder by their sim city.
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people just need to understand the mechanics of zerg better. it is why top ranked people in the top 200 are switching to zerg over terran/protoss. they are so buff macro wise, if you can master the mechanics. i myself played a about 15 ladder games as zerg just this past week and after losing the first 4 horridly managed to win the next 8/11 (masters league). you just have to know when to drone, when to save larva, and what composition you need. zerg also have a horrible tendancy to stop teching after lair. a quick hive (3 base) opens up two major damage dealers that will over power most gateway/bio heavy armies and give any heavy tech army a run for their money
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On January 25 2011 11:03 LWr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 09:06 Angra wrote:
In SC2 you need UNITS to stay alive, because there is absolutely no defender's advantage. There's no high ground, there's no units that can be used defensively (reavers, good psi storm, spider mines, lurkers, defilers, for example), and you can fit your whole 200/200 army through a choke point or ramp in 2 seconds rather than several more.
The bottom line is, no matter what race you are, 99% of the time if your opponent has more units than you, you are going to automatically lose if either one of you engages, and end up losing the game because of it. Absolutely nothing you said is true. The defender's advantage is huge. There are siege tanks that can be used defensively. Yes there are high grounds, everywhere (and EVERY main base), and you need vision. No, you cannot fit a 200/200 zerg army through a small choke. Try fitting ultras anywhere, on any ladder map. No, you do not lose 99% of the time your opponent has more units than you ; for example, forcefields, storms or colossus can compensate for a 30-40 supply gap against a roach-hydra army. Do you even play the game?
I was reading through the entire thread so that I could make an informed post in reply, and then I saw that post and was just waiting for someone to tell him how absolutely wrong he is, thanks LWr.
I mean, I've attacked a terran with an army 1.5 times in value, while having 1.5 times the economy, only to lose that entire army, then get my third and natural destroyed, all my production gone, and GG out, because zerg does not win by having a bigger army.
It is not just me, in plenty of TvZ's in the GSL I see zergs lose much bigger armies to smaller ones.
Also, when I do manage to kill a terran or toss's army, and say I decided to play safe and match him for economy (actually allowing me to overwhelm his army early) one forcefield, or 2 tanks and a wall-in mean that my army is essentially useless. All I can do is drone, and then lose when the next push comes out a minute later.
Anyways, my rant about zerg having less army efficiency and no way to recover from army loss, while terran and protoss have both, is over.
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The OP made such a nice post laying out almost exactly the disadvantages zerg experiences, and 80% of the posts in this thread are about how it is all QQ.
Seriously when someone goes through all that effort to write up something that extensive, show a little respect and actually address what he said.
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There are a few things I would like to see changed to help zerg in tiny ways.
First, zerg needs some viable early to midgame scouting option. Perhaps make overlord speed upgradeable at hatchery tech, or make it automatic upon getting a lair.
Second, zergs need a harassing option that is viable earlier, mutalisks really don't do as much damage as a banshee or hellions or marine drops or zealot warp in. Perhaps make nydus worms cost effective (I mean recently pheonix were buffed and observers were buffed for similar reasons to make them more useable). Nydus worms would also provide excellent threat of counter attack as well as easier defense against the more powerful terran and protoss armies.
Third, zergs need ultras to be useful so that they have a late game army capable to taking on other late game armies, people consistently talk about how ultras should function like Collosi and I agree, make them step over small units such as zerglings and banelings.
Fourth, zergs need less risk in their production facilities. A lot of the problem comes from zerg producing out of hatcheries, and those hatcheries often are in forward positions, so every expansion lost early is like wiping out 1/3 to 1/2 of a zerg's production along with that expansion.
That is all, any one or two of those things I feel would help quite a bit, for it is fairly undeniable that these things are some of the contributing factors to why playing zerg doesn't feel like you are winning or losing based on player skill.
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Oh and I also agree very much 100% with the lurker. Bring it back and I think it solves most of the zerg issues.
1 lurker can stall that damn 4 gate push. 1 lurker gives zerg the ability to actually fight in a choke rather than die. Lurkers would also force more scans/raven/observers which Terran and Toss only use at their leisure at the moment.
Ok yea maybe burrowed roaches, big deal how many people complain about losing to that?
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OP, I've been browsing TL for some time now as a guest, but I just had to register an account here to applaud you on the fact that you just articulated exactly what I've been thinking for what seems like forever, only my mind didn't construct these thoughts as well as yours.
Now, I'm not one to complain. I've always used the "underdog" factions in any rts ive ever played due to my enjoyment out of the challenge, but Zerg in SC2 is the first of these underdog factions that doesn't feel satisfying to me. Idra made a good point in some interview about Zerg being a "momentum race", and I don't mind Zerg being such mechanically because I enjoy macro styled play, but it is also where the problem really lies. You have to constantly maintain a lead or a lower mistake-count than your opponent, and as soon as any kind of momentum switches in your opponent's favor, you are at a loss. The cost-effectiveness of Protoss and Terran units simply outoes Zerg's ability to "swarm" the enemy with more units most of the time, and the fact that banelings are a guarenteed loss in resources amplifies the problem even more when banelings become a NECESSITY in a game to counter Terran bioballs.
Atm im high-diamond but I still get my head smashed in by players I can clearly tell are worse than me BY FAR, macro-wise and even game mechanics-wise. A large contributing factor to these moments are the maps that work against the way Zerg was designed to be played. As much as I'd hate to intentionally not play a map in the map pool, (because experience on every map is a good thing and a must if you want to be competitive), thumbing down Jungle Basin and Delta have recently become important in maintaining my sanity while laddering. I've even contimplated trying to learn Terran for when I'm playing like crap but still want to win a game...
Basically, this isn't a complaint post, as I do enjoy a challenge; I just wanted to acknowledge you, OP, for pointing out my race's problems so well.
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On January 25 2011 11:03 LWr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 09:06 Angra wrote:
In SC2 you need UNITS to stay alive, because there is absolutely no defender's advantage. There's no high ground, there's no units that can be used defensively (reavers, good psi storm, spider mines, lurkers, defilers, for example), and you can fit your whole 200/200 army through a choke point or ramp in 2 seconds rather than several more.
The bottom line is, no matter what race you are, 99% of the time if your opponent has more units than you, you are going to automatically lose if either one of you engages, and end up losing the game because of it. Absolutely nothing you said is true. The defender's advantage is huge. There are siege tanks that can be used defensively. Yes there are high grounds, everywhere (and EVERY main base), and you need vision. No, you cannot fit a 200/200 zerg army through a small choke. Try fitting ultras anywhere, on any ladder map. No, you do not lose 99% of the time your opponent has more units than you ; for example, forcefields, storms or colossus can compensate for a 30-40 supply gap against a roach-hydra army. Do you even play the game?
You're picking and choosing little tiny instances and pieces of information to try to debunk my broad statements, and that's pretty silly. Yeah siege tanks in huge mass can defend, and LATE game there are indeed things you can do to win with a smaller army. Early to mid game, however, that is not true whatsoever. With tanks at least, you can't defend with them early game though as you will just get run right over by things like immortals and void rays. Yes there is obviously high ground, what I meant was the miss chance from BW. Sorry I didn't make that clear. Obviously ultralisks are an exception, and a perfect example of what you're doing here - taking a general statement like "a huge army can fit through chokes with ease" and nitpicking about it like "well ultralisks can't do that so your whole argument is invalid!". And yes forcefields early game are an exception, but one of the ONLY exceptions.
Also, stop having such a huge zerg bias in your posts. It shows.
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First of all iam a terran player i Masters on both sea and US i played some bw but was as best a C- player playing toss then most of the time.
I think you need to understand the game a bit better not a all that i understand the game completly but when it comes that you lose against a player that have a army with the same value as you thats just right. As zerg early game and most of the middgame you should have a greater economi then you opponent thats just how the diffrent races work. so if you play a terran or toss you allways need to have one base up if this wasent the case Zerg would just be impossble to win against becouse they would drone up alittle and then just started to throw army at you and becouse both lose the same amond of army value zerg would just drone for alittle while becose the slow macro of its opponents and remacro and in every exchange zerg would get more and more ahead. With this said this should get closer and closer the longer the game goes becouse terrans and protoss macroing being better and better the same with there economi the later the game goes so in a late the % between army value for the fight to be even should be smaller then early game. However supply vice zerg should allways need to have a larger supply army for the fight to be even becouse of the faster remacroing.
Second of all you need to get that some races are harder to play then others its the truth in sc2 and its the truth in bw that dosent make the game imba its the things you can do with the race that makes it imba.
Third i feel like not enough players use fungal on marines to prevent the terran to micro and if the terran cant macro a zerg dont really need more micro then amove to crush an terran army. And i feel that zerg makes alot of micro misstaks even at the highest level for example the lack of drops or nydos but most of all ZERG DONT FLANK i mean you cant attack a terran or a toss army stright on becouse it will destroy you so its pretty simple the better flank you will have the less army value and supply you will lose.
Now i have to agree with you that alot of the maps are just imba and that sucks but thats something that will get better with time you can se that GSL is starting to use new maps and iam sure blizzard will chance there ladder map pool sooner or later.
I do also agree that the scouting for zerg early game is almost nonexisting i hope blizzard will do something about that and iam sure they will at some point.
The 2rax opening for terran combined with the lack of scouting early game is really OP becouse its privent the zerg from getting up there economi in the early game and basicly terran just need to exchange armys and get more and more ahead.
So to sume it up i feel that the real imba you can find in tvz is the maps the 2rax and the lack of early scouting more then that i really dont feel is something wrong with. The reasson why Zerg lose a lot of games is becouse the 2rax so the terran gets ahead or that the terran do an all in and i think alot of terrans do and becouse zerg cant scout it they lose but in late game i really dont think there is any imba so i dont se any need for some buff on ultras or whatever you may want.
Plz pm if you agree or if there is anything you just think is straight up wrong or even if there are something you dont understand. I would love to get some responds thats for all of you guys that read this=)
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I'm surprised this hasn't been closed yet since it has really derailed into a QQ cry fest. Chill must not be on.
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On January 25 2011 09:57 Icx wrote:
more harass ability's?
I suggest you go play terran or protoss and go deal with a flock of mutalisks.
Or nydus worms when you move out, zerglings that run into your main/nat when you move out.
Or even baneling drops.
And yes things like that can be stopped, but you can also stop drops/banshees/etc, it's just how you manage to deal with it.
I don't get what you want (ibreakurface, not the Op) you want zerg to be the best macro-race, and at the same time have the best harass ability's in the game, and all of that on all larger maps?
Yes, that is gonna turn out well...
The point the op made is that 3 units from terran or toss can gg a zerg. Now thats what I call harras. I don't mean 3 types I mean just 3 of them.
There is no zerg unit that can do this, though droped banes can do a lot of dmg there is nothing that compares directly to the ablity to send in 4 hellions or 2-3 banchees and win if z fucks up but actually lose very little if the defence is perfect.
No comment on balance and yes zerg is powerful, but when you are being harrased by those mutas, think about how that 'flock' costs 2k+/2k+ and think what you could have done with that money... just saying that that 4k of resorces for those 20 muta , ya that should do dmg, but man imagine if it doesn't, you defend perfectly or he just clicks them over some marines and a thor? ya that zerg is sure gg'd ...
everything in the game can be stopped, there are no unbeatable builds, however in a game of inpefect information have more strong options sure is nice
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On January 25 2011 09:01 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 08:57 Bearrorist wrote:
Bagi, I would say the difference is, besides the end of the post he provided an actual argument.
This elevates the credibility of his complaint rather than being like "OMG T IS OP" or something of the sort.
As a Zerg player I feel similarly a lot of times.. and I think he expressed all of the frustration quite well. People like Idra can really pinpoint where the zerg race is having trouble. This felt like 5 pages of nonsensical rambling filled with assumptions and anecdotal evidence, picking at weaknesses that may or may not exist within the race. All topped off with pretentious writing and a sense of entitlement that the OP is actually better than the people he loses to. I get it, some zergs are frustrated... But come on.
That pretty much sums it up, Bagi. Ultimately it's just another whine post, if a painfully lengthy one. Far too many complaints about inherent zerg weaknesses without anything to back them up.
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edit
whatever , you can't have an actual discussion in these threads
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On January 25 2011 09:01 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 08:57 Bearrorist wrote:
Bagi, I would say the difference is, besides the end of the post he provided an actual argument.
This elevates the credibility of his complaint rather than being like "OMG T IS OP" or something of the sort.
As a Zerg player I feel similarly a lot of times.. and I think he expressed all of the frustration quite well. People like Idra can really pinpoint where the zerg race is having trouble. This felt like 5 pages of nonsensical rambling filled with assumptions and anecdotal evidence, picking at weaknesses that may or may not exist within the race. All topped off with pretentious writing and a sense of entitlement that the OP is actually better than the people he loses to. I get it, some zergs are frustrated... But come on.
Oh, good, I was thinking there wouldn't be a completely ironic rebuttal in this thread.
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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?
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Hmmm, in general i feel this post simply means "As zerg i must actually try to play the game because i don't have an assortment of 'tricks' that can hand me (See: sometimes) free games"
I agree.
But the majority of these 'tricks' actually have to deal with the map size, and less about race balance. Cross position 4gate on meta is far far easier than cross position because it comes so fast and is so strong. I feel this is the majority of reasons why zerg complain (and as a zerg i do complain), and for good reason, because of map size its extremely hard to compete with another race that has a "quick" win ability. Where as zerg there are far less (note: yes you can early pool or attempt a strong baneling bust, but these can be easily stopped, except probably steppes) of these. For zerg no matter the "positions" you have to try to extend the game to have a more "reliable" chance of winning.
This map size can actually be seen in a zerg strat. that is very powerful on closer positions (creep highway fast hydra push) but you put this on a cross positions meta, and you best be playing very well to pull this off.
Many T and P also complain that large positions are zerg favored, no they are more zerg equal because to pull off a 4gate or a fast tank push, there is actually time for zerg to do something, it should not be "well because he is close to me and is trying to expand to balance out his economy i win." If T or P would actually play a strong macro game (see: Jinro) you can actually do very very well.
TL;DR the game is actually kinda balanced, on large maps.
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"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."
this is the way it works most of the time now but you'll never see it happen always
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There is alot of misinformation in this thread. First off, spine crawlers are incredibly good, a 4 gate push is immediately doomed to fail if you have 3 spine crawlers ready, they also do bonus damage to armored which helps alot vs stalkers.
Secondly, Lair is not a very expensive investment and should be researched as soon as your not in a clutch situation, if hes 4 gating off 2 gas and you get burrowed roach, there is no way for him to win, you can pop up, kill a bunch of sentry/stalker then reburrow and regain your HP rinse/repeat
Thirdly, Zerg is not the only race that loses all the time for stupid reasons that don't involve actual mechanical skill. Examles: DTs, Cloaked Banshee, Marine/Scv all in, etc etc etc the list goes on and on, if your losing it's because your build order is somehow flawed or you played it out incorrectly and need more experience.
I also don't buy into Zerg UP, ever compare 4 lings vs 1 zealot? Compare charge upgrade to speed upgrade? compare 2 roach to 1 stalker? These comparisons are all the same resources but who wins 100% of the time in that situation? Your also not the only race that must blind build order to win, Terran have it with blind engineering by around 6:15 minute mark to counter possible DT, Protoss have it with the Robo to counter burrow/dt/banshee
The game is evolving into a more refined RTS where the skilled players are winning much more often than in the Beta, in 6 more months time I don't think anyone at the top doesn't deserve to be there.
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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...
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On January 25 2011 12:20 Ghost-z wrote:
Oh and I also agree very much 100% with the lurker. Bring it back and I think it solves most of the zerg issues.
1 lurker can stall that damn 4 gate push. 1 lurker gives zerg the ability to actually fight in a choke rather than die. Lurkers would also force more scans/raven/observers which Terran and Toss only use at their leisure at the moment.
Ok yea maybe burrowed roaches, big deal how many people complain about losing to that?
Lurkers dont' need to be brought back honestly banelings fill the roll pretty perfect now.
Would be easy for a terran/toss to rape them anyway marauders/immortals would just rape them so bad (colossi/thors pretty much anything a terran/toss normally has).
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On January 25 2011 12:34 Galleon.frigate wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 09:57 Icx wrote:
more harass ability's?
I suggest you go play terran or protoss and go deal with a flock of mutalisks.
Or nydus worms when you move out, zerglings that run into your main/nat when you move out.
Or even baneling drops.
And yes things like that can be stopped, but you can also stop drops/banshees/etc, it's just how you manage to deal with it.
I don't get what you want (ibreakurface, not the Op) you want zerg to be the best macro-race, and at the same time have the best harass ability's in the game, and all of that on all larger maps?
Yes, that is gonna turn out well... The point the op made is that 3 units from terran or toss can gg a zerg. Now thats what I call harras. I don't mean 3 types I mean just 3 of them. There is no zerg unit that can do this, though droped banes can do a lot of dmg there is nothing that compares directly to the ablity to send in 4 hellions or 2-3 banchees and win if z fucks up but actually lose very little if the defence is perfect. No comment on balance and yes zerg is powerful, but when you are being harrased by those mutas, think about how that 'flock' costs 2k+/2k+ and think what you could have done with that money... just saying that that 4k of resorces for those 20 muta , ya that should do dmg, but man imagine if it doesn't, you defend perfectly or he just clicks them over some marines and a thor? ya that zerg is sure gg'd ... everything in the game can be stopped, there are no unbeatable builds, however in a game of inpefect information have more strong options sure is nice
Not only that but when people mention Muta as an equal to Banshee harass I want to kick myself in the head. First off, you don't get Muta harassed in the first 5 minutes of the game so it's in no way the same. Sure, Nydus Worms are cool but really, they aren't as effective in a real game as they are in theory craft. Baneling drops?... Effective but thats the only one you have a point with and even that isn't plausible until later in the game.
BTW, the fact that Terrans mass Marines in every game against Zerg I don't see how Muta is such a problem... If Zerg masses hydra to protect from harass they get owned by anything and everything... Hence the reason Toss will open Phoenix and then switch to Collosus.
On January 25 2011 13:35 NearPerfection wrote:
There is alot of misinformation in this thread. First off, spine crawlers are incredibly good, a 4 gate push is immediately doomed to fail if you have 3 spine crawlers ready, they also do bonus damage to armored which helps alot vs stalkers.
Secondly, Lair is not a very expensive investment and should be researched as soon as your not in a clutch situation, if hes 4 gating off 2 gas and you get burrowed roach, there is no way for him to win, you can pop up, kill a bunch of sentry/stalker then reburrow and regain your HP rinse/repeat
Thirdly, Zerg is not the only race that loses all the time for stupid reasons that don't involve actual mechanical skill. Examles: DTs, Cloaked Banshee, Marine/Scv all in, etc etc etc the list goes on and on, if your losing it's because your build order is somehow flawed or you played it out incorrectly and need more experience.
I also don't buy into Zerg UP, ever compare 4 lings vs 1 zealot? Compare charge upgrade to speed upgrade? compare 2 roach to 1 stalker? These comparisons are all the same resources but who wins 100% of the time in that situation? Your also not the only race that must blind build order to win, Terran have it with blind engineering by around 6:15 minute mark to counter possible DT, Protoss have it with the Robo to counter burrow/dt/banshee
The game is evolving into a more refined RTS where the skilled players are winning much more often than in the Beta, in 6 more months time I don't think anyone at the top doesn't deserve to be there.
Prime example of bad information coming from a bias source who probably hasn't played Zerg a day in their life. Seriously, how can someone afford Lair tech when a 4 gate is coming? It's impossible to get speed, spines and lair and then some how get roach burrow before the 4 gate hits, to think this is at all possible is way off base and stupid. I dont see any Zergs QQing here I see a bunch of Protoss and Terrans QQing with stupid reasons about how Zerg is fine. Some of the ideas for Zergs to try in this thread are literally r-e-t-a-r-d-e-d.
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People are likely going to flame you, OP, for speaking your mind about race balance. However, just about everything you said is true, and is why zerg is a fundamentally disadvantaged race.
One really good point that I had also been thinking about was how the matchmaking system inherently deals with this. It will basically attempt to place you such that your win-loss is as close to 50-50 as possible. Therefore (under the assumption that race A is bad and race B is better), you will usually have players of race A matched against lesser skilled players of race B to handle the imbalance. Players of race A will find themselves losing half the time to worse players, and getting wins that often feel anticlimactic when they see the opponent making obvious mistakes.
On January 25 2011 13:35 NearPerfection wrote:
There is alot of misinformation in this thread. First off, spine crawlers are incredibly good, a 4 gate push is immediately doomed to fail if you have 3 spine crawlers ready, they also do bonus damage to armored which helps alot vs stalkers.
Secondly, Lair is not a very expensive investment and should be researched as soon as your not in a clutch situation, if hes 4 gating off 2 gas and you get burrowed roach, there is no way for him to win, you can pop up, kill a bunch of sentry/stalker then reburrow and regain your HP rinse/repeat
Thirdly, Zerg is not the only race that loses all the time for stupid reasons that don't involve actual mechanical skill. Examles: DTs, Cloaked Banshee, Marine/Scv all in, etc etc etc the list goes on and on, if your losing it's because your build order is somehow flawed or you played it out incorrectly and need more experience.
I also don't buy into Zerg UP, ever compare 4 lings vs 1 zealot? Compare charge upgrade to speed upgrade? compare 2 roach to 1 stalker? These comparisons are all the same resources but who wins 100% of the time in that situation? Your also not the only race that must blind build order to win, Terran have it with blind engineering by around 6:15 minute mark to counter possible DT, Protoss have it with the Robo to counter burrow/dt/banshee
The game is evolving into a more refined RTS where the skilled players are winning much more often than in the Beta, in 6 more months time I don't think anyone at the top doesn't deserve to be there.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that most top level pros don't deserve it.
There's also a lot of misinformation in your post.
If there is a 4 gate coming, you will not have burrow done in time, unless you rush lair off one base, which rarely happens anyway.
You are also, for some reason, doing unit comparisons that rarely happen past the first several minutes of a game. 4 zerglings may beat 1 zealot, and 2 roaches may beat 1 stalker, but this trend does not continue into larger numbers that you will see once you hit early-mid game. As the OP mentioned, which you ignored, these zerg units are low ranged or melee. You can only mass so many low ranged units before any additional ones have to basically wait in line. This can be easily abused with things like force fields. Zealots are also melee, but you don't really see protoss massing zealots in the way zerg mass their units.
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On January 25 2011 12:19 Traveler wrote:
First, zerg needs some viable early to midgame scouting option. Perhaps make overlord speed upgradeable at hatchery tech, or make it automatic upon getting a lair.
When would you ever choose to spend 100 gas + 60 seconds on faster overlords instead of getting your lair?
On January 25 2011 12:19 Traveler wrote:
Second, zergs need a harassing option that is viable earlier, mutalisks really don't do as much damage as a banshee or hellions or marine drops or zealot warp in. Perhaps make nydus worms cost effective (I mean recently pheonix were buffed and observers were buffed for similar reasons to make them more useable). Nydus worms would also provide excellent threat of counter attack as well as easier defense against the more powerful terran and protoss armies.
Yeah, nydus worms are pretty good. In most pro games I've seen them in, the player who used them has won. So... use them? As for mutalisks, you're not seriously suggesting they need a buff, are you?
On January 25 2011 12:19 Traveler wrote:
Third, zergs need ultras to be useful so that they have a late game army capable to taking on other late game armies, people consistently talk about how ultras should function like Collosi and I agree, make them step over small units such as zerglings and banelings.
Have you ever watched an ultralisk walk? It wouldn't step over zerglings, it would walk over them and squish them.
On January 25 2011 12:19 Traveler wrote:
Fourth, zergs need less risk in their production facilities. A lot of the problem comes from zerg producing out of hatcheries, and those hatcheries often are in forward positions, so ever expansion lost early is like wiping out 1/3 to 1/2 of a zerg's production along with that expansion.
Actually, this is one of zerg's main advantages. A terran/protoss expansion is the equivalent of building a hatchery that can only make drones, after which you need to build another hatchery that can only make ground units, and yet another hatchery that can only make flying units. Would you rather have that instead?
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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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Well it's amusing cause when reapers got nerfed zergs would laugh and say "well it's time for you to adapt to this". Now that terran has adapted they are whinging again.. There weill come a time when nobody will even care any more.
@Cerpher: 1)If the other races didnt wall they'd die in the first 3 min, so doing anythhing to walls would require significantly buffing the other races. 2) Queen is a T1 unit. 3) You cna just leave overlords in your base to avoid hunting.
In any case I believe that zergs should just calm down because they are gonna get buffed anyways.
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As a zerg player, I think all zerg really needs is a little bit of help in the early game to defend. What I would really love to see is the burrow ability available a lot earlier in the game. It only seems to be used in conjunction with roaches right now, and occasionally banelings, but an earlier burrow would allow zerg to hide lings/banes/roaches to defend a bit easier (the roach hp regen might have to be altered... maybe take effect after the lair is evolved). It would also make attacking zerg early on, without detection, more dangerous.
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Yeah it all looks horrible in theory, but play some games and you'll see that it's not that bad, it's actually ok.
You must avoid too much theory in SC. Sometimes it doesn't work, even with perfect argumentation.
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On January 25 2011 19:07 Whomp wrote:
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.
I agree bigger map and faster ovis or ovi speed t1 would fix all those frustrating losses. Like OP said zerg units aren't as cost efficent as the other races. To work around that zerg needs to drone up and get a better eco but on smaller maps that is very dangerous because like someone stated earlier there is no defenders advantage like high ground etc, and droning up obviously means less units. Faster ovis are needed to make the early game less of a gamble. It's frustrating when the terran feels like a genius because zerg thought banshees were coming when in fact blue flame hellions are coming, but there is just no way to tell the difference if the terran has some marines patrolling his base.
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I dont know if this has been posted already - if anything this should be in the OP :D
![[image loading]](http://asset.soup.io/asset/1471/5769_d7db_960.png)
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I think most of the frustration comes from the fact that Zerg doesn't have any gimmick build and is a bit too much reactive.
Toss and Terran have a strict game plan against Z most of the time which will most of the time involve a powerfull gimmicky push.
For instance for T: 2 rax marine into scv allin. Banshee/helion rush...;
For instance for P: 3gate stargate, 4/5 gate, expand into 6 gate,...
Their mindset is : I'll do that and if I manage my build and army well I should win.
In the Zerg mindset it's always reactive (if you're not 6 pooling all game), the mindset is :
- Oh god they can do this this this this and this, they're going what? Is that a 4 gate, did I see a stargate, what is that stargate building VR,Phoenix? And prepare for the push.
The terrible thing is, that if the push doesn't come the zerg puts himself behind a lot. And if the scouting wasn't perfect and the reaction not perfect, the zerg can lose right there.
It gives the impression of hopelessness as a zerg because you're always defending, even if there's nothing coming, you're still defending. I feel the other races have more of an "I'm going to f... him up" mindset which is more rewarding.
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IMO, Zerg is a harder race to do "ok" with. It is much more desicionmaking early on, and has no "cheese" like 4gate or 3rax that can get them to gold league or even platinum fast. But at higher levels, zerg is pretty balanced.
Edit:
On January 25 2011 20:16 Butcherski wrote:I dont know if this has been posted already - if anything this should be in the OP :D
I loled
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1) Zerg cannot defend their ramps as cost effective against P/T.
2) Zerg cannot attack enemy ramps as cost effective against P/T.
Overlord drop should become cheaper OR ramps should become bigger. Especially on maps with easy naturals like JB.
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1) Overlord speed should be a hatchery level upgrade, and perhaps 75m 75g (no pooping creep till lair still tho)
2) Marine rate of fire needs to be lowered just a tad, but DPS should be kept the same. That way they can't kite so damn easily, rendering melee units all but useless.
just my 2 cents :D
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When I play zerg I always feel that our early game is awful. The margin between a successful and unsuccessful defense against a timing attack or all-in is minimal. Even when I'm watching professional players it's hard to predict whether the zerg will be able defend against a timing attack or all-in (even if it's been scouted).
Edit: On a similar but different note, isn't it time maps are designed with the existence of force fields in mind? It's ridiculous that force fielding a ramp bears no risk since it's right next to the natural (i.e. you don't really need to engage his defenses because it's right there when you walk in anyway).
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On January 25 2011 09:50 Pandain wrote:
In response to the OP:
1.Part of what you are saying I feel is wrong. For example, you say "I can't scout" but alot of times you can. Overlord positioning is an art in itself, and you always have to be constantly scouting in order to adjust your army. Keep in mind that zerg is reactive/adaptive, not proactive.
Well we can't really scout the one base plays/all-ins since people discovered they have ranged units and overlords are so slow that if they position their pylon/depots along the sides they will see it coming very fast and kill it before it get any info, at all. Okay so I used two overlords on both sides. It's a four gate. Did you ever try to get enough units in time when your two overlords down? It's big cost for some information.
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I think a lot of zerg players realise that they are playing what people believe to be the "weak" race and like to exaggerate the actual difficulty of playing the race.
Honestly, half the posts about zerg on TL just say that it's incredibly hard to play zerg only after making sure everyone knows they are a zerg player. In my time on this forum (which I admit is not exceptionally long) I have never seen a serious or non-trolly post from another race saying that they are easily rolling through zerg because of the zerg making some miniscule mistake.
In regards to having no strong units before hive tech; muta, ling and baneling is one of the most common unit compositions used by zerg and none of those units require hive tech or even need hive tech to get upgrades.
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I read through the whole post and I completly agree on everything.
It really doesn't feel viable for me as a Zerg player in ZVP to be forced to sacrifice an overlord every 3-4 minutes just to see what techswitches the Protoss is doing. ZvT is not really as bad, but most times it really feels like you have to outmacro the Terran way better then what the terran have to outmacro you in order to win.
Also, combined with that, it is really hard to know when to macro and when to go units when facing a terran. He can do a fast expand, which forces me to take my second expo as fast as possible just to be able to keep up in economy. This is when he barely saturates his expo and does a timing push. If I don't scout this (Often with my overlords, which will probably die and supplyblock me.) I die instantly.
Not sure if my views are shared with pro players, but as a ~1600 Diamond player, this is what I feel.
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Well, i am a pretty bad player myself but i ll put my 2c into this. I was at low diamond as Zerg and got demoted when i switched to Terran. After having spent the same time with both races i'd say that as somene else put it, it's the nature of the game to punish really hard any small mistake when your playing versus any other but a complete noob player. For example you mention that a Terran can come back due to the races good defending nature after a failed attack but i ensure you that you can auto-loose if you fail to make any damage at a FE Zerg, or delay a bit the initial push.
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I won't commend on anything specific, but I'm very glad we see threads like these more frequent. In the past nobody dared to say 'UP' and even when they did every T&P player would instantly go 'QQ'.
Its good to have these discussions since imo Zerg is totally broken. It sucks if we aren't allowed to express our frustration about this. T has never ever had such problems to think about and P is steadily going stronger either. I think every SC2 player needs to care that Zerg is falling behind.
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I take it NesTea must be a ridiculous amount more skilled than other GSL players then? This doesn't sit right with me. I can see Zerg has some weaknesses at the moment, but to say you're losing even though you're more skilled than the opponent but don't play the stronger of the races is far too ambiguous.
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On January 25 2011 21:05 Gigadrill wrote:
I think a lot of zerg players realise that they are playing what people believe to be the "weak" race and like to exaggerate the actual difficulty of playing the race.
Honestly, half the posts about zerg on TL just say that it's incredibly hard to play zerg only after making sure everyone knows they are a zerg player. In my time on this forum (which I admit is not exceptionally long) I have never seen a serious or non-trolly post from another race saying that they are easily rolling through zerg because of the zerg making some miniscule mistake.
In regards to having no strong units before hive tech; muta, ling and baneling is one of the most common unit compositions used by zerg and none of those units require hive tech or even need hive tech to get upgrades.
You're right, but it's a mistake to assume that the discussions is irreleveant because of this. It's not that difficult to separate the posts with thought out concerns from those that don't.
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I have to say, playing mainly Zerg and some Terran on the side, there is definitely a LOT of difference. As far as polishment goes, Terran feels finished in the sense that there is a lot of synergy between units and strats. Zerg seems to have all these kinds of loose ends that can't be tied together. Units that just don't feel cool to use, like the corruptor, which is now almost only used as anti-collossus unit..
And indeed, as a Terran you can completely miss a battle for some reason and win it while your opponent was actually microing that battle, that's crazy! Maybe it has to do something with units getting clumped up more, but a Zerg army dies really fast. Currenly, only roaches feel like a strong unit (in large numbers). Speedlings are fine and banelings have some use.
Of course Terran has weaknesses. Terran fears the speed of Zerg mostly. But fortunately that would mean for Zerg to be the agressor and Zerg is the reactor.
The main problem is this: The agressor almost always has an advantage. He decides when to strike and where to strike. Furthermore during the attack the defender may loose important structures while the agressor is free from that risk and can tech/expand/build army uncontested.
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On January 25 2011 20:44 JeBi wrote:
1) Overlord speed should be a hatchery level upgrade, and perhaps 75m 75g (no pooping creep till lair still tho)
This sould have been tested on PTR not just random shit they came up with. Just this little tweak could help sooo much.
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On January 25 2011 21:05 Gigadrill wrote:
I think a lot of zerg players realise that they are playing what people believe to be the "weak" race and like to exaggerate the actual difficulty of playing the race.
Honestly, half the posts about zerg on TL just say that it's incredibly hard to play zerg only after making sure everyone knows they are a zerg player. In my time on this forum (which I admit is not exceptionally long) I have never seen a serious or non-trolly post from another race saying that they are easily rolling through zerg because of the zerg making some miniscule mistake.
In regards to having no strong units before hive tech; muta, ling and baneling is one of the most common unit compositions used by zerg and none of those units require hive tech or even need hive tech to get upgrades.
Zerg pros will tell you zerg has a hard time, but also pros of other races have offered their opinions in interviews where for instance oGsMC said zergs had a hard time and he believed it was because of the maps. Him among others.
Personally I don't think it's a coincidence that from Code A, Code S and the IEM there have been 4 terrans in the semi finals and 1 zerg in code S. I also like to think this is suppoeted by my own anecdotal observations around 2600 diamond (which is bad):
The absolutely worst players i get pitched up against at my rating are terrans, hands down - and occationally some protoss that tries to 4gate me turns out to be as bad. But, ive played games against slightly favored terrans where we had a close game and the replay confirmed my suspicion: in a 20min game he had no other scouting information then his initial SCV showed him (fast expo and pool under way) - and yet he made high diamond playing that way. I even called his tech after scouting, "blueflame helion into banshee?" and he still commits to it even though im obviously prepared. On the flipside, if i had played like him i would have lost the game to his blind tech which is not even all-in(since we played for 20min in a reasonably close game). It just shows a fundamental lack of understanding that i would be hard pressed to find in any zerg or non 4gating protoss at the same rating.
So yes, its definitely harder to play zerg at my skill level and if i should believe the pro's its like that further up aswell.
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While I agree with the OP about many of his feelings, I'd like to put a couple ideas out there for everyone to consider.
1. Mismicro'd marine splits vs banelings anywhere after the midgame will auto-lose terran the game (vs equal level zergs)
2. Unscouted and unprepared banshee harass is equally deadly against protoss and terran (Re: Jinro). That's more a fundamental aspect of the cloaked banshee- you're f*cked if you don't know they're coming.
3. As for losing to a single mistake; a missed force field or hole in a T-wall + Show Spoiler +re: Sang-Ho and Jinro respectively in GSL
3a. That, in my opinion, is not winning the game the wrong way- and is one of the most obvious ways across the board to punish a mistake, for any race. Having played both zerg and protoss (why play terran, i have self respect SARCASM ^_^ ) I can assure you no loss is more frustrating than having a sure win as Protoss thrown away by a simple missed forcefield at a ramp. The excessive tendency to punish for your mistakes seems to be something both Protoss and Zerg feel more than Terran. Just a race thing, if you can't handle the volatility of those swings, switch races.
4. Overseers at the higher levels (talking GSL mostly) are used before ovie-speed, to avoid spending all that gas for scouting.
5. Creep is one of the most effective ways to "scout." (I use quotes because I consider it similar in effect to scouting for the other races). Until a push comes (or your opponent is on-top of killing creep tumors throughout the midgame) you have free vision of the ground routes to your base. The better you spread your creep, the better your scouting is, thus the better you can prepare (one major problem for zergs is the requirement to be prepared at all times. Overlords allow you to scout the air routes that creep does not. If more zergs are not taking advantage of that, it is at the fault of the player, not the race. Now, creep spread isn't always THAT simple to do, but you need look no further than the top zergs in the world to see how integral creep spread is. NOW, compare that to the scouting ability of a hellion or a reaper, both easily dealt with by the quick moving mutalisks or speedlings.
6. Zerg has the ability to control the map in the midgame with fast moving units (mutas/lings). The problem is the belief that those units must win you the game. A poster prior on this thread explained that zerg is not a deathball race, and the way to better play them is to understand that concept. That you must outmaneuver and flank your opponents, use positional advantage, rather than yelling CHARGE! and throwing your army head first at them. I am reposting what I felt his idea was, rather than quote. He couldn't be more correct
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lets just wait for SC3. Bliz should skip SC2 expansions and just start workin on SC3 where they bring back the original BW feeling.
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Potential fixes:
Allow Overseers with an evo chamber
Allow Overlord speed with T1
Add upgrade for spine crawlers for + range so they match seige tanks
Fix Ultralisk pathing so that they are more like Collosus.
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You have some correct points like : the scouting problem and the map pool. However I feel like you exagerated a lot of things. Yes, zerg is hard atm but its not impossible to win by any means.
But I see why you posted that. I indeed get the same feeling often time. Getting destroyed by an opponent who did everything wrong the whole game and still managed to beat me (ie. 2rax bunker rushes, into scvs all-ins, into 2port cloak banshees etc..). Zerg walk on a thin line between winning or losing, and it can be very frustrating at times, but its also for that reason that I'm playing Zerg. The feeling that every decision is really important is really interresting.
ps: yay 1000th post
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wow wall of text ... the people will do better with other races stayed into my mind. I went to diamond with zerg (pre reaper nerf) and am now platin again with purely terran. Zerg was always my easy win race and the one i struggle against the most with other races.
So guess i am one of the examples that do not work with your theory (using alot of cutesy play as zerg though and have a really harassiv playstyle like with every race not only terran speed prisms and phoenix are the best in my opinion hehe)
And i always felt really save as a zerg early game because of your very own t1 true immortal called the queen. Hmm might test toss and zerg again for a few days and see if my rank rises, since people got stronger against unusual playstyles, but most still don't expect it.
edit: oh right i love the inbuild maphack for zergs denies every harassment
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On January 25 2011 21:36 Morphs wrote:
Of course Terran has weaknesses. Terran fears the speed of Zerg mostly. But fortunately that would mean for Zerg to be the agressor and Zerg is the reactor.
The main problem is this: The agressor almost always has an advantage. He decides when to strike and where to strike. Furthermore during the attack the defender may loose important structures while the agressor is free from that risk and can tech/expand/build army uncontested.
The aggressor is not free from risk, he risks losing his army and being behind economically when his aggression fails, which happens to many of those Terrans who for some reason feel a compulsion to try and end the game within 7 minutes with marines and bunkers vs. fast expanding Zergs but don't have the skill or timing to pull it off. Time for Zerg to lay back and macro up to then be the aggressor, for example with Mutalisks. Your last paragraph unintentionally describes their role and use quite well.
I don't know whether Zerg is really underpowered, it might be, but I do know that many of the points people make in these threads do not really hold.
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another very long thread that says how zerg is inferior to the other 2 races while saying that is not the point of the thread, from you whole post I couldnt find one good point your trying to say other than zerg is weaker ?
seriously what is the point if these threads, I dont see the message...
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On January 25 2011 22:21 AcOrP wrote:
lets just wait for SC3. Bliz should skip SC2 expansions and just start workin on SC3 where they bring back the original BW feeling.
I'm speechless.
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Here's what I think:
Zerg:
Buff Nydus
Buff Zerg T3
Buff Hydra
Make overlord speed cost 50/50 and T1
Toss:
Reduce Sentry FF cap to 3
Make warping in units take more damage (like 20%)
Terran:
Half the energy cost and duration of MULES
I don't think reintroducing the Lurker is a good idea, this is not bw. I'd like to see more useful Zerg spells though.
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On January 26 2011 00:12 decaf wrote:
Here's what I think:
Zerg:
Buff Nydus
Buff Zerg T3
Buff Hydra
Make overlord speed cost 50/50 and T1
Toss:
Reduce Sentry FF cap to 3
Make warping in units take more damage (like 20%)
Terran:
Half the energy cost and duration of MULES
I don't think reintroducing the Lurker is a good idea, this is not bw. I'd like to see more useful Zerg spells though.
This is the problem with threads like these.
Most players see a problem, and immediately think of what would make them happy. Before posting things like this, I'd suggest some consideration to overall balance before posts like this. Absolutely none of those ideas would work.
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On January 25 2011 09:43 confusedcrib wrote:
This post is very biased, I don't even know where to start. No one gets Overseers, together with overlord speed they are the best scout in the game, not observers. Zerg has the best ability to scout the front early on, let me just run my marine up and down the front of your map, oh wait. Close spawns forces good timings and making units, it means that you actually can't overdrone without the potential to be punished, it is not an instant loss, it is just hard; like how winning cross on metalopolis v zerg as anything else is hard but not impossible.
Tl;DR Less QQ more pew pew
This post is absolutely retarded. Plenty of players get overseers including myself to contaminate robos etc., just saying they don't doesn't make it so. I get overlord speed in just about every macro ZvT and ZvP right after lair finishes so T/P players need to stop saying "X thing is underused". You act like T and P are using everything at their disposable to improve and Z players just sit in some cave moaning not actively trying to fix issues. Scout the ramp? Really? This is your solution to scouting issues? What if they, I don't know... build shit in the middle of their base far away from the ramp? And please, it doesn't have to be close positions to die from overdroning, it can happen pretty easily in any positions because Zerg as a race is extremely dependent on scouting for the mid/early game.
The no one gets them was sarcastic, scouting the ramp is essential and you can leave the lings there to see if a push is coming, sacking an overlord is almost guaranteed way to spot a 4 gate, and then you're at "tier 2" and get the best scouting in the game.
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On January 25 2011 21:42 explicit wrote:
Zerg pros will tell you zerg has a hard time, but also pros of other races have offered their opinions in interviews where for instance oGsMC said zergs had a hard time and he believed it was because of the maps. Him among others.
PvZ isnt really effected by maps
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On January 26 2011 00:15 Durp wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 00:12 decaf wrote:
Here's what I think:
Zerg:
Buff Nydus
Buff Zerg T3
Buff Hydra
Make overlord speed cost 50/50 and T1
Toss:
Reduce Sentry FF cap to 3
Make warping in units take more damage (like 20%)
Terran:
Half the energy cost and duration of MULES
I don't think reintroducing the Lurker is a good idea, this is not bw. I'd like to see more useful Zerg spells though. This is the problem with threads like these. Most players see a problem, and immediately think of what would make them happy. Before posting things like this, I'd suggest some consideration to overall balance before posts like this. Absolutely none of those ideas would work.
You got it all wrong.
All of those ideas would actually work, that's why I posted them.
Overall balance can't be achieved fore HotS is out, because they messed up the design.
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On January 26 2011 00:12 decaf wrote:
Here's what I think:
Zerg:
Buff Nydus
Buff Zerg T3
Buff Hydra
Make overlord speed cost 50/50 and T1
Toss:
Reduce Sentry FF cap to 3
Make warping in units take more damage (like 20%)
Terran:
Half the energy cost and duration of MULES
I don't think reintroducing the Lurker is a good idea, this is not bw. I'd like to see more useful Zerg spells though.
Zerg:
Nydus, ye definetely needs a buff, either cheaper or back to beta/alpha nydus. Still has its uses atm, but well, offensive drops are hardly possible vs smart players.
T3, well Ultraliskbuffs are needed (or some of his counteruntis are nerfed), Broods are fine as they are, even stronger/faster would be ridiculous..
Hydras.. well not really necessary, but nice to see i guess, maybe a speedupgrade for t2.5 (after infestor pit).
Oviespeed cheaper and T1, well one of them is okay but not both. I'd rather see Speed on T1 for 100/100. 50/50 might be too cheap.
Toss:
Reduce Sentry FF cap? I'd rather see Sentry who cant fit into a Warp Prism so that they can block of your main ramp and have an easy kill with your expos, because your units wont get there in time and you are trapped in your base.
Warping Units dont need to take more damage.
Terran:
Your change is pointless, half energy, half duration is the same as full energy and full duration, only you have to cooldown twice. which every player will do, especially early game when it matters.
Though thats what i'd like to see, my only problem i have with Zerg is that their T1 base scouting is bad.
I would be happy if they fix that + maps.
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On January 25 2011 21:05 Gigadrill wrote:
I think a lot of zerg players realise that they are playing what people believe to be the "weak" race and like to exaggerate the actual difficulty of playing the race.
Honestly, half the posts about zerg on TL just say that it's incredibly hard to play zerg only after making sure everyone knows they are a zerg player.
it's BW terran all over again!
Honestly though. While I'd love to say that Zerg players just aren't playing well enough, as was the case with BW terran, it's hard to argue with an elo ranking that has just one Zerg in the top 20. I think something needs to be done to help Zerg.I'm not a balance designer, so I won't pretend to know what needs to be done. Hopefully Blizzard figures it out sometime soon.
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On January 25 2011 21:45 Durp wrote:While I agree with the OP about many of his feelings, I'd like to put a couple ideas out there for everyone to consider. 1. Mismicro'd marine splits vs banelings anywhere after the midgame will auto-lose terran the game (vs equal level zergs) 2. Unscouted and unprepared banshee harass is equally deadly against protoss and terran (Re: Jinro). That's more a fundamental aspect of the cloaked banshee- you're f*cked if you don't know they're coming. 3. As for losing to a single mistake; a missed force field or hole in a T-wall + Show Spoiler +re: Sang-Ho and Jinro respectively in GSL will win a game for zerg. 3a. That, in my opinion, is not winning the game the wrong way- and is one of the most obvious ways across the board to punish a mistake, for any race. Having played both zerg and protoss (why play terran, i have self respect SARCASM ^_^ ) I can assure you no loss is more frustrating than having a sure win as Protoss thrown away by a simple missed forcefield at a ramp. The excessive tendency to punish for your mistakes seems to be something both Protoss and Zerg feel more than Terran. Just a race thing, if you can't handle the volatility of those swings, switch races. 4. Overseers at the higher levels (talking GSL mostly) are used before ovie-speed, to avoid spending all that gas for scouting. 5. Creep is one of the most effective ways to "scout." (I use quotes because I consider it similar in effect to scouting for the other races). Until a push comes (or your opponent is on-top of killing creep tumors throughout the midgame) you have free vision of the ground routes to your base. The better you spread your creep, the better your scouting is, thus the better you can prepare (one major problem for zergs is the requirement to be prepared at all times. Overlords allow you to scout the air routes that creep does not. If more zergs are not taking advantage of that, it is at the fault of the player, not the race. Now, creep spread isn't always THAT simple to do, but you need look no further than the top zergs in the world to see how integral creep spread is. NOW, compare that to the scouting ability of a hellion or a reaper, both easily dealt with by the quick moving mutalisks or speedlings. 6. Zerg has the ability to control the map in the midgame with fast moving units (mutas/lings). The problem is the belief that those units must win you the game. A poster prior on this thread explained that zerg is not a deathball race, and the way to better play them is to understand that concept. That you must outmaneuver and flank your opponents, use positional advantage, rather than yelling CHARGE! and throwing your army head first at them. I am reposting what I felt his idea was, rather than quote. He couldn't be more correct
1. Because Terran are too much marine heavy. Tanks and Marauder take a lot of banelings to kill, sadly there are a lot of terran who just don't make any marauders anymore, not to mention they wait the 15th minute to get tanks. Marine is not the counter to baneling, and everyone is not MKP.
2. Yeah sure, but not scouting (or preventing) a banshee harass with zerg is INSTANT loose, whereas you can always take it with minimum injury while playing terran. We don't see many bansee harass vs protoss because stalkers are just too fast.
3. I don't have anything to say about this, not saying I agree with everything you say and the comparison you make.
4.Yeah, overseer are great, and scouting is not that much of a problem except on some map/match up in the early stage of the game (meaning before Lair). Marine SCV All-in, Thor drop on LT, 4(5) Gate, that's the kind of thing you need to scout, and you need to scout it before Lair.
5. You mistaking map awareness and scout. When I scout, I do it so that I know something about the ennemy position (army comp, tech choices, expands). Map awereness is to preventing me from being attacked without preparation. Creep tumor are very useful for that.
6. Everybody knows that, but that's the point of the discussion. Opponent need to a click you and you can get roflstomped if you fight in bad position, while winning in another position with the very same army composition. The problem is in the use of "roflstomped". How many times have I lost my entire army and actually killing nothing except a bunch of stalker ?
Zerg:
Nydus, ye definetely needs a buff, either cheaper or back to beta/alpha nydus. Still has its uses atm, but well, offensive drops are hardly possible vs smart players.
T3, well Ultraliskbuffs are needed (or some of his counteruntis are nerfed), Broods are fine as they are, even stronger/faster would be ridiculous..
Hydras.. well not really necessary, but nice to see i guess, maybe a speedupgrade for t2.5 (after infestor pit).
Oviespeed cheaper and T1, well one of them is okay but not both. I'd rather see Speed on T1 for 100/100. 50/50 might be too cheap.
Toss:
Reduce Sentry FF cap? I'd rather see Sentry who cant fit into a Warp Prism so that they can block of your main ramp and have an easy kill with your expos, because your units wont get there in time and you are trapped in your base.
Warping Units dont need to take more damage.
Terran:
Your change is pointless, half energy, half duration is the same as full energy and full duration, only you have to cooldown twice. which every player will do, especially early game when it matters.
Though thats what i'd like to see, my only problem i have with Zerg is that their T1 base scouting is bad.
I would be happy if they fix that + maps.
You wanna break the game ? lol
Ultra are fine and other races are fine too. Changing overlord speed, nydus and hydras a bit could be arguable.
I would propose myself only one little change: spire cost and production duration lower plz.
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On January 26 2011 00:21 TekKpriest wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 00:12 decaf wrote:
Here's what I think:
Zerg:
Buff Nydus
Buff Zerg T3
Buff Hydra
Make overlord speed cost 50/50 and T1
Toss:
Reduce Sentry FF cap to 3
Make warping in units take more damage (like 20%)
Terran:
Half the energy cost and duration of MULES
I don't think reintroducing the Lurker is a good idea, this is not bw. I'd like to see more useful Zerg spells though. Zerg: Nydus, ye definetely needs a buff, either cheaper or back to beta/alpha nydus. Still has its uses atm, but well, offensive drops are hardly possible vs smart players. T3, well Ultraliskbuffs are needed (or some of his counteruntis are nerfed), Broods are fine as they are, even stronger/faster would be ridiculous.. Hydras.. well not really necessary, but nice to see i guess, maybe a speedupgrade for t2.5 (after infestor pit). Oviespeed cheaper and T1, well one of them is okay but not both. I'd rather see Speed on T1 for 100/100. 50/50 might be too cheap. Toss: Reduce Sentry FF cap? I'd rather see Sentry who cant fit into a Warp Prism so that they can block of your main ramp and have an easy kill with your expos, because your units wont get there in time and you are trapped in your base. Warping Units dont need to take more damage. Terran: Your change is pointless, half energy, half duration is the same as full energy and full duration, only you have to cooldown twice. which every player will do, especially early game when it matters. Though thats what i'd like to see, my only problem i have with Zerg is that their T1 base scouting is bad. I would be happy if they fix that + maps.
Zerg Tier 3 is laughable right now. The hatch time of ultras is a joke and so is the whole unit. Broodlords can be good if they're a surprise.. and that's it.
Halfing the energy cost and duration of MULEs requires more apm to play that race, terran macro is too easy.
If warping in units would take more damage that would nerf the 4gate a bit, but I'm not entirely sure on that one.
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Seriously, Ultra are really good against Terran, and broodlord are really good against protoss (and terran if you don't consider the viking that outclass corruptor).
I will add that having overspeed in T1 is useless, cauz you already are short on gaz and need to get to Lair at some point to prevent some rushes. 50 gaz would delay Lair, or make you use 2 gaz which is less mineral. "Make Overspeed : Loose the game to Banshee".
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I agree with points that you've said, but I think rather than saying your race sucks, even with some things that I agree on, maybe you should focus on YOUR play.
You say that you lose battles easily without touching your opponent, try to look past the 'racial imbalances' that your proposing and watch replays, be very critical and see what you did wrong. Did you get a good enough flank with the lings, were your hydras spread well, did your mutas engage at the right time/angle, were your banelings spread enough, did you bring them in from the wrong side etc. etc. etc.
although yes most time I do crush zerg armies, very rarely will I do so without losing a good portion of my army, and then lose to the next wave. And also occasionally the opposite occurs, and I get stomped.
Moving into an area, and then being greeted by roaches spread in front of you, hydras on high ground and behind roaches, all well spread, and lings flanking in from either side is always a horrible position to be in and rarely winnable. And yes its hard to get in the position, but rather than thinking how balance changes could get you there, think about how you can get your opponent there.
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On January 25 2011 10:37 Soulish wrote:
Yet another person tries to write a formal article without the spelling and grammatical foundations to back it up. end result? I read up until "defiantly" and stopped.
you're right, imperfect grammer and spelling obviously make his idea worthless. I'm sorry but you can easily understand what he was trying to say. That type of attidute hurts more than it helps, if you judge somethings value based on form rather than content you're going to miss out a lot in life.
Back to the thread.
The fundimental truth is that IF your game play is made up of ladder, you're going to roughly have a 50/50 win record. So in a way, unless you are trying to win turnys, the balance of the game is almost mute - as you can play any race at almost any skill level in the ladder and come out 50/50. That is awesome for the casual.
Still that doesn't mean that all races are equal.
And in fact if you're going to accept that zerg is the harder race to play, then where is the payoff?
that is my fundimental issue with zerg. I don't think that perfect zerg will beat a perfect Terran or Toss. So then where is the payoff for zerg being signifcantly harder to play?
as a Toss you can make any number of simple errors that can stright up gg you, we've come to accept them as huge mistakes because they gg you but in fact they are rather small mistakes. This is even more so the case for zerg.
The number of ways you can straight up lose by very very small mistakes is mind blowing. So you have to wonder, then shouldn't there be a payoff for all those losses? Maybe not, I mean if perfect zerg play beats perfect non-zerg play isn't there a balance issue... yet if 90% terran or toss play beats 90% zerg play, isn't there a balance issue?
Maybe, maybe not... something to think about though.
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Phenomenal and well articulated post, OP. All of your points have been given several times before by several members of the community, but you did an excellent job of putting it all together.
I especially have to agree with this part, as I said this before a couploe of months back myself:
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.
That's exactly what feels wrong with Zerg, and it's an accumulation of all the things wrong with Zerg. When you win, you immediately feel like you've just won because of a series of mistakes by your opponent, and when you lose, very often you just have to play it down to minor mistakes by yourself, instead of actually saying that your opponent was better than you.
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On January 26 2011 00:44 heishe wrote:I especially have to agree with this part, as I said this before a couploe of months back myself: Show nested quote +
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.
That's exactly what feels wrong with Zerg, and it's an accumulation of all the things wrong with Zerg. When you win, you immediately feel like you've just won because of a series of mistakes by your opponent, and when you lose, very often you just have to play it down to minor mistakes by yourself, instead of actually saying that your opponent was better than you.
not quite true.
if a toss 4gates me, i now, that i can win it if i scout it. 1 saccing overloard at around 5-6 minutes and i know it. then i just gonna win: bo-win with 15hatch 15pool. there is no way, when i play decent, a toss can kill me with it.
same 4 some terran strats for example banshee: i get a 3rd queen anyways, so they are fendet of easily.
as zerg, u need to herrass ur opponent massively. more then a toss or terran needs to, and therefore zerg is the hardest race, but if u are better, u win.
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On January 25 2011 08:59 Akuemon wrote:
Good read. put a lot of effort into this one ^^. I especially agree on the topple effect, a protoss/terran on 4 base is usually gg for the zerg no matter what, but a zerg on 6 base can still lose easily because of the strength of 200/200 army.
And hidden tech is so hard ESPECIALLY when they bottom of the ramp wall off, making it impossible to scout. so many things need so many different responses (in ZvT at least) that scouting is crucial, and its impossible to scout if they just have something at the bottom of there ramp.
Why do people bash such well constructed opinions with stupid one-liners? >.>
One problem is that a 6 base zerg is not much stronger than a 4 base zerg. Since you cant have more than 90/80/ (or 70 lategame) drones, having way to many bases just give no extra income, and the extra gas will just stockpile since you dont get enough minerals to spend the gas.
But no siege units, or good ways to defend with low unit counts is my biggest concern for the future.
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Zerg isn't as bad as people make it sound at the moment, IdrA himself said that "Zerg is not a comeback race" and that is why he GG's so quickly. So I agree that one mistake can blow the game for a zerg and there is no epic comeback.
But hey, in a high quality game of Sc2, no matter what race you are one mistake can cost you the game, so it is not necessarily something that Zerg only faces.
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On January 26 2011 01:01 nehl wrote:
not quite true.
if a toss 4gates me, i now, that i can win it if i scout it. 1 saccing overloard at around 5-6 minutes and i know it. then i just gonna win: bo-win with 15hatch 15pool. there is no way, when i play decent, a toss can kill me with it.
same 4 some terran strats for example banshee: i get a 3rd queen anyways, so they are fendet of easily.
as zerg, u need to herrass ur opponent massively. more then a toss or terran needs to, and therefore zerg is the hardest race, but if u are better, u win.
I find this hard to believe on some maps, I'm a Protoss player, and I know that if my opponent scouts my 4 gate (which to be fair he shouldn't if I'm being clever with my stalkers), I can still win by playing around with destructible rocks, and abusing the choke to minimise the effect of lings. It's a very strong build and on some maps it feels very easy to do as toss, and at a higher level I think the effect is almost amplified.
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i actually read the original post
basically, it appears that you have misconceptions about the other races from playing only as zerg far too much. when you play against other races, you really notice their strengths far more than their weaknesses. i also imagine that you don't feel like you get "outclassed" even nearly every time you lose in ZvZ.
i won't disagree if you believe that zerg requires higher APM at lower levels of play successfully. this is not the same as believing zerg takes more skill, nor is it the same as saying that zerg needs immediate changes (especially to scouting... zerg is the most mobile/best able to scout of any race- no question).
play the other races extensively. you'll find yourself thinking that zerg is, in fact, overpowered and that you aren't getting "outclassed" when you lose to zerg. it's just that when you become so narrow-sighted on one race, you lose perspective. i imagine that most people, from reading your post, would realize that you simply haven't played the other races enough to familiarize yourself with their actual abilities/weaknesses.
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I can understand it might be frustrating that when you hold an attack, your response unlike t/p will be to macro in most cases and take the advantage further, rather than cut the head off. It is however just as effective, I mean for the most part, if a terran as an example lost his whole army in an attack, he has lost. Sure there might be a bit of death rattles via drops, but by the time the army is back up and running, the zerg will have a 300 army, not to mention most of the initial units being the "counter"(well combo combined to counter) the terran units.
Another annoying point is, unless you have foxer rine micro, blings used well will be cost efficient. A bit of micro along with well placed tank shots and most importantly, never fighting on creep can make them not cost effective. I mean 2 blings that make contact kill like 5-8 rines(a bit microed), so for cost of 100/50 you kill 250-400/0. You need to make around 50% of the blings not make it, for them not to be cost effective... It is not easy for either player and those are the defining moments of the MU, how many rines are left after the blings die(if none = terran looses his army + map presence, if many = zerg looses his army and 1-2 hatches). Ofcourse terran can trade minerals for z's gas, but tbh I haven't really seen much issue with it. It's a smart move for the terran, mostly stalling tech, but it doesn't to me seem to cause much issues for gameplay.
Scan is also a decent thing to have, but it's at the same place as the supply drop, its neat but ideally you don't want to use it. Maybe the other races need stuff like that, which isnt' beneficial to use for the most part, but in certain situations is worth it. Personally I envy zerg for their overlords though..
Sensor towers, another gimmicky structure. I often use it, but for a pro gamer I'd imagine all the information you gain from it are rather useless, since you should know what is coming anyway. I mean it's just the lazy man's scouting(not to mention it is easy to mindfuck a terran with it, such as once a z used slow overlords to go into it, I was sure it was his blords and got ready to engage but was way out of position for his blords attack).
In the end, the races are different and that's only positive. Terran gets their tech early, but is slow producing said tech, not to mention the units being not that great. Zerg gets their units late, but when they are out, they are very hard to deal with. Toss is a bit in the middle, they come earlier, you can deal with them, but they are still painful. As I see it, if you feel zerg is bad, switch race... I'm sure you will find the things you complained about not *just* as simple as you might've thought.
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:O I thoguht this was common knowledge
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Opening post was great to describe the frustrations, BUT I think it's a bit overblown, I'm a zerg myself. And most my losses are just out of my own damn fault, 90% of the games at least. And people complaining about the race should just play more games and analyze your game more. Since it wouldn't matter if we got a super duper buff on ex ultras, people would still complain that it takes to long to get.
And furthermore, there is a lot of frustrating things, but most of it I feel like is inability to early scout properly vs terran. And maps is a bit pain in the ass, but nothing that cant be overcomed by training and fixing faults in your own play.
Let the proffesionals mabey have their discussions about balance and races, we who aren't should be more focused on just getting better.
If people we're discussing this vividly about how to play and become better, or how to get e-sports bigger. We would have a god damn tv-channel by now.
And no I am not in silver league, for those who are going to point that out at sometime.
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@jaeds
I think you're missing the point here... Zerg is UP, else there would be 18 zergs in top 20. But there aren't... there would be 3 zergs and 1 terran on GSL... but there aren't =/
Saying Zerg is OP a bit off, you know. Proofs?
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On January 26 2011 01:30 Buffy wrote:
And furthermore, there is a lot of frustrating things, but most of it I feel like is inability to early scout properly vs terran. And maps is a bit pain in the ass, but nothing that cant be overcomed by training and fixing faults in your own play.
i agree with these two sentences. protoss and terran both have the exact same problems with early scouting other terran. however, unlike zerg (overlords) and terran (scans), protoss requires a robo bay+observer+moving observer cross map before even hoping to notice tech trees from any information other than what's available from the front door. however, noticing what's at the front door tells soooo much more than most lower skill players realize.
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On January 26 2011 01:34 Muun wrote:
@jaeds
I think you're missing the point here... Zerg is UP, else there would be 18 zergs in top 20. But there aren't... there would be 3 zergs and 1 terran on GSL... but there aren't =/
Saying Zerg is OP a bit off, you know. Proofs?
i didn't say zerg IS op. i said if you play other races, you will feel like the races that you aren't playing as FEEL op.
ie. if you play terran, you'll be 50x more likely to think zerg and protoss are op
if you play zerg, you'll be 50x more likely to think terran and protoss are op
if you play protoss, you'll be 50x more likely to think terran and zerg are op.
this is simply because you notice the strengths of those playing against you so much more while they're winning without noticing the little things/risks they have to do to make it work.
as far as citing GSL January as a determination for racial balance, that's just absurd. i think it's incredible that one of each race has won at least once in only 4 tournaments (this season terran is a forced win, as tvt). zerg has won twice, protoss once. if you want to cite GSL, cite all of it. the fact that zerg has won 2 times doesn't mean zerg is overpowered. just one race has had to win at least twice in 4 times.
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As a protoss player I find playing versus zerg is very hard. Why? A zerg can outmacro me almost any time of the day. Granted I'm not the best player in the world, but there is only one effective tactic I have versus zerg, that I feel is even remotely stable:
-First delay zergs hatch with scouting probe, then do 1gas 4gate push and throw all my weight behind it to make it look like an all-in. Just instead of actually making it all-in, continue making probes and expand during or right after the attack. Retreat with units, if zerg seems to be too strong. Hopefully I've dealt enough damage to zerg economy that I can keep up with him.
Now sure, people say ZvP is P favored, and I see GSL protoss do many different things versus zerg players, but my own level zerg players (diamond) give me incredibly hard time.
Perhaps it's my non-cheesy nature, perhaps it's my inability to play properly, but I feel that zerg as a race isn't in as bad position as players say it is. But then again, I'm not a pro player or even in masters, so I wouldn't know about it.
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On January 26 2011 01:37 jaeds wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 01:30 Buffy wrote:
And furthermore, there is a lot of frustrating things, but most of it I feel like is inability to early scout properly vs terran. And maps is a bit pain in the ass, but nothing that cant be overcomed by training and fixing faults in your own play. i agree with these two sentences. protoss and terran both have the exact same problems with early scouting other terran. however, unlike zerg (overlords) and terran (scans), protoss requires a robo bay+observer+moving observer cross map before even hoping to notice tech trees from any information other than what's available from the front door. however, noticing what's at the front door tells soooo much more than most lower skill players realize.
Not arguing with that, but when players are hiding everything except 1 marine in the middle of their base and gets your overlord with that marine when you're sacking the overlord it's still a guessing game and your down 8 food and 100 minerals and still has no real info to go on whats coming.
Thats the only real frustrating thing about it atm, wouldn't have a problem with wallins for terrans otherwise, but thats something that can give you a thorn in your side and stick with you for a while.
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Good read, but I can't quite agree with you on the 'protoss having best scouting unit in the game'
Overlords w/ speed upgrade go faster than obs, get a base scout, and overseers are faster than obs and can get a base scout. Now even though they aren't cloaked, they don't cost gas, and if you get the overlord speed upgrade (less than a robo, mind you) you have 50 or 60 'scouts' waiting!
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Great article. There's so much things wrong with zerg in this game. I stopped playing SC2 for the exact same reason: it's just frustrating losing to players a lot worse than you. Now I can really see the garbage that Blizzard made. I am becoming each day more disapponted with this game =/
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On January 25 2011 09:12 Salv wrote:
To be honest, whenever there is a thread like this, is should really only apply to top players. I'm confident that very few masters, and no diamond or below ranked people are losing because of an imbalance. So many mistakes are made by players except the very top that it's an inefficient way to spend your time. Couple this with the subjective experience evidence, and this makes for a thread that is frankly unnecessary.
This is an extremely annoying logical fallacy. I don't get why people keep forwarding it.
Oh, players are losing because they make mistakes? Great. Pros make mistakes too. But guess what? Their opponent makes mistakes as well.
Take for instance, player 1 makes 20 mistakes. Player 2 makes 40 mistakes. Yet player 2 wins.
Now if you watch the replay you might point out the 20 mistakes player 1 made and say "oh, if you didn't make those mistakes you could have won. The game is balanced."
Yet, the other player made 40 mistakes. Why is he winning?
That's why this argument is retarded. It shouldn't take flawless play to beat another player who is far from flawless. So stop acting like "It's your mistakes that cost the loss" is a valid response to someone's discussions about balance. Perfect play is what makes it possible for a shitty underpowered race to win, because it exploits the player playing the imba race's mistakes.
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Toss used to complain about FFs being unbalanced. Get them right you win, make one mistake and you auto-lose.
Then Toss players just sucked it up and learned to FF, and the QQ sort of petered out.
I'm still with you though, zerg has two major difficulties: so many melee units, so few buildings. Terran has all ranged units and a heap of buildings... it's quite an advantage.
I think some new defensive structure for Zerg will appear in the expansions. Until then...
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nice post, completely agree
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It's just easy to become frustrated with zerg because you pretty much win or lose the game in the first 4-9 minutes the majority of the time.
Not even because of all ins, sometimes there are simply indirect effects that pile up because of scouting denial. Say a terran has 1 rax and proxies another one near my base, which I scout and immediately use several larva cycles to create lings to defend against the imminent bunker/marine rush. But oops, he actually wasn't doing that at all and now has an expansion while his rax floats back to his base. I've now cut so many drones that early in the game that I'm pretty much going to lose against a competent player.
Overlord speed upgrade being available at hatchery tech would make a world of difference.
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I support this argument .
I think it is agreed by now that the space for mistake early game for Z and P are extremely narrow. Often times, literally misplacing an ff or making 2 more drones can cost you the game
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Whenever I read this forum I get the feeling that I'm actually the only player on Bnet doing well with zerg. Although I'm pretty sure a lot of it is hyperbole and/or influenced by top level tournament trends. Still feels kinda nice
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On January 26 2011 01:41 jaeds wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 01:34 Muun wrote:
@jaeds
I think you're missing the point here... Zerg is UP, else there would be 18 zergs in top 20. But there aren't... there would be 3 zergs and 1 terran on GSL... but there aren't =/
Saying Zerg is OP a bit off, you know. Proofs? i didn't say zerg IS op. i said if you play other races, you will feel like the races that you aren't playing as FEEL op. ie. if you play terran, you'll be 50x more likely to think zerg and protoss are op if you play zerg, you'll be 50x more likely to think terran and protoss are op if you play protoss, you'll be 50x more likely to think terran and zerg are op. this is simply because you notice the strengths of those playing against you so much more while they're winning without noticing the little things/risks they have to do to make it work. as far as citing GSL January as a determination for racial balance, that's just absurd. i think it's incredible that one of each race has won at least once in only 4 tournaments (this season terran is a forced win, as tvt). zerg has won twice, protoss once. if you want to cite GSL, cite all of it. the fact that zerg has won 2 times doesn't mean zerg is overpowered. just one race has had to win at least twice in 4 times.
So what about those of us who play random and still feel zerg is UP comparitively?
And god, stop quoting numbers from GSL when all of us have watched the individual games - zerg really do walk a tightrope. Dealing with a protoss deathball or a marine tank slow push composition is a very delicate thing, and one screwup, you lose your baneling ball or mutas against marine tank or w/e and you DIE. Screw up once against the colossus stalker ball or other things from protoss and you DIE. There's not room for error. You don't get a little bit behind from a small error, you get hugely behind.
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Overlord speed upgrade being available at hatchery tech would make a world of difference.
Really now? 100/100 in the early game? Are you sacrificing ling speed for it? Probably not. Are you sacrificing getting additional queens / lair tech (cost and time on the hatchery) for it? Probably not.
What you're really asking for is having ovie speed for free. That's never going to happen, and truth be told, would be a huge & unfair advantage for Zerg early game. Constant, free scouting? 1-base all-ins would cease to become viable strategies against Zerg and there'd be no point in hiding tech anymore.
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I guess I can relate with the "When I play Zerg and lose, I feel like I fucked up, not like the other guy was better" sentiment. I tried switching to Zerg for a month or so, playing customs against Gold-Diamonds (before Masters) and honestly every game was just a big gamble.
Zerg just feels so cheesy, economically speaking. You win by taking huge risks (droning), or you don't take risks, the other guy pulls ahead, and you just lose.
I don't know about OP/UP but I just dislike the basic concept of the race.
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On January 25 2011 14:13 ckw wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 12:34 Galleon.frigate wrote:On January 25 2011 09:57 Icx wrote:
more harass ability's?
I suggest you go play terran or protoss and go deal with a flock of mutalisks.
Or nydus worms when you move out, zerglings that run into your main/nat when you move out.
Or even baneling drops.
And yes things like that can be stopped, but you can also stop drops/banshees/etc, it's just how you manage to deal with it.
I don't get what you want (ibreakurface, not the Op) you want zerg to be the best macro-race, and at the same time have the best harass ability's in the game, and all of that on all larger maps?
Yes, that is gonna turn out well... The point the op made is that 3 units from terran or toss can gg a zerg. Now thats what I call harras. I don't mean 3 types I mean just 3 of them. There is no zerg unit that can do this, though droped banes can do a lot of dmg there is nothing that compares directly to the ablity to send in 4 hellions or 2-3 banchees and win if z fucks up but actually lose very little if the defence is perfect. No comment on balance and yes zerg is powerful, but when you are being harrased by those mutas, think about how that 'flock' costs 2k+/2k+ and think what you could have done with that money... just saying that that 4k of resorces for those 20 muta , ya that should do dmg, but man imagine if it doesn't, you defend perfectly or he just clicks them over some marines and a thor? ya that zerg is sure gg'd ... everything in the game can be stopped, there are no unbeatable builds, however in a game of inpefect information have more strong options sure is nice Not only that but when people mention Muta as an equal to Banshee harass I want to kick myself in the head. First off, you don't get Muta harassed in the first 5 minutes of the game so it's in no way the same. Sure, Nydus Worms are cool but really, they aren't as effective in a real game as they are in theory craft. Baneling drops?... Effective but thats the only one you have a point with and even that isn't plausible until later in the game. BTW, the fact that Terrans mass Marines in every game against Zerg I don't see how Muta is such a problem... If Zerg masses hydra to protect from harass they get owned by anything and everything... Hence the reason Toss will open Phoenix and then switch to Collosus. Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 13:35 NearPerfection wrote:
There is alot of misinformation in this thread. First off, spine crawlers are incredibly good, a 4 gate push is immediately doomed to fail if you have 3 spine crawlers ready, they also do bonus damage to armored which helps alot vs stalkers.
Secondly, Lair is not a very expensive investment and should be researched as soon as your not in a clutch situation, if hes 4 gating off 2 gas and you get burrowed roach, there is no way for him to win, you can pop up, kill a bunch of sentry/stalker then reburrow and regain your HP rinse/repeat
Thirdly, Zerg is not the only race that loses all the time for stupid reasons that don't involve actual mechanical skill. Examles: DTs, Cloaked Banshee, Marine/Scv all in, etc etc etc the list goes on and on, if your losing it's because your build order is somehow flawed or you played it out incorrectly and need more experience.
I also don't buy into Zerg UP, ever compare 4 lings vs 1 zealot? Compare charge upgrade to speed upgrade? compare 2 roach to 1 stalker? These comparisons are all the same resources but who wins 100% of the time in that situation? Your also not the only race that must blind build order to win, Terran have it with blind engineering by around 6:15 minute mark to counter possible DT, Protoss have it with the Robo to counter burrow/dt/banshee
The game is evolving into a more refined RTS where the skilled players are winning much more often than in the Beta, in 6 more months time I don't think anyone at the top doesn't deserve to be there. Prime example of bad information coming from a bias source who probably hasn't played Zerg a day in their life. Seriously, how can someone afford Lair tech when a 4 gate is coming? It's impossible to get speed, spines and lair and then some how get roach burrow before the 4 gate hits, to think this is at all possible is way off base and stupid. I dont see any Zergs QQing here I see a bunch of Protoss and Terrans QQing with stupid reasons about how Zerg is fine. Some of the ideas for Zergs to try in this thread are literally r-e-t-a-r-d-e-d.
I could say the exact same with Protoss, if you just played protoss you think it is really the underpowered. You're treating 4 gate as if its the same strategy over and over. The first thing you need to know is that there are different kinds of 4 gate, and each one of them requires a slightly different build order.
Here are the different 4-Gates
2 Nexus Chronos, rest saved for Warp Gate, 1 gas, pure stalker/zealot (comes fastest)
Double gas all chronos on Nexus except 2 on Warp Gate, Zealot/Sentry main composition (comes later)
Double Gas, Sentry/Stalker (only effective on maps such as close spawn metalopolis)
Single Gas 10 gate pulls probes off gas for faster 4 gate and pure zealot except for 2-4 stalkers.
If you wan't i can post replays of all these different builds against NA's top players but i think you get my point. No I don't play Zerg but to play on my level you have to have advanced knowledge of the other races to adapt your own play.
My Spine Crawler suggestion was for the most common 4 gate, the 1 gas Stalker/Zealot
My Roach Burrow suggestion was against the Stalker/Sentry 2 gas 4 gate, 100/100 is not a game ending investment 8:16 minutes into the game.
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On January 26 2011 01:17 Zarahtra wrote:
Another annoying point is, unless you have foxer rine micro, blings used well will be cost efficient.
Let me restate this point.
If you have foxer rine micro, blings will not be cost efficient.
OR
The intended zerg counter to mass marines can be marginalized by good micro.
OR:
At the highest level of play, zerg effectively loses the ability to adequately deal with the most common tvz build.
Doesn't this fall under the very definition of imbalance?
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Seriously now, as a Terran player I thought that the main aim of Protoss and Zerg was to survive until late game to unleash all of their power and the aim of Terran was to put constant pressure to not to let them do it.
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On January 26 2011 04:35 Hollis wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2011 01:17 Zarahtra wrote:
Another annoying point is, unless you have foxer rine micro, blings used well will be cost efficient. Let me restate this point. If you have foxer rine micro, blings will not be cost efficient. OR The intended zerg counter to mass marines can be marginalized by good micro. OR: At the highest level of play, zerg effectively loses the ability to adequately deal with the most common tvz build. Doesn't this fall under the very definition of imbalance?
As long as you view the game through the lens of "counters", you will never become a top level player. SC2 is not a game designed around "counters". Wc3 on the other hand...
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Most of the time, my Zerg rage comes when I realized I've made mistakes. I, while raging, tend to get irritated because I feel like other races (in particular Terran) have a million options that they can use and not be punished for.
But most of the time I think that while I'm raging. The reality is, sometimes you just need to man up. Complaining about it won't make you a better player or make the other races stop doing what they're doing.
I think the key is to just keep playing. If you love the game, you should want to try and figure these things out. Work on your shit until your play is solid. If Blizzard, down the line, decides to change things, good for them. You'll still be a player because you practice and practiced and practice.
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I think that if the map sizes are not increased the next best thing that could be seen to give back the "BW" feel to some part of the game is a burrow upgrade for banelings from baneling nest (test on PTR ofcourse). This would A. promote more forge play/expansion/ early robo play from Protoss, B. the ability to slow down very strong timing pushes especially in bottlenecking areas of a map and C. give zerg the feeling of being somewhat of a threat to the other races in the early game. If the map sizes are increased though then I would wait to change any of the races since map size has a lot to do with what types of play can happen in the early game.
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This is like just beating a dead horse here. The problem with zerg isnt their relative power. Things are not to be looked at from an OP or UP point of view.
Only issue with Zerg in Starcraft II is that they are a poorly designed race
Frankly Stacraft I zerg was so much better than this. So either an overhaul will get done with HotS and we can start talking then or Zerg will just die out.
Until then have fun getting owned / watching zerg getting owned by all sort of increasingly creative early-game aggressive all-ins / timings.
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Hungary11300 Posts
Even a well-written, long post about why the game is poorly designed is nothing but a well-hidden OP/UP post. Don't complain, find solutions. To quote the strat forum guidelines:
Nothing is imba. If you found something imba, it's most likely not. Find a counter.
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EPT
