Automated Ban List [Latest: markliu] - Page 1569

On May 11 2013 19:26 Cirqueenflex wrote:


while the game may not be imbalanced, it still is frustrating to play (and a game should not be frustrating to play but fun instead)

technically you can micro against widow mines (until terrans figure out that you can hold and aim them -.-), but it is frustrating to see your effort compared to the opponents effort. Against siege tanks there was plenty of counterplay, snipe with mutas, flank with Zerglings, catch them out of position... there were obvious weaknesses. Against Biomine - currently you run in and hope for a clean headshot on the wrong Zergling. Maybe with increased use of swarm hosts this situation will improve, but widow mines are still way too strong for their raw stats in controlling space, given zerg has both the worst detection and the lowest ranged units (especially since if you do make ranged units, bio just crushes that). But even though I personally hate the mine (as it ruined my favourite matchup where I would just go muta ling bling into ultras and both the terran and me always had lots of fun compared to now) I think the situation will improve for Zergs. Probably making ~10 Mutas will become mandatory, as with only ground units (and no fungal to root them) the new speedy medivacs can demolish your economy in no time with 2-4 well controlled hellbat drops. Which by the way feel way more frustrating to me than widow mines, as the mines just counter most things softly, while the hellbat (when build more than one) simply denies you from making a core unit.

On the other hand there seems to be quite a problem in late game ZvP, where once again both players camp for hours as they cannot engage when Zerg turtles with mass static defense + Vipers + Swarm hosts/Corruptor. I expect a ton of QQ from protoss players in the future, as split-map-turtle-Zerg is about as deadly as BL/infestor was in WoL, just takes longer to starve the opponent to death. If you need an example of that, try to catch some of CatZ' ZvP, as he has a ridiculously high win rate once he manages to split the map by just turtling and using Vipers to pull stuff into static defense.

And I don't expect the spore crawler buff to fix ZvZ at all. Yeah, maybe you need one less spore to defend your main vs mutas, but that never was the problem. The problem was to get your third up, which gets denied by the map control the player going mutas has over his opponent. Mutas should never fly above the main/natural of the opponent anyway, they prevent ling runbys, snipe overlords, give you vision and if you know your opponents muta position they can assist in sniping the enemy third base. Which now becomes even more attractive, as you can build spores in your main/natural to defend vs base trades in a muta vs muta and just go kill their third if you feel like trading third bases. Besides the massive advantage mutas give in map control/denying the third, even under the assumption that both players can somewhat get their third up - what then? The muta player can simply take his fourth, because buffed spores will not give you any map control. Now that infestors cannot reliably defend your hydras from multiple baneling flanks anymore (and cannot really catch mutas), Muta + baneling still can crush any army in ZvZ with ease. And with additional bases over your opponent (thanks to map control) you can tech switch into whatever you want - ultras, Brood Lords, you name it. So while Blizzard did see that ZvZ is only the same ol' muta vs muta battle with nothing else really viable (besides all-ins and counter-all-ins and the gimmicky super fast double upgrades for lings which get countered by roach baneling allin) they will not improve the matchup by an inch with a spore crawler buff vs bio.

Funny, I just noticed I started with stuff that is frustrating to play against (and toxic to a good playing experience while maybe being balanced) and ended up with what the topic was really about. To add to the stuff that just feels aweful, there would of course be the sentry, the zerg anti-air being stupidly ineffective and costly at the same time, the power of muta switches mid-late game, the warp in of units anywhere on the map, the baneling bust, the widow mine or hellion/hellbat drops, baneling mines, tempests, lack of an invisible attacker for zerg that does not die from its attack and that has an attack that cannot be destroyed before doing any damage, map designs, too many workers needed -> not enough units on map -> on fight to rule them all, units countering units too hard (such as immortals gaining 150% more dmg when against armored - wtf?)... If it was up to me, I would try to change those things to turn them into something moree fun to play with/play against, and go from there trying to archieve balance once more. Currently a lot of the game feels like the minigame "I wanna be the boshy" on one of the harder difficulties. While the game might be somewhat balanced and both play- and winnable, it more often is just frustrating to play, and a game should not be that frustrating to play.