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Blizzard has recently made a post regarding their outlook on TvP. I have not seen any threads covering it, but it seems to be important enough of an issue in this community for me to make a new topic about it.
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/4838104108#1
+ Show Spoiler +After reading the responses to the recently posted balance update, we’ve seen that a lot of players wanted us to elaborate on the current state of the terran versus protoss late game. Before we begin the longer explanation, it’s worth pointing out that we didn’t originally comment on TvP because, overall, this match up remains balanced according to the games we are seeing, tournament results and ladder data.
We do agree that if both sides take few to no losses going into the late game, protoss can have an advantage. That said, we also know that terran players have a lot of offensive capability and harassment options at their fingertips in the mid-game. If terran players press that mid-game advantage, then protoss can’t necessarily get into the late game at their full potential, which can nullify any advantage they might have had. So, pressing that mid-game advantage is important (just as it would be important for protoss players to mitigate mid-game damage so they can to move into the late game in the strongest possible position). Ultimately, each game plays out differently, and depending on how the two races enter the late game, each side has a fair chance to win.
StarCraft II is designed with asymmetric design principles. We like having these differences between the races, as long as no one race or tactic offers a significant advantage. To put it another way, mirror matches already show us what StarCraft II looks like when both opposing forces have identical strengths at each stage of the game. In non-mirror matches we intentionally work to provide diverse strategies that make use of asymmetric design to produce varied, fun and interesting games, while maintaining excellent overall balance. That does mean that at different stages of the game, one race might have tools which represent an advantage against the others--though it’s important that those advantages can always be mitigated by good play.
All of this comes with an important caveat. We are already keeping a close eye on things and observing all stages of the game. If we start seeing our global ladder results shift dramatically or TvP win/loss ratios start to heavily favor one side or the other in major tournaments, we will deal with the situation accordingly.
While I rarely comment on balance because most of it is trivial, the fact that blizzard has openly admitted that TvP forces Terran to push the midgame and by default be weaker in a straight up lategate and then does not want to fix it but would rather have T as an early-mid game focused race is upsetting. Starcraft historically has always valued the macro game, from both a player and viewer perspective. No one wants to watch 1base/2base allins and I would say at least a good part of the player base wants to play long games, myself included.
It's understandable that from a game design perspective this can be hard to balance. Everyone knows that its hard to make one part of the game different while not adjusting other parts of the game. It's also understandable given an argument that maybe Terrans should try to wait for a metagame shift and experiment with new ideas. Both these ideas are debatable, but they in common have the idea that its a way to solve the endgame problem.
My whole point to this is I'm not proposing any way for us to balance TvP or saying that anyone is imbalanced at anything, its that given the fact that Blizzard themselves have identified an imbalance, they are taking a terrible direction with the race by being complacent with the situation. I think many people here regardless of race can agree with an ideal scenario of every race being balanced at every point in the game, and no race should have to do midgame allins and be on a timer. I'm NOT saying that this is possible, but at least Blizzard should try, instead of being satisfied with the "asymmetry", as implied by the message. This is not the direction I would like to see the design of T head.
tl;dr
The idea of Terran being an early game focused race has been debated over and over. I know. This time Blizzard has made a official stance on the fact that they are currently okay with Terrans being the early-mid game race rather than fix imbalances caused from different parts of the game. As a player and a viewer, this is not the direction I would like to see in terms of game design.
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"the fact that blizzard has openly admitted that TvP forces Terran to push the midgame and by default be weaker in a straight up lategate is upsetting"
Unfortunatly 99% of the community has this opinion. You are taking the game way out of context to prove a point thats already been addressed in blizzards post. As state by blizzard you can also look at it from the POV T>P in the early game and therefore T >P in late game due to mid game advantage ( which was exactly what blizzard stated and you overlooked).
The point is you can always take something out of context look at it with an absolute perspective and cry imballance. SC2 isn't a 1D game that can be viewed in that way, its a fluid and dynamic game that should be viewed as progression proceeds through the different stages of the game.
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The statement is way too abstract. And it seems that people do feel like even though asymmetric design is important, every race should have equal chance in every stage of the game, otherwise it will push one race to use the same strategy all the time (e.g. Terran all-in before 15 min).
Terran unit design is another problem. The terran mech and tier 3 units are not so effective against protoss (that's why everyone goes MMM). If you play the HOTS unit tester map, you know that battlehellion and warhound do solve this problem. But HOTS is at least one year away. So, the situation is now a little tricky.
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You know, I'm no expert on BW. I played it for a decade casually with no knowledge of a pro-scene. But from what I've read, isn't there a ticking time bomb where Terran has to do damage before Hive in TvZ. What exactly is the difference?
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Wow that's awful. Regardless of advantages in early or mid game, every non mirror should push for each race to be viable in the late game no matter what. Otherwise games turn into 1-2 base allins. If that's their idea of balance, I'm disappointed.
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Asymmetric balance is important, but not in the way Blizzard intends it to be. Each race should have different tools to win, but the typesets of the tools should be the same. All three races should have equal opportunities to harass at all stages of the game. There's much less variance if Terran is forced to capitalize at a specific time frame in the game.
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Ok, so if the 'typical' situation plays out as blizzard states, the terran will be harrassing in the mid game while the protoss will be defending. I think it's pretty much common sense that it is very hard to harass effectively if the opponent is already playing defensive.
Another thing I just thought about is the recent observer build time decrease. This may be minor but it's still a buff that will help protoss mid game. I'm ok if they incrementally help protoss early/mid game if they do the same with terran.
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You should not have to rely on your opponent making a mistake in order to win. The top toss are getting better at holding 15 min or earlier timings. If IMMvP simply had to hold all aggression in the first 15 mins in order to win he would have a 100% winrate versus toss.
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If this is what considered a "balance" methods, I feel it is rather a poor way of accomplishing it. I feel balance as in all race have equal opportunities at all point of the game. Just because you're mid game aggression/harass fails, doesn't mean you're SoL in the late game. If terran is having an upper hand in the early to mid, then help protoss in the defensive position on that aspect. All race should have equal opportunities at all point of the game is what I would consider balance, IMO.
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On May 04 2012 13:43 SolidMoose wrote:
Wow that's awful. Regardless of advantages in early or mid game, every non mirror should push for each race to be viable in the late game no matter what. Otherwise games turn into 1-2 base allins. If that's their idea of balance, I'm disappointed.
You don't get the point do you? Terran is supposed to DO DAMAGE in the mid game for it to be equal, blizzard is basically saying if both races just sat there and maxed to 200/200 then yea protoss will have an advantage, so terran has to do mid-game pushes like drops/multiple attacks to get an advantage in the late game. Which is what every single terran does anyway so what they are saying is not really that ground-breaking.
They are not saying that when it hits late game=protoss just wins, people are just reading it wrong.
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hmm yeah had a guy complain in game today about this very thing. But as the battle net quote stated T needs to presure and destroy probes/key tech structures to slow toss down and prevent that late game death ball. Much the same way that toss should keep pressure on zerg to prevent the sticky brood lord plus infestor plus ground combo that toss can struggle to deal with. I guess for a perfect game, each race should have the same advantages/disadvantages. But if this quote is true...
On May 04 2012 13:41 larse wrote:
Terran unit design is another problem. The terran mech and tier 3 units are not so effective against protoss (that's why everyone goes MMM). If you play the HOTS unit tester map, you know that battlehellion and warhound do solve this problem. But HOTS is at least one year away. So, the situation is now a little tricky.
... then I guess blizzard is on the right path with the new units in the expansion.
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Always nice for them to post about their stances on the game. However what I don't understand is why they are currently testing a small buff for Protoss that helps them scout a little quicker in the mid-game which in turn helps them react to potential aggression during a part of the game Terran has the upper hand but have not given Terran anything to help them in the late game where Protoss have the upper hand.
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I don't see the issue. The races are different, at a fight happens at any given point at time during a game between two equally skilled players, one will win more often than the other. The races actually can't be equally balanced at every point in the game due to how unit interactions work. You might as well complain that it isn't fair or right that in a TvT a meching Terran has an advantage in the late game over a bio terran. Your bio ball didn't do enough harassment, or you didn't take over the map properly. If you feel that Mech is better or suits your style better you should switch - same thing with Terran and Protoss. The races are different, and it is something you have to live with.
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I really really hate blizzards stance on this.
They are basically saying that they expect you to kill the protoss before late game.
I hate to break it to you blizzard devs, but terran cannot get the sort of advantage you think we need without killing the protoss. I have played (and watched in the GSL) TvP alot on the ladder, and I have crippled a protoss almost before. I've denied a third base for a good 10 minutes and come at them with 50+ food advantage and still been unable to finish them. They eventually do get enough of their t3 units that you cannot attack anymore without a full 200/200 army.
You cannot trade evenly with them after a certain point.
Maybe I'm exagerating but I feel that anyone who is happy with TvP comming down to a "kill them or cripple them mid-game because you are not able to later on" is INCREDIBLY bad design. Just absolutely horrible. We don't want to be doing all-ins. We don't want to be unable to reinforce and fight because we killed the wall of zealots/stalkers but all the archons or collosus are alive so that next round of warp ins kills us.
Protoss are doing very well vs us. In the early game, in the mid game and especially the late game. Please for the love of god just stop telling us to do hard-timings that are intended to kill the protoss. It's just not what the community wants and without the community you've got no game.
Stop being lazy and come up with REAL solutions besides telling us to all-in or get lucky ><
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On May 04 2012 13:42 MattBarry wrote:
You know, I'm no expert on BW. I played it for a decade casually with no knowledge of a pro-scene. But from what I've read, isn't there a ticking time bomb where Terran has to do damage before Hive in TvZ. What exactly is the difference?
the AoE overkill that can make army values drop horizontally. it's isn't really that difficult/positional either, it's point and click.
"terrible terrible damage."
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I think it's OK. It would be tough to balance TvP lategame without messing up other matchups or stages of the game. I used to think lategame TvP was super hard until I watched the pro's and practiced my micro in UMS. When I started engaging properly and spreading my forces good, I had more success.
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We do agree that if both sides take few to no losses going into the late game, protoss can have an advantage. That said, we also know that terran players have a lot of offensive capability and harassment options at their fingertips in the mid-game.
We like having these differences between the races, as long as no one race or tactic offers a significant advantage.
This is so stupid
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I'm not sure how there is such an uproar over TvP in the first place. Under the design of Terran, it's almost a cinch for them to win on strong pushes and mid-game play versus Protoss, that I'm not sure why they are even getting to the late game, or why they haven't done enough damage to the Protoss to make it an easier victory in the late game.
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On May 04 2012 13:42 MattBarry wrote:
You know, I'm no expert on BW. I played it for a decade casually with no knowledge of a pro-scene. But from what I've read, isn't there a ticking time bomb where Terran has to do damage before Hive in TvZ. What exactly is the difference?
Even though bw bio has an issue dealing with ultralisks, cracklings, and well-controlled defilers, if the terran timing push didn't end the game there, but didn't get SMASHED, they had somewhat of an equalizer in the Science Vessel. How often do you see terrans on streams floating 2k gas sc2 tvp lategame? What the hell are they going to spend that gas on? Tanks that don't do full damage to shields? Ravens?
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On May 04 2012 13:49 divito wrote:
I'm not sure how there is such an uproar over TvP in the first place. Under the design of Terran, it's almost a cinch for them to win on strong pushes and mid-game play versus Protoss, that I'm not sure why they are even getting to the late game, or why they haven't done enough damage to the Protoss to make it an easier victory in the late game.
Um...that point is exactly what the uproar is about...
No one wants to play or watch a TvP where we just wait for the 1 or 2 base all in to happen.
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