EPT[SC2B] Zerg: The Evolution (or Devolution) - Page 2
| Forum Index > News |
|
Tristan
Canada566 Posts
| ||
|
miklotov
United States62 Posts
agree on pretty much all fronts. hopefully someone at blizz sees this and comes up with some solutions. | ||
|
andeh
United States904 Posts
enough of anything imbalanced | ||
|
sLiniss
United States849 Posts
I agree on a lot of things here. And definitely the banelings  | ||
|
Ginko
Bangladesh69 Posts
| ||
|
Ginko
Bangladesh69 Posts
On April 21 2010 13:07 andeh wrote: saying 40 stacked mutas would be imba is like saying 40 stacked carriers would be imba enough of anything imbalanced Hes talking about mutas stacking in sc2 in gerneral would be pretty op | ||
|
GrimAngel
United States416 Posts
| ||
|
zealing
Canada806 Posts
great post loved reading it | ||
|
0neder
United States3733 Posts
I don't mind Zerg as is, except I'd like to see Ultras more used. | ||
|
Floophead_III
United States1832 Posts
Lets look at why this occurs: In BW there was a progression of units. Units from each tech level gave a decisive advantage in ZvT and ZvP. However, over time those advantages waned and you had to move to the next progression to maintain control. For example: In a typical ZvT, zerg has zerglings early and in large numbers, preventing terran from doing any major aggression until stim/medics/firebats are out on the field, so terran goes to fast expand and get his t1.5 tech. Zerg has to respond by making sunkens and turtling until t2 is ready for them, because zerglings are ineffective vs an MMF army. Zerg could make hydralisks, but they also are fairly ineffective and cost a lot of larva, money and don't give enough of an advantage to warrant making them. Zerg then chooses to go mutalisks, which force terran back into his base. This gives control to zerg to expand, eco, and upgrade. Over time the power of mutalisks fades as the size of the terran army grows, and the economy of his expansion kicks in. Eventually terran no longer has to fear the mutalisks and can move out to threaten zerg again. Zerg gets lurkers next. Lurkers slow terran's progression and force him to move in a slow push across the map, since small detachments fall easily to even a couple lurkers. Lurkers force a terran to use scans or wait for science vessels, limiting his ability to be offensive. Terran usually responds by getting a few tanks which outrange lurkers and a vessel. At this point zerg opts to get hive and get defilers out. Defilers provide zerg with extreme strength in a small area with dark swarm. At this point the game turns into a micro war of defilers laying down swarms, terran using mines and vessels to negate defilers, and zerg using scourge to clear out vessels so he can push forward. This style of gameplay developed because simply "making more units" was not an effective solution. Sure you could make 40 zerglings and kill 12 marines 2 medics and 2 firebats, but then how will you kill the next 16 infantry? 40 more zerglings? That's a losing game. Now lets goto SC2: Zerg in SC2 makes these giant hydra/roach balls and a-moves to victory with pure macro. There might be some aspects of flanking and positioning in there, but aside from that there's little micro involved. Sounds like BW protoss to me, not zerg. Zerg's solution to 90% of things in this game right now are "make more units." This is because given the large amount of larva spawn larva provides, coupled with the most cost effective earlygame unit, the roach, zerg doesn't NEED to tech to anything else to win fights. The only reason hydralisks exist is to kill air units and eventually in bigger armies provide dps from the back as roach hits a critical mass. If air units didn't exist in this game, I think there'd be no reason not to mass nothing but roach. You might say, well marauders and immortals "hard counter" roach. The problem is that, you can just make more roach and you'll probably come out on top with decent positioning/micro. There's no unit in this game that actually "hard counters" roach by rendering them ineffective, the way siege tanks + vessels counter lurkers for example. The result of this is that there is no progression to the zerg army right now. Even if you had a very cost effective ground army vs roach, the answer is probably to make banelings or zerglings, a step backwards. By making roach available so early, and such a difficult unit to counter, Blizzard has made zerg into a race without progression. If it wasn't for hydras being t2, there wouldn't even be a reason to get lair other than overseers. Right now zerg gets lair to survive because their only other option is to make spore crawlers which is pretty sad. Zerg should be getting lair because it is necessary for their progression, not survival. OP is very right about hive being completely useless except for broodlords. They need to fix the atrocity that is the ultralisks, make adrenal glands worth something, and probably give a hive tech spell to the infestor to make getting them in the midgame pay off in lategame as well, as well as give zerg a caster element to their army. An idea I've heard quite a lot is to make hydralisks t1.5 again and roaches t2. I don't think this is the complete solution, but I think it is at least an attempt to bring back progression to zerg. I'd like to see roaches changed considerably if that were the case, probably into some sort of burrow-based unit. Right now burrowed roaches are a nice touch, or even gimmicky, but they hardly define the unit. The lurker won't fit with SC2 playstyle at all, but I think one thing people really miss is the force of detection on other players, as well as burrow being integral to zerg playstyle. Lurkers accomplished that in BW, so perhaps roaches can in SC2. | ||
|
Half
United States2554 Posts
On April 21 2010 13:37 Floophead_III wrote: Zerg is in need of a major overhaul, I agree. Right now the chief problem lies in the fact that the best solution to every problem is "make more units." What units function well vs every army? Hydra/roach.. It seems like we've come full circle from everyone complaining about hardcounters. :D /totally agree. Hydraroach is too good at everything. Seriously, I was, from day one, telling everyone to shut the fuck up about hardcounters, and that the percieved issue of hardcounters and randomness actually belied a deeper issue with SC2 play, and that hardcounters weren't any more prevalent then BW. People would just describe these problems that had with the game, which weren't in any way shape or form actually connected to hardcounters, then scream HARDCOUNTERS. (This isn't directed at you  . Just ranting a bit). | ||
|
Sejong
Korea (South)153 Posts
| ||
|
Two_DoWn
United States13684 Posts
A half baked thought though- what if the nydus network and infestor pit were switched (kind of), so that the pit was tier 3, and the network was what you needed to get to hive? That way zergs are forced to get the network (leading to some cool offensive and defensive opportunities using that unit) while the tier 3 infestor could be reworked to truly reintroduce some threat as a powerhouse caster. | ||
|
Half
United States2554 Posts
On April 21 2010 13:42 Two_DoWn wrote: Great post. I think part of the solution could be to make the adrenal gland upgrade actually useful again. Doing so reintroduces the value of the zergling late game, and the ultra as a result cuz something needs to soak up all of the damage. Thats what I'm really hoping for. Ideally we'd see hydralisk, roach, ultralisk and infestor reworks/big rebalancings, and I really hope blizzard pulls through, but I'm skeptical that they will. A statistical boost to crack would be a realistic goal to strive for, its a succint, numeric change that would really benefit the zerg playstyle. | ||
|
Toun
Sweden59 Posts
On April 21 2010 13:35 0neder wrote: Just wait for HoTS, the Lurker will be back.... I don't mind Zerg as is, except I'd like to see Ultras more used. This is what sadens me the most about the current state of Zerg, that people actually think that Zerg should endure for atleast one year with the current state of Zerg. Shouldn't Blizzard be very worried about a massive complain about how boring a race is before the game is even live? I for one will switch race if the current Zerg goes live. | ||
|
fnaticNoname
India858 Posts
| ||
|
banmeifurgay
Canada8 Posts
How about one on terrans now? =D | ||
|
IdrA
United States11541 Posts
massing basic units is a solid, easy way to beat people who play poorly and a good way to solidify an advantage. a good z can beat a mediocre p in sc1 just by attack moving hydras, that doesnt mean theres no subtlety in sc1. people werent abusing hive well at first, people didnt micro mutas at all. you really expect the game to be born with the depth that evolved over 11 years before? hell, the infestor might be the best caster in the game all things considered and haypro, one of the best z's on europe, doesnt even think theyre worth making. dont construe bad player's approach to a 2 month old game as some kind of inherent flaw in the game. | ||
|
Two_DoWn
United States13684 Posts
On April 21 2010 13:51 banmeifurgay wrote: great article! How about one on terrans now? =D Terrans and protoss dont need an article like this, neither suffers from similar problems to zerg. | ||
|
UmmTheHobo
United States650 Posts
On April 21 2010 13:51 IdrA wrote: no massing basic units is a solid, easy way to beat people who play poorly and a good way to solidify an advantage. a good z can beat a mediocre p in sc1 just by attack moving hydras, that doesnt mean theres no subtlety in sc1. people werent abusing hive well at first, people didnt micro mutas at all. you really expect the game to be born with the depth that evolved over 11 years before? hell, the infestor might be the best caster in the game all things considered and haypro, one of the best z's on europe, doesnt even think theyre worth making. dont construe bad player's approach to a 2 month old game as some kind of inherent flaw in the game. Very early replays of Sc1 are more interesting than the Sc2 we are seeing right now :/ | ||
| ||
