[A] Starbow - Page 291

Let me first try try to present the elements I want to see in a matchup.

1) A very action- and multitaskpacked game where Tasteless wouldn't have time to talk about his favourite pokemon (which implies that there is also action early in the game).
2) A game where different types of strategies for each race are viable (players can opt between offensive and defensive strategies)
3) A dynamic matchup where both races have viable options to pressure/attack/harass the opponent. It shouldn't just be a one-way thing.

There are two overall types of ways this can be done;
Approach 1: Overbuff harass-units which will make it efficient to harass the opponent rather than attacking with your deathball.

Approach 2: This approach has two steps. The first is to create the right incentive. To understand the importance of incentive we can look at the TvZ HOTS matchup. IMO this matchup is probably the most actionpacked matchup in any RTS ever developed (ok, I am talking just sc2, starbow and BW. I have no clue about other games). While this mathcup isn't particularly dynamic as zerg for the majority of the game can't really attack/pressure the terran player in any non-allinsh'h way. But lets ignore that for now, and just focus on understanding why it is so actionpacked...

Based on my observartions and play, the terran player has such a strong incentivie to army trade and harass the opponent for three reasons;

1) His 200/200 army is worse than the muta/bling 200 food army as widow mines (while cost effective) are supply ineffective. This means that he doesn't want the zerg to ever be maxed (especially not with a bank).
2) While bio + mines can trade somwhat evenly with muta/bling, they are quite cost ineffective vs infestor + ultra's, which creates a "clock" on the bio player. Basically he needs to be at an advantageous position when zerg has tier 3 units out.
3) Trading armies generally favor the more mobile army, and in this case the bio/mine/medivac army is actually more mobile than the bling/muta army (+infestor/ultra) army. The intuition behind this logic is that it is easier for the more mobile army to harass a 4base 130 food zerg army thats static defenses than a 180 food zerg army with lots of static defenses.

The combinations of the above 3 factors, results in giving the terran player a really strong incentive to trade armies with the zerg player. However, in it self these 3 factors doesn't imply that he can do it. In WOL for instance you could argue that the terran player had the a similar incentive vs broodlord/infestor. However, they simply couldn't harass/trade armies efficiently back then, so this means that the second requirement in approach 2 is to give the players the tools to "follow their incentive".

The main difference between approach 1 and 2, is that in approach 1 the harass/army-trading needs to be costeffective while it just needs to be efficient in Approach 2. For instance, if you have a much better economy it can be efficient to trade armies at a 70% cost efficiency.

This is highly relevant because we need to think about how the matchup will work depending on how we change the units. But lets first look at how TvZ in Starbow currently works.

- Does it use Approach 1? Reapers and banshee's I think are examples of "overpowered" cost-efficient harass units. However, I don't 2 units are enough to give it the "Approach1-effect".

- What about approach 2: One could argue that the zerg player has a strong incentive to army-trade vs the mech'ing player. But are his tools really that strong?, and does the zerg player really have a strong enough economy to make costineffective armytrading efficient? I am not convinced thereof.

What about when the terran goes bio; Who is the more mobile in muta/bling vs bio? I would argue that the muta-bling player is a bit more mobile as the zerg player (unlike in BW) can get a lot more than 12 mutalisks which makes it quite hard for the terran player to move out. Thus in theory the bio player shouldn't be interested in army trading vs that composition and instead try to become more cost effective by mixing in tanks and SV's. The clock will be on the zerg player here as he needs to do damage before the terran gets a critical mass of tanks and vikings to deal with mutas (or w/e unit Kabel will come up with).
However, the problem in Starbow (unlike in in WOL anno 2011 where the tank/marine vs muta/bling was really dynamic and interesting) is that the zerg player going muta/bling simply doesn't have a stronger economy than the terran player. So he can't really army trade efficiently. Thus he needs to play a bit carefully and look for cost effective engagements when/if the terran player is caught of guard. This isn't easy as bio is still quite mobile. So to sum up; The problem is that muta/bling and biological heavy units are too similar in terms of their strenghts and disadvantages.

What about when the zerg player uses lurker instead of banelings?
Isn't it the exact same thing? The bio player still needs to play somewhat defensively and tech to tanks and SV's. His best-response is the exact same thing as when he plays vs banelings, and I don't think that is particularly good game design.

I think it should be clear by now that the TvZ Starbow matchup isn't working optimal. While it isn't terrible by any means, Approach 2 could be improved upon by quite a lot by giving the players the tools and the incentive to create a more actionpacked game.

Suggestion 1: Further increase the mobility of muta/bling to improve its tools. Also consider reducing the efficiency of his 200/200 food army by increasing baneling supply from 0.5 to 1 as this will put a clock on the zerg player.
Suggestion 2: Reduce mobility but increase cost efficiency of the lurker to make the terran bio player more mobile than the zerg if he opts for Lurkers.
Suggestion 3: The counter to lurkers shouldn't just be based on the pure quantity of Scicence vessels as that will remove the "clock-effect" of bio. Make irradiate a soft-counter to Lurkers instead of a hard-counter.

But even with these 3 suggestions, the matchup won't work properly as the zerg player still won't have a strong enough economy to make a cost-ineffective trade efficient with muta/bling. Again, this wasn't a problem in BW as the zerg (when going mutas) wasn't as mobile due to the unit selection max. And, as should be clear by now, the mobile race needs a significantly stronger economy than the immobile race.

And in the end I don't see that I can do anything else, but conclude that the Starbow zerg economy doesn't work. In order to create the correct incentives, the zerg player needs to have at least +10 worker lead advantage while going muta-bling. I don't see the any other potential solution than;
Suggestion 4: Buff larva-generation efficiency of the zerg economy.
Suggestion 5: Reduce cost efficiency of speedlings (this is a neccesary change if suggestion 4 goes through).

Obviously this will probably be an unpopular suggestion in this forum, because some people like BW over Sc2, and in BW you would do XX with zerg. However, if you respond to this suggestion, please look at this logically rather than basing your arguments on nostalgia
Thanks in advance.