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Going off of fdsdfg's post,
Let's say you get your shit through the worm. All that work, gas, minerals, is it going to really bend the game in your favor? Are you going to get enough of the T's infrastructure to change the tides?
One may put the Terran army off position for a short period of time, but one must commit a sizable amount of infantry to do so, you won't be able to take advantage of the positional opportunity anyway.
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On August 11 2010 07:16 fdsdfg wrote: I'm not complaining about balance because the races are pretty evenly balanced IMO, but P and T got SO much fun stuff - Z got a bit too, but all through the beta it was nerfed into oblivion until the only thing left to do is throw Generic Attack Units 1-5 at the opponent at the same time. Zerg was just made really bland for what feels like no reason.
This is how I feel as well. I have been thinking about switching to protoss for awhile even though I've been a zerg player since BW release.
Also the OP is a great observation. I really do not like the Roach. When I first got into beta they were over the top good but boring. Armor got nerfed. Then supply. Now they are just boring. They are only "tough" because every other zerg unit up until hive tech has the HP of an earthworm. Their gimmicky upgrade is severely diminished simply by using detection (compared to blink, charge, concussive shells which are all worth it all the time). They are "good" against Thors because they are the only pre-hive unit that doesn't disintegrate under its guns. And they have the most pitiful range. Frankly I wish they had not ever made the Roach. It's just a boring unit that has to be balanced around an ability that is easily "countered".
I don't mean to make this a zerg cry. I like hive tech a lot. I like infestors. I don't like the NP nerf (at least there was one other direct response to Thors), but whatever. I also realize that all races are not created equal, but zerg just are not really appealing. It's clear that they can stand up to the other races by watching pros play, but the "macro, creep everywhere, and have far superior positioning/numbers against terran/protoss armies (or avoid them altogether)" playstyle is getting dull. It seems more exciting to be able to 4 gate push or do a tank push or thor push or ANYTHING push.
I'm sure the grass is greener.
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It's true what you said about evolving. Who would give up Defilers for Infestors? I mean really? All the other races got to keep their coolest spells. Irradiate was removed but so were Lurkers. EMP is there (even though it wasn't that used in BW it was still a good spell). Psistorm is there. Plague? Dark Swarm? The spells that made Zerg equal to T and P?
Overseers have abilities that are just lol, I really hope they aren't considered the second zerg caster.
The thing is, Plague and DS were GOOD spells. They had good mechanics, they were extremely useful, they are interesting and affected gameplay. Spawning a marine that lasts for 10 seconds is not really interesting compared to that.
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On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote: Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss.
I don't know who started the whole "zerg has awesome tech switches thing" but I hate them for it. We do not have the ability to tech switch easily. When I put down a tech building I know it's is going to take forever to build and will be mighty expensive, so when it finally pops I better put it to good use. (which is why I LOVE that a few thors or turrets negates my investment in a spire) It's not like I can look at the enemy composition and say "oh I should build hydras now" and then boom get tons of hydras. Hell no. Not only do I have to wait for the hydra den to morph, I also need to get the range research because the range is pitiful. Same thing goes for roaches where I need to research burrow, speed or claws for them to be flexible. Same thing for lings where I have to research speed for them to outrun a reaper or hellion.
This leads into my next point. Terran are the best race at tech switching hands down. You know why? They can literally switch their buildings around to get new tech. If you want to go from producing 2x hellions off a reactor to thors then all you gotta do is pick up the factory and put it next to a tech lab. Instant tech switch. Now try to tell me that zerg's can start producing high tech units that fast. And not only that, but the tech reactor on your factory unlocks multiple units, not only one. The same goes for any terran production structure.
/rant Please, PLEASE stop telling me to abuse "fast tech switches". They are a myth.
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I don't know if it's been said but zerg harassment usually requires a lot of investment. Nydus is 150/200 + another 100/100 to place the worm (and you probably need to drop 2 to make sure they go through). Burrow move is 100/100 and then another 150/150 for roaches. These are all things that aren't very useful outside of harassment (I guess the roach stuff is good, but nydus is definitely not as useful).
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Ultras are good at breaking a tank line if they are supported by healing queens. Make transfusion into both a targeted ability like now for ultras/BL's, and also the option to slam down an AoE heal (suggested size FF/Storm/FG ish) so that roaches really can be used to tank damage and to some extent to help lings earlier game (they'll get oneshotted by the time terran is hard turtled but at that point you are going for ultras anyway). It would not solve a lot of problems the thread adresses (Nydus being shit, added macro/micro awkwardness -just to keep up- et cetera) but it would help zerg in the earlier game, and you wouldn't be punished to make queens as support units/casters and not just larva poopers. The extra queens well fit in with the extra creep spread and the extra defense zerg needs. Queens feel super underutilized except for just keeping up, it would be nice if they could be used to gain an edge, and making them not only the macro MUST for zerg but another support caster (which they need sorely) would help a bit. Maybe even make the heal apply a short temporary buff that reduces incoming damage, so that pre-casted even late game lings could have a reasonable shot at penetrating a tank line at least somewhat.
Add this with small tweaks to Nydus, tank smart targetting, maybe slow down their firing a bit to make it easier but still punishing to approach a sieged position, tweak some small number changes in damage or bonus damage and we'd be a bit closer to a more entertaining TvZ without breaking ZvP or TvP.
In the end, ZvT imbalances does not lie in numbercrunching but in size of toolbox and playstyle requirements. A terran can easily slam up a bio ball with a few tanks for support against protoss without having to scout what I have and perform reasonably well, and they can go mech against zerg without trouble as we've seen many times. A protoss player needs to decide to get colossi and get sniped by vikings or HT's and get sniped by ghosts (with the added EMP to boot) and a zerg player needs to desperately stay alive with a 4:1 base ratio advantage to -maybe- break the terran late game with a triple expenditure of resources.
Hopefully Blizzard does something drastic (they are usually reluctant to do so however, regardless of what the community says, just look at WoW) before HotS, and if not, hopefully by then. The matchup does not need small nerfs/buffs (even though it might help), it needs a serious overhaul without waiting for new metagame. The metagame has been tested for six months and constantly gotten worse - in the beta roaches were the be-all end-all zerg build and it got nerfed. Now mech is the be-all end-all terran build and nothing is being made. The main disagreement is not whether or not something is wrong with the matchup, but instead small disagreements about -what- is wrong. Nobody sees a realistic meta game change that will fix the matchup, if all options were not all tried and tested already I would commend Blizzard for holding out on any changes but it can't go on any further.
This is from a gold level protoss player who is -VERY- tired of PvT and PvP. I've played 25 ladder games. Only 2 against zerg, lost one and won one. "50% win rate, MU is balanced". Bollocks. I fucked up when I lost and when I won I won decisively. Zerg is too hard to play, Terran is too easy to play and PvP always erupts into gateway zerging until one side buckles. I tend to enjoy laddering but it's very, very samey. Fix plz. I very much feel the zerg players pain and I hope I get to see more of them soon, but it would not be because of changed metagame.
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Spending 200 gas per nydus network and 100 per worm adds up REALLY fast.
what do you mean per nydus network? you just have to build one..
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On August 11 2010 07:20 CommanderFluffy wrote: Going off of fdsdfg's post,
Let's say you get your shit through the worm. All that work, gas, minerals, is it going to really bend the game in your favor? Are you going to get enough of the T's infrastructure to change the tides?
One may put the Terran army off position for a short period of time, but one must commit a sizable amount of infantry to do so, you won't be able to take advantage of the positional opportunity anyway.
Yes, it definitely bends the game in your favor... plus you can usually retreat most of your forces and hardly lose a thing except the cost of the worm.
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On August 11 2010 11:29 Prdors wrote: I don't know if it's been said but zerg harassment usually requires a lot of investment. Nydus is 150/200 + another 100/100 to place the worm (and you probably need to drop 2 to make sure they go through). Burrow move is 100/100 and then another 150/150 for roaches. These are all things that aren't very useful outside of harassment (I guess the roach stuff is good, but nydus is definitely not as useful).
100/100 is not a lot of cost to put some sling/bling in their mineral line. 250/300 is not a lot to make them worry about a nydus worm.
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On August 11 2010 13:22 Jadix wrote:what do you mean per nydus network? you just have to build one..
If you only have one Nydus Network, then you can only build one worm at a time.
This was a ninja nerf a while back...
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Nydus needs to be burrowed until it pops. Require detection. And it must spit out units faster to be good offense.
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On August 11 2010 13:24 Jadix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 07:20 CommanderFluffy wrote: Going off of fdsdfg's post,
Let's say you get your shit through the worm. All that work, gas, minerals, is it going to really bend the game in your favor? Are you going to get enough of the T's infrastructure to change the tides?
One may put the Terran army off position for a short period of time, but one must commit a sizable amount of infantry to do so, you won't be able to take advantage of the positional opportunity anyway. Yes, it definitely bends the game in your favor... plus you can usually retreat most of your forces and hardly lose a thing except the cost of the worm.
Replay?
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On August 03 2010 18:46 Pabs wrote: Protoss and Terran have trouble attacking a turtling Terran position as well. I don't quite feel qualified to tell someone like Sheth that they need to change their strategy against T; but there it is... There are posts on TL every day from new players that wonder why their army gets owned every time they try to force the front door. They generally get the same answer... Expand and Take advantage of Terran immobility. I really don't see a different answer for Sheth.
Yep.
I play random, and while I definitely get frustrated blowing huge amounts of units on some terran with 3 thors and random crap when I play zerg, or seeing him turtle, while I'm taking 4 bases, and then watch him inch his way across the map even though I completely outmacro and out-mine him, I don't find it any easier to stop this as P or T.
I honestly think that terran is the problem here, not zerg.
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On August 11 2010 11:20 Clockwerk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote: Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss.
I don't know who started the whole "zerg has awesome tech switches thing" but I hate them for it. We do not have the ability to tech switch easily. When I put down a tech building I know it's is going to take forever to build and will be mighty expensive, so when it finally pops I better put it to good use. (which is why I LOVE that a few thors or turrets negates my investment in a spire) It's not like I can look at the enemy composition and say "oh I should build hydras now" and then boom get tons of hydras. Hell no. Not only do I have to wait for the hydra den to morph, I also need to get the range research because the range is pitiful. Same thing goes for roaches where I need to research burrow, speed or claws for them to be flexible. Same thing for lings where I have to research speed for them to outrun a reaper or hellion. ... Please, PLEASE stop telling me to abuse "fast tech switches". They are a myth.
Rofl, no wonder you can't tech switch, you're doing it completely wrong. Please learn to play before coming out and declaring it impossible. You DON'T tech switch by scouting the enemy comp, or losing an army, and THEN putting down your tech structure and starting your upgrades. You plan for a tech switch ahead of time, and only produce the units that are needed at the moment. As you progress through the game, you decide what units are useful, and place the necessary tech structures. You don't use them until they are necessary. Suppose you attack with mass roach, his response is to increase his armies composition of marauder. Since you already have a pool, you switch to zerglings (which you already have speed for). He adds hellions to his mix, now you make muta with your next larvae batch. He makes marines... but you already have a baneling nest and you run your mutas away, baneling the marines, and then put them back in. The terran will be tearing his hair out trying to figure out what you are going. It's the zergs who sit around picking 1 unit composition for the entire game and predictably just go higher in tech that get compltely farmed. Zerg have the capability to have an entirely different wave, in every single attack. This means the opponent has to literally be able to counter everything, and you can exploit the fact that his army isn't specialized. Thor/tank/hellion/marine might be crazy deadly to fight, but there are clearly some units that are better in this situation from others. Every time you make your opponent build non-optimal units (say marines vs your roaches), you gain.
Quite frequently I'll alternate waves of muta and ling vs protoss. He spams stalkers, I throw lings at him. He makes zealots, I throw mutas at him. He gets phoenix, I pump hydra. THIS is the tech switch. Rapidly changing your composition to confound your enemy's counters. It has nothing to do with the actual production of the tech structure.
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I'm a high Platinum zerg player (never done a 1v1 with any other race in SC2), and while I think the races are fairly balanced when they're in the hands of pros, I don't see that as the main problem here.
I'm okay with losing to people who are better than me and people who are as good at me. I lose my share of vZ, vT, and vP because the other guy out microed, out macroed, or had a better strategy than I did, and that's okay.
What's not okay is when a Terran who is *clearly worse* than me beats me because of the options his race has. As someone said further up in the thread, we Zerg need to be "x" better than the opposing Terran in order to win, at the platinum level. This is the problem.
There seems to be a lot of talk about what Zerg players could do differently / better in order to beat Terran, and many of these strategies are probably viable. The question is WHY should zerg be forced to pull out all the stops to beat a meching terran?
Here's my issue. Zerg has to go quick speedlings to stop reapers/hellions, has to fast expand and balance drones/units to stop midgame push, and has to mass expand and tech while still macroing well (creep, queens) and scouting, all the while carefully balancing units because the terran decides when the fight happens, and THEN he has to micro quite well even to win the final fight (I can't think of a Zerg unit comp that can 1a over a terran mech comp, EVER).
While Zerg is pushing his apm (platinum-level, remember) to the max to pull all this off, what is the terran doing? Where is the equal skill requirement?
It's not that Terran beats Zerg when both players are perfect. It's that terran beats zerg when both players are equally imperfect that bothers me.
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On August 12 2010 03:14 ToxNub wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 11:20 Clockwerk wrote:On August 10 2010 01:14 Svizcy wrote: Then there are tech switches that you can abuse so much more easily that any terran or toss.
I don't know who started the whole "zerg has awesome tech switches thing" but I hate them for it. We do not have the ability to tech switch easily. When I put down a tech building I know it's is going to take forever to build and will be mighty expensive, so when it finally pops I better put it to good use. (which is why I LOVE that a few thors or turrets negates my investment in a spire) It's not like I can look at the enemy composition and say "oh I should build hydras now" and then boom get tons of hydras. Hell no. Not only do I have to wait for the hydra den to morph, I also need to get the range research because the range is pitiful. Same thing goes for roaches where I need to research burrow, speed or claws for them to be flexible. Same thing for lings where I have to research speed for them to outrun a reaper or hellion. ... Please, PLEASE stop telling me to abuse "fast tech switches". They are a myth. Rofl, no wonder you can't tech switch, you're doing it completely wrong. Please learn to play before coming out and declaring it impossible. You DON'T tech switch by scouting the enemy comp, or losing an army, and THEN putting down your tech structure and starting your upgrades. You plan for a tech switch ahead of time, and only produce the units that are needed at the moment. As you progress through the game, you decide what units are useful, and place the necessary tech structures. You don't use them until they are necessary. Suppose you attack with mass roach, his response is to increase his armies composition of marauder. Since you already have a pool, you switch to zerglings (which you already have speed for). He adds hellions to his mix, now you make muta with your next larvae batch. He makes marines... but you already have a baneling nest and you run your mutas away, baneling the marines, and then put them back in. The terran will be tearing his hair out trying to figure out what you are going. It's the zergs who sit around picking 1 unit composition for the entire game and predictably just go higher in tech that get compltely farmed. Zerg have the capability to have an entirely different wave, in every single attack. This means the opponent has to literally be able to counter everything, and you can exploit the fact that his army isn't specialized. Thor/tank/hellion/marine might be crazy deadly to fight, but there are clearly some units that are better in this situation from others. Every time you make your opponent build non-optimal units (say marines vs your roaches), you gain. Quite frequently I'll alternate waves of muta and ling vs protoss. He spams stalkers, I throw lings at him. He makes zealots, I throw mutas at him. He gets phoenix, I pump hydra. THIS is the tech switch. Rapidly changing your composition to confound your enemy's counters. It has nothing to do with the actual production of the tech structure. The ZvP tech switch is by far easier than a ZvT tech switch, and even then transitioning against a P going phoenix into expand into colossi is a pain. Well, far from unwinnable, so nothing horrid.
However, the ZvT example that you suggests only goes so far. Against a T that isn't engaging losing fights with you and simply keeping his macro up, you'll eventually have to face tanks. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution against tanks. Not to cry op or anything, but against a certain level of terran firepower, the only way you can beat that army heads on is through pure mass. Thors and tanks are strong enough on their own that you can really take advantage of it by any of the cute tech switch stuff, and would need to start abusing drops/nydus/runbys instead.
What you seem to be assuming is that T will be making something just to counter you, and they will, to a degree, but it won't really work that nicely. Marine against roach won't work that nicely, but just the presence of two tanks in that group of marines has rendered your roaches that much more ineffective, and 2 tanks isn't that easy to counter. People joked about TLO's style being making a few of every units, but it works.
That said, I think tech switch is definitely a potent force, but I honestly think that other than lings, our only real option in ZvT is mutes and roaches, and both of those take ample hate. Barring a terran grossly misjudging a situation, it is really hard to take advantage of switches when options available to us are minimal.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina114 Posts
I must say I've not yet played a game of StarCraft II, but I've watched countless commentaries and read loads of threads on official Blizzard forums. Here are my impressions: Terran is both awesomely powerful and unbelievably cool. Every Terran unit and building has some kind of special cap(ability), can do something interesting. Where's the equivalent for, say, Overlords? Why can't they do something, anything comparable to what Terran has other than serenely float through space while being slaughtered? Terrans can cast EMP and Nukes, while a Zerg caster has ... Fungal Growth?! Can the name be any lamer? I guess it can - if it were Fungal Overgrowth. Oh, and 'Fungal' as in Mushrooms. Terran chucks Nukes at a Zerg, he responds with Mushrooms. +_+
It's a real shame Zerg became so boring, since they were always my favorite race (surprised? :D), but Terran is where creative play is at (for me). Someone noticed in this thread, 'Zerg are for masochists only'. I agree wholeheartedly, and when I eventually start playing, I will play Terran exclusively.
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I wonder if Ultras/lings having no pathing collision with each other would be neat
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I can see that choke points right now are too easily defended against a Zerg, and that given how the buildings work for Terran it's hard to confidently determine what they're actually building until you actually see the unit, in which it can be hard to respond to.
I believe most of these problems of 'turtling' Terrans come from the actual map designs itself. The smaller maps that have a lot of cliffs and tight choke points will favor Protoss/Terran as they become hard to push (Lost Temple, Steppes of War). However I think when new maps come out, the issue will solve itself as it opens more doors for Zerg to be more aggressive. With now some of the newer maps have wider natural and longer rush distances (Xel Naga Caverns).
Yes I can see that with small maps, narrow chokes and small rush distances, a less mobile army that has just shear power will be at an advantage, but as the maps progress in a fashion similar to Xel Naga Caverns, it will be harder for say Terran to push out without the fear of getting harass or needing to defend.
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