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On March 29 2022 17:56 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 17:34 Charoisaur wrote:On March 29 2022 16:13 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 15:44 Melliflue wrote:On March 29 2022 09:57 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 04:45 darklycid wrote:On March 29 2022 04:09 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 28 2022 22:19 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2022 21:57 Vindicare605 wrote:
Can't wait for the Protoss tears to come in and be like "Oh Zoun SHOULD HAVE won if it weren't for game balance." Are you going to post this in every LR thread? I wasn't going to until I saw the fallout from the Zest series. Yet it was exactly what happened. Only natural, ever seen terran in 2017 threads? It's just a mix of ur race not perfroming as well and fav players losing ppl get salty. And it was fucking stupid then too. Look right now, Protoss players can't even describe WHAT they think needs to be buffed about their race in order for it to perform better. I've seen shit like nerfing EMP (which wouldn't help them vs Zerg) or bringing back the Mothership Core (which is never going to happen) but nothing realistic about where specifically in the match ups the problems actually are. They just say "no Protoss players are winning" but they never say who they think SHOULD be beating the top players in the world right now. The only top Protoss who isn't either in the military, just about to go to the military, or just got out of the military right now is Trap. He's literally the only one. There's no top Protoss from Europe or NA bursting onto the scene either, so where exactly are these wins supposed to be coming from? And say what you want about Trap, but he does NOT inspire the same level of confidence as the lone Protoss hope that Maru did as the lone Terran hope not that long ago. So all this whining. It's just pointless. If Protoss players want to complain about balance the least they can do is come up with what exactly they think is imbalanced, because I'm not seeing ANY of that anywhere. At least when Terrans whined they whined about specific things they thought was unfair. I think Protoss fans are frustrated that they haven't won a Code S since Stats in season 1 of 2017. Five years without a win is a long time, and includes years before Stats and Classic left for military service. For comparison, Terran have seen wins for Maru, Innovation, TY, Cure, and Gumiho more recently than any Protoss. Yet Protoss has been in the finals in 12/19 of the last GSL events (including Super Tournaments) since the start of 2019. and 20/29 events since 2017. I'm going to cross off GSL vs the World because that event doesn't count it was a glorified all star game. So that's 12/18 since 2019 and 20/28 since 2017. Protoss doesn't really have a complaint about being competitive when 71% of the GSL tournaments played since 2017 have had at least one Protoss in the finals. Winning a final is a whole other thing entirely, just ask soO. Was Zerg underpowered because it couldn't win a GSL title for so long despite the fact that soO was in every fucking final? No. It was just soO not being able to seal the deal. The fact is and I will keep repeating this. Protoss doesn't have a player like Maru or Rogue in its ranks. Someone that is ALWAYS solid, always consistently performing and always contending. Zest is the most successful Protoss in terms of GSL titles and not even the most devoted of fans would call him consistent. You maybe could argue and I have before that the race isn't designed to be a model of consistency, or players that like consistent gameplay gravitate towards Terran or Zerg. That's a conversation that could be and probably should be had (more like it should have been more seriously talked about in WoL) but in terms of just not winning Protoss is weak? No, you can't make that argument. 71% of GSL events since 2017 have had a Protoss in the final. This idea that they deserve buffs because they aren't winning is completely wrong. EDIT: last point. That 71% btw, that's several different players too. That's not the race being propped up by one player like soO with Zerg or Maru with Terran. That's how I know for sure that the race itself is fine and not just one outlier player carrying it. half a year ago I would have agreed with you but recently we have seen multiple tournaments where Protoss just got destroyed from the first round on and this is imo just unacceptable, no matter which mental gymnastics in the form of 'there just aren't enough top players' or 'they just played badly' you apply. You say Protoss doesn't have a player like Maru or Rogue. I say Trap may very well be on the same level, but his race could be holding him back. When Protoss was still doing better he outperformed the mentioned players for a significant period. No. Trap is not a Maru or a Rogue. He can't finish tournaments the way those two can.
How do you know that's because of him and not because of his race though? There's no quantifiable way to determine the skill of players of different races. He's the best that Protoss has to offer and I don't like this way of thinking 'Zerg players are just better' or 'Terran players are just better' when there's no proof for it and that's just your subjective opinion or the way you 'feel'
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On March 29 2022 18:23 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 17:56 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 17:34 Charoisaur wrote:On March 29 2022 16:13 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 15:44 Melliflue wrote:On March 29 2022 09:57 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 04:45 darklycid wrote:On March 29 2022 04:09 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 28 2022 22:19 Nebuchad wrote:On March 28 2022 21:57 Vindicare605 wrote:
Can't wait for the Protoss tears to come in and be like "Oh Zoun SHOULD HAVE won if it weren't for game balance." Are you going to post this in every LR thread? I wasn't going to until I saw the fallout from the Zest series. Yet it was exactly what happened. Only natural, ever seen terran in 2017 threads? It's just a mix of ur race not perfroming as well and fav players losing ppl get salty. And it was fucking stupid then too. Look right now, Protoss players can't even describe WHAT they think needs to be buffed about their race in order for it to perform better. I've seen shit like nerfing EMP (which wouldn't help them vs Zerg) or bringing back the Mothership Core (which is never going to happen) but nothing realistic about where specifically in the match ups the problems actually are. They just say "no Protoss players are winning" but they never say who they think SHOULD be beating the top players in the world right now. The only top Protoss who isn't either in the military, just about to go to the military, or just got out of the military right now is Trap. He's literally the only one. There's no top Protoss from Europe or NA bursting onto the scene either, so where exactly are these wins supposed to be coming from? And say what you want about Trap, but he does NOT inspire the same level of confidence as the lone Protoss hope that Maru did as the lone Terran hope not that long ago. So all this whining. It's just pointless. If Protoss players want to complain about balance the least they can do is come up with what exactly they think is imbalanced, because I'm not seeing ANY of that anywhere. At least when Terrans whined they whined about specific things they thought was unfair. I think Protoss fans are frustrated that they haven't won a Code S since Stats in season 1 of 2017. Five years without a win is a long time, and includes years before Stats and Classic left for military service. For comparison, Terran have seen wins for Maru, Innovation, TY, Cure, and Gumiho more recently than any Protoss. Yet Protoss has been in the finals in 12/19 of the last GSL events (including Super Tournaments) since the start of 2019. and 20/29 events since 2017. I'm going to cross off GSL vs the World because that event doesn't count it was a glorified all star game. So that's 12/18 since 2019 and 20/28 since 2017. Protoss doesn't really have a complaint about being competitive when 71% of the GSL tournaments played since 2017 have had at least one Protoss in the finals. Winning a final is a whole other thing entirely, just ask soO. Was Zerg underpowered because it couldn't win a GSL title for so long despite the fact that soO was in every fucking final? No. It was just soO not being able to seal the deal. The fact is and I will keep repeating this. Protoss doesn't have a player like Maru or Rogue in its ranks. Someone that is ALWAYS solid, always consistently performing and always contending. Zest is the most successful Protoss in terms of GSL titles and not even the most devoted of fans would call him consistent. You maybe could argue and I have before that the race isn't designed to be a model of consistency, or players that like consistent gameplay gravitate towards Terran or Zerg. That's a conversation that could be and probably should be had (more like it should have been more seriously talked about in WoL) but in terms of just not winning Protoss is weak? No, you can't make that argument. 71% of GSL events since 2017 have had a Protoss in the final. This idea that they deserve buffs because they aren't winning is completely wrong. EDIT: last point. That 71% btw, that's several different players too. That's not the race being propped up by one player like soO with Zerg or Maru with Terran. That's how I know for sure that the race itself is fine and not just one outlier player carrying it. half a year ago I would have agreed with you but recently we have seen multiple tournaments where Protoss just got destroyed from the first round on and this is imo just unacceptable, no matter which mental gymnastics in the form of 'there just aren't enough top players' or 'they just played badly' you apply. You say Protoss doesn't have a player like Maru or Rogue. I say Trap may very well be on the same level, but his race could be holding him back. When Protoss was still doing better he outperformed the mentioned players for a significant period. No. Trap is not a Maru or a Rogue. He can't finish tournaments the way those two can. How do you know that's because of him and not because of his race though? There's no quantifiable way to determine the skill of players of different races. He's the best that Protoss has to offer and I don't like this way of thinking 'Zerg players are just better' or 'Terran players are just better' when there's no proof for it and that's just your subjective opinion or the way you 'feel'
The same way I know that Zest losing to Ryung has nothing to do with game balance. I watch and I pay attention.
Trap crumbles under pressure. I've never seen a player with his kind of talent that goes on tilt as badly as he does as often as he does. I'm more surprised when Trap manages to keep his nerves against a good opponent than when he doesn't.
If Parting had the mechanics that Trap does he would have won 2 or 3 more GSLs easy. It's a critical weakness of his, and I know I'm not alone in saying it.
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So you dont actually know?
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I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that.
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On March 29 2022 19:08 Nebuchad wrote:
I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that.
I think I have an answer for that.
There's such a difficult quandry here because as I said before Protoss is dominating the ladder and just isn't winning at the top level tournaments. Plenty of Protoss players are qualifying for tournaments though just they have a finite lifespan because eventually they're going to run into one of the elite Terrans or Zergs and their run will end.
So if we buffed Protoss just for viewership's sake, we'd be doing harm to the ladder just so people who watch instead of play will be more entertained. Is that a fair trade off? I think that depends who you ask.
This is why I think the maps are the answer. We can adjust the map pool, tournament by tournament if we have to, to make it so that Zerg is disadvantaged and Protoss is advantaged. We CAN do that. Starcraft 1 did it all the time. That is a way to help Protoss at the top level without impacting everyone playing on ladder, because what I do not want to see and the worst thing they can do is to keep buffing Protoss to the point where you're stupid to play anything else on ladder, just so that you can see more Protoss in later rounds of tournaments.
I'll tell you one thing they could do that would IMMEDIATELY help PvZ and nothing else. Get rid of the mandatory "perch" that every map has that allows an overlord to spy on a Protoss wall at the natural until an air unit can clear it out. There is absolutely no fucking reason that blind spot NEEDS to be there on every fucking map. Zerg clearly doesn't need the help so why is it considered mandatory to have on every map?
The problem here is two fold. Professional players hate playing on varying map pools and their opinion is who tournaments cater to instead of the viewers when it should be the other way around. And secondly, there aren't THAT many people who actually want to see balanced tournament results, over their favorite player winning and unsurprisingly the most popular players in the world are all Zerg and Terran players.
So there are solutions here that will make people happy. What we as a community need to actually do is decide what we actually want and then unify around it. Sitting and lazily saying "well Protoss isn't winning guess I'm done watching" is a cop out.
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On March 29 2022 19:21 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 19:08 Nebuchad wrote:
I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that. I think I have an answer for that. There's such a difficult quandry here because as I said before Protoss is dominating the ladder and just isn't winning at the top level tournaments. Plenty of Protoss players are qualifying for tournaments though just they have a finite lifespan because eventually they're going to run into one of the elite Terrans or Zergs and their run will end. So if we buffed Protoss just for viewership's sake, we'd be doing harm to the ladder just so people who watch instead of play will be more entertained. Is that a fair trade off? I think that depends who you ask.
We wouldn't be buffing Protoss for 'viewership sake' but to retain the competitive integrity of the game.
Competitive games don't feel fair to watch when one race just has better tools than the other one and it screws over a third of the professional player base.
Also the high representation on ladder could just be because there are more players at that skill level who happened to choose Protoss. That is not more unlikely than the hypothesis that at the top level the Protoss players are just worse
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On March 29 2022 20:37 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 19:21 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 19:08 Nebuchad wrote:
I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that. I think I have an answer for that. There's such a difficult quandry here because as I said before Protoss is dominating the ladder and just isn't winning at the top level tournaments. Plenty of Protoss players are qualifying for tournaments though just they have a finite lifespan because eventually they're going to run into one of the elite Terrans or Zergs and their run will end. So if we buffed Protoss just for viewership's sake, we'd be doing harm to the ladder just so people who watch instead of play will be more entertained. Is that a fair trade off? I think that depends who you ask. Also the high representation on ladder could just be because there are more players at that skill level who happened to choose Protoss. That is not more unlikely than the hypothesis that at the top level the Protoss players are just worse
It's actually a LOT more unlikely because the numbers are so much bigger. Sample size is everything when viewing statistics and frankly speaking the number of pro players isn't large enough to be statistically significant the number of tournament gold medals to actually give out is not large enough to be statistically significant.
The number of players playing on multiple different regions in multiple different countries ARE large enough to be statistically significant.
I'm not making the rules here, I'm just citing college level entrance classes to Statistics.
And besides, would you not agree that adjusting the maps for the tournaments is not a better solution than fucking around with unit stats when we can't even agree what units even need adjusting in the first place?
It's just a better solution. We want more Protoss to win and we're tired of Zerg dominating everything? We can change the maps to make it harder for Zerg and easier for Protoss and we can do that without making Protoss domination on the ladder more extreme. Come on, you know and I know that it's the best solution for what we both want.
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Hey, it's like GomTvT all over again. Protoss sucks and Vindicare is insisting that it's all due to individual performances and cultural issues.
On March 29 2022 21:16 Vindicare605 wrote:
The number of players playing on multiple different regions in multiple different countries ARE large enough to be statistically significant.
Statistically significant to what? That Protoss is performing well in this specific bracket of the online ladder? Great! Who gives a shit?
On March 29 2022 19:21 Vindicare605 wrote:
So if we buffed Protoss just for viewership's sake, we'd be doing harm to the ladder just so people who watch instead of play will be more entertained. Is that a fair trade off? I think that depends who you ask.
It's not even a real question. Protoss overperforming in Grandmasters is less than a percent of the playerbase, "people who play instead of watch" are not suffering from this supposed Protoss strength.
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On March 29 2022 20:37 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 19:21 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 19:08 Nebuchad wrote:
I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that. I think I have an answer for that. There's such a difficult quandry here because as I said before Protoss is dominating the ladder and just isn't winning at the top level tournaments. Plenty of Protoss players are qualifying for tournaments though just they have a finite lifespan because eventually they're going to run into one of the elite Terrans or Zergs and their run will end. So if we buffed Protoss just for viewership's sake, we'd be doing harm to the ladder just so people who watch instead of play will be more entertained. Is that a fair trade off? I think that depends who you ask. We wouldn't be buffing Protoss for 'viewership sake' but to retain the competitive integrity of the game. Competitive games don't feel fair to watch when one race just has better tools than the other one and it screws over a third of the professional player base. Also the high representation on ladder could just be because there are more players at that skill level who happened to choose Protoss. That is not more unlikely than the hypothesis that at the top level the Protoss players are just worse
If "competitive integrity" was the goal of the developer, they would not have let Zerg keep on winning world championship one after another. Also the recent IEM wouldnt be played on one of the most Zerg-favored map pool for years.
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France12906 Posts
Terran and protoss players fighting each other to know which of their race is the worst while zerg just shows up to win the big bucks quietly 
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On March 29 2022 21:44 tigera6 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 20:37 Charoisaur wrote:On March 29 2022 19:21 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 19:08 Nebuchad wrote:
I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that. I think I have an answer for that. There's such a difficult quandry here because as I said before Protoss is dominating the ladder and just isn't winning at the top level tournaments. Plenty of Protoss players are qualifying for tournaments though just they have a finite lifespan because eventually they're going to run into one of the elite Terrans or Zergs and their run will end. So if we buffed Protoss just for viewership's sake, we'd be doing harm to the ladder just so people who watch instead of play will be more entertained. Is that a fair trade off? I think that depends who you ask. We wouldn't be buffing Protoss for 'viewership sake' but to retain the competitive integrity of the game. Competitive games don't feel fair to watch when one race just has better tools than the other one and it screws over a third of the professional player base. Also the high representation on ladder could just be because there are more players at that skill level who happened to choose Protoss. That is not more unlikely than the hypothesis that at the top level the Protoss players are just worse If "competitive integrity" was the goal of the developer, they would not have let Zerg keep on winning world championship one after another. Also the recent IEM wouldnt be played on one of the most Zerg-favored map pool for years.
I blame IEM for that fucking atrocity that was Katowice's map pool this year. How in the fuck are tournament organizers going to let a map like Pride of Altaris be played in the tournament when there is already AT LEAST one other automatic veto vs Zerg in both PvZ and TvZ?!
But sadly, I agree with you. I don't think IEM cares about how fair the tournament actually was. If they did, they would have adjusted the Group stage because those groups were some of the most laughably imbalanced groups that I've seen in any "championship" level tournament.
But that's one of the points I'm trying to make in this thread. If we want to care about tournaments being fair we need to go at the tournament organizers themselves not just aimlessly balance whine on Reddit or TL.net. The Tournament organizers have the ability IF THEY WANTED TO, to move a lot faster and a lot more effectively than Blizzard currently is. There is a LOT they have the power to do if the fanbase really wanted them to.
So, I offer up that challenge to anyone that thinks Protoss is in terrible shape right now. You're wasting your time clamoring for balance changes, you're wasting your time for a variety of reasons. You want to see more Protoss wins? Go at the tournament organizers. Go at the TLMC. Get THEM to make adjustments because Blizzard is either too slow, or is not interested in making things more fair at the top level.
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On March 29 2022 21:46 Poopi wrote:Terran and protoss players fighting each other to know which of their race is the worst while zerg just shows up to win the big bucks quietly
Pull out the TY interview.
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Northern Ireland26223 Posts
On March 29 2022 21:55 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 21:44 tigera6 wrote:On March 29 2022 20:37 Charoisaur wrote:On March 29 2022 19:21 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 19:08 Nebuchad wrote:
I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that. I think I have an answer for that. There's such a difficult quandry here because as I said before Protoss is dominating the ladder and just isn't winning at the top level tournaments. Plenty of Protoss players are qualifying for tournaments though just they have a finite lifespan because eventually they're going to run into one of the elite Terrans or Zergs and their run will end. So if we buffed Protoss just for viewership's sake, we'd be doing harm to the ladder just so people who watch instead of play will be more entertained. Is that a fair trade off? I think that depends who you ask. We wouldn't be buffing Protoss for 'viewership sake' but to retain the competitive integrity of the game. Competitive games don't feel fair to watch when one race just has better tools than the other one and it screws over a third of the professional player base. Also the high representation on ladder could just be because there are more players at that skill level who happened to choose Protoss. That is not more unlikely than the hypothesis that at the top level the Protoss players are just worse If "competitive integrity" was the goal of the developer, they would not have let Zerg keep on winning world championship one after another. Also the recent IEM wouldnt be played on one of the most Zerg-favored map pool for years. I blame IEM for that fucking atrocity that was Katowice's map pool this year. How in the fuck are tournament organizers going to let a map like Pride of Altaris be played in the tournament when there is already AT LEAST one other automatic veto vs Zerg in both PvZ and TvZ?! But sadly, I agree with you. I don't think IEM cares about how fair the tournament actually was. If they did, they would have adjusted the Group stage because those groups were some of the most laughably imbalanced groups that I've seen in any "championship" level tournament. But that's one of the points I'm trying to make in this thread. If we want to care about tournaments being fair we need to go at the tournament organizers themselves not just aimlessly balance whine on Reddit or TL.net. The Tournament organizers have the ability IF THEY WANTED TO, to move a lot faster and a lot more effectively than Blizzard currently is. There is a LOT they have the power to do if the fanbase really wanted them to. So, I offer up that challenge to anyone that thinks Protoss is in terrible shape right now. You're wasting your time clamoring for balance changes, you're wasting your time for a variety of reasons. You want to see more Protoss wins? Go at the tournament organizers. Go at the TLMC. Get THEM to make adjustments because Blizzard is either too slow, or is not interested in making things more fair at the top level.
No, I shall theorycraft!
But yes. I get the rationale of keeping everyone playing on the same pool and it’s cohesive, but maybe tournaments should be more radical and pick other maps. These are pro players after all so it’s not beyond them. For a viewer we get variety and for non-elite players we get maps and new concepts played out.
I think Protoss folks are especially despairing because even on the last patch things were trending negatively, PvT I think enjoyed a period of Protoss ascendency, although marginal, but over time that maybe went past parity into maybe a slight Terran advantage. At least in big tournaments. Then Protoss gets a bunch of nerfs, and we haven’t really seen the impact of the changes that should help Protoss, but that may happen in time.
Plus the player pool is weaker again.
It’s the eye test really, the race feels incredibly brittle currently. With certain caveats like Zest playing bafflingly badly. Zoun beat Byun in the games Byun seemed intent to play ‘catch the disruptor ball’ but when he stopped doing that it was a different story.
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But yes. I get the rationale of keeping everyone playing on the same pool and it’s cohesive,
That's a nice idea in theory but in practice it's just keeping a Zerg favored meta, Zerg favored. Why is it that "standard" maps seem to favor Zerg more than any of the other races? Is there perhaps something wrong with the "standard" itself? That's a question I'm asking that I don't see enough people asking.
The last 5 years have been dominated by Zerg. And we've seen more balance adjustments to Zerg than we've seen adjustments to what we consider "standard" maps in that time frame, and somehow we're all surprised when year after year the map pool is Zerg favored at the global finals. It's fucking ridiculous that we're still clinging to this idea that this "standard" map layout is untouchable and we can't be using anything else.
Change the maps. Put out a map pool for a tournament that specifically is targetted to make Protoss have a better chance at winning. Just do it and see what happens. Pros are pros, as long as there is money to be won they will want to compete for it.
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Northern Ireland26223 Posts
On March 29 2022 22:33 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +But yes. I get the rationale of keeping everyone playing on the same pool and it’s cohesive, That's a nice idea in theory but in practice it's just keeping a Zerg favored meta, Zerg favored. Why is it that "standard" maps seem to favor Zerg more than any of the other races? Is there perhaps something wrong with the "standard" itself? That's a question I'm asking that I don't see enough people asking. The last 5 years have been dominated by Zerg. And we've seen more balance adjustments to Zerg than we've seen adjustments to what we consider "standard" maps in that time frame, and somehow we're all surprised when year after year the map pool is Zerg favored at the global finals. It's fucking ridiculous that we're still clinging to this idea that this "standard" map layout is untouchable and we can't be using anything else. Change the maps. Put out a map pool for a tournament that specifically is targetted to make Protoss have a better chance at winning. Just do it and see what happens. Pros are pros, as long as there is money to be won they will want to compete for it.
I mean I understand why it's done. Certainly for other games I've found things fragment into 50 different variants of modes and all, there is something to be said for having a sort of stock standard mode that everyone plays.
That's the argument for it, but one I do think is increasingly untenable and I do agree entirely with you here. I've been getting increasingly frustrated and critical at how the map pool is so small, lacking in variety and despite largely being variants of a cookie-cutter 'standard' map we still end up with a map like Pride of Altaris that is basically broken if the Zergy boys are involved.
And that's just ladder, which I'd also like to see changed a bit.Tournaments 100% do have the flexibility. Plus I think it would be good for the viewers and the competitive scene in general to have the pros figuring out more and varied maps
There's talented map makers for whom it's get in the ladder pool or your maps basically don't get played.
Also obligatory #BringBackTheWall
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Like I remember when GSL would make new maps every season keeping of course some standard ones (I'm not saying we need to ditch standard maps altogether) but having new ones every season for people to play on.
The thing is, the meta wasn't as understood then, the game wasn't as understood then. They were just taking shots in the dark back then when they were experimenting with map design.
Now, we actually have a goal in mind. We want less Zerg dominance, so let's adjust the map pool to give Zergs some disadvantages to play around. If the players are truly that much better as I think they are in most cases, we'll at LEAST get more interesting and competitive matches than what we're getting now. And, between players of comparable skill we'll be giving a small handicap to non-Zerg players because we DO want to see someone else besides Zerg win everything.
The worst case scenario is that nothing changes, but there's a lot of upside to be had here and likely it will be a change up from the same old same old that we've been seeing.
And it all comes with the benefit that we can keep the maps or ditch them after 1 season. We can use maps to switch up the meta much faster and ultimately in a much healthier way than by doing balance adjustments. We know this approach works from decades of Brood War. I don't know why we're not using it more with SC2.
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On March 29 2022 22:33 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +But yes. I get the rationale of keeping everyone playing on the same pool and it’s cohesive, That's a nice idea in theory but in practice it's just keeping a Zerg favored meta, Zerg favored. Why is it that "standard" maps seem to favor Zerg more than any of the other races? Is there perhaps something wrong with the "standard" itself? That's a question I'm asking that I don't see enough people asking. The last 5 years have been dominated by Zerg. And we've seen more balance adjustments to Zerg than we've seen adjustments to what we consider "standard" maps in that time frame, and somehow we're all surprised when year after year the map pool is Zerg favored at the global finals. It's fucking ridiculous that we're still clinging to this idea that this "standard" map layout is untouchable and we can't be using anything else. Change the maps. Put out a map pool for a tournament that specifically is targetted to make Protoss have a better chance at winning. Just do it and see what happens. Pros are pros, as long as there is money to be won they will want to compete for it.
what if we did something crazy, like give Zerg players 1 less map veto than everyone else lol
but yea I agree, we should try out a map pool that intentionally favors protoss (and maybe a little bit terran too)
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On March 29 2022 19:21 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 19:08 Nebuchad wrote:
I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that. I'll tell you one thing they could do that would IMMEDIATELY help PvZ and nothing else. Get rid of the mandatory "perch" that every map has that allows an overlord to spy on a Protoss wall at the natural until an air unit can clear it out. There is absolutely no fucking reason that blind spot NEEDS to be there on every fucking map. Zerg clearly doesn't need the help so why is it considered mandatory to have on every map?
For the record I think this is very true. One of the reasons why Serral can be so consistent in ZvP is that he always knows what he's facing. Playing a reactive race while always aware of what you have to react to is quite the built in advantage. I think a better way to eliminate that advantage would be to increase the amount of stuff that can be thrown at a zerg by a high level protoss; the fact that you could only be scouting three or four things helps in that regard obviously. But to decrease the scouting capacity would also work. The only issue is that it impacts every zerg not just the top zergs.
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So the perfect Protoss has Parting's balls, Classic's brain (and chin), Trap's multitasking, Stats' shield while also having Zest's bank funding him
Protoss Rangers Megazord!
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On March 29 2022 23:50 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2022 19:21 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 29 2022 19:08 Nebuchad wrote:
I know it doesn't really matter but if there's no balance issue this is more reason to stop watching the game, not less. That means our players just suck and don't deserve to win. Why would we want to watch that. I'll tell you one thing they could do that would IMMEDIATELY help PvZ and nothing else. Get rid of the mandatory "perch" that every map has that allows an overlord to spy on a Protoss wall at the natural until an air unit can clear it out. There is absolutely no fucking reason that blind spot NEEDS to be there on every fucking map. Zerg clearly doesn't need the help so why is it considered mandatory to have on every map? The only issue is that it impacts every zerg not just the top zergs.
Balance adjustments do the same thing. Adjusting maps can be done to only tournament maps, if we really want to keep it away from ladder.
But I think changes like this would be fine to have on ladder as well. This specific one I think is a long time coming because it's a crutch that Zerg just takes for granted. It was nice to have when Zergs were getting creamed by Immortal/Sentry all ins, but in a meta like this one there is no reason that Zerg at any level should have that much guaranteed free information.
These are the sorts of small advantages that we've given to Zerg via maps for a long time that we can easily take away if we wanted to. We can shrink thirds and naturals to make them easier to simcity. We can make unbuildable terrain in the center and flanks of maps to prevent creep spread, we can increase dead space around mains (this is something Zerg could use though depending) the list goes on.
All of these changes would have more impact on the top tournament level than they'd have on ladder. This is the approach we should be embracing. It's delicate, it's pointed, and it's something we don't need to wait for Blizzard to implement.
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EPT
