EPT[GSL 2022] Code S - Ro20 Group C - Page 6
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12425 Posts
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Xain0n
Italy3963 Posts
Also, while Trap faltered multiple times on the most important stages even when the meta wasn't especially unfavourable to Protoss(during the same period of time, to say the truth, both Zest and Stats, proved champions, failed just as many times to secure Protoss a "big title"), only one year ago he was carrying the Protoss race in a way not too dissimilar to what Serral and Maru had done in the past; sure, his form might have declined but there were no balance patches dragging him down. Zerg definitely haven't dominated the last FIVE years of Sc2; 2017 as a whole was good for general balance, 2018 was mostly dominated by Serral and Maru and 2019 was not that favourable to Zerg until Blizzard made the dreaded decision to overnerf the Warp Prism while also releasing maps ideal to harbor the infamous Broodlord Infestor which nobody had realized was going to be as dominant again; that move not only broke ZvP but also affected ZvT in which Broodlord's bugged range was making them effective against Thors, their supposed counter. Late 2019 was heavily Zerg infested with the excellent players the race could count on bringing home to 7/8 tournaments played after August, four of which had seen a ZvZ in the final. After BlizzCon, Broodlords and Infestors were rifghtfully nerfed but Lurkers were buffed, Chargelots nerfed with the map pool staying the same lead to a Katowice that Rogue won but that was definitely better in terms of balance. This leads to the point I agree on, which is that maps is have played(and would play) an extremely big role in defining balance in Sc2, especially with balance patches becoming less frequent. In fact, we saw an interesting thread in s1 2020(after Katowice) in which the simple rotation of maps without any further patch lead to a brief period favorable to Terran. In S2 2020 the map pool was changed again(into an evidently Zerg favored pool) and not even the nerf to Banelings and the introduction of Batteries(with buffs to VRs et cetera) was capable of preventing another streak of Zerg triumphs. Magically, after S3 and another change in the map pool, we were brought to the essentially good racial balance in which Trap could emerge as the hope of Protoss and all the three races were capable of winning multiple trophies; PvZ was still not that good of a matchup to watch(and the dreaded new Skytoss created a overabundance of Protoss in GM) but it felt winnable and only their nerves and/or good play from their opponents prevented Trap and Zest from finally bringing a Code S back to Aiur. At this point, the risks of giving Zerg a favourable map pool in this era of Sc2 should have been clear to everyone but Blizzard evidently did not agree, gifting us with the current one the 20th of October 2021. Since then, Protoss have essentially disappeared from the latest stages of tournaments; while Zest was capable of winning a Super Tournament, during six Premier tournaments in five months Trap reached a third place and Zoun went to a semifinal(Kings of Battle, technically a Major, didn't have a single Protoss in the ro16). Definitely too few and pretty hard to justify since it happened on the same patch in which Trap was enjoying success and Protoss as a whole at least decent representation in the ro4. Coincidentally, TvZ, which sincerely appeared Terran favored before November, is now apparently good for Zerg despite the successes Maru had in the last months. | ||
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Niravroh
165 Posts
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
On March 30 2022 04:22 Niravroh wrote: I think that among other issues, Protoss is severely lacking in talent at the moment, especially with Zest leaving soon. Imagine Rogue and Dark leaving for the military, and our premiere Korean zerg being Solar (or maybe DRG?). Not to diss Solar and DRG, but I think we'd all agree that there would be significantly less zerg GSL wins in that scenario. that's not comparable at all though because Zest is literally the Protoss GOAT and is still playing but didn't win anything in the last years except a single Super Tournament | ||
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Xain0n
Italy3963 Posts
TvZ was already good for Terran on better maps and TvP seems to be favoring Terran lately, let's see how the matchups develop after the new patch but I think that a moderate nerf to EMP could be useful if we were to limit Zerg using maps. | ||
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tigera6
3482 Posts
On March 30 2022 04:12 Xain0n wrote: At this point, the risks of giving Zerg a favourable map pool in this era of Sc2 should have been clear to everyone but Blizzard evidently did not agree, gifting us with the current one the 20th of October 2021. I doubt Blizzard was giving much thought about game balance since the VR buff around 2 years ago, my belief is that the map pool and recent patch has been run by ESL and the SC2 players community. So if anything to change the current status quo, it has to be with the Organizer. I still feel somewhat disgusted that they let the map pool completely unchanged into the first offline Global Event in years despite all the warning sign, and then acting the suprised Pikachu face (or not) when things went the way it was likely to happen. | ||
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honorablemacroterran
188 Posts
A big reason for that is it's so hard to predict what will end up determining games on a map before it sees a lot of play. Additionally. until this past TLMC, the contestants didn't even get to see the spreadsheet the judges used to vote on the maps. Also keep in mind that the mapmakers are nowhere near pro level themselves and they shouldn't have to be, but that level of understanding would be required to fine-tune the balance the way people are describing here. That being said, I think it was immediately obvious for the vast majority of people paying attention that Pride of Altaris could never be a balanced map. I am really confused how that was allowed into the map pool. I think that the panel of pros working on balance patches should be used to look at a set of guidelines for maps. We could also consider raising the number of maps in a pool to 9 and leaving the maximum games in premier tournaments at Bo7 so that even in grand finals each player gets a veto. | ||
SHODAN
United Kingdom1153 Posts
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honorablemacroterran
188 Posts
On March 30 2022 08:17 SHODAN wrote: protoss needs some major redesign not buffs! do it now while half the KR protoss talent is AFK. the disruption caused by major design changes are minimized while Zest, Parting and Stats are serving military duty. there won't be a better opportunity again It's just too much work to be realistic I'm afraid. That takes a long time and a lot of work, and if you don't want to change the mechanics of the other races either you have a lot of constraints. On one hand that makes the problem simpler to approach because you have less variables, but on the other hand, that also makes it harder to ensure that the other races have adequate counterplay for whatever changes are made to Protoss design. I think to redesign one race adequately you have to be able to tweak all the races. Basically, this would be a return to full time development, which isn't going to happen at this late date unless Microsoft has some ambitious plans for Blizzard's IP including Starcraft 2. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7139 Posts
On March 30 2022 08:02 honorablemacroterran wrote: The TLMC guys don't seem to worry much about balance at all beyond a set of common guidelines; they rely on anonymous panel of pros. Who knows how they actually decide as individuals what will get in and what won't? From my interactions with the mapmaking community, they seem not to take seriously any kind of balancing concerns at the level being discussed in this thread and previously in a few others I've read. A big reason for that is it's so hard to predict what will end up determining games on a map before it sees a lot of play. Additionally. until this past TLMC, the contestants didn't even get to see the spreadsheet the judges used to vote on the maps. Also keep in mind that the mapmakers are nowhere near pro level themselves and they shouldn't have to be, but that level of understanding would be required to fine-tune the balance the way people are describing here. That being said, I think it was immediately obvious for the vast majority of people paying attention that Pride of Altaris could never be a balanced map. I am really confused how that was allowed into the map pool. I think that the panel of pros working on balance patches should be used to look at a set of guidelines for maps. We could also consider raising the number of maps in a pool to 9 and leaving the maximum games in premier tournaments at Bo7 so that even in grand finals each player gets a veto. I don't know what goes on behind the scenes at TLMC but it seems that the more standard a map is, the more likely it'll win. And since some Zerg map features are the standard nowadays (Overlord spot, lots of pathways, open'ish third) they will likely be added again and again | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16121 Posts
On March 30 2022 17:17 Harris1st wrote: I don't know what goes on behind the scenes at TLMC but it seems that the more standard a map is, the more likely it'll win. And since some Zerg map features are the standard nowadays (Overlord spot, lots of pathways, open'ish third) they will likely be added again and again Which is why 2 things need to happen. 1 we need to agree as a community that we want to help out Protoss. And second, we need to stop voting on maps that are "standard" and start voting on maps that suit the goal of giving Protoss an easier time winning and Zerg a harder one. We could accomplish both of those goals easily by tournament organizers dictating what they want in the seasonal map pool. Blizzard used to have this role but they aren't involved anymore so we'd leave it up to TL.net or IEM to make those kinds of calls. The thing is, we have this fundamental problem that our map pool is being dictated by what's popular, and what is popular is fundamentally favoring Zerg year after year. So either the community needs to be willing to enact change through popular demand or we have the tournament organizers do it on our behalf. One thing that doesn't make any sense is continuing to put the majority of the input on maps on the pro players. It's a conflict of interest for them to be choosing what maps they play on because each voter is going to pick maps that they think they will be the most successful on rather than what is fair for the whole playerbase. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26505 Posts
On March 30 2022 17:27 Vindicare605 wrote: Which is why 2 things need to happen. 1 we need to agree as a community that we want to help out Protoss. And second, we need to stop voting on maps that are "standard" and start voting on maps that suit the goal of giving Protoss an easier time winning and Zerg a harder one. We could accomplish both of those goals easily by tournament organizers dictating what they want in the seasonal map pool. Blizzard used to have this role but they aren't involved anymore so we'd leave it up to TL.net or IEM to make those kinds of calls. The thing is, we have this fundamental problem that our map pool is being dictated by what's popular, and what is popular is fundamentally favoring Zerg year after year. So either the community needs to be willing to enact change through popular demand or we have the tournament organizers do it on our behalf. One thing that doesn't make any sense is continuing to put the majority of the input on maps on the pro players. It's a conflict of interest for them to be choosing what maps they play on because each voter is going to pick maps that they think they will be the most successful on rather than what is fair for the whole playerbase. Pros seem very good at giving feedback as to how a map works with standard play, or how changes in patches will affect the game Absolutely not so hot at shaking things up, for obvious reasons. They should definitely have some role in such processes but it seems almost entirely them who give feedback that is acted upon. | ||
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sim9999
10 Posts
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