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The problems I'm seeing right now in SC2 all seem to stem from zerg. PvT, PvP, and TvT seem to be a lot better, especially with the marauder nerf. I think immortals might need a toning down, but that's a minor tweak compared to what zerg needs.
Everything about zerg just doesn't seem to feel right. After hundreds of games I'm noticing all the problems seem to branch from one:
Spawn larva is broken.
Zerg has access to infinite larva once he gets 2 hatch 2 queen. I have trouble spending my larva with 2 hatch 1 queen, adding a second means I'll be able to make infinity of anything I want provided i have the money.
This causes a very serious problem:
If zerg is allowed to drone, they can make more units in a shorter timeframe than either of the other races. Protoss can somewhat compensate because warpgates and chronoboost pump out units very very quickly. Terran is screwed because reactors only work for 4 units.
Therefore, to balance the game, protoss and terran are given the ability to keep zerg down completely: terran has reapers which on some maps actually keep a zerg from expanding ever. Protoss has proxygates which are virtually unstoppable, and chronoboost to get those zealots out ridiculously fast. In addition, terran has viking/banshee play, which if not scouted can end the game very quickly. Protoss has voidrays which do the same thing effectively.
When I beat a zerg, it's because I gain some massive advantage earlygame with harass, outeco, and then push while he's trying to catch up in economy. I have to be winning all game to beat zerg.
If I play a fairly passive macro game, one of 2 things occurs:
-I get steamrolled by banelings
-Zerg expands as well and drones up
Banelings aren't really much of an issue for mech, so that's why I usually play mech.
However, if zerg is allowed to drone up to match terran economy, zerg can produce so many roach you can't beat him. Usually what occurs is I do a midgame timing attack and his army clashes with mine and I usually am left with a tiny force at the end. Then zerg makes 40 roaches at once and kills me.
Now lets go back to spawn larva and see how it plays into this problem:
-In BW, zerglings were extremely cost efficient, but they also sucked up all your larva. It was a massive larva investment to make lots of lings, so you couldn't drone at the same time, and you couldn't make higher tech units too. Spawn larva increases the amount of larva available to the point where you don't have to make choices anymore. You can make 40 zerglings and still have larva leftover for other things. In 40 seconds you can do it again. This applies to roaches and banelings too since they are larva intensive for what you get. Notice how those units are the ones that are breaking the game.
-Spawn larva makes for ridiculously easy macro. Zerg players I've talked to agree. Zerg is easy. There's no larva management anymore. Just get your spawn larvas on time and you'll never have an issue. In BW managing larva was huge. Why ruin one of the biggest aspects of skilled zerg play?
-Lategame zerg is unbeatable. I have never seen a zerg lose lategame. Ever. The only time I was able to beat lategame zerg was as protoss and that involved denying expansions with mass colossi all game and required a mothership to end it, BEFORE mothership nerfs. That's 1 time out of hundreds of games. The reason behind it is this: Lategame is all about smashing armies together nonstop. Whoever can widdle down the opponent faster will win. This can be done through harass or winning repeated battles or out expanding. Zerg does this by rebuilding their army in 1 second. With spawn larva you can simply save up larva (up to 19 per hatch wtf) and then when your army dies you have 80 more roach or 160 more speedling at your disposal. How can anyone expect to win vs that when zerg units already do fine cost for cost.
So what I want to see in patch 9 is a fix for spawn larva. I want to see a larva cap of 5, so zergs don't get much of a benefit from just mashing spawn larva all day. I also what to see it reduced to reflect what the queen actually costs. Make it 2 larva. Why the heck is a unit that costs 150 producing more larva than a hatchery anyways?
With the spawn larva fix we'll be able to actually balance the game instead of provide a pseudo balance by making cheese the counter to zerg. Then we can go and fix all the cheese strats that are keeping zerg from winning everything right now. Once all the rushes and cheeses are balanced, and zerg is balanced in the macro game, we'll have a much better game than we started with.
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I haven't got a beta key, so my comments are kind of invalid. I can see your point though, it seems a little ridiculous the notion of 19 larvae per hatch
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I've talked about this in a post I made a while ago on zerg balance changes, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=116574 , I suggested Spawn larvae be made to spawn only 2 or 3 at most larvae. I also think there should be a cap at the hatchery, encouraging constant macro, probably around 6 tops.
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I'm kind of neutral on this. I mean yes spawn larva seems broken, but on the other hand, zerg really does need this. A good example is Thors 1 shotting hydras. I guess maybe make it so they spawn alittle less larvae?
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So uhmm...
Basically u are saying that if u let zerg build up 5k minerals and 3k gas and 4/5 hatches with 10 larva each, they can reproduce fast. Yeah, thats true, but WTF have u been doing till that time?
However, if zerg is allowed to drone up to match terran economy, zerg can produce so many roach you can't beat him
lol?
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I'm a platinum zerg and I agree of this message. Just make sure to balance it in another way in the end.
In every matchup except ZvZ I feel that I need to play a macro/defensive game and get map control every game. I'd love to be able to be the aggressor for once beside doing some cheese pool rush...
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@JTPROG Ironic how I've never seen that thread before and we say basically the exact same things...
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On April 09 2010 01:58 Defrag wrote:So uhmm... Basically u are saying that if u let zerg build up 5k minerals and 3k gas and 4/5 hatches with 10 larva each, they can reproduce fast. Yeah, thats true, but WTF have u been doing till that time? Show nested quote +However, if zerg is allowed to drone up to match terran economy, zerg can produce so many roach you can't beat him lol?
I'm busy taking 4-5 base and pumping nonstop from 6+ factories. The issue is not me losing the macro game because of economy. I often lose games where I'm even on resource count or even ahead by a bit. The issue is once it reaches that stage you'd need 30 factories to match zerg production. It's just not doable and you'll get worn down.
edit: oops, sorry for double post =/
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On April 09 2010 02:01 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2010 01:58 Defrag wrote:So uhmm... Basically u are saying that if u let zerg build up 5k minerals and 3k gas and 4/5 hatches with 10 larva each, they can reproduce fast. Yeah, thats true, but WTF have u been doing till that time? However, if zerg is allowed to drone up to match terran economy, zerg can produce so many roach you can't beat him lol? I'm busy taking 4-5 base and pumping nonstop from 6+ factories. The issue is not me losing the macro game because of economy. I often lose games where I'm even on resource count or even ahead by a bit. The issue is once it reaches that stage you'd need 30 factories to match zerg production. It's just not doable and you'll get worn down. edit: oops, sorry for double post =/
Replay please, this is obviously a direct outcome of you screwing the game up at some point.
And you are exaggerating way 2 much for this post to be credible.
Also, you do know that Marauders counter Roaches, not Factory units?...
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I've been noticing similar acts in my games. I'm a Toss and my Friend is a Zerg. We both agree something is broken in Zerg's play. It has to be the spawn larva. I find it just ridiculous to deal with. I can beat Zerg only with timing pushes (yay) or by waiting for the zerg to make a mistake. I don't mind doing the occasional timing push, but it does get boring. I really wanna play a macro game against a Zerg without getting steam rolled by a massive counter. (lol I tired mass Phoenix once, it got raped by Corruptors, so much for air superiority fighter.)
Two players of equal skill will favor the Zerg. "Oh wait hes about to attack me" Let me just mass w/e hard counter I can think of. Oh nvm, hes pulling back. Let me just make a million drones now." Maybe I'm just ranting, but who knows.
It really is frustrating to think about. I'm trying to compose non biased thoughts, but something needs to change. I really like the idea of capping each expo at 5 larva tops. It will definitely force the Zerg to have to scout better and make harder decisions, rather then just cookie cutting the entire way to a win. How this will effect ZvZ and TvZ is another issue I have no say on.
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Those posts are retarded, no offence.
Posting any suggestions on balance thread should require replays AND your current league/rank placement, other way its a waste of time on posting anything.
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On April 09 2010 02:10 Defrag wrote:
Those posts are retarded, no offence.
Posting any suggestions on balance thread should require replays AND your current league/rank placement, other way its like throwing a brick on the wall.
A brick on a wall... Good one......................
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the thing is that zerg needs to have more units than the opponent.
tanks, colossi and hts melt down so many zerg units its not even funny. zerg doesnt have any unit that could be compared to those 3. zerg depends on masses of single attackers dealing low damage.
you can either try to get t3 units or get masses of roaches and hydras. if you are able to get t3 units, your opponent messed up at some point.
btw. im 8th in plat
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On April 09 2010 02:20 imperator-xy wrote:
if you are able to get t3 units, your opponent messed up at some point.
The fact that you said this shows that something is broken. It should be a viable option to go to higher tech so long as you and you opponent are on even ground. If he has to mess up for you to go a higher tier that's not cool. Maybe I'm not understanding your post completely?
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On April 09 2010 01:57 IcMp wrote:
I'm kind of neutral on this. I mean yes spawn larva seems broken, but on the other hand, zerg really does need this. A good example is Thors 1 shotting hydras. I guess maybe make it so they spawn alittle less larvae?
Yeah, let's ignore that the thor is
1) Ridiculously overcosted
2) Has a slow attack speed
3) Cost a million food
4) Takes forever to build
If the reason why you're losing ZvT is because of the Thor, you're doing something wrong buddy.
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On April 09 2010 02:20 imperator-xy wrote:
the thing is that zerg needs to have more units than the opponent.
tanks, colossi and hts melt down so many zerg units its not even funny. zerg doesnt have any unit that could be compared to those 3. zerg depends on masses of single attackers dealing low damage.
you can either try to get t3 units or get masses of roaches and hydras. if you are able to get t3 units, your opponent messed up at some point.
btw. im 8th in plat
Mass roach beats all of those. Storm vs roach = meaningless. Colossi vs roach are actually ok, but you'd have to hit that critical mass of like 5-6 colossi. That's not easy to do. Tanks are freaking worthless out of siege mode, and only about even in it.
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You make it sound like zerg has some amazing winrate. They are barely playable post patch-8. I play random and I'm about to choose either Terran or Toss because they are pretty crap now. Maybe if there were maps wherein flanking was actually possible zerg would be playable...but in the current build with the current mapset... They arnt.
Roaches are supposed to be tanks, yet they are squishy and melt, hydras melt faster. And at this point in the game mutas are a nuisance but not game ending unless you tried to just mass straight zealots. How exactly do you propose a zerg win without any larva with squishy ass units?
Havent lost a game post patch to zerg, I've only won once as. And there was a game I should have won but apparently didnt set a hotkey and was trying to macro nothing...
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On April 09 2010 02:39 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2010 02:20 imperator-xy wrote:
the thing is that zerg needs to have more units than the opponent.
tanks, colossi and hts melt down so many zerg units its not even funny. zerg doesnt have any unit that could be compared to those 3. zerg depends on masses of single attackers dealing low damage.
you can either try to get t3 units or get masses of roaches and hydras. if you are able to get t3 units, your opponent messed up at some point.
btw. im 8th in plat Mass roach beats all of those. Storm vs roach = meaningless. Colossi vs roach are actually ok, but you'd have to hit that critical mass of like 5-6 colossi. That's not easy to do. Tanks are freaking worthless out of siege mode, and only about even in it.
my point was that zerg is what it should be; as a zerg you need to mass units that are weak at dealing damage compared to tanks, colossi and hts.
as a protoss, you can just melt big armies of hydras using hts or colossi. tanks kill every zerg ground unit in seconds. but those 3 have to be protected well by the army to show their use.
zerg doesnt have such a unit, zerg has to mass what other races just use to protect their key units.
but im pretty okay with that. as i said zerg should be about lots of units and not about key units.
additionally zerg will have no chance in a 200/200 vs 200/200 fight, so they have to get reinforcements very fast.
by the way pure mass roaches are easily countered by immortals i think. i never tried it though.
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On April 09 2010 02:40 dogabutila wrote:
You make it sound like zerg has some amazing winrate. They are barely playable post patch-8. I play random and I'm about to choose either Terran or Toss because they are pretty crap now. Maybe if there were maps wherein flanking was actually possible zerg would be playable...but in the current build with the current mapset... They arnt.
Roaches are supposed to be tanks, yet they are squishy and melt, hydras melt faster. And at this point in the game mutas are a nuisance but not game ending unless you tried to just mass straight zealots. How exactly do you propose a zerg win without any larva with squishy ass units?
Havent lost a game post patch to zerg, I've only won once as. And there was a game I should have won but apparently didnt set a hotkey and was trying to macro nothing...
You shouldn't base your evidence on your personal winrate. I feel like zerg is at a huge advantage against terran, as they are able to macro incredibly and get away with it. From my experience (and I could be wrong), I often have trouble trying to punish a zerg that goes hatchery before spawning pool. By the time my first couple of marines get there, they are already outnumbered by zerglings. I watched one of my replays where my opponent went hatchery before spawning pool. I constantly pumped SCV's, except when to make the OC. At the point I had 19 SCV's, he had over 30 drones, which is a little ridiculous.
Also, about the roach comment - as of patch 8, I haven't found roaches to be OMG IMBA vs protoss. With only two colossus I was able to kill a significant number of roaches in 3-4 shots. I basically won the games I played because I took the time to get a colossus or two and walk over the zerg.
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My suggestion is to nerf spawn larva and remove infested terrans, and give infestor some sort of ability to support your troops, like dark swarm, but in another way. Like buff to dmg or armor or somthing for short time when casted on zerg force. Or target spell like defence matrix but it gives the unit ability to leech life equal to the dmg done. I think this could make them much more interessting.
Actually this would make me wanna play zerg, sounds really cool
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EPT
