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On May 17 2010 23:42 Tray wrote:
Artosis is bias and his lack of logical reasonining in this article pretty much solidifies it. And if I'm being really honest, he's not a good player either. If he played half as well as he cried, he might actually be able to be a legit pro one day. Instead, since he's garbage, he's doomed to always be the guy who commentates and observes and not the guy who plays. Most of the Beta has already caught up to him now that there's a ton more people in the game and he will drift into obscurity upon release. I have a feeling you're "garbage" in both starcraft and life in general.
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On May 17 2010 21:38 Takkara wrote:
1) The skill level of Zerg players is significantly higher than that of Protoss and Terran. This was also at the heart of the previous argument during the Tester thread that "no good players play Terran or they'd never lose." It's certainly possible that there is a skew of experience towards Zerg at the very top of the Korean ladder. So what? I don't think that Blizzard is looking directly at the results of 6 Korean former pro-gamers and saying "wow, those progamers just keep beating everyone, let's nerf everyone so they're not so good." Blizzard has said they do balance around the top of the ladder, but not necessarily the top 10, or the top 5, or even the top 50. So, there is no logical direct link between an incomplete list of top players in Korea of the 3 races and the state of balance in the game. It's as if, now that these Zerg players are switching to Terran, you could somehow surmise that now Terran will be nerfed heavily simply because good players are now playing them. It's a total red herring. One of those correlation does not imply causality things.
I think they do balance around the very top players and not top 100. When blizzard was posting how zerg was dominating Asia server someone posted a race % of the top 100 of Asia. It was almost 10% in favor of protoss. In fact protoss was ahead until the very very top 10 of the server like the 2200+ guys where it was mostly zerg players. Those zerg players also had very good win percentages. So I'm pretty sure blizzard is looking at the very top players to balance the game.
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On May 17 2010 22:14 Kratisto wrote:
Has increasing Roach supply count from one to two really had that huge of an impact? I only started playing Zerg a week ago (my main race is Protoss), and that seems like a trivial change to me. You have so many larvae to produce from, so it's not as if you're getting screwed on build time, and the double supply means that your Roaches cost, on average, a STAGGERING eleven minerals more now? Does this cripple some specific, timing-intensive build that I wasn't aware of, or is this just the final straw in a long series of Z nerfs? (I started playing around Patch 9).
Also, I count 12 "usable" units for Zerg (11 if we're realistic and eschew the Ultra). If the Observer and the Warp Prism are "usable", then the Overseer and Overlord, which provide similar functionality, are certainly so; and while we're making fun of the Ultra, we should also note that the Carrier, Mothership, and Archon are all completely laughable units, which would pull Protoss down to only 11 usable units. Gee, look at that, one of your premises makes no sense. This is a long, subjective QQ based on some seriously dubious grounds.
Uh yes.
You would be shocked at how pathetic a maxed zerg army looks now that one of their main supplemental units takes up twice as much space on the supply chart.
Doubling supply hurts A LOT OF THINGS. Your maxed out army, your early/mid game because you have to build more overlords earlier. These things chew up larvae and resources.
And yes, it doesn't help that the Roaches have been nerfed since the game started. They used to be a unit that had a certain flare and could be microed to be amazing...now their upgrades are laughable and as a unit they are pretty bland. They needed a nerf, but they are going on nerf 9 or 10 if you take double supply into account.
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Wow, very hindsightful I gotta admit I completly agree.
I wish zerg has more units or more variety in them, but I feel zerg will become more complex only when the 2 expansions will be out, sad.
ps: by the way, it's per se, not "per sey". It's latin.
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Like I said it exists, but if you think larva management is anywhere near as insanely important as it was in SC you are really wrong. Scouting and awareness can usually indicate whether you should have just sddddddddddddddddddddddddd'd or not in sc2.
I guess you are right about SC. My experience as Zerg in Broodwar is limited because i switched to terran when it really started mattering.
However, I still think it is an extra resource that you have to manage and is more complex than the other races macro management, which I like. That is also the reason why so many Zerg players are as greedy as you said. You can make huge diffrence with good larvae decisions i.e. sddddddddddddddddd when the terran is too dumb to pressure you efficiently.
I can only speak for myself and I am still experimenting with Queen Hotkeys because my inject timing is not close to beeing perfect and this is were you see how painful the zerg macroability can be. As stated above you can just spam mules and Chronoboost if you missed one... with inject larvae you can't and another creep tumor will not get you an edge over it.
When I see replays of good zerg players losing, you can also redirect it to missed larva injections or bad decisions considering droning over units or vice versa. The problem is that you won't have that much of an insight while playing.
Maybe (and i don't follow them enough to be certain) Korean players are playing more predictable / standart builds relying on mechanics, therefore making the Zergs decision "Drone vs Units" easier and giving them an edge.
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I don't know if I agree entirely with you. I play on all 3 servers at 1900+ and I've had more close games and lost more games on the EU server than the other two. I play all races and I think the roach nerf wasn't needed. I really didn't mind playing vs roaches when they had 2 armor to be honest, but so far the nerfing of the roach has made zerg a million times more dynamic. Instead of 9999 roaches you actually see ling/banling micro as well as rushing infestor in the same manner people rushed defilers in bw.
Maybe nerfing roaches again hurts them to a point where they are no longer viable, but I think there will be additional tweaks if that'st he case. All i know if that playing as zerg and against zerg since the armor change was a break of fresh air and even witht he latest nerf I don't realy notice it too much. I still use roaches. I still have a tough time vs some people who use them. I lost a game to check last night ZvZ where i failed to scout his roach den and lost because of it. I was up 4-0 vs him before that happened using just ling/baneling micro.
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took em years to balance BW, while they're doing exceptionally well to have the game this balanced already in the beta, theres always gonna be a player somewhere down the track in the years to come who will discover something that blizzard will need to take a look at.
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The only thing I'd make, as maybe an alternative way of looking at the starting point.
Excluding movement micro and what parts of your army are where, Zerg have the following significant effects requiring army micro:
- Burrow, probably only significantly useful on roaches for most fights.
- Mind control
- Fungal growth
- Corruption
- Infested Terran #
While Protoss have:
- Storm
- Feedback
- Forcefield
- Blink
- Guardian Shield
- Vortex
- Gravaton Beam
- Mass recall
- Phase Archon
- Hallucinations #
- Warp prison phase mode #
- Spawn Interceptors #
And Terran have:
- Stim
- EMP
- Nuke
- Snipe
- 250mm Strike Cannons
- Auto-turret #
- PDD
- Hunter Seeker missile
- Cloak on Banshees and Ghosts
- Siege mode
- Viking assault/fighter mode
# = Things that are pretty much non-event abilities in most large army fights. I also judge them based on the assumption you have that unit. (Yes, you can contest me on any of those, I'm just talking general)
Take from that, what you will.
Personally, I see it meaning that T and P must use these extra abilities to the best to pull to equality in a situation of equal army/equal counter etc. Hence Zerg players are generally more macro orientated players. Yes, there are micro elements also involved in movement (ie. microing phoenix and vikings to get the best damage ratio out of them vs another air unit, or voidray micro abusing landscape or surrounding buildings to charge up on, or flanking/surrounding units). But presuming them all equal, I would see the Zerg having an inherant built-in easier time using armies, and definately not getting penalised for NOT using these abilities to their fullest.
EDIT:
Also the other point with zerg is that their major counter units are one of 4 of their main units. Either hydra/roach/muta/ling. That's it. If you are up against an army, almost always (excluding a few specific combinations) using a heavy composition of one of those, with light combinations of the others mixed in, and 1-4 of the other support units thrown in. It's a lot harder to make a hard counter of a zerg army, as undoubtedly they cover each others weaknesses so well. (Note: I did not say impossible, just harder than Protoss or Zerg)
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I kinda agree with Artosis' points here. The first one is pretty much undebateable: if you have fewer stuff, it takes a lot less time to figure it out. Each unit less is pretty much an order of degree less possible combinations. So it gets streamlined a lot more quickly. This is even amplified by the fact, that Zerg have a lot fewer combinations of buildings and builds. There is one production building, the supply comes from units. And it is even more amplified by the fact that Zerg games are shorter on average. And even more amplified that Zerg are very limited in their openings, the big variatins only kicking in after Lair.
So you not only need fewer iterations to find a workable build, the iterations are shorter. All this translates into Zerg being streamlined a lot faster than the other races (And also is amjor factor in them appearing stale).
The second point about Zerg being dominant in Korea because more former pros play it (maybe also because they can be streamlined faster) also sounds valid. But unlike the first point, which can be deduced about pretty much with pure logic based on the axioms of the rules of the game itself, it needs some real life data to test the theory. And as has been mentioned, deciding whether Zerg is dominant in Korea because of the players or the other way around can't really be done with his examples.
So you need to look at the Random players and compare their win rates when playing different races. That should expose the weaker races. Don't think that data is really available for the public though. All I know is that Day9 is worst with Zerg. Which would back up the original claim that Zerg is overnerfed, but also is just anecdotal evidence.
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On May 17 2010 23:42 Tray wrote:
Artosis is bias and his lack of logical reasonining in this article pretty much solidifies it. And if I'm being really honest, he's not a good player either. If he played half as well as he cried, he might actually be able to be a legit pro one day. Instead, since he's garbage, he's doomed to always be the guy who commentates and observes and not the guy who plays. Most of the Beta has already caught up to him now that there's a ton more people in the game and he will drift into obscurity upon release.
I think this person should be banned.
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United States889 Posts
Artosis has a point, and while I'm not 100% with him on this one, I have the same sort of vague feeling that there are problems with Zerg and Blizzard hasn't been fixing the right ones.
The most elucidating point about the Blizzard balance/unit creation process was when I heard, I think it was Browder but I could be wrong, say of the roach that while they were playing they just 'felt' like the roach 'wanted to be' a tank. That's exactly the opposite of how you should be designing/balancing a game. And since then, nearly every patch has included some balance change to make the roach less of a tank. Funny thing is, it still is, but now Zerg really really really need a tank because TvZ mech is extremely powerful and the only Zerg unit that can handle a tank shot without crying out in terror is the roach. It's all rather fucked up imo.
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On May 18 2010 00:19 LionsFist wrote:
The only thing I'd make, as maybe an alternative way of looking at the starting point.
Excluding movement micro and what parts of your army are where, Zerg have the following significant effects requiring army micro:
- Burrow, probably only significantly useful on roaches for most fights.
- Mind control
- Fungal growth
- Corruption
- Infested Terran #
While Protoss have:
- Storm
- Feedback
- Forcefield
- Blink
- Guardian Shield
- Vortex
- Gravaton Beam
- Mass recall
- Phase Archon
- Hallucinations #
- Warp prison phase mode #
- Spawn Interceptors #
And Terran have:
- Stim
- EMP
- Nuke
- Snipe
- 250mm Strike Cannons
- Auto-turret #
- PDD
- Hunter Seeker missile
- Cloak on Banshees and Ghosts
- Siege mode
- Viking assault/fighter mode
# = Things that are pretty much non-event abilities in most large army fights. I also judge them based on the assumption you have that unit. (Yes, you can contest me on any of those, I'm just talking general)
Take from that, what you will.
Personally, I see it meaning that T and P must use these extra abilities to the best to pull to equality in a situation of equal army/equal counter etc. Hence Zerg players are generally more macro orientated players. Yes, there are micro elements also involved in movement (ie. microing phoenix and vikings to get the best damage ratio out of them vs another air unit, or voidray micro abusing landscape or surrounding buildings to charge up on, or flanking/surrounding units). But presuming them all equal, I would see the Zerg having an inherant built-in easier time using armies, and definately not getting penalised for NOT using these abilities to their fullest.
EDIT:
Also the other point with zerg is that their major counter units are one of 4 of their main units. Either hydra/roach/muta/ling. That's it. If you are up against an army, almost always (excluding a few specific combinations) using a heavy composition of one of those, with light combinations of the others mixed in, and 1-4 of the other support units thrown in. It's a lot harder to make a hard counter of a zerg army, as undoubtedly they cover each others weaknesses so well. (Note: I did not say impossible, just harder than Protoss or Zerg)
you've basically got it. the issue is a lot more to do with the ease of zerg macro (doesn't have to build depots / pylons and doesn't have to build barracks, fact, starport / gateway, robo, stargate) and the lack of zerg unit abilities than it does with anything else
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Funny thing is, it still is, but now Zerg really really really need a tank because TvZ mech is extremely powerful and the only Zerg unit that can handle a tank shot without crying out in terror is the roach. It's all rather fucked up imo.
Yeah that is exactly what i experience against mech. My response right now is to rush for upgrades and to delay the thor/tank/hellion push with infestors as much as i can before flooding roaches. So far semi successful :D
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I haven't seen a single korean replay yet that was different play style than EU or US.
The only thing I notice is their apm and micro is off the charts.
This Roach nerf has killed zerg.
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On May 18 2010 00:23 imbecile wrote:
So you need to look at the Random players and compare their win rates when playing different races. That should expose the weaker races. Don't think that data is really available for the public though. All I know is that Day9 is worst with Zerg. Which would back up the original claim that Zerg is overnerfed, but also is just anecdotal evidence.
The problem with something like this is that each race has a distinctive playstyle. Different strategies are supported by different playstyles or personalities. Hence a Terran defensive playstyle might work well against certain MU's, but the Zerg defensive playstyle may not.
This means that if you are a person that enjoys the defensive style more, you might appear stronger using Terran than Zerg.
Example: TLO has a playstyle that likes to keep your opponent always on his toes, throwing back and forth between different ideas to confuse them. You see this with firstly his use of Random, secondly with him changing strategies with each game, from proxy cheese, to solid defensive, to speed tech, etc. When he gets put into a MU like his recent PvP failing, against a very strong Protoss player that knows how to counter all the strange Protoss strategies, he fails in the fact that he doesn't know the small details as well as a seasoned Protoss player. Going into this game knowing this as TLO is a very hard situation to deal with. He knew that trying out-there things in a mirror match would not work for him, and he was unlucky to get P those last 3 games. White-ra danced TLO's dance, while allowing his expertise on specifying Protoss to capitalise for him.
TL;DR version: I feel that the Random players personality reflects more in the variation of stats with each race vs. their skill level.
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It's not a finished process by any means. A blue poster on EU forums posted today in response to Zerg being boring as in less abilities+units:
It is actually a little bit off-topic, but as mentioned in the recent DevChat and Situation Reports the developers are looking into that and we are going to introduce some changes to the Zerg and give them some more abilities. We are really looking forward to the reactions of players on this one and continue to monitor your feedback 
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=24702037064&sid=5010&pageNo=2
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On May 18 2010 00:40 Powda wrote:
This Roach nerf has killed zerg.
Still too early. There are more changes in the line after all. Making roaches a little stronger again, especially the burrow mechanic is all that is needed for them right now IMHO.
But the overseer will get more options, the Ultralisk will get a buff, and the infestor will see some changes too. So Zerg overall will catch up again, and end up being more diverse, which is a good thing.
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Blizzard didn't nerf Roaches because Korean Zergs were dominating too much...they nerfed them primarily because they didn't like how strong Roach/Hydra turned out to be in pretty much every matchup, and they wanted to make this option less strong before they gave Zerg more abilities and stuff.
I actually agree with you that moving the Roach to two supply was definitely the wrong move to make, and a severe over-nerf to both the Roach and Zerg as a whole...but I do think that a slight nerf to the Roach at one supply was probably needed. I'm very interested to see what Blizzard has in mind for the Zerg in the weeks ahead.
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I usually take artosis seriously however this time I had to stop reading after:
Zerg: 9
Terran: 12
Protoss: 14
If artosis feels that his case isn't strong enough to stand this time around without recklessly exaggerating facts then I don't really see any point to consider the rest of it. We all trust you well enough to count to 14 properly, why not extend us the same credit?
Anyway stop doing that so intelligent people can go back to agreeing with you.
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i love your postos man. But i hate zerg nowadays.
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EPT
