Poll: Should Zerg's early-mid game scouting be fixed?(Please read post)
Yes, it happens at the most critical time in the game. (627)
62%
No, zerg does not have a problem scouting at this point in the game. (281)
28%
Poster is idiot, and I didn't read his post. >:( (54)
5%
I don't know, I have no knowledge of Zerg and cannot make a fair judgement. (36)
4%
No. it's not too important to know what your opponent is doing at this point in the game. (11)
1%
1009 total votes
Your vote: Should Zerg's early-mid game scouting be fixed?(Please read post)
(Vote): Yes, it happens at the most critical time in the game. (Vote): No, zerg does not have a problem scouting at this point in the game. (Vote): No. it's not too important to know what your opponent is doing at this point in the game. (Vote): I don't know, I have no knowledge of Zerg and cannot make a fair judgement. (Vote): Poster is idiot, and I didn't read his post. >:(
First of all I want to say that this is not a QQ thread. Feel free to bash me if you want, or agree with me, as I would like to know if others feel the same way. I looked through the threads and there was no real solution to this game critical problem. Please read through my situations to understand this thread in its entirety.
Many say that zerg has the best scouting. I do agree with this, as overlords can cover a lot of terrain, speedlings are cheap scouts and suiciding overlords is not as bad as losing an observer. Even changelings are useful every once in a while, that is untill they get a raven or observer, or just see their unit not responding.
Anyway there is a major flaw in their scouting in the early game. It's possible to get your drone in to scout any rush, however once it dies Terran and Protoss and easily block you untill you get speed overlords.
Here is a situation against Terran: I start by sending my overlord across for future scouting. I get my drone into his base early in the game and find he is going a standard opener (the most normal thing in the world). So I try to keep my drone in his base as long as I can, usually dies when he walls in and gets a marine to kill it. Anyway, since I don't know too much I go for 13 gas 13 pool into 16 hatch, so I can get speedlings to defend early attacks and to scout up the ramp. So with my first lings I send them up his ramp and at the top I see 2 raxes, one with reactor, and about 10 marines. So I say good no problem, and go onto make enough lings to fend off his first assault.
Now I send my overlord into his base from before and it dies because it is so slow, and it only sees about 6 marines and a marauder. So, what would any decent zerg player do now? Prepare for MM. So that's what I do.
I send another ling up the ramp that sees nothing new maybe a few more MMs. And decide to send another slow overlord to scout.
After I have a good anti-MM army I feel pretty confident and I start to tech to lair. Now my overlord has arrived into his base, and I find that he is going for banshees with cloak. And there are 4 already there. So I throw up my Hydra Den ASAP and lose.
After seeing a small MM army, who wouldn't assume with tanks?
Now I think this is a flaw because: - Zerg is a reactionary race in its purest form. It NEEDS to know what his opponent is doing and how to counter it. -This happens at the what may be the most critical part of the game. You NEED to know if your opponent is going void rays or 4 gate. You NEED to know if your opponent is going banshees or MM and siege tanks. It is the critical part of the game, because if you tech the wrong way you will certainly lose during the first push.
Those two points are the reasons why I find there to be a flaw in Zerg's scouting ability early on in the game. After I get speed overlords, I don't have a problem however teching for fast overlord speed may mean that you are defenceless to an early push.
I don't want to QQ but does anybody else think that a slight increase in overlord speed would fix this early dillema?
tl;dr NO tl;dr, please read before you judge! I'm talking about that early-mid game where you make your tech choice.
EDIT 1: A lot of players are saying don't send your overlord from the front. I never ever do that. I usuall send my overlord(s) to the side of his base. I do that because I'm a DECENT zerg player. Now if I were facing a DECENT Terran player, then he would know this and would place his anti-air forces on the side ESPECIALLY if he is doing a cheesy build! More and more players are doing this! EDIT 2: Go look at Chocobo's post on page 4. I think he answers many of your questions, even if they are just recapping my points
If you vote yes, then can you suggest a possible fix. Nothing to DRASTIC. But I mean like boosting overlord speed to 1.3x current speed so it gets across map a bit faster and can actually see something before it dies.
I would actually like the overlord to have a speed boost ability, maybe something like the phoenix old self destruct, only you gain speed for like 5ish seconds then explode
Legit suggestions: Boost unupgraded OL speed Make OL speed upgrade T1
Not so legit but might still work: Give changeling to OL (Though I doubt that would fix anything.) Restore burrow to being a cheap and quick upgrade at 50/50. (allow for early drone to burrow scout?)
I don't know about an increase in sight range, it would help, but getting your overlord across Xel'Naga Caverns would still take forever. And a self-destruct ability doesn't seem too Starcraft-like.
I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
I read someones comment on here somewhere, about cutting lair build time in half. I think this would solve a lot of zergs problems, namely faster hydras for anti-air, faster overseer for scouting and contaminating dangerous buildings, mutas before your opponent has 4 thors, faster roach speed for increased mobility (can't attack T/P head on anyways because of tanks/colossus), and faster infestors for neural to help with colossus / tank / etc. Something to think about at least.
On August 14 2010 12:00 RoKetha wrote: I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
In my example, right after his initial push I scout him and see he has many marines and a marauder. This tells me he is continuing his pressure.
On August 14 2010 12:00 RoKetha wrote: I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
I do the overlord pincer as well, and scouting is never a problem with me. The only time i am ever surprised by anything is if it is a well placed proxy.
On August 14 2010 12:00 RoKetha wrote: I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
I do the overlord pincer as well, and scouting is never a problem with me. The only time i am ever surprised by anything is if it is a well placed proxy.
But isn't losing your overlords that early on painful? And plus the issue here is that they take so long to get to their base especially on large maps like Xel'Naga caverns, so if they kill your first pincer, then you are pretty much blind for the next 2 minutes.
On August 14 2010 12:00 RoKetha wrote: I've seen replays of Artosis where he gets around this quite easily by simply positioning two Overlords at opposite sides of the base and pinching them in together at the same time.
That's all well and good but you realize you're sinking 200 resources into a maneuver that may not even pay off.
Also, the Overlords may die before seeing anything. Especially if you manage to get caught getting into position.
It sounds like in your example scenario you are delaying your lair by far longer than you need to anyway (after the first big marine push and you still haven't started it?) and that would leave you with limited options against banshees regardless of scouting. Starting your lair with your second 100 gas, even if you pull guys out of gas for a little while after ling speed, should let you get an overseer to scout with sooner if the overlord pincer isn't an option.
This is also an issue due to Zerg's patchy scouting. A Zerg player could scout a terran player and anticipate one thing but due to Terran's great flexibility a totally different build could be thrown at the Zerg player.
There are also timing pushes that would punish a Zerg player for sinking so much into scouting ability.
That being said I understand that it is not impossible for a Zerg to scout his enemy, it just seems a tad harder than it should be is all.
Try not sending your overlords straight into his base where you expect an army to be massed. Send them in laterally, from a different angle. They are flying units, use them as such.
I've never had trouble scouting with overlords/speedlings. In fact I don't even use drone scouts anymore.
On August 14 2010 12:12 GreatestThreat wrote: Try not sending your overlords straight into his base where you expect an army to be massed. Send them in laterally, from a different angle. They are flying units, use them as such.
I've never had trouble scouting with overlords/speedlings. In fact I don't even use drone scouts anymore.
I always do that, but that is where a skilled player will keep his anti-air ESPECIALLY if he is doing a cheesy build, don't you think?
Although you may not spot everything with the overlord pincer, you can get a good feeling if the opponent is hiding something depending on what you do see. I do not really know how to explain it in detail, as it is something you learn with experience, so sorry for not being so much help
On August 14 2010 11:52 Diablo117 wrote: I would actually like the overlord to have a speed boost ability, maybe something like the phoenix old self destruct, only you gain speed for like 5ish seconds then explode
On August 14 2010 11:52 Diablo117 wrote: I would actually like the overlord to have a speed boost ability, maybe something like the phoenix old self destruct, only you gain speed for like 5ish seconds then explode
Wow, seems perfect. Completely balanced too.
I'd love to hear an argument against that.
Agreed, I like that too. It doesn't change almost anything, but allow zerg to scout walled off opponent. You are going to lose the overlord anyway (and you rightfully should, terran scan also isn't free...actually its cost is really similar to one overlord).
I wonder how it would change the drop mechanics. You could drop incredibely quickly...but will you make it in time lol?
I think overseer from evo chamber sounds somewhat fair (as long as you need a spawning pool to get an evo chamber, I dont actually know if you do), but then I would like to see protoss either given the ability to hallucinate a functioning observer, or observers from cyber core. That way every race can get detection and scouting opportunites right after their first unit producing structure is built (Terran can get scan after rax, zerg could get overseers after spawning pool, and toss could get overseers after gateway) and protoss can finally go through a whole game without a robo, and win without just being lucky.
In fact I would really love to see functioning observers from hallucinate, just to get the opportunity to see hallucinate used in more games, and to see toss builds diversify a bit.
I don't think there is a problem, you can get an overseer out before any high tech units come out in sufficient numbers to scout what hes doing, but i do agree that it can be tricky and does require some deduction. Like in your scenario you should have been able to keep your drone alive long enough to see his second production building, fact or rax as the 1-1-1 im pretty sure you put the fact down right after the first rax finishes then put down gas right after fact, if rax then prob mm, if fact then either mech or banshees, if no 2nd gas but fact than some sort of big hellion play or maru hellion maybe (not too sure). This info alone will give you a decent indication of what hes doing in between the time you get an overseer out or OL speed, or simply just popping up the ramp in a lot of cases. This is the info you are missing from your scenario, did that 2nd rax go down right after the first, before or after 2nd gas, did he put the fact down right after the first rax finished and then gas or not? And yes you should be able to see these things if you run your drone around against 1 marine. If he delays things until the drone dies then thats the price hes paying to deny you info, this then gives you more time to get out your overseer to see whats up and is then the price you have to pay. Hell if your really worried about fast tech just steal his gas a bunch of times (cancel and immediately rebuild it) you get do that till he gets like 3-4 marines which is a pretty long time and is annoying a fuck. it does cost mins but again cost reward is a big part of the game.
On August 14 2010 12:46 Selenium wrote: Btw What is the difference between sc1 and sc2 in terms of zerg's scouting ability?
Not so much a difference in scouting ability. However in SC1 zerg can manage without a tech check, however it will get steamrolled in SC2 if it isn't watching the opponent's tech. Not gonna talk about what some may think to be imba, but what we can all agree on is that zerg needs to constantly scout.
overlord speed at 50/50 would fix this, make it so that it doesnt give overseer a speed bonus to compensate..or make overseer sped a seperate upgrade (make it even faster)
instead of having one speed upgrade for them both, generally once you hit lair, you NEED this scout desperatly.. since you want to know if you have to put down hydra den, build additional queens or a roach warren, a spire baneling nest .....there are tons of different responses for different information.
what you dont have is 100 gas laying around for a upgrade such as OL/overseer speed, since it takes a long while to research, once its done and you gathered the needed information, you are most likely dead.
which is why atleast I personally morph an overseer the instant I hit lair, unless I dont already have the all the info I need.
upgrading the default OL speed or sight would mess to much with the game and is unneccesary.
you hit lair, you need scouting..what do you create a unit that pre-empts cloaked units and scouts, and is almost instantly morphed....or an equally expensive upgrade that takes ages to research???
Honestly, fixing the OL speed + buffing the timer/removing the latest neural parasite nerf would fix Zerg against terran imo. Looks like small changes but they are essential, previous nerfs/buffs that seemed small have proven to be huge ingame, just look at the concusive shell upgrade. or stim research cost decrease.
On August 14 2010 12:51 TangJuice wrote: I don't think there is a problem, you can get an overseer out before any high tech units come out in sufficient numbers to scout what hes doing, but i do agree that it can be tricky and does require some deduction. Like in your scenario you should have been able to keep your drone alive long enough to see his second production building, fact or rax as the 1-1-1 im pretty sure you put the fact down right after the first rax finishes then put down gas right after fact, if rax then prob mm, if fact then either mech or banshees, if no 2nd gas but fact than some sort of big hellion play or maru hellion maybe (not too sure). This info alone will give you a decent indication of what hes doing in between the time you get an overseer out or OL speed, or simply just popping up the ramp in a lot of cases. This is the info you are missing from your scenario, did that 2nd rax go down right after the first, before or after 2nd gas, did he put the fact down right after the first rax finished and then gas or not? And yes you should be able to see these things if you run your drone around against 1 marine. If he delays things until the drone dies then thats the price hes paying to deny you info, this then gives you more time to get out your overseer to see whats up and is then the price you have to pay. Hell if your really worried about fast tech just steal his gas a bunch of times (cancel and immediately rebuild it) you get do that till he gets like 3-4 marines which is a pretty long time and is annoying a fuck. it does cost mins but again cost reward is a big part of the game.
First Scout: Marine army Second scout: continue to MM Third scout: denied assumed MM siege tank Fourth scout: Fat, slow overlord is busy hauling his *** across the map Fourth scout arrives: Sees 4 banshees, then dies.
I suggest you play a little bit terran+protoss to get a feeling for how many units he should have with MM, etc. I had never really trouble scouting what my opponent is doing.
I think something very minor needs to be done. The only way a zerg can scout banshees in ZvT is sacrificing overlord at 30 food OR running up ramp with lings and seeing 3-4 marines.
First Scout: Marine army Second scout: continue to MM Third scout: denied assumed MM siege tank Fourth scout: Fat, slow overlord is busy hauling his *** across the map Fourth scout arrives: Sees 4 banshees, then dies.
You should have had your first two or three overlords rallied to the cliffs around his base to begin with. If one dies, send another to replace it ahead of time. You're not supposed to begin moving the overlord to his base when you want to scout him, lol.
On August 14 2010 13:07 vengee wrote: I think something very minor needs to be done. The only way a zerg can scout banshees in ZvT is sacrificing overlord at 30 food OR running up ramp with lings and seeing 3-4 marines.
Or maybe just, expect banshees after he doesn't push with a ground army for awhile? You learn to get a feel for these things. One or two spore crawlers at each hatch isn't a big deal to keep you safe.
Sc2 is a game of a triangular balance, every race have something good but have somewhat inferior. Except for Terran, which half pro occidental players claims to be kinda op. Zerg may have weak scouting early mid game, but its only against Terran, and in compensation you got strong scout mid-late game.
On August 14 2010 12:10 TofuD wrote:That's all well and good but you realize you're sinking 200 resources into a maneuver that may not even pay off.
Also, the Overlords may die before seeing anything. Especially if you manage to get caught getting into position.
A scan costs 270 minerals and sees even less than what an overlord can.
No it doesn't. And are you crazy? Scan has an incredible radius whereas the overlord is slow as balls.
How do you figure it doesn't? A scan takes up energy that could be used for a MULE, which gets you 270 minerals more than you would have had otherwise, barring the chance of your mineral line being harassed.
And overlords may be slow but they still have a decent sight radius. Not to mention they FLY. People must be using their ovies extremely stupidly if they can't get the information they need out of them.
i dont know, shouldn't you already have a lair by the time 4 banshees are out? I mean, i personally don't spawn queens until i have a lair I don't see a point in halting teching to a lair and trying to hold off with lings. And as somebody has stated previously, an overlord pinch is a great way to scout. And get overlord speed asap! amagad!
On August 14 2010 11:56 Linden wrote: suggestion: make it possible to get overseers with evo chamber instead of lair
This would not change anything really. Overseers costs 100 gas and lair costs 100 gas so who would choose an overseer over a lair? Your lair is easily able to get up before any bancheese or void rays arrive.
Split the overlord speed and overseer speed upgrades for 50/50 each. It's not viable to upgrade to lair and get the overlord speed just so you can sacrifice it.
On August 14 2010 12:10 TofuD wrote:That's all well and good but you realize you're sinking 200 resources into a maneuver that may not even pay off.
Also, the Overlords may die before seeing anything. Especially if you manage to get caught getting into position.
A scan costs 270 minerals and sees even less than what an overlord can.
That scan does not actually cost you 270 minerals. Yes you lose mining time because you don't have MULEs to extract said 270 but you are NOT spending 270 per cast.
You can still produce SCVs and maintain economy. It is faulty logic to believe that MULEs magically generate 270 minerals, or that a scan or supply depot drop costs you 270 to casts.
Im a 100% dedicated zerg player and while i won't lie, another option for scouting is always welcome, i dont think it's necessary. OLs work fine early obviously, then anything past that, either a quick upgrade to lair then OL speed, or if OL speed will take too long just morph an overseer. Im not certain on this, but i think an overseer is about just as far down the tech tree as an observer, and not only does it move faster, but it also has the changeling which is great if you can sneak him in your enemies army
If you are having trouble with beginning-mid game scouting just morph in an overseer and sneak a peek. That way, if he does turn out to be doing Destiny-Cloud-Fist build then at least you'll have a detector ready anyway.
On August 14 2010 14:00 Iggyhopper wrote: Split the overlord speed and overseer speed upgrades for 50/50 each. It's not viable to upgrade to lair and get the overlord speed just so you can sacrifice it.
I hate the way people throw around the word "viable." What the fuck does that even mean? Do you mean sacrificing an OL after getting OL speed to be cost inefficient? If that's what you're saying, you would need to back it up with some ARGUMENTS as to why it is in fact cost inefficient. Overall, your post means almost nothing.
Seems to me that toss has the same problem except worse, as they have no ability to scout before hallucination and observer, which are higher tech than lair.
It doesn't seem to me, from my limited experience, nor my spectation of professional games, that there is a problem.
It is faulty logic to believe that MULEs magically generate 270 minerals, or that a scan or supply depot drop costs you 270 to casts.
I don't see how. If you use a MULE, you get 270 minerals. If you use a scan, you don't. Therefore you miss out on 270 minerals in order to use a scan... The only other thing to add is that the 270 minerals aren't instant, they come over time.
On August 14 2010 14:00 Iggyhopper wrote: Split the overlord speed and overseer speed upgrades for 50/50 each. It's not viable to upgrade to lair and get the overlord speed just so you can sacrifice it.
I hate the way people throw around the word "viable." What the fuck does that even mean? Do you mean sacrificing an OL after getting OL speed to be cost inefficient? If that's what you're saying, you would need to back it up with some ARGUMENTS as to why it is in fact cost inefficient. Overall, your post means almost nothing.
My post contributes a possible solution for patchy scouting (if Blizzard ever decides to change something). The second statement is an opinion. Learn to read.
How is this different from the problems that either P or T faces? Scans are completely unreliable early, and unless P does a fast scouting build, he's in the dark too.
I play Zerg. High ranked plat (#2-7). Zerg's scouting is tricky to figure out, but once you do it's actually really good.
I use the 2 overlord pincer early game. Send my first overlord to the cliff on one side of the enemy main, I send the second overlord to the opposite side of the main (usually between main and nat). I keep the second overlord close enough to the nat to see when the opponent lays down an expansion.
As soon as I get lair, I turn my first Overlord (already at his base) into an overseer. Mutation takes like 10 seconds... very quick. I drop a changeling on the ledge just inside his base and can scout the entire base.
I think one of the biggest problems Zerg players have is they put off getting their Lair for too long. I know I have lost my share of games because I didn't get my lair soon enough and was just too slow to stop an early air attack. Another thing I have started doing, is if I don't fast expand I will often build a second hatch in my main for more larva, and more queens, and ability to train a queen while morphing that lair.
Some things I look for: vs. P - If I see a Cybernetics Core with my inital scout, I get a fast lair. If I see 2 Gates, I get ling speed, then lair, or sometimes roaches as well. vs. T - Honestly, my scouting vs T is kinda weak.. but I mostly look for how many barracks he is building, and if he is getting a fast factory. If he goes fast factory, go for fast lair. vs. Z - Usually throw down a second hatch in main, and 1-2 spine crawlers, and speedlings. I scout for roach/baneling nest/lair, and try to find out how many lings he has. Once I fight off initial rush, or see him expand, or see him go lair, I get lair.
On August 14 2010 14:08 Kigari wrote: Yay changeling. Yay overseer !
YAY NOOBS !
great post ! not,
I don't think zerg need any buff/nerf to their scouting, simply because their scouting later in the game makes up for the fact that they can't scout easy earlly on, if you think about it protoss are in the same boat, if their probe gets killed before they have enough information to scout from then on they have to get a robo, eventho they maybe didnt plan on using it in their build. Terran get a scan early but using that first scan looses them 270 minerals (I know it doesnt cost 270 to cast a scan, but its 270 minerals they otherwise could have had, opportunity cost i think its called). Zerg beeing a reactive race i probablly can agree on, but that doesn't mean that the zerg doesn't have any "safe" builds.
On August 14 2010 12:46 Selenium wrote: Btw What is the difference between sc1 and sc2 in terms of zerg's scouting ability?
Not so much a difference in scouting ability. However in SC1 zerg can manage without a tech check, however it will get steamrolled in SC2 if it isn't watching the opponent's tech. Not gonna talk about what some may think to be imba, but what we can all agree on is that zerg needs to constantly scout.
No they can't. If you are any decent in BW you'd always be sending ling scouts to make sure the other player isn't moving out before you have sunkens up. Likewise in SC2 you should be constantly having lings below the ramp to check army movements.
Zerg scouting is fine. You've got a flying unit to start off with so use it to the best of your ability.
I play zerg. About 500 diamond. I feel as tho having to sacrifice 200 minerals and supply early game to *possibly gain scouting information is difficult. On 1v1 maps the pincer works or if you're lucky just 1 ovie. But on maps like lost temple where you're overlords make take a long time to reach the enemy base, and all that time opens them up to being killed rather easily by a decent player. This leaves you completely blind.
I think a change should at least be considered for this reason: it seems Zerg is a very defensive race early game and thus must react appropriately to enemy army composition and the ovie currently isn't reliable enough to be fully balanced.
On August 14 2010 12:46 Selenium wrote: Btw What is the difference between sc1 and sc2 in terms of zerg's scouting ability?
Not so much a difference in scouting ability. However in SC1 zerg can manage without a tech check, however it will get steamrolled in SC2 if it isn't watching the opponent's tech. Not gonna talk about what some may think to be imba, but what we can all agree on is that zerg needs to constantly scout.
No they can't. If you are any decent in BW you'd always be sending ling scouts to make sure the other player isn't moving out before you have sunkens up. Likewise in SC2 you should be constantly having lings below the ramp to check army movements.
Zerg scouting is fine. You've got a flying unit to start off with so use it to the best of your ability.
Although in SC2 by the time your ling sees the other player moving out, it's already too late, as he will be at your base when your spine crawlers are half done.
No offense but I think some of the "zerg scouting is good" players are not facing opponents who are good vs zerg.
Good players know overlords won't be coming straight in, they approach from the sides. Since he's walling off anyway, might as well place extra marines/stalkers on the side so that the "overlord pinch" isn't a good option. Especially if he's going for quick air or something unusual.
Suiciding an overlord isn't even good enough, they're too slow to see anything much of the time.
Naventus: it's different from what P or T faces. Scan instantly reveals everything... just learn to use it at the right time (yes if it's too early you don't get the info you need). Protoss is in the dark early, but once an observer pops out it's an endless source of info.
Also a major factor is how you don't need to scout AGAINST zerg. When's the last time a zerg did some totally unexpected cheese build against you? It's pretty much going to be an assorted ground army every single time. Muta harrass just doesn't really happen in this game... the only thing you need to look out for is nydus. And even if mutas show up, both P and T will already have anti-air at some level.
Zerg NEEDS to scout so badly and their opponents can save the time and money and not even bother... so it confuses me why it's the other race that gets the easy all-revealing scan.
I know there's fifty zillion "my stuff is underpowered, make it stronger and nerf everyone else" idiots in every single game out there, and the wait-and-see attitude is almost always a smart one. But I think sometimes it's just pretty clear that one race needs some help... zerg consistently wins less and ranks lower across the board. (IdrA is some kind of magical superbeing, I'm not certain he actually exists)
This isn't like SC1... it's not like "oh people just haven't learned to use ____ right yet". There are so few units available to use, and there's only so much you can do with them. It's extremely unlikely mutas will become effective... they're countered so easily and harrass just isn't effective. Infestors would be good, except medivacs heal everything back up and zerg is so slow off-creep that the speed difference doesn't matter.
The ONLY thing that hasn't been explored fully is burrow... I haven't seen anyone really effectively use it with roaches to fight-heal-fight-heal and there could be some real potential there. But again, once you see it happen, just get detection... I can't imagine it would be a gamechanger.
Personally I would love to see replays of people who think Zerg scouting is bad during early - mid game. It's not any worse than Protoss' scouting during that time, at the very least.
If you don't just fly your overlord straight in there regardless of what you see then you should get a good scout off most times. If there is a spotter pylon/depot there, go around it (OLs have greater sight range than buildings).
If you suspect there are units waiting for your overlord to come in, poke in at the wall off with a few zerglings. You'd be surprised by the number of people who will move their units to the wall at that point.
I never get less than half of their base with my overlord (most of the time I see every tech structure), and the times I do I have at least one other overlord positioned nearby in case.
All that combined with a good degree of game sense, and you should be fine. I really don't see what all the complaints are about.
On August 14 2010 15:32 TedJustice wrote: You're just facing good players who begin teching up as soon as they kill your overlord. Send another one right after just to be sure, or something.
It gets harder to scout with an Overlord as times passes (until you get Lair tech), not easier. The Terran will probably have more marines at the edge of his base if he wants to deny scouting for whatever reason.
That said, I recommend sacking an Overlord anyway. It's usually worth the cost.
Again, I have to raise the question: Why not just get the lair at a reasonable time instead of complaining that you can't scout Terran late enough in the game that he could have his second large marine ball and tanks at your front door while you're still on hatchery tech?
You're talking about Terran spending thousands of minerals and hundreds of gas on his attacks and you've yet to even get 200 total gas and 150 spare minerals off two bases apparently. Early MM pressure is not so expensive to defend that you're unable to get lair, especially if he actually pushes and kill the first wave like you said you did.
I play with a zerg player in 2v2's, and he frequently suicides an overlord just to see what the terran is doing (i don't agree with it, but it works for him) He claims it doesn't really hurt him in any way.
On August 14 2010 12:46 Selenium wrote: Btw What is the difference between sc1 and sc2 in terms of zerg's scouting ability?
Sc1 hydra tech(anti-air) and detection is t1
sc2 hydra tech and detection is t2
ß
wat?
you have queens which evry Z will have and can instantly be build. if anything AA is better.
and why does detection matter? if you dont have a lair when dts/cloaked banshees knock at your dorr you did something wrong.
i dont really see the problem. as Z you atleast have the option to scout early and have a guaranteed full scout 10 secs after your lair is ready (overseer)
as a P your options are actually worse since you have no option to scout early and need that obs/phoenix to see anything.
as T you have scan which is abit tricky. either you get easy early full intel or you miss with the scan and you know exactly nothing at all with no way to compensate.
seriously, scouting is my smallest problem when i random Z. overlord sacs and the amazing overseer (in addition to lolmaphackcreep) are just fine. i def feel more often "in the dark" as p/t vs good players that snipe obs/spread&hide tech
To those saying that P is in the same situation, it really is not. P has the ability to pressure and help dictate the pace of the game. Z has nothing like this except baneling busts (lol).
Z couuld use some help on 4 player maps, but early scouting is not guarenteed, but neither is a scan or an observer.
On August 14 2010 13:50 Arnu wrote: i dont know, shouldn't you already have a lair by the time 4 banshees are out? I mean, i personally don't spawn queens until i have a lair I don't see a point in halting teching to a lair and trying to hold off with lings. And as somebody has stated previously, an overlord pinch is a great way to scout. And get overlord speed asap! amagad!
I did have lair completed, and right when I saw banshees I threw up my hydra den, which was right after my lai completed. But consiedring the amount of banshees (or void rays) I would have to have scouted earlier, and overlord pinch doesn't work against good players who know that if they are going to cheese then they should deny scouting by placing anti-air on both sides
I don't think the problem is the scouting,, it's not being able to open "safe": "Oh, he's going one base, I'll just do this and adjust in case I scout blah". Right now, if I scan the right base and he makes one mistake, my harass can close the game.
Researched 150/100 Cost X energy per second, or just give it a cooldown.
Overseer vision is focused into a narrow beam, seeing further away but losing sight in the immediate area. Range ~10 - ~30.
Basically you activate the spell and the overseer vision becomes a few spaces wide, 15-20 spaces long, draining energy. Use this for distant scouting or spotting hard to reach spots for Nydus worm drops.
Overseer is basically a giant floating eyeball, you would think it could strain and see a lot further for a short time. but when looking further away you can't see anything close, so its easy to get sniped, have to be careful.
On August 14 2010 12:46 Selenium wrote: Btw What is the difference between sc1 and sc2 in terms of zerg's scouting ability?
Sc1 hydra tech(anti-air) and detection is t1
sc2 hydra tech and detection is t2
ß
wat?
you have queens which evry Z will have and can instantly be build. if anything AA is better.
and why does detection matter? if you dont have a lair when dts/cloaked banshees knock at your dorr you did something wrong.
'instantly be built'? I'll have you know that building a queen takes a long long time. And while it is building, you can't actually get the lair up.
Hydra's in Sc1 costed 75 minerals and 1 supply, they cost 100/50 in SC2 and cost 2 supply. AA is NOT better for zerg early game at all.
Although I do agree that having the lair up when DT's and banshees attack you should not actually be a problem at all.
Mind you I don't actually think zerg scouting, of all things, isn't the faulty screw that makes zerg so shaky. Early game overlord scouting is easy and taking xel naga towers with lings and scouting the ramps both often reveals the buildings hes using and also his army. Scouting in the midgame is not hard at all either. Changelings give you the oppertunity to scout most of his base and speedovies can check stuff out and withdraw really easily.
Tip to the terrans out there, don't put your entire army by the choke. And don't put your tech at the sides of your base. The edges are the part that most zergs will have a good view on. Hiding your tech on the sides against zerg is both rather silly and does nothing much.
2 Queens can easily take out a couple of Banshees, just like 2 queens can take out like four voidrays using Transfuse.
2 queens and one overseer was the solution, not a hydra den. An earlier lair would've given you more firepower.
Against terran and protoss, I almost never go early speedlings. Its just not worth it imo. Its better to put down a couple spinecrawlers at your mineral line, get your lair up, then move onto hydralisks/muta. Getting a queen up and spreading creep is almost as effective as speedlings in your own base.
On August 14 2010 22:54 Zozo wrote: I don't think the problem is the scouting,, it's not being able to open "safe": "Oh, he's going one base, I'll just do this and adjust in case I scout blah". Right now, if I scan the right base and he makes one mistake, my harass can close the game.
PS.: banshees openers are not cheese/all-in.
That is kind of true, Zerg needs to always FE to gain an economic advantage for the mid game and their units are generally weaker, so it can't really get an all-strategy-encompasing safe build like terran. So in order for them to stay alive they NEED to be able to always know what their opponent is doing and build whatever units are suitable to fend off their opponent. I'm starting to see a lot of trick teching, and slow overlords seems to be what is preventing me from scouting, regardless of the pinch technique.
PS: a cheese is something that if scouted is useless.
On August 14 2010 22:54 Zozo wrote: I don't think the problem is the scouting,, it's not being able to open "safe": "Oh, he's going one base, I'll just do this and adjust in case I scout blah". Right now, if I scan the right base and he makes one mistake, my harass can close the game.
PS.: banshees openers are not cheese/all-in.
That is kind of true, Zerg needs to always FE to gain an economic advantage for the mid game and their units are generally weaker, so it can't really get an all-strategy-encompasing safe build like terran. So in order for them to stay alive they NEED to be able to always know what their opponent is doing and build whatever units are suitable to fend off their opponent. I'm starting to see a lot of trick teching, and slow overlords seems to be what is preventing me from scouting, regardless of the pinch technique.
PS: a cheese is something that if scouted is useless.
That's why it's not, banshees still hit HARD, give map control and the tech path is strong cause of ravens/vikings/medivacs.
regardless of if yes/no, overseer I think was meant to fill this spot so maybe you'd be satisfied if overseer morph cost was reduced to 100 minerals 75gas?
On August 14 2010 23:23 Jameser wrote: regardless of if yes/no, overseer I think was meant to fill this spot so maybe you'd be satisfied if overseer morph cost was reduced to 100 minerals 75gas?
Not so much the cost of the overseer that is the problem, it is the accessibility of it. It takes to long to get it. And by the time you get it, it is usually too late. Someone mentioned overseer's being available for upgrade by building evo chamber. Probably better then slightly faster overlords.
On August 14 2010 23:23 Jameser wrote: regardless of if yes/no, overseer I think was meant to fill this spot so maybe you'd be satisfied if overseer morph cost was reduced to 100 minerals 75gas?
Not so much the cost of the overseer that is the problem, it is the accessibility of it. It takes to long to get it. And by the time you get it, it is usually too late. Someone mentioned overseer's being available for upgrade by building evo chamber. Probably better then slightly faster overlords.
that's way too much, if overseer only required evo chamber then you could easily build an effective strategy around overseer harass into roach push, completely locking down production of the opponent
On August 14 2010 23:23 Jameser wrote: regardless of if yes/no, overseer I think was meant to fill this spot so maybe you'd be satisfied if overseer morph cost was reduced to 100 minerals 75gas?
Not so much the cost of the overseer that is the problem, it is the accessibility of it. It takes to long to get it. And by the time you get it, it is usually too late. Someone mentioned overseer's being available for upgrade by building evo chamber. Probably better then slightly faster overlords.
that's way too much, if overseer only required evo chamber then you could easily build an effective strategy around overseer harass into roach push, completely locking down production of the opponent
Because god forbid that zerg ever has any early game antics that you have to adjust your build to. That would be so harsh :O .
Overseers are born with 50 energy, so not only do you need to wait until you can contaminate a building, but now you have bought a 100 gas unit that can't fight back. Thats 100 gas gone meaning 4 less roaches. And the only effect it has is to make your marauder come out of your barracks slightly slower. So OP :O
On August 14 2010 12:46 Selenium wrote: Btw What is the difference between sc1 and sc2 in terms of zerg's scouting ability?
Sc1 hydra tech(anti-air) and detection is t1
sc2 hydra tech and detection is t2
no in sc1 basically it was : wall = mech or 2 port wraith no wall = bio and you just keep a ling outside his base to see if he will expand which he will and if he has nothing in his base then he is doing proxy shit
Zerg have the best scouting so I'd say no. If someone walls in and I'm Terran I have to burn 270 minerals to scan or 150 to float a barracks over. If someone walls in and I'm Protoss I have to build a buliding I might not even want or get an upgrade I don't really want(hallucination) to scout them.
Zerg can scout for 100 minerals. Even if they use 2 overlords from opposite sides of the map they still have the easiest scouting early. If Zerg needs some sort of buff in early scouting then Protoss needs a massive buff at it.
On August 14 2010 23:23 Jameser wrote: regardless of if yes/no, overseer I think was meant to fill this spot so maybe you'd be satisfied if overseer morph cost was reduced to 100 minerals 75gas?
Not so much the cost of the overseer that is the problem, it is the accessibility of it. It takes to long to get it. And by the time you get it, it is usually too late. Someone mentioned overseer's being available for upgrade by building evo chamber. Probably better then slightly faster overlords.
that's way too much, if overseer only required evo chamber then you could easily build an effective strategy around overseer harass into roach push, completely locking down production of the opponent
Ok so then have the contaminate ability automatically unlocked with lair. Problem solved.
On August 15 2010 00:17 EnderCN wrote: Zerg have the best scouting so I'd say no. If someone walls in and I'm Terran I have to burn 270 minerals to scan or 150 to float a barracks over. If someone walls in and I'm Protoss I have to build a buliding I might not even want or get an upgrade I don't really want(hallucination) to scout them.
Zerg can scout for 100 minerals. Even if they use 2 overlords from opposite sides of the map they still have the easiest scouting early. If Zerg needs some sort of buff in early scouting then Protoss needs a massive buff at it.
Aren't the minerals that MULEs mine taken away from mineral fields? If yes, saying that a scan costs 270 minerals is just BS, since you'll eventually get those minerals anyways.
Besides, a scan is instant and and you see a large area, while slow overlord scouting takes planning, and it's not even guaranteed that you get into his base.
If MULEs don't actually mine the minerals, but they somehow magically appear in their robotic arms, disregard this post.
On August 15 2010 00:17 EnderCN wrote: Zerg have the best scouting so I'd say no. If someone walls in and I'm Terran I have to burn 270 minerals to scan or 150 to float a barracks over. If someone walls in and I'm Protoss I have to build a buliding I might not even want or get an upgrade I don't really want(hallucination) to scout them.
Zerg can scout for 100 minerals. Even if they use 2 overlords from opposite sides of the map they still have the easiest scouting early. If Zerg needs some sort of buff in early scouting then Protoss needs a massive buff at it.
Did you know a Barracks moves twice as fast as an Overlord and has 5 times the hit points?
I'm not sure how you can say Overlords are in any way shape or form better than floating a 150 mineral building and being almost guaranteed to see everything simply because it travels faster and takes 5 times as long to kill.
If it was ever as important to terran to scout, the barracks is objectively better than overlords at that task.
But the races aren't the same, it's rare that a terran will flat out lose if he doesn't know exactly what the opponent is building, having such an easily accessible generalist unit as the marine, and builds like the 1/1/1 pretty much ensures that, not to mention of course that we can consider the protoss as the one enemy we have in common, while strictly comparing zvt, the variety in openings clearly favors the terran.
I don't know how anyone can argue that anyone has anything close to terran's scouting. toss has to spend gas on obs, terran scan costs 0 gas not to mention helion harass usually means you don't have to scan to scout and overlord scouting is easy to deny, not to mention it leaves you open for viking harass on your supply.
On August 14 2010 12:46 Selenium wrote: Btw What is the difference between sc1 and sc2 in terms of zerg's scouting ability?
Sc1 hydra tech(anti-air) and detection is t1
sc2 hydra tech and detection is t2
ß
wat?
you have queens which evry Z will have and can instantly be build. if anything AA is better.
and why does detection matter? if you dont have a lair when dts/cloaked banshees knock at your dorr you did something wrong.
i dont really see the problem. as Z you atleast have the option to scout early and have a guaranteed full scout 10 secs after your lair is ready (overseer)
as a P your options are actually worse since you have no option to scout early and need that obs/phoenix to see anything.
as T you have scan which is abit tricky. either you get easy early full intel or you miss with the scan and you know exactly nothing at all with no way to compensate.
seriously, scouting is my smallest problem when i random Z. overlord sacs and the amazing overseer (in addition to lolmaphackcreep) are just fine. i def feel more often "in the dark" as p/t vs good players that snipe obs/spread&hide tech
Honestly I didn't read more than a line or two but I don't see a huge problem here. Lings can scout the entire map no problem, but as far as scouting their main, you pretty much have to get overlord speed and sacrifice an overlord. Not exactly a scan, but I wouldn't consider this broken.
God, only problem though is if you go fast lair you'll die to fast reaper- a big ball of mm, huge groups of hellions and so on and so on. I don't have problem with scouting IF I can go insta fast lair, but I can't! Again if the Terran is good and hide their stuff it's 50/50 you die to one or the other and in the other cases it's still a 50/50 fight to the death and with mech it's more like 70/30... =/
Edit: The maths for me if you calculate this suggest that there is imbalances...
Edit2: Also to add, we as zerg have no builds AT all like this that just gives us a build order win generally...
On August 15 2010 01:58 Neo.NEt wrote: Honestly I didn't read more than a line or two but I don't see a huge problem here. Lings can scout the entire map no problem, but as far as scouting their main, you pretty much have to get overlord speed and sacrifice an overlord. Not exactly a scan, but I wouldn't consider this broken.
If you are talking over the scope of an entire game then Zerg easily has the best scouting of anyone. Terran has a small window before the Zerg gets their creep up where they might come out ahead. Protoss plays in the dark during this entire window though. I guess my point is if any race needs help with scouting early it is Protoss not Zerg, I can't see how they would buff this for Zerg without doing something for Protoss first.
On August 15 2010 01:58 Neo.NEt wrote: Honestly I didn't read more than a line or two but I don't see a huge problem here. Lings can scout the entire map no problem, but as far as scouting their main, you pretty much have to get overlord speed and sacrifice an overlord. Not exactly a scan, but I wouldn't consider this broken.
This is why I asked everyone to read everything, especially the situation.
On August 15 2010 02:58 EnderCN wrote: If you are talking over the scope of an entire game then Zerg easily has the best scouting of anyone. Terran has a small window before the Zerg gets their creep up where they might come out ahead. Protoss plays in the dark during this entire window though. I guess my point is if any race needs help with scouting early it is Protoss not Zerg, I can't see how they would buff this for Zerg without doing something for Protoss first.
DIDN'T YOU READ MY POST???!!!! My entire post was explaining how Zerg has terrible scouting at the worst part of the game. NOT THE ENTIRE GAME!! The critical part, where the other person is either cheesing and establishing their tech. Not going to explain more just read the post.
Why does everyone make these sort of threads on teamliquid? If you're going to suggest a change and a good change like making overseers available after an evo then post it on battle.net where they'll actually see your suggestion.
I can't imagine that blizzard doesn't read teamliquid. I think they know a lot of the pros and top diamond players voice their opinions here.
Edit: As opposed to posting on b.net forums, where a lot of new players and low level leagues post about issues that people who played the beta have already discussed.
On August 15 2010 02:58 EnderCN wrote: If you are talking over the scope of an entire game then Zerg easily has the best scouting of anyone. Terran has a small window before the Zerg gets their creep up where they might come out ahead. Protoss plays in the dark during this entire window though. I guess my point is if any race needs help with scouting early it is Protoss not Zerg, I can't see how they would buff this for Zerg without doing something for Protoss first.
DIDN'T YOU READ MY POST???!!!! My entire post was explaining how Zerg has terrible scouting at the worst part of the game. NOT THE ENTIRE GAME!! The critical part, where the other person is either cheesing and establishing their tech. Not going to explain more just read the post.
Chill out. The game is at its early stages, eventually, it will reach a point where small things like this will be figured out by players.
Hadoken5 is just pointing out that protoss needs to get an observer before they can scout. Overwise, they have latest the lastest scouting of any races. But I understand that he was missing a point about zergs and that is cloaked units. Even though protoss have later scouts, they automatically counter cloaked units, however zergs needs an additional step for detection.
I think you are pointing out that the detection mechanism for zerg needs a change, because the fact that the zerg scouting unit does not have detection, so when it sees cloaked units on the field, it is already too late. But for protoss, when the player finds out that the enemy units is using cloaked units, they already have an observer.
There is also a factor of luck involved, now you probably agree that for the most part if you send in 2 overlords, you will probably be able to deduce 80% of time what he was going for...with experience you will be become much better at deducing your enemy's one base builds. Just remember that protoss have it worse =p. They can't see ANYTHING until they get robotic facility or hallunication. In addition, with good overlord position, you can actually see where the banshee is coming to attack and know where drops are comming.
Again, with experience, I strongly believe that zerg players can use knowledge to make up for the lack of scouting information.
On August 14 2010 23:03 DreamSailor wrote: Why didn't you have any queens?
2 Queens can easily take out a couple of Banshees, just like 2 queens can take out like four voidrays using Transfuse.
2 queens and one overseer was the solution, not a hydra den. An earlier lair would've given you more firepower.
Against terran and protoss, I almost never go early speedlings. Its just not worth it imo. Its better to put down a couple spinecrawlers at your mineral line, get your lair up, then move onto hydralisks/muta. Getting a queen up and spreading creep is almost as effective as speedlings in your own base.
2 Queens can easily kill 4 voidrays using transfuse? Umm.. no. 2 voids yes, maybe 3 if they both have full energy. But who has 2 queens sitting around with full energy. Any player with good macro is going to be spawning larva every cooldown, and spreading creep tumors. If I have 2+ queens that means I either delayed my lair, or fast expanded and got a second queen at expo.. and if that I the case my queens are seperated and can get picked off by 2 voids. Also, losing a queen is such a huge setback for Zerg.
I almost always get speedlings as well. Against Terran they are great at fighting off that annoying hellion or reaper harass and closing the distance on small groups of MM. Against Protoss it helps surround and chase down stalkers. Stalkers without support get destroyed by speedlings, and can't run away. Also, Speedling run-bys into the nat and main mineral lines can also be very successful. I will occasionally send 8-12 speedlings at an opponents mineral line and can in most cases take out at least 4-5 workers, and in best cases against bad or distracted opponents destroy them all.
On August 14 2010 23:03 DreamSailor wrote: Why didn't you have any queens?
2 Queens can easily take out a couple of Banshees, just like 2 queens can take out like four voidrays using Transfuse.
2 queens and one overseer was the solution, not a hydra den. An earlier lair would've given you more firepower.
Against terran and protoss, I almost never go early speedlings. Its just not worth it imo. Its better to put down a couple spinecrawlers at your mineral line, get your lair up, then move onto hydralisks/muta. Getting a queen up and spreading creep is almost as effective as speedlings in your own base.
im calling mega bullshit. 2 queens dont even take down 1 voidray 2v4 with transfuse. and they dont even come close 2v2 because nobody has fucking energy to spare that early in the game, people need to stop acting like transfuse is even an option in the early/mid game because any good zerg has 0 energy on queens for a long time. and 2 queens lose to 2 banshees straight up.
On August 14 2010 23:03 DreamSailor wrote: Why didn't you have any queens?
2 Queens can easily take out a couple of Banshees, just like 2 queens can take out like four voidrays using Transfuse.
2 queens and one overseer was the solution, not a hydra den. An earlier lair would've given you more firepower.
Against terran and protoss, I almost never go early speedlings. Its just not worth it imo. Its better to put down a couple spinecrawlers at your mineral line, get your lair up, then move onto hydralisks/muta. Getting a queen up and spreading creep is almost as effective as speedlings in your own base.
im calling mega bullshit. 2 queens dont even take down 1 voidray 2v4 with transfuse. and they dont even come close 2v2 because nobody has fucking energy to spare that early in the game, people need to stop acting like transfuse is even an option in the early/mid game because any good zerg has 0 energy on queens for a long time. and 2 queens lose to 2 banshees straight up.
1queen < 1 banshee 1queen < 1 voidray
edit: quoted wrong guy xD
well said, couldn't believe my eyes that someone would spread something so false. Queens are decent, true, but they won't have any energy and you need to have more than he has voids/banshees. And it only works in range of 2-4 units.
2 voids vs 2 queens (+2 in queue)? BAD LUCK. 1st two die, 2nd batch comes and dies. Everyday stuff for me.
i would agree to this if they made probe speed the same speed or slightly faster than speedlings.. the reason for this is because... after the initial probe scout kill, there is almost zero opportunity to scout until protoss gets an observer, its too easy to block a probe with speedlings and sacrificing a zealot is even worse since it would most definately die before it got to zerg's base anyways.
i propose that observers be built from cybernetics core...
get real...
given that zerg has so many scouting options already, another one would just be overkill... i honestly wish my pylons could fly all over the map to scout a zerg after he killed my probe. let's not forget that you can get overlord speed just slightly slower than you can get overseer... at this point of the game is the point of game you are talking about anyways.
as for your MM situation, I am pretty sure its possible to get an overseer out before the opponent gets 4 banshees... so sure that it has happened to me before.. if your opponent is waiting to get 4 banshees.. you should probably have half the map given the fact that he's so passive... you should also already have an overlord net surrounding his base and see the banshees coming a mile away... build another queen.. use transfuse.. yawn-fail-post imo
People seem to be arguing that Terran and Protoss need the same scouting as Zerg in their match-ups. This is incorrect. For instance, all P needs to do (and this is only an example) would be a 4 warp gate push. Unless zerg knows it is coming or techs super fast, the zerglings or roaches that are available wil... Die. Terran, with a wall off and a few marines.. Can do pretty much anything to counter what he KNOWS zerg has. Zerg goes for fast mutas? Perfect. My 4 hellions will be there a week before the spire hatches. Zerg is trying to play safe and gets some roaches? Shit yeah my Marauders just killed everything easy fabreezey.
So many posts that are just .. I don't even know what to say, but I will adress some of the stuff here.
-> What about P? We lack early scouting aswell?? You have decent AA on tier 1. One banshee will not destroy P. Detection for cloak is decent for both Z and P and that is not the issue. You also will have your AA in the same composition you would go for normally to defend any kind of marine/marauder push.
-> What about T?? We need to waste 270 minerals on a scan that reveals less than sacrificing two overlords!! First of all you are not wasting 270 minerals on a scan, you are delaying it. Secondly, the marines in a standard composition is sufficient to hold off any super early banshee/voidray.
-> What about T/P scouting a zerg? our scouts die to lings and we can't see shit for ages. Zerg is the reactive race of Starcraft 2. You do not have to worry about the different openings Z can do as much as we have to worry about what you are going to do. Lings/Blings or Roaches? Wallin and standard compositions deals with this with ease. Only once we hit Lair it would be crutial to find out what's up, and you have your oberservers then. The actual openings you would like to know is when we expand, and that is easily scouted.
-> Sacrificing overlords are awesome and easy just pinch two from both sides. This is a pretty costly way of scouting and it is very likely to not find what it's looking for (depending on maps, the smaller the base the better it is)
-> Get lair asap before lingspeed ffs! Lingspeed is absolutely necessary if I want to be able to defend a normal push early - especially from T.
-> You can easily have 2 queens defending against anything and "2 queens can fend of 4 voidrays" (lol). Queens delay Lair tech like crazy. They are build really slow and no, they cannot defend that good. However, I tend to get them just to have a chance.
-> What is the difference between SC2 and SC1 in terms of zerg scouting abilities. We have better scouting abilities in SC2 in mid game. Early game it is the same. The difference is not that, but is in the amount of openings that we have to worry about. Units like Banshee and Voidrays winning the games singlehandedly if we do not have sufficient AA, which in itself is super costly in terms of either minerals or tech. In starcraft : brood war we would have had hydras on tier 1 to deal with this.
On August 15 2010 02:58 EnderCN wrote: If you are talking over the scope of an entire game then Zerg easily has the best scouting of anyone. Terran has a small window before the Zerg gets their creep up where they might come out ahead. Protoss plays in the dark during this entire window though. I guess my point is if any race needs help with scouting early it is Protoss not Zerg, I can't see how they would buff this for Zerg without doing something for Protoss first.
I believe it is because Zerg is a reactionary race while Protoss and Terran are not. I have not been playing very long, but it seems that Protoss and Terran can basically be the dark and build whatever they want without having to worry about what their opponent is doing, or at least against Zerg.
On August 18 2010 02:08 raph wrote: zerg NEEDS scouting because of all the things T/P can do to just end the game before it even hist 10 minutes.
Sacrifice an overlord. Not harder than that. It's 100 minerals but it can win you the game. And keep a zergling outside the ramp to see when he's moving out.
simple solution i think. make the changelings an untimed unit(and keep the ability to change forms) or a cloaked untimed unit(without keeping the ability to change forms). should solve it imo.
the latter half would make the changling into a ground based observer.
On August 18 2010 02:14 Ballistixz wrote: simple solution i think. make the changelings an untimed unit(and keep the ability to change forms) or a cloaked untimed unit(without keeping the ability to change forms). should solve it imo.
the latter half would make the changling into a ground based observer.
An even better solution would be able to make them be able to wall climb. That way you can sneak one in and abuse cliffs like all the other races do.
On August 18 2010 02:08 raph wrote: zerg NEEDS scouting because of all the things T/P can do to just end the game before it even hist 10 minutes.
Sacrifice an overlord. Not harder than that. It's 100 minerals but it can win you the game. And keep a zergling outside the ramp to see when he's moving out.
why do all people assume that every zerg player that wants to talk about the difficulties off scouting are complete noobs?
i keep lings outside his base, i run them up, i keep lings at towers, i keep lings around my base to avoid sneaky probes putting proxy pylons, i keep pressure on his back rocks if he has any and i send overlords as often as i can, whenever i have a few minerals to blow, send overlord and make two new overlords at the base.
still oftenly i can't see what he's doing. if i tech to lair quickly and he goes for a early MM/T1 push i won't have much to defend with, i'll react with a few spines and having my queens and lings and the few hydras i can afford at the times but 60% of the times it's not enough.
i have to rely being able to get the lair later and for that whole time i can't get overlord speed to be able to scout correctly.
I don't think there is a problem. For early game scouting (after a Terran wall is done), Keep a few OLs on the perimeter of his base and run one of em in and out a bit to scout for early MM pushes. Lings at the front of his base to watch for when he starts pushing out.
For mid/late get OL speed, be willing to sac them to know what is going on. Or morph an Overseer, drop a changeling into their base, then get the Overseer out.
I feel like there should be windows where players can decide to go for quick timing pushes knowing they won't be scouted. I feel like there's no reason someone should be able to be scouted nearly 100% of the time, it takes out using surprise builds.
Just decrease time for spine crawler. Or bring back a creep colony that can transform either into a spine or spore... although I'm not sure how that overlaps with creep tumor.
I generally don't sac overlords, although once I start playing really good opponents I suspect I may have to. I mostly use lings and wait for an overseer to take a look in his base. Unless I get a really clear picture of what's going on (ie: fast expand, opponent reveals all his tech at the top of his ramp) I make a quick hydra and maybe a 3rd queen just to be safe. Worst case scenario I'm up against something like marine/tank and I have to transition into a roach/baneling heavy army, but at least it's never an instaloss if banshees or void rays come in.
On August 18 2010 02:25 zak1129 wrote: I don't think there is a problem. For early game scouting (after a Terran wall is done), Keep a few OLs on the perimeter of his base and run one of em in and out a bit to scout for early MM pushes. Lings at the front of his base to watch for when he starts pushing out.
For mid/late get OL speed, be willing to sac them to know what is going on. Or morph an Overseer, drop a changeling into their base, then get the Overseer out.
The problem is in the early game, the first 5 minutes or so, I can't afford to lose an OL. Like others have said I keep lings outside of his base, I buy the OL speed upgrade when I can afford it and I keep OLs around his base but early on you can't afford to lose one... and it really takes two to ensure you get a good scout because of Turrets and the amount of anti air a Terran has. Toss and Zerg are much easier to scout because they don't seem to have as much anti air early on.
I noticed a lot of people are saying sac an overlord.My question is how will you even see anything?I play random and unless you place you buildings on the edge of your base there is NO way that an overlord will spot it....Not to mention it sets you VERY behind.
I still don't understand why they made overlord speed boost so damn expensive in the beta. Was overlord speed really that OP? We need to scout for crying out loud.
On August 18 2010 03:02 nafta wrote: I noticed a lot of people are saying sac an overlord.My question is how will you even see anything?I play random and unless you place you buildings on the edge of your base there is NO way that an overlord will spot it....Not to mention it sets you VERY behind.
This was very much the standard way of doing things in BW. Why do people forget that?? It's so obvious that many of the people who bitch about Z never played them in BW. It's very much a necessary thing.
Also, sure seems a lot of people have trouble identifying what is coming based on the unit count at the front door. If a T is rallying his units there, you should always have a good idea of what is coming without seeing anything else. 1-1-1 is going to result in a different number of units/diff composition than a three rax all-in. If it's a rine heavy army instead of mauraders, the gas is being used elsewhere.
The T is dictating the game at that early time. Being able to identify when the opponent is massing and when he is teching early based on the unit count was a very important skill in BW and is here too. In BW, it became easier over time as people got used to builds.
On August 18 2010 03:02 nafta wrote: I noticed a lot of people are saying sac an overlord.My question is how will you even see anything?I play random and unless you place you buildings on the edge of your base there is NO way that an overlord will spot it....Not to mention it sets you VERY behind.
This was very much the standard way of doing things in BW. Why do people forget that?? It's so obvious that many of the people who bitch about Z never played them in BW. It's very much a necessary thing.
Also, sure seems a lot of people have trouble identifying what is coming based on the unit count at the front door. If a T is rallying his units there, you should always have a good idea of what is coming without seeing anything else. 1-1-1 is going to result in a different number of units/diff composition than a three rax all-in. If it's a rine heavy army instead of mauraders, the gas is being used elsewhere.
The T is dictating the game at that early time. Being able to identify when the opponent is massing and when he is teching early based on the unit count was a very important skill in BW and is here too. In BW, it became easier over time as people got used to builds.
One of the toughest things for me is that sometimes Terrans put their main army back in their base, so you think they are going banshee or something.. you get an extra queen or tech up to hydra just to get steamrolled by a giant marine drop or marine push. I think the problem is that it almost seems like Zerg seem to be heavily reliant on anticipating what is incoming while at the same time being one of the toughest races to scout with!
What Zerg needs is early and midgame economic flexibility. Because if you can lay down expansion before pool, you have enough gas to play as flexibly as your protoss and terran counterparts.
On August 18 2010 04:06 TheYango wrote: This is no different from Brood War.
What Zerg needs is early and midgame economic flexibility. Because if you can lay down expansion before pool, you have enough gas to play as flexibly as your protoss and terran counterparts.
Expansion before pool has very little effect on gas income. Usually you aren't even using both geysers before your natural finishes, and even if you were, there's no way you'd go for a third. Two geysers in full use = 8 drones wasted. 2 to make the extractors, 6 to mine. Very costly early game, especially if you lost another drone when drone scouting (and lose how many drones everytime you make a building!).
On August 18 2010 02:08 raph wrote: zerg NEEDS scouting because of all the things T/P can do to just end the game before it even hist 10 minutes.
Sacrifice an overlord. Not harder than that. It's 100 minerals but it can win you the game. And keep a zergling outside the ramp to see when he's moving out.
why do all people assume that every zerg player that wants to talk about the difficulties off scouting are complete noobs?
i keep lings outside his base, i run them up, i keep lings at towers, i keep lings around my base to avoid sneaky probes putting proxy pylons, i keep pressure on his back rocks if he has any and i send overlords as often as i can, whenever i have a few minerals to blow, send overlord and make two new overlords at the base.
still oftenly i can't see what he's doing. if i tech to lair quickly and he goes for a early MM/T1 push i won't have much to defend with, i'll react with a few spines and having my queens and lings and the few hydras i can afford at the times but 60% of the times it's not enough.
i have to rely being able to get the lair later and for that whole time i can't get overlord speed to be able to scout correctly.
And when you sac an overlord and you see three barracks, reactor, techlab lots of rines and marauders you STILL don't know what he's doing?
On August 18 2010 03:02 nafta wrote: I noticed a lot of people are saying sac an overlord.My question is how will you even see anything?I play random and unless you place you buildings on the edge of your base there is NO way that an overlord will spot it....Not to mention it sets you VERY behind.
This was very much the standard way of doing things in BW. Why do people forget that?? It's so obvious that many of the people who bitch about Z never played them in BW. It's very much a necessary thing.
Also, sure seems a lot of people have trouble identifying what is coming based on the unit count at the front door. If a T is rallying his units there, you should always have a good idea of what is coming without seeing anything else. 1-1-1 is going to result in a different number of units/diff composition than a three rax all-in. If it's a rine heavy army instead of mauraders, the gas is being used elsewhere.
The T is dictating the game at that early time. Being able to identify when the opponent is massing and when he is teching early based on the unit count was a very important skill in BW and is here too. In BW, it became easier over time as people got used to builds.
One of the toughest things for me is that sometimes Terrans put their main army back in their base, so you think they are going banshee or something.. you get an extra queen or tech up to hydra just to get steamrolled by a giant marine drop or marine push. I think the problem is that it almost seems like Zerg seem to be heavily reliant on anticipating what is incoming while at the same time being one of the toughest races to scout with!
yeah it's something that good t's will do, but the only option is to sacrifice a lord and make sure you've got a front door scout to make sure that he doesn't take the opportunity to roll you while you're blind.
It's really not THAT hard to see what's going on initially. It's just a matter of being efficent with your one sacrifice lord. Assume it's LT for this example. Tech isn't gonna be by the front door because you can easily see that by throwing a ling or a quick sacrifice. Ditto by the money, it will be hard to wedge it in there. You don't want to just click that Lord into his base and go back to work. If the T is at 3base LT, you'd first go up or down that left most clif just out of range to get an idea of what is where and then go in. You should be able to see a few buildings and go in.
The T isn't going to shoot all his units there for fear of lings busting the door and being a nuisance. You should have enough range to see a fair amount of the base.
Has anyone done a time comparison with Z and P? Toss are in the same position. My probe is useless after the first rine and I have to go to robo to get an obs. We don't have lords to get in there. Toss is very much dependent on reading what's going on by the units at the front gate.
On August 18 2010 04:27 ZergSecks wrote:
And when you sac an overlord and you see three barracks, reactor, techlab lots of rines and marauders you STILL don't know what he's doing?
If seeing three gates and a lot of MM isn't a tipoff to his plans, the issue isn't balance. It's you.
Lol people are complaining that scans cost 270 minerals compared to an overlord to scout. Do people actually realize that if a zerg doesn't get a correct scout off he can just lose the game to banshees or a fast tank push. If you try to prepare for somthing and he was just going fast exspand all along you feel so far behind....
I see no issue in ZvP. You can easily tell what build the protoss is going into with simple vision of their army numbers, or even if you do get a ovie into their base.
ZvT is a completely different story and is what OP is probably raging about. I sympathize as well. Its true that you have to sac an overlord to see what the terran is up to. Marines will make short work of an overlord and as such terrans can hide their tech with so much ease. Their increased mineral income lets them get out cheap ground forces (marines, marauder, hellion), fooling you while teching up other units with little issue. Its not until you get lair and ovie speed or changling do you get a chance to fully run around their base. But all terran has to do is scan once or twice at your main or nat and they immediately know what your entire base and army situation is.
Alas, as Zerg I've changed my build style so much that I get early spore crawlers/multiple queens regardless of whether or not I've actually seen a starport.
On August 18 2010 02:14 Ballistixz wrote: simple solution i think. make the changelings an untimed unit(and keep the ability to change forms) or a cloaked untimed unit(without keeping the ability to change forms). should solve it imo.
the latter half would make the changling into a ground based observer.
An even better solution would be able to make them be able to wall climb. That way you can sneak one in and abuse cliffs like all the other races do.
thats unneeded since usually u can almost always sneak a overlord and drop a changling into a dark corner of a base or expansion. the problem there tho is that it becomes painfully obvious that a changling is in there base if ur oppoenent has half a brain to see that a lone unit is wandering in there base and moving on its own...
thats why i say have it untimed or just make it cloakable.
sacrificing two overlords is still cheaper than scanning, did anyone point this out yet?
For the archaic players who still think scanning costs no minerals - mules harvest alongside SCV's allowing you to supersaturate your mineral line, mining out your main that much quicker so you can move your scv's onto another base. Every mule is the equivalent of 6 scv's being instantly built, it brings in 270 minerals over its lifetime - minerals that can be counted as 'extra' minerals so long as you expand beyond your main during the course of the game.
On August 18 2010 04:57 a176 wrote: I see no issue in ZvP. You can easily tell what build the protoss is going into with simple vision of their army numbers, or even if you do get a ovie into their base.
ZvT is a completely different story and is what OP is probably raging about. I sympathize as well. Its true that you have to sac an overlord to see what the terran is up to. Marines will make short work of an overlord and as such terrans can hide their tech with so much ease. Their increased mineral income lets them get out cheap ground forces (marines, marauder, hellion), fooling you while teching up other units with little issue. Its not until you get lair and ovie speed or changling do you get a chance to fully run around their base. But all terran has to do is scan once or twice at your main or nat and they immediately know what your entire base and army situation is.
Alas, as Zerg I've changed my build style so much that I get early spore crawlers/multiple queens regardless of whether or not I've actually seen a starport.
I was talking about PvT. Toss has the same exact issue that Zerg do with scouting, but no one bugs out about it. I am either forced to robo and obs asap and react, or roll the dice with something else. Scouting the front door + proper OL scouting should take care of everything, just as it did in BW.
On August 18 2010 05:44 positronix wrote: sacrificing two overlords is still cheaper than scanning, did anyone point this out yet?
For the archaic players who still think scanning costs no minerals - mules harvest alongside SCV's allowing you to supersaturate your mineral line, mining out your main that much quicker so you can move your scv's onto another base. Every mule is the equivalent of 6 scv's being instantly built, it brings in 270 minerals over its lifetime - minerals that can be counted as 'extra' minerals so long as you expand beyond your main during the course of the game.
If you want to point out opportunity costs for scouting, then don't take overlords at face value either. Sacing overlords involves the 200 replacement cost, two larvae, being supply capped or commiting to resources in advance (time value either way), and STILL risking the possibility of not seeing anything at all. So factor all of that in and then re-evaluate the relative costs (or call your brokerage rep if you don't know how).
................Instead of having drones getting 300 mineral for extra hatchy. Why don't you guy use those drones for gas for early lair? Why always have to fast expand when you are not even max 24 drones for your 1st base mineral? ................I personally love to use the 300 minerals for extra overlords for my roaches. Roaches + zergling is best for vs toss zerg and terran. Unless they fast tech to air. This game early air < early ground though. With good gaming sense you'll know if your enemy is teching or not. Just look at how many attacking units they are having and stuff. .............If Zerg is not good scout for early-mid game, how about toss? Toss can't scout zerg with zerglings running around. Terran can't scout zerg unless they throw away 1 mule. ............. This is a QQ thread XD Someone who doesn't know much about how the game works use strategy.
On August 18 2010 06:11 whomybuddy wrote: ................Instead of having drones getting 300 mineral for extra hatchy. Why don't you guy use those drones for gas for early lair? Why always have to fast expand when you are not even max 24 drones for your 1st base mineral? ................I personally love to use the 300 minerals for extra overlords for my roaches. Roaches + zergling is best for vs toss zerg and terran. Unless they fast tech to air. This game early air < early ground though. With good gaming sense you'll know if your enemy is teching or not. Just look at how many attacking units they are having and stuff. .............If Zerg is not good scout for early-mid game, how about toss? Toss can't scout zerg with zerglings running around. Terran can't scout zerg unless they throw away 1 mule. ............. This is a QQ thread XD Someone who doesn't know much about how the game works use strategy.
^ This, This thread reeks of QQ an of course it starts with "This is a not qq thread" like all the other that have been spamming the SC2 section.
Pretty much, QQing that you can't quadriple expand with 22 food before you get your first gas geyser and then saying how you can't afford overseer early game and scout because overlords fly too slow.. lawl...
scouting hasn't changed much from BW but what has is most notably the number of viable options T now has to throw at you compared to BW days.
I don't think it is as much of a scouting problem as is plainly whats available to Z to use compared to other races. I think we just need to be patient until the expansion.
Scouting is definitely not the issue here. You need to be diligent with both ovie sacing and ling up ramps to see unit/building compositions. Try to get overseer asap (as gas allows) and changeling that shit.
On August 18 2010 05:44 positronix wrote: sacrificing two overlords is still cheaper than scanning, did anyone point this out yet?
For the archaic players who still think scanning costs no minerals - mules harvest alongside SCV's allowing you to supersaturate your mineral line, mining out your main that much quicker so you can move your scv's onto another base. Every mule is the equivalent of 6 scv's being instantly built, it brings in 270 minerals over its lifetime - minerals that can be counted as 'extra' minerals so long as you expand beyond your main during the course of the game.
no its not, u terrans need to just stop with that argument. in no way whatsoever is it the same thing. scanning is FREE money income. an overlord is not.
all your doing is spending ENERGY to gain 270 minerals over time. 50 energy. thats it. sacifricing an over lord you have to spend actuall money and 8 supply. and most of the time its unbaerably slow and wont get a good scout in so u need to upgrade overlord speed which costs 100 minerals and 100 gas. then u need to morph to overseers which costs another 100 minerals and 100 gas for each overlord. so to get a good effective scout u need to spend 100, on the overlord. 100/100 on the upgrade, and 100/100 to morph into a over seer. a total of 300 minerals and 200 gas to get a good effective scout. and this is without even including the cost of upgrading to lair to even have this scouting ability available.
so no, stop saying its the same thing and stop saying its equal. 200minerals and 100 gas for a scout over 50 energy is not the same fucking thing. and if that scout so happens to DIE (because u can kill it and prevent it from scouting unlike a scan) then u also loose 8 supply. and u will have to spend another 200 minerals and 100 gas to get that scout/supply back.
this problem is non existant for terran. they dont have to worry about something dying. they dont have to worry about wall ins. they literally press a fucking button and click somewhere on the screen and everything is revealed.
This same timing exists against Protoss too, after wall off before observer. Having the option to use overlords at all seems better than no chance at all.
Having OL speed a hatchery level research (T1) wouldn't be a bad idea, but again, just like the idea of having Burrow at hatchery level, I don't think it would be put to much use, as the gas usage delays lair tech quite a bit.
Best to sack an overlord (from the side/back of the base).
Poll: Should Zerg's early-mid game scouting be fixed?(Please read post)
Yes, it happens at the most critical time in the game. (627)
62%
No, zerg does not have a problem scouting at this point in the game. (281)
28%
Poster is idiot, and I didn't read his post. > (54)
5%
I don't know, I have no knowledge of Zerg and cannot make a fair judgement. (36)
4%
No. it's not too important to know what your opponent is doing at this point in the game. (11)
1%
1009 total votes
Your vote: Should Zerg's early-mid game scouting be fixed?(Please read post)
(Vote): Yes, it happens at the most critical time in the game. (Vote): No, zerg does not have a problem scouting at this point in the game. (Vote): No. it's not too important to know what your opponent is doing at this point in the game. (Vote): I don't know, I have no knowledge of Zerg and cannot make a fair judgement. (Vote): Poster is idiot, and I didn't read his post. >
- Zerg is a reactionary race in its purest form. It NEEDS to know what his opponent is doing and how to counter it.
This is the problem that many Zerg players are having these days. Maybe Zerg was better at reacting in BW but in SC2 Zerg players that beat me (Diamond Terran) are ones that try to react, Zerg players are not aggressive enough and when they do have some offensive success (ie; muta harass) they just try that over and over again (suiciding mutas into defenses).
My message to Zerg who have ZvT troubles: be more aggressive (but avoid the main army), do alot of attacking infrastructure with smaller armies (think of how Terran uses hellions) especially with units that arent super gas heavy (lings/blings/roaches). Macro hard, Micro harder.
On August 18 2010 06:51 Darkstar_X wrote: This same timing exists against Protoss too, after wall off before observer. Having the option to use overlords at all seems better than no chance at all.
Tosses can go for hallucinated phoenix (or phoenix I suppose, though that's of less use). People usually see its research as unnecesary, but I have found it to be of great use (before combat as well), especially so if you don't let your opponent kill your hallucinated scouting unit, so he might not be aware of it.
I am still really baffled by this. Zerg early game scouting is so much better than Protoss as is their early game detection system. The only race that should really be complaining is Protoss here.
zerg has the best scouting in the game imo. fast units, changeling, OLs. yea, sure, walling in stops scouting but that's more of a problem with zerg not being able to break a good wall despite having a considerably larger army until tier 2 than having weak scouting in tier 1, imo at least.
Zering scouting is fine, your just doing it wrong. Sending your overlord way too early, sometimes you don't even need to know what hes doing as zerg, Its the same old same old. Hellions, mmm push, tanks, banshees, drops
EDIT 1: A lot of players are saying don't send your overlord from the front. I never ever do that. I usuall send my overlord(s) to the side of his base. I do that because I'm a DECENT zerg player. Now if I were facing a DECENT Terran player, then he would know this and would place his anti-air forces on the side ESPECIALLY if he is doing a cheesy build! More and more players are doing this! EDIT 2: Go look at Chocobo's post on page 4. I think he answers many of your questions, even if they are just recapping my points EDIT 3: Another possible solution to this is to have overseers available from an evo chamber. Not too imba imo because they are still pretty expensive early game.
EDIT 4; another possible solution is for me to stop QQing instead of trying to break zerg by over-buffing something that doesn't need to be buffed in the first place
It;s quite possible to send in the overlord and get enough information to win. But try not to be scouting and reacting. Try to be in the leading position where you enemy scouts and reacts to you.
On August 18 2010 07:15 WCH wrote: Zering scouting is fine, your just doing it wrong. Sending your overlord way too early, sometimes you don't even need to know what hes doing as zerg, Its the same old same old. Hellions, mmm push, tanks, banshees, drops
no thats not how it works. if a terran walls off u wont have an idea on what he is doing and if u dont scout then u will just be making stupid wild guesses. if u see he has a factory with a tech lab at his wall and u take a wild guess and say that he is mmm pushing and u try to prepare for that mmm push that will never come and he techs to banshees then u will get owned hard by just 1 banshee.
its important for zerg to get as early of a scout in as possible against terran because terran can tech fast. but usually u wont get a scout in unless u send ur 10 drone in and usually all u will see is 1 barack and maybe 1 or 2 gas before his first marine kills ur drone scout. and after that it will be impossible to scout him without a overlord.
I kind of like the idea of the Overseer being unlocked once you get an Evo Chamber, but I think that might actually be a little bit unfair just comparing the detection tech patterns of the three races...
Zerg: Spawning Pool --> Evo Chamber --> Spore Colonies (semi-mobile) & Overseers (mobile)
(Am I forgetting any? I left out Fungal/EMP but they are also detectors in a sense)
In my opinion, even as a (bad) Zerg player who feels that the race needs a little kick in the pants, giving the Zerg 100% detection capabilities after only two mineral-only buildings in a tech pattern is a little unfair.
On August 18 2010 07:47 yakitate304 wrote: (bad) Zerg player who feels that the race needs a little kick in the pants, giving the Zerg 100% detection capabilities after only two mineral-only buildings in a tech pattern is a little unfair.
BW was super "unfair" that way and it didn't really harm anything
On August 14 2010 11:56 Linden wrote: suggestion: make it possible to get overseers with evo chamber instead of lair
Excellent idea.
Mind: blown.
Some people have brought up the detection issue... if the detection is really going to be that big of an issue, make it so that the detection is only unlocked once zerg's make a lair.
On August 18 2010 07:47 yakitate304 wrote: (bad) Zerg player who feels that the race needs a little kick in the pants, giving the Zerg 100% detection capabilities after only two mineral-only buildings in a tech pattern is a little unfair.
BW was super "unfair" that way and it didn't really harm anything
How many times do I have to say it is because Zerg wasn't so "reactionary" in BW? Siege tanks didn't destroy a 200/200 army in 5 seconds in BW. Zerg in general was stronger, allowing it to make its own decisions.
On August 14 2010 11:54 TofuD wrote: Legit suggestions: Boost unupgraded OL speed Make OL speed upgrade T1
Not so legit but might still work: Give changeling to OL (Though I doubt that would fix anything.) Restore burrow to being a cheap and quick upgrade at 50/50. (allow for early drone to burrow scout?)
then build a proxy hatch in your base and kill you with spinecrawler and lings :3
On August 18 2010 06:51 Darkstar_X wrote: This same timing exists against Protoss too, after wall off before observer. Having the option to use overlords at all seems better than no chance at all.
Tosses can go for hallucinated phoenix (or phoenix I suppose, though that's of less use). People usually see its research as unnecesary, but I have found it to be of great use (before combat as well), especially so if you don't let your opponent kill your hallucinated scouting unit, so he might not be aware of it.
50-100 + 100-100 for a scout with a limited time frame seems like a hell of an expense for something that has little early game use. I can't even see when you'd use it. vs T, that's better used for warps and a quick robo, which will probalby be out around the same time and you'll have that tech forever. vs Z, the gas can be better spent as well, and i'd rather save my mana for FF.
The only scouting change that's needed is 50 gas observers (being sniped so easily) and Off-creep Ling Speed = Peon Speed. Or you can buff Zealot speed to be > Peon speed. Tired of T1 gasless units shutting down scouting eons before the chrono'd Stalker. Race asymmetry is cute and all, but this is player asymmetry. Information is way too important in this game to have it imbalanced.
On August 18 2010 07:13 taintmachine wrote: zerg has the best scouting in the game imo.
...I like a good laugh as much as the next guy...but, really? C'mon. Terran has *scan* for crying out loud, and the protoss have an invisible flying snoop. Zerg gets...at best a burrowed 35hp unit with a 1x1 sight range & no cloak detection, big, fat, poorly armored blimp like critters that're slower than molasses in january, and changelings that fool absolutely no one.
Zerg's got pretty much no base scouting post wall-in, but pre-mutas. I am *so* tired of having to either build for what I think the Terran might throw at me, or try for some hair-raising "just in time" defense. Why the lowly zerg get this handicap that basically forces us to guess, I do not know...and no, "just expand" while he's back there teching to god knows what isn't necessarily the solution.
I'll tell you what'd solve all this scouting malarky; dump changeling, and bring the old flying queen parasite ability back on overseers...and don't give medivacs a bloody cure for an expansion or two either, let the Terrans learn what it's like to sac a unit here and there, instead of just healing or patching up every single one.
Spawn broodling would be nice while you're at it too, and chucking the patheticness that is infestors in favor of a defiler return, long as I'm living in complete fantasy land that involves actual balance fixes without waiting for the expansion in two years...
just wondering, but why do other races have an advantage over zerg in scouting? you say that zerg are reactionary, but they really aren't any more so than other races. things like mutalisks or burrowed banelings force other races to get anti air or detection before then can push out. each race has its own way of forcing the other back. a good zerg should be able to account for any thing the opponent can throw at him regardless of scouting.
On August 14 2010 14:57 Chocobo wrote: I know there's fifty zillion "my stuff is underpowered, make it stronger and nerf everyone else" idiots in every single game out there, and the wait-and-see attitude is almost always a smart one. But I think sometimes it's just pretty clear that one race needs some help... zerg consistently wins less and ranks lower across the board. (IdrA is some kind of magical superbeing, I'm not certain he actually exists)
guys! I just realized the horrible truth! Idra is a Terran agent, put among the Zerg ranks to make Zerg not seem up! It's so obvious, he was Terran in bw and noone can be this good with Zerg, his Terran allies obviously throw him some games so that Zerg will have one legit pro?!
OT: if you had some more experience you could perhaps see that the units you saw, was too few, due to the extra investment into starport/banshee. And shouldn't you make queens instead of going panicden, which is the equivalent of panicturrets, both fail.
Alright so I'm gonna try to explain a little something here, its called losing vs losing out.
Losing implies I have something and then it is gone.
Losing out implies I have the ability to obtain something, but do not.
Terrans using energy to scan means they are losing out on the 270 minerals, they are not actually losing anything apart from energy, they also gain sight (lol at those saying the sight is small, a Zerg base is always compact anyways).
Zerg sacrifices an Overlord (go in the name of science!) in order to see what the Terran has, now since the Zerg already has the Overlord it obviously means they are losing it, but thats not all they are losing.
They lose 9 supply and 100 minerals right off the bat, but it doesn't end there.
They also lose an additional 100 minerals and 1 larva, why you might ask? Well because that 9 supply is important, and without it they don't get an army. Hence they will probably need to replace it and fast.
So in total Zerg loses 200 minerals and 1 larva (or 100 minerals and 9 supply if they choose to not replace it). I could go on to how that 1 larva could become a drone and earn X minerals in its life but I feel thats not really needed.
Terran loses out on 270 minerals or the ability to gain 8 supply.
The Zerg also loses double in the case of using two overlords.
Now for those of you who still don't understand I will use a metaphor, mainly because they are fun.
I am a Terran player and I go to a tree, it has 3 fruit - an apple, a banana and an orange - I can only choose 1, I choose the orange and miss out on the other two fruit.
Now I am a Zerg player, in my hand I have a half-eaten apple, I then proceed to throw that apple at the Terran player and laugh, I now have lost that apple.
You can't count both the value already invested and the cost of a new ol. That makes no sense. But the additional larvae is another cost. And you're basically talking about the economic term alternative cost and sunk cost.
On September 03 2010 15:09 killa_robot wrote: Alright so I'm gonna try to explain a little something here, its called losing vs losing out.
Losing implies I have something and then it is gone.
Losing out implies I have the ability to obtain something, but do not.
Terrans using energy to scan means they are losing out on the 270 minerals, they are not actually losing anything apart from energy, they also gain sight (lol at those saying the sight is small, a Zerg base is always compact anyways).
Zerg sacrifices an Overlord (go in the name of science!) in order to see what the Terran has, now since the Zerg already has the Overlord it obviously means they are losing it, but thats not all they are losing.
They lose 9 supply and 100 minerals right off the bat, but it doesn't end there.
They also lose an additional 100 minerals and 1 larva, why you might ask? Well because that 9 supply is important, and without it they don't get an army. Hence they will probably need to replace it and fast.
So in total Zerg loses 200 minerals and 1 larva (or 100 minerals and 9 supply if they choose to not replace it). I could go on to how that 1 larva could become a drone and earn X minerals in its life but I feel thats not really needed.
Terran loses out on 270 minerals or the ability to gain 8 supply.
The Zerg also loses double in the case of using two overlords.
Now for those of you who still don't understand I will use a metaphor, mainly because they are fun.
I am a Terran player and I go to a tree, it has 3 fruit - an apple, a banana and an orange - I can only choose 1, I choose the orange and miss out on the other two fruit.
Now I am a Zerg player, in my hand I have a half-eaten apple, I then proceed to throw that apple at the Terran player and laugh, I now have lost that apple.
Hopefully that clears things up for you.
ON TOP OF THIS, mules make you mine out your main faster, you STILL get those minerals the mule would have mined if the game goes on long enough, so its not even like they are "lost" you just get them later.
On September 03 2010 15:09 killa_robot wrote: Alright so I'm gonna try to explain a little something here, its called losing vs losing out.
Losing implies I have something and then it is gone.
Losing out implies I have the ability to obtain something, but do not.
Terrans using energy to scan means they are losing out on the 270 minerals, they are not actually losing anything apart from energy, they also gain sight (lol at those saying the sight is small, a Zerg base is always compact anyways).
Zerg sacrifices an Overlord (go in the name of science!) in order to see what the Terran has, now since the Zerg already has the Overlord it obviously means they are losing it, but thats not all they are losing.
They lose 9 supply and 100 minerals right off the bat, but it doesn't end there.
They also lose an additional 100 minerals and 1 larva, why you might ask? Well because that 9 supply is important, and without it they don't get an army. Hence they will probably need to replace it and fast.
So in total Zerg loses 200 minerals and 1 larva (or 100 minerals and 9 supply if they choose to not replace it). I could go on to how that 1 larva could become a drone and earn X minerals in its life but I feel thats not really needed.
Terran loses out on 270 minerals or the ability to gain 8 supply.
The Zerg also loses double in the case of using two overlords.
Now for those of you who still don't understand I will use a metaphor, mainly because they are fun.
I am a Terran player and I go to a tree, it has 3 fruit - an apple, a banana and an orange - I can only choose 1, I choose the orange and miss out on the other two fruit.
Now I am a Zerg player, in my hand I have a half-eaten apple, I then proceed to throw that apple at the Terran player and laugh, I now have lost that apple.
Hopefully that clears things up for you.
ON TOP OF THIS, mules make you mine out your main faster, you STILL get those minerals the mule would have mined if the game goes on long enough, so its not even like they are "lost" you just get them later.
You are losing them. Stop trying to make some kind of nit picky argument that a MULE doesn't cost T any minerals.
If you want to still use that argument, then don't ignore the fact that you are losing out on supply drop which can be DIRECTLY correlated with an overlord... except using your (biased and unlogical) definition, Z does NOT lose minerals, while T LOSES 100 minerals.
Any way you try to spin it, T does lose out on minerals when scanning.
Terran uses energy, he can either gain 270 minerals or scan as a bonus or 8 supply as a bonus to what already is going on. Sure its helps them, but if they let that energy adds up it doesn't hurt them terribly.
Zerg has to essentially sacrifice an overlord, 100 minerals and 9 supply, meaning if they dont want to get supply capped they have to build extras, which is 2 drones or 4 lings. If they dont have extras they go into the red and have to replace it, which takes time.
Terran is not directly penalized for anything he uses out of the CC. Zerg is penalized for scouting by losing 100 minerals and supply. When I play the minerals are usually not a huge deal, but the larva and the supply lost and time loss is huge.
In summary, scan/mules are a bonus to terran, something that is there to be utilized for a specific reason. Scouting with an overlord feels like a penalty to zerg because of the supply loss and what feel like a huge limiting factor to your economy.
But in actuality, its is quite the similar loses for both races. Just that scan is instant and unstoppable but an overlord takes forever to get there and is wasy to stop.
On September 03 2010 15:09 killa_robot wrote: Alright so I'm gonna try to explain a little something here, its called losing vs losing out.
Losing implies I have something and then it is gone.
Losing out implies I have the ability to obtain something, but do not.
Terrans using energy to scan means they are losing out on the 270 minerals, they are not actually losing anything apart from energy, they also gain sight (lol at those saying the sight is small, a Zerg base is always compact anyways).
Zerg sacrifices an Overlord (go in the name of science!) in order to see what the Terran has, now since the Zerg already has the Overlord it obviously means they are losing it, but thats not all they are losing.
They lose 9 supply and 100 minerals right off the bat, but it doesn't end there.
They also lose an additional 100 minerals and 1 larva, why you might ask? Well because that 9 supply is important, and without it they don't get an army. Hence they will probably need to replace it and fast.
So in total Zerg loses 200 minerals and 1 larva (or 100 minerals and 9 supply if they choose to not replace it). I could go on to how that 1 larva could become a drone and earn X minerals in its life but I feel thats not really needed.
Terran loses out on 270 minerals or the ability to gain 8 supply.
The Zerg also loses double in the case of using two overlords.
Now for those of you who still don't understand I will use a metaphor, mainly because they are fun.
I am a Terran player and I go to a tree, it has 3 fruit - an apple, a banana and an orange - I can only choose 1, I choose the orange and miss out on the other two fruit.
Now I am a Zerg player, in my hand I have a half-eaten apple, I then proceed to throw that apple at the Terran player and laugh, I now have lost that apple.
Hopefully that clears things up for you.
The Zerg loses 100 minerals, 1 larva, and 8 supply when they sac an overlord. I'm not really sure how you came to the conclusion that you did, but it probably involved adding the cost of the replacement to the original, which is incorrect to do.
Also, when scanning, the Terran doesn't get to use supply drop either, which is exactly analogous to losing an overlord except that it doesn't cost a larva because Terran don't have those. The real difference is that a scan is almost guaranteed to see the Zerg's tech, because it can cover a very large part of the Zerg's creep (if not, a second scan will for certain). Meanwhile, sacrificing an overlord doesn't have nearly as good of odds versus a skilled Terran, and even sacrificing 2 simultaneously (from different angles) doesn't make any sort of guarantee that you see their tech if they're actively trying to hide it.
Zerg scouting is not a problem. Zerg may have issues, but zerg has it better in the scouting department early game than protoss does. A simple fact right there.
On September 03 2010 15:09 killa_robot wrote: Zerg sacrifices an Overlord (go in the name of science!) in order to see what the Terran has, now since the Zerg already has the Overlord it obviously means they are losing it, but thats not all they are losing.
They lose 9 supply and 100 minerals right off the bat, but it doesn't end there.
They also lose an additional 100 minerals and 1 larva, why you might ask? Well because that 9 supply is important, and without it they don't get an army. Hence they will probably need to replace it and fast.
What the hell. This is some funny math. An Ovie costs 100. When you lose one, that's what you lose. You don't somehow lose double I mean WTF.
When the ovie dies, you don't lose 100 minerals. You lose 100 minerals worth of units. You only lose 100 minerals when you replace the unit, but in return you get .. 100 minerals worth of units. You now have the same mineral amount of units. At the end you have a net loss of 100 minerals. That's all. Not 200 good grief.
Now tell me how this situation is any different from BW scouting? I think it's the same and no one complained. Maybe people didn't have so many [dangerous] openings or what?
On September 04 2010 07:47 slimshady wrote: Now tell me how this situation is any different from BW scouting? I think it's the same and no one complained. Maybe people didn't have so many [dangerous] openings or what?
Big part of it is you dont get a cost effective air defense till lair tech. If you rush lair tech when he is going for an early push you will die. If you dont get lair tech and he is going air, something early like banshee you die. Furthermore, overlords are not detectors, you need lair to morph them to overseer. So scouting and knowing whether your opponent is teching to something that will require you to have lair tech to defend is extremely important. I think SC2 zerg scouting and reacting is more part of the game than it was in BW.
On August 14 2010 12:46 Selenium wrote: Btw What is the difference between sc1 and sc2 in terms of zerg's scouting ability?
nothing but i would say there is a much larger importance early game as Z to know what is coming. Sc1 hydras were t1 anti air and overlords were also detectors making it easier to deal with those type of harassment. That being said hydra's are not an optimal investment unless you know 100% a banshee is coming because quite frankly they are useless against any other T build. In Sc1 they where a stepping stone to lurkers. Its not so much that scouting is more difficult its that information in the early stages seems to be more critical to not losing the game in the next 3 minutes.
That being said I dont think there is a large problem with zerg scouting, because you can often fill in the blanks with partial information. Also to the op its strange for him to go mara, marine, then get a banshee, as it delays(if it has cloak) the banshee to the point where your spire should be complete.
On September 03 2010 15:09 killa_robot wrote: Alright so I'm gonna try to explain a little something here, its called losing vs losing out.
Losing implies I have something and then it is gone.
Losing out implies I have the ability to obtain something, but do not.
Terrans using energy to scan means they are losing out on the 270 minerals, they are not actually losing anything apart from energy, they also gain sight (lol at those saying the sight is small, a Zerg base is always compact anyways).
Zerg sacrifices an Overlord (go in the name of science!) in order to see what the Terran has, now since the Zerg already has the Overlord it obviously means they are losing it, but thats not all they are losing.
They lose 9 supply and 100 minerals right off the bat, but it doesn't end there.
They also lose an additional 100 minerals and 1 larva, why you might ask? Well because that 9 supply is important, and without it they don't get an army. Hence they will probably need to replace it and fast.
So in total Zerg loses 200 minerals and 1 larva (or 100 minerals and 9 supply if they choose to not replace it). I could go on to how that 1 larva could become a drone and earn X minerals in its life but I feel thats not really needed.
Terran loses out on 270 minerals or the ability to gain 8 supply.
The Zerg also loses double in the case of using two overlords.
Now for those of you who still don't understand I will use a metaphor, mainly because they are fun.
I am a Terran player and I go to a tree, it has 3 fruit - an apple, a banana and an orange - I can only choose 1, I choose the orange and miss out on the other two fruit.
Now I am a Zerg player, in my hand I have a half-eaten apple, I then proceed to throw that apple at the Terran player and laugh, I now have lost that apple.
Hopefully that clears things up for you.
ON TOP OF THIS, mules make you mine out your main faster, you STILL get those minerals the mule would have mined if the game goes on long enough, so its not even like they are "lost" you just get them later.
You are losing them. Stop trying to make some kind of nit picky argument that a MULE doesn't cost T any minerals.
If you want to still use that argument, then don't ignore the fact that you are losing out on supply drop which can be DIRECTLY correlated with an overlord... except using your (biased and unlogical) definition, Z does NOT lose minerals, while T LOSES 100 minerals.
Any way you try to spin it, T does lose out on minerals when scanning.
then P loses minerals every time they use a chronoboost on a non-nexus, and Z loses minerals if they make a creep tumor instead of spawn larva
I think a bigger problem with scouting is zerg lack of options and lack of units that can hit air before they get a lair. before lair they have: ling, roach, bling T has: reaper, marauder, marine P has: zealot, sentry, stalker Seems like the other 2 races have more options and a more balanced T1/1.5 unit comp than zerg does.
On September 04 2010 07:36 travis wrote: Zerg scouting is not a problem. Zerg may have issues, but zerg has it better in the scouting department early game than protoss does. A simple fact right there.
Just because zerg scouting is better than protoss scouting does not mean it is not flawed when zerg is far more reactionary than protoss can ever be. Zerg needs to have the best scouting of all three races, hands down, and right now there's a huge gap at the most critical time in the game.
Hmm.. I would, as soon as you saw those banshees, put out 2 queens at each base while your hydra den was building, just something I would do, or Spore Crawlers, either one works, good luck!
On September 04 2010 07:36 travis wrote: Zerg scouting is not a problem. Zerg may have issues, but zerg has it better in the scouting department early game than protoss does. A simple fact right there.
Just because zerg scouting is better than protoss scouting does not mean it is not flawed when zerg is far more reactionary than protoss can ever be. Zerg needs to have the best scouting of all three races, hands down, and right now there's a huge gap at the most critical time in the game.
Your logic is flawed.
so u admit zerg already has better scouting than protoss but your solution to zerg woes is to give them EVEN BETTER scouting. clearly the issue couldn't maybe, just maybe, be something other than the scouting.
also, i didn't even display any logic in my post. i just posted 2 statements, one of opinion and one of fact. so i don't know what logic it is that is flawed.
On September 04 2010 07:36 travis wrote: Zerg scouting is not a problem. Zerg may have issues, but zerg has it better in the scouting department early game than protoss does. A simple fact right there.
Just because zerg scouting is better than protoss scouting does not mean it is not flawed when zerg is far more reactionary than protoss can ever be. Zerg needs to have the best scouting of all three races, hands down, and right now there's a huge gap at the most critical time in the game.
Your logic is flawed.
so u admit zerg already has better scouting than protoss but your solution to zerg woes is to give them EVEN BETTER scouting. clearly the issue couldn't maybe, just maybe, be something other than the scouting.
also, i didn't even display any logic in my post. i just posted 2 statements, one of opinion and one of fact. so i don't know what logic it is that is flawed.
What sucks is any balance issues really get muddled when scouting becomes an issue in RTS games. When people blindly go into strats it skews results quite a bit. Not only that but because Terran is so flexible with even its first tier of units, its hard for them to go wrong even without scouting at all.
I wrote this in the other crappy thread that was closed:
Hey top rated diamond here, but I could be the best in the world if I played more.
Sacking an overlord is often a very stupid move. It's not desirable whatsoever. It's only useful if you scout a tech heavy all-inish sort of build (read 2port banshee, cliff drop etc).
If you sack an overlord to an aggressive unit heavy 1base build (which you will be doing about 1/3 of the time because you're gambling like a moron by sacking the overlord in the first place), you might as well gg. You just decreased your chances of winning from ~50% to ~20%.
Important note: SC2 is such a sped up game, that scouting information has decreased in value compared to broodwar. Macro mechanics speed up timings so much that the overlord needs to be sacked at an unhealthily early timing for any sort of adaptation to occur (that's why bw-coaches whine about sc2 being "too fast"). Even if you scout early warp gate research and 4 gates, the changes you will be able to make to your strat in the short, boosted, time between your scouting and the time of the incoming attack are largely insignificant.
Sure there might be a real difference between expecting an expansion and a 4gate. But generally it is not hard to anticipate a multigate "all-in". It's simply that the time differential between absolute knowledge of the build and the incoming attack is too short. There's hardly any major difference in preparing for a 4gate and any other normal build (up until a critical point which optimally is the latest point possible, after you've made as many drones as possible without losing valuable mining time with any of them by pushing out spines and roaches too early).
You simply cannot start producing units earlier, or your economy will be too bad. There is not enough room to change or modify your strategy in SC2.
Same story with terran. Sloppy terrans will always reveal their strats by building their buildings in stupid places. But 3rax all-ins simply can't be defended if you don't have both metabolic boost and roaches ready. Any sort of slight delay on speedling research, any sort of lair before speed build, any sort of lair before roach warren build, WILL die regardless if you scout the build or not.
Same with 2-3rax/1fac MM/hellion+scv rush. It doesn't matter if you scout it. The timings at which you would have to decide for speedlings, roaches, and (most importantly) the construction of your baneling's nest are really really early. Pre "when it makes economic sense to sack an overlord"-timing.
If you want to supply block yourself at 24/18 supply vs a 1base build, go ahead be my guest, mr. progamer.
Same crap with Lair timings vs banshee openings. You have to commit to ling speed/roaches blindly in more than 50% of your ZvT games. You will only ever scout a banshee opening without having to sack an overlord vs a bad terran.
The rest of your games. Simply have fun guessing or flip the coin and sack your overlord anyway, while praying to god your opponent isn't doing a unit heavy 1base rush.
I don't believe in giving zerg better scouting as a solution. I think the game needs to be redesigned for HotS and all timings be delayed. This game will just keep sucking and be random as hell as long as its as fast paced as it is now. A game needs some "dead air" and build up time for good playhers to be able to adapt.
On September 04 2010 07:36 travis wrote: Zerg scouting is not a problem. Zerg may have issues, but zerg has it better in the scouting department early game than protoss does. A simple fact right there.
Agreed, Zerg scouting is not that much of a problem. Zerg can also establish a lot of map control, more so then the Terran or Protoss player.
Although it would be nice to see Changeling buffed ( Changelings are so super obvious, ffs if you click on them it says "Changeling") I don't think it's necessary.
I can't comment on wether or not Zerg players scouting is stronger or weaker then Protoss, but I don't feel like Zerg has scouting issues.
Zerg has issues, just not with scouting.
On September 04 2010 09:13 LaLuSh wrote: I wrote this in the other crappy thread that was closed:
Hey top rated diamond here, but I could be the best in the world if I played more.
Sacking an overlord is often a very stupid move. It's not desirable whatsoever. It's only useful if you scout a tech heavy all-inish sort of build (read 2port banshee, cliff drop etc).
If you sack an overlord to an aggressive unit heavy 1base build (which you will be doing about 1/3 of the time because you're gambling like a moron by sacking the overlord in the first place), you might as well gg. You just decreased your chances of winning from ~50% to ~20%.
Important note: SC2 is such a sped up game, that scouting information has decreased in value compared to broodwar. Macro mechanics speed up timings so much that the overlord needs to be sacked at an unhealthily early timing for any sort of adaptation to occur (that's why bw-coaches whine about sc2 being "too fast"). Even if you scout early warp gate research and 4 gates, the changes you will be able to make to your strat in the short, boosted, time between your scouting and the time of the incoming attack are largely insignificant.
Sure there might be a real difference between expecting an expansion and a 4gate. But generally it is not hard to anticipate a multigate "all-in". It's simply that the time differential between absolute knowledge of the build and the incoming attack is too short. There's hardly any major difference in preparing for a 4gate and a normal build up until a critical point (which preferably is the latest point possible), where you start panick pushing out spines and roaches.
You simply can't start producing units earlier, or your economy will be too bad. There is not enough room to change or modify your strategy.
Same story with terran. Sloppy terrans will always reveal their strats by building their buildings in stupid places. But 3rax all-ins simply can't be defended if you don't have both metabolic boost and roaches ready. Any sort of slight delay on speedling research, any sort of lair before speed build, any sort of lair before roach warren build, WILL die regardless if you scout the build or not.
Same with 2-3rax/1fac MM/hellion+scv rush. It doesn't matter if you scout it. The timings at which you would have to decide for speedlings, roaches, and (most importantly) the construction of your baneling's nest are really really early. Pre "when it makes economic sense to sack an overlord"-timing.
If you want to supply block yourself at 24/18 supply vs a 1base build, go ahead be my guest, mr. progamer.
Same crap with Lair timings vs banshee openings. You have to commit to ling speed/roaches blindly in more than 50% of your ZvT games. You will only ever scout a banshee opening without having to sack an overlord vs a bad terran.
The rest of your games. Simply have fun guessing or flip the coin and sack your overlord anyway, while praying to god your opponent isn't doing a unit heavy 1base rush.
I don't believe in giving zerg better scouting as a solution. I think the game needs to be redesigned for HotS and all timings be delayed. This game will just keep sucking and be random as hell as long as its as fast paced as it is now. A game needs some "dead air" and build up time for good playhers to be able to adapt.
Yea really the timings in SC2 are so fucking random, but it may just be the fact that the meta game is not as developed as Brood War yet.
It really does feel like things are waay to sped up in Sc2, which is why we are having the feeling that "scouting" is the problem as there's a very small window of opportunity to react to certain things.
I suspect that the non-zerg players in this thread are not aware of how easy and common it is to lose as zerg SOLELY because you weren't able to scout.
It is so much more important for zerg to scout his opponent early than it is for T or P it's a joke.
As a general rule with zerg; if you cannot scout your opponent... you lose. Flat out, lose.
I'm not even complaining (and I don't necessarily agree with the OP), but I think it's important for people to recognize the actual issue.
P says "my scout isn't good either why don't we get a better scout too!"
Because you don't need a successful early scout to live past early-mid game 90% of the time.
So you are saying that zerg should always be able to scout the enemy base without losing anything. We can just give all zerg players built in map hacks while we're at it. I play zerg and I have no trouble scouting out what I need.
This is kind of a stupid idea, but what about making overlords have about 100 energy? The ability's they could have are :
-Boost [25] (Makes them move fairly faster) -Observe [25] (Makes an overlord see a bit farther) -Spit [0.9 per second] (releases creep) - I know overlords already have this, but usually people just leave 1 overlord at one spot spitting out creep, and don't really pay attention to it...
Although doing this could cause problems like High Templars having the ability to feedback them, but seriously ... who feedbacks an overlord?
On August 14 2010 14:00 Iggyhopper wrote: Split the overlord speed and overseer speed upgrades for 50/50 each. It's not viable to upgrade to lair and get the overlord speed just so you can sacrifice it.
I hate the way people throw around the word "viable." What the fuck does that even mean? Do you mean sacrificing an OL after getting OL speed to be cost inefficient? If that's what you're saying, you would need to back it up with some ARGUMENTS as to why it is in fact cost inefficient. Overall, your post means almost nothing.
trying looking up big words you dont know; might learn something. vi·a·ble practicable; workable: a viable alternative.
to op, increased natural OL speed would be nice, but i dont think its necessary. OL is fine, and overseers can scout well enough during early midgame
4 gate is not a problem to scout, 1st zealot cant catch your drone if you micro it well, but I think against terran it is a little difficult. Maybe you should get a faster lair and instead of speed at the begining, use an overseer
On September 04 2010 09:28 KaiserJohan wrote: Scouting isnt the problem os ZvX early. The problem is just surviving. 5rax reaper harrass into reaper/marauder/marine push is freaking over the top
This, survival is the problem.
Also with 4 gate. I feel like buildings really shouldn't be armored, it's kind of silly for them to take so much damage from units. I mean sure Spine Crawlers do extra damage to armor but that hardly offsets the fact that it's sooo damn weak and expensive.
On September 04 2010 07:36 travis wrote: Zerg scouting is not a problem. Zerg may have issues, but zerg has it better in the scouting department early game than protoss does. A simple fact right there.
Agreed, Zerg scouting is not that much of a problem. Zerg can also establish a lot of map control, more so then the Terran or Protoss player.
Although it would be nice to see Changeling buffed ( Changelings are so super obvious, ffs if you click on them it says "Changeling") I don't think it's necessary.
I can't comment on wether or not Zerg players scouting is stronger or weaker then Protoss, but I don't feel like Zerg has scouting issues.
On September 04 2010 09:13 LaLuSh wrote: I wrote this in the other crappy thread that was closed:
Hey top rated diamond here, but I could be the best in the world if I played more.
Sacking an overlord is often a very stupid move. It's not desirable whatsoever. It's only useful if you scout a tech heavy all-inish sort of build (read 2port banshee, cliff drop etc).
If you sack an overlord to an aggressive unit heavy 1base build (which you will be doing about 1/3 of the time because you're gambling like a moron by sacking the overlord in the first place), you might as well gg. You just decreased your chances of winning from ~50% to ~20%.
Important note: SC2 is such a sped up game, that scouting information has decreased in value compared to broodwar. Macro mechanics speed up timings so much that the overlord needs to be sacked at an unhealthily early timing for any sort of adaptation to occur (that's why bw-coaches whine about sc2 being "too fast"). Even if you scout early warp gate research and 4 gates, the changes you will be able to make to your strat in the short, boosted, time between your scouting and the time of the incoming attack are largely insignificant.
Sure there might be a real difference between expecting an expansion and a 4gate. But generally it is not hard to anticipate a multigate "all-in". It's simply that the time differential between absolute knowledge of the build and the incoming attack is too short. There's hardly any major difference in preparing for a 4gate and a normal build up until a critical point (which preferably is the latest point possible), where you start panick pushing out spines and roaches.
You simply can't start producing units earlier, or your economy will be too bad. There is not enough room to change or modify your strategy.
Same story with terran. Sloppy terrans will always reveal their strats by building their buildings in stupid places. But 3rax all-ins simply can't be defended if you don't have both metabolic boost and roaches ready. Any sort of slight delay on speedling research, any sort of lair before speed build, any sort of lair before roach warren build, WILL die regardless if you scout the build or not.
Same with 2-3rax/1fac MM/hellion+scv rush. It doesn't matter if you scout it. The timings at which you would have to decide for speedlings, roaches, and (most importantly) the construction of your baneling's nest are really really early. Pre "when it makes economic sense to sack an overlord"-timing.
If you want to supply block yourself at 24/18 supply vs a 1base build, go ahead be my guest, mr. progamer.
Same crap with Lair timings vs banshee openings. You have to commit to ling speed/roaches blindly in more than 50% of your ZvT games. You will only ever scout a banshee opening without having to sack an overlord vs a bad terran.
The rest of your games. Simply have fun guessing or flip the coin and sack your overlord anyway, while praying to god your opponent isn't doing a unit heavy 1base rush.
I don't believe in giving zerg better scouting as a solution. I think the game needs to be redesigned for HotS and all timings be delayed. This game will just keep sucking and be random as hell as long as its as fast paced as it is now. A game needs some "dead air" and build up time for good playhers to be able to adapt.
Yea really the timings in SC2 are so fucking random, but it may just be the fact that the meta game is not as developed as Brood War yet.
It really does feel like things are waay to sped up in Sc2, which is why we are having the feeling that "scouting" is the problem as there's a very small window of opportunity to react to certain things.
Nothing about the metagame. Macro mechanics are boosting shit way too much, depreciating the value of information, increasing the power and unpredictability of han bangs (one single timing attacks). Inititally probably a good idea from Blizzard in order to try to remove "dead air" time. But makes for a way too volatile game than we'd have prefered.
Terran macro mechanic is literally designed for 1base aggression. As long as they manage to keep the pressure on or keep you on the same amount of bases, they will always win.
Zerg macro mechanic is designed to be fucking broken any time they have too easy a time surviving the early game. Mostly applies to the vP matchup, as P actually have to counterexpand aggressively themselves to keep up with Z, whereas terran doesn't. Terran 2 base on full saturation is essentially 2.6 effective bases.
Zerg can't really afford to build enough drones, or expand enough vs T, as T's designed to be such an aggressive race. It doesn't matter that the terran stays on 1base long, because the full saturation+mule more often than not matches the scarcely saturated zerg on 2bases. Once zerg is able to produce drones again, terran usually is in the process of floating his second CC to expo, easily claiming the income lead again, despite expanding very very late.
P is safer vs T because their macro mechanic can boost army production, and because it doesn't require as much minerals/minute at the start to produce workers as compared to Z. Ps advantage in PvT only usually lasts to the 5th minute or so, which is usually signified by them standing with some units or a bunch of stalkers below the terran ramp/wall-in. As we move towards full saturation terran once again takes the lead, and the big big problem of the PvT matchup becomes apparent. P can't expand safely without getting run over, as T explodes in the midgame. Likewise, T usually can't FE in the early game without a huge gamble, as P's econ and production is boosted in this period of the game.
So what you're left with is a fucking borefest of 4gate builds and 1base all-ins, all fighting to be more extreme than the other. On the other end you've got zerg, because of the inherent weakness of their units, forced to expand quickly. Essentially they are gambling as much as the other races do on their extreme timing attacks, only zerg are on the other end of the spectrum: producing drones for as long as humanly possible and making educated guesses as to when the incoming attack is due. ZvP is more balanced because zerg can wait for much longer before having to decide. ZvT is ruthless because zerg blindly have to decide 1½ minute before terran moves out whether they need the speedlings upgrade/roaches or the quick lair.
On September 04 2010 09:24 Ksyper wrote: So you are saying that zerg should always be able to scout the enemy base without losing anything. We can just give all zerg players built in map hacks while we're at it. I play zerg and I have no trouble scouting out what I need.
If you say u have no problem, then how about you add some advice for this guy instead of just acting like youre a total bad*** zerg player?
On September 04 2010 07:36 travis wrote: Zerg scouting is not a problem. Zerg may have issues, but zerg has it better in the scouting department early game than protoss does. A simple fact right there.
Just because zerg scouting is better than protoss scouting does not mean it is not flawed when zerg is far more reactionary than protoss can ever be. Zerg needs to have the best scouting of all three races, hands down, and right now there's a huge gap at the most critical time in the game.
Your logic is flawed.
so u admit zerg already has better scouting than protoss but your solution to zerg woes is to give them EVEN BETTER scouting. clearly the issue couldn't maybe, just maybe, be something other than the scouting.
also, i didn't even display any logic in my post. i just posted 2 statements, one of opinion and one of fact. so i don't know what logic it is that is flawed.
Zerg scouting is decent early-game, but the fact that scouting (Terran) tech involves the loss of an overlord and that Zerg early-game is already hard-pressed for resources to expand / tech with, I think improving Zerg scouting is one way to help boost Z early game survivability. Otherwise, Z has no way of going for economy over aggression.
Eh, It's sort of the same for toss though, yeah? I mean you're not going to get a scout in until you have an observer (or hallucination, which i NEVER see) which is pretty close to overseer/speed overlord tech. Terrans...well don't get me started, but scan at least has a disincentive on its use.
Though I do agree with the point made that zerg scouting is more critical than other races. With a much more reactive playstyle, zerg has the need to know what the enemy is doing, composition-wise, in order to win.
- Zerg is a reactionary race in its purest form. It NEEDS to know what his opponent is doing and how to counter it.
Zerg is no more "reactionary" than any other race. None of the races have strict, determined, game-long build orders that don't deviate at all regardless of what the opponent is doing; and neither race starts off the game with no plan/build at all, just with the idea: "Ok, I can't do anything until I know what he's doing." All races require action and reaction.
If T makes a lot marines and Z throws down a Baneling nest and if Z makes a lot of mutas and T makes a lot of turrets and an armory for thors; who is the "reactionary race"?
OP makes a great point. This is an rts, people should be allowed to scout anytime.
And as other people have noted, protoss kind of gets the short stick too. They can't scout again until they have observers.
I would like to point something out though. Protoss can hide their tech in a corner of the map. They just need one pylon and one tech building, and the enemy won't know what they are doing until it's potentially too late. Terrans and zerg have a harder time doing this, so it kind of evens out that terran can scout protoss' base with scans but protoss can't scout terran's.
Honestly, I believe most of starcraft 2's balance issues can be resolved with a map design change. Some of these maps are obviously too small.
Take the Idra v Morrow Steppes of War game 4 at IEM for example:
I would suggest downloading the replay itself and watching the timing on the lair, overseer and timing push. While Idra could have obtained his Overseer about 20 seconds faster, it most probably would not have allowed him to recover due to lack of resources / larva.
On September 04 2010 09:24 Ksyper wrote: So you are saying that zerg should always be able to scout the enemy base without losing anything. We can just give all zerg players built in map hacks while we're at it. I play zerg and I have no trouble scouting out what I need.
If you are at any sort of high skill level you are lying.
You do have trouble scouting Terran in particular. No amount of tricks you can think of will change the fact that Overlords are slow as sin and a half decent terran player will kill it before it sees anything of note. Perfect wallins 100% of the time prevent ling scouts.
The only time youre getting good scouting against a T is if the T is a terrible player
- Zerg is a reactionary race in its purest form. It NEEDS to know what his opponent is doing and how to counter it.
Zerg is no more "reactionary" than any other race. None of the races have strict, determined, game-long build orders that don't deviate at all regardless of what the opponent is doing; and neither race starts off the game with no plan/build at all, just with the idea: "Ok, I can't do anything until I know what he's doing." All races require action and reaction.
If T makes a lot marines and Z throws down a Baneling nest and if Z makes a lot of mutas and T makes a lot of turrets and an armory for thors; who is the "reactionary race"?
Do you even play zerg? it doesn't seem like you know what you are talking about - the majority of ppl who posted here would disagree with you. Zerg IS a reactionary race.
Really interesting posts Lalush. Do you think Blizzard is aware of the impact of the macro mechanics? Even if they are, the changes required seem way more drastic than anything theyve shown themselves willing to make at least since recent beta. I suppose we will have to wait for an expansion to see real change.
Its not like zerg had same issue to deal with in sc1... yet high level players work with what they got and make it work.
I see zero problems. Too bad you can't see what's going on whenever you want. So sad. Or if your opponent is trying real hard to hide something. Its not like P doesn't have to fight to scout either. Oh noes. And T has to pay their priviledge with limited energy. Energy that now conflicts with their econ, so its even more balanced than sc1.
You want to make scouting easier, might as not have fog. What's the point? Fighting to scout and fighting to hide has been part of the game. Getting fooled by couple of random units then being pwned by hidden counter army has also been part of the game since sc1. Faking building a building then cancelling after scan/scout leaves has also been part of a game. Why all this effort if scouting is easy? Watch some bw games. I wouldn't blame someone for losing to a well hidden plan, pros lose like that sometimes too.. yet at the same time, pros also realize something is fishy most of the time and work harder to scout when they're suspicious. Why? Cause that's what seperates good players from the bad players that just go by what they see instead of trying to get in other players mind.
Don't just play by what you see and actually play the game.
Rather than focusing on issues with overlord scouting, I just thought of something else. Sometimes, the importance of scouting can depend on the flexibility of the build. For example:
14 gas 14 pool into muta/speedling/baneling can solve a bunch of problems. It is good against SEVERAL unit combos, so a scouting mistake vs Terran isn't insta gg. The early ling speed should be able to deal with the reaper threat (or any early game threat for that matter) in low numbers, up until there's too many so that you need a couple of roaches to stop the harass. I won't have to worry too much about early attacks.
For banshees, zergs can opt to steal gas to delay banshee tech and scout early enough to get more queens. IMHO rushing to hydras screws up economy and makes you vulnerable to tank pushes (Not to mention how slow they are). I don't NEED my lair to be finished when i see the starport. Instead, I go straight to muta almost all the time. I don't need to worry about my lair timing, or what to make after it is finished.
Going straight to muta is also good vs thor drops.
Vs marine tank, attack before T sieges with mutas and lings
Vs MM same thing
Scouting stays strong in mid game with map control.
As you can see, this build alone is very, very flexible, and that means scouting isn't AS important as it would be. Once again, I can survive alot that the T can throw.
However, this still doesn't solve the scouting problem so ovys must still be sacrificed early game. The only proper solution i can think of is increasing sight/speed. Adding upgrades means a delayed lair, and no one wants a delayed lair. No one wants to lose 100 minerals for nothing =(
On September 04 2010 09:24 Ksyper wrote: So you are saying that zerg should always be able to scout the enemy base without losing anything.
I don't see why not, terran pretty much does. It's hard to say they "lose" out on minerals that are basically a free CC energy based economy boost. If they didn't have it, they could just ruddy well build workers like everyone else.
Some people are definitely not qualified or smart enough (or perhaps too ignorant?) to talk about what's going on. I think this entire discussion speaks to some of the core problems currently in sc2. I agree that zerg scouting is not necessarily bad, depending on how you define that term, but zerg REQUIRE a certain level of information early game in order to adequately defend. Different aggressive strategies require wildly different kinds of defenses, and properly hidden build orders are simply impossible to scout regardless of what you do, if the enemy (particularly terran) is good enough and knowledgeable enough to hide them. Once again, this is not a comparison of zerg scouting vs p or t scouting. P and T as races operate entirely differently than zerg, and scouting is significantly less important for them (they both have several builds that you can perform blindly that do very well against a huge number of enemy builds).
2 Issues I think are important to come out of this thread: 1. The maps are very bad for zerg. While I'm not saying that maps will simply fix many of the balance issues (a la bw), I think it would be interesting to test different styles of maps (larger base separation, more easily defended naturals, less wiggle room for reapers to hop up and down cliffs, etc). A map like steppes of war is just stupidly hard for a zerg to properly defend on, for a number of reasons.
2. The number of early viable game openings for p and t (particularly t) is just obscene. As a T, I can open: hellion harass, marine hellion, marine tank, fast banshee, reaper, megarax, thor drop, 3 rax, marauder hellion, ad infinitum. There are so many ridiculously powerful openings for terran that it is unrealistic to find a set of zerg openings (that can transition easily to one another) that can account for the sheer versatility of them all.
Once again, I don't necessarily think it is a scouting issue (although that may in fact be a way to resolve things), but it certainly speaks to some of the issues of the game in its current state.
And because people like to respond impulsively to people rather than with rational thinking, I'm a strict terran player, so I have no real agenda as far as talking about zerg issues.
On August 14 2010 11:52 Diablo117 wrote: I would actually like the overlord to have a speed boost ability, maybe something like the phoenix old self destruct, only you gain speed for like 5ish seconds then explode
Wow, seems perfect. Completely balanced too.
I'd love to hear an argument against that.
Agreed, I like that too. It doesn't change almost anything, but allow zerg to scout walled off opponent. You are going to lose the overlord anyway (and you rightfully should, terran scan also isn't free...actually its cost is really similar to one overlord).
I wonder how it would change the drop mechanics. You could drop incredibely quickly...but will you make it in time lol?
you're going to accidently hit the hotkey for the self destruct and bam goes your doom drop.
i think protoss has more trouble scouting. At least zerg has a lord. Yes , protoss can use phoenix or observer indeed, but you don't wanna go 1 gate tech when zerg goes for the kill.
On August 14 2010 11:52 Diablo117 wrote: I would actually like the overlord to have a speed boost ability, maybe something like the phoenix old self destruct, only you gain speed for like 5ish seconds then explode
Wow, seems perfect. Completely balanced too.
I'd love to hear an argument against that.
Agreed, I like that too. It doesn't change almost anything, but allow zerg to scout walled off opponent. You are going to lose the overlord anyway (and you rightfully should, terran scan also isn't free...actually its cost is really similar to one overlord).
I wonder how it would change the drop mechanics. You could drop incredibely quickly...but will you make it in time lol?
you're going to accidently hit the hotkey for the self destruct and bam goes your doom drop.
Then the units inside the overlord could be dropped... That's a real doom drop! 10 overlords, stacked, KABOOM BABY -> lots of units to make him lag :-]
On September 04 2010 14:30 NIJ wrote: Its not like zerg had same issue to deal with in sc1... yet high level players work with what they got and make it work.
I see zero problems. Too bad you can't see what's going on whenever you want. So sad. Or if your opponent is trying real hard to hide something. Its not like P doesn't have to fight to scout either. Oh noes. And T has to pay their priviledge with limited energy. Energy that now conflicts with their econ, so its even more balanced than sc1.
You want to make scouting easier, might as not have fog. What's the point? Fighting to scout and fighting to hide has been part of the game. Getting fooled by couple of random units then being pwned by hidden counter army has also been part of the game since sc1. Faking building a building then cancelling after scan/scout leaves has also been part of a game. Why all this effort if scouting is easy? Watch some bw games. I wouldn't blame someone for losing to a well hidden plan, pros lose like that sometimes too.. yet at the same time, pros also realize something is fishy most of the time and work harder to scout when they're suspicious. Why? Cause that's what seperates good players from the bad players that just go by what they see instead of trying to get in other players mind.
Don't just play by what you see and actually play the game.
obviously you dont play zerg.
i dont mean that in an offensive way. what i mean is zerg is a REACTIONARY RACE. meaning we HAVE to play by what we see and scout. we cant just play the game. if we see a starport with a tech lab, we HAVE to prepare for banshees. we cant just go, "oh well banshees might come doesnt matter ill just continue my plan and hide behind my wall and turrets." we HAVE to invest in some AA units. being the hydra unless we are already building a spire, which could be unlikely if the T player has harassed us well enough. meaning we spend less minerals and gas on units that can combat any other army composition. then what happen if they didnt get banshees, but instead just getting a raven for their mech army because they anticipate our hydra response so the ravens PDD will help them wipe our hydra force even more so then before. then the resources we used to fight off the banshees that might be coming are wasted. the MERE threat of banshees from seeing a tech lab on a starport FORCES us to react with AA. because if we dont we can lose right then and there. and here lies the problem.
because we cant efficiently tell whether hes massing a ground army or acutally building those banshees we predicted means zerg players get caught with their pants down a hell of a lot. and unfortunaly an incorrect army composition for one fight can and will in alot of cases lose the game for us.
Of course losing to a proxy building some where is fine, happens to everyone. thats not a problem with zerg, that can happen to all races. but we're not talking about proxy buildings. we're talking about zergs inability to scout in our opponent's main base. which since zerg is reactionary, is a design flaw. "lets give the one race that needs to scout the most, the least efficient way of scouting"
On September 04 2010 14:30 NIJ wrote: Its not like zerg had same issue to deal with in sc1... yet high level players work with what they got and make it work.
I see zero problems. Too bad you can't see what's going on whenever you want. So sad. Or if your opponent is trying real hard to hide something. Its not like P doesn't have to fight to scout either. Oh noes. And T has to pay their priviledge with limited energy. Energy that now conflicts with their econ, so its even more balanced than sc1.
You want to make scouting easier, might as not have fog. What's the point? Fighting to scout and fighting to hide has been part of the game. Getting fooled by couple of random units then being pwned by hidden counter army has also been part of the game since sc1. Faking building a building then cancelling after scan/scout leaves has also been part of a game. Why all this effort if scouting is easy? Watch some bw games. I wouldn't blame someone for losing to a well hidden plan, pros lose like that sometimes too.. yet at the same time, pros also realize something is fishy most of the time and work harder to scout when they're suspicious. Why? Cause that's what seperates good players from the bad players that just go by what they see instead of trying to get in other players mind.
Don't just play by what you see and actually play the game.
obviously you dont play zerg.
i dont mean that in an offensive way. what i mean is zerg is a REACTIONARY RACE.
You know what makes you a reactionary race? THE FACT THAT YOU CAN REBUILD AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ARMY BY ONLY BUILDING ONE TECH STRUCTURE. No other race gets switch between their tech-trees so quickly and easily. You act like Zerg is the only race that cares what the other race does. Reality check, not true. Zerg is reactionary because they can shift their production capacity rapidly, not because of they have free scouting.
Suggestion, do what IdrA does. Send two in or get early lair and run a (much faster) overseer over to scout, or just use changeling. If you are playing a build that gets lair so late that you won't be able to scout in time AND loses to anything other than MMM, you may want to consider switching up your playstyle. Just a thought.
On September 04 2010 14:30 NIJ wrote: Its not like zerg had same issue to deal with in sc1... yet high level players work with what they got and make it work.
I see zero problems. Too bad you can't see what's going on whenever you want. So sad. Or if your opponent is trying real hard to hide something. Its not like P doesn't have to fight to scout either. Oh noes. And T has to pay their priviledge with limited energy. Energy that now conflicts with their econ, so its even more balanced than sc1.
You want to make scouting easier, might as not have fog. What's the point? Fighting to scout and fighting to hide has been part of the game. Getting fooled by couple of random units then being pwned by hidden counter army has also been part of the game since sc1. Faking building a building then cancelling after scan/scout leaves has also been part of a game. Why all this effort if scouting is easy? Watch some bw games. I wouldn't blame someone for losing to a well hidden plan, pros lose like that sometimes too.. yet at the same time, pros also realize something is fishy most of the time and work harder to scout when they're suspicious. Why? Cause that's what seperates good players from the bad players that just go by what they see instead of trying to get in other players mind.
Don't just play by what you see and actually play the game.
Also this is an extremely astute summary of the situation IMO.
On September 04 2010 14:30 NIJ wrote: Its not like zerg had same issue to deal with in sc1... yet high level players work with what they got and make it work.
I see zero problems. Too bad you can't see what's going on whenever you want. So sad. Or if your opponent is trying real hard to hide something. Its not like P doesn't have to fight to scout either. Oh noes. And T has to pay their priviledge with limited energy. Energy that now conflicts with their econ, so its even more balanced than sc1.
You want to make scouting easier, might as not have fog. What's the point? Fighting to scout and fighting to hide has been part of the game. Getting fooled by couple of random units then being pwned by hidden counter army has also been part of the game since sc1. Faking building a building then cancelling after scan/scout leaves has also been part of a game. Why all this effort if scouting is easy? Watch some bw games. I wouldn't blame someone for losing to a well hidden plan, pros lose like that sometimes too.. yet at the same time, pros also realize something is fishy most of the time and work harder to scout when they're suspicious. Why? Cause that's what seperates good players from the bad players that just go by what they see instead of trying to get in other players mind.
Don't just play by what you see and actually play the game.
obviously you dont play zerg.
i dont mean that in an offensive way. what i mean is zerg is a REACTIONARY RACE.
You know what makes you a reactionary race? THE FACT THAT YOU CAN REBUILD AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ARMY BY ONLY BUILDING ONE TECH STRUCTURE. No other race gets switch between their tech-trees so quickly and easily. You act like Zerg is the only race that cares what the other race does. Reality check, not true. Zerg is reactionary because they can shift their production capacity rapidly, not because of they have free scouting.
>.> we can tech switch with only one tech building?
yes with a spire we can build mutas and corrupters. but to have those units at hand we must already have built the spire, and we should only be building the spire when we need the mutalisk or corrupter but you see if we prebuild a spire without knowing if we need it or not we waste minerals and gas on a building that might never be used. so we need to know if we have to build said spire. meaning we must scout whether or not we need it so we can build it.
we cannot leave it till the last second because it takes 50 seconds to build the spire. but wait, the enemy has moved out, with an army which we need roaches for. but we didnt build a roach warren because we didnt know if we needed it, because we couldn't scout whether or not roaches would be the best option.
BUT WAIT he also has units in this army that we need to have hydras to beat, BUT ALAS we didnt build the hydralisk den because we couldnt scout whether or not we needed it.
catching on yet?
in a perfect zerg favoured game we would already have every tech structure built. yet this is not the case, if we spend all our minerals and gas on getting all these structures and ALL the lenghty and expensive upgrades that are neccesary for the units and we only end up needing one of those buildings, we have just wasted several minerals and gas.
so yes in a late game where we are running on 4 + bases with stockpiled minerals and gas and plenty of larva to rebuild an army we have a trait that no other race has by being able to replenish an army instantly of a completely different composition. but if our opponent lets us happily tech up to 4 bases with every building we want and all upgrades, the zerg player was going to win anyway.
to react means to act based upon anothers actions. however if you do not know what the other persons actions are, you cannot react.
I couldn't help but notice something is consistent in the both scenarios presented by the OP. Both seem to stem from the fact that Z is the only race that requiers a tier 2.5 building to produce anti-air units.
The eternal argument is that queens are zerg's supposed early anti-air. Sadly, a well-made air switch will reveal itself with at least as many banshees/void rays as there are Queens out, at which point Queens become a horrible mistaake. T & P don't suffer from this since they always have access to emergency decent anti-air, and some panicked stalkers or marines are often enough to ward off all but the most brutal tech switches. A Zerg without a hydra den, on the other hand, is royally screwed.
Now I'm not going to come here and suggest hydra tier change bla bla bla, we all know that's not gonna happen. Blizzard is sure sticking to its guns like a creationist at a biology convention, but don't tell me you don't wonder sometimes... how things could be.
don't you think overlord speed and overseers are good enough scouting?? I do well with it.. And keep a drone alive as long as you can in the other ones base..
On September 08 2010 15:41 Gigazing wrote: Noob Question: How was zerg scouting any different in brood war?
On September 04 2010 14:30 NIJ wrote: Its not like zerg had same issue to deal with in sc1... yet high level players work with what they got and make it work.
I see zero problems. Too bad you can't see what's going on whenever you want. So sad
There were fewer viable build orders in BW for Terran, so it wasn't a complete guessing game. Reapers or banshees? Marauder heavy? Marine heavy? Tanks or hellion harass? Thor? Pick one, two, three, or all of the above. Guess wrong and you lose. Oh, and all you can see is a barracks and two supply depots. Good luck! Want that fast overseer to see what's going on? Sorry, you just lost to a three rax push.
SC2 is too much build order rock-paper-scissors for the Zerg matchups.
I think I agree that Zerg should have better scouting, not because they had better in BW (they still had the same methods), but because of all the aggressive openings the other races can NOW do against Zerg. I mean, you can cheese, do harass with a multitude of different units, and they require not only different unit types but DIFFERENT number of units. The fact is Overlord clamping (even with sacrificing three Overlords), fast Lair tech or just getting one of each building is very detrimental. Note that not only does this waste so much minerals and gas, BUT it eats into their economy and production of drones. If we go for our own 1/1/1 build, we WILL be behind the Terran and Protoss.
Better yet, this need for early scouting (I stress on the need: you always need to watch out for Banshees and Void Rays because they can win games outright- geez, I can't believe the number of people who do just this, expect to win outright and just allin, no transition whatsoever- they even get pissed when I win when they do this) is fueled by a lack of a safe standard opening and lack of decent AA (Queens, sigh) at the start. I mean, what build can you think of that can adequately deal with reaper harass, hellion harass, banshee harass, 2 gates, 4 gates, Phoenixes, Void Rays, mech pushes, thor drops, and other shenanigans at the same time? Zerg is very vulnerable and really just downright impossible to play in the early games because of these openings. SC2 is asking way too much of Zerg.
And no you can't just say, "send in three lings to the front. If he has X, then he is going X". Terrans and Protoss are good at getting a good composition to defend so you can't make guesses of how he spends his gas/minerals. They can hide buildings quite well.
We need: better AA at the start so stuff like Banshees and Void Rays can be dealt with We need: larger maps so we have more time to set up against different openings and pushes We need: better scouting so that we can find out his tech so we can react to it. We need: a powerful early game unit/s when HoTS comes out so we can do good against all these openings.
Right now its a guessing game. If we can get better scouting in the early game, we CAN react in time. But if we don't scout early enough, don't find out what the heck he is doing, we can't do crap. We're playing in the dark, and most likely gonna get caught with our pants down, when we expect an early Banshee raid, and he goes for straight up mech push.
I can't believe terrans actually have the nerve to post about scan costing them precious minerals (that they have too much of anyway). Even if we were to accept that argument, terrans have an overlord that flies at pretty much double speed and has 1000 hp. It's called a rax.
And about toss scouting, tosses do not automatically lose every game where they can't scout the enemy and guess their build properly early game.
I agree with this so much. I don't know if Zerg really is a "reaction race", but when fighting against Terran, I am LOST. He blocks his base. I can do a baneling bust, but it's a risk to take, and I hate doing all-in builds or so. I see lots of Marines and Marauders, so I prepared Zerglings, Infestors, and a little bit of Baneling+Hydra support. Next thing I knew, He pushes with 3-4 Thors with Marines and Marauders. I dealt with his Marines and Marauders with the banelings quite well, but lost my entire army doing so, thus, I can't do a counter attack. I don't have a roach warren, and I don't know what is a direct counter to Thors other than Brood Lords. Lings are too Larvae-expensive, Banelings wouldn't be too good against them, and Hydralisks each get killed in a row when he has about 3-4 Thors.
To put things short, Zergs against a walled-up match is a Blind Match unless you can sneak in a changeling that won't get caught... but that only happens on Terrans who aren't expecting them... making them too predictable.
Boosting regular overlord speed is a bad idea, but I'm not convinced other options would be. I have a tough time scouting right now as well, and I hate being forced to tech lair and then overseer just to do it and be safe from cloaked banshees - cuz they do way too much dmg to ground to live if I fail to see them coming.
Immediately teching to lair seems the only viable option for me lately and it stunts my economy. I'm trying to figure out other ways, but I don't know what to do about it really.
The reason zerg NEED better scouting ability is because they have NO t1/1.5 anti air except the queen. Protoss have stalkers and Terrans have marines. Zerg is COMPLETELY FUCKED if it doesn't get hydra's in time. No, spore crawlers are not the solution, they are last line of defense - who the hell makes an evo chamber before lair? Staying on t1 that long is not smart at all when you have NO idea what the other person is going.
Either zerg needs some better scouting options, hydra's be t1/1.5 (after evo instead of straight lair) or queens do better anti air damage. The ONLY reason to get hydra's is to counter early air, utterly useless unit vs anything ground.
On September 10 2010 01:04 danl9rm wrote: Boosting regular overlord speed is a bad idea
Stop right there. Why? As said, terran basically has an overlord that has 5x the hp and 2x the speed for only 50 more minerals. As far as I can tell the only reason overlords are so stupidly slow is because that's how they were in SC1, and the reason that was so was because they had detection. They don't in SC2.
Would making overlords have their speed upgrade default break the game? I hardly think so. Drops still take an incredibly expensive (both time and resource wise) upgrade to get and let's not forget zerg has the weakest drops by far due to their unit strength (or lack thereof).
easily block you till you get speed overlords? really? you do realize overseers are the same tech level as speed overlords and its instant if sacking an overlord scout didnt work while you are getting speed and you really need to get in some scouting info morph an overseer its like gaining an instant speed upgraded overlord. Yes you have to spend 100 gas but you can use it to harass them a bit while its there anyway with contaminate.
The scenario you described is pretty much exactly how it works with Protoss as well. Strongest, most cost-effective units in the game PLUS the ability to hide tech beyond M&M behind that wall leads to tons of mis-read strategies and instantaneous losses.
EPT
Usually have my threads closed because I said there was a slight problem with the game. You are a cool 
