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On August 19 2010 15:59 LightYears wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2010 07:51 Calidus wrote:
As a Terran player i hope they do nerfs in multiple stages, ie nerf tank damage, wait a month, then if need be nerf thor damage etc etc. This may not be what a lot of players(mainly zerg) want to here but is the best to make sure in the long term we have a balanced game. Dont offer ridiculous changes - what's wrong with Tank damage and thor damage? Didnt they get nerfed in beta, tank dmg? Here is what I could offer as a Terran player: - Make units move in an army - with distance between them, same was in war3 and SC1 I think, not a meat ball (the 1 good point of the OP)
- Resource requirements like +25 more Gas on Techlab
- Later Tier for Thor (upgrade or requires Fusion Core)
- Later Tier Tank (requires Armory) Going beyond such changes is retarded. I think some of my offers are also wayy too harsh but I wouldnt mind having them.
in fact all those chances would help middle game. But what really fawks the zerg play is the early harassment namely the:
Reapers, Hellions, Banshee and in your suggestions. Those aren't nerfed.
TBH... if my mineral line wasn't burned every 2mins in this matchup I could PROBABLY do something. Eventho I find that tanks and thors combo are too strong.
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On August 19 2010 00:41 Stegosaur wrote:
People agree that maps with many cliffs on them favour Terran, since they can put siege tanks on there.
Now what happens when a bad player gets cliffdropped? 9 out of 10 times he'll lose not just some workers but his entire expansion will be flattened, compared to a pro who might be fast enough to just lose 6 workers and perhaps save his base by dropping stuff on top of the tanks or sending mutalisks.
See how the lowlevel player noticed the imbalance way more?
Are you serious with the drop part? Drop costs 100/100 + 200/200 and a lot of time. Drop is practically taken out of zerg arsenal, I guess blizz figured they were good enough without it.
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I believe that the best way to fix zerg is to fix the hydralisk. I feel that the hydralisk has several problems currently. I will get to statistics later, and address observations first. I have noticed that in most situations, hydralisks are only good in numbers. As a high dps, low health unit, you have to have a lot to really pack any damage. And when you have hydras in great numbers, you risk the threat of siege tanks, which now do full damage to light units in siege mode.
Statistically, hydras just aren't where they were in sc1. With the removal of defilers and lurkers, zerg has already taken a significant hit to its military. Let's look at the SC1 hydra:
75 minerals, 25 gas, 1 control, 28s build, 80 hp, 10 dmg, 4+1 range, hatch required, movement speed upgrade
and the SC2 hydra:
100 minerals, 50 gas, 2 control, 33s build, 80 hp, 12 dmg, 5+1 range, lair required, no movement speed upgrade
The hydra gains a 20% increase in damage and a 20% increase in range, but suffers a 33% increase in mineral cost and a 100% increase in gas cost. It also becomes a tier 2 unit, has a longer build time, and costs 100% more control. Resultantly, hydras are extremely difficult to mass in sc2 on 2 bases, and demonstrate a serious economic investment.
In my opinion, hydras need to be buffed in some way in order for zerg to stand a chance.
Another reason why zerg is disadvantaged in ZvT is because the risky fast expand strategy often employed by zergs in SC1 (Jaedong once expanded twice before pooling against Flash, i don't recall the specific game) simply no longer pays off. Due to AI pathing and changes in resource gathering, it is no longer better to have 10 workers on each of 2 bases than to have 20 workers on 1 base. Why does this only affect zerg? Because zerg has to out expand its opponent in both ZvT and ZvP in order to maintain a late game advantage. The numbers of drones required to maintain these bases eat up tremendous amounts of supply. It's not like in BW where you would often see 4 hatches each of which were maintained by a meager 14 drones.
Someone also mentioned that mules allow the terran to rebound from econ harass far more effectively than zerg can. I see this as a big problem because it also rewards the terran for not paying attention to their macro game. A terran forgets to mule/scan and builds up 150 energy on each of 2 ccs. He then loses all of his workers. He can pop down 6 mules all at once. He is rewarded for forgetting to scan/mule, whereas a zerg can't simply larvae a hatch multiple times. I would propose that the mule ability have a cooldown approximately equal to the amount of time the unit lasts.
My first post on TL. glad to discuss sc 
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Long time reader first time poster.
I had a lot of experience at various levels of ladder with all races in vanilla SC1 and brood war.
So I remember how imbalances SC1 initially was - to keep things in perspective - Terran was awful and had to somehow win vs mass hydra from Zerg or the guardians came out and it was over. Additionally, mutas were impossible for toss to beat on some maps, as were mass scouts for Terran.
Just for perspective, people then claimed balance was fine just like now. Yet they buffed archons, goons, cannons, and BW came outage buffed goliaths etc.
One key issue with zerg is upgrades that don't really buff the unit - they just bring it to usable status. Ling speed, roach speed, baneling speed. Furthermore, why did marines and dragoons aka stalkers get their range upgrade for free baked into the unit yet hydras still have to research theirs, how does that make any sense whatsoever?
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On August 19 2010 21:59 Konsume wrote:
in fact all those chances would help middle game. But what really fawks the zerg play is the early harassment namely the:
Reapers, Hellions, Banshee and in your suggestions. Those aren't nerfed.
TBH... if my mineral line wasn't burned every 2mins in this matchup I could PROBABLY do something. Eventho I find that tanks and thors combo are too strong.
You must know from SC1 that unless having obvious advantage or medics, now medivacs, terran can't make open battles in the beginning.
Hellions are finally a counter unit to zerglings, finally something with which you can just go and attack zerglings. This unit is just a great idea, Terran needed something against lings. The only nerf could be range nerf.
Reapers vs Zerg? I've seen them used but not as effectively as vs Protoss. If the zerg gets roaches that fast, they become useless. I dont see a problem. And only for certain maps.
Banshee - Lol this unit appears after Factory and Starport and Tech Lab. Come on...
Overall I'll just say there are things that could be nerfed as long as pro players are the ones who claim it.
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I say give the Hydralisk six range to start with an no range upgrade. They need a speed upgrade a helluva lot more than range. OR maybe just make the range 5 with no range upgrade. Just give them speed off of creep. Hell, lower their DPS as well, but make them fucking faster off of creep. Zerg doesn't have a bread and butter unit in SCII (at least they don't vs Terran), and they need one.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 20 2010 00:51 LightYears wrote:
Reapers vs Zerg? I've seen them used but not as effectively as vs Protoss. If the zerg gets roaches that fast, they become useless. I dont see a problem. And only for certain maps.
The problem is that the mere fact that they exist makes hatch-before-pool not viable (and a hatch-before-pool economy was the very basis of the Zerg economic model in SC1). You don't even need to make a single one to benefit from the fact that they exist, because Zerg can't afford to risk the auto-loss. 10rax reaper is a free-win against hatch-before-pool because your reaper is there before the pool finishes, and against pool-first builds, it can still get enough harassment to be ahead, and if not, keeps Zerg off their expansion long enough to be at least even. This is part of what Idra has been saying for weeks now about how it's impossible for Zerg to enter midgame without a disadvantage--a lot of the midgame stuff would be way less damaging if Zerg weren't pinned to defensive one-base builds by a unit that Terran might not even make. Roaches aren't really an acceptable counter, because if Zerg can't even expand until he has the appropriate Roach coverage for 2 bases, you don't even need to do damage for him to be behind.
Hellions don't need a nerf. The maps just need to allow simcities that let you wall the natural from Hellions the way you could wall against Vultures in SC1.
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On August 19 2010 03:56 SoFFacet wrote:
This attitude shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on. It sounds like a smart explanation, and if it were true it makes one feel better about losses, which is why non-top-Zergs cling to it. But it is simply not the case.
In the analogy, one side has an innate advantage that can be overcome by playing better. Anyways, if this were true then if we were to imagine arbitrary scales of of player skill and player effectiveness, a Zerg of Skill 1/10 would have Effectiveness 1, but a Terran with Skill 1/10 has effectiveness 2. Lets say that skill and effectiveness rise by a 1:1 ratio on these scales. This means that while the innate disadvantage can be overcome by the Zerg improving to have skill 3/10 (effectiveness 3), this is undone when the Terran also improves, achieving skill 3/10 (effectiveness 4). And so on and so forth until both players are achieve maximum skill but the Terran retains his natural advantage.
I contend this is not actually what is going on. Instead, both a 1/10 Terran and 1/10 Zerg have effectiveness 1, 2/10 have effectiveness 2, etc. Only at very high levels is imbalance noticable, as the Terran players finally become aware and capable of all the unfair things they can do. So a 9/10 Terran has effectiveness 10 and a 10/10 has effectiveness 11. Unless you are a 9/10 or 10/10 Zerg, balance has very little to do with whether you win or lose.
Ok, lets add some layers here. Ill admidt i didnt play bronze, silver or gold. But every player i have met through platinum had some standardized buildorder that they most likely picked up at a forum, vod or replay - for instance, banshee rushing/helion harass/MMM/reaper rush/etc etc. People mimic what they see the big names doing, and i'd say its pretty hard to be UNAWARE and capable of doing the unfair stuff.
And i also agree with the first two answers your post got. None of the things we are talking about are very skill dependant, anyone can jump ledges with a reaper or a-move while they spam H to kite lings - surviving it is whats hard. So i think most of the behaviours in question here are even more abusive in the lower brackets.
Tbh, even after i hit mid diamond i recall beating terrans who did one of these standardized openings and proceeded to quit if they didnt kill any drones with their helions/reapers - or if i had an overseer and two queens when their first banshee came along. You get the gist of it, they can go very far doing the same thing over and over again.
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On August 19 2010 03:56 SoFFacet wrote:
So a 9/10 Terran has effectiveness 10 and a 10/10 has effectiveness 11. Unless you are a 9/10 or 10/10 Zerg, balance has very little to do with whether you win or lose.
Define a 1/10 and 1/10 zerg/terran.... 1 being bronze league and 10 being IdrA?
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Compare the crawlers and PF/Turrets/Bankers...
This may be fine if Zerg is usually in the aggressive mode and Terran is usually in the defensive mode as in BW...
The terran static defences even have cargo upgrade, range upgrade and armor upgrade. Thu people doesn't use it very often because they are in aggressive mode they don't really need to defend that hard.
Turrets take down mutas that are several times more resources cost. It does not cost gas when the mutas cost a lot of gas!
Bunkers take down anything that are several times more resources cost. It does not cost any resources actually when the Zerg units cost a lot of gas!
PF take down everything that a tons of times more resources cost. It cost a little bit gas but it can be used to havest resources, so it gains resources actually.
Spine Crawlers are taken down by marauders like a joke.
Spine Crawlers are taken down by tanks like a joke.
Spine Crawlers are taken down by thors like a joke.
Spine Crawlers are taken down by marines & medivecs like a joke.
Spine Crawlers take down hellions pretty easily IF they do not just run by it and kill all your drones.
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On August 20 2010 00:51 LightYears wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2010 21:59 Konsume wrote:
in fact all those chances would help middle game. But what really fawks the zerg play is the early harassment namely the:
Reapers, Hellions, Banshee and in your suggestions. Those aren't nerfed.
TBH... if my mineral line wasn't burned every 2mins in this matchup I could PROBABLY do something. Eventho I find that tanks and thors combo are too strong.
You must know from SC1 that unless having obvious advantage or medics, now medivacs, terran can't make open battles in the beginning. Hellions are finally a counter unit to zerglings, finally something with which you can just go and attack zerglings. This unit is just a great idea, Terran needed something against lings. The only nerf could be range nerf. Reapers vs Zerg? I've seen them used but not as effectively as vs Protoss. If the zerg gets roaches that fast, they become useless. I dont see a problem. And only for certain maps. Banshee - Lol this unit appears after Factory and Starport and Tech Lab. Come on... Overall I'll just say there are things that could be nerfed as long as pro players are the ones who claim it.
Another post made by a Terran that knows nothing. To make roaches, you would need a roach warren, and then the added roach build time. After that, unless the creep is spread you can kite roaches around because they are so slow off creep. Not to mention, the cost of a roach warren, and then two roaches is the cost of an expansion, that we could have placed down to make the game even at that point.
The gas spent on roaches could have allowed us to tech up faster as well, so that we can actually hold off cloaked banshees. And theres no way to know if you're actually making them unless we sacrifice 1-2 overlords. Too big of a cost at this point in the game.
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I'd just like to point out that in a Terran heavy field on maps that were described pretournament as being very unfavorable to Zerg that three of the four Zergs advanced, with three very different styles. I believe that while some people have valid complaints it is clear that the huge imbalance that is accepted by so many here simply does not exist. I think that while tweaks can and will be made in the future, the fact that for so many people this is the focal point of their current time with the game is detrimental to the game as a whole. The view of Zerg as a race is a negative one at the moment, and I do not believe that reputation is deserved. It is clearly more than capable of being competitive in the current environment, and hopefully all this negativity does not feed into a continued decline in the population of Zerg in the game in general. Play the race that appeals to you, try to improve, and generally speaking things will work how they are supposed to work.
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The OP makes some amazing points. I have a few problems in that I think he is slightly overstated his case, for one I never seen nuke/ghost being used effectively against a compliant zerg who wasn't completely caught off balance. Also I don't think mass bio builds are a problem. I have several options to deal with bio. Nor do I particularly think bio/mec is that big a problem. It is extremely hard to deal with but not impossible. The problem is squarely pure mech, which is a nightmare to deal with, and if the Terran knows what he's doing, is impossible to defeat.
The other observations are dead on. Zerg's mobility is greatly nerfed from BW, and I think that plays a huge role. Also tanks target AI is ridiculous. I'm not sure how to fix it though. I think it will be silly to intentionally make the AI dumber for balance reasons. Perhaps keep the AI but twitter the stats a bit, lower their damage and make them take a little longer to build. Increasing their build time will allow time to build enough muta to snipe them off.
One way that I think would better help to match up is to buff muta a bit. I don't see why, since muta can no longer stack, that they have the exact same stats as they did in BW. I understand why they don't stack, since you have unlimited unit selection, 30 stacked muta would be ridiculously OP. But if they don't stack then they should have their hp's increased. As it is now, they have all the squishiness of BW but not the firepower or control. They still have all of the down sides of BW but none of the up sides, yet still cost a fortune. I don't think the risk/reward of mutas makes sense. I still build them, due to a lack of other options for map control, but they are really underpowered vs terran. Again I'm not sure the exact way to fix them because I think they are just fine vs toss, so buffing them to deal with terran might mess up zvp.
If I could highlight the most important fixes I would make them such. In order of priority.
1. Fix tanks some how.
2. Either beef up muta or nerf thors : This will help with zerg mobility. If terran wants to build an unstoppable mech army, they should have to pay the consequence of mobility. This worked out well in BW, but in SC2 terran just marches into your main unchecked. If the map control unit is totally useless in a battle then you don't really have map control. Terran's will just do what their doing, which is just 'a' move into your main and not worry about losing map control.
3. Nerf terran's ability to scout, make scan cost more energy.
I think that will help for now. Blizzard shouldn't over nurf like they did to roaches, so I am ok with them taking their time, I'm also ok with them only making very small tweaks per balance batch. What they did to roaches should be done again to any other race.
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On August 20 2010 04:09 fathead wrote:
The OP makes some amazing points. I have a few problems in that I think he is slightly overstated his case, for one I never seen nuke/ghost being used effectively against a compliant zerg who wasn't completely caught off balance. Also I don't think mass bio builds are a problem. I several options to deal with bio. Nor do I particularly think bio/mec is that big a problem. It is extremely hard to deal with but not impossible. The problem is squarely pure mech, which is a nightmare to deal with, and if the Terran knows what he's doing, is impossible to defeat.
A few higher ranked people posted many pages ago that a few Terrans are doing this, one being Qxc, and I think if he is doing it then it's probably viable to atleast some degree.
GG Invitational Spoiler
+ Show Spoiler +It's funny I'm watching a replay of Mardow vs Inuh and wouldn't you know it... a Inuh just Thor dropped Mardow on LT. Followed by a turret and tanks on the ledge.
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On August 20 2010 04:15 EppE wrote:A few higher ranked people posted many pages ago that a few Terrans are doing this, one being Qxc, and I think if he is doing it then it's probably viable to atleast some degree. + Show Spoiler +It's funny I'm watching a replay from the GG Invitational and wouldn't you know it... a Terran just Thor dropped a Zerg on LT. Followed by a turret and tanks on the ledge.
Thanks, I obviously didn't read every post in a 40+ page thread yet. All though I might, since I think the OP did a really good job.
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On August 20 2010 03:34 JPSke wrote:
I'd just like to point out that in a Terran heavy field on maps that were described pretournament as being very unfavorable to Zerg that three of the four Zergs advanced, with three very different styles. I believe that while some people have valid complaints it is clear that the huge imbalance that is accepted by so many here simply does not exist. I think that while tweaks can and will be made in the future, the fact that for so many people this is the focal point of their current time with the game is detrimental to the game as a whole. The view of Zerg as a race is a negative one at the moment, and I do not believe that reputation is deserved. It is clearly more than capable of being competitive in the current environment, and hopefully all this negativity does not feed into a continued decline in the population of Zerg in the game in general. Play the race that appeals to you, try to improve, and generally speaking things will work how they are supposed to work.
I'll agree to the fact that only small tweaks here and there need to be made and that nothing huge needs to be done. This is simply for the fact that if zerg is buffed too much, I'm afraid that PvZ may become unbearable and then we would have a new set of problems. That being said I believe some small changes still need to be made. Early game can be extremely hard for a zerg and if they power their economy too hard they won't have enough to defend for a big push. If they skimp on powering their economy however, they enter mid game with a lackluster economy and it's a uphill battle from there on out.
This isn't the only problem though. Terran is so flexible and they have so many options, harassment can become the nail in the coffin. The zerg can't afford to make any mistakes or they risk getting rolled by things like reapers, or hellion harass etc.
Then if they do enter mid to late game, every terran unit is designed to be a hard counter. Throw in the fact that everything to so versatile and flexible, zerg really has no timing windows where they can choose to be the aggressor and dictate the pace of the game.
Now Honestly, I'm making everything out to be a lot worse than it is. It's not impossible for the zerg but they can't afford to make any mistakes and the terran can afford to make a few and still come out even if not ahead.
Let me throw out a few small changes that could really fix things without being too over the top. The whole zerg ideology is, power your economy for as long as possible and squeeze out every last drone possible until it's time to pump units. The foundation of this idea is being able to have "enough" by the time your economy is set up and your enemy is ready to push. Things like spine crawlers can make or break being pushed but the problem is, when you try to squeeze them in as you see your opponent leaving their base, they don't build in time and you die. The other side of the story is, if you play it safe and build them ahead of time to be cautious, your economy suffers and you enter mid game with a bad economy and it's just up hill from there.
Simple solution: change spine crawler build time from 50 seconds to 42, slightly longer than that of a photon cannon. Zerg's economy and larvae system is based on being able to squeeze in a defense at the last second.
Now let's address terran's extreme versatility for a second. They don't really have to make a commitment to any specific tech path because their tier 1 units and upgrades are all so cheap and the buildings flow so smoothly. You can transition from bio to mech to air back to mech with little commitment, essentially making the opponent play a constant guessing game. I think raising stim pack from 100/100 to 150/150 would force terran to either commit to bio or move on to mech, or at least severely delay mech if they did decide on a bio build with tank/hellion support. Stim is way too powerful to be giving away for 100/100 and it only gets better when medivacs appear.
Sorry for the long post but I feel the need to explain this issue in depth. Now while transitioning to lair, terran's tech paths are quickly developing while zerg just sit and wait for their lair to pop. I'm just gonna throw real quick that this is a very vulnerable time for the zerg. Taking 5-10 seconds off of the lair's build time could give them some much needed breathing room during this intense period.
Now lair finishes and it's time for zerg to pick a tech path. Problem is because of cost, you pretty much can only pick and chose between burrowed roaches, hydra play, or putting down a spire and going muta. Then you have the essential upgrades like overlord speed, roach speed and the evo chamber upgrades, you're really hurting for gas and there really isn't much of a chance for tech switches at this moment. I think lowering burrow to 50/50 would make one of the more versatile upgrades a bit more doable in addition to whatever tech path you wanted to follow through with.
Okay so if your going with burrow a nice follow up is obviously burrowed roaches but that really is a hit or miss kind of strategy and isn't for every game. Mutalisks can be very aggressive and are great for map control and dictating the pace of the game. Unfortunately, terran have a plethora of options for eliminating this threat, turning your 6 mutalisks into a waste of 600/600. One thor and 3 missile turrets will disintegrate your muta fleet, and that's besides whatever ground force is waiting at your natural to counter you. My solution: give turrets 25% slower attack rate so that terran has something to be scared about for once.
So before this post gets too big I'm just going to throw out the rest of my changes and we can discuss from there. Tank AI nerf so they deal overkill, viking -1 range with a 100/100 upgrade for +1 range at the starport tech lab, and neural parasite @ 24 second duration to counter thor play.
I'd also like to see something done with the creep mechanic so it's not such a double edged sword, maybe making spreading it easier or whatever and also something done to the auto-repair mechanic because right now it's too hard for lings to kill a thor or planetary fortress with like 6-8 scvs repairing it. I'm still debating how to balance these last 2 so if anyone has any suggestions feel free to discuss them (There is a separate thread for each that go into greater detail).
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AWESOME!
...now we just need someone to translate their comments back into English -.-
PS:
I have 2 replays from earlier today... one vs Rank 3 Diamond Toss and another vs Rank 7 Diamond Terran.......
Both played like they just got promoted from Silver... both have better win rates than me...
What could it be? Do weaker players really have it easier by playing T/P? Or are they really gosu, but just sucked that game...?? Or maybe I'M GOSU and didn't know it until today???
Lol it's just strange that people I can beat so easily have better overall standing/win rate.
I have a replay against a Terran where I spelled "LOL" on the map with spine crawlers... But for some reason that terran is ranked top Diamond... I'm just so curious...
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OP hit the nail on the head. I recently reached a point where i literally cannot seem to beat terrans anymore (~700 diamond), and like OP said, almost all my opponents are terran now. ZvT is a nightmare.
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On August 20 2010 03:34 JPSke wrote:
I'd just like to point out that in a Terran heavy field on maps that were described pretournament as being very unfavorable to Zerg that three of the four Zergs advanced, with three very different styles. I believe that while some people have valid complaints it is clear that the huge imbalance that is accepted by so many here simply does not exist. I think that while tweaks can and will be made in the future, the fact that for so many people this is the focal point of their current time with the game is detrimental to the game as a whole. The view of Zerg as a race is a negative one at the moment, and I do not believe that reputation is deserved. It is clearly more than capable of being competitive in the current environment, and hopefully all this negativity does not feed into a continued decline in the population of Zerg in the game in general. Play the race that appeals to you, try to improve, and generally speaking things will work how they are supposed to work.
I think people need to take into account that IdrA and Dimaga probably have the best mechanics of anyone in the tournament so it's not surprising that they advanced. Why should one tournament where zerg is doing well mean there's no imbalance? Should we just conveniently ignore the fact that terrans have been cleaning up most of the recent tournaments?
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EPT
