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On August 21 2010 06:13 brad drac wrote:What happens when terran works as hard as zerg are diminishing returns. The power of terran is the brute force of their units. If they're microed correctly they're extremely hard to deal with. If zerg can maneuver into a good position, it can crush the terran ball then reinforce far quicker. If you take the thor + scv's out of context it's easy to make it sound imbalanced. That was a result of back and forth between the players which put demuslim in a position where he could pull that off unapposed. What would some banelings into the scv's have done, then a ling surround on the thor? Raped it, that's what. It's certainly a strong push, but have you ever had to deal with banelings as a bio terran, or broodlords when Z has air dominance?+ Show Spoiler +Frankly calling the matchup imbalanced when the games were that close and dimaga went on to win it is an insult to demuslim who put on an excellent series with a great variety of builds. Note again, I never said any matchup was perfectly balanced, I'm in no position to say, but when a terran and a zerg of, in my opinion, fairly equal skill can have games so close it seems fairly clear to me many of the balance issues are overstated. Check out idra's new TvZ build he showed off in the IEM. Totally shuts down the vast majority of T's early game options. The metagame evolves constantly. What seemed imbalanced a week ago could turn out to be easily countered when a player figures out how to deal with it.
You make this sound so easy. Let's break down what happens in reality.
Demuslim scouts dimaga's spire so he builds thors to counter them. Dimaga scouts Demuslim going thors so the natural response is to build roaches.
vs thor you can safely build roaches on reaction just fine. However thor + SCV is almost an entirely different unit composition and yes requires perhaps banelings to kill the scvs. While Thor itself is simple enough to quickly get roaches up on reaction thor + scv is not. You do not know if he is going to use thors or bring in scvs along with them for thor + scv. The only time you will ever spot scvs with the thor is when they are already moving towards your base so you do not have enough time to build a baneling nest + zerglings > banelings on reaction.
This is exactly what happened in the game, dimaga only had roaches to defend against thor + scv and barely survived after countless losses.
The matchup is imbalanced because zerg has to prepare for multitude of different unit compositions with very limited scouting. Is it going to be standard play now where zerg has to build every single tech structure just in case of what terran decides to do?
Also, no one is insulting DeMuslim when they say the matchup not balanced. We're talking about the game and not the player.
*edit : that 1 thor killed 43 units btw. All of which consisted of mutalisks and roaches. Not imba? come on.
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Assuming this is an issue (I believe it is) the question becomes what will Blizzard do about it? They will most likely not be adding in new units at this stage of the game, and its unlikely they will do a heavy reworking of mechanics, (things suggested like hydras to T1 or completely changing the creep mechanic, etc).
So going with small, easy tweaks the following is my suggestions having read though the thread:
Terran Nerfs:
Remove stim from Marauders - Small nerf to an already strong unit. Also has the effect of if you stim your marines the ball will start to split thanks to different movement speeds, allowing for more flanks and surrounds. (This has always been a thorn in my craw, especially considering that marauders don't have stim in the single player. It just is a weird upgrade for them to have.)
Max energy on Orbital Lowered - I think this might be a really strong fix. This means that Terran is punished in the same way Zerg is for missing a mule, they can't save up for 5+ mules, and so on. Cap the energy very low (something like 75, or 50) and it becomes more of a choice and something more to pay attention to.
I think those two changes are small enough that it will not horribly break the ZvP matchup, or the TvT matchup, which must be considered. Also why my Zerg buffs are larger.
Zerg Buffs: (Im not sure all of these are needed but I think these are the kind of buffs we should see, they are all small but open up more strategy to the zerg gameplay)
Spawn Nydus Worm - Gas cost removed. (Still costs gas to build the network, but spawning a worm now only costs minerals.) I think that this structure and ability has a lot of potential for Zerg but the loss when you lose a worm is too large, if its just 100 minerals then it becomes a viable harassment path. Suddenly its not a huge hit to spawn a worm as your army is rushing forward as a distraction.
Queens spawn with 50 energy - I think this will help the Zerg early game quite a bit, being able to tumor and larva spawn right away feels right.
Hatchery initial creep spread increased by 15% or so - If the creep spread out from your base just a little bit more (without a tumor) it would make holding off early reapers / hellions just a little bit easier, as they would be deeper into the creep when attacking drones etc.
Spawning a queen comes creates an egg, instead of tying up the hatch. - This I think solves a lot of the "time to get lair" issues, as you can get a queen and lair at the same time.
Burrow moved to hatch tech - Burrow is I think a mechanic that can lead to creative interesting play early game, where detection is less plentiful, its more useful in general earlier. This along with the queen change can lead to some more interesting early game openings.
Corruption can be cast on buildings - Currently this ability is hardly used, but if it could be cast on buildings for a % damage increase suddenly PFs are less of a problem. The terran wall off mid game becomes less of an issue, and so on. I think it could lead to some interesting drop tactics, where you bring a corrupter in with a small drop to quickly tear down buildings.
Anyway sorry for the "my random suggestions", but I think that's the type of thing we might actually see blizzard do (instead of something like adding Lurkers, as much as I would like the Lurkers). I could be totally off base but I think those are the sort of things that would really help.
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If one person from blizzard reads the OP the.game will be fixed. Your points are excellently articulated. Not only did your points hit on gameplay and balance but you also captured what it means to play zerg. The idea of zerg is they are everywhere and if you move out unprepared "your army doesn't come back."
This is the best analysis of zerg's problems I've seen.
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On August 21 2010 02:40 MockHamill wrote:
I think in a few months everyone will laugh at the old assumption that Terran > Zerg. By then everyone will have realized these things:
1) Mutas > Thor
2) Ultras > everything but air
3) Bling > Bio
4) Defilers rule them all
Terrans have no good answer to well microd mutas since Thors only break even. By going Thor/Marines you open yourself up to banelings. And when the Thor/Marines are dead mutas clear up the siege tanks.
Currently Terran have a slight advantage midgame but that is only because Zerg players do not realize how weak Thor are vs. Mutas. Soon that will change and Zerg midgame will be equal to or stronger than Terrans. Come late game Ultras with some defiler and baneling/zergling backup are much stronger than anything Terran can muster.
So I say:
Zerg > Terran.
I will quote this post in a few months to prove that I was right.
Huge troll is troll.
1) You have not played SC2. Have you seen what happens when a Thor launches his AOE air attack into a pack of mutas ? He crushes them. Worst example ever.
2) Ultra is a tier 3 unit. And you need enough bases to maintain them, and they are extremly good, but jesus christ, so much minerals \ gas is needed to even get there, and even more to produce them.
3) When time passes Blings won't be that effective vs Bio as it is atm. Fungal Growth combined with Blings make them very good, but look at IEM. Some of the Terran micros have been excellent against blings. When the Micro play picks up in the next year or two, Blings will be useless til you get Infestors to back them up. Look out early push, eh ?
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I agree with the OP. but I can only speak from a observers view because I play P exclusively. PvZ also feels much easyer than PvT.
I think there are two main problems from my point of view:
1. T can sink minerals into two/three very effective and versatile units: marauders, marines, hellions. while the marine part is perfectly fine, I think its too much that hellions cost no gas and marauders cost almost no gas. hellions are perfect zoneing units and very effective against lings decent vs hydras, while marauders hardcounter roaches and tank damage from banelings. I dont know how the solution would look like but it just doesnt seem ok like this.
adding gas cost to either marauders or hellions (I think hellions) should have a pretty interesting impact. If T wants to zone Z with his hellions then he has to sacrifice/slow his tech.
this also would not affect TvP much because hellions are only effective against zealots and thats it. also most terrans play bio vs P
and: every other mapcontrol unit has a pretty high gas cost.
2. Thors should be attackable by air-to-air units. this wouldnt affect PvT at all because nobody is making thors against P. thors are just not in that MU because P can counter them with every of the three techpaths. In PvZ this could have a huge impact because corruptors could be made against thors. Z will have the problem that they have to spread their gas into mutas and corruptors but a good number of corruptors could force T to babysitt their thors more or to make ghosts/marines against mutas. its just not right that thors are effective against so many units that Z have in their arsenal.
letz see what the future brings. maybe someone revolutionizes ZvT in the near future or blizzard will try to change the problem with balance patches.
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Only thing needs fixing is the time it takes to get a hive.
Nothing else.
Mutas can counter Thors fine just don't put em in a ball.
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On August 21 2010 11:21 Samus wrote:
Only thing needs fixing is the time it takes to get a hive.
Nothing else.
Mutas can counter Thors fine just don't put em in a ball.
Tell that to the unit pathing... it's not like people are going out of their way to bunch up the mutas by individually selecting them and instructing them to move closer. If air behaved like ground where they would attempt to surround upon being instructed to attack, then you could diss people for clumping.
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Reduce Lair and Hive time, and reduce the thor AA range to 6, or make the thor require fusion core.
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TvZ is broken.
bling/infestor/mutas > bio even with support
ultras > everything that cannot fly
Terran players have a big advantage early on, but if they didn't abuse it and win straight away or at least get a huge lead, they has no chance mid-late game. Unless some safe transition to battlecruisers get possible, which I doubt because terran just can't switch from raxes and factories to ports so easily as zerg.
The whole matchup would get much better, if zerg early game got buffed and late game nerfed. Hopefully Blizzard realize that and next balance patch won't only do the more obvious first part of the job.
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On August 21 2010 07:49 DoomFox wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2010 06:13 brad drac wrote:What happens when terran works as hard as zerg are diminishing returns. The power of terran is the brute force of their units. If they're microed correctly they're extremely hard to deal with. If zerg can maneuver into a good position, it can crush the terran ball then reinforce far quicker. If you take the thor + scv's out of context it's easy to make it sound imbalanced. That was a result of back and forth between the players which put demuslim in a position where he could pull that off unapposed. What would some banelings into the scv's have done, then a ling surround on the thor? Raped it, that's what. It's certainly a strong push, but have you ever had to deal with banelings as a bio terran, or broodlords when Z has air dominance?+ Show Spoiler +Frankly calling the matchup imbalanced when the games were that close and dimaga went on to win it is an insult to demuslim who put on an excellent series with a great variety of builds. Note again, I never said any matchup was perfectly balanced, I'm in no position to say, but when a terran and a zerg of, in my opinion, fairly equal skill can have games so close it seems fairly clear to me many of the balance issues are overstated. Check out idra's new TvZ build he showed off in the IEM. Totally shuts down the vast majority of T's early game options. The metagame evolves constantly. What seemed imbalanced a week ago could turn out to be easily countered when a player figures out how to deal with it. You make this sound so easy. Let's break down what happens in reality. Demuslim scouts dimaga's spire so he builds thors to counter them. Dimaga scouts Demuslim going thors so the natural response is to build roaches. vs thor you can safely build roaches on reaction just fine. However thor + SCV is almost an entirely different unit composition and yes requires perhaps banelings to kill the scvs. While Thor itself is simple enough to quickly get roaches up on reaction thor + scv is not. You do not know if he is going to use thors or bring in scvs along with them for thor + scv. The only time you will ever spot scvs with the thor is when they are already moving towards your base so you do not have enough time to build a baneling nest + zerglings > banelings on reaction. This is exactly what happened in the game, dimaga only had roaches to defend against thor + scv and barely survived after countless losses. The matchup is imbalanced because zerg has to prepare for multitude of different unit compositions with very limited scouting. Is it going to be standard play now where zerg has to build every single tech structure just in case of what terran decides to do? Also, no one is insulting DeMuslim when they say the matchup not balanced. We're talking about the game and not the player. *edit : that 1 thor killed 43 units btw. All of which consisted of mutalisks and roaches. Not imba? come on.
Consider how allinish the thor push was, if it had failed he'd be down a lot of SCVs. The fact of the matter is dimaga had suffered from harassment for much of the game, demuslim felt he had the advantage and decided to go in for the kill with a thor + scv timing push, and it worked. An ultralisk + queen push(put queens in overlords spewing creep to compensate for immobility) against a similar resource/supply terran ground army would be just as effective. True, the ultra den requires one more tech structure(not counting the tech lab) to get out, but that's to balance the fact you can make several at once with just the den. Thors are great against zerg, I use them in my TvZ all the time(I'm a random player, zerg is my favourite race) but my thors die all the time to superior armies. I'm not qualified to say whether it's perfectly balanced or not, but unless I'm greatly mistaken not many people around here are.
On August 21 2010 11:35 hdkhang wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2010 11:21 Samus wrote:
Only thing needs fixing is the time it takes to get a hive.
Nothing else.
Mutas can counter Thors fine just don't put em in a ball. Tell that to the unit pathing... it's not like people are going out of their way to bunch up the mutas by individually selecting them and instructing them to move closer. If air behaved like ground where they would attempt to surround upon being instructed to attack, then you could diss people for clumping.
Try using the move command instead of a-moving, this will cause the mutas to attempt to maintain formation as they fly, not clumping up towards the target of your click. Press the s key when over the enemy unit to fire. Needs a little more micro, but it's not too hard. See demonstration/tutorial.
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I agree with the suggestion of making the hydra T1.5 based on T and P units that are T1.5 and have similar stats.
.....................Marauder..............Stalker................Hydralisk
Cost...............100min/25gas.......125min/50gas......100min/50gas
Supply............2..........................2........................2
Build time.......30sec...................42sec.................33sec
health.............125......................80/80..................80
armor..............1..........................1........................0
move speed.....2.25......................2.95...................2.25
damage..........10+10vsArmored....10+4vsArmored...12
attacks...........1 ground................1 ground/air........1 ground/air
attack speed...1.5........................1.44...................0.83
range..............6...........................6.......................5(+1 upgrade)
unit type.........Armored/Bio...........Armored/Mech....Light/Bio
Some observations, while hydralisk has the fastest attack speed it has the lowest health and 0 armor and is the secont most expensive out the trio by 25min. The marauder has the cheapest cost and fastest build time and the best bonus vs Armored type but no air attack. The stalker has the highest cost and slowest build time, also has the most health, fastest walk speed, standard 6 range like a marauder and hit ground and air like a hydralisk.
There are other variables like stim, concussive shells, blink, creep, and different bonuses from upgrades.
So now the requirements for each currently.
Marauder: Barracks 150min/65sec + Tech Lab 50min/25gas/25sec
Stalker: Gateway 150min/65sec + Cybernetics Core 150/50sec
Hydralisk: Spawing Pool 200min/65sec + Lair 150min/100gas/80sec + Hydralisk Den 100min/100gas/40sec (also two drones used for pool+den so +100min?)
So really is dropping the hydralisk to just Pool + Den gonna give zerg an unfair advantage?
To tech to Marauders its 200 minerals/25 gas and 90 seconds total, Stalker 300 minerals/115 seconds and Hydralisk would be 300 minerals/100 gas and 105 seconds total.
Overall I think that we should be patient and wait to see what the expansions do but this particual change I think should happen no matter what.
(I apologize if any of the above information is incorrect)
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On August 21 2010 11:35 hdkhang wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2010 11:21 Samus wrote:
Only thing needs fixing is the time it takes to get a hive.
Nothing else.
Mutas can counter Thors fine just don't put em in a ball. Tell that to the unit pathing... it's not like people are going out of their way to bunch up the mutas by individually selecting them and instructing them to move closer. If air behaved like ground where they would attempt to surround upon being instructed to attack, then you could diss people for clumping.
Responding to myself here... so I just discovered muta magic box. This changes things quite a bit.
EDIT: Clarification. Changes as in it changes the way to manage your mutas, doesn't change the fact that cost for cost mutas don't counter Thor.
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On August 20 2010 07:12 Darkn3ss wrote: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...
if you open that link in google chrome, chrome can translate it for you
http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=2024625
EDIT: obvs the chrome translation is not perfect, but you'll get the idea
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On August 21 2010 13:51 DARKHYDRA wrote:
I agree with the suggestion of making the hydra T1.5 based on T and P units that are T1.5 and have similar stats.
.....................Marauder..............Stalker................Hydralisk
Cost...............100min/25gas.......125min/50gas......100min/50gas
Supply............2..........................2........................2
Build time.......30sec...................42sec.................33sec
health.............125......................80/80..................80
armor..............1..........................1........................0
move speed.....2.25......................2.95...................2.25
damage..........10+10vsArmored....10+4vsArmored...12
attacks...........1 ground................1 ground/air........1 ground/air
attack speed...1.5........................1.44...................0.83
range..............6...........................6.......................5(+1 upgrade)
unit type.........Armored/Bio...........Armored/Mech....Light/Bio
Some observations, while hydralisk has the fastest attack speed it has the lowest health and 0 armor and is the secont most expensive out the trio by 25min. The marauder has the cheapest cost and fastest build time and the best bonus vs Armored type but no air attack. The stalker has the highest cost and slowest build time, also has the most health, fastest walk speed, standard 6 range like a marauder and hit ground and air like a hydralisk.
There are other variables like stim, concussive shells, blink, creep, and different bonuses from upgrades.
So now the requirements for each currently.
Marauder: Barracks 150min/65sec + Tech Lab 50min/25gas/25sec
Stalker: Gateway 150min/65sec + Cybernetics Core 150/50sec
Hydralisk: Spawing Pool 200min/65sec + Lair 150min/100gas/80sec + Hydralisk Den 100min/100gas/40sec (also two drones used for pool+den so +100min?)
So really is dropping the hydralisk to just Pool + Den gonna give zerg an unfair advantage?
To tech to Marauders its 200 minerals/25 gas and 90 seconds total, Stalker 300 minerals/115 seconds and Hydralisk would be 300 minerals/100 gas and 105 seconds total.
Overall I think that we should be patient and wait to see what the expansions do but this particual change I think should happen no matter what.
(I apologize if any of the above information is incorrect)
Sorry for the double post but this is completely different from my previous post.
This comparison (atleast regarding the tech, not the unit) is not apples to apples. ONCE you get the den out, you can make as many hydras as your resources and larvae allow you to. For T and P, you must build additional buildings (with addon for T). That is the reason for the cost of drone as well as the naturally higher cost and longer build times for zerg buildings. I think the timing is fine.
However as a T player, I do agree the hydra is quite weak. I absolutely laugh at a zerg going hydras because they (the unit, not the player) suck and I almost never lose against a zerg going hydra. Everything kills it...any tech pattern I go will own it (even vikings on ground mode! ok exagerating but it's pretty close). Tanks kill them. Helions kill them. Thors kill them. Enough MM will kill them. Off creep they melt faster than butter on a skillet.
I think even a small fix such as giving the hydra +.25 move speed would help a lot as it would allow the Z to be more aggressive because if they push and lose, they can retreat and make it home. Where as right now marauders walk the same speed and can slow them down to death so the hydras always just stay in the base and on creep.
Otherwise I don't play Z enough to be giving out solutions/suggestions. But that's just my 2 cents regarding the Hydras
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On August 21 2010 13:51 DARKHYDRA wrote:
I agree with the suggestion of making the hydra T1.5 based on T and P units that are T1.5 and have similar stats.
.....................Marauder..............Stalker................Hydralisk
Cost...............100min/25gas.......125min/50gas......100min/50gas
Supply............2..........................2........................2
Build time.......30sec...................42sec.................33sec
health.............125......................80/80..................80
armor..............1..........................1........................0
move speed.....2.25......................2.95...................2.25
damage..........10+10vsArmored....10+4vsArmored...12
attacks...........1 ground................1 ground/air........1 ground/air
attack speed...1.5........................1.44...................0.83
range..............6...........................6.......................5(+1 upgrade)
unit type.........Armored/Bio...........Armored/Mech....Light/Bio
Some observations, while hydralisk has the fastest attack speed it has the lowest health and 0 armor and is the secont most expensive out the trio by 25min. The marauder has the cheapest cost and fastest build time and the best bonus vs Armored type but no air attack. The stalker has the highest cost and slowest build time, also has the most health, fastest walk speed, standard 6 range like a marauder and hit ground and air like a hydralisk.
There are other variables like stim, concussive shells, blink, creep, and different bonuses from upgrades.
So now the requirements for each currently.
Marauder: Barracks 150min/65sec + Tech Lab 50min/25gas/25sec
Stalker: Gateway 150min/65sec + Cybernetics Core 150/50sec
Hydralisk: Spawing Pool 200min/65sec + Lair 150min/100gas/80sec + Hydralisk Den 100min/100gas/40sec (also two drones used for pool+den so +100min?)
So really is dropping the hydralisk to just Pool + Den gonna give zerg an unfair advantage?
To tech to Marauders its 200 minerals/25 gas and 90 seconds total, Stalker 300 minerals/115 seconds and Hydralisk would be 300 minerals/100 gas and 105 seconds total.
Overall I think that we should be patient and wait to see what the expansions do but this particual change I think should happen no matter what.
(I apologize if any of the above information is incorrect)
Looks pretty good, just comparing unit stats/costs it doesn't seem like there's any compelling reason why the hydralisk needs to take so much longer to get out. Having a 1 base hydra opening would probably also be a huge boost for zerg in team games and would likely give zvz some more spice as a bonus.
However, this would be a little too good in zvp. 2 gate wouldn't exist anymore, 4-warpgate would be terrible, and protoss would be in the same situation against zerg as zerg is in against terran right now, where they would be dominated, reactive, and pigeon-holed into the same few openings every game until very late in the game when t3 units are out. On the other hand, while it would shut down early protoss aggression, can't gateway units pretty much beat hydras off creep? Maybe having protoss not being able to 4-warpgate every game, every matchup, every map would be a good thing.
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All we need is faster units off-creep or a better way of spreading creeps. Either way we HAVE TO BE FAST.
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I have not seen this suggested here, so if it was I apologize, or if I'm off base feel free to ignore.
Rather than some of the drastic changes that have been thrown around I'd like to propose +light damage on the Queen. It would make containing the Z early much more risky for T perhaps opening more of the t2 tech tree as viable openings for Z.
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I know this isnt a proper way of looking at how imba a race is...But here is an example that sorta give an idea just how imba it seems to be right now.
I'm in the Ro8 for the CSN euro tour being held. There are 6 Terrans, 2 zergs (one of the Z's being me). I'm a plat level player (would never call myself great at the game, but I dont consider myself bad at it). The other Zerg, hadnt finished his placements. ALL of the Terrans were Diamond players. I may just be looking into this a little too much, but this seems very "coincidental"
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None, never going 1 base hydras , you should add another hatchery plus drones to be precise .
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On August 21 2010 17:44 Sitizen wrote:
I have not seen this suggested here, so if it was I apologize, or if I'm off base feel free to ignore.
Rather than some of the drastic changes that have been thrown around I'd like to propose +light damage on the Queen. It would make containing the Z early much more risky for T perhaps opening more of the t2 tech tree as viable openings for Z.
Another idea I had for the queen was to add a snare to her attacks. This would greatly help in dealing with Reapers, Hellions, Zealots, and Banshees, without adding additional offensive power to the zerg lineup. It would also be micro intensive to manually target different units with the queen to spread the snare around, and overall fits in with the whole queen self and friendly movement modifier of creep.
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EPT
