EPTZ v T: Current situation and comparison to BW - Page 58
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Cloak
United States816 Posts
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EppE
United States221 Posts
On August 27 2010 07:50 Cloak wrote: I read the whole thing and realize that a lot of those points apply to PvT as well. All hard counters against Toss and only soft-counters against Terran (except HTs thank god). It goes to show that the strengths of Terran completely overshadow whatever nonexistent weakness they have. Greater scouting advantage and numerous builds to do whenever. Greater efficiency with denser and denser unit masses, etc. I know people are going to say that ZvT is more imba and whatnot because there's less Zergs in the top 200 or 5000 or whatever, but Protoss is the most played race by far and yet they're still behind in top representation to Terrans by a decent margin. Wake up and face the facts that it's not a ZvT or PvT problem, it's a T problem. To me it's sad that Protoss HAVE to go fast Stalker every time they are against Terran simply because every Terran has the ability to make a Reaper, regardless of if he does or not. | ||
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ckw
United States1018 Posts
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forgotten0ne
United States951 Posts
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Oleksandr
United States227 Posts
On August 26 2010 05:02 encryptedamf wrote: you seem to be pretty douchey, everyone has a right to thier opinon doesnt mean you just trash it like that. learn some respect bud But you said everyone has a right to an opinion. Why are you attacking his opinion then? | ||
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Motion
Germany183 Posts
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nhika
United States11 Posts
I think one major solution is about the tech lab build time, all of this is centered around how terran has too many "opening" offensive opportunities. Perhaps if it was the same build time as the reactor it would be more fair? Terran will get slower maurauders and reapers, while zerg can FE and do their fling they did back in brood war, marines can hold off the lings, and when the zerg tries to bust the rax supply wall, the T can repair and outrange things up top of the cliff or decide to go factory. This will boost the TvZ gameplay style, both races can have different tech options, terran can still go fast hellion into mech, or go more heavy on the bio. Roaches need the lair to get roach speed, while the terran needs the addon for the mauraders. The auto repair needs to have a longer delay between switching targets, as manually microing always had been the better thing to do back in sc1, that's why people split their first four harvesters at the beginning of the match. You can still get the tank out but it'll be a little later than the maruader and needs a bit more investment. . but who said you needed to go mech to FE, when you can just bunker down at your expo for +100 -100 minerals for that bunker. . if you scout and the zerg tries to get greedy with 3 bases, you can get a fast hellion, or you can open up with the hellion to force the sunkens, when the roaches pop out its the zerg's turn to hold you in your 2base as he's trying to get the crucial 3rd base . . last and final edit This this opens up so many different build orders for every match up against terran, and now you can pressure the terran wall off, and it would balance the auto repair problem, since fast stalkers will always nail on the supply rax wall(like brood war) and things seem fine. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On August 27 2010 04:07 heishe wrote: You're doing something very unfair here, and that is projecting all the whinery of the bad Zerg players on here onto the rest of the Zerg crowd. Don't you think it's a little bit ridiculous that , since at least the start of phase 2, there was not a single Zerg constantly placing relatively well in tournaments beside Dimaga and IdrA? Don't you think someone would have transcended the oh-so-big clowd of Zerg tears and trained enough to start approaching the levels of all the random Terrans who constantly do good in tournaments during all that time [assuming the matchup is balanced]? Yes, obviously I am generalizing the Zerg players, because this Zerg whining has gone on how long? People have whined for MONTHS about TvZ being unfair. First it was only whining about mech, but that has been expanded to include everything Terrans do. It has gone on so long that it really has become a mantra. The thing is that the long time people have whined about Zerg being bad - it has started during the beta already, most certainly before Day9 daily 131 - has affected the number of people playing Zerg probably. On August 27 2010 04:07 heishe wrote: What you're basically saying here is: OK, winning with Zerg is harder than winning with Terran, but that doesn't mean Zerg is UP or Terran is OP. You're simply wrong man, face it. You're one of the guys who constantly say that ZvT is balanced, that all Zerg players just cry because everybody cries and that kind of bullshit, but you're wrong. There is no other way to put it. That's just not true. I don't know what else I can say to you, but that's just not true at all. You're generalizing very much and I'll say it again: You're wrong. And by the way, the same thing with Zerg you can see with Protoss. All we had was basically Huk and White-Ra (and occasionally Tester, but he's Korean so he doesn't play most of the tournaments) and that was it. "The guy above" was really ridiculous by claiming the matchup being very bad [with really stupid references to simplistic fighting games] and he also made a few typos like saying "ZvT feels like 7-3" when it should be the other way round. Nitpicking on these details is a specialty of mine, but it also shows that he included subjective opinion into the post where I try to stick to the facts. I am not saying Zerg is harder to win with, I am saying it is harder to LEARN to play with, because you MUST make the right decisions of when to make drones and when to make fighting units. The other races do not have that problem. One more thing I am tired of is the fact that many Zerg players are whining about burrow being too expensive, while I think it would give Zerg just the right advantage to pull even. You can plant Baneling mines to control the battlefield and get probably at least one bunch of Terran infantry annihilated easily. So I dont see the point of that whine, but do the "top Zerg" players try such "neat tricks"? Not really. Maybe they are stuck in their way of thinking. That is what I mean and even though Zelniq's mass queens were developed as a way to counter Mutas in ZvZ the strategy could be adapted to "mass Queens and Spine Crawlers" to have an easier time against Reapers. The REAL isssue with the matchup is the maps IMO, but there are too many people who do not see this problem and think that balance is only an issue of units and their stats. Well its not! The tiny tiny rush distance on all of the Blizzard maps make it simply too easy to have fast aggression and the tiny tiny space in the middle doesnt allow Zerg to outflank the Terran army and surround it properly or simply go around it and take apart the base. Zerg players should start whining about the maps and I would cheer them wholeheartedly, because even Day9 says something like "the maps feel small". It is NOT the fault of Terran players as IdrA raged in his match against Silver; direct your anger towards Blizzards map making team! | ||
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fathead
United States158 Posts
On August 27 2010 14:07 Rabiator wrote: direct your anger towards Blizzards map making team! Ya. . . Send a letter to blizzard talking to them about balance. . . that might work. The b.net forums are a joke. TL is the place to come and discuss things. If blizzard isn't reading this site, then they aren't in touch with their community. Every poster who posts here about balance does so in hopes that a blizzard employee will read it. I know it drives the mods insane, because this is not the place for balance discussion, however people's thought process will always compel them to do so. As for the map imba, that every terran player clings to as their last defense against their race being OP, what statistics do they provide? I haven't seen a statistical race vs race comparison on each map. I'm sure some of the statistics would be obvious, such as metalacolpse favoring Z, KR favoring T, Steps of War favoring P; but for a trend of blizz maps favoring T compared to non-blizz maps I never saw that. I doubt there is much, if any, statistical evidence of non-blizz maps in general. And that is the only way to know that blizz maps are the problem. Until then it's just speculation. Also that's not to say I don't think maps are a problem, I do, but I also think that race is a problem also. There need to be both map and race balance changes, and the balance changes for maps are bound to come months or even years before we see any map changes. | ||
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TempeL
Sweden6 Posts
And i dont agree with zerg have an advantage in mid/late game, its just more even. | ||
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kckkryptonite
1126 Posts
On August 27 2010 18:36 TempeL wrote: I dont think that people realise how retarded this matchup really is. We all will think about how broken zvt was in the begining when we think about it in a couple of years. I'm amazed that people still think "zerg just gotta be more creative". And i dont agree with zerg have an advantage in mid/late game, its just more even. QFT Most of the people defending the T probably have never even touched Zerg, let alone have had some matches at the diamond level; as Zerg, there are so little solid options you have against T, one slip-up and you get steam rolled. | ||
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MonkeyKungFu
Norway154 Posts
Zerg also need the option to apply pressure in the early game so the terran cant just sit back and tech to whatever the f*** he wants without any risk. | ||
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orbitr
1 Post
 . Even still I've been reading lots of "we need to fix zerg fundamentals". Bare with me I'm getting to the point, albeit slowly. This is a suggestion. I'm usually not the guy who reacts on the balance issues of the month (even though I have been playing other games competitively) simply because I never had enough credentials to make such a statement. However, the OP obviously do - and his opinions seems to agree with other zerg players general opinion (don't quote me on this though). I neither agree nor disagree with OP simply because I'm not at that level. If I lose I watch a replay and I can see tons of improvements that has to take place before I can even think of searching answers in other aspects other than my personal fails. Generally from what I understand, there's no real element of surprise from a Z's point of view - that are Z unique. By that I mean, sure we could hide an expansion but so can both P and T. Alright, here goes. I call it the Drone Morph. What if zerg could evolve (see what I did there  ) drones into offensive units but with a small reduced morph time - actively making a Drone equivalent of a Larva + 50 minerals.A couple points regarding this suggestion: - Possibly, interesting heavy eco- builds could evolve from this. - How to control the power of this mechanic so that it doesn't go to far could be handled in a multitude of ways and is something that could be further discussed. - You could control the op-ness (is that a word?) early game by perhaps making it a hatch post pool gas upgradeable. I could imagine a 6 pool + drone morph extremely effective otherwise. - Furthermore if it's still to op you could make it a "on creep only" ability (although leaving worker inside opponents base would get far more interesting w/o this limitation .. tihi) adding yet another use for creep tumor spreading. - Helps Z handle early pressure. - Mid game / late game it wont really be that much of a deal because you'll probably(hopefully) have a third or a fourth and all with queens and you'd rather spend a larva producing units than a unit costing 50 minerals to begin with. - I've continuously read that Z is a reactionary race and this helps further that theory when grabbing new expansions. - Lore wise it looks to be fitting so Blizzard shouldn't be complaining. - Further on the previous subject the mechanic doesn't copy any other race mechanics. - Both spore and spine crawlers still have their place despite this addition - this is important. - You don't want to overdo it, specifically early game since you're losing both 50 minerals and an active worker. - I believe it compensates a bit more to the fact the Z is the only race that can't wall. - We're neither buffing nor nerfing units on the game board, for any race. This is a good thing. We do not want to stir the soup too much. Alright that's it for now. I'm sorry for the rather wordy post but I thought it's a pretty interesting suggestion. Also, this is my first post at TL forums - this is my formal "Hello". | ||
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tomatriedes
New Zealand5356 Posts
On August 27 2010 14:07 Rabiator wrote: Yes, obviously I am generalizing the Zerg players, because this Zerg whining has gone on how long? People have whined for MONTHS about TvZ being unfair. First it was only whining about mech, but that has been expanded to include everything Terrans do. It has gone on so long that it really has become a mantra. The thing is that the long time people have whined about Zerg being bad - it has started during the beta already, most certainly before Day9 daily 131 - has affected the number of people playing Zerg probably. "The guy above" was really ridiculous by claiming the matchup being very bad [with really stupid references to simplistic fighting games] and he also made a few typos like saying "ZvT feels like 7-3" when it should be the other way round. Nitpicking on these details is a specialty of mine, but it also shows that he included subjective opinion into the post where I try to stick to the facts. I am not saying Zerg is harder to win with, I am saying it is harder to LEARN to play with, because you MUST make the right decisions of when to make drones and when to make fighting units. The other races do not have that problem. One more thing I am tired of is the fact that many Zerg players are whining about burrow being too expensive, while I think it would give Zerg just the right advantage to pull even. You can plant Baneling mines to control the battlefield and get probably at least one bunch of Terran infantry annihilated easily. So I dont see the point of that whine, but do the "top Zerg" players try such "neat tricks"? Not really. Maybe they are stuck in their way of thinking. That is what I mean and even though Zelniq's mass queens were developed as a way to counter Mutas in ZvZ the strategy could be adapted to "mass Queens and Spine Crawlers" to have an easier time against Reapers. The REAL isssue with the matchup is the maps IMO, but there are too many people who do not see this problem and think that balance is only an issue of units and their stats. Well its not! The tiny tiny rush distance on all of the Blizzard maps make it simply too easy to have fast aggression and the tiny tiny space in the middle doesnt allow Zerg to outflank the Terran army and surround it properly or simply go around it and take apart the base. Zerg players should start whining about the maps and I would cheer them wholeheartedly, because even Day9 says something like "the maps feel small". It is NOT the fault of Terran players as IdrA raged in his match against Silver; direct your anger towards Blizzards map making team! The thing is Rabiator, you write these huge screeds over and over trying to convince everyone that the game is perfectly balanced but you've admitted before you don't even play zerg- you said you were a silver-level terran. So, unless you off-race, that means you don't even play ZvT at all. The reason why that matters is because you can theorycraft all you want about all these amazing strategies zerg could do but until you actually play the race you're not really going to have a feel for what is really viable within human limits. A lot of these strategies you suggest aren't really going to work when players have to deal with the limitations of their own macro and micro abilities. You can say anything you want but you have to realize that all you're doing is theorycrafting whereas the pro-zergs who have complained about the balance (Idra, MasterAsia, Dimaga, Sheth etc) are out there trying to win actual games. That's why you should actually listen to the top players- they're not just theorycrafting they're playing hundreds of games. Everyone's allowed a opinion and I'm sure you'll keep giving yours but think about it for a moment- isn't it possible that some of these pros who play so may games might actually know a little more the match-up than you? I mean you could at least entertain that possibility, right? | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On August 27 2010 15:31 fathead wrote: Ya. . . Send a letter to blizzard talking to them about balance. . . that might work. The b.net forums are a joke. TL is the place to come and discuss things. If blizzard isn't reading this site, then they aren't in touch with their community. Every poster who posts here about balance does so in hopes that a blizzard employee will read it. I know it drives the mods insane, because this is not the place for balance discussion, however people's thought process will always compel them to do so. As for the map imba, that every terran player clings to as their last defense against their race being OP, what statistics do they provide? I haven't seen a statistical race vs race comparison on each map. I'm sure some of the statistics would be obvious, such as metalacolpse favoring Z, KR favoring T, Steps of War favoring P; but for a trend of blizz maps favoring T compared to non-blizz maps I never saw that. I doubt there is much, if any, statistical evidence of non-blizz maps in general. And that is the only way to know that blizz maps are the problem. Until then it's just speculation. Also that's not to say I don't think maps are a problem, I do, but I also think that race is a problem also. There need to be both map and race balance changes, and the balance changes for maps are bound to come months or even years before we see any map changes. You only have to have a decent amount of common sense to figure out that maps disfavor Zerg atm. You cant get statistical data for this, because that is impossible to judge. Here are some easy trains of thought I had thinking about maps and what they mean for the balance:
1. Is a tradition from BW, so the good solution is to make sure that the opponents reach the Zerg base later in the game. Having close flight distances with long walk distances might do the trick (Scrap Station, Desert Oasis), but you could also have opponents rush to air assault which are pretty deadly (Void Rays, Banshees). A rush is a rush and not really skillful, its just taking a chance. 2. Outflanking the enemy is something Zerg rarely ever do, but it *should* be possible and effective. On the small maps we have atm you can get home fast enough when you notice it, but as a Zerg you should have a decent chance of success with that. A good example can be seen at the end of SC Center Episode 15. An easy solution to both "problems" is simply making the maps bigger. The pure stats of the units are balanced, because fights can go either way ... depending on micro and unit composition. So screwing with the units will only result in another kind of whine and balance. | ||
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Meff
Italy287 Posts
On August 27 2010 20:23 Rabiator wrote: The pure stats of the units are balanced, because fights can go either way ... depending on micro and unit composition. So screwing with the units will only result in another kind of whine and balance. Careful, there's much more than you should consider besides straight-up fights. For an example, you can ask yourself questions like: "Is it balanced that blue-flame hellions, a mineral only form of harassment, can AoE two-shot drones?" and while the answer to that is certainly influenced by the usefulness of hellions in straight-up fights, the largest factor is their harassment usefulness, their accessibility and their timing. (disclaimer: I do not use the question as an example so as to imply any specific answer) | ||
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Logo
United States7542 Posts
On August 27 2010 20:23 Rabiator wrote: You only have to have a decent amount of common sense to figure out that maps disfavor Zerg atm. You cant get statistical data for this, because that is impossible to judge. Here are some easy trains of thought I had thinking about maps and what they mean for the balance:
1. Is a tradition from BW, so the good solution is to make sure that the opponents reach the Zerg base later in the game. Having close flight distances with long walk distances might do the trick (Scrap Station, Desert Oasis), but you could also have opponents rush to air assault which are pretty deadly (Void Rays, Banshees). A rush is a rush and not really skillful, its just taking a chance. 2. Outflanking the enemy is something Zerg rarely ever do, but it *should* be possible and effective. On the small maps we have atm you can get home fast enough when you notice it, but as a Zerg you should have a decent chance of success with that. A good example can be seen at the end of SC Center Episode 15. An easy solution to both "problems" is simply making the maps bigger. The pure stats of the units are balanced, because fights can go either way ... depending on micro and unit composition. So screwing with the units will only result in another kind of whine and balance. I am a sucker for flanks. I try for them all the time late/mid game (with pretty good success too). I've definitely won a share of games based entirely on a good flank. Even though maps are a bit tight you can still setup great flanks on most maps. I think the worst map for flanking would be Scrap station (unless the fight is right at the middle or towards your ramp). The flanking routes are a bit longer, but they still exist. For example the sides on Steppes are plenty big for flanking and metalopolis has some semi-long but wide open flanking routes. The problem I have with earlier game flanks though is... 1. My early game defense is "Just in Time" defense. At this point in the game larva is at a premium and I need to get my drone count up. So generally I'm getting my forces right before a push is about to come. This means that there's not a whole lot of time to get a mid map position to flank 2. I want to use creep. Creep helps you win with fewer losses. Mid/late game I'll often flank on what is at the edge of my creep (so at least part of my army can approach on creep). Early game you can't really flank AND use creep as you just don't have the creep out yet. 3. Lack of forces. When you're fighting at 150/150 armies if your timing on the flank (assuming flank + head on attack) is off a bit it's not a deal breaker as the cost of the mis-timed engagement is outweighed by the benefit of your superior surround and concave. When the forces are small if you split for flank + frontal attack the cost of mistiming the engagement is catastrophic. So early flanks tend to be a higher risk. 4. Relative mobility. In ZvT especially early aggression is highly mobile. Trying to flank hellions or reapers is pretty futile and also pretty risky. The relative speeds between speedlings and hellion/reaper isn't high enough that you can reliably get the flank off without the units just barreling more into your base and causing some serious damage while your lings try to catch up. 5. Lack of scouting. Early on overlords are a premium and creep hasn't spread far enough. 1st you just don't have a lot to get great scouting info even if you position them aggressively. 2nd losing them early on hurts your economy and army due to lost minerals and larva. So it's kinda difficult to get a good scout on the center area to setup a good flank early on. 6. Spine crawler D. Early on when spine crawlers are potentially a big part of your army it can be difficult to try for a flank (especially mid map one). I love coming in from behind with slings when an army moves in on my crawlers, but it's still semi-risky as if they can get out of range of the spine crawlers it can be hard to manage the fight. I'm not trying to really claim much here, I just want to share my experience and why I don't try and flank more often early game even though I do it often mid/late game. | ||
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LuciferSC
Canada535 Posts
It seems that most of you want Zerg to be a race that can stand toe to toe with P or T on every minute of the game. That Zerg should be able to win head-to-head battles with other races. Why even bother to have 3 different races than?The thing that makes SC stand out is the balance between 3 completely different races. Zergs are meant to be played like Zerg, figure out what that means. Also most of the changes you guys ask for completely changes Zerg as a race. The reason SC2 was welcomed by most of BW players is because while a number of changes got implemented into the game, it still retained the feel of its distinctive races from BW. The game mechanism is fine as it is.There may be a bit of small fix required, (ie. increase of zergling dmg by 1) but even those 'small fix' would bring a huge change in balance, mind you. | ||
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EppE
United States221 Posts
On August 28 2010 01:28 LuciferSC wrote: I find it very hard to sympathize with the zerg UP complainers, because you guys often over-look the game play mechanism for zerg. It seems that most of you want Zerg to be a race that can stand toe to toe with P or T on every minute of the game. That Zerg should be able to win head-to-head battles with other races. Why even bother to have 3 different races than?The thing that makes SC stand out is the balance between 3 completely different races. Zergs are meant to be played like Zerg, figure out what that means. Also most of the changes you guys ask for completely changes Zerg as a race. The reason SC2 was welcomed by most of BW players is because while a number of changes got implemented into the game, it still retained the feel of its distinctive races from BW. The game mechanism is fine as it is.There may be a bit of small fix required, (ie. increase of zergling dmg by 1) but even those 'small fix' would bring a huge change in balance, mind you. So then what is this magical gameplay mechanic we are over looking? Larva? Creep? Zerg is meant to be played like Zerg? No shit is that why I lose, I keep trying to make Zealots? This should make everything easier. You basically took 3 paragraphs to tell every Zerg player to L2P without any insightful advice on how to play. Your post adds nothing to the discussion. If you don't think the ZvT MU is Imba say why. I'm getting tired of people telling Zerg, especially when you infer that players like Idra, Slush, Dimaga, and MasterAsia, need to innovate. These are some of the best players in the World. You really think they aren't trying to figure out other ways to make their Zerg play stronger? | ||
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antas
Indonesia300 Posts
On August 27 2010 09:21 Motion wrote: this article speaks the truth, it's no fun for an Zerg against Terra at all. I mean seriously zero fun! I do enjoy ZvT though I'm currently playing as a Zerg despite my icon (need to say this before somebody start to flame me).I know that ZvT is difficult to say the least, but I enjoy it somehow. However I understand it could be devastating especially for someone who's playing this game for a living. I'm just simply a fan of Starcraft who enjoys the game who loves all the thrills when you play. Currently only a low level silver, and to my surprise in my current level, the last 15 games or so, i didn't face any reaper build to my disappointment :D Lol .. For OP, that's great article, GJ. | ||
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