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On August 15 2010 12:13 skindzer wrote:
On the Topic of Spine Crawlers.. are they useful for anything? I swear i keep making them thinking they are sunken colonys but they fucking take FOREVER to build and then get FUCKING DESTROYED by any uni in like 2 seconds.
Like 7 game ago i took a personal policy of no spine crawlers.
spine is good against hellion/reaper harrass, but not mass reaper 
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Fantastic post OP, it's good to see some serious discussion. I was a Zerg player for quite some time, but the imbalances got to be too much for me. (For the record though, I switched to Protoss, not Terran.)
I think your best points are 2 and 4, the lack of flexibility and counters respectively. The amount of units in both Toss and Terran with a +bonus to other units is so much greater than Zerg. This makes it much harder to determine what units to use for an army, and how to attack an enemy force.
The A.I. point is one I agree with strongly as well. Particularly the one referring to auto-repairing SCVs. It definitely needs to be changed so that units will target a repairing SCV along with the unit said SCV is repairing.
I really hope some changes come soon. I'm trying to be patient remembering that the game is still fresh off release, but it gets harder every day that goes by.
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Although I am only mid diamond (600ish points) with zerg and i've been raping the terrans at this level, I can definitely see the OP's point and I am now scared of facing the much better terrans when i get higher up the ladder.
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great post. thanks. I also watched that Sheth replay, if definately is a shining example of zerg's issues. Anyway, thanks for putting that all together, was a good read.
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United States20661 Posts
I am so sad about Zerg. I have stuck with this damn race for ten years now and I have cheered for Hong Jin fucking Ho for near as long. This post sums up my frustration with the Zerg race very well. The bit about openers is really what kills me. From five or six viable openings, Zerg goes down to one or two; Terran doubles its proper starts from five or six to ten+..
This has to be some massive trolling effort from Blizzard.
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Very good OP, I agree with all of the points made. It's really hard to argue against them... and some people are just nitpicking tiny details, but the message is very clear.
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On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine."
Wow, I completely disagree. I've played players higher-ranked than MasterAsia and they have told me they think TvZ is fine. I played a very good Z player named EnvY last night who I talked to about TvZ balance. EnvY's ranked 84th on Blizzard's top 200 (which is more accurate than ladder rating - masterasia is 120th or something). The thing is just that the players who don't think it's imbalanced don't come and complain, so their voices aren't heard.
EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT.
The mod edit and your post turned the entire argument into a big appeal to authority. Not to mention that not even whine threads get closed, so the mod edit isn't really saying anything. This post just set a tone for people to shut down arguments based on perceived authority bestowed by you/the moderating staff.
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Zerg is in dire need of a spell that can reduce or match the firepower of a ranged army. Dark swarm was a pretty direct approach to the fact that large, ranged armies > larger, melee armies. Lets say, for instance, that dark swarm was brought back into SC2. This would fix 4 of the 6 points the OP brought up.
1. Lack of defense vs siege and no ability to siege
Negating the ability of ranged units that accompany siege units will stop any advance.
3 and 5. Mobility vs Power
The slower zerg army can now defend key places with a few units. Mobility is made up for by a stronger and smaller zerg force.
4. Hard Counter vs Soft counter
Dark swarm is the ultimate hard-counter to any protoss or terran army.
The lurker was a mid-game solution to this. Marines were deterred by lurkers, and everything else was chased away by hydralisks or speedlings. This would fix the same 4 points that dark swarm solved, except it's weaker, cheaper, and easier to get.
However, Blizzard didn't put iconic BW units like the deflier and lurker into SC2 for a good reason; they were extremely overpowered and impossible to balance. However, we need to replace the important role that these two units held.
In my eyes, the simplest solution would be to
1. Allow fungal growth to stop units from attacking, as well as stopping them from moving.
OR make fungal growth into the old ensnare spell from BW, but make it stackable. This will fix points 1 and 4.
2. Allow burrowed units to take 50% damage from ranged units. This will allow roaches and infestors to approach ranged armies with greater ease, and force terrans to either run or focus fire. Add upgrades to increase movement speed on burrowed units somewhere. This will fix points 3 and 5 to some degree, because now burrowed units pose a significant threat to armies without detection, reducing the mobility of Terran armies until raven tech.
Protoss has no need to worry about an infestor buff because of feedback and. Protoss also has no need to worry about burrowed units because of force field (it still blocks burrowed units right?). ZvZ isn't going to evolve out of speedling/baneling mode anytime soon anyways...
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I chuckled pretty hard at people telling MasterAsia to l2p....
This is a reasonably well thought out post. I think one of the biggest problems with balance threads is people have a vested interest in their race, so for the vast majority it is hard to look at the current situation without some kind of bias.
Mid game Z has never really been on an even keel since the roach supply nerf (Artosis' 1.5 supply suggestion makes too much sense not to be included) and the reversion of the t/p production time changes.
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At OP, Thors and roaches break even meaning if you convert roaches and thors both into minerals or same cost equivalence, they are have equal fighting power if pitted up against each other. However thor has advantage of being a single unit, so it reaches critical mass earlier.
However build time of thors is too fast that's all, so in next balance patch thor build time might be slightly increased.
Whenever you see a thor you've got to make a set of 5 roaches per thor. Of if you like zerglings surrounding thor.
Best strategy is muta spam, learn from check prime.
Blizzard are actually getting feedback from watching top level korean zergs in tournaments before making a wrong move. It doesn't really matter too much even if you are the best zerg player whining etc, the balance team gather feedback and take an unbiased view.
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On August 15 2010 13:32 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine." EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT.
Okay... so what are these many "ways" to fight off this push? Oh wait, each of the different pushes require a very specific counter that requires you to be making the right units long before the actual strategy is even revealed in order to stop it. So if you guess wrong, you won't even survive into the end game. If there was a universal safe opening for Zerg against a variety of Terran pushes, no one would be complaining, and Z could finally have a standard opening to use like in BW (e.g. 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta).
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What do you think of mass muta? After holding off T's initial push, a mass muta transition can give you the mobility and time to hold expansions and get to late units with a strong econ.
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On August 15 2010 13:32 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine." Wow, I completely disagree. I've played players higher-ranked than MasterAsia and they have told me they think TvZ is fine. I played a very good Z player named EnvY last night who I talked to about TvZ balance. EnvY's ranked 84th on Blizzard's top 200 (which is more accurate than ladder rating - masterasia is 120th or something). The thing is just that the players who don't think it's imbalanced don't come and complain, so their voices aren't heard. EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT. The mod edit and your post turned the entire argument into a big appeal to authority. Not to mention that not even whine threads get closed, so the mod edit isn't really saying anything. This post just set a tone for people to shut down arguments based on perceived authority bestowed by you/the moderating staff.
only problem is, there are some idiots who do need their arguments preemptively shut down. Including, it seems... you. Here you're complaining about a rhetorical fallacy when you're committing one yourself (hearsay is not a very credible source). Not to mention you're making a strawman out of the modedit, whose intent is solely to eliminate a certain type of (idiotic) argument, not to validate the post as truth.
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On August 15 2010 13:39 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 13:32 iEchoic wrote:On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine." EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT. Okay... so what are these many "ways" to fight off this push? Oh wait, each of the different pushes require a very specific counter that requires you to be making the right units long before the actual strategy is even revealed in order to stop it. So if you guess wrong, you won't even survive into the end game. If there was a universal safe opening for Zerg against a variety of Terran pushes, no one would be complaining, and Z could finally have a standard opening to use like in BW (e.g. 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta).
I never said I know the answer, I'm just giving perspective from a high-ranked zerg player who has a very good ZvT record. I do believe that there will be a universal safe opening as small things continue to get ironed out. There are counters to each individual strategy - nothing is undercounterable - they just need to be unified.
On August 15 2010 13:39 d_so wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 13:32 iEchoic wrote:On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine." Wow, I completely disagree. I've played players higher-ranked than MasterAsia and they have told me they think TvZ is fine. I played a very good Z player named EnvY last night who I talked to about TvZ balance. EnvY's ranked 84th on Blizzard's top 200 (which is more accurate than ladder rating - masterasia is 120th or something). The thing is just that the players who don't think it's imbalanced don't come and complain, so their voices aren't heard. EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT. The mod edit and your post turned the entire argument into a big appeal to authority. Not to mention that not even whine threads get closed, so the mod edit isn't really saying anything. This post just set a tone for people to shut down arguments based on perceived authority bestowed by you/the moderating staff. only problem is, there are some idiots who do need their arguments preemptively shut down. Including, it seems... you. Here you're complaining about a rhetorical fallacy when you're committing one yourself (hearsay is not a very credible source). Not to mention you're making a strawman out of the modedit, whose intent is solely to eliminate a certain type of (idiotic) argument, not to validate the post as truth.
Seriously, what are you talking about? That's not hearsay, that was an example of a high-ranked zerg player that felt that it was fine, which saracen brought up. Your reply made literally no sense, and thanks for the ad hominem.
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On August 15 2010 10:19 richlol wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 10:13 Kare wrote:
Im gonna say something now because I think it needs to be said, stop making these ridiculous threads and learn to play instead. I'm pretty sure the OP made it clear that he knows "how to play" seeing as he's top 5 US zerg. To the OP, I cannot find anything in your post that I disagree about. I think everyone knows, whether they want to admit it or not, that zerg needs some work. J udging by your post you do not want zerg to be this super race. You just want it to be a balanced game. And I agree with that sentiment. I want SC2 to be a completely balanced game where every race is viable. I expect a lot of flame coming your way in the form of: "This is scissors, paper is fine, paper just needs to learn how to play. Paper needs to stop complaining."
You must have missed the part where he wants to be able to spawn a single infested terran into a group of tanks and have all the tanks instantly implode,
I agree Zerg need some tweaking, but the OP like all the other Zerg threads i've seen basically amounts to lamenting the days and strats of BW.
My advice is switch to terran, when blizzard sees that virtually no decent players are using zerg, they might get the hint that there needs to be some work done.
As a protoss player in SC2 and terran from BW, the only idea i have seen that i agree with for zerg so far is to increase base hydra speed.
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On August 15 2010 13:39 d_so wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 13:32 iEchoic wrote:On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine." Wow, I completely disagree. I've played players higher-ranked than MasterAsia and they have told me they think TvZ is fine. I played a very good Z player named EnvY last night who I talked to about TvZ balance. EnvY's ranked 84th on Blizzard's top 200 (which is more accurate than ladder rating - masterasia is 120th or something). The thing is just that the players who don't think it's imbalanced don't come and complain, so their voices aren't heard. EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT. The mod edit and your post turned the entire argument into a big appeal to authority. Not to mention that not even whine threads get closed, so the mod edit isn't really saying anything. This post just set a tone for people to shut down arguments based on perceived authority bestowed by you/the moderating staff. only problem is, there are some idiots who do need their arguments preemptively shut down. Including, it seems... you. Here you're complaining about a rhetorical fallacy when you're committing one yourself (hearsay is not a very credible source). Not to mention you're making a strawman out of the modedit, whose intent is solely to eliminate a certain type of (idiotic) argument, not to validate the post as truth.
"All high-level zerg players think TvZ is imba."
Providing even one example to the contrary is a perfectly logical proof by contradiction, sorry.
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On August 15 2010 13:41 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 13:39 teamsolid wrote:On August 15 2010 13:32 iEchoic wrote:On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine." EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT. Okay... so what are these many "ways" to fight off this push? Oh wait, each of the different pushes require a very specific counter that requires you to be making the right units long before the actual strategy is even revealed in order to stop it. So if you guess wrong, you won't even survive into the end game. If there was a universal safe opening for Zerg against a variety of Terran pushes, no one would be complaining, and Z could finally have a standard opening to use like in BW (e.g. 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta). I never said I know the answer, I'm just giving perspective from a high-ranked zerg player who has a very good ZvT record. I do believe that there will be a universal safe opening as small things continue to get ironed out. There are counters to each individual strategy - nothing is undercounterable - they just need to be unified. Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 13:39 d_so wrote:On August 15 2010 13:32 iEchoic wrote:On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine." Wow, I completely disagree. I've played players higher-ranked than MasterAsia and they have told me they think TvZ is fine. I played a very good Z player named EnvY last night who I talked to about TvZ balance. EnvY's ranked 84th on Blizzard's top 200 (which is more accurate than ladder rating - masterasia is 120th or something). The thing is just that the players who don't think it's imbalanced don't come and complain, so their voices aren't heard. EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT. The mod edit and your post turned the entire argument into a big appeal to authority. Not to mention that not even whine threads get closed, so the mod edit isn't really saying anything. This post just set a tone for people to shut down arguments based on perceived authority bestowed by you/the moderating staff. only problem is, there are some idiots who do need their arguments preemptively shut down. Including, it seems... you. Here you're complaining about a rhetorical fallacy when you're committing one yourself (hearsay is not a very credible source). Not to mention you're making a strawman out of the modedit, whose intent is solely to eliminate a certain type of (idiotic) argument, not to validate the post as truth. Seriously, what are you talking about? That's not hearsay, that was an example of a high-ranked zerg player that felt that it was fine, which saracen brought up. Your reply made literally no sense, and thanks for the ad hominem.
it makes no sense cuz you don't know what hear-say means, i guess.
I played a very good Z player named EnvY last night who I talked to about TvZ balance.
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I'll admit MasterAsia, you make a good argument. I'll admit you have a pretty good point with Zerg's lack of variety in comparison to Terran's. I just wish I had some suggestion that wouldn't potentially change the game too drastically. As a Terran I haven't really felt too scared by Zerg openers, it's Zerg's intense macro potential that makes them frightening. If Blizzard could add some new unit to Tier 1 or 2 it might help, but I highly doubt they would go down that road.
Zerg mobility also seems to be a legitimate point of concern. I wouldn't mind if creep didn't provide a speed bonus to units and they just move that fast to begin with. Spreading creep already gives vision of vast portions of the map, reveals enemy movements and can block expansions for periods of time. Creep bonus speed was a fun idea, but practically it's somewhat ineffective.
Zerg units do feel weaker, but I feel that with Zerg's incredibly droning ability and spawn larva ability, it makes up for the relatively weaker units. I WOULD consider seeing infestors that can cast all of their spells from underground, not just infested terrans. It would make fungal growth-ing bio armies easier, and you could really abuse neural parasite like this. Still, I'm not a game balancer so I can't really say how good of an idea that would be.
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On August 15 2010 13:41 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 13:39 teamsolid wrote:On August 15 2010 13:32 iEchoic wrote:On August 15 2010 11:03 Saracen wrote:
At the moment, there doesn't exist a single top Zerg player who thinks TvZ is "fine." EnvY explained that TvZ appears to be imbalanced because Terran's initial mid-game push is so hard to fight off (which it really is). The initial mech or bio push, before Z's options really start to open up, is challenging to fight off and not many people have fleshed out how to beat it. However, once that is over (and it will get increasingly easy as time goes on and methods have been developed), Z has a big advantage. I'm paraphrasing here, so if you read these forums, please clarify for me. He does think that ZvP is actually imbalanced though - but not ZvT. Okay... so what are these many "ways" to fight off this push? Oh wait, each of the different pushes require a very specific counter that requires you to be making the right units long before the actual strategy is even revealed in order to stop it. So if you guess wrong, you won't even survive into the end game. If there was a universal safe opening for Zerg against a variety of Terran pushes, no one would be complaining, and Z could finally have a standard opening to use like in BW (e.g. 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta). I never said I know the answer, I'm just giving perspective from a high-ranked zerg player who has a very good ZvT record. I do believe that there will be a universal safe opening as small things continue to get ironed out. There are counters to each individual strategy - nothing is undercounterable - they just need to be unified.
I really dislike these kinds of posts.
Earlier you write: Wow, I completely disagree that ZvT has issues
Then when asked what the proper response for Zerg should be, you feign ignorance. WAIT, how come you were completely sure before that the matchup was fine? But you are suddenly unsure now? I smell that typical Terran bullshit who is still in denial.
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As a Zerg player i think there are some other things that are ridicoulosly wrong:
1 - Hydras are bad, they do a ton of damage but once the other user has some AoE (not that hard with tanks, hellions, HSM, colossi, storm) they die super easy and if they cost less it would be okay, but losing 100/50 for each one its a joke. I would like them to cost less and do less damage and bring back the speed upgrade to at least be able to dodge some damage.
2 - Mutas are too costly for its efficency, In BW you could muta micro, P users needed whether corsairs or archons + cannons, here you can do just fine with some stalkers + sentry, vs terran they needed a ton of turrets and goliaths or marines, in SC2 they only need 3 turrets (1 per base and another for production facilities) plus some marines or 1 thor, At least in Bw if they got a vessel you could dodge irradiate, and a lonly vessel plus 1 turret couldnt stop you, they also needed troops to finish off your harmed mutas.
3 - Infestors die super quick and NP is uneffective and too costly, i dont mind only 10 seconds of NP if it costed 50 energy, but 100 energy for having 1 unit 10 secs AT MOST (because most of the time they die) its insane. Also if tank do overkill you could use infested terrans while borrowed which would be quite good.
4 - With every building being a solid wall off you cant be agresive anymore, zerglings lose most of its efficiency just because they cant move, in Bw if you wanted to do 1 gate tech you needed to block your ramp with units and even though you could be drone drilled, if they had 20 lings you needed to pull probes, here you just need 1 zealot if they dont go for a all-inish play like banelings or roach (in which case you can force field the ramp, i think ZvP is quite balance though)
5 - A lot of maps are small, have cliffs by the expos and have a lot of chokepoints, this doesnt help zerg at all...
6- The worst thing is that you cant be agressive at all, you can only react, react, react and even if you win most of the battles and have and advantage if you attack you lose, and if you dont attack with these maps T users can take the whole map bit by bit and get all the minerals in seconds if they have 3 OCs or more.
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EPT
