Official State of the Game Podcast Thread - Page 986

On May 05 2011 12:49 Canadium wrote:
Listen....
What also should be mentioned is the fact that Idra believed the weakest race in BW was Terran (when in fact it is the race with the most major tournament wins and the most bonjwas). Idra also said that the fact that zergs aren't winning tournaments is because they are underpowered. He said this while they were discussing his recent IPL tournament win. When zerg players scream imbalance it just sounds angry and irrational. Day9 just stopped talking cause it was the most productive thing to do in that situation.

On May 05 2011 05:01 MajorityofOne wrote:


This. Balance isn't about races not having weaknesses, it's about races having varieties of strengths and weaknesses which ultimately leave them at around even with any other race.

Consider the big weaknesses of Zerg. Lack of effective early scouting, lack of early aggression options beyond the coinflip all-ins or the two-base Kyrix, and cost-ineffective units in late-game scenarios (moreso versus P than T). None of those is actually a crippling, game-breaking weakness, and they are compensated by other strengths: excellent scouting abilities once you get ovie speed or seers, a period between spire tech/zerg's third and the endgame where Zerg has total map control and every option for harassment and aggression becomes very risky for P/T, and superior macro mechanics that scale as you add more bases, which allows Zerg, in theory, to overwhelm its opponents with waves of less efficient units.

More specifically, the scouting problem is counteracted by the fact that scouting a one-base Terran or Protoss automatically means a few things. One, they need to be aggressive in some capacity, so you can expect either a push or some kind of tech. Two, while they be hiding a first expo in-base in the case of Terran, they are very unlikely to be rushing for a third, the most effective counter to a properly turtled Zerg. That means as Zerg you only need to consider a handful of options, and while no build beats all of them, you can account for MOST of them with a Spanishiwa style defense. The style of play that demolishes that defense is exploiting Zerg's passivity with a fast third, but if you've scouted them staying on one base then you know thats rather unlikely. Accounting for cloaked units can be hard, but all you need to check for any "tech" aggression is the double-gas, and if you can't scout that then your overlords are mentally deficient. My main point is that one-base situations are risky for both the T/P and the Zerg, not the Zerg only. They're often coinflips, and coinflips work both ways. Any two-base all-in play should hit after you've got lair tech, and so you shouldn't have problems scouting it. The cancel-nexus build is, I'll admit, highly abusive of Zergs early scouting deficiencies, but hopefully the warp gate nerf forthcoming will help Zerg overcome that.

On the point of cost-efficiency, I'll also cede that the Protoss deathball is perhaps too cost-efficient, as the discrepancy between Zerg and Protoss units in the lategame is overwhelming to the point that nothing short of perfect composition and control really helps. But all that means is that the onus is on Zerg to capitalize on its period of mid to early late game map dominance. No, that aggression won't always work, as Idra/Kiwikaki demonstrates. But nothing in Starcraft is guaranteed. Tyler mentioned a few SOTGs ago that people tend to think of defending as easy, but thats far from true; that a P or T manages to thwart your attempts at aggression is no more imbalanced than a Zerg shutting down an attempted banshee harass. When a Zerg fails to capitalize on its midgame advantage, thats more imperfect play than imbalance.

I know that was very theorycrafty. But I hate when people make ridiculous generalizations, like when Idra says "Zerg can't scout" or "Zerg can't beat Protoss lategame" without taking into account the broader context or considering the relative strengths and weaknesses of all races through all of 'standard play". It's intellectually lazy and dishonest, more a product of frustration than of understanding. I'm not claiming Idra doesn't have a very high understanding of the game, because his understanding is as good as anyone currently alive. But knowledge combined with bias, and especially with frustration, is a dangerous thing; he's in a uniquely qualified position to comment on balance due to his incredible experience, and uses that position for ill rather than good by mentioning and discussing only the evidence that fits his views.

On May 05 2011 13:07 Azarkon wrote:


No, Idra clarified himself in this SOTG. He's arguing Terran is the hardest race to play, as opposed to the weakest. From this perspective it doesn't matter if Terran wins the most tournaments - it's simply because they're better.

I think that it's pretty obvious that Idra has a particular definition of what constitutes good game design that he abides by, regardless of tournament results. He doesn't want win:loss parity. He wants the ability to be solid at every stage of the game, such that a player who is better than another player will always win or just about. When a match up falls outside of this framework, he thinks it's bullshit.

The race in SC 2 that best suits this attitude towards game design is probably Terran (I'd say Protoss, except PvP is still quite coin flippy), and the irony is that Idra originally chose against Terran because he thought Terran was SC 2's version of a gimmicky race (ala BW Protoss, at least in Idra's mind). It turns out that this isn't true, and Terran would have suited Idra quite well, though I think he would've still complained about Protoss.

On May 05 2011 13:09 Krehlmar wrote:
I just want to make this clear for State Of The Game; THIS EPISODE IS WHAT IT SHOULD BE ABOUT! Heated discussions, no bullshit giggeling around the topic and actually taking them head on. Look at what we got, Day9 and IdrA, two of the most influential people in Starcraft discussing balance. InControl and Tyler, two other giants discussing the community site, tournaments and code of conduct.

This is a great episode.

On May 05 2011 09:58 Joeyz1 wrote:
My question is, what is wrong with going an early lair, like the Protoss would normally go early Robotics, and then continuing the game on like normal otherwise?

On May 05 2011 13:21 Canadium wrote:


No.
What I'm saying is that in BW, players in difficult situations just realized they had to explore new strategies. Remember when Flash first started using 14cc builds? What happened? He got roflpwnd. But over time he found ways to make it work because he knew if he worked hard enough and refined his strategies he would win because he was the better player. The same goes for all the great players of every race in BW. They just simply found ways to be better even after so many years and so many different strategies.

This is the attitude that Idra and other people who complain about balance need to have toward SC2. Also everyone in who plays SC2 can whine to Blizzard about patching the game while people in BW have had to live with things like dud scarabs for years because they aren't expecting a patch or some magic fix that's going to make everything perfectly balanced. People need to realize that there is no such thing as a perfectly balanced game and just live with it. We're going to have to eventually.

On May 05 2011 12:59 TheButtonmen wrote:


Zerg doesn't have force fields to delay.

On May 05 2011 05:04 trNimitz wrote:
Day9 is not a pro player, he's a commentator, unlike for Idra there's no reason for him to try and come up with ideas for Zerg. Nevermind Idra never even made a clear argument, he was just stating his thoughts on the game without anything actually supporting it. You can't just say "OMG I can't scout his base because of marines so I lose!"

The sad thing is Idra is so into this 'zerg is UP' thing I don't think he'll ever be able to get out of it, it's rather hard to accept you're wrong after you thought you were right for so long.

Oh and btw, from what I've heard (never played BW), idra was B-level in iCCup while day9 was A. Says it all.

On May 05 2011 13:41 Rabiator wrote:

Sure they do. They are called Spine Crawlers, but they need to be made in advance and dont cost gas. They are even mobile to a certain extent ...

This is one of the things where I never really agree with Day9, because he always - coming from the BW logic - says "this is a Spine Crawler which he didnt want to make". Since they are mobile and can advance with your creep to cover chokes anywhere on the map, I think this logic is outdated and Spine Crawlers are a great thing to have as a supporting structure.

On May 05 2011 13:43 MajorityofOne wrote:


Somewhat true, but you could argue that nobody ever "wants" to make a defensive structure. Ideally all you'd ever need is workers and units. Now of course nobody can actually play that way, a Terran needs turrets against Zerg, and Protoss needs cannons if its to fast expand, and so on. That doesn't mean you want them, you just sort of need them