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Canada66 Posts
It seems that the years underground, the Zerg have been chugging back the Ritalin, because the playstyle of the Zerg has seen some major changes towards the passive side of the game. This causes a number of problems that we see in the game, particularly with the Zerg race. I've thought long and hard about why this is, and i realized that the simplest answer is probably the right one.
![[image loading]](http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/terran-wall.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.fohguild.org/forums/attachments/starcraft-ii/147205d1280879476-protoss-strategies-replays-screenshot2010-08-03-19_50_13.jpg)
The Wall in
I admit, I wasn't much of a Starcraft 1 player back in my time, however, as the buildup for Starcraft 2 was imminent, I watched many MANY replays thanks to Husky and HDstarcraft, and I noticed that Wall-ins weren't as common at the pro level, however, in Starcraft 2, any player who doesn't wall in versus a Zerg is throwing away a very major advantage.
Currently, wall-ins executed by a competant player shut down nearly every form of early agression from a zerg player with the exception of...
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/1/12/BanelingRush.png/290px-BanelingRush.png)
The Baneling Bust
Now unfortunately, a well made wall can repel a Baneling Bust with the greatest of ease. We know now that against most competant players, the earliest form of agression is mutalisk harass. Zerg players are now essentially forced to tech to tier 2 as fast as possible and completely forgo the Tier 1 game.
This allows the enemy player to:
-Dictate the pace of the game
-Harass and Macro with near impunity
-Speed Tech to Tier 3
-Deny Scouting easily
Now yes, not every race can be the same, however, there are some things that every race should have the potential to do at even rates, as they are important parts of the game.
As far as Protoss, and to a lesser extent, Terrans, the need for a wall when fighting other Terrans or Protoss goes down drastically. In fact, in many high level TvPs, PvPs or TvTs, the wall-in from both races are nearly non-existant, as against high level players, the disadvantages begin to outweigh the advantages. Placing your buildings so spread out makes them difficult to defend, and your simcity blocks your units from defending your buildings near the ramp. Units such as Stalkers and Marauders can very easily snipe buildings near the ramp used for a wall in, causing a wall to backfire severely.
What's the answer? What can be done to even the playing field? Well it's quite simple. The Zerg need a Tier 1 ranged unit of some sort. I know the suggestion of moving the Hydralisk to tier 1 is a total cliche, and I don't support that suggestion, because if I wanted to play starcraft 1, I'd go play starcraft 1. I don't pretend to be a game designer, or a balance expert... so I won't. But I think that this is a problem that can only be dealt with in one of the expansions, as adding a new unit is nothing that can be done lightly. All I know is that we need a tier 1 unit that has at least a range of 5, maybe even 6, so the Zerg can lay pressure on a wall early.
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In broodwar wallins were fairly common in tvz, and if you didnt know how to wall in as a protoss in pvz, you were going to lose. So i dont think that the ability to stop ling runbys is what is hurting tier 1 zerg. Besides, the roach is a tier 1.5 unit just like the hydra was in broodwar, and is also ranged.
edit: the more i think about it, the more that im starting to believe that tier 1 zerg isnt hurting nearly as badly as you seem to believe it is.
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How about a melee ranged unit that has the sole purpose of melting buildings. Oh you are walling in, Piyaaa, taste the back of my crystal fist.
Edit: melee-ranged ie 0 or 1 or whatever a zergling is
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On September 09 2010 09:43 OwlFeet wrote:
How about a melee ranged unit that has the sole purpose of melting buildings. Oh you are walling in, Piyaaa, taste the back of my crystal fist.
A melee ranged unit?
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I still QQ about this:
![[image loading]](http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/5388/zergtechtreejune2009.jpg)
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Canada66 Posts
On September 09 2010 09:42 Two_DoWn wrote:
In broodwar wallins were fairly common in tvz, and if you didnt know how to wall in as a protoss in pvz, you were going to lose. So i dont think that the ability to stop ling runbys is what is hurting tier 1 zerg. Besides, the roach is a tier 1.5 unit just like the hydra was in broodwar, and is also ranged.
3 range is not enough to lay pressure on a wall-in from a safe range. Hellions, Marines, Marauders and unsieged tanks can easily nuke the hell out of roaches safely from behind the wall.
In Brood War, the hydralisk was able to lay pressure upon a wall in at the early game. This allowed the Zerg to be agressive in the early game. This isn't an option in Starcraft 2, thus, the zerg is forced to sit in a defensive position until the opponent leaves his wall undefended, or makes an agressive push.
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solution: play the game it is and get better at it.
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On September 09 2010 09:42 Two_DoWn wrote:
In broodwar wallins were fairly common in tvz, and if you didnt know how to wall in as a protoss in pvz, you were going to lose. So i dont think that the ability to stop ling runbys is what is hurting tier 1 zerg. Besides, the roach is a tier 1.5 unit just like the hydra was in broodwar, and is also ranged.
edit: the more i think about it, the more that im starting to believe that tier 1 zerg isnt hurting nearly as badly as you seem to believe it is.
No they weren't that that common. Most terrans did 1 rax cc without a wall as they could just pull some scvs if they were dealing with a 9pool or something. And pvz, wall ins happened after toss got the expansion
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Canada66 Posts
On September 09 2010 09:47 avilo wrote:
solution: play the game it is and get better at it.
Very constructive. I do play the game, and I adapt to what I'm given, however I think the lack of ability to be agressive early is really hurting the zerg as a race.
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Wall not common in broodwar? What are you smoking? People put walls everywhere, pylon walls, forge pylong walls, depot rax walls, factory rax walls, gateway zealot walls. Pro brood war has more walls than china.
a 5 or range unit to threaten walls....why don't you just park some lings outside the wall and power drones and tech while you wait for him to come out, you know, like good zergs do.
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On September 09 2010 09:53 BadWithNames wrote:
Wall not common in broodwar? What are you smoking? People put walls everywhere, pylon walls, forge pylong walls, depot rax walls, factory rax walls, gateway zealot walls. Pro brood war has more walls than china.
a 5 or range unit to threaten walls....why don't you just park some lings outside the wall and power drones and tech while you wait for him to come out, you know, like good zergs do.
Pretty much this. Wall-ins (and tight chokes) were required in BW to stop a zerg from demolishing your mineral line and running all up in your base. If an opponent walls off, you expand and drone up. To take an expo your opponent will have to move out of his wall.
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Im not the most amazing player on the planet, but i've found an overlord drop of banelings/zerglings on any wall-in is surprisingly effective. One obviously can't assault the wall head on with banelings, but If you roll up with about 12 overlords 5 of which are carrying troops, and dump directly on the wall, there's likely to be very minimal overlord loss if any (how often do u see mass missile turrets at the choke) and you'll likely smash the wall wide open.
This isn't a game ending tactic but can throw your opponent in a slight panic because all the comfort of his wall goes away when the bane-nuke melts it away. Then when he's so focused on a ground attack pouring in, start harassing the hell out of him with mutas for good fun.
Again, it wont win the game, but it makes it possible to crack the wall and drastically increase the effectiveness of a head on assault. After attempting it with many defense setups in unit tester in almost all cases the main threat, losing overlords, is extremely less than one might expect. anyway, my 2 cents. Wall busts: If not by land, take them by air.
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Canada66 Posts
On September 09 2010 09:53 BadWithNames wrote:
Wall not common in broodwar? What are you smoking? People put walls everywhere, pylon walls, forge pylong walls, depot rax walls, factory rax walls, gateway zealot walls. Pro brood war has more walls than china.
a 5 or range unit to threaten walls....why don't you just park some lings outside the wall and power drones and tech while you wait for him to come out, you know, like good zergs do.
I never once said "I'm having trouble with walls". I'm not. I do just that, i deny expansion as much as possible and macro up to my heart's content. I just dislike having no other options. I don't like that I have to constantly on my toes about harassment and drops, while being unable to lay any meaningful form of pressure on the opponent until the mid-late game.
I should have known I'd get a bunch of L2P responses, when I'm not saying that I can't do something, I'm pointing out something that I personally feel is damaging the game.
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United States5866 Posts
On September 09 2010 09:53 BadWithNames wrote:
Wall not common in broodwar? What are you smoking? People put walls everywhere, pylon walls, forge pylong walls, depot rax walls, factory rax walls, gateway zealot walls. Pro brood war has more walls than china.
a 5 or range unit to threaten walls....why don't you just park some lings outside the wall and power drones and tech while you wait for him to come out, you know, like good zergs do.
Ugh not even sure how to respond to your tripe.
Parking outside of a wall isn't exactly aggressive. That aside a terran had to remove a wall eventually so that he could freely move his units and the protoss had to leave an opening.
Now perfect wallins are easy as hell, both races have mechanics to circumvent their walls without breaking them at all or for longer than 2-3 seconds and zerg don't have a significantly ranged unit to pressure said wall.
The whole wallin thing is a symptom of the real problem though, Zerg's trash tier 1 and its inability to control the flow of the game AT ALL.
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On September 09 2010 09:59 RavenNevermore wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2010 09:53 BadWithNames wrote:
Wall not common in broodwar? What are you smoking? People put walls everywhere, pylon walls, forge pylong walls, depot rax walls, factory rax walls, gateway zealot walls. Pro brood war has more walls than china.
a 5 or range unit to threaten walls....why don't you just park some lings outside the wall and power drones and tech while you wait for him to come out, you know, like good zergs do. I never once said "I'm having trouble with walls". I'm not. I do just that, i deny expansion as much as possible and macro up to my heart's content. I just dislike having no other options. I don't like that I have to constantly on my toes about harassment and drops, while being unable to lay any meaningful form of pressure on the opponent until the mid-late game. I should have known I'd get a bunch of L2P responses, when I'm not saying that I can't do something, I'm pointing out something that I personally feel is damaging the game.
It's called playing reactively. Unless you rush using roaches(like fistdauntalis's cool 5RR), or banelings (which do well versus most wimpy walls), breaking down their wall (in the early game) is not possible. While your idea may seem legit, it isn't exactly a balance issue. the toss and terran wall off because they have to to win, otherwise mass lings would be unstoppable and IMBA.
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I was one that was ranting about balance issues for a very long time. This is because when I played the beta the zerg could be a lot more aggressive than the retail release. The roach 2 supply nerf made it so that the zerg could no longer successfully pull off early aggression without getting punished.
The other 2 races have the ability to end the game early. Aside from the baneling bust there's nothing zerg can do but sit there and macro. 5 Roach rush can work, but it doesn't usually end the game. There's no creativity other than placing a hidden tech building here and there. This is why zerg doesn't seem fun any more. If you're playing the game just to win then zerg is fine for you.
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i agree that zergs are a little more passive sometimes, but i dont think we can get rid of the wall-in...
i think there are plenty of aggressive ways for zerg to still be aggressive
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Works fine for me.. 5RR at least, and then micro the roaches that takes dmg in order to not lose any. Sometimes you may break the wall, sometimes you have to retreat. +1 range (or armor, again) on roaches would be awesome though. :D
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United States5866 Posts
On September 09 2010 10:07 Subversion wrote:
i agree that zergs are a little more passive sometimes, but i dont think we can get rid of the wall-in...
i think there are plenty of aggressive ways for zerg to still be aggressive
Let me know what those are when you have thought about it.
I can't think of anything truly viable pre-lair besides 5RR which is still a gimmick and by viable I mean something that doesn't leave you at an insurmountable disadvantage if it fails...early aggression =/= all in
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%100 agreed to OP.
zerg early aggresion is a joke compared to other races. (this comes from watching pro-games not my level of play)
and even zerg does early aggresion hence the economic brakedown.
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EPT
