EPTPacifying the Zerg - Page 6
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mierin
United States4943 Posts
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kickinhead
Switzerland2069 Posts
On September 09 2010 14:03 mierin wrote: I'm sure even the top of Korean players would suggest T>Z>P (no, not P>T) as far as the metagame. Actually, most Koreans agree that Protoss is the strongest race... To even suggest Protoss is worse than Zerg shows me you have no clue whatsoever. | ||
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NicolBolas
United States1388 Posts
On September 09 2010 12:16 Rabbet wrote: When I first started playing Brood War, I could never understand why my marines sucked against zerglings so bad(and zeolots). I couldn't even get a decent number of marines to be aggressive with because I had to bunker my ramp or my minerals to stop zerg(protoss) from destroying me in the first 5 minutes of the game. One day I observed another terran playing and learned how to wall off my choke. It made the game instantly better and made the terran race actually playable with low apm. After that the problem of harassment by air was the next major obstacle and I had to basically expect mutalisks and build a bunch of turrets(we did have ONE scan to figure the tech out). So after making mutas useless on a backstab, I could finally begin to think about moving out of my base...but not until I had a tank or 2 and a science vessel. So after researching 3 upgrades(irradiate, stim and range for marines), building several barracks, several turrets, all the depots to match the army, an engineering bay, academy, a factory with machine shop and a starport I could finally think about later in the game and plan for a command center for the extra economy. I must say that playing Terran in Brood War was a learning curve, but I toughed it out and eventually people(and maps) started doing 1 rax expansions and mech play etc. Does this uphill battle sound familiar? My point? Zergs just have to tough it out and learn how to combat the early crap Terran and Protoss can throw at them. I didn't like fighting uphill in Brood War, but I did it and didn't think it was unfair because eventually the evolution of the game will occur. If I didn't see Boxer kicking ass with Terran I wouldn't be playing the game anymore either, meaning that if most of you zergs suck that doesn't mean that zerg sucks you just are not capable of playing them. Here's the difference. After all that, SC1 Terrans ultimately had the tools necessary to deal with it. They have cheap Missile Turrets, and building lifting which makes wall-in possible in SC1. The Terrans were the defensive race, so being able to defend relatively inexpensively was what they did. They had to play defensively to win, because they were defensive. The Zerg are not defensive; they never have been, and SC2 hasn't changed that. Even if a Zerg throws a Hatchery+Spine Crawler at the ramp to wall-in, Reapers can bypass it with ease. Their Tier 1 ranged unit is barely ranged. Their macro mechanic (Queen) requires them to stop teching; you can't get a Lair while your Queen is being built, so your entire tech pattern is stalled by making one. In short, the Zerg cannot simply position buildings better and build a few extra buildings like SC1 Terrans could. They can't hole up, fortify, and then decide to move out on their terms. Get over it... The turtling race is now Zerg and the agressive race is now terran... Get over it OK, fine: I'll play the turtling race. Just like SC1, however, I want the tools necessary to make turtling successful. And the Zerg in SC2 do not have that. How about if I took away Missile Turrets from Terrans in SC1? Oh, it's still balanced; you can just fast-tech to Vessels for detection and use Bunkers. They can shoot air, right? Everything's fine, right? | ||
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cHaNg-sTa
United States1058 Posts
On September 09 2010 13:26 Fen wrote: I think the problem is due to the weakness of the zergs defensive structures. Sunken colonies in Bw where very important for zerg to defend. The ability to go from creep to sunken meant that you didnt have to spend all the money building them early, but you could have them up to defend if you scouted a push early enough. Sunkens also worked as walls, allowing the zerg to create their own sort of wall that needed to be busted down before the enemy could wreck his base. In SC2, the spine crawlers are comparitively much weaker, they have to be paid for in full up front, they take FOREVER to build and reposition (meaning you have to build them in advance) and dont block units like helions from just driving straight on past. The maps also have farr to open expansions, so the enemy can usually just walk around the spine crawlers and attack from the other side. This makes it very tough for zerg to hold that first expansion like they could in broodwar. A standard build in BW was hatch first, however in SC2 Hatch first is considered to be very risky. Units like the reaper and sentry make defending 2 locations with units extremely tough. In broodwar, zerg could be agressive with units or agressive with his economy. If a terran or protoss wanted to wall off, that was fine, but they were going to have to accept that the zerg was going to have that free natural expansion. In Sc2, zerg have soo much trouble defending that natural that they are forced to 1-base against a walled in opponent, meaning they cannot be agressive with either economy or units. I've been saying this for a long time. SPINE CRAWLERS ARE SO BAD. Sunkens were powerful and killed stuff pretty fast. The longest range tier 1-1.5 in BW were dragoons, while dragoons dealt pretty good damage against sunkens, it was difficult when swarms of speedlings were backing them up. Zerg can build up proper defense holding them off. But now, what does Zerg get? Relatively crappy spine crawler that needs to paid fully up front, no creep phase to anticipate any push. Terran? WOW! LET'S GIVE THEM SALVAGEABLE BUNKERS! That's a fair trade off right?! Oh wait, let's also give Terran a unit that deals INSANE dps to structures.. Thank you Marauders, how come you haven't been nerfed yet? Oh wait, let's just make it even tougher by letting the opponent's army BALL UP! Yes, the zerglings have a great time surrounding that alright. Now all that wouldn't be absolutely terrible but.. guess what! Since Zerg has terrible scouting abilities, and need to invest a lot in case of an all-in powerful push, they invest a lot in a zergling/roach/baneling/spine crawler force... Incoming Banshee/Void Ray... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.. Of course, you can easily say "oh, just scout better, duh" Yes, you could, but you know, it's so hard to sack a few hundred minerals + supply to MAYBE see your tech. Did I mention you can just switch tech labs and reactors in and out between your barracks, factories, starports? How fair is that? Look, I'm a random player so I don't really favor any race in particular, but Terrans have to be blind to say that ZvT is not an uphill battle where the Zerg has to play near perfect against a smart Terran in order to win. I personally say that the MU isn't imba, but it's pretty damn tough. Right now, a Hellion+Marine+Marauder+Thor army is one of the hardest things in the world to deal with for Zerg. and it's not like it's very difficult to get either. | ||
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kingcomrade
United States115 Posts
Heres why I don't support it myself... it's an unrealistic expectation. I understand where you're coming from, but I think Blizzard should do whatever it takes. I mean, it's not that hard. Blizzard is capable of it, with their billions of dollars from WoW. They can put in the time and effort to rebalance a unit for being T1. It's not even that big a deal. | ||
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Mortician
Bulgaria2332 Posts
On September 09 2010 09:49 RavenNevermore wrote: 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. Zergs can't be agressive in BW as well untill the opponent moves out, your point being? | ||
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cHaNg-sTa
United States1058 Posts
On September 09 2010 14:26 Mortician wrote: Zergs can't be agressive in BW as well untill the opponent moves out, your point being? Well, the thing with BW's metagame, no one tries to be aggressive off one base anymore. Tier 1 units just aren't strong enough to break any solid defense. Something you just don't see in SC2. So technically, Zerg were typically the first aggressors with Muta harass. Try to think of ZvT games where there's a big exchange going on pre-3hatch mutas. There definitely isn't a lot. | ||
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kickinhead
Switzerland2069 Posts
On September 09 2010 14:15 cHaNg-sTa wrote: I've been saying this for a long time. SPINE CRAWLERS ARE SO BAD. Sunkens were powerful and killed stuff pretty fast. The longest range tier 1-1.5 in BW were dragoons, while dragoons dealt pretty good damage against sunkens, it was difficult when swarms of speedlings were backing them up. Zerg can build up proper defense holding them off. But now, what does Zerg get? Relatively crappy spine crawler that needs to paid fully up front, no creep phase to anticipate any push. Terran? WOW! LET'S GIVE THEM SALVAGEABLE BUNKERS! That's a fair trade off right?! Oh wait, let's also give Terran a unit that deals INSANE dps to structures.. Thank you Marauders, how come you haven't been nerfed yet? Oh wait, let's just make it even tougher by letting the opponent's army BALL UP! Yes, the zerglings have a great time surrounding that alright. Now all that wouldn't be absolutely terrible but.. guess what! Since Zerg has terrible scouting abilities, and need to invest a lot in case of an all-in powerful push, they invest a lot in a zergling/roach/baneling/spine crawler force... Incoming Banshee/Void Ray... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.. Of course, you can easily say "oh, just scout better, duh" Yes, you could, but you know, it's so hard to sack a few hundred minerals + supply to MAYBE see your tech. Did I mention you can just switch tech labs and reactors in and out between your barracks, factories, starports? How fair is that? Look, I'm a random player so I don't really favor any race in particular, but Terrans have to be blind to say that ZvT is not an uphill battle where the Zerg has to play near perfect against a smart Terran in order to win. I personally say that the MU isn't imba, but it's pretty damn tough. Right now, a Hellion+Marine+Marauder+Thor army is one of the hardest things in the world to deal with for Zerg. and it's not like it's very difficult to get either. I'd be sooo happy if Spine Crawlers would be actually useful in SC2, but for that to happen, a LOT of things need to change: - Either Spine Crawlers need +1 Range, or Marauders -1 Range. - No Unit, at least not until T2, should do ANY additional DMG to buildings - not Marauders, not Reapers - NONE! - sth needs to be done about Reapers; Cliffhoppers THAT early in the game? Even if they would deal no additional DMG to buildings, they'd still force the Zerg to build the double amount of Spine Crawlers, or at least more, cuz they'd need to defend their base as well. No other Unit until T2 can just "bypass" structural defense at the front and that's how it needs to be! - Blizzard should finally learn to make decent Maps. Wide open Naturals, destructable backdoor-rocks etc. just totally make static defense obsolete. - Spine Crawlers either should be built from a "Crawler Colony" or sth, like in BW, so you didn't need to invest the full cost when you felt like the opponent might push out soon, or they should build much faster. They really build incredibly slow atm. - Fix the damn rooting of the Spine Crawlers so that they don't take 20 hours to root - it really is annoying and the nerf to that was absolutely not needed to begin with. | ||
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heishe
Germany2284 Posts
As for P?T, it seems to me that Terran is too strong early and midgame but once a game reaches endgame when there are more Collosi and High Templars in the game, it becomes somewhat imbalanced in favour of Protoss. | ||
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TungVu
Vietnam25 Posts
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kickinhead
Switzerland2069 Posts
On September 09 2010 15:32 TungVu wrote: idk about u but speed lings is enuff "aggression" imo well, you've clearly been following this discussion carefully before you crawled out under your bridge and trolled us all... | ||
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Ordained
United States779 Posts
On September 09 2010 12:16 Rabbet wrote: When I first started playing Brood War, I could never understand why my marines sucked against zerglings so bad(and zeolots). I couldn't even get a decent number of marines to be aggressive with because I had to bunker my ramp or my minerals to stop zerg(protoss) from destroying me in the first 5 minutes of the game. One day I observed another terran playing and learned how to wall off my choke. It made the game instantly better and made the terran race actually playable with low apm. After that the problem of harassment by air was the next major obstacle and I had to basically expect mutalisks and build a bunch of turrets(we did have ONE scan to figure the tech out). So after making mutas useless on a backstab, I could finally begin to think about moving out of my base...but not until I had a tank or 2 and a science vessel. So after researching 3 upgrades(irradiate, stim and range for marines), building several barracks, several turrets, all the depots to match the army, an engineering bay, academy, a factory with machine shop and a starport I could finally think about later in the game and plan for a command center for the extra economy. I must say that playing Terran in Brood War was a learning curve, but I toughed it out and eventually people(and maps) started doing 1 rax expansions and mech play etc. Does this uphill battle sound familiar? My point? Zergs just have to tough it out and learn how to combat the early crap Terran and Protoss can throw at them. I didn't like fighting uphill in Brood War, but I did it and didn't think it was unfair because eventually the evolution of the game will occur. If I didn't see Boxer kicking ass with Terran I wouldn't be playing the game anymore either, meaning that if most of you zergs suck that doesn't mean that zerg sucks you just are not capable of playing them. What you just said was that you sucked so you learned to wall off. Fine I can stand by that as well, it helps low apm players stay alive long enough that they can get an army. But the part that seems rude and uncalled for is that you said Zerg players suck because they cant handle the early game. To say that is being very, very hypocritical seeing as Zerg dont get the easy defense that comes from a wall. Protoss and Terran are immune to harass until the 10 minute mark, (longer if they are good and harass the zerg and there is no reason to not harass a Zerg player as even a failed harass will put hte Zerg way behind in economy.) Zerg has the least ammount of options available at all points in the game and it shows in most pro games. | ||
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Siwa
91 Posts
"But in BW I could.." Don't! This is SC2. Learn to play with your race in this game. Sure if the metagame turns into some boring thing where ppl always have to do the same things, Zerg can't attack etc, then blizzard will likely react. But that is not close yet because the top level playstyles *are still evolving fast*. You don't know how top Zergs play one month from now. | ||
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Arm4n
United States103 Posts
you have the freedom you expand and macro till reapers show to your base followed by 5 rack marauder/stim + reaper. if you want to know what its truly like to play zerg then go ladder. | ||
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Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On September 09 2010 16:34 Siwa wrote: Races are not the same, oh my god! Zerg has to play differently. "But in BW I could.." Don't! This is SC2. Learn to play with your race in this game. Sure if the metagame turns into some boring thing where ppl always have to do the same things, Zerg can't attack etc, then blizzard will likely react. But that is not close yet because the top level playstyles *are still evolving fast*. You don't know how top Zergs play one month from now. Not everyone in the world is a top player. Problems in Zerg playstyle are evident, should we ignore the problems of 99% of the players playing Zerg just because a few elite top players have the skill and APM to survive? The point here isn't that Zerg plays differently, it's that they are inferior. Or are you saying that Blizzard meant for T and P to have all the freedom in the world to be aggressive at any point in the game, while Zerg has to wait until mid-game? Why not make a new race which has only one unit which sucks, all races are supposed to be different right? EDIT: And I want to add to that, saying "Zerg is the new turtling race" shows no understanding at all of how Zerg has to be played. How could Zerg possibly turtle? We can't wall, we have no tanks nor lurkers, our static defense is extremely expensive (two different kinds, sacrifices a drone), we have no decent AA before Hydra. If zerg was truly supposed to be a turtling race, blizzard made some huge mistakes in their design. | ||
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HTX
Germany265 Posts
PvZ -> Forge, Cannons, Gate = FE+Wall in TvZ -> 1Rax, 2 Supply = Wall in behind your ramp or outside and FE | ||
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LuciferSC
Canada535 Posts
For one, you absolutely cannot base the balance of the game on the casual players. Face it, SC is a competitive game, it's only natural to base the balance on the pro-gamers and have the rest learn from them and get better. For two, Zerg never was and is not supposed to be the aggressor throughout the game. Even in TvZ in BW, terran always had a window for timed attack with rines and medics before spire finishes. You guys are nagging about the wrong point. | ||
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ghermination
United States2851 Posts
Without walling in the early game would be literally impossible. The Zerg can have 6-12 lings at your ramp by the time you have 1 zealot, with one warping in (if you 12 gated) or two if you 10 gated. You can fend the zerglings off at this point with a wall, but without one it would just be get zerglings -> a move -> win. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10691 Posts
But things get stupid when the Terran is the aggressor and has X diffrent ways to be that agressor for basically 90% of the game until Z hit's T3 incl. Ultra-Tech. FFS Terran can pull SCV's into the fight and does not fall significantly behind in economy due to Mules. It's just retarded. | ||
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cHaNg-sTa
United States1058 Posts
On September 09 2010 16:34 Siwa wrote: Races are not the same, oh my god! Zerg has to play differently. "But in BW I could.." Don't! This is SC2. Learn to play with your race in this game. Sure if the metagame turns into some boring thing where ppl always have to do the same things, Zerg can't attack etc, then blizzard will likely react. But that is not close yet because the top level playstyles *are still evolving fast*. You don't know how top Zergs play one month from now. I'm sorry, but this is just the wrong thinking. It's very easy to say that "oh SC2 hasn't even been out that long, you can't make any assumptions about the future of the game". While I somewhat agree with this statement, you can't just make wild accusations of "learn to play your race" as of all the zerg players have no idea what they're doing and obviously all the Terrans "learned" their race better. I've been there before. I was a high level Melee player (earned probably around $2000 over the course of my "career") winning tournaments around the Dallas area. And when Brawl was announced, I was very excited. It turns out, the game was a shell of its former self. I was in denial and believed "oh, just give it time, Melee didn't become great over night". But the sad reality is, players are much better now, they know what to look for, we'll understand the game much faster. And guess what? People thought Metaknight was broken day 1, and.. MK is still pretty freakin broken. Nowadays, almost all the Melee players still play Melee and stay away from Brawl. There are even people trying to mod Brawl to play like Melee. Most tournament players will tell you that Melee is a far better game than Brawl in terms of a competitive game. Now, I'm definitely not saying that Brawl is anything like SC2, this is VERY FAR from the case. I enjoy SC2 a lot. But why is it bad to draw the good things from the previous game? Just because it's a different game doesn't mean we can't try to imitate the good stuff. A popular fighting game such as Street Fighter changes from their predecessors, but they keep the same core idea and it succeeds. Back to the whole point, it doesn't take a genius to tell that Zerg has very little harassing abilities early in the game, the very first solid harassing options is with Mutas, but Zerg is very vulnerable to any sort of push that comes before hand. Zerg play styles are not really evolving fast. They went from Roach/Hydra/Infestor style to Mutaling/Baneling style and get to Tier 3 if Zerg can survive that long. And these units just happen to be almost all of the Zerg units. They just don't have a lot to work with. The only biggest advancement is the magic box, but even then, Terrans are slowly incorporating hellions with their marine/thor push and making it a huge pain to deal with again. Terran and Protoss have on the other hand, millions of options. Terran can open reaper harass, can MM harass, Hellion harass, Thor drop, Banshee rush, Viking harass overlords, even Koreans are doing ghost drops and sniping/nuking. Is it because Terran players are just smarter than Zerg players? No. It's because Zerg just has limited options. They can do.... Mutas harass, and kinda Nydus Worm.. The rest of Zerg's strats are "counter whatever they have" because that's the only solid option that Zerg has. You know how sad that is? It's getting REALLY boring to play Zerg because of it. I don't find it so bad because I play Random, but I can't imagine Zerg players do what they do every single game. | ||
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