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Greg 'IdrA' Fields gives his thoughts on Blizzard's most recent patch for StarCraft 2. Below is an excerpt taken from the article:
The first balance patch for StarCraft2 came out roughly a month after release and consisted solely of changes that were announced weeks ago and that were actually already prepared at the start of phase 2 of the beta. Unfortunately, this is evident in the effect the changes will have on the game. Blizzard patched the state the game was in several weeks ago, and didn't address many developments in game play that have since made the patch almost irrelevant. ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game.
You can read the rest of his thoughts at http://www.myeg.net/article/article_detail.php?article_id=877
Do you agree or disagree with what he has to say?
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Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff...
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Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout.
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I remember Idra saying that ZvP lategame dramatically favored Zerg, but that seems to have changed. The game's deceptively simple at first, so I think we should just avoid knee jerk claims about balance and let it play itself out first.
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I'm a terran player and I agree. Zerg life is hard.
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On September 24 2010 10:28 MegaBUD wrote:
Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff...
You got some guts questioning idra when hes not even raging at it.
I agree with idra from a zerg players perspective nothing has really changed
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On September 24 2010 10:28 MegaBUD wrote:
Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff...
Except everything he says is well thought out and has some good reasoning behind them. If you're gonna dismiss him so easily, at least put some meat into it.
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Osaka27139 Posts
That first response was a perfect example of how being a useless poster can ruin a thread in one post. Please don't do that, and others, please don't feed him. Comment on the article itself.
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Really? There's no way to tell anything this early on in the patch. Wait a month before saying that it's the such a disappointing patch.
Just my opinion.
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EDIT: sorry i didn't mean to feed
I think i really will affect PvT. Zealots coupled with stalkers are toss' best defense against marauders. I know any form of fast tech or expansion will be more difficult to pull off now.
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I feel that when zerg finally get their time in the spotlight, at least after release, I will be a better player for putting up with this tomfoolery. Hope idra does well at MLG so he can tell terran to get self respect.
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On September 24 2010 10:28 MegaBUD wrote:
Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff...
Are you fucking stupid? Zerg is the most under powerd race in the game. Id be surprised if you play zerg and your saying this. You are some probley lonley Platnium level protoss who has no skill what so ever and only knows how to 4gate for a chance to win. When your not doing that your makeing meaning less posts on here.
Aside from my anger being tooken out on him, I agree with Idra that this was not enough. I personally think the zerg macro mechanics need some sort of buff. Im not saying GIVE ZERG A WHOLE NEW MACRO MECHANIC. But The fact that a protoss can get a forge early wallmin with 2 pylons and a cannon get a stargate before i can get hydras and win cause Zerg has horrible Tier AA is stupid. No im not saying zerg is underpowered and give us the lurker or anything retarded like that. Im just saying I agree and this was not enough.
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He's absolutely right, Blizzard is taking way too long for so few balance changes.
They're probably afraid to screw up balance, but shouldn't they have a decent grasp on the situation? Hrmm..
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On September 24 2010 10:28 MegaBUD wrote:
Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff...
Maybe he's QQing, maybe he's not. Doesn't change the fact that he's 100% spot on with almost everything he says about balance. He may be pretty arrogant (even though I'm pretty sure that most of the stuff he says when he flames people isn't meant super seriously) but he is also pretty intelligent. When he says something it's usually easy to reproduce his thought process and thus it's usually easy to see why he is mostly correct. He does well in putting all the QQing of all Zergs into words where most other Pros only success in giving examples without pointing out the problems in general (or not succeeding in saying anything coherent regarding balance at all), even though the way he expresses his thoughts is sometimes not optimal in terms of "etiquete" (which is overrated  )
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Fairly reasonable response. I like that Idra in SC2 is taking his role as a "community spokesman" of sorts more seriously than in BW. Less cussing/raging, more talking. This is the kind of response that Blizzard will actually listen to.
I think he's largely right in what he says, though I think he, as a Zerg player, tends to see things as more skewed against his race than they actually are. But his overall conclusions are sound.
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On September 24 2010 10:37 TheWarbler wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:28 MegaBUD wrote:
Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff... Are you fucking stupid? Zerg is the most under powerd race in the game. Id be surprised if you play zerg and your saying this. You are some probley lonley Platnium level protoss who has no skill what so ever and only knows how to 4gate for a chance to win. When your not doing that your makeing meaning less posts on here. Aside from my anger being tooken out on him, I agree with Idra that this was not enough. I personally think the zerg macro mechanics need some sort of buff. Im not saying GIVE ZERG A WHOLE NEW MACRO MECHANIC. But The fact that a protoss can get a forge early wallmin with 2 pylons and a cannon get a stargate before i can get hydras and win cause Zerg has horrible Tier AA is stupid. No im not saying zerg is underpowered and give us the lurker or anything retarded like that. Im just saying I agree and this was not enough.
If you don't know what your opponent is doing it might be prudent to get 2-3 queens total. There are other problems that were addressed in the article, not just simply forge FE into void ray.
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I feel like that was a really well written article. Idra is definitely being reasonable and is really suggesting that just having the ability to SCOUT a terran player would make a world of difference. Anyone see the "leaked" patch notes on MyM? The overlord speed/mule cooldown definitely made me think.
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Most of what he says is pretty sensible. I know they wanted to patch the game slightly and that makes sense to me entirely. This can be a volatile game in terms of balance with even the slightest tweaks. But this patch was a little too light for 2 months post release. Especially if these changes were already prepared at the end of phase 2 beta.
Overall, I agree with what he has to say about ZvT, ZvP and even TvP. I assume Blizzard will hear about this so hopefully the next patch comes a little sooner than the last one.
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IdrA does not beat around the bush, and his contribution here is tempered. I am particularly happy that he has taken note of the incapacity of hydralisks vs. the race of far superior range.
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I don't get why Blizzard doesn't realize the problem here is with Zerg. Patching Terran and Protoss doesn't do anything useful. Now tanks can't even be used TvP.
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I have to agree with Idra. I feel zvt hasn't changed at all even with slight nerfs to reaper build time + bunker. As for zvp I don't know if it really changed the MU at all except 2 gate isn't as strong. But yeah I agree with what Idra was saying for the most part this patch isn't really going to change/fix/help anything .
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I don't think he's being unreasonable as far as the impact the changes themselves are going to have. The part that bothers me is that he's complaining that they're fixing the state of the game that existed a month ago. There's not a magic button that Blizzard presses that fixes an issue the instant it's discovered. A patch is always going to take time to implement and in that time the game is going to evolve to some degree. They're not psychic.
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On September 24 2010 10:29 SubtleArt wrote:
I remember Idra saying that ZvP lategame dramatically favored Zerg, but that seems to have changed. The game's deceptively simple at first, so I think we should just avoid knee jerk claims about balance and let it play itself out first.
I remember this too but it was a long time ago.
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I don't understand how nerfing makes a race stronger. I guess Idra has more insight than I do.
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Yeah, I agree with Idra, the reapers were only one of the many things that terrans can do to zerg early game. Other things such as the thor drop on LT and 3 medivac drops and things like that are still too strong against zerg, as well as the mmm ball. I feel like this patch won't affect zvt much, but instead make tvp more imba than it already is.
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Good article, I completely agree that the zealot nerf will have a big impact, and I think on maps where they can't wall the zerg and/or forge fe it's very difficult.. but while there is very few maps like that, there are far greater problems impacting zergs with the current ladder maps..
As for the total impact of the patch, however, I still think it's completely neglibible. imo while hydra's are pretty cost-effective against gateway unless they have awesome forcefields or you know, the zerg has to attack with slowass hydras against warpgate macro respawns, an aa stalker heavy army from 1 base into a collosus to shred any thread of hydra build basically requires ultras or alot of broodlords to beat, but the protoss can get these units in an army of damn high supply from 2 base, whereas a zerg can barely get these techs from 2 base, let alone get upgrades or units so they actually do something.
don't get me wrong; it's not that bad. there's lots of ways to win, and 2/4 gate feels easier to deal with than ever, but I still think we'll see p and t completely overpower zerg in tournaments as we have been since release (I would say the roach 2 supply, but Idra won KotB)
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I agree with his opinion and im a terran player.
Terran and protoss need little tweaks here and their. terran early game and protoss late game. But the big thing is Zerg in general. Personally i believe that alot of zergs issues has to do with the hydralisk and just how weak they are to colossi and hellions. And how slow they are. Not to mention tier 2.
A tier 1 hydralisk could stop the cannon rush and other rushes, and could make for interesting battles as the reapers attempt to poke in and the hydras micro to prevent.
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Generally agree with him that it makes early TvP even more in favor of T and late game TvP a bit more in favor of the protoss.
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I have always believed if your going to gauge, judge, or just straight out complain about something (and in no way im i saying any or all of the following were done by Idra here) you should at least give some kind of feedback on why its not working or why its bad. A post saying a specific change didn't help or correct core issues wont really help guide blizzard in any sense.
As much as people say blizzard doesn't listen to the public or anything of that matter, they do get feedback and think about it.
The post Idra made doesn't say what hasn't already been said in the many threads created on this site. To me this is just a fluff piece by EG to get community focus. It would have been a far better read to hear what a top level Zerg would want to see as a change if not for all races, Zerg at least. His input on what he believes could have made the patch better (how ever modest or outlandish) would help people.
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On September 24 2010 10:37 MaD.pYrO wrote:
He's absolutely right, Blizzard is taking way too long for so few balance changes.
They're probably afraid to screw up balance, but shouldn't they have a decent grasp on the situation? Hrmm..
Blizzard is taking a measure twice, cut once approach. That way if they mess up the balance by changing it a tiny bit it is easier to fix than a situation akin to Z's current weakness.
BW wasn't built in a day and I know it is hard to have to suffer through this. Hopefully 1.1 will be enough to at least make a tangible improvement. With each production cycle the reapers come out further and further behind than before, till they ultimately lose gas.
I salute you zergs, as a Link main in Brawl I know how hard it is to play an underpowered faction. At least you'll get patches, eventually.
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GOD SPEAKS!!!!
srsly: idra should spend like 10 min every 2 weeks and post a short article about his current thoughts on blizz forums and see if they actually listen to anything he has to say.
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I just wish everyone could put Idra's personality aside for once and actually read what hes talking about.
I am protoss player and yet I too am compelled by his arguments. I am pretty sure he knows what hes talking about.
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Meh honestly I think ZvT has change a little bit but definitely not enough I mean reapers are less of a problem now but overall zerg still feels like shit in ZvT
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Don't want to downplay anything he said, he's completly right. But anyone with even a little amount of sense for the game should know this anyway. TvZ is plagued by mechanics which absolutly favour the Terran player early on (especially the merciless dependency of the Z on knowing exactly what his opponent is doing combined with the impossibility to gain any useful int without lair tech and a costly upgrade).
The two possibilites to handle this are a.) changing the mechanics of one of the races drastically or b.) buffing zerg units to a point where they are able to fight a greater variety of stuff without needing an exact counter composition to have any chance at all.
It's should be obvious to anyone that 5 secs more Reaper buildtime accomplish basically nothing for the matchup.
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If TvP is fairly balanced, then why not just make changes to Zerg? Just buff a couple things, and see how it works. That makes the most sense to me...
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On September 24 2010 10:45 NATO wrote:
I don't understand how nerfing makes a race stronger. I guess Idra has more insight than I do.
Ultras got nerfed. this is pretty big considering its the only worthy unit late game. Even then, it was only useful with some element of surprise and your T2 army still surviving. Without something backing them up, zealot counters ultra a little too well.
Now even with the surprise, ultra will do worse against most probable stalker + templars/colassus army.
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Idra is right. Many of the issues with the game are still very unaddressed. Idra may QQ a lot but he speaks the truth.
TvP is just so much worse now for Protoss... ugh I could really go more in depth but screw it.
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Nice article from IdrA. I wonder what his thoughts on the creep mechanic is.
As is, it feels like creep is a disadvantage to zerg rather than an advantage. It limits hydra play and defending against early reapers. In brood war, creep didn't grant bonus mobility and it feels like zerg was truly able to swarm in for kills. Now, zerg needs that creep expanded in order to swarm. Even then, movement isn't increased significantly for hydras to be able to go with the swarm as they used to.
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I think IdrA's a pretty cool guy, eh post about patch notes and doesn't afraid of anything.
I agree that not much has changed in ZvT.
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Blizzard needs to fix zerg early game weakness soon so that other imbalances are revealed. Once the early game imbalances are fixed then we can move on to the "real" imbalances in the mid and late game. Who knows, maybe zerg will be the most powerful race late game if they are allowed to get through the early game and into midgame on even footing with the other races.
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Idra is being quite fair about the Protoss situation as well, which doesn't look good too, in early game. Sure, they survive, but if a race is supposed to cannon rush to survive..
I hope Blizzard forms their proleague (above Diamond) sooner, and starts working closely with those players through something like another quick beta session. Because they're clearly too reluctant to experiment with the whole ladder - understandable - and they still need major changes.
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On September 24 2010 10:45 NATO wrote:
I don't understand how nerfing makes a race stronger. I guess Idra has more insight than I do.
He's talking about TvP with regards to the zealot nerf. Tanks weren't being used a ton anyway in TvP, I don't think. I could be wrong.
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On September 24 2010 10:58 okaygo wrote:
I think IdrA's a pretty cool guy, eh post about patch notes and doesn't afraid of anything.
I agree that not much has changed in ZvT.
thats why i don't understand why people are hatin but i guess haters gonna hate :l
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as a zerg player i gotta pretty much agree with what idra has said. The game has evolved past this patch already, 5 rax reapers are things of the past and seemingly i say this in the nicest way was being used by people who were just lazy when it came to ZvT. I won't switch from Z but I can personally say I doubt a Z will be winning and major tournaments anytime to come, and blizzard knows this but I feel like they are almost afraid to really get in the nitty gritty of what needs to be done to the game because it could destroy it if they make too many changes too often, but at the same time if some thing is not done soon enough you'll be seeing a lot more T and P players more so then there is now.
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While it may or may not help its effects have yet to be seen really.
There is no need for drastic changes.
If a terran builds a rax then a reaper then starts on a second reaper and 2 more raxes then produces 3 out of all of them then pushes then He will have 5 reapers (with speed) delayed by about 15 sec (probably closer to 10 on faster) I can't count how many times I've watched a replay where the terran does what I have described here. The zerg does what they are supposed to but speed is not quite done or a spine crawler is not quite ready. An extra 10-15 sec could be enough time for one of these things to finish.
Give it 2 weeks or so before you start assuming it won't fix anything if zvp is becoming more and more p stacked as time progresses with no p buffs and no z nerfs that just means p have figured out something they can do. I don't watch many zvp MU's but lets just say the thing that toss are doing that break the MU is they get there +1 attack upgrade really fast and zerg players are walking around dumbfounded as to how to beat it. They QQ on the forums and blizzard gives in and decides to double the buildtime of the forge to slow the upgrade a little bit.
Right before this patch goes live a genius zerg realizes that you could just upgrade the carapace to equalize this said imbalance. In the meantime since this change has already taken affect zvt changes cuz now toss has trouble keeping up with terran upgrading. But by changeing the buildtime of the forge 5-10 sec will allow zerg players a little bit more time when trying to decide what to do and won't change other things significantly.
Yes I know my example here seems a little obvious what the zerg should do.
Ty blizzard for remaining patient and not making any dramatic changes.
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Idra has always been right regarding the game balance. More and more pro-gamers are coming around and admitting the game is imbalanced in very specific ways. When will blizzard come around? Just some food for thought:
Fruitseller's recent comments on the state of Zerg:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=155310
Morrow admitting TvZ is imba...
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=145594
Battle.nets own EU Top 200
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/de/blog/4078 74
The top 22 on the ladder are non-zerg:
http://sc2ranks.com/
Here are just a few of the players off the top of my head who openly admit ZvT is broken: Idra, Artosis, Dimaga, Psystarcraft, Morrow, Drewbie, TLO, Sheth, Sen, MasterAsia
Then take a look at the recent tournament results... GSL included.
Just wanted some overwhelming evidence to preempt the TLer's who claim the game is balanced. Making such a claim should be equated with trolling IMO. The real question is, why doesn't Blizzard take real action?
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IdrA's right on.
The design flaws with zerg are just enormous, and no amount of subtle stat-tweaking is going to fix that. Every race with a weakness should have a complementary strength -- what zerg got instead is a pile of self-multiplying weaknesses.
For example, we're the only race that can't reasonably wall off to deny early attacks and crucial early-midgame scouting, while both our other opponents can. Furthermore, we depend more on scouting and reacting than the other races. To compensate for these weaknesses, we at least get incredibly easy and effective scouting with scanner sweep.... wait, no. Terran got that.
We're the only race with zero anti-air as part of our core T1 army... and our supply flies. At least we got the best stationary defense in the game, which detect, hit both air and ground, and don't cost us a worker... oh, wait. Protoss got that. And they can be built anywhere and faster than ours, too. At least ours can move, and by move of course I mean stand up and dance their little roots around for 12 seconds while they get killed without firing a shot.
It goes on and on like this. This game won't be balanced until there are some RADICAL changes. Overlord speed goes to tier 1 and back to 50/50. Speedlings get to finally use their wings for a weak anti-air attack, perhaps some leaping melee thing that isn't useful for mid-game air wars but helps fend off that first banshee. And some of the overpowered P/T stuff will STILL need nerfs: for example, there needs to be a way to micro to make void rays lose their charge, and toss need to be forced to use some micro to maintain their charge. Right now the "shoot a building and then kill the whole opposing army in 5 seconds" thing isn't balanced.
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On September 24 2010 11:11 terranghost wrote:
While it may or may not help its effects have yet to be seen really.
There is no need for drastic changes.
If a terran builds a rax then a reaper then starts on a second reaper and 2 more raxes then produces 3 out of all of them then pushes then He will have 5 reapers (with speed) delayed by about 15 sec (probably closer to 10 on faster) I can't count how many times I've watched a replay where the terran does what I have described here. The zerg does what they are supposed to but speed is not quite done or a spine crawler is not quite ready. An extra 10-15 sec could be enough time for one of these things to finish.
Give it 2 weeks or so before you start assuming it won't fix anything if zvp is becoming more and more p stacked as time progresses with no p buffs and no z nerfs that just means p have figured out something they can do. I don't watch many zvp MU's but lets just say the thing that toss are doing that break the MU is they get there +1 attack upgrade really fast and zerg players are walking around dumbfounded as to how to beat it. They QQ on the forums and blizzard gives in and decides to double the buildtime of the forge to slow the upgrade a little bit.
Right before this patch goes live a genius zerg realizes that you could just upgrade the carapace to equalize this said imbalance. In the meantime since this change has already taken affect zvt changes cuz now toss has trouble keeping up with terran upgrading. But by changeing the buildtime of the forge 5-10 sec will allow zerg players a little bit more time when trying to decide what to do and won't change other things significantly.
Yes I know my example here seems a little obvious what the zerg should do.
Ty blizzard for remaining patient and not making any dramatic changes.
Prime example of someone who hasn't read the article (or has poor reading comprehension) but feels like putting out his rant anyways.
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Idra:
These changes would have made for a good patch a month ago, as is it is definitely not enough, and won't have much of an impact on the balance situation. Hopefully if Blizzard takes another month to release the next patch it will be a more meaningful one.
While I'm glad that Blizz is taking their time with balance issues, I have to agree with Idra. While 1.1 deals with alot of issues, there are some big ones that did not get addressed. Hopefully in another month from now we will see a more encompassing patch.
I'm surprised he had nothing to say about Blizz's destructible rocks map-fix, though I can imagine what he would say on the subject...
On September 24 2010 10:59 figq wrote:
Idra is being quite fair about the Protoss situation as well, which doesn't look good too, in early game. Sure, they survive, but if a race is supposed to cannon rush to survive..
Cannon rushing isn't necessary for protoss, a lot of gold and plat players are doing it just because it's easy wins. While it does seem a bit overpowered, lets face it a player who does good scouting will beat a cannon rushing player any day.
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BW was built in 3 years (patch 1.08 is similar to the current final version).
Prior to Boxer, everyone thought the Terrans were weak and underpowered. Then all off a sudden, came a sudden surge in Terrans (Boxer, Nada, iloveoov) showing how powerful they really are. Then, everyone thought Zergs were weak. But along came July (Mutalisk stacking) and Savior (Defiler usage). When the 6 Dragons were centre-stage, the Protoss were all but invincible.
Thus, I disagree with Idra. I believe balance changes should be made slowly. Let the changes take impact and see how they impact the Zerg's success. If, after a month or so, it is not enough, further changes can be made.
Another way Blizzard can balance is through maps. I'm interested in the stats for Metalopolis.
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On September 24 2010 10:43 De4ngus wrote:
I don't get why Blizzard doesn't realize the problem here is with Zerg. Patching Terran and Protoss doesn't do anything useful. Now tanks can't even be used TvP.
Please continue to have that mentality, as a Protoss player I would greatly appreciate if everyone thought tanks cannot be used in TvP. The reality is they are just as strong as they were pre patch 1.1 but that isn't even the point of what Idra is saying.
I think a lot of the problems just stem from the way Zerg units are compared to either Protoss or Terran. Zerg units are just very one dimensional and are designed in a very gimmicky sense.
Zerglings : Weak Melee unit very easily massable but later in game you just lose them in masses
The gimmick is the massing of the unit
Roaches : Moderatly strong Melee/Range unit I label it as such because of their very weak range
Gimmick is that you need speed to prevent them from being annihilated by kiting, Burrow Micro/movement make them a decent gimmick
Banelings: Total gimmick unit.. you suicide them at units I don't think this needs explanation
Hydralisk: Comes to be one of the most solid units that you will find in the Zerg army, it is well rounded and diverse however its gimmick is that you suffer from Damage/vs survivability they are simply weak I believe the best term to describe them is Glass Cannon
Mutalisk: Another well rounded solid unit.. (seems to be the common ground for zerg tier 2) Solid damage for cost ratio, I don't personally find these to be gimmicky
Infestor : Is medium to average as a caster, I think in comparrison to Ravens and Templar its a bit weak, infested Terran is gimicky. Fungal growth is decent to good, however it is nowhere near as useful as Storm/HSM/PDD
Corruptor: Gimmicky anti air unit, corruption spell is a bit of a gimmick most of the time the 10% wont make a difference because of how many you have. (No way to attack ground units like Vikings/Phoenix) (Massive oversight in my opinion)
Ultralisk: Strong tanking melee unit, Gimmick is that its a ground only attack tier 3 unit. That suffers from serious path finding issues. I think the Ultra could be an outstanding unit if I didn't lose them to the games AI sending them to their death or getting stuck on random terrain/units
While I like the idea of Micro.. I shouldn't have to Micro a unit just to make up for AI
Broodlord: Very strong siege unit, attacks ground only can severely screw with unit targeting against a non micro opponent. Once again i feel as though this unit is limited by its anti ground only where as BC and Carrier both have Anti air/ground capability.
I'm fully aware that each race his its own gimmick unit though Terran seems to have the most well rounded out of them all. the simple fact is that zerg suffers from a one dimensional creation of almost every unit.. they all serve only one role and that one role alone where as the racial counterparts are far less one dimensional units.
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Since TvP is actually fairly balanced, I think they honestly should just leave those two races alone, as to not risk causing more imbalances.
Just get Zerg to a similar level, and your'e good.
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IdrA be speaking the truth.
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On September 24 2010 11:16 TheToast wrote:Show nested quote +Idra:
These changes would have made for a good patch a month ago, as is it is definitely not enough, and won't have much of an impact on the balance situation. Hopefully if Blizzard takes another month to release the next patch it will be a more meaningful one. While I'm glad that Blizz is taking their time with balance issues, I have to agree with Idra. While 1.1 deals with alot of issues, there are some big ones that did not get addressed. Hopefully in another month from now we will see a more encompassing patch. I'm surprised he had nothing to say about Blizz's destructible rocks map-fix, though I can imagine what he would say on the subject... Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:59 figq wrote:
Idra is being quite fair about the Protoss situation as well, which doesn't look good too, in early game. Sure, they survive, but if a race is supposed to cannon rush to survive..
Cannon rushing isn't necessary for protoss, a lot of gold and plat players are doing it just because it's easy wins. While it does seem a bit overpowered, lets face it a player who does good scouting will beat a cannon rushing player any day.
The "cannon rush" IdrA was talking about was the double pylon and cannon at the ramp. Plus Top has now shown us an even sicker way of doing it on Metalopolis. It's just to delay Z's expo and allow P to get a super fast one.
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i do not believe the siege tank nerf was done appropriately. i think tanks should be back to the old 70 dmg but only primary target take full dmg. the 50% and 25% dmg radius should be adjusted too. and min/gas cost of tanks and supply cost should be adjusted as well. that way tanks are still useful but not OP.
given the stats from GSL, i dont think its T's OP but rather Z's UP.
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On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout.
how did Z scout in BW?
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I dont agree with Idras take on TvP early game. Terran had some pretty serious nerfs that affect early game. But terran being weaker in late game is fairly accurate.
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On September 24 2010 10:55 ryanAnger wrote:
If TvP is fairly balanced, then why not just make changes to Zerg? Just buff a couple things, and see how it works. That makes the most sense to me...
TvP is not balanced. The disparity between early and late game play coupled with Blizzard's patch is confounding: The Terran are definitely the aggressors in the first half of the game, and the roles flip when psi storm is out.
The balance changes to the tank make them less viable (I don't know if they are useless) and the zealot build time increase makes Terran aggression all the more stronger in early game.
It seems like a very poor way to balance this matchup, although I'm certain they were thinking about the implications in PvZ and TvZ.
Also, it is evident they did not play test this patch through internally, or if they did, it was very minimally. The oversight of the ultralisk attack on buildings is pretty telling in this matter.
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On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW?
Zerg were the aggressor with mutalisks in BW, and Terrans really only had 1-2 viable builds for the early-mid game so it wasn't a problem.
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Idra is a cool guy and very shy on women so I´m his fan, also considering that patch 1.1 was together with wow mainteance anyone here that plays wow knows when the next mainteance will be ?
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how did Z scout in BW?
Early game scouting wasn't nearly as critical with larger maps and faster/better static defense. Variety of terran openings are much, much larger in SC2 compared to BW.
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On September 24 2010 10:39 Deltawolf wrote:
I feel like that was a really well written article. Idra is definitely being reasonable and is really suggesting that just having the ability to SCOUT a terran player would make a world of difference. .
this
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Blizzard should ask pro players for their opinions on balance...
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I agree with the analysis. Zerg are incredibly one dimensional, you do x, well then they HAVE to do y. Nothing has changed and the only thing is that now as a protoss player I am SLIGHTLY more vulnerable to early zergling aggression but even that is tempered by early 12 forge 14 nex builds that leave zerg without much to do except tech and expand.
Zerg either need another unit to add diversity in the anti armored section early game. *roach just doesn't cut it*
The zerg units work as a swarm but you can never get enough to constitute a swarm.
My choices are always pretty binary against zerg, Get HT's or get colossus, or if its late game, get both and force the zerg into two tech trees one with no benefit to itself besides an attempt to hard counter and thats it.
Zerg are just simply missing their swarm element. Their ability to snap back and punish is there, but their ability to shove units into a blender with nary a worry is missing and therein there is a big weakness.
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Very good read, enjoyed it alot. A articulate and informative post on his views. Thumbs up.
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On September 24 2010 11:20 Xunaka wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:43 De4ngus wrote:
I don't get why Blizzard doesn't realize the problem here is with Zerg. Patching Terran and Protoss doesn't do anything useful. Now tanks can't even be used TvP. Please continue to have that mentality, as a Protoss player I would greatly appreciate if everyone thought tanks cannot be used in TvP. The reality is they are just as strong as they were pre patch 1.1 but that isn't even the point of what Idra is saying. I think a lot of the problems just stem from the way Zerg units are compared to either Protoss or Terran. Zerg units are just very one dimensional and are designed in a very gimmicky sense. Zerglings : Weak Melee unit very easily massable but later in game you just lose them in masses The gimmick is the massing of the unit Roaches : Moderatly strong Melee/Range unit I label it as such because of their very weak range Gimmick is that you need speed to prevent them from being annihilated by kiting, Burrow Micro/movement make them a decent gimmick Banelings: Total gimmick unit.. you suicide them at units I don't think this needs explanation Hydralisk: Comes to be one of the most solid units that you will find in the Zerg army, it is well rounded and diverse however its gimmick is that you suffer from Damage/vs survivability they are simply weak I believe the best term to describe them is Glass Cannon Mutalisk: Another well rounded solid unit.. (seems to be the common ground for zerg tier 2) Solid damage for cost ratio, I don't personally find these to be gimmicky Infestor : Is medium to average as a caster, I think in comparrison to Ravens and Templar its a bit weak, infested Terran is gimicky. Fungal growth is decent to good, however it is nowhere near as useful as Storm/HSM/PDD Corruptor: Gimmicky anti air unit, corruption spell is a bit of a gimmick most of the time the 10% wont make a difference because of how many you have. (No way to attack ground units like Vikings/Phoenix) (Massive oversight in my opinion) Ultralisk: Strong tanking melee unit, Gimmick is that its a ground only attack tier 3 unit. That suffers from serious path finding issues. I think the Ultra could be an outstanding unit if I didn't lose them to the games AI sending them to their death or getting stuck on random terrain/units While I like the idea of Micro.. I shouldn't have to Micro a unit just to make up for AI Broodlord: Very strong siege unit, attacks ground only can severely screw with unit targeting against a non micro opponent. Once again i feel as though this unit is limited by its anti ground only where as BC and Carrier both have Anti air/ground capability. I'm fully aware that each race his its own gimmick unit though Terran seems to have the most well rounded out of them all. the simple fact is that zerg suffers from a one dimensional creation of almost every unit.. they all serve only one role and that one role alone where as the racial counterparts are far less one dimensional units.
No tanks are not just as strong as pre patch. Now protoss has 2 ground units that kick tank ass all over. Immortal and now Zealot. Blizzard is slowly screwing terran by making them go bio. I will probably be switching too protoss from terran, even if terran never get another nerf. I just cant stand having to make infantry against toss.
I think the problem with most balance issues is because zerg needs something. What that is i dont know, i will let better players that dont have bias figure that out. Even though im not an Idra fan, I do trust his judgement on matters when he isnt ranting.
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On September 24 2010 11:32 Affluenza wrote:
Blizzard should ask pro random players for their opinions on balance...
Fixed
However, there is no 'great' random player right now. dayvie is the closest they got.
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On September 24 2010 11:16 TheToast wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:59 figq wrote:
Idra is being quite fair about the Protoss situation as well, which doesn't look good too, in early game. Sure, they survive, but if a race is supposed to cannon rush to survive..
Cannon rushing isn't necessary for protoss, a lot of gold and plat players are doing it just because it's easy wins. While it does seem a bit overpowered, lets face it a player who does good scouting will beat a cannon rushing player any day. He only means the early blocking tactics with cannons, not an all-in completely dedicated build.
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Gotta say I agree
Blizzard needs to stop trying to find little setbacks they can create for Terran and Protoss, and give Zerg something to work with. It all stems from the lack of unit diversity, and the Hydralisk not being a very viable unit. A simple speed upgrade and/or undo-ing the stupid HP nerf on Hydras back in beta would work wonders. Otherwise they're just going to keep tweaking irrelevant aspects of the game once every couple months while we wait for Heart of the Swarm so they can finally give Zerg more units to work with.
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On September 24 2010 10:43 De4ngus wrote:
No tanks are not just as strong as pre patch. Now protoss has 2 ground units that kick tank ass all over. Immortal and now Zealot. Blizzard is slowly screwing terran by making them go bio. I will probably be switching too protoss from terran, even if terran never get another nerf. I just cant stand having to make infantry against toss.
I think the problem with most balance issues is because zerg needs something. What that is i dont know, i will let better players that dont have bias figure that out. Even though im not an Idra fan, I do trust his judgement on matters when he isnt ranting.
Tanks do the same damage to immortals as they did pre patch, and immortals are hardly the answer to a tank line.,Zealots will still die to tanks if you have a decent number of them I can't even begin to fathom how you think tanks suck vs toss now. Simply put don't just make tanks?
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I enjoy seeing what IdrA said and agree. I think more pro players who have an interest in the balance of StarCraft 2 should actively make their opinions known like IdrA. Blizzard is not going to know how to balance the game if all the pros just secretly fume. There is a time for getting your word out, and it is, quite frankly, now. If enough of a stink is made, Blizzard will be unable to do anything but listen.
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Kind of true, the tvz problems aren't too much with tanks, it's early game and lack of zerg scouting. TvP as said will be more T>P early (zlot nerf) and P>T late (tank nerf) which is exactly not what is needed for that mu really.
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I main T (~1k pts Diamond) and play a little Z on the side. I wholeheartedly agree with IdrA. Terran has an extremely wide variety of openings, and nerfing them piecemeal won't help the game. Zerg needs improved scouting early game.
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I kinda have to agree with Idra although i think that the patch does help somewhat in the TvZ matchup even at the current state. That said, it does not fix it and neither am i shure if it was really the right approach even though iam not really able to make any sensible better suggestions.
What i completely agree on is the part about TvP. The patch definitely changed the matchup in a negative way. Tanks which were already situatonal (although not bad) because of the generally big size of protoss units are now taken out by zealots alone already with relative ease especially if they have charge. Also the 20% damage nerf to battlecruisers makes it a lot more difficult to punish a late game templar supported army for going too heavy on templar and zealots and too light on anti-air, where banshees are obviously not an option (thanks to templars whos abilitys both work wonders against them)
Even though i dont like Idra too much considering BM and (in my opinion) a kinda overly mechanical playstyle i have to admit that in general the analysis he gives in interviews is pretty much always right on the spot.
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When the beta first came out I was under the impression that infestors could use their abilities while burrowed but i was disappointed when i tried them, so I didn't want to play zerg anymore. I think they should at least be able to cast neural parasite while burrowed, I think it would be pretty strong without being too imba
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those fake patches look like it will work. add cooldown on chrono and mules. lol
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what if zerg had an option to upgrade a lair or hatchery to attack air units and to see cloaked units? (closs also) like the counter part to the terran PF ? but to get this up grade the queen could not spawn extra larva on it? Just a thought?
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I think a lot of the Z early game problems are due to the maps. SC2 maps are SMALL compared to some brood war maps. So small that they ruin ladder a lot by promoting early game rushes. I am not saying these are not viable strats, but TOO many people are relying on early aggression to win matches, when they should be practicing mid-late game macro and micro >>..
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On September 24 2010 11:32 Affluenza wrote:
Blizzard should ask pro players for their opinions on balance...
they dont ask..
they pool data from pros... from tourney results.. from ladder stats... and from threads on TL / bnet / etc
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I think he's spot on with pretty much all of that. I've had a lot easier time defending early toss agression, but that may also be the P meta shifting away from that extreme pressure due to over-reacting to the change. Terran though is fundamentally unchanged and remains as retarded a matchup as ever.
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Ya, there isn't one or two things you can do to fix zerg, it's a whole bunch of things that would give them a fighting chance.
However, i don't believe you have to change the entire tech tree to do so. There are some simple things that can make a huge difference. Having either Overseers or ovie speed at t1 would be huge. It makes no sense after all that after BW overlords lost the ability to "see."
Giving the queen a single target Ensnare (ie BW ensnare -mov speed, -attk speed) ability instead of transfusion would be instrumental for the early game to help hold off air rushes/reaper/hellion/fast zeal.
Allow the queen to be built at the same time as a morphing/teching hatchery. So you can do your first research/morph while getting the 2nd queen.
Make creep expand/receed faster.
Decrease the lair morph time by 25% or more.
Change the cost of additional nydus exits to 150/0, OR make them simultaneously spammable from one entrance.
Or a host of other good suggestions from these forums. One or a few changes aren't going to cut it. If anything, blizz has grossly underestimated the development speed of the game. Things catch on very fast, spread and evolve. In other words, they don't have 10 years to patch it just right until their target audience gets fed up and quits.
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I agree with idra and it's nice to hear his point of view, but mostly because he's a pro-gamer, not just because he's Idra. I'd also like to hear opinions from other pros. Although there aren't too many quality zergs floating around that might actually have an opinion.
I think it's early on, the fans are interested in balance issues... Humor us and give your opinions.
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Its not something about nerfing any units. Its something about the game design. The core concept in the game design is to make Terran unstopable. Any nerfing is just temporary. Maybe zerg or protoss will feel good in several weeks after one patch, but then terran will be imbalanced again.
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any thoughts on the idea i had with a new hatchery upgrade?
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On September 24 2010 12:02 cerebralz wrote:
However, i don't believe you have to change the entire tech tree to do so. There are some simple things that can make a huge difference. Having either Overseers or ovie speed at t1 would be huge. It makes no sense after all that after BW overlords lost the ability to "see."
Easy. In between the Broodwars and the events of Wings of Liberty there were major advances in cloaking technologies made by all races, thus requiring the evolution of a new "super-strain" of overlords, called overseers to spot the cloaked units.
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You have to agree with Idra. Like him or not, he know's this game inside and out. I do happen to like Idra and I respect his opinion, and when so many games seem unchanged especially late game after this patch then it is obvious something else needs to be done. The BC and tank nerfs were the most appreciated thing from this patch from all match up perspectives.
For me personally, I havn't had much initiative to play. I am a zerg player and I don't intend to be switching with the tides like most people and therefore I don't see myself playing that much. Thank god for customs until all the hard balance work is figured out. And big thanks to people like Idra taking time to speak what is on his mind to open the eyes of blizzard on what is wrong with this patch.
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Idra is pretty spot on- and most importantly he's level, which is something a lot of other zergs have had a hard time with. I totally get it- it can be infuriating that "we" get it but Blizzard doesn't, but expressing it with rage probably doesn't help and just incites the people who still think Zerg players just aren't as good as Terran or Protoss players.
I think he hits on it pretty good- Zerg 1 basing is pathetic, but fast 2 basing makes them incredibly vulnerable to tons of harass. They also seem to be the most immobile race (this may change as new strats are learned/refined) but lack any true siege capabilities. Add this in with the fact that 4 of the 6 units you can make at T1 have a speed upgrade that you must purchase for them to be "useful" makes Zerg just feel really slow. Creep obviously helps, but you can't exactly have a creep highway from the start of the game.
I'm not sure more nerfs to Terran and Protoss are the answer because TvP is/was relatively close as a matchup, and even changes as "small" as the increase in zealot build time really changes that matchup.
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The Patch isnt that old so the real impact isnt yet to see, at least in my opinion
But what Idra says sounds quite reasonabl and i like to read anything about balance thats not thougtless imba whine which a lot of people do (like second post T_T)
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I totally agree with IdrA, Zergs early game still suffer alot.
On September 24 2010 12:07 MasterAsia wrote:
Its not something about nerfing any units. Its something about the game design. The core concept in the game design is to make Terran unstopable. Any nerfing is just temporary. Maybe zerg or protoss will feel good in several weeks after one patch, but then terran will be imbalanced again.
Well personally i truly think that most of the issues with the game stem from trying to balance a Hard Counter system. I really liked the Soft Counter system from BW because you can practically use any unit to stop something except for a few.
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idra knows this game better than most people. when he speaks, people need to listen.
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On September 24 2010 10:29 SubtleArt wrote:
I remember Idra saying that ZvP lategame dramatically favored Zerg, but that seems to have changed. The game's deceptively simple at first, so I think we should just avoid knee jerk claims about balance and let it play itself out first.
that was when roach was 1 food and had insane regen at t3
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I play random...Terran used to be my worst race but ever since I started massing reapers TvZ has become so fun and easy =)
ZvT vs a good terran on the other hand is hard because their reapers own your roaches T___T (or rather delay until marauders)
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Agreed. I used to think ZvT was fine, but now that reapers have been nerfed, the problems only became more apparent. Hellion/banshee allins are nearly unstoppable and the Thor repair AI still remains unfixed.
You literally cannot have enough queens (the only tier 1 AA unit) to prevent banshees from completely killing half of your mineral line or the spire, or the queens, or the roaches.
You also cannot stop hellion harass on maps like Xel naga or Terran Quadrant, where the natural is basically an open space. You can get a hatch up, but you'd essentially still be on 1 base, while the terran can get a safe expo up.
I won't even begin to go into issues with maps like Steppes of War, where you can't hatch units in the time it takes to walk from one natural to the other.
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sorry, i have to ask.
how does this patch help protoss late-game against terran?
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People who say we should let play it out don't really understand where the problems are. I'm not pretending I know, but it's quite obvious to me that this patch misses the point. It really does.
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On September 24 2010 12:33 holyhalo5 wrote:
sorry, i have to ask.
how does this patch help protoss late-game against terran?
Mass tank is less viable because Zealots counter them much more handily with 35+15a damage instead of 50 damage
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i cant believe.. but im totally agree with idra this time. the game its still broken, the viking cup today was painful to watch, terran its so strong and easy to manage right now! lalush made a miracle.
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I completely agree with idra from a terran perspective. While i do think it was a step in the right direction for TvZ it doesn't completely fix the problems. I especially agree that it was terrible for TvP, since T already had the advantage in the early game (which zealot nerf exacerbates) and P already had the advantage in the late game (which siege tank nerf exacerbates).
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On September 24 2010 12:07 MasterAsia wrote:
Its not something about nerfing any units. Its something about the game design. The core concept in the game design is to make Terran unstopable. Any nerfing is just temporary. Maybe zerg or protoss will feel good in several weeks after one patch, but then terran will be imbalanced again.
I don't think that's necessarily true. I see what you're saying--Terran is designed to be highly flexible while having a hard counter for every unit/strat in the game, but it is possible to take some of those options away from them without turning the game into something that isn't Starcraft.
I guess the question becomes where you draw the line between "nerfing" and "changing core game concepts." Nerfing isn't limited to units; you can nerf a strategy or nerf Tech Lab versatility or nerf Terran's resistance to losing workers by adding a cooldown to MULEs. The game isn't a lost cause.
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That fake patch that circulated last week really put a damper on the reception of actual 1.1.
Faster OL base speed, or cheaper upgrade isn't too much to try, is it?
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I knew IdrA was smart, but this was really well reasoned and well written. He's a really sharp guy. Even if he's wrong, he's put a lot of thought into his ideas. I'd love to read more from IdrA on such topics. Very informational and a lot of food for thought.
I'm curious how to fix the early game issues that Zerg has, however. I suppose it's to give them some sort of early pressure/threat that they can use to constrict the seemingly endless openings T can use. That way some of the more aggressively teching T builds can be punished, but that does little to stop the potency of bio both early and late game.
I have no answers, only thoughts and an open mind. I'm definitely hungry for more top-end discussion about the issue at a level such as IdrA's post.
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On September 24 2010 12:33 holyhalo5 wrote:
sorry, i have to ask.
how does this patch help protoss late-game against terran?
tank nerf + battlecruiser nerf.
both very viable late-game paths to take in TvP. i preferred battlecruisers, personally... but im almost scared to try them now lol.
there really was no easy way for the toss to kill the BC's, especially when backed up by a solid bio blob.
it gave your blob staying power, a mobile pivot point.
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On September 24 2010 12:44 leve15 wrote:
That fake patch that circulated last week really put a damper on the reception of actual 1.1.
Faster OL base speed, or cheaper upgrade isn't too much to try, is it?
OL speed was 50/50 for much of beta 'til Blizzard said "we don't want upgrades to be a no-brainer" and then made Concussive Grenades 50/50 :facepalm:
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On September 24 2010 10:37 TheWarbler wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:28 MegaBUD wrote:
Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff... Are you fucking stupid? Zerg is the most under powerd race in the game. Id be surprised if you play zerg and your saying this. You are some probley lonley Platnium level protoss who has no skill what so ever and only knows how to 4gate for a chance to win. When your not doing that your makeing meaning less posts on here. Aside from my anger being tooken out on him, I agree with Idra that this was not enough. I personally think the zerg macro mechanics need some sort of buff. Im not saying GIVE ZERG A WHOLE NEW MACRO MECHANIC. But The fact that a protoss can get a forge early wallmin with 2 pylons and a cannon get a stargate before i can get hydras and win cause Zerg has horrible Tier AA is stupid. No im not saying zerg is underpowered and give us the lurker or anything retarded like that. Im just saying I agree and this was not enough. User was temp banned for this post.
I play Zerg and I can confidently say you are way off man. You'r thinking is in another universe if you think Zerg macro is the problem. Zerg is the easiest race to macro in my opinion with ONE unit producing structure, and obviously this goes for our supply as well, it's all done at one building. I do agree Zerg has issues in early game but macro is definitely not an issue...
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On September 24 2010 12:43 theqat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 12:07 MasterAsia wrote:
Its not something about nerfing any units. Its something about the game design. The core concept in the game design is to make Terran unstopable. Any nerfing is just temporary. Maybe zerg or protoss will feel good in several weeks after one patch, but then terran will be imbalanced again. I don't think that's necessarily true. I see what you're saying--Terran is designed to be highly flexible while having a hard counter for every unit/strat in the game, but it is possible to take some of those options away from them without turning the game into something that isn't Starcraft. I guess the question becomes where you draw the line between "nerfing" and "changing core game concepts." Nerfing isn't limited to units; you can nerf a strategy or nerf Tech Lab versatility or nerf Terran's resistance to losing workers by adding a cooldown to MULEs. The game isn't a lost cause.
Well, to make myself clear: Terran has too much potential. The good players can make this race better and better according its design. Zerg has too much limitation. Each new build order and timing push will enhance Terran a lot, while a new build order like getting 10 roaches 15 seconds earlier doesn't make much contribution to Zerg (But getting 10 marauders 15 seconds earlier will help Terran to kill a Zerg. That's the difference).
Also the fact that there is so few good Zerg players is a problem. I didn't see zerg tactics improve during the past 3 weeks (I am watching a good amount of replays from everywhere). As myself, I did not come up with anything new recently as well. I guess only if we have 50 of good zergs here we can come up with something, if there is some.
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To be honest, I don't think IdrA (and many Zerg players for that matter) will be satisfied until all races have equal footing at all times; early game, mid game, and late game. You could make it easy for Zerg to scout early and they would still mention imbalance. The fact is, Starcraft has NEVER BEEN and probably never WILL BE balanced during all stages of a match. Even Broodwar had disparities during different times of the game. I would argue that the main reason is because of the differing mechanics of unit production and building types. These differing styles of unit production reach their maximum potential at different times. Zerg's production style has the greatest advantage the further a game proceeds. If you nerf the other races' early game abilities, then Zerg's late game production ability also need to be reduced.
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I dislike how IdrA says something, anything, and the community immediately jumps on it as gospel. Okay, that's a bit hyperbolic, but at the very least, it's worrying how many people seem to argue IdrA's opinions instead of their own.
That being said, as much as I hate to admit it, he's pretty much right on every count. The early and midgame Terran has so much potential for versatility that Zerg has to either act in a reactive fashion or pray to the StarCraft gods that Terran didn't go for the fast banshee, or the thor+scv+marine push, or <insert response to your build of choice here>. It feels like there is no "safe and stable" build for Zerg to use anymore, while pretty much anything that Terran can do will at least survive.
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The fact that reaper and hellion openings are so strong still makes the zerg cut drones for lings early game, which wouldn't be bad, but for the fact that the Terran is muling the whole time and can afford to expand off of his harass putting the zerg behind.
Furthermore, if the harass doesn't come, ex. fast tech lab into marauders, Terran is so far ahead econ with the zerg not droning, that the normal timing push runs you over just as well, or the switch to banshee is so powerful because you commit to this mass ling/spine/queen defense. The delayed harass with numbers is often more effective because the zerg has tried to go back to droning.
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On September 24 2010 12:54 MasterAsia wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 12:43 theqat wrote:On September 24 2010 12:07 MasterAsia wrote:
Its not something about nerfing any units. Its something about the game design. The core concept in the game design is to make Terran unstopable. Any nerfing is just temporary. Maybe zerg or protoss will feel good in several weeks after one patch, but then terran will be imbalanced again. I don't think that's necessarily true. I see what you're saying--Terran is designed to be highly flexible while having a hard counter for every unit/strat in the game, but it is possible to take some of those options away from them without turning the game into something that isn't Starcraft. I guess the question becomes where you draw the line between "nerfing" and "changing core game concepts." Nerfing isn't limited to units; you can nerf a strategy or nerf Tech Lab versatility or nerf Terran's resistance to losing workers by adding a cooldown to MULEs. The game isn't a lost cause. Well, to make myself clear: Terran has too much potential. The good players can make this race better and better according its design. Zerg has too much limitation. Each new build order and timing push will enhance Terran a lot, while a new build order like getting 10 roaches 15 seconds earlier doesn't make much contribution to Zerg (But getting 10 marauders 15 seconds earlier will help Terran to kill a Zerg. That's the difference). Also there is so few good Zerg players is a problem. I didn't see zerg tactics improve during the past 3 weeks (I am watching a good amount of replays from everywhere). As myself, I did not come up with anything new recently as well. I guess only if we have 50 of good zergs here we can come up with something, if there is some.
Yeah, I understand your point. I'm saying Terran's potential can definitely be nerfed by playing with numbers if it does come down to that. For example, at the very least you can make their options more expensive so that they can only reasonably use a limited number in a given game.
I do hope more players will take up Zerg in the near future. I recently started playing them full time to show support and help myself understand the whole picture.
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On September 24 2010 12:54 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:
To be honest, I don't think IdrA (and many Zerg players for that matter) will be satisfied until all races have equal footing at all times; early game, mid game, and late game. You could make it easy for Zerg to scout early and they would still mention imbalance. The fact is, Starcraft has NEVER BEEN and probably never WILL BE balanced during all stages of a match. Even Broodwar had disparities during different times of the game. I would argue that the main reason is because of the differing mechanics of unit production and building types. These differing styles of unit production reach their maximum potential at different times. Zerg's production style has the greatest advantage the further a game proceeds. If you nerf the other races' early game abilities, then Zerg's late game production ability also need to be reduced.
I think you are making too many assumptions.
A lot of zerg players would be very happy if they had a unit that forced their opponent to specifically counter it or risk losing in the early to mid game. Something to take the initiative away from their opponent before ultras/brood lords.
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Zerg has the highest potential. What's difficult is getting to that point. It's AS difficult as it is for Terran to survive past this magical point. Late game Zerg advantage is AS scary as Terran midgame advantage.
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I have to say I disagree with Idra. I feel a Zerg is able to counter much of the early Terran aggresion effectively and now even more so that reapers were nerfed. A Queen on the ramp and two well placed spinecrawlers in your natural will stop all hellions harrassment. (If you have to just pull your drones for the time being up your ramp where the hellions can't get because the queen is blocking) Banshee harrassment can be countered in many different ways. You can get up another queen and also alot of times you can get up mutalisk too. And if your so confident that he is going banshees just get out a spore crawler which along with queens will stop most of the harrassment (Atleast until you can get out stronger units) Although I admit it's hard to scout vs terran it isnt impossible. Sending lings up his ramp to attack his wall is a good way to see what he's going by how he responds to those zerglings. (Sometimes you can even see there tech, but this normally only happens when your playing lower level players) You can send in overlords to sacrafice themselves and if your really desprate overlord speed and overseers work extremely well also as great scouts. (They also have other useful abilities like spread creep and contaminate) As for tank allins there's only one map where that is really viable and thats LT which isn't really a ZvT balance issue as much as a map balance issue. Thor allins are typically pretty easy to stop I feel. You just need to get up four or so spine crawlers (Depending on how many thor's he going for) Getting 2 banelings to kill the scvs repairing the thors while using mutalisk and spinecrawlers to deny the terran pushes pretty much dominates that build. Although there is some truth to Idras words I feel that every strat he mentioned can be beat at my level with the scouting measures i mentioned above (I'm currently at 1600 points and play zerg) and although I lose to the occasionaly I feel starcraft II is currently at a good balance in racial balance issues. Now some of the maps I feel are a little imbalanced such as the tank drop on Lt as mentioned above, but this is not the thread to discuss that. (I also feel that ZvsZ has some of the biggest imbalances when in comes to maps. If your zerg and ever got the right spawn position on scrap station then you know what im talking about)
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On September 24 2010 12:46 theqat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 12:44 leve15 wrote:
That fake patch that circulated last week really put a damper on the reception of actual 1.1.
Faster OL base speed, or cheaper upgrade isn't too much to try, is it? OL speed was 50/50 for much of beta 'til Blizzard said "we don't want upgrades to be a no-brainer" and then made Concussive Grenades 50/50 :facepalm:
Concussive went form free to 50/50. Not 100/100->50/50 like you imply.
Using your analogy the costs were increased exactly the same... except concussive also gained a time cost it didn't have before.
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On September 24 2010 13:01 oxxo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 12:46 theqat wrote:On September 24 2010 12:44 leve15 wrote:
That fake patch that circulated last week really put a damper on the reception of actual 1.1.
Faster OL base speed, or cheaper upgrade isn't too much to try, is it? OL speed was 50/50 for much of beta 'til Blizzard said "we don't want upgrades to be a no-brainer" and then made Concussive Grenades 50/50 :facepalm: Concussive went form free to 50/50. Not 100/100->50/50 like you imply. Using your analogy the costs were increased exactly the same... except concussive also gained a time cost it didn't have before.
It's nonetheless a no-brainer, which is exactly what Blizzard said they were trying to avoid. There's no Terran strat that involves getting Marauders but not getting Concussive because that 50/50 is going into something else.
(I wasn't making an analogy, just pointing out Blizzard's apparent inability to keep one hand appraised of what the other hand is doing.)
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On September 24 2010 11:13 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 11:11 terranghost wrote:
While it may or may not help its effects have yet to be seen really.
There is no need for drastic changes.
If a terran builds a rax then a reaper then starts on a second reaper and 2 more raxes then produces 3 out of all of them then pushes then He will have 5 reapers (with speed) delayed by about 15 sec (probably closer to 10 on faster) I can't count how many times I've watched a replay where the terran does what I have described here. The zerg does what they are supposed to but speed is not quite done or a spine crawler is not quite ready. An extra 10-15 sec could be enough time for one of these things to finish.
Give it 2 weeks or so before you start assuming it won't fix anything if zvp is becoming more and more p stacked as time progresses with no p buffs and no z nerfs that just means p have figured out something they can do. I don't watch many zvp MU's but lets just say the thing that toss are doing that break the MU is they get there +1 attack upgrade really fast and zerg players are walking around dumbfounded as to how to beat it. They QQ on the forums and blizzard gives in and decides to double the buildtime of the forge to slow the upgrade a little bit.
Right before this patch goes live a genius zerg realizes that you could just upgrade the carapace to equalize this said imbalance. In the meantime since this change has already taken affect zvt changes cuz now toss has trouble keeping up with terran upgrading. But by changeing the buildtime of the forge 5-10 sec will allow zerg players a little bit more time when trying to decide what to do and won't change other things significantly.
Yes I know my example here seems a little obvious what the zerg should do.
Ty blizzard for remaining patient and not making any dramatic changes. Prime example of someone who hasn't read the article (or has poor reading comprehension) but feels like putting out his rant anyways.
Can't read huh? I am simply making a point yes I read the article. Idra says that if this change was done a while ago it would have made more of a difference. Then I say that blizzard should make the changes slowly. Say blizzard made this 1.1 patch the second day of release but nothing changed so there like ok lets add another 5 sec and another and another. Now this random zerg mastermind that was going to break the cycle and figure how to open safely vs reapers and still be prepared for other options won't ever come. Does such a style exsist with the pre 1.1 stats? maybe.. maybe not. Does such a style exsist now? Maybe, maybe not.
Would it have been made clearer that read the article if I said I disagree with the need to make these changes a month ago. Although that should of been perfectly clear.
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On September 24 2010 11:56 Keitzer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 11:32 Affluenza wrote:
Blizzard should ask pro players for their opinions on balance... they dont ask.. they pool data from pros... from tourney results.. from ladder stats... and from threads on TL / bnet / etc
That is not true. A blue post specifically said that they ignore tournament results and they don't take any ideas from Zerg getting bashed in GSL.
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What Idra says about the zerg early game is true, especially in ZvT, but in ZvP, he isn't putting the mid game into consideration. As a Protoss player, I know that if I don't damage Zerg's economy in the early game, it means that hard countering the Zerg's army is at most a fair fight since the Zerg just has so much more stuff and can reinforce so much faster. I feel that having the option of cannon rushing the zerg expansion or puttin on zealot pressure is what gives Protoss the ability to damage the zerg economy. If only one of these were viable, then Zerg can blindly defend against it easily come out ahead in the mid game.
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On September 24 2010 10:28 MegaBUD wrote:
Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff...
User was warned for this post
User was temp banned for this post.
should have been permanently banned.
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really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT.
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On September 24 2010 13:09 Chairman Ray wrote:
What Idra says about the zerg early game is true, especially in ZvT, but in ZvP, he isn't putting the mid game into consideration. As a Protoss player, I know that if I don't damage Zerg's economy in the early game, it means that hard countering the Zerg's army is at most a fair fight since the Zerg just has so much more stuff and can reinforce so much faster. I feel that having the option of cannon rushing the zerg expansion or puttin on zealot pressure is what gives Protoss the ability to damage the zerg economy. If only one of these were viable, then Zerg can blindly defend against it easily come out ahead in the mid game.
That's the thing though. It's really really hard to get to late mid game as zerg. Most terran and protoss know that they can't let zerg get to late game with ultras and broodlords. The problem is that it is simply too hard to get to late game. The terran can decide, hey I can 5 rax reaper and this game will never get to late game. Or protoss can 2 gate or 4 gate all in.
My opinion is that they should make zerg stronger early game, allowing them to survive early attacks easier, and then make broodlords and ultras slightly weaker, so that it's not extremely hard for protoss and terran to fend it off.
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On September 24 2010 12:54 Node wrote:
I dislike how IdrA says something, anything, and the community immediately jumps on it as gospel. Okay, that's a bit hyperbolic, but at the very least, it's worrying how many people seem to argue IdrA's opinions instead of their own.
That being said, as much as I hate to admit it, he's pretty much right on every count. The early and midgame Terran has so much potential for versatility that Zerg has to either act in a reactive fashion or pray to the StarCraft gods that Terran didn't go for the fast banshee, or the thor+scv+marine push, or <insert response to your build of choice here>. It feels like there is no "safe and stable" build for Zerg to use anymore, while pretty much anything that Terran can do will at least survive.
Well I understand your concern regarding IdrA, yet I don't think it's true.
I think it's more that we, the community, understand that pros generally understand the game very very well. I think most of us are also aware that pros can be just as likely to be biased as anyone, or just simply wrong. IdrA is a vocal voice in the pro scene and has developed (and earned, imo) a reputation of knowing what he is talking about, and being pretty accurate.
The great thing about nerds is that most are pretty skeptical. So even if a famous person within the community says some dogma, most people will question it and consider it independently before supporting or refuting the argument.
On another note, I agree that Bliz's current priority should be to balance this game. Yet, from their perspective, this is very difficult and potentially hazardous. Bliz doesn't want to patch the game in a certain way only to change it back, realizing later that is was a mistake. I think this is the primary reason for such extended delays: Bliz must appear competent and CAPABLE of balancing such a game.
Yet as a cautionary note to Bliz itself, the game is less fun to play or to watch if it is unbalanced.
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I think Blizz is trying the best they can to balance the game, but I can see why it's hard for them. Nobody can 100% pinpoint what exactly makes zerg UP, they are trying to slowly change the numbers in hopes to fix the problem.
At least I assume no one has stated the "clear" reason zerg is UP, and that's probably because it is not a simple fix that can just be figured out by a couple clicks of a calculator.
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On September 24 2010 13:01 oxxo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 12:46 theqat wrote:On September 24 2010 12:44 leve15 wrote:
That fake patch that circulated last week really put a damper on the reception of actual 1.1.
Faster OL base speed, or cheaper upgrade isn't too much to try, is it? OL speed was 50/50 for much of beta 'til Blizzard said "we don't want upgrades to be a no-brainer" and then made Concussive Grenades 50/50 :facepalm: Concussive went form free to 50/50. Not 100/100->50/50 like you imply. Using your analogy the costs were increased exactly the same... except concussive also gained a time cost it didn't have before.
On my slow phone so if this was answered my b
ad.
I think his inrtention was to point out overlord speed is a must, and yet they made shells 50/50 which is also a must
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I think we should discuess rather than raging and getting banned in the proces.
I think in TvP the roles are reveresed. Terran can maco and harrass his heart out while zerg just turtles up. It needs to change. If a zerg can macro with 2+ more base's than the terran he can usually pull off a win but it shouldn't be as difficult as it is now. I think if they removed nitro packs out of the game, Zerg would be a lot better off. They are to damn cheap now.
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Whilst I think IdrA is a great player and I was certainly cheering for him all the way in GSL, I don't think his analysis is very logical or rational. He says that these balance changes would have been justified a month ago, back when these imbalances were prominent. But in the same paragraph, he also admits that these "issues" have now been analysed and successfully countered by the players, and as such - are no longer imbalanced.
To me, the entire analysis comes across as, "X is too strong, patch it now, not in a month after I've already figured out how to beat it."
We've seen so many developments in the TvZ matchup over the last few months, and with considerably few changes to Factory units (Tank HP, Hellion Range, Thor size) since mid-beta, Mech went from "useless" to "viable" and somewhat "mainstream" over the course of 7 weeks.
This sort of adaptation & evolution is really shining with Terran, but I'm not seeing much of it from Zerg or Protoss. Articles like this one give me the impression that some players would rather not deal with that evolution, instead preferring a patch to keep the game confined to a small cardboard box.
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I really don't understand how one of the best sc2 zerg players in the world fails to appreciate how a whole shot difference from tanks effects gameplay. Are zergs suffering from 1 control group syndrome? I am by no means a great zerg player, but i have already been in games where 1-2 tanks barely scratched me in the midgame push. Now late game 200/200 armies i can understand that the tank nerf is barely felt, but it seems like zergs had trouble with that midgame push.
His other points seem right now point though, from a random players POV.
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I can't wait for that one guy to come along and revolutionize how you play Zerg. Terran is my strongest race and I find the tank nerf to be quite significant vs hydralisks. Hydralisks are very effective vs bio balls and not nearly as destroyed by tanks anymore. i think Idra should give them a try. Perhaps using overlords to boost there mobility. They are super fast ON creep...
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On September 24 2010 13:13 OreoBoi wrote:
That's the thing though. It's really really hard to get to late mid game as zerg. Most terran and protoss know that they can't let zerg get to late game with ultras and broodlords. The problem is that it is simply too hard to get to late game. The terran can decide, hey I can 5 rax reaper and this game will never get to late game. Or protoss can 2 gate or 4 gate all in.
My opinion is that they should make zerg stronger early game, allowing them to survive early attacks easier, and then make broodlords and ultras slightly weaker, so that it's not extremely hard for protoss and terran to fend it off.
Ultras are pretty strong but I dont think broodlords need a nerf. Ultras dont need one either. I agree that changes could be made to the zerg early game, but I dont think its as bad as alot of players say. Its not "Terran can just go reapers and end the game right there" its more like "terran can make reapers and if he uses them smart, keeps them alive, and applies pressure where he can, it will force the Zerg to react. How the zerg player reacts will determine the flow of the game". A zerg player at my level will probably predict that I will attack with Marine/Maruader about 90 seconds after I get 6ish reapers. They all have different ways of responding to this, but I can't remember the last game I flat out beat a Zerg with the first Marine/Marauder push. I think if more zerg players utilized Fungal Growth, there would be alot more happy zerg players. This is from my point of view. I make reapers against zerg every game. I don't win every game. In fact, i'm probs about 50/50 TvZ, 50/50 TvP and 60/40 TvT. (I love TvT).
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I think his inrtention was to point out overlord speed is a must, and yet they made shells 50/50 which is also a must
Except shells isn't a must, its heavily optional and outright skipped in TvZ a lot of the time. Even when you do get it most players opt to delay it for several minutes, and thats when its 50/50.
If it were any higher, people would use it even less, making maruaders even more boring. Overspeed is a must, but the timing isn't so a high cost succeeds in achieving an interesting timing dynamic for it.
This sort of adaptation & evolution is really shining with Terran, but I'm not seeing much of it from Zerg or Protoss. Articles like this one give me the impression that some players would rather not deal with that evolution, instead preferring a patch to keep the game confined to a small cardboard box.
Look people are going to flame you for this because its really ignorant -_-. Terran evolved a lot because it was the most heavily buffed race in the beta, by an extremely large margin.
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On September 24 2010 13:24 Dox wrote:
Whilst I think IdrA is a great player and I was certainly cheering for him all the way in GSL, I don't think his analysis is very logical or rational. He says that these balance changes would have been justified a month ago, back when these imbalances were prominent. But in the same paragraph, he also admits that these "issues" have now been analysed and successfully countered by the players, and as such - are no longer imbalanced.
To me, the entire analysis comes across as, "X is too strong, patch it now, not in a month after I've already figured out how to beat it."
We've seen so many developments in the TvZ matchup over the last few months, and with considerably few changes to Factory units (Tank HP, Hellion Range, Thor size) since mid-beta, Mech went from "useless" to "viable" and somewhat "mainstream" over the course of 7 weeks.
This sort of adaptation & evolution is really shining with Terran, but I'm not seeing much of it from Zerg or Protoss. Articles like this one give me the impression that some players would rather not deal with that evolution, instead preferring a patch to keep the game confined to a small cardboard box.
What he's saying is that Zerg strats might have been more able to evolve had those changes been left in when they were originally implemented (near the end of beta or at the time of Situation Report 1) because it would have impacted strategies that were popular at that time, giving Zerg players some breathing room.
Instead Zerg had to continue to account for the possibility of 5rax Reaper/highly effective 2gate Zealot while Terran and Protoss were coming up with even more effective strategies, exposing new imbalances while accounting for the known upcoming patch changes. (Sticky situation because I think Blizzard has to let the public know what the patch changes will be if they're going to patch during tournaments, but it created a bad situation for Zerg on this occasion.)
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@techno, progamers try everything you just said 100000 times a day. We just don't see it because they wouldn't use a unit in a game that doesn't work. The hydra is a very situational unit. From what I've seen, none of those situations are in high level ZvT. Does the tank nerf help? Yes. Does that make the hydra viable? Not really. Because the hydra was also terrible vs so many other unit mixes besides tanks
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mutaling is much more potent vs protoss I think. The lack of zealots makes them super buff
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On September 24 2010 13:32 Half wrote:Show nested quote +
I think his inrtention was to point out overlord speed is a must, and yet they made shells 50/50 which is also a must
Except shells isn't a must, its heavily optional and outright skipped in TvZ a lot of the time. Even when you do get it most players opt to delay it for several minutes, and thats when its 50/50. If it were any higher, people would use it even less, making maruaders even more boring. Overspeed is a must, but the timing isn't so a high cost succeeds in achieving an interesting timing dynamic for it.
I can't agree with this. I can't think of a high-level game where a Terran invested heavily in Marauders but didn't get Conc (though if you can find any such games, I will concede the point). Just because Marauders are optional as a unit while Overlords aren't doesn't mean that Conc isn't a no-brainer if you are getting Marauders.
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the balance changes were not geared towards pro-level players but towards the plebian
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On September 24 2010 13:35 Beef Noodles wrote:
@techno, progamers try everything you just said 100000 times a day. We just don't see it because they wouldn't use a unit in a game that doesn't work. The hydra is a very situational unit. From what I've seen, none of those situations are in high level ZvT. Does the tank nerf help? Yes. Does that make the hydra viable? Not really. Because the hydra was also terrible vs so many other unit mixes besides tanks
Mostly Im talking to mid diamond players. My main point is that saying any unit is useless is a bad idea. Every unit has it's niche, you just need to find it. Some units niche's are bigger than others (yea, yea Marines/Marauders very effective all the time, but on the other hand, you have to make alot of baracks's to make a strong army with them, so if 1 building from the zerg negated 8 baracks's welll......). I think Hydras could be used as a defensive unit, protecting outlying hatcheries and falling back when necessary. Thats just one idea. Also, Hydras are effective vs Bio ball. If I'm going bio, and the opposing zerg is going hydra/roach/ling. I usually try to add another unit in for the hydras. Sometimes tanks, sometimes hellions. To deem a unit worthless is terrible.
I remember so many threads about how useless the phoenix is. It hasnt had any changes. I remember so many threads about how useless all the factory units were. The only changes theyve had since then are nerfs. My only beef with zerg imbalance preachers is calling a unit(s) useless.
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On September 24 2010 13:44 Techno wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 13:35 Beef Noodles wrote:
@techno, progamers try everything you just said 100000 times a day. We just don't see it because they wouldn't use a unit in a game that doesn't work. The hydra is a very situational unit. From what I've seen, none of those situations are in high level ZvT. Does the tank nerf help? Yes. Does that make the hydra viable? Not really. Because the hydra was also terrible vs so many other unit mixes besides tanks I remember so many threads about how useless the phoenix is. It hasnt had any changes. I remember so many threads about how useless all the factory units were. The only changes theyve had since then are nerfs. My only beef with zerg imbalance preachers is calling a unit(s) useless.
I'm not sure when these threads you're talking about took place, but the Phoenix, Tank, and Thor have all been buffed hugely since beta started
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I'm happy some high profile player is commenting about how the tank nerf really doesn't seem to do anything in ZvT. I said 'seems' because we won't really know until a few weeks from now, but on paper its very meh.
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wow. I actually agree with idra again. this is too many times lately, hes not being entertaining anymore =[
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All he seems concerned about is early game pressure by P and T against Z... If anything its now a huge advantage for Z early game as zealot pressure was the ONLY way to put early harass/pressure on Z early game, and now this patch has all but taken that away. I will agree with the fact that reaper build times does not do much, as T have so many weapons to take on zerg with.
Hydras and lings being able to take 3 tank shots instead of 2 now is huge. As for tier 2 zerg i would rather see them go mutas every time (unless needed to counter phoenix/voidray harass as necessary with hydras).
Only thing i will disagree with him on is the Z being able to transition into midgame comfortably against P. Roach/ling combos work exceptionally well against all gateway units, and any Z should feel comfortable enough with tier 1 units early game.
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I understand where Idra is coming from, but I've just been sick of all his complaints as of late.
But, I'm mostly unmoved by the patch as well, it hasn't changed much for me.
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In light of the ZvT matchup Zerg simply does not have options in the early game. What are the ways we can kill our opponents in the early game?
Ling rush
Roach rush
Both of these are prevented by a wall with buildings that would already be built, just now in a different position making them more effective than originally intended. So now what...?
Baneling bust
This is prevented by a well timed (I don't even think it's "well timed" if it's just the 2nd energy available post orbital) scanner sweep revealing an early baneling nest. Terran can build the forthcoming buildings behind their narrow ramp to prevent significant, game changing damage. Another option for Terran is to clog their ramp with a few mauraders. Both options are somewhat cost efficient, and if a baneling bust were to fail it is likely that Z will fall too far behind in the macro game.
So now what are the zerg's option? Weather the storm until lair tech is finished so that we can apply pressure back on terran. What kind of pressure can zerg apply?
Nydus Network
Burrowed Roaches
Burrowed Infestors
Overlord Drops
Hydra + ground
Mutalisk
Let's review how easy it is for Terran to handle this. Not necessarily STOP this, but just contain this to doing minimal damage without having to go too far out of the way (tech tree, economy):
Nydus Network - this is handled simply by putting your buildings in places to reveal the vulnerable parts of your base. As long as you're a decent player who checks your minimap you should be able to see a Nydus Network coming. A smarter Zerg player may wait for you to move out during a push to pop his Nydus, but this will only initiate a base race which an equal skilled Zerg will inevitably lose because terran buildings can fly and create free harvestors when they land.
Burrowed Roach and Burrowed Infestors - walled off in the front will stop this. Or a sensor tower. Or a turret anywhere near your ramp/natural. Or a careful eye on the ridges on the ground + scans. Or a raven.
Overlord Drops - if the Terran player has not poked or harassed you by the time you have a sizable ground army plus BOTH overlord upgrades, s/he is probably not a very good player. Executing a good OL drop results in a similar base trade as the Nydus.
Hydralisks + ground - Sure if you push up at their ramp with hydras/stuff and bring some OL/OS to spot the high ground, you could just ram through the front door and cause severe damage. But any good Terran player will have scouted you and know what type of force you have. It's easy for them to fortify (they are terran after all) and snipe your slow hydras with tanks, thors, helions, mmm, erm anything. Spread creep first? Oh yeah a good terran player stops that too. Trying to position your OL in an aggressive position to spit creep will be thwarted by a good Terran player.
Mutalisks - Ah the bread and butter of a zerg swarm in zvt. How often have you finally gotten mutas and eagerly showed up at the terran base only be to invited by turrets and stimmed marines or a defensive thor. Magic box the thor you say? Sure it will work vs a thor, but not much else. It's probably the most versatile form of zerg aggression (pre hive), but really as long as the Terran scans and prepares (with units from buildings he ALREADY HAS) he can minimize the damage and render your mutas useless.
Now I know I mentioned that "a good terran player" will be able to handle all the things that zerg throws at him. And the response might be that the zerg just has to improve. But these are all under the pretense that the players are of equal skill. It sucks that zerg must go out of its way (tech and eco wise) to counter and survive something terran throws at 'em. Meanwhile when terran needs to stop the specific things zerg throws at 'em, they simply build out of their buildings that they already have. Oh but some buildings require a tech lab, lift and swap. Ghosts and BCs are the only units that really require an additional building, and they're auxiliary at best in ZvT. You can scout a terran and see a bunch of buildings and have to make HUGE assumptions on what they're building. If a terran scouts a zerg and sees a baneling nest and spire, they know EXACTLY what they're building. The skill required for these two different players is too handicapped to help the terran in this situation.
Whew, my zerg thoughts in a nutshell. I'm about 1300 diamond zerg and I didn't really start struggling vs terran until recently.
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100% agree with Idra , as usual he gets a spot on analysis about the balances (tho he isn't the most likeable person in the world haha)
I honestly dont know what Blizzard was thinking when they nerfed Tanks/Zealots , make protoss weaker early game and terran weaker late game = balanced? Seriously?
Reaper nerf isn't really a big diff , As a Terran player i have many other openings against Z anyways, I have yet to try changing it from 5 rax to 6 Rax reaper so that needs some testing.
Overall patch change didnt help the original problem at all and the zerg life is still as hard as it ever was, however they created another problem in TvP now ... jeez...
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I play random at the Plat/Diamond level and while I'm no Idra I completely disagree with him. The Seige Tank nerf is HUGE for TvZ and 5 rax reapers are significantly less powerful. Combine this with the Warp Gate nerf and I think the net result is a huge indirect buff for Zerg. Since the patch I've noticed my win rate with Zerg skyrocket and my win rate with Protoss plummet (Terran has remained relatively the same.) If anything I think Protoss is the one in need of a buff now, not Zerg.
How is Terran stronger early game after the patch? They received no buff for early game units (and instead got Reapers and Bunkers nerfed.) How is Protoss stronger late game after the patch? They received no buff for late game units (only the nerf to Warp Gates.) His logic makes absolutely no sense.
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On September 24 2010 13:55 Rahlekk wrote:
I understand where Idra is coming from, but I've just been sick of all his complaints as of late.
But, I'm mostly unmoved by the patch as well, it hasn't changed much for me.
He has had plenty to complain about as a Zerg player.
It is nearly impossible to enter mid-game with an advantage as Zerg. You are ALWAYS behind for the first 10-15 minutes of any game and you're supposed to be the one making waves of units and throwing them to their doom because you're Zerg.
Instead, you're stuck with this liability where you MUST FE in order to enter mid-game in any decent fashion, all-the-while, T and P can throw units away, forcing you to make more and more zerglings so that by the time you've made it through the first 10 minutes of the game, you're a full 5+ workers behind with nothing to show for it.
Zerg has all kinds of things wrong with it, I just hope they come up with something soon. It's very annoying basically flipping a coin every time I go up against a T player.
50% chance he wins in the first 10 minutes
50% chance we will enter mid-game with me only slightly behind then we can see who is a better player.
There is just so much to account for in the first 10 minutes of ZvT you're basically throwing dice and hoping you picked right.
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The tank nerf definitely seems to weaken tanks vs lings. That's about it though. It's not like marines and hellions didn't already wreck mass ling anyways.
It definitely affects TvP most of all because now tank/marauder is countered by infinite chargelots as opposed to requiring air or immortals.
I think he has really good points all around and honestly he's right on every count. Blizzard cannot afford to be this passive with regards to balancing. ZvT is SO imbalanced right now that a few minor changes do almost nothing.
There needs to be a couple changes to ZvT that can help fix the MU:
-Fix NP to be like it was early beta. 50 energy 9 range no research no channel time. Make going mass thor punishable. Infestors are great units, but NP is just too expensive to be worth the risk right now.
-Fix turrets so they don't decimate muta. Right now 1 turret with autorepair scvs can kill like 6 mutalisks. That's soooooo wrong. They already benefit from a range upgrade, have 50 more hp than in BW, and can get 2 armor as well. Coupled with better scv ai and turrets are pretty strong as is. They really do not need to do so much damage to light targets. Mutalisk should be capable of harassing terran way better than they can right now. It'd be a good way to punish early aggression/contain builds. Right now if you go spire and have marine/tank pounding at your front, your say, 7 mutas, pop and then you go to their base to try to kill their economy only to find 2 turrets. That's GG. 2 turrets should not stop that.
-Make burrowed roach faster. The problem with burrowed roach is that it's like a minute commitment to burrow out of sight, get in position and unburrow on them, and meanwhile you have to pray they don't scan, move, or get a raven there. Roach need to be a lot more agile while burrowed so they can be less risky and gimmicky. They're a great answer to mech/biotank in theory, but they're too high risk right now.
Idra is right about the scouting issue as well, and honestly just a base increase in overlord speed or perhaps a way to get hatch tech overseers would fix the problem.
Then again, removing stim from marauders would probably solve 99% of balance problems in this game.
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On September 24 2010 14:07 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 13:55 Rahlekk wrote:
I understand where Idra is coming from, but I've just been sick of all his complaints as of late.
But, I'm mostly unmoved by the patch as well, it hasn't changed much for me. He has had plenty to complain about as a Zerg player. It is nearly impossible to enter mid-game with an advantage as Zerg. You are ALWAYS behind for the first 10-15 minutes of any game and you're supposed to be the one making waves of units and throwing them to their doom because you're Zerg. Instead, you're stuck with this liability where you MUST FE in order to enter mid-game in any decent fashion, all-the-while, T and P can throw units away, forcing you to make more and more zerglings so that by the time you've made it through the first 10 minutes of the game, you're a full 5+ workers behind with nothing to show for it. Zerg has all kinds of things wrong with it, I just hope they come up with something soon. It's very annoying basically flipping a coin every time I go up against a T player. 50% chance he wins in the first 10 minutes 50% chance we will enter mid-game with me only slightly behind then we can see who is a better player. There is just so much to account for in the first 10 minutes of ZvT you're basically throwing dice and hoping you picked right.
There certainly might be an early-mid game advantage for Terran. However, there is a critical point at which that tide turns. Rather than trying to explain it, here's an illustration of what I believe the current matchup to be like.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/UP42m.jpg)
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you might want to add Terran increasing. After a critical mass of whatever unit or around the Terran's third base, Terran starts to get slightly favored again.
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On September 24 2010 14:14 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:07 Jermstuddog wrote:On September 24 2010 13:55 Rahlekk wrote:
I understand where Idra is coming from, but I've just been sick of all his complaints as of late.
But, I'm mostly unmoved by the patch as well, it hasn't changed much for me. He has had plenty to complain about as a Zerg player. It is nearly impossible to enter mid-game with an advantage as Zerg. You are ALWAYS behind for the first 10-15 minutes of any game and you're supposed to be the one making waves of units and throwing them to their doom because you're Zerg. Instead, you're stuck with this liability where you MUST FE in order to enter mid-game in any decent fashion, all-the-while, T and P can throw units away, forcing you to make more and more zerglings so that by the time you've made it through the first 10 minutes of the game, you're a full 5+ workers behind with nothing to show for it. Zerg has all kinds of things wrong with it, I just hope they come up with something soon. It's very annoying basically flipping a coin every time I go up against a T player. 50% chance he wins in the first 10 minutes 50% chance we will enter mid-game with me only slightly behind then we can see who is a better player. There is just so much to account for in the first 10 minutes of ZvT you're basically throwing dice and hoping you picked right. There certainly might be an early-mid game advantage for Terran. However, there is a critical point at which that tide turns. Rather than trying to explain it, here's an illustration of what I believe the current matchup to be like.
The graph is slightly off , Zerg advantage comes much much later , when it reaches late game at most it's just a balanced situation , zerg advantage only kicks in when u have 200 food , and another 200 food worth of $$$ and larvae , and boy does that situation rarely pops out
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On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT.
Yes!
There is one rule to live by if you are Terran, punish the greedy Zerg. If the Zerg goes hatch before pool that is 300 minerals not spent on army. If the Zerg goes for fast Lair into Spire or Infestation Pit attack before it is done.
I understand there is a scouting issue for Zerg in that it is really hard vs Terran can do it at any time with scans. But I have wondered why Zerg dont use like one in three larva for army units early game. A just in time army would seems like a plan for losing. As Terran I am making army units all the time along with scvs even if it is just marines.
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On September 24 2010 14:20 john0507 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:14 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On September 24 2010 14:07 Jermstuddog wrote:On September 24 2010 13:55 Rahlekk wrote:
I understand where Idra is coming from, but I've just been sick of all his complaints as of late.
But, I'm mostly unmoved by the patch as well, it hasn't changed much for me. He has had plenty to complain about as a Zerg player. It is nearly impossible to enter mid-game with an advantage as Zerg. You are ALWAYS behind for the first 10-15 minutes of any game and you're supposed to be the one making waves of units and throwing them to their doom because you're Zerg. Instead, you're stuck with this liability where you MUST FE in order to enter mid-game in any decent fashion, all-the-while, T and P can throw units away, forcing you to make more and more zerglings so that by the time you've made it through the first 10 minutes of the game, you're a full 5+ workers behind with nothing to show for it. Zerg has all kinds of things wrong with it, I just hope they come up with something soon. It's very annoying basically flipping a coin every time I go up against a T player. 50% chance he wins in the first 10 minutes 50% chance we will enter mid-game with me only slightly behind then we can see who is a better player. There is just so much to account for in the first 10 minutes of ZvT you're basically throwing dice and hoping you picked right. There certainly might be an early-mid game advantage for Terran. However, there is a critical point at which that tide turns. Rather than trying to explain it, here's an illustration of what I believe the current matchup to be like. The graph is slightly off , Zerg advantage comes much much later , when it reaches late game at most it's just a balanced situation , zerg advantage only kicks in when u have 200 food , and another 200 food worth of $$$ and larvae , and boy does that situation rarely pops out
I would disagree. I think the point that the advantage line crosses 50% in favor of zerg is when the number of Zerg tech buildings >= Terran tech buildings. At that point they have essentially equal versatility with the ability to produce CONSIDERABLY more units per unit time.
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I'm very impressed how professional he was.
And as a Terran player, I agree with most of his sentiments. Blizzard blocked one of many holes that causes problems with the balance, but its a step.
Hope the next patch is awesome, or the patches become more frequent.
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On September 24 2010 11:41 Xunaka wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:43 De4ngus wrote:
No tanks are not just as strong as pre patch. Now protoss has 2 ground units that kick tank ass all over. Immortal and now Zealot. Blizzard is slowly screwing terran by making them go bio. I will probably be switching too protoss from terran, even if terran never get another nerf. I just cant stand having to make infantry against toss.
I think the problem with most balance issues is because zerg needs something. What that is i dont know, i will let better players that dont have bias figure that out. Even though im not an Idra fan, I do trust his judgement on matters when he isnt ranting. Tanks do the same damage to immortals as they did pre patch, and immortals are hardly the answer to a tank line.,Zealots will still die to tanks if you have a decent number of them I can't even begin to fathom how you think tanks suck vs toss now. Simply put don't just make tanks?
Why is your quote of me show me as "De4ngus"? Anyway. I said they now have 2 units yes, but you are mireading. I wasnt saying at all that the immortal is a new counter to tanks. But now that protoss can use 2 strong ground units to counter terrans best answer to anything ground (been that way for 12 years), it seems that the matchup will soon be a joke. First, the only other mech option terran has is the thor. Which is almost completely useless due to feedback. Hellions only work in special situations. So nerfing the tank was by far the stupidest decision blizzard could have made when trying to make balance changes. Im kinda being a broken record (or an echo), but bio against protoss is very bad. Think about what protoss is good at, and thats killing cheap mass units. Not only does this nerf give even more reason to not use tanks (unless your opponent is stupid and going mass stalker). And now the ghost has emp. Which I also think is stupid. I think the raven should have emp. so not only are tanks less viable, now i have to make ghosts. so my army consists of marines (which suck in the mid to late game), marauders (which are probably going to get a nerf soon because of all the complaints), and ghosts. Does that seem like an army youd want fighting the most technological race in existance?
+ Show Spoiler +If you couldnt figure that out on your own: The answer is no.
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On September 24 2010 14:20 jere wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT. Yes! There is one rule to live by if you are Terran, punish the greedy Zerg. If the Zerg goes hatch before pool that is 300 minerals not spent on army. If the Zerg goes for fast Lair into Spire or Infestation Pit attack before it is done. I understand there is a scouting issue for Zerg in that it is really hard vs Terran can do it at any time with scans. But I have wondered why Zerg dont use like one in three larva for army units early game. A just in time army would seems like a plan for losing. As Terran I am making army units all the time along with scvs even if it is just marines.
Zerg has to decide whether to use the Larve for drones or units.. not both, unlike Terran. Terran can sit in his base and not move out, if a Zerg reacts inappropriately to it, they will be behind in economy as they could have used the larva for drones instead.
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On September 24 2010 14:20 jere wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT. Yes! There is one rule to live by if you are Terran, punish the greedy Zerg. If the Zerg goes hatch before pool that is 300 minerals not spent on army. If the Zerg goes for fast Lair into Spire or Infestation Pit attack before it is done. I understand there is a scouting issue for Zerg in that it is really hard vs Terran can do it at any time with scans. But I have wondered why Zerg dont use like one in three larva for army units early game. A just in time army would seems like a plan for losing. As Terran I am making army units all the time along with scvs even if it is just marines.
Get a friend to test something with you, and you'll see why all top zergs in the world expand super super early.
You play as a zerg , stay on one base and make one Def Unit every 3 Drones you make.
Then have your friend , stay on one base , and constantly make SCVs while constantly making out of 3/4 Racks.
Check your replay of that match at the 5th minute, 7th minute, and 10th minute and see how outrageous large your disadvantage is in both Army and Harvester Count
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I don't think that the graph is necessarily accurate. You're assuming infinite area and infinite expansions. When you get late game where money is scarce, T is impossible to break with PF and SCV's, and the most cost effective dps T1 unit, the marine, which by that time most likely have good upgrades to break small numbers of zerg units.
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On September 24 2010 14:22 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:20 john0507 wrote:On September 24 2010 14:14 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On September 24 2010 14:07 Jermstuddog wrote:On September 24 2010 13:55 Rahlekk wrote:
I understand where Idra is coming from, but I've just been sick of all his complaints as of late.
But, I'm mostly unmoved by the patch as well, it hasn't changed much for me. He has had plenty to complain about as a Zerg player. It is nearly impossible to enter mid-game with an advantage as Zerg. You are ALWAYS behind for the first 10-15 minutes of any game and you're supposed to be the one making waves of units and throwing them to their doom because you're Zerg. Instead, you're stuck with this liability where you MUST FE in order to enter mid-game in any decent fashion, all-the-while, T and P can throw units away, forcing you to make more and more zerglings so that by the time you've made it through the first 10 minutes of the game, you're a full 5+ workers behind with nothing to show for it. Zerg has all kinds of things wrong with it, I just hope they come up with something soon. It's very annoying basically flipping a coin every time I go up against a T player. 50% chance he wins in the first 10 minutes 50% chance we will enter mid-game with me only slightly behind then we can see who is a better player. There is just so much to account for in the first 10 minutes of ZvT you're basically throwing dice and hoping you picked right. There certainly might be an early-mid game advantage for Terran. However, there is a critical point at which that tide turns. Rather than trying to explain it, here's an illustration of what I believe the current matchup to be like. The graph is slightly off , Zerg advantage comes much much later , when it reaches late game at most it's just a balanced situation , zerg advantage only kicks in when u have 200 food , and another 200 food worth of $$$ and larvae , and boy does that situation rarely pops out I would disagree. I think the point that the advantage line crosses 50% in favor of zerg is when the number of Zerg tech buildings >= Terran tech buildings. At that point they have essentially equal versatility with the ability to produce CONSIDERABLY more units per unit time.
More like when number of Zerg bases > Number of Terran bases +2.
Tech means nothing when you don't have the econ to support it and instantly replenish your army.
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On September 24 2010 14:27 cerebralz wrote:
I don't think that the graph is necessarily accurate. You're assuming infinite area and infinite expansions. When you get late game where money is scarce, T is impossible to break with PF and SCV's, and the most cost effective dps T1 unit, the marine, which by that time most likely have good upgrades to break small numbers of zerg units.
Have you not seen the newest video of 1.1 Ultras attacking a planetary fortress?
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On September 24 2010 14:29 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:27 cerebralz wrote:
I don't think that the graph is necessarily accurate. You're assuming infinite area and infinite expansions. When you get late game where money is scarce, T is impossible to break with PF and SCV's, and the most cost effective dps T1 unit, the marine, which by that time most likely have good upgrades to break small numbers of zerg units. Have you not seen the newest video of 1.1 Ultras attacking a planetary fortress?
If Terran turtles like that, they deserved to be punished. A handful of marauders to defend against that many ultras? The Ultras has also taken significant amount of damage; if more forces was there to flank the ultras, they would've been decimated.
Yes, that splash will be patched in future patch.
Remember how ridiculous it is for a Terran player to defend against a +100 zerg army with a single PF and a handful of workers?
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On September 24 2010 14:29 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:27 cerebralz wrote:
I don't think that the graph is necessarily accurate. You're assuming infinite area and infinite expansions. When you get late game where money is scarce, T is impossible to break with PF and SCV's, and the most cost effective dps T1 unit, the marine, which by that time most likely have good upgrades to break small numbers of zerg units. Have you not seen the newest video of 1.1 Ultras attacking a planetary fortress?
In all fairness, that is a bug that will be patched out of the game.
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On September 24 2010 14:28 pencilcase wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:22 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On September 24 2010 14:20 john0507 wrote:On September 24 2010 14:14 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On September 24 2010 14:07 Jermstuddog wrote:On September 24 2010 13:55 Rahlekk wrote:
I understand where Idra is coming from, but I've just been sick of all his complaints as of late.
But, I'm mostly unmoved by the patch as well, it hasn't changed much for me. He has had plenty to complain about as a Zerg player. It is nearly impossible to enter mid-game with an advantage as Zerg. You are ALWAYS behind for the first 10-15 minutes of any game and you're supposed to be the one making waves of units and throwing them to their doom because you're Zerg. Instead, you're stuck with this liability where you MUST FE in order to enter mid-game in any decent fashion, all-the-while, T and P can throw units away, forcing you to make more and more zerglings so that by the time you've made it through the first 10 minutes of the game, you're a full 5+ workers behind with nothing to show for it. Zerg has all kinds of things wrong with it, I just hope they come up with something soon. It's very annoying basically flipping a coin every time I go up against a T player. 50% chance he wins in the first 10 minutes 50% chance we will enter mid-game with me only slightly behind then we can see who is a better player. There is just so much to account for in the first 10 minutes of ZvT you're basically throwing dice and hoping you picked right. There certainly might be an early-mid game advantage for Terran. However, there is a critical point at which that tide turns. Rather than trying to explain it, here's an illustration of what I believe the current matchup to be like. The graph is slightly off , Zerg advantage comes much much later , when it reaches late game at most it's just a balanced situation , zerg advantage only kicks in when u have 200 food , and another 200 food worth of $$$ and larvae , and boy does that situation rarely pops out I would disagree. I think the point that the advantage line crosses 50% in favor of zerg is when the number of Zerg tech buildings >= Terran tech buildings. At that point they have essentially equal versatility with the ability to produce CONSIDERABLY more units per unit time. More like when number of Zerg bases > Number of Terran bases +2. Tech means nothing when you don't have the econ to support it and instantly replenish your army.
I think that's a bit exaggerated... A Zerg with two fully saturated mineral patches and a solid tech tree CAN match evenly with a Terran on two bases. But 1 base versus 1 base, you're right, Zerg doesn't have a chance.
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Nice thoughts, I tend to agree with...all of it.
I'm not too familiar with TvP but from what I've heard it favors Terran early (Marauders with stim) and favors protoss late (storm, etc). It seems like nerfing Siege Tanks was maybe...not the answer in making this matchup more interesting. They could be a viable support unit late game, but being nerfed even more against zealots is...not the best way to implement that.
Similarly, reaper build time is...not really the problem zerg players are having. To me, the point in the game before your lair is up, after the opponent is walled, where your only scouting option is to sacrafice an overlord, is very problematic. You really have to have the right units to fight an early game push, and without a strong scouting option, this is difficult.
I am happy, however, about the way ultras work with buildings now (though a rare occasion I'll admit) and with the bunker build time nerf.
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On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT.
we're sorry zerg can just spam barracks early and often and make tons of units
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On September 24 2010 14:25 cykalu wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:20 jere wrote:On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT. Yes! There is one rule to live by if you are Terran, punish the greedy Zerg. If the Zerg goes hatch before pool that is 300 minerals not spent on army. If the Zerg goes for fast Lair into Spire or Infestation Pit attack before it is done. I understand there is a scouting issue for Zerg in that it is really hard vs Terran can do it at any time with scans. But I have wondered why Zerg dont use like one in three larva for army units early game. A just in time army would seems like a plan for losing. As Terran I am making army units all the time along with scvs even if it is just marines. Zerg has to decide whether to use the Larve for drones or units.. not both, unlike Terran. Terran can sit in his base and not move out, if a Zerg reacts inappropriately to it, they will be behind in economy as they could have used the larva for drones instead.
So Zerg cant split up usage of larve? The four larve that come off from a queen have to go to drones or army cant be mixed like two for drones and two for army or any other combination? And Zerg cant sit in base?
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I didn't have the time to really test the new patch yet but on the paper I felt a bit like Idra regarding TvP. Early bio all-ins are already such a pain in the ass if your name isn't Tester. If on top of that the zealot build time is increased I feel the early game will be a nightmare for P.
Pro will surely find a way to adapt (see PvZ in BW) but I'm more concerned about the casual gamer : At this point all the Terran has to do to be really threathening is making 5 rax MM and charging before P gets storm or collossus. To counter that P has to have perfect forcefield micro and perfect unit composition which imo requires a lot more skill.
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On September 24 2010 14:40 jere wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:25 cykalu wrote:On September 24 2010 14:20 jere wrote:On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT. Yes! There is one rule to live by if you are Terran, punish the greedy Zerg. If the Zerg goes hatch before pool that is 300 minerals not spent on army. If the Zerg goes for fast Lair into Spire or Infestation Pit attack before it is done. I understand there is a scouting issue for Zerg in that it is really hard vs Terran can do it at any time with scans. But I have wondered why Zerg dont use like one in three larva for army units early game. A just in time army would seems like a plan for losing. As Terran I am making army units all the time along with scvs even if it is just marines. Zerg has to decide whether to use the Larve for drones or units.. not both, unlike Terran. Terran can sit in his base and not move out, if a Zerg reacts inappropriately to it, they will be behind in economy as they could have used the larva for drones instead. So Zerg cant split up usage of larve? The four larve that come off from a queen have to go to drones or army cant be mixed like two for drones and two for army or any other combination? And Zerg cant sit in base?
Well you must also consider zerg needs the occasional larva to go towards an OL which provides only 6 food. Beyond that, a larva oftentimes represents a building you are going to build (drone becomes a pool, spine, baneling nest, hatch etc). If you make these small incremental margins of units, you will get out macro'd plain and simple.
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Yep, little balance changes like cooldown x getting a y increase in time won't do it for Zerg.
There needs to be something bigger be done.
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On September 24 2010 14:40 jere wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:25 cykalu wrote:On September 24 2010 14:20 jere wrote:On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT. Yes! There is one rule to live by if you are Terran, punish the greedy Zerg. If the Zerg goes hatch before pool that is 300 minerals not spent on army. If the Zerg goes for fast Lair into Spire or Infestation Pit attack before it is done. I understand there is a scouting issue for Zerg in that it is really hard vs Terran can do it at any time with scans. But I have wondered why Zerg dont use like one in three larva for army units early game. A just in time army would seems like a plan for losing. As Terran I am making army units all the time along with scvs even if it is just marines. Zerg has to decide whether to use the Larve for drones or units.. not both, unlike Terran. Terran can sit in his base and not move out, if a Zerg reacts inappropriately to it, they will be behind in economy as they could have used the larva for drones instead. So Zerg cant split up usage of larve? The four larve that come off from a queen have to go to drones or army cant be mixed like two for drones and two for army or any other combination? And Zerg cant sit in base?
Have you played zerg? It's not that simple. If you split larvae to units and workers early on then the zerg is going to be behind economically. Zerg doesn't have mules.
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Basically his complaints boil down to:
(1) Zerg should be able to fast expand reliably, and the game is imbalanced if they cant;
(2) The tank nerf is not a big deal even though (i) hydras take an entire hit more to kill on DIRECT DAMAGE (and two more from splash...); and (ii) lings and banelings take an entire hit more to kill from splash;
(3) Blizzard isn't patching fast enough because the nerfs they made are for (mostly) dated strategies.
First, as others have noted, it seems insane to think a fast expansion before pool should be reliable. Second, I think he is downplaying the tank nerf way too much. I have a feeling hydras will be put to use vs. T more and more even though he scoffs at the notion. Finally, his last point should be construed in favor of Blizzard's slow patches -- indeed, the fact that new strategies are constantly emerging and changing what is viewed as "imbalanced" suggests that Blizzard should be hesitant to make knee-jerk changes based on flavor of the month strategies. Doing so will make the game feel controlled by developers who are "funneling" players into artificially changing strategies as opposed to real inventiveness.
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There is no worse feeling that funneling your hydras into a constant stream of seige tank fire. They're way too slow and fragile to even consider against tanks. That nerf does not effect hydras in any major way.
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On September 24 2010 14:43 lambnrice wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:40 jere wrote:On September 24 2010 14:25 cykalu wrote:On September 24 2010 14:20 jere wrote:On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT. Yes! There is one rule to live by if you are Terran, punish the greedy Zerg. If the Zerg goes hatch before pool that is 300 minerals not spent on army. If the Zerg goes for fast Lair into Spire or Infestation Pit attack before it is done. I understand there is a scouting issue for Zerg in that it is really hard vs Terran can do it at any time with scans. But I have wondered why Zerg dont use like one in three larva for army units early game. A just in time army would seems like a plan for losing. As Terran I am making army units all the time along with scvs even if it is just marines. Zerg has to decide whether to use the Larve for drones or units.. not both, unlike Terran. Terran can sit in his base and not move out, if a Zerg reacts inappropriately to it, they will be behind in economy as they could have used the larva for drones instead. So Zerg cant split up usage of larve? The four larve that come off from a queen have to go to drones or army cant be mixed like two for drones and two for army or any other combination? And Zerg cant sit in base? Well you must also consider zerg needs the occasional larva to go towards an OL which provides only 6 food. Beyond that, a larva oftentimes represents a building you are going to build (drone becomes a pool, spine, baneling nest, hatch etc). If you make these small incremental margins of units, you will get out macro'd plain and simple.
Thank you.
I did not understand the marginal difference there.
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On September 24 2010 14:51 starckr wrote:
Basically his complaints boil down to:
(1) Zerg should be able to fast expand reliably, and the game is imbalanced if they cant;
(2) The tank nerf is not a big deal even though (i) hydras take an entire hit more to kill on DIRECT DAMAGE (and two more from splash...); and (ii) lings and banelings take an entire hit more to kill from splash;
(3) Blizzard isn't patching fast enough because the nerfs they made are for (mostly) dated strategies.
First, as others have noted, it seems insane to think a fast expansion before pool should be reliable. Second, I think he is downplaying the tank nerf way too much. I have a feeling hydras will be put to use vs. T more and more even though he scoffs at the notion. Finally, his last point should be construed in favor of Blizzard's slow patches -- indeed, the fact that new strategies are constantly emerging and changing what is viewed as "imbalanced" suggests that Blizzard should be hesitant to make knee-jerk changes based on flavor of the month strategies. Doing so will make the game feel controlled by developers who are "funneling" players into artificially changing strategies as opposed to real inventiveness.
I been trying to re-implementing hydras back into my play as tank took the nerf... but the movement speed off creep really hampers hydra play against army with tanks when you could get better units, i do find lings a bit better against tanks as i can run next to T's army as they're a nice mineral sink.
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I don't know... This is all from his own personal perspective. His worst matchup, I think, is ZvP and his personal style is to macro up early. Any sort of early game rush nerf will be favorable in his eyes as that increases his chances of winning. And all his opinions reflect that.
But... who wouldn't react the same way to patch notes. Terrans rage. Protoss rejoice at an easier time with tanks. Zergs still pessimistic, but welcome the changes.
On September 24 2010 12:38 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:
I completely agree with idra from a terran perspective. While i do think it was a step in the right direction for TvZ it doesn't completely fix the problems. I especially agree that it was terrible for TvP, since T already had the advantage in the early game (which zealot nerf exacerbates) and P already had the advantage in the late game (which siege tank nerf exacerbates).
Haha, no. Terran players typically win all their games in the early game because they can. Why not. When all you're encouraged to do is ram your army into the Z/P at an early stage of the game you get no late game practice.
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I feel like the patch hasn't changed much seeing as the terran building animations are now correct compensating for part of the reaper nerf...
-signed a diamond terran hoping zergs become a threat again in Terrancraft 2; Wings of Raynor. Seriously in NA at least I feel like it didn't change much.
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On September 24 2010 11:20 Seam wrote:
Since TvP is actually fairly balanced, I think they honestly should just leave those two races alone, as to not risk causing more imbalances.
Just get Zerg to a similar level, and your'e good.
Thats just not true. TvP is not balanced. Its just like Idra said. In the earlygame Terran is much stronger, and in the lategame its Protoss.
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His bias is clearly shown in this article. I'll give him credit that certain needs were not addressed, but that doesn't mean that the patch did literally nothing.
He far too easily dismisses the nerfs to tanks and zealots by calling them "irrelevant" because there are other strategies. Of course it's relevant if there is one fewer strategy your opponent can use, and he ALMOST admits this when he says that zerg can find a way to play against photons.
Regardless, 24 hours isn't sufficient time to tell if the patch had any significant impacts or not. So take what he says with a grain of salt.
And as for his point about hydras - I've seen many, many videos of IdrA going hydras in ZvT, did he not get ANY hydras in ZvT at GSL?
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What I dont really understand is why people are acting as if the patch took forever to implement. It was actually a very fast balance patch in the world of RTS.
People must realize that we are no longer in beta. We all payed money for a game and for that reason, blizzard can't drastically change the game every week. They must now be more cautious with balance changes and slowly scale the game into balance. While it is frustrating that a lot of issues weren't addressed, we must realize that if blizzard scales too many things, it could completely shift the balance of the game. It is easier to slowly balance a game than to make huge swings.
Imagine if blizzard nerfed reaper, hellion, banshees, and marauders all in one patch. We really don't know what effect that would have. It could completely swing the balance into zergs favor and the MU could be uglier than it is now.
It is also sad to see players solely addressing races when it comes to balance when I believe that general map design plays a larger role in overall matchup balance. A lot of the racial imbalances are nullified on a map like crossfire due to the overall size of the map, resulting in longer base to base travel times.
For what it is worth, I am a zerg player.
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A lot of people are saying there is a mechanical flaw in zerg. And I too reiterate that message. Right now zerg acts as a reactionary race that has no early game choices. You know what? I'm okay with that personality of the zerg race IF they were actually given the right tools to react.
For example a 50/50 overlord speed upgrade at hatch tech might open up the game immensely. Suddenly terran would need creative ways to approach this. They know they're exposed in the early game to this OL getting a free look. They would be a bit more wary of moving out knowing that zerg knows what they have early on. Suddenly terran would be (I don't want to say forced) urged to expand and take the game more into a mid/late game.
The general consensus is that zerg has the edge in the late game. I may agree with that, but the advantage is slight. It would be similar to the advantage terran maintains from the early to the mid game.
I doubt blizzard will change the mechanics of the zerg race enough to give them a plethora of options in the early game. Their options begin more in late game. Until then, they are forced the weather the storm. I just want them to have the tools to be able to weather it. Thoughts?
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First patches are never full on balance patches, they are usually last minute additions or bug fixes. Wait for 1.2 then we'll see what happens to game balance.
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Idra pretty much summarized it all and very! I think blizzard are too slow i mean 1 month is alot of time..
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On September 24 2010 15:55 lambnrice wrote:
The general consensus is that zerg has the edge in the late game.
No, that's the general consensus among Terran players.
The reason for that is because on the ladder they have less APM than their Zerg point score equivalents. So when it gets to late-game they can't keep up with multi-tasking.
Watch a very good Terran player like BratOK and DeMuslim; they have monstrous TvZ lategames.
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On September 24 2010 14:56 lambnrice wrote:
There is no worse feeling that funneling your hydras into a constant stream of seige tank fire. They're way too slow and fragile to even consider against tanks. That nerf does not effect hydras in any major way.
I did a test. The nerf is huge against hydra.
I tried 30 food sieged tanks vs 60 food hydras with range upgrade.
Before patch, T loses 1 tank.
After patch, T loses 3 tanks.
Very huge difference though.
But why would I trade 60 food hydras for 3 tanks....
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As a Zerg player I really look up to IdrA, eventhough hes...spirited sometimes. He manages to still outmacro terrans, even with the few choices zerg has in that MU.
In the article he stated that he was unsatisfied with the impact of the changes in 1.1 and he would like to see either more fast and small patches, or more changes within each patch.
I personally think blizzard should take it slow, dont make the WoW mistakes. But then I realised that I overlooked something very important: If blizzard really knows how flawed Zerg is atm, then why did they initialise the GSL?
You could argument, that the GSL is kind of an balance test (that would be kind of an expensive balance test). But then why do they want an GSL EVERY month? Comeptitive eSport over hundreds of thousands of dollars with a game that is apparently not balanced out just doesnt make much sense to me.
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On September 24 2010 16:09 MasterAsia wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:56 lambnrice wrote:
There is no worse feeling that funneling your hydras into a constant stream of seige tank fire. They're way too slow and fragile to even consider against tanks. That nerf does not effect hydras in any major way. I did a test. The nerf is huge against hydra. I tried 30 food sieged tanks vs 60 food hydras with range upgrade. Before patch, T loses 1 tank. After patch, T loses 3 tanks. Very huge difference though. But why would I trade 60 food hydras for 3 tanks....
=D Thanks for running this test.
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Have to agree with Siffer. The current situation is frustrating, but Blizzard has to be cautious about patching. Hopefully we will get a patch in october that actually adresses the state of the game right now.
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I'm a random player. And from that perspective, though Im not a fan of idra in general, I think his complaints do not go far enough. Yes early lot rushes were powerful, but you could deal with it using micro n such. Most things I can do as Terran just feel ridiculous. Why is there no upgrade for medivacs to carry passengers? I mean Overlords have 1 purpose (supply) and you upgrade another (drop stuff). The problem does not lie at all on some kind of damage or build time.
The main problem lies in the Terran race per se. While the units are basically ok, they just feel way way too versatile. I do not have to build a building for banshees or tanks or anything, so you will never know what I'm going for. Even if you guess right, I can still switch addons.
Also, as mentioned above, the units itself are insanely versatile. There is almost no unit which is not generally useful. Also, Marauders do not need their numbers reduced. They should just not run faster when stimmed (immobility, Terran trait)
That being said I think the BC nerf was even a mistake, since it's an end tier unit and supposed to kick ass. My suggestion would be to go into directions like:
1. Prevent the insanely fast tech (maybe you need Engi bay to bouild factoy same as core or lair / Armory for T3 stuff)
2. Maybe get some specific buildings for units like Banshee/Tank etc to make scouting possible
3. Change Dropships. Maybe an upgrade which enables drop capabilities and turns them green or something
4. Get rid of Bonus speed for Marauders when stimming. (And maybe reduce Building Damage due to those ugly basedrop/buildingsnipe stuff but not too sure)
Those are the kind of changes which imo would make a lot more sense then playing with numbers.
EDIT: My Main Point is this (in case I'm confusing): Give Terran all the Firepower you want, just take mobility and versatility away in return.
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I agree with his complaints that scouting is hard for zerg. When I play zerg, it's hard to even have good overlord position. There aren't enough high ground or water areas to put overlords across the map. Your overlords can be hunted down in most places over the map and w/o cloak like the obs that's just free overlord kills.
What I'd like to see is a slight speed boost to the overlords so that they can check on things and be able to escape, provided they don't venture in too far.
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On September 24 2010 16:08 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 15:55 lambnrice wrote:
The general consensus is that zerg has the edge in the late game. No, that's the general consensus among Terran players. The reason for that is because on the ladder they have less APM than their Zerg point score equivalents. So when it gets to late-game they can't keep up with multi-tasking. Watch a very good Terran player like BratOK and DeMuslim; they have monstrous TvZ lategames.
Common sense dictates that Zerg will have the edge in the late game under certain conditions and you cant deny that. The ability to reproduce an army instantly in ONE production cycle is huge, but you will need the economy for that. This can be ensured by having a lot of bases and map control, which Mutalisks can gain relatively easily ... even against Terrans. The trick is to survive to that point and it is almost impossible unless you can stop the harrassment against you and start applying pressure on your opponent yourself. Then you have the time to get the economy and larvae production rolling to eventually trade off a full army and be faster with reproducing the next one and thus gaining an army advantage immediately.
Just watch CheckPrime vs. justfakeWeRRa in the GSL for an example as to how Zerg can win easily if left alone.
The patch did not change anything for this "early issue" of harrassment against Zerg. Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans.
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its this simple fact. Marines are too strong. make them shoot .1 second slower. problem fixed.
Maurders need to do 8 dmage to light +12 to armored.
Fixed.
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Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans.
Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about?
*Thinking...
Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm...
Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.*
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On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Show nested quote +Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.*
actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play
so much for that
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On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that
Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par.
edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.-
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the problem is zerg would need new unit or abilities dont think any buff to the existing units will help zerg.. and blizz wont add anything so...
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On September 24 2010 12:46 theqat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 12:44 leve15 wrote:
That fake patch that circulated last week really put a damper on the reception of actual 1.1.
Faster OL base speed, or cheaper upgrade isn't too much to try, is it? OL speed was 50/50 for much of beta 'til Blizzard said "we don't want upgrades to be a no-brainer" and then made Concussive Grenades 50/50 :facepalm:
HAHHAHAHHAHA
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patch is not enough.
For zerg to be fixed units like Overseer / Corruptor need a complete rework of their abbilities.
Neural Parasite needs to not be useless and the roach needs a serious buff.
How is it that Terran has 0 useless units / abbilities while Zerg has a ton ?
To avoid having useless units and abbilities they made every terran unit and every terran spell do insane damage or last forever and not cost much.
Ghosts were severily underused in BW. What do they do ? They give the ghost insanely goo abbilities as well as a very high damage against light units.
The Overseer and the corruptor are close to garbage compared to the "toys" the other races get.
I wasn't EVER going to complain about the creep but hidras are so bad offcreep its ridiculous. I love the idea behind the creep, i LOVE it, but while it gives the other units an advantage it makes hidras be usefull on creep only.
That internal patch that was accidentaly released needs to come out NOW.
Double the base overlord speed, increase the upgraded overlord speed, etc
However nothing will give zerg a way to stop mass drops by terran thats currently in the game right now.
Whatever, im gonna go get breakfast now. This patch was just a huge dissapointment.
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Completely agree with IdrA, this was a minor patch that only changed one small aspect of each MU. I also agree that zergs problem lies in getting scouting information; in the current state it's just too hard to scout --> can't react --> get rolled.
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On September 24 2010 16:33 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 16:08 Klive5ive wrote:On September 24 2010 15:55 lambnrice wrote:
The general consensus is that zerg has the edge in the late game. No, that's the general consensus among Terran players. The reason for that is because on the ladder they have less APM than their Zerg point score equivalents. So when it gets to late-game they can't keep up with multi-tasking. Watch a very good Terran player like BratOK and DeMuslim; they have monstrous TvZ lategames. Common sense dictates that Zerg will have the edge in the late game under certain conditions and you cant deny that. Why would I deny what I just said. Zerg have the edge under the condition that the Terran is worse.
On September 24 2010 16:33 Rabiator wrote:Just watch CheckPrime vs. justfakeWeRRa in the GSL for an example as to how Zerg can win easily if left alone. Then you link an example of a Zerg who is better than his Terran opponent; this does nothing for your argument
Show me a replay of oGsTOP lategame TvZ and try to argue that the Zerg has an advantage.
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I agree with idra to some point hes missing THE huge impact THE 5 sec zealot ijveraar has. Against a 6 pool even with à 10 gate u get THE zealot out just 3 sec to late Against perfect timings. Against an proxy marauder push its ........... Ill leave That blank. I do agree with idra That there still neef to be. More changes but i think hè and we still meed to realise THE full effect of this patch.
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On September 24 2010 14:56 lambnrice wrote:
There is no worse feeling that funneling your hydras into a constant stream of seige tank fire. They're way too slow and fragile to even consider against tanks. That nerf does not effect hydras in any major way.
thats why you don't funnel units for any battle in any matchup on any map...ever.
That should have been an obvious one.
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The issue I have with Zerg is that it seems to me impossible to find a fair balance between getting economy and getting an army. (I am random btw) With T or P i can do both at any time in the game. I can get an army while increasing my economical power. With Z that trade-off is way too huge.
Yesterday I happened to play some 2v2s with a friend. In one game we decided to push early. I went for ling+roaches he went for bio. Looking at the statistics after the game, my buddy had better economy + better army.
Now the game after that took place on Twilight Fortress (horrible map, but great for Z). When I random Z on that map i go hatch before pool make 2 spinecrawlers and get mutas. It works very well when ur terran ally walls off. The funny thing was that even though I devoted all my larvae to drones and overlords it took a lot of time till I really had a big advantage over my ally in terms of economy. But hey he had a nice army instead and could have crushed me at any time.
It feels kinda odd. As zerg you need a strong economy to win. But at the current state, this seems so hard with all those small maps and zerg also having so weak units.
There just so many problems. Too many to adress them all. But one thing that is really bothering me is how many zerglings u need to make them actually be effective. Compared to the usefulness of zealots and marines they are a joke. Furthermore as zerg u dont have any ranged unit at tier one (oh yeah queens, great, roaches don't count: range 3 and not able to shoot air) which makes zerg seem so inversitile.
What scares me most is, that all these things can't be solved by just patching. I am really afraid that the overall zerg design is just bad. Tweaking numbers will help but not solve the issues.
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On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that
So in other words, every single Terran unit is OP against Zerg, according to you and others.
Cognitive bias can be overwhelming, but, that doesn't sound the least bit extreme to you?
I'm beginning to think Zergs won't be happy until every Terran unit is nerfed 80% or the race is taken out of the game entirely.
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On September 24 2010 17:09 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 16:33 Rabiator wrote:On September 24 2010 16:08 Klive5ive wrote:On September 24 2010 15:55 lambnrice wrote:
The general consensus is that zerg has the edge in the late game. No, that's the general consensus among Terran players. The reason for that is because on the ladder they have less APM than their Zerg point score equivalents. So when it gets to late-game they can't keep up with multi-tasking. Watch a very good Terran player like BratOK and DeMuslim; they have monstrous TvZ lategames. Common sense dictates that Zerg will have the edge in the late game under certain conditions and you cant deny that. Why would I deny what I just said. Zerg have the edge under the condition that the Terran is worse. Then you link an example of a Zerg who is better than his Terran opponent; this does nothing for your argument Show me a replay of oGsTOP lategame TvZ and try to argue that the Zerg has an advantage.
You need to READ my post too. I wrote that IF A TERRAN LEAVES THE ZERG ALONE he can get the upper hand easily (it never was a question of "which player is better"). The game I linked to showed that very clearly, so the "imbalance" results from the harrassment and not the actual units / mechanics of the Terrans themselves. Separate two "top players" by a larger ground rush distance than is currently possible on Blizzard maps at the start and you actually give Zerg a fair chance. That would be a very easy solution to the whole problem IMO ...
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Is protoss really that much stronger late game, just due to the change in tanks?
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hmmm tl;dr the whole thread because this has become a flame thread but regarding the OP;
Idra, when posting something that has to do with game prediction, lets just say his prediction, most of the time, the opposite happens. idk if someone already posted this but im just saying ..
no flaming intended ..
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On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.-
probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer.
or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree.
also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work.
these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough.
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Totally agree with Idra. This patch brought nothing for Z
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough.
ye i think switching hydras with roaches on the tech tree along with some changes to them would fix a lot of stuff i really think they should give it a try
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It's not about Blizz' effort to balance the early game as it's quite common to tweak a bit here and there and to watch how matches develop. It's about Blizz not providing zerg with the appropriate tools to face Terrans.
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On September 24 2010 17:13 yonderbob wrote:
I agree with idra to some point hes missing THE huge impact THE 5 sec zealot ijveraar has. Against a 6 pool even with à 10 gate u get THE zealot out just 3 sec to late Against perfect timings. Against an proxy marauder push its ........... Ill leave That blank. I do agree with idra That there still neef to be. More changes but i think hè and we still meed to realise THE full effect of this patch.
Do you f-ing think good players care about f-ing 6 pool ? That stuff is easily fixed with maps.
What on earth makes you think that you should not take any damage from a 6 pool ? The zerg has 7 f-ing drones on minerals, no tech, no queen and no gas.
"Oh my god i cannot block my ramp with a zealot against a 6 pool and make this all-in rush totally useless."
Let me tell you something, if its an all-in attack like that you should BARELY make it out alive or with a slight advantage IF you microed your little heart out.
A 2 gate proxy against a 14 pool used to be freewin. You needed to scout it and go for 12 or 13 pool, (but how can you scout that early ?) Then make a spine crawler (that takes 55 seconds to build) and then micro your brains out just to stay alive with 8~9 drones left.
Moreover if you chronoboost your first f-ing zealot comes out just 2.5 GAME SECONDS later. Thats 1.8 real f-ing seconds give me a break.
6 pooling against any other race than zerg is worthless.
The maps are shit. I've made a thread here on TL asking for tournament organizers to start using custom maps. I've gotten alot of votes for "Yes" but no tournament organizer game it any attention.
In BroodWar we had 3 to 5 new maps every new season of OSL / MSL; Blizzard clearly has NO intention of providing us with balanced maps or throwing away the existing trash. Since all they do is add a few rocks here and there.
The LostTemple cliff abuse issue WAS NOT SOLVED.
I would bet my life on the fact that the way noobs at blizzard think is the following:
Can zerg get mutas before terran can drop a thor / tank / marines on their cliff ? Off 1 base, Yes.
Can zerg get the drop upgrade before terran can drop a thor / tank / marines on their cliff ? Using 1 base timings and if they rush for it, Yes.
Ah, then the f-ing game is fine, people just need to learn to play better.
Well the f-ing game is more complicated than that.
It makes me laugh whenever i hear noobs arguing that the people who designed the game know more about balancing than the progamers playing the game for 10 hours a day.
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I think the bottom line is that zerg needs another unit or something. Also, the changeling should be able to temporarily cloak so that it is like the TF2 spy (hide as enemy unit, be able to cloak, go into a crowd of units, and uncloak).
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- .. buff hydras ..
probably the best idea ever ..
srsly .. i never get the point why hydra was nerfed so bad in this game and wasn't buffed .. ITS NOT LIKE ZERG HAS A LOT OF UNIT TYPES IN THEIR ARSENAL!!
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough.
Zerg is broken by design no reasonable nerf or bug can fix that, e.g. Zerg has no shoot while cloak unit like protoss or terran,
burrowed infestor harras only works if u dump insane amounts of gas into it, and they are slow as hell
hopes up for HotS and the epic lurker comeback, until then, zerg free GSL season 3-16
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I think it comes down to this:
"These changes would have made for a good patch a month ago"
the patch-changes are by no means bad as they adress balance issues that do in fact exist; but they simply adress issues that were imminent one month ago; I've rarely seen good protoss-players go with early zealots vs zerg in the last couple of weeks....most go for FE (with or without early forge) or 3 gate expand; the patch-changes simply should've been implemented at the time they were announced, so that BY NOW we could have another patch that goes way deeper
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On September 24 2010 17:15 zomgtossrush wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:56 lambnrice wrote:
There is no worse feeling that funneling your hydras into a constant stream of seige tank fire. They're way too slow and fragile to even consider against tanks. That nerf does not effect hydras in any major way. thats why you don't funnel units for any battle in any matchup on any map...ever. That should have been an obvious one.
sorry didn't mean it in that sense. I mean it in the sense that if you have hydras, and he has tanks, you're gonna be under constant stream of tank fire. Just too slow.
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maybe they should let the changeling attack i could have no damage but trigger the "your base is under attack" its would be cool to use it and distract a bit the players lol ;P would be fun to attack and move the other player would be like wth is attacking me xP
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:
also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work.
If the maps were bigger the Zerg could have more defensive forces [SPEAK: any] to prevent the pylon wall-in and terran bio units are at the mercy of Speedlings until they reach the safety of the bunker, so a longer distance would help there too. Bigger maps seem to be an easy solution for this problem without needing to add new mechanics, because even though you could add "unbuildable areas" to the maps it would screw the Terrans who would like to wall off at the bottom of their ramp.
Another solution might be to give a Hatchery the ability to spawn a creep tumor and thus spread the creep faster. This might even solve part of the problem of not being able to cover ramps with Spine Crawlers early enough - as Zelniq pointed out in his "Scrap Station imbalance"-thread; larger main bases do have this problem. Maybe moving the "dump creep" ability for Overlords from T2 to T1 would help too ...
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On September 24 2010 17:43 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:
also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. If the maps were bigger the Zerg could have more defensive forces [SPEAK: any] to prevent the pylon wall-in and terran bio units are at the mercy of Speedlings until they reach the safety of the bunker, so a longer distance would help there too. Bigger maps seem to be an easy solution for this problem without needing to add new mechanics, because even though you could add "unbuildable areas" to the maps it would screw the Terrans who would like to wall off at the bottom of their ramp. Another solution might be to give a Hatchery the ability to spawn a creep tumor and thus spread the creep faster. This might even solve part of the problem of not being able to cover ramps with Spine Crawlers early enough - as Zelniq pointed out in his "Scrap Station imbalance"-thread; larger main bases do have this problem. Maybe moving the "dump creep" ability for Overlords from T2 to T1 would help too ...
agreed since start i allways said dump creep should be t1
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough.
I just want to let you know that i love you and that you should stop trying to reason with these idiots and come over to your fanclub  We are much more pleasant to talk to
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough.
I'm sorry but i dont agree with the roach / hidra switch on the tech tree. Just give queens a bit more anti-air damage and its fine. Yes hidras instead of roaches would deal superbly with the 4 warp gate madness but thats not the point. You should be able to hold that with ling / roach and 1 or 2 spine crawlers. (I'm not saying that you can do it reasonably well right now)
Edit: On second though, instead of 4 range on roaches, i think a decrease in the size of forcefields would be a nice idea. Make it so that it takes 2 FF to completely block a ramp and that roach can shoot over FF a little better.
Of course this would also mean nerfing terran in early game against protoss.
If you increase the queen damage slightly and double the base overlord speed then cloaked banshee / voidrays should be ok.
4 range on roaches would make reapers worthless so I'll go with 2 armor.
They nerfed the roach armor before they nerfed the roach supply and they never gave it another thought. Thats how bad these people are at balancing their own game. They should have put the roach back on 2 armor the moment they made it 2 supply, but god forbid should they go back on one of their decisions. That would make them look like complete idiots.
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On September 24 2010 14:40 jere wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:25 cykalu wrote:On September 24 2010 14:20 jere wrote:On September 24 2010 13:13 The Icon wrote:
really? QQ'ing that it's hard to defend a hatch before pool? NO SHIT. Yes! There is one rule to live by if you are Terran, punish the greedy Zerg. If the Zerg goes hatch before pool that is 300 minerals not spent on army. If the Zerg goes for fast Lair into Spire or Infestation Pit attack before it is done. I understand there is a scouting issue for Zerg in that it is really hard vs Terran can do it at any time with scans. But I have wondered why Zerg dont use like one in three larva for army units early game. A just in time army would seems like a plan for losing. As Terran I am making army units all the time along with scvs even if it is just marines. Zerg has to decide whether to use the Larve for drones or units.. not both, unlike Terran. Terran can sit in his base and not move out, if a Zerg reacts inappropriately to it, they will be behind in economy as they could have used the larva for drones instead. So Zerg cant split up usage of larve? The four larve that come off from a queen have to go to drones or army cant be mixed like two for drones and two for army or any other combination? And Zerg cant sit in base?
Or try making an inbase hatch, its only the cost of 2 barracks/gateways and you can make every unit out of it. If a terran/toss wants to transition from say mauraders/stalkers to banshees/void rays they have to throw down like 3-4 unit producing structures. Zerg just has to throw down 1 tech piece and they can produce that unit from any larva.
My point is, it seems like there's ways to get that extra larva to keep up in the macro early game besides taking your natural. If a Terran tries to go CC before Barracks at their natural vs Zerg how long do you think that will stay up? So intead they make unit producing structures in their main which is easier to protect. I've never understood why so few Zergs try the same thing. Then expand out to their natural when they can protect it like the other 2 races do as well.
I'm not saying there aren't things to be fixed with the Zerg race, just don't bitch about fast expanding being difficult to defend. Any time you expand before units it's going to be hard to defend, that's a choice you made.
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Compared to Protoss and Terran T1, the zerg units are very specialized. If you dont scout perfectly youre screwed. Zerg cant keep up economy-wise with only one base, thus an expansion is almost necessary. Fast expanding makes zerg even more vulnerable to early attacks that must be scouted and reacted to. This seems to be the early game zerg problem.
Heres my idea: Give the zerg better early game economy! Make hatcheries start with more larvae, or increase the hathery larvae spawn frequency. This makes it so that zerg can have better early game economy and can be more aggressive. Zergs early game units will still be less economical to use vs their protoss and terran counterparts.
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spawn larvae should be automatic make no sense for us to be doing same thing allways its not like weve many places to spawn larvae binding a queen to a hatch would be nice theres not much strategy on it ....
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On September 24 2010 17:54 GizmoPT wrote:
spawn larvae should be automatic make no sense for us to be doing same thing allways its not like weve many places to spawn larvae binding a queen to a hatch would be nice theres not much strategy on it ....
Are you serious? That's an awful idea.
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Idra contradicts himself quite a bit here imho. First he talks about changing what's currently a problem, then he suggests fixing the underlying problems that make terran imbalanced in his opinion instead of just changing single units. Then he goes on about changing stuff that is currently a problem again. He also admits that problems that were a problem a month ago are problems no more today.
So basically what he wants is for the races he considers imbalanced to undergo a change in how they essentially work instead of tweaking units. At the same time though he requests that single units/combos/strategies that are currently a problem should be nerfed although he is fully aware that they might be no problem anymore in a few weeks.
Conclusions:
#1 Give the game a little more time instead of rushing patches. What is a problem today might already be totally figured out in 2 or 3 weeks.
#2 This is exactly where Patch 1.1 went wrong. It changed flavor of the month problems instead of analyzing how the different matchups could go more smoothly and be less static by making small adjustments to the basic problems each of the 3 races has.
#3 With the right approach in mind(#2), and I can't emphasize this enough, give the game TIME and THEN patch. Maybe tomorrow a genius Zerg comes along and revolutionizes the whole Zerg early game.
Imho the problems in ZvT(and ZvP) have little to nothing to do with single units. Zerg is just not very versatile in the early stages of the game which creates a variety of problems. a) You're kinda forced to go for the same safe opening(with some slight variations and map adjustments) again and again and again. This will bore many players. b) That safe opening isn't even 100% safe, but what is 100% in Starcraft? c) You can dominate midgame with mutas, but it's pretty difficult to go for the kill with mutas only or muta/speedling/baneling. That means that every ZvT against an equally skilled opponent basically goes to lategame if you want to win it, which can be very tiresome.
All this makes for a very static/deadlocked matchup.
Early Game: Terran pressures => Terran wins or Zerg defends
Mid Game: Zerg has map control with mutas while massing speedlings and banelings to counter any sort of big terran push. If Terran really screws up, Zerg can finish the game here. If everything plays out "standard" though, the game will transition to lategame.
Late Game: 200 supply mech vs 200 supply Speedling/Baneling/Muta/Ultra. Zerg is probably in a slightly better position to win here than Terran.
Of course not every ZvT goes like that, but that's how the matchup works in general and this has to be fixed somehow imho. But again, "fixing" single units is totally the wrong approach as far as I'm concerned.
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Give overseer Plague effect on contaminate, Change corruptors spell to spawn scourge, make T1 unit zeglisk 50 min 1 supply 6 range low hp and low dps, When u get hydra den you can merge 2 zerglisk into 1 hydralisk at the cost of the gas for hydralisk.
I think it will be good to make neural parasite a bit longer and remove the rope like thing. Just cast it and no matter if infestor die the NP should not go away.
I also think zerg need defensive spell, back in BW zerg had swarm, in SC terran has point defense drone and auto turret, toss has force field and guardian shield.now zerg realy lack defensive abilities, Infested Terran may be considered such but its realy not working that way.
Maybe give queen ability to spawn something on creep that give +1 armor to surrounding units and buildings then later upgraded to +2 or +3 from evo chamber.Realy T has so much extra upgrades for everything, building armor,bunker supply, turret range.
Waiting for HoTS is not a solution by the time it get realeased SC2 will be already shame for the professional scene, too many pros are considering switching race. Blizzard realy should get back to drawing board and be creative, hire some professional players like to make intesive testing on the new things to get proper feedback. We all see that it was mistake to realease the game with 1 race complete and other in progress then trying to balance it with nerfs and buffs. I realy like the terran becouse it realy feel they are completed, they have soo many options and so great mechanics so much diversity. I wish zerg and protoss was the same.
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On September 24 2010 17:15 zomgtossrush wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 14:56 lambnrice wrote:
There is no worse feeling that funneling your hydras into a constant stream of seige tank fire. They're way too slow and fragile to even consider against tanks. That nerf does not effect hydras in any major way. thats why you don't funnel units for any battle in any matchup on any map...ever. That should have been an obvious one.
Funny because sending them in as a ball just exposes them to a lot more splash.
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On September 24 2010 17:58 Mooncat wrote:
Idra contradicts himself quite a bit here imho. First he talks about changing what's currently a problem, then he suggests fixing the underlying problems that make terran imbalanced in his opinion instead of just changing single units. Then he goes on about changing stuff that is currently a problem again. He also admits that problems that were a problem a month ago are problems no more today.
So basically what he wants is for the races he considers imbalanced to undergo a change in how they essentially work instead of tweaking units. At the same time though he requests that single units/combos/strategies that are currently a problem should be nerfed although he is fully aware that they might be no problem anymore in a few weeks.
Conclusions:
#1 Give the game a little more time instead of rushing patches. What is a problem today might already be totally figured out in 2 or 3 weeks.
#2 This is exactly where Patch 1.1 went wrong. It changed flavor of the month problems instead of analyzing how the different matchups could go more smoothly and be less static by making small adjustments to the basic problems each of the 3 races has.
#3 With the right approach in mind(#2), and I can't emphasize this enough, give the game TIME and THEN patch. Maybe tomorrow a genius Zerg comes along and revolutionizes the whole Zerg early game.
Imho the problems in ZvT(and ZvP) have little to nothing to do with single units. Zerg is just not very versatile in the early stages of the game which creates a variety of problems. a) You're kinda forced to go for the same safe opening(with some slight variations and map adjustments) again and again and again. This will bore many players. b) That safe opening isn't even 100% safe, but what is 100% in Starcraft? c) You can dominate midgame with mutas, but it's pretty difficult to go for the kill with mutas only or muta/speedling/baneling. That means that every ZvT against an equally skilled opponent basically goes to lategame if you want to win it, which can be very tiresome.
All this makes for a very static/deadlocked matchup.
Early Game: Terran pressures => Terran wins or Zerg defends
Mid Game: Zerg has map control with mutas while massing speedlings and banelings to counter any sort of big terran push. If Terran really screws up, Zerg can finish the game here. If everything plays out "standard" though, the game will transition to lategame.
Late Game: 200 supply mech vs 200 supply Speedling/Baneling/Muta/Ultra. Zerg is probably in a slightly better position to win here than Terran.
Of course not every ZvT goes like that, but that's how the matchup works in general and this has to be fixed somehow imho. But again, "fixing" single units is totally the wrong approach as far as I'm concerned.
Shut the... up please.
You're saying something like "give it a couple of months don't rush patches" to someone who makes a living playing this crappy crappy game. How about i tell you "give it a couple of months before you can earn some actual money from doing your job".
Or, give it a couple of months before you can win a tournament as zerg and find a decent team to sponsor you.
Moreover, early game cannot EVER be f-ing revolutionized. Mid-game, Late-game yes but Early-Game is like an exact science.
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I litterally stared at the screen for a good 15 seconds with my mouth open when I saw the 'state of the game' patches WERE the whole 1.1 patches. Un-friggin-believeable. I'm sooo waiting for a reply from blizzard, how can they miss this? At the moment, we can very well say zerg is underpowered in a game breaking way, blizzard does, apart from +5 sec to zealot build time, NOTHING about it.
IdrA, you hit the nail on the head perfectly on this one.
Go group up with zenio, cool, check and julyzerg and go raid blizz HQ ^.^
I'd LOVE to see something like hydra to tier1, increase hatch larvae spawn rate and removes queens.. I know that would kind of force you hydra's every game but something along those lines. Larva inject is not fun to do and the queen is a very very dull unit
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Only if people spent the time figuring out the game instead of whining about it
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I for once fully gree with Idra. I was actually quite disappointed that the patch really included only the more or less minor changes mentioned in the pre-patch report.
I am not fully sure why Blizzard did it this way. Possible explanations:
* They don't want to make too drastic changes in the current GSL (best time to majorly patch would be in-between 2 GSLs)
* They want their internal tester team to play long enough with the suggested changes in order to be sure to go into the right direction (the current patch and the ultra bug suggests otherwise though...)
* They have some magical statistics which show different results regarding balance
* They think that Zerg players just haven't figured out the matchup...
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All this makes for a very static/deadlocked matchup.
Early Game: Terran pressures => Terran wins or Zerg defends
Mid Game: Zerg has map control with mutas while massing speedlings and banelings to counter any sort of big terran push. If Terran really screws up, Zerg can finish the game here. If everything plays out "standard" though, the game will transition to lategame.
Late Game: 200 supply mech vs 200 supply Speedling/Baneling/Muta/Ultra. Zerg is probably in a slightly better position to win here than Terran.
I concur with this.
Everytime i fuck up my early game or zerg defend
I lose.
Regardless of what i do
Zerg goes Mutas, i have to build like 3-4 missile turrets, even then the problem isn't solved when mutas still kill my turrets.
Late Game, its just GG really.
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On September 24 2010 17:58 Mooncat wrote:
All this makes for a very static/deadlocked matchup.
Early Game: Terran pressures => Terran wins or Zerg defends
Mid Game: Zerg has map control with mutas while massing speedlings and banelings to counter any sort of big terran push. If Terran really screws up, Zerg can finish the game here. If everything plays out "standard" though, the game will transition to lategame.
Late Game: 200 supply mech vs 200 supply Speedling/Baneling/Muta/Ultra. Zerg is probably in a slightly better position to win here than Terran.
Wow...very interesting. You literally described exactly what happened my last game. He pressured with reapers, i defended, he dropped hellions (3 or 4 times), lost a handful of drones, but still managed to defend, and i kept pumping units til 200/200 however instead of ultras i just had critical mass mutas to deal with heavy numbers of thors. caught him out of position in the middle with a fungal and just swarmed lings blings and then mutas came in for the cleanup. he the blamed his pc for going slow (i guess my swarm rush caused his computer to freeze up lol)
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On September 24 2010 10:26 Colbi wrote:Greg ' IdrA' Fields gives his thoughts on Blizzard's most recent patch for StarCraft 2. Below is an excerpt taken from the article: Show nested quote +The first balance patch for StarCraft2 came out roughly a month after release and consisted solely of changes that were announced weeks ago and that were actually already prepared at the start of phase 2 of the beta. Unfortunately, this is evident in the effect the changes will have on the game. Blizzard patched the state the game was in several weeks ago, and didn't address many developments in game play that have since made the patch almost irrelevant. ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. You can read the rest of his thoughts at http://www.myeg.net/article/article_detail.php?article_id=877Do you agree or disagree with what he has to say?
Idra might be the only player in Korea who thinks TvP is imba in Terran's favor. Disregard
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On September 24 2010 11:13 Anzat wrote:
We're the only race with zero anti-air as part of our core T1 army... and our supply flies.
So what do you call a queen?
At least we got the best stationary defense in the game, which detect, hit both air and ground, and don't cost us a worker... oh, wait. Protoss got that.
Your "stationary" defenses can be relocated at will. And really, if you're complaining that making a structure consumes a drone, then you really shouldn't be playing Zerg in the first place.
Speedlings get to finally use their wings for a weak anti-air attack, perhaps some leaping melee thing
Why do you play Zerg if you want to fundamentally change the race?
There needs to be a way to micro to make void rays lose their charge
There is. Select queens or hydras, and a-move towards the void ray.
and toss need to be forced to use some micro to maintain their charge. Right now the "shoot a building and then kill the whole opposing army in 5 seconds" thing isn't balanced.
It's also not existent. It takes far longer than 5 seconds to kill your entire army, and it takes a whole boatload of voidrays. If you know there's void rays out, don't let them get to those buildings in the first place. If you don't know there's a bunch of void rays out, then learn to scout.
It's like if I started complaining about spine crawlers being impossible to kill without having like a dozen hellions. Tier 2 units killed by one static defense that only cost 125 minerals! Ours only shoots air! Nerf!
And the idea that Zerg can't scout is just weird. You have incredibly fast, cheap land units that take half a supply. You have flying pylons and the lowest tech, fastest to build, cheapest flying detector that doesn't take up supply, but provides it.
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On September 24 2010 18:16 Samus wrote:
All this makes for a very static/deadlocked matchup.
Early Game: Terran pressures => Terran wins or Zerg defends
Mid Game: Zerg has map control with mutas while massing speedlings and banelings to counter any sort of big terran push. If Terran really screws up, Zerg can finish the game here. If everything plays out "standard" though, the game will transition to lategame.
Late Game: 200 supply mech vs 200 supply Speedling/Baneling/Muta/Ultra. Zerg is probably in a slightly better position to win here than Terran.
I concur with this.
Everytime i fuck up my early game or zerg defend
I lose.
Regardless of what i do
Zerg goes Mutas, i have to build like 3-4 missile turrets, even then the problem isn't solved when mutas still kill my turrets.
Late Game, its just GG really.
Thors. More turrets. Tanks. Hellions. Actually MACRO instead of trying to 1 or 2 base. Exploit Terran's MANY forms of harrassment VS zerg (cloaked banshees, hellion drops, reapers, kill overlords with vikings, etc...) An unpressured Zerg is a deadly Zerg.
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On September 24 2010 18:21 PanzerDragoon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:26 Colbi wrote:Greg ' IdrA' Fields gives his thoughts on Blizzard's most recent patch for StarCraft 2. Below is an excerpt taken from the article: The first balance patch for StarCraft2 came out roughly a month after release and consisted solely of changes that were announced weeks ago and that were actually already prepared at the start of phase 2 of the beta. Unfortunately, this is evident in the effect the changes will have on the game. Blizzard patched the state the game was in several weeks ago, and didn't address many developments in game play that have since made the patch almost irrelevant. ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. You can read the rest of his thoughts at http://www.myeg.net/article/article_detail.php?article_id=877Do you agree or disagree with what he has to say? Idra might be the only player in Korea who thinks TvP is imba in Terran's favor. Disregard
i said terrans strong early and protoss is strong late, i think if theres any overall advantage pre patch 1.1 it went to protoss. please read before replying.
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On September 24 2010 18:06 decemberTV wrote:
Shut the... up please.
You're saying something like "give it a couple of months don't rush patches" to someone who makes a living playing this crappy crappy game. How about i tell you "give it a couple of months before you can earn some actual money from doing your job".
Or, give it a couple of months before you can win a tournament as zerg and find a decent team to sponsor you.
Moreover, early game cannot EVER be f-ing revolutionized. Mid-game, Late-game yes but Early-Game is like an exact science.
Uhm... you will probably be surprised, but that's exactly the way it works in the real world most of the times... You work your ass off for little to nothing before the money starts coming in. Especially when you decide to do a "job" like this. There's always the risk that you won't make it at all, and you know that before you do it. Fucking the game up by rushing patches isn't helping anyone though...
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IdrA is the freakin man... at least some1 high level is stickin up for Z sayin they need more help, thank God.
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On September 24 2010 18:50 Mooncat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 18:06 decemberTV wrote:
Shut the... up please.
You're saying something like "give it a couple of months don't rush patches" to someone who makes a living playing this crappy crappy game. How about i tell you "give it a couple of months before you can earn some actual money from doing your job".
Or, give it a couple of months before you can win a tournament as zerg and find a decent team to sponsor you.
Moreover, early game cannot EVER be f-ing revolutionized. Mid-game, Late-game yes but Early-Game is like an exact science. Uhm... you will probably be surprised, but that's exactly the way it works in the real world most of the times... You work your ass off for little to nothing before the money starts coming in. Especially when you decide to do a "job" like this. There's always the risk that you won't make it at all, and you know that before you do it. Fucking the game up by rushing patches isn't helping anyone though...
They dont have labour laws in your country ? Just stop it. Work with no pay is slavery. This is the only "job" in the world where you are not protected in anyway and then along comes blizzard that works in geological time to f. it all up even more.
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On September 24 2010 10:59 Uhh Negative wrote:
Blizzard needs to fix zerg early game weakness soon so that other imbalances are revealed. Once the early game imbalances are fixed then we can move on to the "real" imbalances in the mid and late game. Who knows, maybe zerg will be the most powerful race late game if they are allowed to get through the early game and into midgame on even footing with the other races.
Normally I would agree with this, The early game has a multiplicative effect on mid and late game. However since it is very obvious Zerg has major issues with maxed armies you should at least keep that in mind while fixing the early game.
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I feel a lot of Zerg's problems stem from the wall-off in both the ZvP and ZvT matchups. Not only does it make it hard to scout but it kills any chance of harrass, except for Mutalisks.
Now against a decent Terran he'll just turret up his base, which to overcome you need a critical mass of Mutas, by the time you have that amount of mutalisks you are so heavily gas invested in them that you MUST do damage to your enemies economy or you will straight up lose. Really, settling for killing off the odd tech-lab or supply depot with the Mutalisks isn't enough.
Let's compare this to a Terran's options. He has Reaper play, which can transition nicely to a strong bio composition. He has Helions, later blue-flame Helion drops. Marauder drops, Banshee harass, all the while producing a highly resource-efficient army. When these harrass opportunities are open for the Terran there is little or no chance of a counter-attack for the Zerg and the Terran gets to scout most of the Zerg's base as an added bonus.
I'm not sure what it is like at God-tier level of play, but I feel the Zerg is on the back-foot most of the game, doing their best to macro-up to hold off various timing pushes later in the game or to attempt to break the Terran wall-in.
Without completely restructuring the game, what numbers could be tweaked to make the Zerg more viable?
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How the tank change is not significant is beyond me really. Every unit except the roach, ultra and infestor will be taking less damage. Sure the amount of critical shots for plenty of units won't change but splash damage will alot. Lings and banelings can take shots much better now which is pretty big.
Also fast reaper openings may still counter hatch first, it definately became easier to expand for zerg.
Idra is just a bit of a whiner in general and though he might be right it won't be enough I still think it will be a substantial change to the matchups for Z.
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There's not much to discuss since everything IdrA said is correct and easily agreeable.
This patch won't change much but it's a start. Now Zerg players don't have to be as tense as before when playing versus Reapers.
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On September 24 2010 18:06 decemberTV wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:58 Mooncat wrote:
Idra contradicts himself quite a bit here imho. First he talks about changing what's currently a problem, then he suggests fixing the underlying problems that make terran imbalanced in his opinion instead of just changing single units. Then he goes on about changing stuff that is currently a problem again. He also admits that problems that were a problem a month ago are problems no more today.
So basically what he wants is for the races he considers imbalanced to undergo a change in how they essentially work instead of tweaking units. At the same time though he requests that single units/combos/strategies that are currently a problem should be nerfed although he is fully aware that they might be no problem anymore in a few weeks.
Conclusions:
#1 Give the game a little more time instead of rushing patches. What is a problem today might already be totally figured out in 2 or 3 weeks.
#2 This is exactly where Patch 1.1 went wrong. It changed flavor of the month problems instead of analyzing how the different matchups could go more smoothly and be less static by making small adjustments to the basic problems each of the 3 races has.
#3 With the right approach in mind(#2), and I can't emphasize this enough, give the game TIME and THEN patch. Maybe tomorrow a genius Zerg comes along and revolutionizes the whole Zerg early game.
Imho the problems in ZvT(and ZvP) have little to nothing to do with single units. Zerg is just not very versatile in the early stages of the game which creates a variety of problems. a) You're kinda forced to go for the same safe opening(with some slight variations and map adjustments) again and again and again. This will bore many players. b) That safe opening isn't even 100% safe, but what is 100% in Starcraft? c) You can dominate midgame with mutas, but it's pretty difficult to go for the kill with mutas only or muta/speedling/baneling. That means that every ZvT against an equally skilled opponent basically goes to lategame if you want to win it, which can be very tiresome.
All this makes for a very static/deadlocked matchup.
Early Game: Terran pressures => Terran wins or Zerg defends
Mid Game: Zerg has map control with mutas while massing speedlings and banelings to counter any sort of big terran push. If Terran really screws up, Zerg can finish the game here. If everything plays out "standard" though, the game will transition to lategame.
Late Game: 200 supply mech vs 200 supply Speedling/Baneling/Muta/Ultra. Zerg is probably in a slightly better position to win here than Terran.
Of course not every ZvT goes like that, but that's how the matchup works in general and this has to be fixed somehow imho. But again, "fixing" single units is totally the wrong approach as far as I'm concerned.
Shut the... up please. You're saying something like "give it a couple of months don't rush patches" to someone who makes a living playing this crappy crappy game. How about i tell you "give it a couple of months before you can earn some actual money from doing your job". Or, give it a couple of months before you can win a tournament as zerg and find a decent team to sponsor you. Moreover, early game cannot EVER be f-ing revolutionized. Mid-game, Late-game yes but Early-Game is like an exact science.
You serious? If you're just playing as a job and for the monies, then the obvious move is to play the strongest race until it's fixed.
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by eliminating 1 big threat (the reaper) will make everything else weaker aswell. id wait a month before i make a decision about tvz early game balance.
personally i feel that tvz had many strong allins, but reaper was the only one that wasnt a coinflip win, it was just a straight up win.
i think the tank nerf is gonna make a bigger change in tvp than tvz, however i still like the nerf in general
i agreed with all blizzards changes except the bc nerf
this patch will give high level zergs a greater chanse to win but i dont think they eliminated the issue of losing on a coinflip, the feeling of knowing u cant play safe. saccing an overlord doesnt necasarily scout what u need and then rly all u did was lose an overlord, and this is the best way of scouting zerg has
i think buffing spine crawlers once again against armored units will be a nice change because i feel that this would help vs alot of bs terran can do. in sc1 zerg could protect with massling and/or sunkens(spine crawlers) before mutas arrived, maybe we should create same idea with sc2. defend timing attacks such as 2rax marauder reactor hellion with spines instead of pure units, after all thats what static defense should be good at but right now i fear units that are defending more than spines
the only thing i disagree with is the degree he says it wont change alot, i think its gonna change quite a bit. i believe changing minor things can turn everything around in a rts game
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On September 24 2010 18:56 decemberTV wrote:
They dont have labour laws in your country ? Just stop it. Work with no pay is slavery. This is the only "job" in the world where you are not protected in anyway and then along comes blizzard that works in geological time to f. it all up even more.
You realise that in sports it's pretty standard to work for nothing unless you're massively successful and lucky enough to find sponsorship or win major tournaments? Are Olympic athletes slaves too?
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On September 24 2010 19:16 waxypants wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 18:06 decemberTV wrote:On September 24 2010 17:58 Mooncat wrote:
Idra contradicts himself quite a bit here imho. First he talks about changing what's currently a problem, then he suggests fixing the underlying problems that make terran imbalanced in his opinion instead of just changing single units. Then he goes on about changing stuff that is currently a problem again. He also admits that problems that were a problem a month ago are problems no more today.
So basically what he wants is for the races he considers imbalanced to undergo a change in how they essentially work instead of tweaking units. At the same time though he requests that single units/combos/strategies that are currently a problem should be nerfed although he is fully aware that they might be no problem anymore in a few weeks.
Conclusions:
#1 Give the game a little more time instead of rushing patches. What is a problem today might already be totally figured out in 2 or 3 weeks.
#2 This is exactly where Patch 1.1 went wrong. It changed flavor of the month problems instead of analyzing how the different matchups could go more smoothly and be less static by making small adjustments to the basic problems each of the 3 races has.
#3 With the right approach in mind(#2), and I can't emphasize this enough, give the game TIME and THEN patch. Maybe tomorrow a genius Zerg comes along and revolutionizes the whole Zerg early game.
Imho the problems in ZvT(and ZvP) have little to nothing to do with single units. Zerg is just not very versatile in the early stages of the game which creates a variety of problems. a) You're kinda forced to go for the same safe opening(with some slight variations and map adjustments) again and again and again. This will bore many players. b) That safe opening isn't even 100% safe, but what is 100% in Starcraft? c) You can dominate midgame with mutas, but it's pretty difficult to go for the kill with mutas only or muta/speedling/baneling. That means that every ZvT against an equally skilled opponent basically goes to lategame if you want to win it, which can be very tiresome.
All this makes for a very static/deadlocked matchup.
Early Game: Terran pressures => Terran wins or Zerg defends
Mid Game: Zerg has map control with mutas while massing speedlings and banelings to counter any sort of big terran push. If Terran really screws up, Zerg can finish the game here. If everything plays out "standard" though, the game will transition to lategame.
Late Game: 200 supply mech vs 200 supply Speedling/Baneling/Muta/Ultra. Zerg is probably in a slightly better position to win here than Terran.
Of course not every ZvT goes like that, but that's how the matchup works in general and this has to be fixed somehow imho. But again, "fixing" single units is totally the wrong approach as far as I'm concerned.
Shut the... up please. You're saying something like "give it a couple of months don't rush patches" to someone who makes a living playing this crappy crappy game. How about i tell you "give it a couple of months before you can earn some actual money from doing your job". Or, give it a couple of months before you can win a tournament as zerg and find a decent team to sponsor you. Moreover, early game cannot EVER be f-ing revolutionized. Mid-game, Late-game yes but Early-Game is like an exact science. You serious? If you're just playing as a job and for the monies, then the obvious move is to play the strongest race until it's fixed.
So did you see the thread about Fruitseller and Check switching to Terran ? Did you read the one about Dimaga wanting to switch to terran ? Did you see DarkForce playing Terran right after the patch was released ?
Switching races isnt done over the weekend. You'd need at least 1000 games with one race before you can say you're not playing that race the way you're supposed to.
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Tell me a place and I'll put my signature under it.
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When i play zerg i find it really tough compared to playing Terran, while i offrace and fought against players in my league i can win as a terran eventhough i played less than 30 terran games, i am a top 200 in sea, i really dont get it. making infestors is going for a high risk investment , they die so easily and it is better to focus on ling/muta in a ZvT instead of going infestor, i have tried mix and match many times but the best is just mass muta ling/blings we have no other choice and we have to react to the enemy, the start of the game terran has already gain advantage of
1) scouting
2) Game control
Hydras are just the weaker and more expensive version of Marines and Terran has free dropship which allow hatchery to be destroyed and backdoored, command centers can be repaired and scv are constantly producing SCVc while Zerg has to balance the econ vs units.
It is in theory that zerg can switch tech faster than terran but it is just not Viable in reality.
I also find it really funny that Terran keep saying zerg is QQing. If a zerg player plays a terran the same way, muta would have no chance as it is easily counterd by really cheap cost of turrets and marines with stims can still have map control with double dropships in play. Hellions are also a great way to force zerg to reduce drones and up crawlers. with decent micro and without creep-grounds, MMM can really stim away banes as there is lag time in Move-Attack-Move MMMs. Thors are really too strong with SCV repairing . all these are overpowered abuse that most good terrans are not even abusing it. especially SCV repairing while zerg has squeeezed every single strategy to think and counter.
Not only this, in late game with upgrades, Zerg has to rely on Muta and blings to hold off the MMMs but as time passess when MMs get 3-3 Upgrades, zerg upgrades cannot catch up as zerglings 3-3 will not be viable against MMs 3-3, it is not hard to get 3-3 and when they do its practically GG. This is an upgrade advantage for terran.
Every single factor including the map that is imbalance now(too small/Hills) is favouring terran.
There are so many maps that terran can abuse yet they dont have to and win the game, what if they did? what if they scv repair every game? its the best abuse ever. Terran players are just not up to par in micro and macro compare to a zerg which in the same league/rank.
I find playing terran is really easy and if i really switch my race i would be 2x better off. i really like zerg, its a shame. im thinking of switching. Thanks for listening.
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On September 24 2010 19:19 MorroW wrote:
by eliminating 1 big threat (the reaper) will make everything else weaker aswell. id wait a month before i make a decision about tvz early game balance.
personally i feel that tvz had many strong allins, but reaper was the only one that wasnt a coinflip win, it was just a straight up win.
i think the tank nerf is gonna make a bigger change in tvp than tvz, however i still like the nerf in general
i agreed with all blizzards changes except the bc nerf
this patch will give high level zergs a greater chanse to win but i dont think they eliminated the issue of losing on a coinflip, the feeling of knowing u cant play safe. saccing an overlord doesnt necasarily scout what u need and then rly all u did was lose an overlord, and this is the best way of scouting zerg has
i think buffing spine crawlers once again against armored units will be a nice change because i feel that this would help vs alot of bs terran can do
yeah zerg needs a better mean of scouting early and i agree a spine crawler buff against armored would help a lot too
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In response to buffing spine crawlers vs. armored: Don't spine crawlers become largely irrelevant anyway once Marauders have stim?
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On September 24 2010 19:19 MorroW wrote:
i think buffing spine crawlers once again against armored units will be a nice change because i feel that this would help vs alot of bs terran can do. in sc1 zerg could protect with massling and/or sunkens(spine crawlers) before mutas arrived, maybe we should create same idea with sc2. defend timing attacks such as 2rax marauder reactor hellion with spines instead of pure units, after all thats what static defense should be good at but right now i fear units that are defending more than spines
the only thing i disagree with is the degree he says it wont change alot, i think its gonna change quite a bit. i believe changing minor things can turn everything around in a rts game
This, and alot of other big problems could be changed by making all buildings non armored.
This way spinecrawlers would be ALOT more viable. Also the ridicilous strong Marauder drops would stop, stimmed marauders are already crazy good in army fights, no need to make them be able to kill buildings faster then anything else in the game.
Buildings could get a "building" modifier instead of the armored, and Immortals, reapers and siegetanks could still be doing that extra damage to "building".
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On September 24 2010 18:56 decemberTV wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 18:50 Mooncat wrote:On September 24 2010 18:06 decemberTV wrote:
Shut the... up please.
You're saying something like "give it a couple of months don't rush patches" to someone who makes a living playing this crappy crappy game. How about i tell you "give it a couple of months before you can earn some actual money from doing your job".
Or, give it a couple of months before you can win a tournament as zerg and find a decent team to sponsor you.
Moreover, early game cannot EVER be f-ing revolutionized. Mid-game, Late-game yes but Early-Game is like an exact science. Uhm... you will probably be surprised, but that's exactly the way it works in the real world most of the times... You work your ass off for little to nothing before the money starts coming in. Especially when you decide to do a "job" like this. There's always the risk that you won't make it at all, and you know that before you do it. Fucking the game up by rushing patches isn't helping anyone though... They dont have labour laws in your country ? Just stop it. Work with no pay is slavery. This is the only "job" in the world where you are not protected in anyway and then along comes blizzard that works in geological time to f. it all up even more.
Seems to be a nice world you're living in... everybody's paid, nobody's poor, everyone's protected and safe... sadly, it has nothing to do with the real world.
Just take the model business as an example. How many girls invest thousands of dollars in big tits and go to New York, just to share an apartment with 15 Russian girls who are younger & more beautiful than themselves? One of those girls is going to get jobs as a model, the other 15 fail hard, become prostitutes or go back to their home country to live in poverty. Just one of the million examples of jobs where you take the risk of earning nothing first to earn big later.
And I guess you've also never heard of voluntary service, have you? You have no idea how many people work at a company for months for free, just to get the chance to get a job there.
But hey, never mind. Have fun in your candy land! 
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On September 24 2010 19:21 decemberTV wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 19:16 waxypants wrote:On September 24 2010 18:06 decemberTV wrote:On September 24 2010 17:58 Mooncat wrote:
Idra contradicts himself quite a bit here imho. First he talks about changing what's currently a problem, then he suggests fixing the underlying problems that make terran imbalanced in his opinion instead of just changing single units. Then he goes on about changing stuff that is currently a problem again. He also admits that problems that were a problem a month ago are problems no more today.
So basically what he wants is for the races he considers imbalanced to undergo a change in how they essentially work instead of tweaking units. At the same time though he requests that single units/combos/strategies that are currently a problem should be nerfed although he is fully aware that they might be no problem anymore in a few weeks.
Conclusions:
#1 Give the game a little more time instead of rushing patches. What is a problem today might already be totally figured out in 2 or 3 weeks.
#2 This is exactly where Patch 1.1 went wrong. It changed flavor of the month problems instead of analyzing how the different matchups could go more smoothly and be less static by making small adjustments to the basic problems each of the 3 races has.
#3 With the right approach in mind(#2), and I can't emphasize this enough, give the game TIME and THEN patch. Maybe tomorrow a genius Zerg comes along and revolutionizes the whole Zerg early game.
Imho the problems in ZvT(and ZvP) have little to nothing to do with single units. Zerg is just not very versatile in the early stages of the game which creates a variety of problems. a) You're kinda forced to go for the same safe opening(with some slight variations and map adjustments) again and again and again. This will bore many players. b) That safe opening isn't even 100% safe, but what is 100% in Starcraft? c) You can dominate midgame with mutas, but it's pretty difficult to go for the kill with mutas only or muta/speedling/baneling. That means that every ZvT against an equally skilled opponent basically goes to lategame if you want to win it, which can be very tiresome.
All this makes for a very static/deadlocked matchup.
Early Game: Terran pressures => Terran wins or Zerg defends
Mid Game: Zerg has map control with mutas while massing speedlings and banelings to counter any sort of big terran push. If Terran really screws up, Zerg can finish the game here. If everything plays out "standard" though, the game will transition to lategame.
Late Game: 200 supply mech vs 200 supply Speedling/Baneling/Muta/Ultra. Zerg is probably in a slightly better position to win here than Terran.
Of course not every ZvT goes like that, but that's how the matchup works in general and this has to be fixed somehow imho. But again, "fixing" single units is totally the wrong approach as far as I'm concerned.
Shut the... up please. You're saying something like "give it a couple of months don't rush patches" to someone who makes a living playing this crappy crappy game. How about i tell you "give it a couple of months before you can earn some actual money from doing your job". Or, give it a couple of months before you can win a tournament as zerg and find a decent team to sponsor you. Moreover, early game cannot EVER be f-ing revolutionized. Mid-game, Late-game yes but Early-Game is like an exact science. You serious? If you're just playing as a job and for the monies, then the obvious move is to play the strongest race until it's fixed. So did you see the thread about Fruitseller and Check switching to Terran ? Did you read the one about Dimaga wanting to switch to terran ? Did you see DarkForce playing Terran right after the patch was released ? Switching races isnt done over the weekend. You'd need at least 1000 games with one race before you can say you're not playing that race the way you're supposed to.
The point was that you don't have sit around for months waiting for Blizzard, they should have switched a while ago to the obvious strongest race until it get fixed since it's obvious Blizzard is going to take its sweet time.
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Even as a silver league terran scrub, I think IdrA is dead right. The reaper nerf barely changes the 5-rax openings, and the tank nerf means next to nothing against lings and blings, since they're still one-shotted by the direct tank attack; roaches and ultralisks still take the exact same damage; and hydralisks still suck off-creep so they won't be used much. And the terran player is usually going to have a group of tanks set up to take out a mass of those units anyway, so even though the outer splash damage is insufficient to 1-shot lings, the chances are that it won't matter because the 5 or 6 tanks sat behind the bioball or thors will make mincemeat of the zerg ground army.
I think the tank nerf mostly affects TvP, where zealots, sentries, high templars, and DTs will no longer be one-shotted by the main siege attack.
Zerg needs help with early game defence. I don't even think it will take a huge change to bring that about, but it needs to be something that gives zerg either better scouting (so that they can react more quickly to what's coming) or a more all-purpose unit that they can use flexibly to fend off whatever is thrown at them. Perhaps even just making queens a little faster off-creep would turn them into a viable all-purpose early defensive unit, because their damage and health are pretty damn good. You'd have to get the balance right to prevent people wanting to just mass queens and attack with them (though this is already offset to a large degree by the fact that you can't make them from larva), but it's one choice if we're looking for a small tweak to make a big difference in the early game.
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On September 24 2010 10:28 MegaBUD wrote:
Come on guys... Idra isnt god... he gonna qq like every other zerg player because they didnt receive buff...
User was warned for this post
User was temp banned for this post.
IdrA is a StarCraft veteran and is most worth hearing out on what his thoughts on this matter is because he knows what hes talking about
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I absolutely agree with what IdrA said, but I do think the -5 DMG nerf on the Ultras has a larger impact on the Zerg-lategame, especially against Toss, where Ultras are basically the only Unit worth going T3 for and before T3, Zerg isn't that strong against Toss either...
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Can anyone please tell me why Idra says protoss are stronger PvT late game now than prepatch? Tank nerf? BC nerf?? Maybe i missed something....
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I have never been so mad losing a game where i should win, with zerg i am about to throw my mouse, seriously.
When i was playing warcraft 3 with night elf, i never felt like this, because every win is a win and every lost is a deserved but playing zerg is, i am better than my opp yet i lost because of some crap load of imbalance.
Every zerg will feel the same frustration as what i am feeling. Throwing mouse. and keyboard.
=/
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I am not saying that Zerg vs Terran is fine at the moment but crying for faster changes in ZvT and then later on admitting this:
(direct quote)
"The zealot's build and warpin times were also increased 5 seconds, and this could have a far more significant impact on the game. At the time the patch changes were decided zealot rushes were the only popular way for protoss to pressure zerg, and as such nerfing zealots should give zerg the time they need to establish a decent footing early game. However, since then protosses have perfected several new types of cannon rushes that serve almost as well to prevent fast expansions. Given that zealots are no longer a big threat early its possible that zerg can find a way to deal with the threat of cannon rush which would allow them to transition into the midgame in much better shape than was possible before the patch. This, though quite likely not large enough, was a reasonable change by Blizzard as it is difficult to tell how large an impact early game changes will have."
sounds suspicious to me. He basically says that a lot of players completely overreacted to zealots because they didn't see the strategy against them yet. However, they managed to invent one. Why shouldn't this be the case with other things?
Idra gives a prime example how to justify the "do it slow" approach of Blizzard in that paragraph.
I say: Keep doing small changes until the game is fine (judged by the pros, not the general forum poster)
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Because zerg player has squeezed every single strategy out of zerg while terran players have not, and still winning games.
dont you get it? bronze player?
He is saying that there is a trend in play and zealots nerf is expired. now people just use cannon to stop FE.
Terran potential is so wide and huge that even the pros are not utilizing it while zerg play is so advanced that the limitations has stopped zerg evolving. Jesus christ, when will people like (blizzard and you) get it?
If you are a non zerg player i understand you will not feel the frustration.. but please .
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On September 24 2010 19:06 Markwerf wrote:
How the tank change is not significant is beyond me really. Every unit except the roach, ultra and infestor will be taking less damage. Sure the amount of critical shots for plenty of units won't change but splash damage will alot. Lings and banelings can take shots much better now which is pretty big.
Also fast reaper openings may still counter hatch first, it definately became easier to expand for zerg.
Idra is just a bit of a whiner in general and though he might be right it won't be enough I still think it will be a substantial change to the matchups for Z.
agree, baneling bust is more viable later on in the game (tank protected ramp)
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On September 24 2010 19:55 FatHuntresS wrote:
Terran potential is so wide and huge that even the pros are not utilizing it while zerg play is so advanced that the limitations has stopped zerg evolving.
You can't just state things like that expect to be taken seriously.
The game has been out less than two months. How many months of beta did it take for these godlike Zerg players to realize magic boxed mutas rape thors?
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On September 24 2010 19:51 necmon wrote:
I am not saying that Zerg vs Terran is fine at the moment but crying for faster changes in ZvT and then later on admitting this:
(direct quote)
"The zealot's build and warpin times were also increased 5 seconds, and this could have a far more significant impact on the game. At the time the patch changes were decided zealot rushes were the only popular way for protoss to pressure zerg, and as such nerfing zealots should give zerg the time they need to establish a decent footing early game. However, since then protosses have perfected several new types of cannon rushes that serve almost as well to prevent fast expansions. Given that zealots are no longer a big threat early its possible that zerg can find a way to deal with the threat of cannon rush which would allow them to transition into the midgame in much better shape than was possible before the patch. This, though quite likely not large enough, was a reasonable change by Blizzard as it is difficult to tell how large an impact early game changes will have."
sounds suspicious to me. He basically says that a lot of players completely overreacted to zealots because they didn't see the strategy against them yet. However, they managed to invent one. Why shouldn't this be the case with other things?
Idra gives a prime example how to justify the "do it slow" approach of Blizzard in that paragraph.
I say: Keep doing small changes until the game is fine (judged by the pros, not the general forum poster)
no he doesnt. it just means blizzard sucks at making balance changes and isnt on top of their own game.
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On September 24 2010 20:43 kojinshugi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 19:55 FatHuntresS wrote:
Terran potential is so wide and huge that even the pros are not utilizing it while zerg play is so advanced that the limitations has stopped zerg evolving. You can't just state things like that expect to be taken seriously. The game has been out less than two months. How many months of beta did it take for these godlike Zerg players to realize magic boxed mutas rape thors?
what u want them to discover roach magic box now?
ROFL
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On September 24 2010 19:51 necmon wrote:
I am not saying that Zerg vs Terran is fine at the moment but crying for faster changes in ZvT and then later on admitting this:
(direct quote)
"The zealot's build and warpin times were also increased 5 seconds, and this could have a far more significant impact on the game. At the time the patch changes were decided zealot rushes were the only popular way for protoss to pressure zerg, and as such nerfing zealots should give zerg the time they need to establish a decent footing early game. However, since then protosses have perfected several new types of cannon rushes that serve almost as well to prevent fast expansions. Given that zealots are no longer a big threat early its possible that zerg can find a way to deal with the threat of cannon rush which would allow them to transition into the midgame in much better shape than was possible before the patch. This, though quite likely not large enough, was a reasonable change by Blizzard as it is difficult to tell how large an impact early game changes will have."
sounds suspicious to me. He basically says that a lot of players completely overreacted to zealots because they didn't see the strategy against them yet. However, they managed to invent one. Why shouldn't this be the case with other things?
Idra gives a prime example how to justify the "do it slow" approach of Blizzard in that paragraph.
I say: Keep doing small changes until the game is fine (judged by the pros, not the general forum poster)
not really. zealot rushes were still ridiculously strong before the patch, the cannon rushes were just an additional threat early game. now, given the patch, its down to only cannon rushes and perhap proxy gates.
do it slow is acceptable for some things, but when its blatantly obvious that small changes will not be enough theres no reason to take it slow.
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Idra seems to be advocating a "spam minor patches every other tuesday" approach.
Whereas Blizzard's approach is "let's see if players learn to counter things and make small incremental changes if they don't counter certain things well enough".
I really don't understand that complaints about scouting. Can someone please explain why you can't float in an ovie every few minutes? Because it dies?
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On September 24 2010 20:47 FatHuntresS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 20:43 kojinshugi wrote:On September 24 2010 19:55 FatHuntresS wrote:
Terran potential is so wide and huge that even the pros are not utilizing it while zerg play is so advanced that the limitations has stopped zerg evolving. You can't just state things like that expect to be taken seriously. The game has been out less than two months. How many months of beta did it take for these godlike Zerg players to realize magic boxed mutas rape thors? what u want them to discover roach magic box now? ROFL
No, I'm saying they played for months thinking small numbers of thors hard countered mutas. Small paradigm shifts like the magic box (whether it's a micro trick like that or a strategy or a build) can change the entire game. Claiming zerg strategy is fully evolved at such an early point is ridiculous.
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Can you stop asking noob questions?
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On September 24 2010 20:55 kojinshugi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 20:47 FatHuntresS wrote:On September 24 2010 20:43 kojinshugi wrote:On September 24 2010 19:55 FatHuntresS wrote:
Terran potential is so wide and huge that even the pros are not utilizing it while zerg play is so advanced that the limitations has stopped zerg evolving. You can't just state things like that expect to be taken seriously. The game has been out less than two months. How many months of beta did it take for these godlike Zerg players to realize magic boxed mutas rape thors? what u want them to discover roach magic box now? ROFL No, I'm saying they played for months thinking small numbers of thors hard countered mutas. Small paradigm shifts like the magic box (whether it's a micro trick like that or a strategy or a build) can change the entire game. Claiming zerg strategy is fully evolved at such an early point is ridiculous.
Claiming terran strategy is fully evolved is equally ridiculous
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On September 24 2010 21:04 schiznak wrote:
Claiming terran strategy is fully evolved is equally ridiculous
No one ever claimed that. The whole idea here is that the game is too new to be making sweeping balance changes left and right.
Maybe the argument can be made that zerg is fundamentally ill suited for early game for some reason, but then make that argument and back it up with evidence and possible solutions. Arguing against Blizzard's decision to not be too trigger happy with balance changes is fruitless, because it's a really good decision. A game that's constantly going through radical changes before the player base can adjust to the new rules is a game that won't last, especially not competitively.
This thread is about Idra's comments on 1.1, but, like half the threads on TL, has devolved into a zerg whinefest where people make ridiculous statements like "top zerg players have reached the skill cap".
Also, fathuntress, stop picking fights and being a rude jackass.
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1. lower dmg of marauders with 3 + change concussive shells speed decrease to 25% instead of 50%
2. increase range of roaches by 3
3. increase health of hydras by 150% and increase their speed of creep with 25%
4. decrease the helians speed by 10%
5. let banelings walk through enemies
some minor changes that will help the balance a little bit
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sorry you are the one having no idea what you're talking about. The game isnt that new anymore.
Pro gamers come from different background, sc wc3 .. they catch up really fast and judging by the current situation you really do have no idea what you're talking about.
I guess we let idra discover the next big thing , maybe mass infestors.. or wait no.. fast tech ultra wait no dimaga tried that.. magic box roach TT.. burrow unburrow.. fast droppping overlords no wiat SEN did that.. what else.. think think think.. larvae rush.
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@kojinshugi :
While I do agree that the game obviously will evolve more and people will more or less figure out a way to compensate, the problem is that they have to compensate in the first place. It is a fact that a Zerg player has to outmicro and outthink his T opponent like crazy to win the game, and that alone is "broken" imo, as races SHOULD ideally be balanced when people play at the "exact" same level.
I'm not saying all T's suck and there are some really good plays from a few T's, but still, usually in a TvP/TvZ matchup, how many times did you go "oh wow" due to some micro or tactical move by the Terran ? It does happen occasionnally, but really not that often. And I'm not saying that the players aren't capable of it, I'm just saying it's just not the most viable option for them. Usually TvZ/TvP is all about the timing push which, if timed correctly, leaves the opponent with no chance or barely.
Another thing : even if the Z or P manages to harass the shit out of the T, one thing that is insanely unfair in my opinion : mules. How many times have I seen a T lose almost all his SCVs, yet the opponent is just not rewarded for his play simply because T drops a few mules and his economy is barely lagging a bit behind. Of course he still has to rebuild an economy etc and it does damage, but compared to the damage done in the same situation to a P or Z, it is laughable. And that's one thing that disturbs me, that T's have the best defence in the game BUT even if you manage to break it, it won't be THAT big a deal in a way. Not to mention it usually triggers a counterpush which with the units composition and err.. lets say balance, does not leave you a chance unless you 1) outmicro 2) outposition and 3) have the exact unit composition to - not counter but - stand a chance.
All in all, it's just so much work and EVEN THEN, it's not a guaranteed win. And as Cool was saying, that's just considering the T is worse than you, if he's got about as good micro and strategic thinking, there's really not many options left. Oh well, I'm hoping to see some serious balance changes
My 2c for ideas would be (since someone posted ideas above) :
1. lower marauder dmg indeed and reduce concussive shells as mentioned above
2. make creep an advantage and not a hinder (as in, without creep you're "normal" but with it it's better, right now not having creep leaves you hindered in many ways in the mid/late game and it's rather easy for a T/P to just kill off creep tumors which every decent player will do)
3. related to above, change hydras to either lesser dps but tier 1.5 to have a better midgame viable option, OR make them quite faster off creep
4. make drop a research for medivacs
5. increase roach range a little to make them better vs hellions in the early game - they're supposed to be a good defense vs hellions but the T can still toy with you on and off creep rather easily, there's simply no good early game defense for Z.
I don't know, it's frustrating even having to think of all that, I wish we could just play and enjoy the game and all that eh.
I do feel like Zerg overall is just incomplete as in, missing units. Is it just me ?
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On September 24 2010 21:20 FatHuntresS wrote:
sorry you are the one having no idea what you're talking about. The game isnt that new anymore.
Pro gamers come from different background, sc wc3 .. they catch up really fast and judging by the current situation you really do have no idea what you're talking about.
Magic box took far longer in beta than the game has been retail.
I guess we let idra discover the next big thing , maybe mass infestors.. or wait no.. fast tech ultra wait no dimaga tried that.. magic box roach TT.. burrow unburrow.. fast droppping overlords no wiat SEN did that.. what else.. think think think.. larvae rush.
My point was not "someone will discover some gimmick and all will change". My point was that it took months for people to discover a gimmick, and to assume every strategy has already been thought of is ridiculous.
You could attempt balance the game on the fly to ensure the current strategies of some section of the playerbase always result in equal representation or win rates.
I think that would break the game something fierce, and it would devalue actual strategy.
As Idra himself said in the linked article, a month ago the reaper/bunker nerf would have helped. And now he thinks it's pointless, because players already deal with it.
So what should they have changed instead? And what's to say those changes wouldn't have come in late as well, once players already learned to deal with it?
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On September 24 2010 21:19 guldurkhand wrote:
1. lower dmg of marauders with 3 + change concussive shells speed decrease to 25% instead of 50%
2. increase range of roaches by 3
3. increase health of hydras by 150% and increase their speed of creep with 25%
4. decrease the helians speed by 10%
5. let banelings walk through enemies
some minor changes that will help the balance a little bit
The only one of those changes that would be minor is the Hellion change. The rest are absolutely huge.
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Some of these proposed changes are getting absolutely absurd... IdrA's included. Why don't we all just wait a bit and see how things play out?
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On September 24 2010 21:39 kojinshugi wrote:
As Idra himself said in the linked article, a month ago the reaper/bunker nerf would have helped. And now he thinks it's pointless, because players already deal with it.
thats not what i said at all, reaper bunker rush and mass reaper were still really really strong. are still quite strong. i meant this patch would have been sufficient a month ago, not that the changes are unnecessary now.
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On September 24 2010 21:38 ket- wrote:
1. lower marauder dmg indeed and reduce concussive shells as mentioned above
Since when are marauders an issue? Counter with immortals or mutas.
2. make creep an advantage and not a hinder (as in, without creep you're "normal" but with it it's better, right now not having creep leaves you hindered in many ways in the mid/late game and it's rather easy for a T/P to just kill off creep tumors which every decent player will do)
That's not a meaningful statement. Being off creep is not a "hinder" because you decide to call it that. I can just as easily say off creep is "normal" and on creep is "bonus".
3. related to above, change hydras to either lesser dps but tier 1.5 to have a better midgame viable option, OR make them quite faster off creep
Hydras could maybe stand to be less squishy.
4. make drop a research for medivacs
That's absurd. Medivacs require rax/fact/starport. Ovie drops require lair/research, and they don't even take up food.
I don't know, it's frustrating even having to think of all that, I wish we could just play and enjoy the game and all that eh.
I don't understand why you play zerg if it's such a painful experience for you. Just switch to toss or something.
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TRUTH (yes, with capital letters)
Now seriously, i like to hear opinion of professionals, any of them. It always shows how things really are, even if one say the same as the crowd, you hear a different direction of it.
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Im not impressed, because making up those conclusions isnt hard. That doesnt mean he is wrong or anything, but his conclusion wasnt special, but nice to see official statements of good players in a good write up
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I'm actually glad Blizzard is a bit behind on the patches. Hopefully more players will return to BW sooner rather than later. Who am I kidding, we still got 2 expansion packs coming so it will probably be six years before we see any resurgence in the BW scene and by then it might be too late for the Korean scene :/
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On September 24 2010 21:48 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 21:39 kojinshugi wrote:
As Idra himself said in the linked article, a month ago the reaper/bunker nerf would have helped. And now he thinks it's pointless, because players already deal with it.
thats not what i said at all, reaper bunker rush and mass reaper were still really really strong. are still quite strong. i meant this patch would have been sufficient a month ago, not that the changes are unnecessary now.
So you do propose nerfing every development in the meta game?
"oh look terran are winning with a clever viking / hellion play, that needs to be nerfed"
"oh look terrans are winning with ghost rush that needs to be nerfed"
it seems like you want to nerf every way the terrans have to win?
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On September 24 2010 21:48 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 21:39 kojinshugi wrote:
As Idra himself said in the linked article, a month ago the reaper/bunker nerf would have helped. And now he thinks it's pointless, because players already deal with it.
thats not what i said at all, reaper bunker rush and mass reaper were still really really strong. are still quite strong. i meant this patch would have been sufficient a month ago, not that the changes are unnecessary now.
Okay, sorry for the misinterpretation. I know they're still strong, but they're not really IWIN buttons either.
So basically you're advocating a faster reaction time to patch and deal with seeming imbalances like that? How fast? Biweekly? And what's an imbalance in this context, something that consistently forces one base openings?
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough.
Hmm... Glad to see you agree on the overlord base speed and the NP change. The NP change is pretty much required to fight thors since no unit is actually cost effective vs them pre-hive.
You make a damn good point about the ramp block with pylons/bunkers. It's more of a stupid nuisance than anything, forcing you to pull an early drone, but it's still imbalanced.
I don't think changing hydras and roaches that dramatically would be good for ZvP though. P gateway units don't really fare terribly well vs hydra/roach balls which is why you absolutely must have storm or colossi to help cut through them. Buffs to hydra/roach might tip the scales on early game (although 4 gate is still broken on some maps like xelnaga). It's really hard to say what would happen, but it'd definitely shift things.
The faster burrow speed is another thing I posted on earlier in this thread, so that's 3 things we apparently agree on.
What do you think about my suggestion with nerfing missile turrets vs light armor though? I know it won't do anything to TvT or TvP since turrets don't deal with banshees (except en masse and as detection) and voidrays very well anyways.
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On September 24 2010 21:39 kojinshugi wrote:
Magic box took far longer in beta than the game has been retail.
Thor's didn't own clumped mutas like they do now all the way through beta
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On September 24 2010 20:43 kojinshugi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 19:55 FatHuntresS wrote:
Terran potential is so wide and huge that even the pros are not utilizing it while zerg play is so advanced that the limitations has stopped zerg evolving. You can't just state things like that expect to be taken seriously. The game has been out less than two months. How many months of beta did it take for these godlike Zerg players to realize magic boxed mutas rape thors?
It's not really rape. Rape would be marauders vs stalkers or marauders vs roach. Thor vs muta is still heavily biased for the Thor, even with the magic box, but now you can actually kill a few thors. Mutas aren't going to kill equal-cost thors.
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On September 24 2010 12:25 Rice wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:29 SubtleArt wrote:
I remember Idra saying that ZvP lategame dramatically favored Zerg, but that seems to have changed. The game's deceptively simple at first, so I think we should just avoid knee jerk claims about balance and let it play itself out first. that was when roach was 1 food and had insane regen at t3
He was still saying it after that, as recently as Day9's KoTB tourney
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On September 24 2010 19:23 DTH12 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 19:19 MorroW wrote:
by eliminating 1 big threat (the reaper) will make everything else weaker aswell. id wait a month before i make a decision about tvz early game balance.
personally i feel that tvz had many strong allins, but reaper was the only one that wasnt a coinflip win, it was just a straight up win.
i think the tank nerf is gonna make a bigger change in tvp than tvz, however i still like the nerf in general
i agreed with all blizzards changes except the bc nerf
this patch will give high level zergs a greater chanse to win but i dont think they eliminated the issue of losing on a coinflip, the feeling of knowing u cant play safe. saccing an overlord doesnt necasarily scout what u need and then rly all u did was lose an overlord, and this is the best way of scouting zerg has
i think buffing spine crawlers once again against armored units will be a nice change because i feel that this would help vs alot of bs terran can do yeah zerg needs a better mean of scouting early and i agree a spine crawler buff against armored would help a lot too
Even better than the Overlord? Hmmm ... I cant see any other race having such a cheap and potentially permanent scout that early.
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On September 24 2010 21:48 IdrA wrote:
thats not what i said at all, reaper bunker rush and mass reaper were still really really strong. are still quite strong. i meant this patch would have been sufficient a month ago, not that the changes are unnecessary now.
OK, I misinterpreted you then . I agree with your view that imbalances are only found after extensive periods of playing when people try to invent new tactics (or cheeses). Now you seem to expect from Blizzard that they react faster and I think it's a valid point. I also wondered why they announced a patch with all the details (change X for Y percent), then released it a month later. Made no sense to me, but they had probably quite a good reason for this, like not wanting to affect league play or something? I can only guess, but to me it would make sense to not bring out a patch for a game during a season of something.
Please note that this is different for SC2 in comparison to BW because you cannot play LAN with a specific patch you are choosing (not being able to play in LAN is a major problem in itself, in my opinion). From a pro stand point it would also suck to change patches in between rounds of a league/tournament, or not?
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On September 24 2010 21:39 kojinshugi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 21:20 FatHuntresS wrote:
sorry you are the one having no idea what you're talking about. The game isnt that new anymore.
Pro gamers come from different background, sc wc3 .. they catch up really fast and judging by the current situation you really do have no idea what you're talking about. Magic box took far longer in beta than the game has been retail. Show nested quote +I guess we let idra discover the next big thing , maybe mass infestors.. or wait no.. fast tech ultra wait no dimaga tried that.. magic box roach TT.. burrow unburrow.. fast droppping overlords no wiat SEN did that.. what else.. think think think.. larvae rush. My point was not "someone will discover some gimmick and all will change". My point was that it took months for people to discover a gimmick, and to assume every strategy has already been thought of is ridiculous. You could attempt balance the game on the fly to ensure the current strategies of some section of the playerbase always result in equal representation or win rates. I think that would break the game something fierce, and it would devalue actual strategy. As Idra himself said in the linked article, a month ago the reaper/bunker nerf would have helped. And now he thinks it's pointless, because players already deal with it. So what should they have changed instead? And what's to say those changes wouldn't have come in late as well, once players already learned to deal with it?
Flawed reasoning. If somebody discovers a gimmick that is really strong Blizzard will remove it not to mention there is a 67% chance that the gimmick or new strategy will be in Terran's or Protoss favor.
I think its far more likely that any new really strong strategies will be Terran because their abilites and synergy are just better.
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I laughed at the 67%.
There is a 100% chance that a gimmick will be discovered.
There is a 33% chance that your race discovers the gimmick.
There is a 67% chance that your race will not discover the gimmick.
So, your 67% is true for every race ;-)
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On September 24 2010 22:26 necmon wrote:
I laughed at the 67%.
There is a 100% chance that a gimmick will be discovered.
There is a 33% chance that your race discovers the gimmick.
There is a 67% chance that your race will not discover the gimmick.
So, your 67% is true for every race ;-) nah i dont think its evenly distributed, since terran has the most openings, they got the most chance of discovering it. eg. terran has 50% chance of discovering it, then protoss and zerg 30 and 20 respectively. i think masterasia was saying something like this, eventually terran will become the strongest because they got so much potential, but i might have misinterpreted xD
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On September 24 2010 20:48 IdrA wrote:
not really. zealot rushes were still ridiculously strong before the patch, the cannon rushes were just an additional threat early game. now, given the patch, its down to only cannon rushes and perhap proxy gates.
do it slow is acceptable for some things, but when its blatantly obvious that small changes will not be enough theres no reason to take it slow.
Hey IdrA,
I'm a little confused by what you mean here. When you say you don't think Blizzard should take it slow, do you mean they should release more patches, quicker? Or do you mean the patches they do release should have more significant changes?
Because if you mean the former, Blizzard seems to be proving to us that they can't release a patch without significant bugs even when they have the exact changelist far in advance (frigging splashlisk).
Do you not think it's possible for a single patch with significant changes to completely flip the balance in the other direction?
Also, you mentioned changing the range of roaches to 4. This seems reasonable to me and would make early roach pressure a lot stronger. It would, however, completely negate reapers in the matchup.
Do you feel reapers have a long term place in this game besides being a token scouting unit? Have you ever had any ideas involving reapers that would make them fit into the game in a more reasonable fashion? It always seems like they are either useless or game-breaking. No middle ground.
Hope you can answer at least some of these!
Thanks IdrA
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Hydralisk are certainly an issue for Zerg. 1 Hydralisk is barely stronger than 2 marines(without stim), cost 50 more gas and don't have stim. With such a weak primary T2 unit it creates a pretty big hole in the Zerg ground army. Couple that with the fact T3 comes so late for Zerg and it is a big issue.
I also strongly feel that roach speed should be obtainable in T1. If you are committing to roaches you should be able to get this really necessary upgrade before going lair.
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39 Posts
On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW?
I know it's difficult to fathom, but this isn't BW.
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On September 24 2010 22:46 Skarra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW? I know it's difficult to fathom, but this isn't BW. exactly, T didnt have like a million viable openings and zerg didnt have 3 openings in bw
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I listened to the official Blizzard podcast the other day, the one released the day before SC2 launch. In it they said they would take their time to identify if there is an imbalance and not make rash changes. But the moment they know something is not balanced they would get a patch out as soon as possible to fix it. The guy even joked it would be next day.
It is obvious to anyone playing this game that Zerg is substantially weaker than the other races. Blizzard even acknowledged this, explaining the specific changes they were going to make. Yet it was weeks before a patch.
I guess that philosophy was tossed out the window.
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On September 24 2010 21:52 trevf wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 21:48 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 21:39 kojinshugi wrote:
As Idra himself said in the linked article, a month ago the reaper/bunker nerf would have helped. And now he thinks it's pointless, because players already deal with it.
thats not what i said at all, reaper bunker rush and mass reaper were still really really strong. are still quite strong. i meant this patch would have been sufficient a month ago, not that the changes are unnecessary now. So you do propose nerfing every development in the meta game? "oh look terran are winning with a clever viking / hellion play, that needs to be nerfed" "oh look terrans are winning with ghost rush that needs to be nerfed" it seems like you want to nerf every way the terrans have to win?
every overpowered way. don't be a dick. you know that.
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Since there are so many complaints about imbalences I thought about making a Test Map where minor balance changes could be tested by Pro Zerg, Terran and Protoss Players.
Im new with the Map Editor so I don't really know if everything could be realised but maybe someone who can handle that Tool can do it for the community.
I tested to slightly speed up Hydralisk and remove StimPack from Marauders but this Editor is so confusing to me. Different things that could help Zerg and Protoss could be Cooldown on Mules, slightly reduce the rooting Time from Spine Crawlers and reduce some research Timings (Hive, Overlord speed and drop) and reduce the gas cost for mutas just a little bit. If someone could actually do that on for example Lost Temple that would be great. We maybe get some cool facts about what is too much and what could be good for the Matchups.
Its just an Idea but maybe with the help of some Pros Blizzard sees some things that could help balancing and get the next patch out faster.
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On September 24 2010 22:53 We Are Here wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 22:46 Skarra wrote:On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW? I know it's difficult to fathom, but this isn't BW. exactly, T didnt have like a million viable openings and zerg didnt have 3 openings in bw
Actually T had a ton of different 1 base pushes, but they were all easily identifiable.
The answer to 90% of them was add more sunkens.
The others were often mech pushes and those obviously proved to not be much of a concern. 2 port wraith was so weak that you could not scout it and still recover and win, unlike banshees where 1 banshee = 12 wraiths of ground damage or something.
The problem is that every T opening requires a specific hard counter and it's very difficult to account for everything in 1 build, so zergs often just have to flip a coin and hope they don't get hit by what they're weak against. It also makes opening with a single strategy every game very difficult if not nearly impossible. 2 hatch muta pretty much always worked in BW. I can't say that for any zerg strat in sc2.
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On September 24 2010 22:53 We Are Here wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 22:46 Skarra wrote:On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW? I know it's difficult to fathom, but this isn't BW. exactly, T didnt have like a million viable openings and zerg didnt have 3 openings in bw
you're right, they had two.
2 hatch muta, or 3 hatch muta? that is the question
lol
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Oh I remember earlier, everyone was like "Oh Why the fuck does Zerg get the Changeling, They already have the best scouting possibilty ingame"
I ain't saying that changeling is anything near the answere (coz they suck lol) but I always woundered why people kept saying zerg is best scoutin...
Coz without sacrifize overlord there is Zero scout to neiter hag nor evil
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On September 24 2010 23:00 Floophead_III wrote:
The problem is that every T opening requires a specific hard counter and it's very difficult to account for everything in 1 build, so zergs often just have to flip a coin and hope they don't get hit by what they're weak against. It also makes opening with a single strategy every game very difficult if not nearly impossible. 2 hatch muta pretty much always worked in BW. I can't say that for any zerg strat in sc2.
That's very much true. In BW Z could build creep colonies before hand and have sunkens up in time if they saw a terran moving out with a timing attack. In SC2 spines take about 35 sec in real time to build, but the ramp to opposing natural rush time in many maps is 25 seconds or less with a marine or a marauder. Spines could use 5 sec off their build time (they already take 10 sec longer than a cannon and twice as long as a turret) and the map pool should be reviewed. LT and Metalo close spots are actually just as close as Steppes positions. If Z has a chance against ground pushes if scouted as they leave the T base, it just leaves reapers, drops and air to deal with.
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On September 24 2010 22:53 We Are Here wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 22:46 Skarra wrote:On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW? I know it's difficult to fathom, but this isn't BW. exactly, T didnt have like a million viable openings and zerg didnt have 3 openings in bw
T did have million viable openings .. before muta stack
Z have only 2 truely viable openings - 2 hatch or 3 hatch (day9)
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imo this patch wasn't "bad" just not enough was done in the amount of time it took to realease it TT
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On September 24 2010 23:35 oN_Silva wrote:
Oh I remember earlier, everyone was like "Oh Why the fuck does Zerg get the Changeling, They already have the best scouting possibilty ingame"
I ain't saying that changeling is anything near the answere (coz they suck lol) but I always woundered why people kept saying zerg is best scoutin...
Coz without sacrifize overlord there is Zero scout to neiter hag nor evil
Zerg has the best mid game scouting if you are including persistent scouting. They have the 2nd best early scouting as well having it better than Protoss does. What they have is the weakest in base scouting and that is something the changeling does help wiht a little bit.
All of the scouting complaints are really complaints about how hard it is for Zerg to get counters out for different strats. Protoss can counter every early build with just gateway units, Zerg can pick the wrong path to go down and lose if they can't scout in base early enough.
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I'm confused. As far as I know T or P did not receive any buffs while they took nerfs so how is it that lategame ZVP and ZVT is even worse now? @.@
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You misread PTZ, it's TVP early/lategame that got messed up.
Also, is there really anything terribly game breaking about moving the changeling to the overlord (Post spawning pool requirement?)
You'd probably get to just sac a changeling unit to scout, but the opponent can counter it with good base management (or hunting overlords).
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On September 24 2010 23:50 PTZ. wrote:
I'm confused. As far as I know T or P did not receive any buffs while they took nerfs so how is it that lategame ZVP and ZVT is even worse now? @.@
well Terran buildings finish a touch faster, but other than that Ultra damage vs armored got nerf, to make way for damage vs buildings (which once this 'bug' is fixed, is completely useless)
Mainly TvP got changed in the patch, and early game ZvP
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I think 3 fairly straightforward buffs would more or less fix Zerg, and they don't require anything crazily drastic like "bring back lurkers or scourges" or something.
1.) Buff creep tumors. Zerg is utterly reliant on creep, which at the moment limits their aggressiveness, and can even make defending a base against harassment in the early game too difficult because units like reapers and hellions can just dance on and off the creep.
Typically, everyone suggests that the answer to this is to buff off-creep speed, especially for units like Hyrdas, Roaches or Queens.
But what if instead, they simply made creep tumors more powerful? What if one creep tumor spread as much creep as 2 tumors currently do, and at the same rate? This would solve a number of problems:
Defending a base vs. harassment--it would be trivially easy to get down enough creep early on to make dancing on and off creep all but impossible. Queens could easily get around the entire base, Roaches wouldn't be left in the dust without their speed upgrade, and Zerglings could get a surround much more easily.
Using Hydralisks aggressively - Hydras' speed is fine on creep. The issue is that getting creep when and where you want it to be aggressive is currently very difficult. If creep was much easier to spread, it would be significantly easier to use Hydras as offensive units. To a lesser extent, Queens could also be used offensively--but without enablign the early game mass Queen rushes that were broken in beta.
Staying a base ahead - Zerg are constantly adding bases, and currently when they do, there is a much longer window where defending that base is difficult until they've built a creep highway. This would help with that.
2.) Buff Overlord speed - Overlords are slow as hell, and even after the speed upgrade are still slower than medivacs. This makes them ineffective, both as scouts, and as dropships. If Overlords were faster--say, as fast unupgraded as they currently are with the speed upgrade, and faster than medivacs if they did get the upgrade--it would vastly improve both scouting and mobility. Early game scouting wouldn't necessarily requiring sacrificing an Overlord, as they would be fast enough to get in and get out before being shot down by a single marine. And late game scouting, while it would likely require sacricicing an Overlord, at least that Overlord would be fast enough to get deep into the base to see valuable information.
Zerg is reactive race. Thats fine, except they need the ability to get that information in order to react. Buffing Overlord speed would fix that.
3.) Take the time limit off NP. As it currently stands, its useless, which sucks because its the ideal counter to some units which are currently way too difficult to counter with early and mid game tech, i.e. Thors and Colossi. Unlimited NP would give Zerg an effective counter, and force Terran and Toss players to actually micro those units, work to defend them, and try to bring down the infestor before an NP turns their heavy units against their own army.
3 seemingly minor buffs. None of them would change the way Zerg fundamentally plays. None of them involve adding new units or abilities. None of them, really, even involves a straight power buff like "make Roaches tougher" or anything. They are subtle tweaks.
Yet I believe if they were instituted, it could absolutely alter the way Zerg plays, and make them far better in all stages of the game.
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I think more patching is needed, but atleast its a step in the right direction. I just switched over to zerg yesterday, to try it out, and its fun but really hard (as are all races) I have played alot of random in beta early release as well, so playing different races keeps me from going bored, and there is ofcource the benefit of not getting mirror matchups anymore, since there are few zergs out there these days it seems.
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I don't see how blizzard can fix the zerg at high level, without make it overpowered in lower levels.
When you play in low leagues, terran players don't ever do helions harras, or go destroying your expands with 2 medivacs. So il will be hard time for them if zerg get meaningly buffed.
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On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW?
It's either bio or mech...maybe the occasional 2 port wraith. It's not like the 8+ different openings that SC2 Terran can do...
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I have to agree with what IdrA wrote. It's well thought out.
The problem with playing against Terran, as Zerg is simply there are so many openings a Terran can utilize, and they are all extremely effective. In addition, they all have different counters so you run into the problem of just not knowing exactly what you're up against. Suiciding overlords is a possible answer, however 1. You shouldn't 'have' to and 2. a lot of the builds can look very similar, or transition easily into something else entirely. It's also very easy for them to hide tech anywhere they please.
So in closing, I believe it is a problem of options. Terran has a multitude, and zerg (while in the opening game) has a very limited amount, of things that they can do. This is why it is, the way it is. Multiple attack/build options against only a few. It's not rocket science.
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Idra makes sense there, but he may have oversimplified his analysis on the tank nerf.
Several things he didn't touch....
-overlapping splash from multiple siege tanks may be significantly nerfed and have a marked effect in small to mid sized battles
patch 1.1 tank splash:
35 / 18 / 9
1.0 tank splash:
50/ 25 / 13
Example 1: in 1.0 a zergling would die if hit from a 2nd and 3rd radii splash, but in 1.1 the zergling will survive with 8hp left.
Example 2: in 1.0 a hydralisk would die after taking four 2nd radii hits, but in 1.1 it survives with 18 hp.
Example 3: in 1.0 a hydra dies from a radii 1, radii 2, and radii 3 hit (50+25+13 = 88). In 1.1 the hydra will live with 18 health (35+18+9 = 62).
Example 4: Banelings in 1.1 can survive a radii 2 and 3 combo with 3 health remaining. They survive being hit by three radii 3 hits with 3 health remaining as well.
-the effect of this change on smart firing may also be pretty significant. As you know tanks do not waste shots. Because of the reduced splash, there will more often be a higher number of zerglings injured rather than killed after a salvo of tank fire. These injured, more separated (nearby lings dieing make these injured lings less bunched up than a pack of healthy lings) zerglings will draw some tank shots in 1.1 that otherwise would have targeted a farther away group of healthy lings in patch 1.0. I believe smart firing will target a few nearby isolated zerglings in favor of densely packed zerglings that are farther away.
-the increased value of zerg carapace upgrades (especially for +1 carapace zerglings vs +0 atk tanks)
-infested terran now take 2 shots instead of 1 vs tanks, and can be spawned in a "spread" formation (avoiding splash) quite easily, making this rather important. I understand that energy is almost always better spent on fungal growth, but after doing some tests where 8 spread out infested terran easily take out 3 sieged tanks (without even placing the ITs in the tanks "minimum" range) this may be important. Of course MM annhilate infested terran so this may have low viability in most games.
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The problem with the patch is that it doesnt fix any of the fundemental problems zerg have with terran. Sure it'll slow down the 5rax reaper a little bit and bunker rush but these are just cheese if anything. The problem is that since BW, terran has gotten every buff possible and then some while zerg has had shit taken away and nerfed.
The units just arent balanced.
They need to buff zerg not increase build time on two units.
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On September 25 2010 00:08 LeCastor wrote:
I don't see how blizzard can fix the zerg at high level, without make it overpowered in lower levels.
When you play in low leagues, terran players don't ever do helions harras, or go destroying your expands with 2 medivacs. So il will be hard time for them if zerg get meaningly buffed.
hate to say it but game balance can only truly be tested and defined at the highest levels of play.. it sucks for lower level players, but they just need to deal with it and improve their game..
high level play should not be sacrificed to help out the bronze/silver league players..
and you forget yes lower level terrans don't helion or dropship harass... but lower level zergs are not nearly as good at macro and expanding so it tends to even out anyway..
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I think 3 fairly straightforward buffs would more or less fix Zerg, and they don't require anything crazily drastic like "bring back lurkers or scourges" or something.
1.) Buff creep tumors. Zerg is utterly reliant on creep, which at the moment limits their aggressiveness, and can even make defending a base against harassment in the early game too difficult because units like reapers and hellions can just dance on and off the creep.
Typically, everyone suggests that the answer to this is to buff off-creep speed, especially for units like Hyrdas, Roaches or Queens.
But what if instead, they simply made creep tumors more powerful? What if one creep tumor spread as much creep as 2 tumors currently do, and at the same rate? This would solve a number of problems:
Defending a base vs. harassment--it would be trivially easy to get down enough creep early on to make dancing on and off creep all but impossible. Queens could easily get around the entire base, Roaches wouldn't be left in the dust without their speed upgrade, and Zerglings could get a surround much more easily.
Using Hydralisks aggressively - Hydras' speed is fine on creep. The issue is that getting creep when and where you want it to be aggressive is currently very difficult. If creep was much easier to spread, it would be significantly easier to use Hydras as offensive units. To a lesser extent, Queens could also be used offensively--but without enablign the early game mass Queen rushes that were broken in beta.
Staying a base ahead - Zerg are constantly adding bases, and currently when they do, there is a much longer window where defending that base is difficult until they've built a creep highway. This would help with that.
2.) Buff Overlord speed - Overlords are slow as hell, and even after the speed upgrade are still slower than medivacs. This makes them ineffective, both as scouts, and as dropships. If Overlords were faster--say, as fast unupgraded as they currently are with the speed upgrade, and faster than medivacs if they did get the upgrade--it would vastly improve both scouting and mobility. Early game scouting wouldn't necessarily requiring sacrificing an Overlord, as they would be fast enough to get in and get out before being shot down by a single marine. And late game scouting, while it would likely require sacricicing an Overlord, at least that Overlord would be fast enough to get deep into the base to see valuable information.
Zerg is reactive race. Thats fine, except they need the ability to get that information in order to react. Buffing Overlord speed would fix that.
3.) Take the time limit off NP. As it currently stands, its useless, which sucks because its the ideal counter to some units which are currently way too difficult to counter with early and mid game tech, i.e. Thors and Colossi. Unlimited NP would give Zerg an effective counter, and force Terran and Toss players to actually micro those units, work to defend them, and try to bring down the infestor before an NP turns their heavy units against their own army.
3 seemingly minor buffs. None of them would change the way Zerg fundamentally plays. None of them involve adding new units or abilities. None of them, really, even involves a straight power buff like "make Roaches tougher" or anything. They are subtle tweaks.
Yet I believe if they were instituted, it could absolutely alter the way Zerg plays, and make them far better in all stages of the game.
Best patching suggestions I've read so far.
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i hardly ever see chainlings used mayb they are used and I dont see them? lol But seriously its a great tool especially to scout a protoss when most of their units are at their expo or being warped in somewhere
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This is a great writing by idrA. It's refreshing to see a well thought and good sensed article from a brilliant player.
The future is bright.
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough.
Notice fellow players: Idra is not suggesting nerfing the heck out of terran. Rather he notes that the problem lies with zerg. Terran gets a bunch of nerfs then its T<P.
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I'm not really quite sure that scouting is really zerg's problem. Sure, it is harder to scout as zerg, but even if you knew what kind of early push is coming at you, the zerg player still needs to devote their efforts to being able to hold that push. I find that if I assume what the terran is going to do, and I just so happen to be right, I still have a really hard time holding it.
It seems to me that terran can easily counter any aggressive zerg opening. Supply depots hard counter speedling runbys. Marauders hard counter baneling busts and roach rushes. An early push counters fast mutalisks or other fast tech pushes reasonably well. The only thing left for zerg to do is to do a one-base defend build and be screwed later on, or a two base defend build (but I personally have a lot of trouble with this working)
I just really wish that zerg had some way of making terran react to them.
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On September 25 2010 01:10 DyEnasTy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough. Notice fellow players: Idra is not suggesting nerfing the heck out of terran. Rather he notes that the problem lies with zerg. Terran gets a bunch of nerfs then its T<P.
But with a bunch of Z buffs it will be Z>P?
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Interesting this is that Cool says that patch helped him a lot .
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On September 25 2010 01:24 LittleeD wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 01:10 DyEnasTy wrote:On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough. Notice fellow players: Idra is not suggesting nerfing the heck out of terran. Rather he notes that the problem lies with zerg. Terran gets a bunch of nerfs then its T<P. But with a bunch of Z buffs it will be Z>P?
P is already dominating Z at least in korea
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Idra is the Al Gore of SC2. He gets the most votes, but can't win anything.
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But with a bunch of Z buffs it will be Z>P?
PvT is balanced.
PvZ is not balanced.
TvZ is not balanced.
Buffing Zerg could fix the latter two problems without wrecking PvT. Excessively nerfing either Terran or Toss to fix one of their zerg matchups would screw with PvT balance.
Buffing Zerg is the answer.
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On September 25 2010 01:32 awesomoecalypse wrote:PvT is balanced. PvZ is not balanced. TvZ is not balanced. Buffing Zerg could fix the latter two problems without wrecking PvT. Excessively nerfing either Terran or Toss to fix one of their zerg matchups would screw with PvT balance. Buffing Zerg is the answer.
They need to change Zerg. They have a very strong late game and a horrible early. That's what they must change imo
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United Arab Emirates660 Posts
buff roaches a bit, move them to tier 2... nerf hydras and move them to tier 1 that should fix a lot of problems blizzard!
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PvT is balanced.
not really, mid game is horribly imbalanced. (favors T ofc)
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They need to change Zerg. They have a very strong late game and a horrible early. That's what they must change imo
Well, patch 1.1 nerfed both terran and Toss early game harass, which should help some.
I don't think Zerg lategame is too strong. A 200 food Zerg army gets wrecked by a 200 food Terran and Toss army. While they can then replace it quite easily, thats still a significant disadvantage.
Like I said earlier in this thread, i think buffing creep tumors (to help against early harassment, and to make Hydras and Queens more viable as offensive units) and buffing Overlord speed (to improve Zerg scouting/drop mobility) would pretty much solve all the Zerg early game issues for good, and would significantly improve their ability to be in a strong position in the mid game.
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not really, mid game is horribly imbalanced. (favors T ofc)
this isn't really true though.
I mean, for low and mid-level players sure, dealing with those mid-game Marauder pushes is an absoltue bitch.
But watch pro-level PvT, and it generally seems that whoever plays better wins. This has been born out by the success of Protoss in high level tournaments around the world--there might be more Terrans, but the Toss players do just as well as the Terran ones do.
Since the game needs to be balanced around the highest levels of play (i.e. pros), there is no issue.
In contrast, in both Zerg matchups the Zerg player can outplay their opponent but still consistently lose, even at the pro level.
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On September 25 2010 01:32 awesomoecalypse wrote:PvT is balanced. PvZ is not balanced. TvZ is not balanced. Buffing Zerg could fix the latter two problems without wrecking PvT. Excessively nerfing either Terran or Toss to fix one of their zerg matchups would screw with PvT balance. Buffing Zerg is the answer.
Is PvZ really imbalanced? I don't really cringe playing this matchup and it favors the most creativity. I get my best (and largest) Nydus networks up when I play ZvP...
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this isn't really true though.
I mean, for low and mid-level players sure, dealing with those mid-game Marauder pushes is an absoltue bitch.
But watch pro-level PvT, and it generally seems that whoever plays better wins. This has been born out by the success of Protoss in high level tournaments around the world--there might be more Terrans, but the Toss players do just as well as the Terran ones do.
Since the game needs to be balanced around the highest levels of play (i.e. pros), there is no issue.
In contrast, in both Zerg matchups the Zerg player can outplay their opponent but still consistently lose, even at the pro level.
when i watch high level pvt i see terrans abusing their mid-game op'ness, constantly doing timing pushes (before colossi etc), containing protoss while xpanding and so on. often game ends early because of that. no need to search long for such matches, just check today's gsl matches.
you really dont see how defensively protoss has to play just to survive till t3?
fix for this is so simple. increase research cost of CC & stim (150/100 and 200/200) and increase their research time by 30sec or even more.
i also hate the fact protoss has so few viable opening (and robo is the only really safe one)
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On September 25 2010 01:39 PaPoolee wrote:buff roaches a bit, move them to tier 2... nerf hydras and move them to tier 1 that should fix a lot of problems blizzard!
This would make Zerg worse~.
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People keep saying that PvT is P favored, but I've yet to see any evidence of such. What I AM seeing though is tournament matches where Stim A-Move wins 90% of the games, and 10% is barely won by Protoss severely outplaying the Terran with godlike forcefields and micro.
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I was expecting the famous Idra rage, but actually got good insight. He pretty much nailed what the patch will effect, though didn't offer much about how to fix any of the issues. The only thing he really touched on in that dept. was scouting with zerg, but didn't really say what to do.
On September 24 2010 23:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
I think 3 fairly straightforward buffs would more or less fix Zerg, and they don't require anything crazily drastic like "bring back lurkers or scourges" or something.
1.) Buff creep tumors. Zerg is utterly reliant on creep, which at the moment limits their aggressiveness, and can even make defending a base against harassment in the early game too difficult because units like reapers and hellions can just dance on and off the creep.
Typically, everyone suggests that the answer to this is to buff off-creep speed, especially for units like Hyrdas, Roaches or Queens.
But what if instead, they simply made creep tumors more powerful? What if one creep tumor spread as much creep as 2 tumors currently do, and at the same rate? This would solve a number of problems:
Defending a base vs. harassment--it would be trivially easy to get down enough creep early on to make dancing on and off creep all but impossible. Queens could easily get around the entire base, Roaches wouldn't be left in the dust without their speed upgrade, and Zerglings could get a surround much more easily.
Using Hydralisks aggressively - Hydras' speed is fine on creep. The issue is that getting creep when and where you want it to be aggressive is currently very difficult. If creep was much easier to spread, it would be significantly easier to use Hydras as offensive units. To a lesser extent, Queens could also be used offensively--but without enablign the early game mass Queen rushes that were broken in beta.
Staying a base ahead - Zerg are constantly adding bases, and currently when they do, there is a much longer window where defending that base is difficult until they've built a creep highway. This would help with that.
2.) Buff Overlord speed - Overlords are slow as hell, and even after the speed upgrade are still slower than medivacs. This makes them ineffective, both as scouts, and as dropships. If Overlords were faster--say, as fast unupgraded as they currently are with the speed upgrade, and faster than medivacs if they did get the upgrade--it would vastly improve both scouting and mobility. Early game scouting wouldn't necessarily requiring sacrificing an Overlord, as they would be fast enough to get in and get out before being shot down by a single marine. And late game scouting, while it would likely require sacricicing an Overlord, at least that Overlord would be fast enough to get deep into the base to see valuable information.
Zerg is reactive race. Thats fine, except they need the ability to get that information in order to react. Buffing Overlord speed would fix that.
3.) Take the time limit off NP. As it currently stands, its useless, which sucks because its the ideal counter to some units which are currently way too difficult to counter with early and mid game tech, i.e. Thors and Colossi. Unlimited NP would give Zerg an effective counter, and force Terran and Toss players to actually micro those units, work to defend them, and try to bring down the infestor before an NP turns their heavy units against their own army.
3 seemingly minor buffs. None of them would change the way Zerg fundamentally plays. None of them involve adding new units or abilities. None of them, really, even involves a straight power buff like "make Roaches tougher" or anything. They are subtle tweaks.
Yet I believe if they were instituted, it could absolutely alter the way Zerg plays, and make them far better in all stages of the game.
I actually really, really like these buffs. Very minor, but solves a lot of issues with minimal consequences.
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The problem is that zerg has like 4 less units than both terran and protoss.
I played SC, BW, and now SC2.. and zerg feels like SC1.5, not even BW. Mutas and hydras both got weaker, and in exchange zerg got a queen Spawn larva.
Seriously. And terrans got... (hey lets just make every terran unit better than it was in BW)
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A well thought out article about crying, is still a well thought out article about redundant wet dream summarizations of 1.1 patch notes. This article contributes less to the situation then the first filthy QQ moar silly zerg post.
I play 100% zerg. The only time I have problems is when i don't drone up to support a 2 base economy after prepping for early "cheese" (real cheese doesn't exist). This seems to be the big issue with zerg. Figuring out how to make an army, and to make a good base. You can't make both at the same time.
Now, I wish to do something the article didn't do, and what other posters here are doing. The suggested fix I have would be to also give infested terrans to queens (with all their other abilities). Yes, the infestor and queen should both have this useless little ranged unit. However, the infested terran for queens, should not cost any mana, it should spawn 2-3 infested terrans, and it should be on a 60-90second cooldown.
I am glad something is being done even if it is a month at a time. This patch might be halfway between point A and B, but at least it took steps in the right direction.
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As much as I dislike IdrA, I can't help but agree.
I think the changes to Reapers and Zealots were too much of a knee-jerk reaction. I was just starting to feel like the SC2 community was really adapting to those techniques and they were losing the effectiveness that made them such a pain for Zergs.
I think nerfing the Siege Tank was a mistake. It makes little difference and as far as I'm concerned, the tanks were never the problem - it was the ball of infantry supporting them that was the issue. When Terran infantry gets stim, it's the strongest unit comp in the game in my opinion. Two units, Marines and Marauders liquify anything in their path and have the speed to outrun (with stim) anything that could mow them down (i.e. Banelings) and attack-move-micro the threat into oblivion.
I play random, and when I've pulled Terran I've set some constraints on myself to test out the notion of Marine and Marauder being insanely strong. For the last week I've decided to only make Marines and Marauders with stim - without Medivacs.
I rarely lose at 30+ Diamond.
Now, I don't mean to turn this into a giant "nerf Terran" post; and I've really no idea how you fix their infantry, but my God, it's so powerful with stim. Marauders can go toe-to-toe with Hydras, Immortals, Stalkers, Zealots (kiting) - at cost or cheaper - while Marines fill in the gaps.
I know the counters are FG, Colossus, Storm, etc. but in practice the opponent either a) doesn't have time to get them or b) they're not strong enough (infantry can dance through storm no problem and stimmed Marauders rip apart Colossus). I often hear the argument "well, Colossus, FG, Storm really weaken the bio-ball..." That's all fine and good but weak =/= dead. If the Terran is left with 2 Marauders with 1 hp standing over the corpses of your army - you lost.
Terran is still very, very, very strong.
As a random player, I like to think I'm not too biased - I enjoy playing all races; and people may disagree but this is how I've seen things. You just don't need to make more than Marines and Marauders to really lay the hurt on your opponent.
Obviously eventually you need to make different units as you progress in the game or ladder rank - but just as an experiment for yourself - try it. Try only making stimmed Marines and Marauders for a few games. See how far it gets you.
Then try only making the T1 equivalent from the other races. See if it gets you anywhere near as far.
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Then try only making the T1 equivalent from the other races. See if it gets you anywhere near as far.
Diamond is full of Toss players who do nothing but 4-gate, attack move, and occasionally drop a forcefield. T1 Toss armies are really, really good, especially if you're any good with forcefields
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I should give up playing random.
Why? My wins:
Protoss - 6x
Terran - 6x
Zerg - 3x
(~1000ish pt diamond)
Hydras feel completely unusable - the only times I feel I can use them at ALL is when my opponent lets me goop up the entire map and doesn't kill creep tumors ever, so at least I can have some mobility. Sure, they do alright vs gateway units, as long as there's no charge, storm, good (or just tons of) forcefields. Against terran they're less effective and durable than equal supply/minerals of marines, too slow to be any use in breaking tank lines, unless your numbers are just overwhelming, pretty much terrible against anything except marauders.
Hydras have such good dps (and all untyped - this surprised me, as in BW they were NOT untyped damage.) but at 100/50/2 with 80 health, they are both one of the slowest units - 2.25, flat out the lowest health unit for your buck in the game - even the squishiest air units (mutas, vikings) are better off in the health department.
They also have pretty poor range (5 without upgrade - stalkers & marauders have 6, only marines are that low) and the range upgrade is only +1 range, so even with the upgrade they don't really excel at this. (Zerg lacks a long range ground unit very badly...)
If hydras are going to cost so much more compared to BW, and take 2 supply, why do they still move and die as if they are 1 supply T1 units from BW? With one of their critical BW upgrades REMOVED, no less?
Roaches are DECENT with the speed upgrade, but I cannot understand why that upgrade needs lair tech. (Hydra speed didn't in BW!)
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I think the reason Zerg isn't getting a buff is because a lot of players haven't discovered that using mass queens + transfusion can be effective. I've seen people do it well. And I'm going to try it out this weekend.
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Totally agree with Idra, there's nothing to add.
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On September 25 2010 02:05 Hawk wrote:I was expecting the famous Idra rage, but actually got good insight. He pretty much nailed what the patch will effect, though didn't offer much about how to fix any of the issues. The only thing he really touched on in that dept. was scouting with zerg, but didn't really say what to do. Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 23:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
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2.) Buff Overlord speed - Overlords are slow as hell, and even after the speed upgrade are still slower than medivacs. This makes them ineffective, both as scouts, and as dropships. If Overlords were faster--say, as fast unupgraded as they currently are with the speed upgrade, and faster than medivacs if they did get the upgrade--it would vastly improve both scouting and mobility. Early game scouting wouldn't necessarily requiring sacrificing an Overlord, as they would be fast enough to get in and get out before being shot down by a single marine. And late game scouting, while it would likely require sacricicing an Overlord, at least that Overlord would be fast enough to get deep into the base to see valuable information.
Zerg is reactive race. Thats fine, except they need the ability to get that information in order to react. Buffing Overlord speed would fix that.
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I actually really, really like these buffs. Very minor, but solves a lot of issues with minimal consequences.
I am not quite sure if 20 fast 0-supply-drophships are actualy a good idea.
Maybe this is better: Make Overlords faster, remove the transport ability and give it to Overseers, increese the supply-cost of Overseers to 1, increase contaminate cost to 100 Energy.
On IdrA's post:
As some posters allready said, it would have been better, if he had proposed more concrete changes. I guess it's well known, that there is something wrong with Zerg in the early game. And I believe that this is not siege tanks... Maybe something like the change to Overlords above?
My 5 cent.
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On September 25 2010 02:42 chimthegrim wrote:
I think the reason Zerg isn't getting a buff is because a lot of players haven't discovered that using mass queens + transfusion can be effective. I've seen people do it well. And I'm going to try it out this weekend.
While Transfusion is great for defense in a tight situation it has no use outside of that. I have tried it multiple times in my Zerg ball and the amount of micro it takes isn't worth healing one hydra or roach when instead I could just be adding extra units besides queens to my army composition. They are, however, very useful when you've teched to Ultra's and then it's one of the sickest things ever because those things become TANKS.
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Would someone help me out please. Why exactly is late game now more protoss favoured in PvT after 1.1? Is it the tank change? Doesn't that affect pretty much only zealots, which will end up charging into marauders first anyway? I'll admit I did not read all 18 pages of comments.
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On September 25 2010 03:04 Hier wrote:
Would someone help me out please. Why exactly is late game now more protoss favoured in PvT after 1.1? Is it the tank change? Doesn't that affect pretty much only zealots, which will end up charging into marauders first anyway? I'll admit I did not read all 18 pages of comments.
It's really hard to lategame macro when you're eating a hotpocket with one hand.
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On September 25 2010 01:24 LittleeD wrote:
But with a bunch of Z buffs it will be Z>P?
P is currently favored in the ZvP matchup. If you buff Zerg, it'd make it a lot more even on all fronts for Zerg.
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On September 24 2010 17:27 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 17:00 sadyque wrote:On September 24 2010 16:50 IdrA wrote:On September 24 2010 16:48 Losticus wrote:Blizzard missed the target and caved in to the whiners who still think the siege Tank overpowered ... even when it doesnt get used by half the Terrans. Is there a Terran unit Zergs don't whine about? *Thinking... Battlecruisers? Nah, especially with SCV repair. That means no to SCV's as well. Hmm... Ghosts! They don't whine about ghosts! Whew, I'm glad we could fine ONE terran unit free from insectoid tears.* actually ghosts invalidate the only solid counter to turtle mech play so much for that Any suggestions on how to buff zerg without nerfing terran to fix your problems? All i hear from everyone is nerf this nerf that. Think about buffing zerg not nerfing everyone else to be on par. edit: i hear blizz iz watching as we type -.- probably up overlord base speed reasonably, make neural parasite either 50 mana + an upgrade or 75 mana and no upgrade, and it needs to last longer. or if you want zerg to be more swarm-y buff hydras and roaches, hydras off creep speed up and probably hp up, and roachs 4 range or 2 armor, maybe faster burrow speed, and switch hydra/roach on the tech tree. also the ability to block a ramp with 2 pylons and 2 bunkers needs to be addressed, im not sure if they can make unbuildable areas that would prevent it but still allow normal building walls but that would work. these probably seem like really big changes but people actually massively underestimate just how bad the balance is. i honestly doubt the changes i suggested would be enough.
i tend to somewhat agree with these suggestions. they never really fully compensated for roach supply nerf. that was pretty devastating.
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On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW?
Z used to have tier 1 AA and overlords could detect....
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On September 25 2010 03:15 Cloak wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 03:04 Hier wrote:
Would someone help me out please. Why exactly is late game now more protoss favoured in PvT after 1.1? Is it the tank change? Doesn't that affect pretty much only zealots, which will end up charging into marauders first anyway? I'll admit I did not read all 18 pages of comments. It's really hard to lategame macro when you're eating a hotpocket with one hand.
LOL
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100 % agreement for his statement
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On September 25 2010 02:52 Damaskinos wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 02:05 Hawk wrote:I was expecting the famous Idra rage, but actually got good insight. He pretty much nailed what the patch will effect, though didn't offer much about how to fix any of the issues. The only thing he really touched on in that dept. was scouting with zerg, but didn't really say what to do. On September 24 2010 23:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
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2.) Buff Overlord speed - Overlords are slow as hell, and even after the speed upgrade are still slower than medivacs. This makes them ineffective, both as scouts, and as dropships. If Overlords were faster--say, as fast unupgraded as they currently are with the speed upgrade, and faster than medivacs if they did get the upgrade--it would vastly improve both scouting and mobility. Early game scouting wouldn't necessarily requiring sacrificing an Overlord, as they would be fast enough to get in and get out before being shot down by a single marine. And late game scouting, while it would likely require sacricicing an Overlord, at least that Overlord would be fast enough to get deep into the base to see valuable information.
Zerg is reactive race. Thats fine, except they need the ability to get that information in order to react. Buffing Overlord speed would fix that.
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I actually really, really like these buffs. Very minor, but solves a lot of issues with minimal consequences. I am not quite sure if 20 fast 0-supply-drophships are actualy a good idea. Maybe this is better: Make Overlords faster, remove the transport ability and give it to Overseers, increese the supply-cost of Overseers to 1, increase contaminate cost to 100 Energy. On IdrA's post: As some posters allready said, it would have been better, if he had proposed more concrete changes. I guess it's well known, that there is something wrong with Zerg in the early game. And I believe that this is not siege tanks... Maybe something like the change to Overlords above? My 5 cent.
At a certain point, having extra dropships becomes redundant. 'Twenty dropships that don't take up food' might sound good on paper, but in practice, it's less practical than having, say, three dropships that can play healbot. This is especially true since so many Zerg units got food increases from BW to SC2.
Your Contaminate suggestion just seems like something you're throwing out there 'Because we have to balance a buff with a nerf.' I haven't seen anyone seriously complaining about Contaminate, ever, and Zerg have one less real combat spellcaster as it is.
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On September 25 2010 03:36 Bluerain wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 11:25 Roe wrote:On September 24 2010 10:28 neobowman wrote:
Absolutely agree from a Zerg player's perspective.
The reaper nerf is nice but that's not what's troublesome. If you know it's coming, it's not too hard to deal with. The problem is not being able to scout. how did Z scout in BW? Z used to have tier 1 AA and overlords could detect....
Z had a crapton of early game advantages in BW that did not carry over.
Slow Zerglings were faster than anything Terran until Vultures, and faster than any Protoss ground unit. They also had noticeably higher DPS, and could be controlled more precisely because the AI didn't interfere with your control. They also executed devastating counters, because they were so much harder to wall against.
Zerg relied on low worker counts (to save larva for units/buildings), which was fairly effective because 1-worker-per-patch mined more than 50% of full saturation, and 3-workers-on-gas was enough. Now it's less than 50%, and you need 6 on gas, so despite the Queen offering a better deal than building a third hatchery, you still end up with fewer larva to spare on soldiers. Further, without the need for Queens, the Zerg could reach Lair tech much faster.
...and BW maps were way-the-fuck bigger, enhancing the Zerg's reactive style, and allowing them greater exploitation of their crazy-fast ground units.
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Zerg didn't need to scout as much in BW. The fact was that there were much less options for terran or protoss to do, and they didn't really have to worry about cloaked units or air units, as long as they had their timing. There was also no reapers that could early harass, and the hellion is much stronger than the vulture for early harass (except better for defense due to mines). This, plus other strategies makes it impossible for zerg to open offensively, they MUST react and defend to the opponent.
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Terran is still a bit strong at the moment, but I think think this patch is on it's way to truly balancing SCII
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If I had to balance Zerg, I would let extractors mine 5 gas per load instead of 4. I think the investment required to build sufficient gas units is really cockblocking them.
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I love IdrA but I wish he would stop complaining.
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On September 25 2010 02:52 Damaskinos wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 02:05 Hawk wrote:I was expecting the famous Idra rage, but actually got good insight. He pretty much nailed what the patch will effect, though didn't offer much about how to fix any of the issues. The only thing he really touched on in that dept. was scouting with zerg, but didn't really say what to do. On September 24 2010 23:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
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2.) Buff Overlord speed - Overlords are slow as hell, and even after the speed upgrade are still slower than medivacs. This makes them ineffective, both as scouts, and as dropships. If Overlords were faster--say, as fast unupgraded as they currently are with the speed upgrade, and faster than medivacs if they did get the upgrade--it would vastly improve both scouting and mobility. Early game scouting wouldn't necessarily requiring sacrificing an Overlord, as they would be fast enough to get in and get out before being shot down by a single marine. And late game scouting, while it would likely require sacricicing an Overlord, at least that Overlord would be fast enough to get deep into the base to see valuable information.
Zerg is reactive race. Thats fine, except they need the ability to get that information in order to react. Buffing Overlord speed would fix that.
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I actually really, really like these buffs. Very minor, but solves a lot of issues with minimal consequences. I am not quite sure if 20 fast 0-supply-drophships are actualy a good idea. Maybe this is better: Make Overlords faster, remove the transport ability and give it to Overseers, increese the supply-cost of Overseers to 1, increase contaminate cost to 100 Energy. On IdrA's post: As some posters allready said, it would have been better, if he had proposed more concrete changes. I guess it's well known, that there is something wrong with Zerg in the early game. And I believe that this is not siege tanks... Maybe something like the change to Overlords above? My 5 cent.
Yeah, all things should be considered there.
I also see I clipped half of the other buffs... bleh.
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On September 25 2010 03:56 vectorix108 wrote:
Terran is still a bit strong at the moment, but I think think this patch is on it's way to truly balancing SCII
Well one thing is for sure, if you're gonna patch the whole thing to get it perfectly balanced (or as close as you can get) then addressing small issues like the ones of this patch is totally a start. On a side note, me playing zerg, I still feel like not much has changed. Also, since the zvt changes are for early game (aside from the tanks but I don't feel the difference since I never go hydra) I guess that we do not need more than one week to really see how things have or have not changed.
I try to be positive about this, patching shows that blizzard wants to get it right. Their map changes on desert oasis show that will as well, they would have never touched the map if they didn't care. It's going to take some time and patience, but I'm sure it will get better on the long run. For the time being, ill try not to rage too much when I go on a loose streak in ladder and can't reach 1kdiamond because I end up playing 6t's in a row :p
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A way to adress Zerg lategame could be related with their total supply. 200/200 Zerg is the inferior. Even though zerg can replenish units quickly, i find it insuficient. Besides, units need to be low supply if we are to expect them to be a swarm. The zergling is probably the only unit that fits the Zerg swarmish feel with their 0.5 supply per unit. Either that or increase Zerg's supply to 225 or so.
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think about it... how u can give Stimpack + Slow + dropship + healer + Anti Air with only 3 units...
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On September 25 2010 04:01 Severedevil wrote:
If I had to balance Zerg, I would let extractors mine 5 gas per load instead of 4. I think the investment required to build sufficient gas units is really cockblocking them.
I disagree with this very strongly. Zerg are so heavy on gas because roach+hydra isn't viable and would be a much more reasonable gas combination of units.
Zerg does not have heavier gas usage than other races, just they have holes in the usefulness of their lower gas units.
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i remember watching a report from blizz that zerg was op :/
i wish i could remember how.
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I was a zerg player in bw and I feel that zerg is almost exactly the same way in sc2 than it is in bw. I mean he is complaining about zerg being hard countered by a lot of things when you go early hatch at your natural, well it was the same way in bw..you could get cheesed or all inned 50 different ways vs p or t, it all comes down to your drone count really, knowing when to make drones at X time and when to make lings or a spine crawler early on. I mean yeah its really annoying because if you don't scout it fast enough or at all you just have to guess which is retarded, but when you play enough and learn the game more you then have to guess less and more doors are closed as to what he is doing and you can narrow it down pretty quickly. I don't really know the mid game at all zvt because I don't play z in sc2 ,but that is just my thought for the early game zvt.
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I think Hydra ought to be a base unit as opposed to a support unit, which would give Zerg more strategic options. Give Hydra a researchable speed upgrade that is decent off creep, increase their HP, and decrease their DPS enough to not be OP. This, as well as a base and upgraded overlord speed increase would really make zerg a lot more stable I think. Just my 2 cents.
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In response to the Reaper nerf: "All other terran aggression, hellions, hellion drops, banshees, bio allins, tank allins, thor allins, remains mostly untouched. The balance problems in early game ZvT come down to the fact that terran is simply stronger and much more diverse early on, zerg has to rely on hard counters to have any chance to survive, but cant scout in time to implement them. Blizzard, by nerfing the reaper, only addresses one of the many builds terrans can do instead of the underlying problem and as long as they approach it like this the matchup will remain imbalanced." - IdrA
Zerg players have been saying this for over a month...it's so painfully obvious that I'm tired of even talking about it. Blizzard needs to address the issue asap or things are going to keep getting worse. The matchup, at high levels, is so disheartening right now.
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On September 25 2010 04:35 YueY. wrote:
I was a zerg player in bw and I feel that zerg is almost exactly the same way in sc2 than it is in bw. I mean he is complaining about zerg being hard countered by a lot of things when you go early hatch at your natural, well it was the same way in bw..you could get cheesed or all inned 50 different ways vs p or t, it all comes down to your drone count really, knowing when to make drones at X time and when to make lings or a spine crawler early on. I mean yeah its really annoying because if you don't scout it fast enough or at all you just have to guess which is retarded, but when you play enough and learn the game more you then have to guess less and more doors are closed as to what he is doing and you can narrow it down pretty quickly. I don't really know the mid game at all zvt because I don't play z in sc2 ,but that is just my thought for the early game zvt.
I disagree that they are the same, but even if they were the same thats the problem, terran and protoss got better, but zerg stayed the same.
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On September 25 2010 04:02 virusGoatfish wrote:
I love IdrA but I wish he would stop complaining.
You made an account just to post this?
Idra's right, of course. His main point is that Blizzard is responding to things that happened weeks ago, when builds are dynamic on even the hour time scale. And the changes that were made are largely irrelevant; Hydras are still awful ZvT, Terran hard counters are too hard, Tanks are still really good, and TvP is still made of lols. He's not complaining so much as putting Blizzard's nose in their own poop.
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On September 25 2010 04:02 virusGoatfish wrote:
I love IdrA but I wish he would stop complaining.
A lot of other pro Zerg are complaining as well.
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On September 25 2010 04:15 Apolo wrote:
A way to adress Zerg lategame could be related with their total supply. 200/200 Zerg is the inferior. Even though zerg can replenish units quickly, i find it insuficient. Besides, units need to be low supply if we are to expect them to be a swarm. The zergling is probably the only unit that fits the Zerg swarmish feel with their 0.5 supply per unit. Either that or increase Zerg's supply to 225 or so.
Ultralisks are ridiculously strong and nydus is way underused in zerg lategame once it goes to 200/200 armies. I think Zerg is by far the best race lategame atm, it just doesn't matter because Zergs have a really hard time to transition into lategame without dying before. There have to come 1 or 2 more patches for sure, I think Banshees have to be weakened, maybe Marauders, who knows. But if Zerg lategame is the issue for you, then it's your fault or you went into lategame with big disadvantages, but zerg units at 200/200 compared to terran and protoss 200/200 are fine from my point of view.
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On September 25 2010 04:02 virusGoatfish wrote:
I love IdrA but I wish he would stop complaining.
yea your right.. he should just sit back and happily continue to play the game he makes a living off of with a race that's without question currently imbalanced..
seriously.. his "complaints" are totally legitimite views on the current state of the game.. I mean do you have ANY idea what's going on? Do you realize that like 75-80% of all the top zerg players are complaining just as much if not more?? What a terrible first post..
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I feel like the biggest problem so far with Zerg, which has been mentioned multiple times, is the ability to scout in the early game. I am a Zerg player and that has been the most difficult thing to do in the early game until I am finally able to get my lair and overlord speed (which is much too late). It is the most reasons why I lose.
So right now in the early game there are only one option to scout, and that is to put your lings in the front of the choke at the enemy's base, moving in and out to see what their army composition is. For Terran it is easier to see what they are going because most of the time they will have their barracks/factories out in front. But this way you will be unable to gain any information about air units. Are they going banshees/vikings? I don't know because I can't see it. You can't use your slow ass overlords in the beginning because they WILL get killed before you will be able to scout any information at all (yet alone them taking several minutes just to arrive at the enemy's base.
Same thing happens against Protoss, though it is worse because they can go pretty much any build and you will not be able to see it...only those couple zealots blocking the choke point. And again...sacrificing slow overlords is dumb because you won't be able to see anything.
It is just guessing in the dark sucks...and most of the time you can only figure out their builds when their units are at your doorstep. I read some suggestions and I like to have them get implemented...regardless of which ones they are it just needs to let Zerg get fast overlords much quicker. I think getting rid of the lair tech prerequisite for the overlord speed and having only the spawning pool become the prerequisite, decreasing the value to either 50/50 or 75/75 (since it will be available that early in the game I think the cost should decrease a bit), and/or increasing the base speed of the overlord.
These are just some ideas but most of them have already been exposed. I just wanted to reiterate.
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I think once Zerg has the ability to scout more freely like the other races then we can start focusing on other play, but I feel that is the first thing that needs to get reworked immediately.
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On September 25 2010 00:27 stk01001 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 00:08 LeCastor wrote:
I don't see how blizzard can fix the zerg at high level, without make it overpowered in lower levels.
When you play in low leagues, terran players don't ever do helions harras, or go destroying your expands with 2 medivacs. So il will be hard time for them if zerg get meaningly buffed.
hate to say it but game balance can only truly be tested and defined at the highest levels of play.. it sucks for lower level players, but they just need to deal with it and improve their game.. high level play should not be sacrificed to help out the bronze/silver league players.. and you forget yes lower level terrans don't helion or dropship harass... but lower level zergs are not nearly as good at macro and expanding so it tends to even out anyway..
A game can never be completely balanced simply because humans can never play at 100% perfection. So I really don't care if the game is imbalanced at bronze or silver. Thats a fact of life. Nothings perfect. But for those that take this game seriously, I hope they get a slight bias in treatment (balance) for their dedication.
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People have to stop saying "if you don't like zerg switch races until they fix it"
This is not the answer we're looking for.
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Messing with damage/build time of certain units is not going to fix this game. There are serious problems with the Zerg infrastructure that only new units, and perhaps swapping the Roach and Hydralisk Den can fix. Scouting is also still going to be a problem. SC2 isn't any closer to being balanced than it was pre-1.1.
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Ive read through every post on this thread and not once have I heard anyone mention an army composition that included more than 2 unit types. This isn't SC:BW... its time to evolve. Even marine/tank diversifies. This isn't SC1, blizzard isn't going to ruin the balance by making unnecessary buffs... zergs just need to explore strategies or go back to playing WoW because im sure 90% of zerg players are WoW players that whine until heroics get nerfed.
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Because using 5 different zerg units means we have to research 10-15 different expensive upgrades for speed, range, energy, attack, defense, ect?
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As has been mentioned, the #1 problem is the inability for Zerg to scout in the early game. Until that is helped, nerfing random things here and there is just a band-aid.
It's also interesting that while the main issue is in ZvT, hypothetically speaking, it should be an equal issue in ZvP; however, it's not because the Hydra works against Protoss.
Essentially, as Zerg, if you race to Hydra fast against Protoss, you're protected from anything they may have hidden for the mid-game. If they go Immortal, 4-gate, Phoenix, or VR, you're fine. By the time they can get to HT/Storm or Colossi, Zerg is able to scout and react.
Against Terran, Hydras suck, forcing Zerg to need a specific response to whatever mid-game threat Terran might be using, amplifying the problem. Currently, I almost always go for Muta against Terran, which is not ideal, it's simply the best option Zerg has.
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Nerf bio not tank.
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On September 25 2010 06:04 Graven wrote:
As has been mentioned, the #1 problem is the inability for Zerg to scout in the early game. Until that is helped, nerfing random things here and there is just a band-aid.
It's also interesting that while the main issue is in ZvT, hypothetically speaking, it should be an equal issue in ZvP; however, it's not because the Hydra works against Protoss.
Essentially, as Zerg, if you race to Hydra fast against Protoss, you're protected from anything they may have hidden for the mid-game. If they go Immortal, 4-gate, Phoenix, or VR, you're fine. By the time they can get to HT/Storm or Colossi, Zerg is able to scout and react.
Against Terran, Hydras suck, forcing Zerg to need a specific response to whatever mid-game threat Terran might be using, amplifying the problem. Currently, I almost always go for Muta against Terran, which is not ideal, it's simply the best option Zerg has.
I agree with most of the things said here, but against protoss "racing" to hydra leaves you vulnerable to a simple 2 gate opener and you don't have an expand. If you're FE you probably aren't racing to hydra and a 4 gate will, more often than not, wipe you out.
As far as scouting, this is clearly the issue with zerg. Fix this and zerg has a chance.
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On September 25 2010 05:38 Headshot wrote:
Messing with damage/build time of certain units is not going to fix this game. There are serious problems with the Zerg infrastructure that only new units, and perhaps swapping the Roach and Hydralisk Den can fix. Scouting is also still going to be a problem. SC2 isn't any closer to being balanced than it was pre-1.1.
New units will NOT solve the problem, because you still have to be able to afford them both in matters of minerals/gas AND larvae. That is not possible in the early game on the tiny Blizzard maps where early harrassment or pushes will cripple the Zerg economy. This usually ends with the Zerg losing if the opponent doesnt make a mistake.
This systematic difference of the Zerg race is turned into a huge drawback by the faster development - compared to BW - of Terrans and Protoss. Sure the Queen gives extra larvae, but that doesnt really speed up the process compared to BW - where you got the extra larvae from more hatcheries - until after you have two hatcheries and two queens, but you still need to spend larvae on Drones. In any case you are at a disadvantage in your development.
On September 25 2010 05:55 Jayrod wrote:
Ive read through every post on this thread and not once have I heard anyone mention an army composition that included more than 2 unit types. This isn't SC:BW... its time to evolve. Even marine/tank diversifies. This isn't SC1, blizzard isn't going to ruin the balance by making unnecessary buffs... zergs just need to explore strategies or go back to playing WoW because im sure 90% of zerg players are WoW players that whine until heroics get nerfed.
It isnt possible for Zerg to "evolve", simply because they are hamstrung by fast Terran harrassment (Reapers or Hellions) or run over by super fast Protoss proxy Gateway pushes. Blizzard needs to make systematic changes and these probably include slowing down the Warp Gate research and increasing the size of the maps. Both of these are necessary to give Zerg the time to "evolve".
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As far as scouting, this is clearly the issue with zerg. Fix this and zerg has a chance
It isn't broken so how can they fix it. Zerg has easier scouting than Protoss early game and probably late game too since detection denies most Protoss scouting.
Against Terran, Hydras suck, forcing Zerg to need a specific response to whatever mid-game threat Terran might be using, amplifying the problem
This would be more of the issue right here. Buff hydralisk so it isn't weaker than marines and a lot of it goes away. Buff roaches so they are much more viable early and part of it goes away as well. I really have never seen a compelling argument that scouting is a big issue for Zerg. The inability to deny scouting and just not having good general purpose units is the problem. Those general purpose units are supposed to be roach+hydra+zergling but most players just have to counter the zergling part.
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On September 25 2010 06:35 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 05:38 Headshot wrote:
Messing with damage/build time of certain units is not going to fix this game. There are serious problems with the Zerg infrastructure that only new units, and perhaps swapping the Roach and Hydralisk Den can fix. Scouting is also still going to be a problem. SC2 isn't any closer to being balanced than it was pre-1.1. New units will NOT solve the problem, because you still have to be able to afford them both in matters of minerals/gas AND larvae. That is not possible in the early game on the tiny Blizzard maps where early harrassment or pushes will cripple the Zerg economy. This usually ends with the Zerg losing if the opponent doesnt make a mistake. This systematic difference of the Zerg race is turned into a huge drawback by the faster development - compared to BW - of Terrans and Protoss. Sure the Queen gives extra larvae, but that doesnt really speed up the process compared to BW - where you got the extra larvae from more hatcheries - until after you have two hatcheries and two queens, but you still need to spend larvae on Drones. In any case you are at a disadvantage in your development. Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 05:55 Jayrod wrote:
Ive read through every post on this thread and not once have I heard anyone mention an army composition that included more than 2 unit types. This isn't SC:BW... its time to evolve. Even marine/tank diversifies. This isn't SC1, blizzard isn't going to ruin the balance by making unnecessary buffs... zergs just need to explore strategies or go back to playing WoW because im sure 90% of zerg players are WoW players that whine until heroics get nerfed. It isnt possible for Zerg to "evolve", simply because they are hamstrung by fast Terran harrassment (Reapers or Hellions) or run over by super fast Protoss proxy Gateway pushes. Blizzard needs to make systematic changes and these probably include slowing down the Warp Gate research and increasing the size of the maps. Both of these are necessary to give Zerg the time to "evolve".
Finally, someone who gets it. Couldn't have said it better myself.
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On September 25 2010 06:35 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 05:38 Headshot wrote:
Messing with damage/build time of certain units is not going to fix this game. There are serious problems with the Zerg infrastructure that only new units, and perhaps swapping the Roach and Hydralisk Den can fix. Scouting is also still going to be a problem. SC2 isn't any closer to being balanced than it was pre-1.1. New units will NOT solve the problem, because you still have to be able to afford them both in matters of minerals/gas AND larvae. That is not possible in the early game on the tiny Blizzard maps where early harrassment or pushes will cripple the Zerg economy. This usually ends with the Zerg losing if the opponent doesnt make a mistake. This systematic difference of the Zerg race is turned into a huge drawback by the faster development - compared to BW - of Terrans and Protoss. Sure the Queen gives extra larvae, but that doesnt really speed up the process compared to BW - where you got the extra larvae from more hatcheries - until after you have two hatcheries and two queens, but you still need to spend larvae on Drones. In any case you are at a disadvantage in your development. Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 05:55 Jayrod wrote:
Ive read through every post on this thread and not once have I heard anyone mention an army composition that included more than 2 unit types. This isn't SC:BW... its time to evolve. Even marine/tank diversifies. This isn't SC1, blizzard isn't going to ruin the balance by making unnecessary buffs... zergs just need to explore strategies or go back to playing WoW because im sure 90% of zerg players are WoW players that whine until heroics get nerfed. It isnt possible for Zerg to "evolve", simply because they are hamstrung by fast Terran harrassment (Reapers or Hellions) or run over by super fast Protoss proxy Gateway pushes. Blizzard needs to make systematic changes and these probably include slowing down the Warp Gate research and increasing the size of the maps. Both of these are necessary to give Zerg the time to "evolve".
May I ask where this change in attitude comes from? For the past few weeks/months you were like the king crusader of the (at first) "ZvT / ZvP is not imbalanced" and then the "It might not be as imbalanced as you say it is, Zergs need to l2p" movements, and now this?^^ Did you switch to Zerg or something?
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TvP is worse now I agree though it did help Z out against reapers I don't think it's fixed yet.
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On September 25 2010 06:02 Fa1nT wrote:
Because using 5 different zerg units means we have to research 10-15 different expensive upgrades for speed, range, energy, attack, defense, ect?
Just like every other race?
Face it. Many zerg are sitting on 1-2 unit types while Terran and Protoss players are not.
It's hard to feel sorry for the Zerg players that only do hydra/roach or ling/muta while T go MMM/tank/raven or P goes zealot/stalker/sentry/HT/collosus etc. etc.
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On September 25 2010 08:02 oxxo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 06:02 Fa1nT wrote:
Because using 5 different zerg units means we have to research 10-15 different expensive upgrades for speed, range, energy, attack, defense, ect?
Just like every other race? Face it. Many zerg are sitting on 1-2 unit types while Terran and Protoss players are not. It's hard to feel sorry for the Zerg players that only do hydra/roach or ling/muta while T go MMM/tank/raven or P goes zealot/stalker/sentry/HT/collosus etc. etc.
I'll agree with you there are unskilled zergs. But there are good zerg players who are also having trouble in the zvt matchup. The unit choices are generally due to the fact that terran has easily obtainable hard counters to 2/3 of zerg units.
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On September 25 2010 08:02 oxxo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 06:02 Fa1nT wrote:
Because using 5 different zerg units means we have to research 10-15 different expensive upgrades for speed, range, energy, attack, defense, ect?
Just like every other race? Face it. Many zerg are sitting on 1-2 unit types while Terran and Protoss players are not. It's hard to feel sorry for the Zerg players that only do hydra/roach or ling/muta while T go MMM/tank/raven or P goes zealot/stalker/sentry/HT/collosus etc. etc.
Well T and P only need a few different unit producing structures to make that nice composition. Zerg meanwhile needs to sac a drone/larva every time we want a different unit. Plus it takes twice as long to get the right unit comp.
For example when we scout and see that we need roaches. We must do two things: Build a roach warren and then build roaches.
Terran when they see that they need marauders only need to do one thing: Build mauraders. They already have barracks.
Nothing is out of the way for them. Barrack Factory and Starport are just 3 buildings that contain the majority of the units that they need, ghost and BC are pretty auxiliary and not imperative to any unit composition. Tech labs are inexpensive and build fast without a worker and can be swapped. Lift and land easily fixes the need for a tech lab.
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Congrats blizzard, Tanks are useless now - especially against P.
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Terran have the advantage early game against toss but late game toss have the big advantage. They made the gap even larger by nerfing tanks and bc.
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Idra obviously makes some excellent points, and others in this thread have filled in the gaps. The interplay between Terran and Zerg forces is just awful. What do I mean?
Well, to put things in context, Terran can unlock all their tech, bar ghosts and battlecruisers, within 185 seconds of starting their first barracks, for (if memory serves) 650m/350g. That's marines, marauders, reapers, hellions, tanks, thors, medivacs, vikings, banshees and ravens. Even if he manages to scout, a Zerg player can only confidently identify mass bio; beyond that trying to divine a Terran's strategy ahead of time from the contents of his base is a guessing-game. Personally, I find it much easier to divine a Terran's strategy from the contents of my base, because that's where his army is. But I digress.
So Terran has a fuck-ton of strategic options. Cool. I don't object to that, so let's not treat that as the problem. It's just context.
Now drop a Zerg opponent into that context. Zerg's slower, costlier tech-tree (yes, I'm aware of the associated advantages, but they only really kick in much later) in conjunction with very robust unit counters and the Terran's ability to turtle, together mean that the onus is upon Zerg to correctly anticipate and prepare to repel initial aggression. Fail, and the game is over. That's already quite harsh, because it's always that way around
The real problems begin when you think about what happens if the Zerg succeeds.
If a Terran army absolutely crushes a Zerg army, having sacrificed economy to do so, he can press on and win, or at least inflict substantial economic damage. But if the Zerg inflicts an early, crushing defeat, he's screwed. He's behind economically, just as the Terran would have been, but he can't end the game, and he probably can't even inflict economic damage.
It doesn't end there, though. Every Zerg response to early aggression hands his Terran opponent another clear-cut chance to win with a fairly modest investment. Force speedlings, and a handful of hellions will snap the game in Terran's favour. Force roaches with reapers, and marauders (mass produced with the same tech buildings) swiftly trump them. Delay lair and inhibit queen production with constant harass, and banshees deliver the coup de grace. Force lair and a similar trick can be employed with different units against an inadequate Zerg army. At any stage it's very, very hard for the Terran player to overreach himself on units or economy and lose the game. Terran dominance has come about, primarily, not through the discovery of specific OP strategies but through the dawning realisation of just how devastatingly easy it is to fake out, surprise or anticipate a Zerg opponent.
In my opinion, Zerg just needs to be made less reliant on specialist, hard-countered units in the early game. In BW, all three races had solid, accessible general-purpose core units or unit combos to stabilise the matchups: marines, hydras and zealots/dragoons. In SC2, only Zerg lacks such a catch-all early game unit combo - something they can defend and/or win with - and surprise surprise, they're the race struggling the most.
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On September 24 2010 23:44 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 23:35 oN_Silva wrote:
Oh I remember earlier, everyone was like "Oh Why the fuck does Zerg get the Changeling, They already have the best scouting possibilty ingame"
I ain't saying that changeling is anything near the answere (coz they suck lol) but I always woundered why people kept saying zerg is best scoutin...
Coz without sacrifize overlord there is Zero scout to neiter hag nor evil
Zerg has the best mid game scouting if you are including persistent scouting. They have the 2nd best early scouting as well having it better than Protoss does. What they have is the weakest in base scouting and that is something the changeling does help wiht a little bit. All of the scouting complaints are really complaints about how hard it is for Zerg to get counters out for different strats. Protoss can counter every early build with just gateway units, Zerg can pick the wrong path to go down and lose if they can't scout in base early enough.
Zerg has the best mid game scouting? really? This is news to me, last I checked suiciding a ling at a ramp usually gives little to no information about what tech the opponent is going. Sacking a floating supply depot is a pretty expensive a way to get information, especially when you have to do it over and over again. I'd rather have scans or an observer any day. Not to mention that until I pay another 100/100 for speed that floating supply depot takes like a year to get to his base and usually is sniped before information is gained without this speed.
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On September 25 2010 09:32 kmillz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 23:44 EnderCN wrote:On September 24 2010 23:35 oN_Silva wrote:
Oh I remember earlier, everyone was like "Oh Why the fuck does Zerg get the Changeling, They already have the best scouting possibilty ingame"
I ain't saying that changeling is anything near the answere (coz they suck lol) but I always woundered why people kept saying zerg is best scoutin...
Coz without sacrifize overlord there is Zero scout to neiter hag nor evil
Zerg has the best mid game scouting if you are including persistent scouting. They have the 2nd best early scouting as well having it better than Protoss does. What they have is the weakest in base scouting and that is something the changeling does help wiht a little bit. All of the scouting complaints are really complaints about how hard it is for Zerg to get counters out for different strats. Protoss can counter every early build with just gateway units, Zerg can pick the wrong path to go down and lose if they can't scout in base early enough. Zerg has the best mid game scouting? really? This is news to me, last I checked suiciding a ling at a ramp usually gives little to no information about what tech the opponent is going. Sacking a floating supply depot is a pretty expensive a way to get information, especially when you have to do it over and over again. I'd rather have scans or an observer any day. Not to mention that until I pay another 100/100 for speed that floating supply depot takes like a year to get to his base and usually is sniped before information is gained without this speed.
You are only looking at half of what scouting is though. Holding towers, overlords, creep tumors are all scouting. Watch an IdrA game and by mid game he sees at least 50% of the map at all times. He almost always sees exactly what is coming way before it reaches him, high end Terran players largely play in the dark mid game outside of scans. That is why I said they have weak in base scouting, it is hard for them to scout what is inside a base. They can use overseers and changelings to do this as well as mutalisk. Observers are nice but they are incredibly easy to deny in base scouting with and Terran pretty much has vikings and scans and sensor towers. It is pretty close between Terran and Zerg.
If all you are talking about is seeing specifically what is in someones base then yeah it goes Terran > Zerg > Protoss early game and Terran > Zerg = Protoss late game. When you add persistent scouting Zerg takes over though.
None of that changes my point though. If roach+hydra were a viable combo mid game Zerg wouldn't really NEED in base scouting just like Protoss doesn't. It would be nice but not needed. The fact that their main army units just aren't strong enough is severely limiting.
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On September 25 2010 09:40 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 09:32 kmillz wrote:On September 24 2010 23:44 EnderCN wrote:On September 24 2010 23:35 oN_Silva wrote:
Oh I remember earlier, everyone was like "Oh Why the fuck does Zerg get the Changeling, They already have the best scouting possibilty ingame"
I ain't saying that changeling is anything near the answere (coz they suck lol) but I always woundered why people kept saying zerg is best scoutin...
Coz without sacrifize overlord there is Zero scout to neiter hag nor evil
Zerg has the best mid game scouting if you are including persistent scouting. They have the 2nd best early scouting as well having it better than Protoss does. What they have is the weakest in base scouting and that is something the changeling does help wiht a little bit. All of the scouting complaints are really complaints about how hard it is for Zerg to get counters out for different strats. Protoss can counter every early build with just gateway units, Zerg can pick the wrong path to go down and lose if they can't scout in base early enough. Zerg has the best mid game scouting? really? This is news to me, last I checked suiciding a ling at a ramp usually gives little to no information about what tech the opponent is going. Sacking a floating supply depot is a pretty expensive a way to get information, especially when you have to do it over and over again. I'd rather have scans or an observer any day. Not to mention that until I pay another 100/100 for speed that floating supply depot takes like a year to get to his base and usually is sniped before information is gained without this speed. You are only looking at half of what scouting is though. Holding towers, overlords, creep tumors are all scouting. Watch an IdrA game and by mid game he sees at least 50% of the map at all times. He almost always sees exactly what is coming way before it reaches him, high end Terran players largely play in the dark mid game outside of scans. That is why I said they have weak in base scouting, it is hard for them to scout what is inside a base. They can use overseers and changelings to do this as well as mutalisk. Observers are nice but they are incredibly easy to deny in base scouting with and Terran pretty much has vikings and scans and sensor towers. It is pretty close between Terran and Zerg. If all you are talking about is seeing specifically what is in someones base then yeah it goes Terran > Zerg > Protoss early game and Terran > Zerg = Protoss late game. When you add persistent scouting Zerg takes over though.
you could medivac drop an SCV across the map and spawn a supply depot and have exactly the same.
all those things you mentioned take a lot of time to develop, while a decent terran will just take your overlords out with a few vikings, or kill your creep spread with a simple scan (after which you need to take a queen all the way to where you killed the last few tumors to place a new one, something that usually isn't possible).
edit: a scan can reveal about 3-4 creep tumor centers, which is a lot of path.
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On September 25 2010 09:46 crw wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 09:40 EnderCN wrote:On September 25 2010 09:32 kmillz wrote:On September 24 2010 23:44 EnderCN wrote:On September 24 2010 23:35 oN_Silva wrote:
Oh I remember earlier, everyone was like "Oh Why the fuck does Zerg get the Changeling, They already have the best scouting possibilty ingame"
I ain't saying that changeling is anything near the answere (coz they suck lol) but I always woundered why people kept saying zerg is best scoutin...
Coz without sacrifize overlord there is Zero scout to neiter hag nor evil
Zerg has the best mid game scouting if you are including persistent scouting. They have the 2nd best early scouting as well having it better than Protoss does. What they have is the weakest in base scouting and that is something the changeling does help wiht a little bit. All of the scouting complaints are really complaints about how hard it is for Zerg to get counters out for different strats. Protoss can counter every early build with just gateway units, Zerg can pick the wrong path to go down and lose if they can't scout in base early enough. Zerg has the best mid game scouting? really? This is news to me, last I checked suiciding a ling at a ramp usually gives little to no information about what tech the opponent is going. Sacking a floating supply depot is a pretty expensive a way to get information, especially when you have to do it over and over again. I'd rather have scans or an observer any day. Not to mention that until I pay another 100/100 for speed that floating supply depot takes like a year to get to his base and usually is sniped before information is gained without this speed. You are only looking at half of what scouting is though. Holding towers, overlords, creep tumors are all scouting. Watch an IdrA game and by mid game he sees at least 50% of the map at all times. He almost always sees exactly what is coming way before it reaches him, high end Terran players largely play in the dark mid game outside of scans. That is why I said they have weak in base scouting, it is hard for them to scout what is inside a base. They can use overseers and changelings to do this as well as mutalisk. Observers are nice but they are incredibly easy to deny in base scouting with and Terran pretty much has vikings and scans and sensor towers. It is pretty close between Terran and Zerg. If all you are talking about is seeing specifically what is in someones base then yeah it goes Terran > Zerg > Protoss early game and Terran > Zerg = Protoss late game. When you add persistent scouting Zerg takes over though. you could medivac drop an SCV across the map and spawn a supply depot there map ctrl right there. your argument is stupid, in order to get overlords less
Actually you'r point is invalid because of the fact that Supply depots don't move and get speed upgrades. Sure you could plant one in an expo to see when the other player takes it but you can't fly it in the a base and see whats going on. For the record, I am Zerg.
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On September 25 2010 09:40 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 09:32 kmillz wrote:On September 24 2010 23:44 EnderCN wrote:On September 24 2010 23:35 oN_Silva wrote:
Oh I remember earlier, everyone was like "Oh Why the fuck does Zerg get the Changeling, They already have the best scouting possibilty ingame"
I ain't saying that changeling is anything near the answere (coz they suck lol) but I always woundered why people kept saying zerg is best scoutin...
Coz without sacrifize overlord there is Zero scout to neiter hag nor evil
Zerg has the best mid game scouting if you are including persistent scouting. They have the 2nd best early scouting as well having it better than Protoss does. What they have is the weakest in base scouting and that is something the changeling does help wiht a little bit. All of the scouting complaints are really complaints about how hard it is for Zerg to get counters out for different strats. Protoss can counter every early build with just gateway units, Zerg can pick the wrong path to go down and lose if they can't scout in base early enough. Zerg has the best mid game scouting? really? This is news to me, last I checked suiciding a ling at a ramp usually gives little to no information about what tech the opponent is going. Sacking a floating supply depot is a pretty expensive a way to get information, especially when you have to do it over and over again. I'd rather have scans or an observer any day. Not to mention that until I pay another 100/100 for speed that floating supply depot takes like a year to get to his base and usually is sniped before information is gained without this speed. You are only looking at half of what scouting is though. Holding towers, overlords, creep tumors are all scouting. Watch an IdrA game and by mid game he sees at least 50% of the map at all times. He almost always sees exactly what is coming way before it reaches him, high end Terran players largely play in the dark mid game outside of scans. That is why I said they have weak in base scouting, it is hard for them to scout what is inside a base. They can use overseers and changelings to do this as well as mutalisk. Observers are nice but they are incredibly easy to deny in base scouting with and Terran pretty much has vikings and scans and sensor towers. It is pretty close between Terran and Zerg. If all you are talking about is seeing specifically what is in someones base then yeah it goes Terran > Zerg > Protoss early game and Terran > Zerg = Protoss late game. When you add persistent scouting Zerg takes over though. None of that changes my point though. If roach+hydra were a viable combo mid game Zerg wouldn't really NEED in base scouting just like Protoss doesn't. It would be nice but not needed. The fact that their main army units just aren't strong enough is severely limiting.
Seeing half the map is only useful if you also know what the opponent is making. Seeing a big ball of units halfway to your base that hard counters your army merely gives you a little advance warning that your are about to lose. However I do agree that the hard counters are a big part of the problem. T1 units doing 200%-300% damage to core armor types is poor design.
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On September 25 2010 04:15 Apolo wrote:
A way to adress Zerg lategame could be related with their total supply. 200/200 Zerg is the inferior. Even though zerg can replenish units quickly, i find it insuficient. Besides, units need to be low supply if we are to expect them to be a swarm. The zergling is probably the only unit that fits the Zerg swarmish feel with their 0.5 supply per unit. Either that or increase Zerg's supply to 225 or so.
i think zerg late game is fine, its their early game that suffers
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On September 25 2010 08:07 lambnrice wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 08:02 oxxo wrote:On September 25 2010 06:02 Fa1nT wrote:
Because using 5 different zerg units means we have to research 10-15 different expensive upgrades for speed, range, energy, attack, defense, ect?
Just like every other race? Face it. Many zerg are sitting on 1-2 unit types while Terran and Protoss players are not. It's hard to feel sorry for the Zerg players that only do hydra/roach or ling/muta while T go MMM/tank/raven or P goes zealot/stalker/sentry/HT/collosus etc. etc. Well T and P only need a few different unit producing structures to make that nice composition. Zerg meanwhile needs to sac a drone/larva every time we want a different unit. Plus it takes twice as long to get the right unit comp. For example when we scout and see that we need roaches. We must do two things: Build a roach warren and then build roaches. Terran when they see that they need marauders only need to do one thing: Build mauraders. They already have barracks. Nothing is out of the way for them. Barrack Factory and Starport are just 3 buildings that contain the majority of the units that they need, ghost and BC are pretty auxiliary and not imperative to any unit composition. Tech labs are inexpensive and build fast without a worker and can be swapped. Lift and land easily fixes the need for a tech lab.
Yeah the Zerg tech tree is more expensive (Z:1450/1050 VS T:1050 575 [1-1-1]) but you get with that quick production of all those unit types as needed which is pretty cool as demonstrated by Cool in GSL today when he puked out many Ultras asap. The price pretty much even once you raise that to 8 production buildings which you'll probably be sitting on at 2 base play. Its not like Terran or Toss can go "OH SNAP I NEED IMMORTALS / THORS" and puke out 5. I'm pretty sure the other races unites come with strings attached (i.e. research) before they become uber; Zealot legs, Blink, Stim, Shield, Conc nades, Infernal Preigniter, Extended thermal lance etc.
Yeah Terran and Toss hit their later tech quicker and easier, but when Zerg tech it can churn it out in sustained numbers, Toss can warp in gateway units anywhere with a pylon and frontloads unit production so overall balance is much more complicated than "my tech tree is so expensive".
Didn't really agree with Idras post, it was many words but didn't really offer much in the way of ideas and mostly amounted to "Everything Terran has is too strong, and stops my fast expand, Toss can stop my fast expand too easily". Yeah it was nice he expained the tank change didn't impact ZvT much, but everyone knew that anyway, yeah the pylon cannon contain is strong, thats not that new.
T1 overlord speed and/or overseer keeping Contaminate / changling T2 would be reasonable though and probably help the scouting problems and help VS cloaked unit rushes.
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On September 25 2010 09:40 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 09:32 kmillz wrote:On September 24 2010 23:44 EnderCN wrote:On September 24 2010 23:35 oN_Silva wrote:
Oh I remember earlier, everyone was like "Oh Why the fuck does Zerg get the Changeling, They already have the best scouting possibilty ingame"
I ain't saying that changeling is anything near the answere (coz they suck lol) but I always woundered why people kept saying zerg is best scoutin...
Coz without sacrifize overlord there is Zero scout to neiter hag nor evil
Zerg has the best mid game scouting if you are including persistent scouting. They have the 2nd best early scouting as well having it better than Protoss does. What they have is the weakest in base scouting and that is something the changeling does help wiht a little bit. All of the scouting complaints are really complaints about how hard it is for Zerg to get counters out for different strats. Protoss can counter every early build with just gateway units, Zerg can pick the wrong path to go down and lose if they can't scout in base early enough. Zerg has the best mid game scouting? really? This is news to me, last I checked suiciding a ling at a ramp usually gives little to no information about what tech the opponent is going. Sacking a floating supply depot is a pretty expensive a way to get information, especially when you have to do it over and over again. I'd rather have scans or an observer any day. Not to mention that until I pay another 100/100 for speed that floating supply depot takes like a year to get to his base and usually is sniped before information is gained without this speed. You are only looking at half of what scouting is though. Holding towers, overlords, creep tumors are all scouting. Watch an IdrA game and by mid game he sees at least 50% of the map at all times. He almost always sees exactly what is coming way before it reaches him, high end Terran players largely play in the dark mid game outside of scans. That is why I said they have weak in base scouting, it is hard for them to scout what is inside a base. They can use overseers and changelings to do this as well as mutalisk. Observers are nice but they are incredibly easy to deny in base scouting with and Terran pretty much has vikings and scans and sensor towers. It is pretty close between Terran and Zerg. If all you are talking about is seeing specifically what is in someones base then yeah it goes Terran > Zerg > Protoss early game and Terran > Zerg = Protoss late game. When you add persistent scouting Zerg takes over though. None of that changes my point though. If roach+hydra were a viable combo mid game Zerg wouldn't really NEED in base scouting just like Protoss doesn't. It would be nice but not needed. The fact that their main army units just aren't strong enough is severely limiting.
This is IdrA's quote.
All other terran aggression, hellions, hellion drops, banshees, bio allins, tank allins, thor allins, remains mostly untouched. The balance problems in early game ZvT come down to the fact that terran is simply stronger and much more diverse early on, zerg has to rely on hard counters to have any chance to survive, but cant scout in time to implement them.
Even he states the difficulty of zerg scouting. Now obviously having overlords for sight around the map is a plus, but ultimately sensor towers do the same thing. I do agree with most scouting complaints are mainly about the early game scouting to see what tech path to counter. But this is the most crucial and unforgiving part.
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On September 25 2010 04:02 virusGoatfish wrote:
I love IdrA but I wish he would stop complaining.
Ya. He is very good but sometimes the mass complaining (raging) can get old. He does have valid points. I just wish he wouldnt insult players that beat him with terran. Makes him look childish.
Dropping hydralisk to 1.5 tier I think would give the zerg a little more variety. Obviously there would have to be stat changes to them but getting some sort of main stream aa would round them out a bit
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When talking about how good or bad a race is at scouting, I think you also need to talk about how much a race needs to scout as well.
As a defensive and proactive race, Terran doesn't need to scout vs Zerg as much as the Zerg needs to scout the Terran. Their wall-offs deter most ground attacks, good depot placement stops Nydus hijinks, Sensor Towers deter drops and in a pinch, scans can be used to kill Burrowed units that might have somehow made their way in. And that's fine. It's the sheer number of aggressive tactics that they can employ even though they are meant to be the best defensive race that is the problem.
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Tank nerf means tanks won't melt roaches like they did before. Reaper means an easier early game for zerg.
Its a step forward, and tbh its to early to be making drastic changes to "fix" balancing. A year from now the game will be completely different, if you buff zerg now a year from now they could be the favored race.
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On September 25 2010 11:43 ibreakurface wrote:
Tank nerf means tanks won't melt roaches like they did before. Reaper means an easier early game for zerg.
Its a step forward, and tbh its to early to be making drastic changes to "fix" balancing. A year from now the game will be completely different, if you buff zerg now a year from now they could be the favored race.
you do realize that tanks do exactly the same damage against roaches post patch?
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On September 25 2010 11:43 ibreakurface wrote:
Tank nerf means tanks won't melt roaches like they did before. Reaper means an easier early game for zerg.
Its a step forward, and tbh its to early to be making drastic changes to "fix" balancing. A year from now the game will be completely different, if you buff zerg now a year from now they could be the favored race.
tanks do the same damage vs armored units, but against light they nerfed it -15 damage, which is not TOO significant when the Terran has a lot of tanks, but early on I guess it it can help fend off some small pushes.
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On September 25 2010 09:30 Umpteen wrote:
Idra obviously makes some excellent points, and others in this thread have filled in the gaps. The interplay between Terran and Zerg forces is just awful. What do I mean?
Well, to put things in context, Terran can unlock all their tech, bar ghosts and battlecruisers, within 185 seconds of starting their first barracks, for (if memory serves) 650m/350g. That's marines, marauders, reapers, hellions, tanks, thors, medivacs, vikings, banshees and ravens. Even if he manages to scout, a Zerg player can only confidently identify mass bio; beyond that trying to divine a Terran's strategy ahead of time from the contents of his base is a guessing-game. Personally, I find it much easier to divine a Terran's strategy from the contents of my base, because that's where his army is. But I digress.
So Terran has a fuck-ton of strategic options. Cool. I don't object to that, so let's not treat that as the problem. It's just context.
Now drop a Zerg opponent into that context. Zerg's slower, costlier tech-tree (yes, I'm aware of the associated advantages, but they only really kick in much later) in conjunction with very robust unit counters and the Terran's ability to turtle, together mean that the onus is upon Zerg to correctly anticipate and prepare to repel initial aggression. Fail, and the game is over. That's already quite harsh, because it's always that way around
The real problems begin when you think about what happens if the Zerg succeeds.
If a Terran army absolutely crushes a Zerg army, having sacrificed economy to do so, he can press on and win, or at least inflict substantial economic damage. But if the Zerg inflicts an early, crushing defeat, he's screwed. He's behind economically, just as the Terran would have been, but he can't end the game, and he probably can't even inflict economic damage.
It doesn't end there, though. Every Zerg response to early aggression hands his Terran opponent another clear-cut chance to win with a fairly modest investment. Force speedlings, and a handful of hellions will snap the game in Terran's favour. Force roaches with reapers, and marauders (mass produced with the same tech buildings) swiftly trump them. Delay lair and inhibit queen production with constant harass, and banshees deliver the coup de grace. Force lair and a similar trick can be employed with different units against an inadequate Zerg army. At any stage it's very, very hard for the Terran player to overreach himself on units or economy and lose the game. Terran dominance has come about, primarily, not through the discovery of specific OP strategies but through the dawning realisation of just how devastatingly easy it is to fake out, surprise or anticipate a Zerg opponent.
In my opinion, Zerg just needs to be made less reliant on specialist, hard-countered units in the early game. In BW, all three races had solid, accessible general-purpose core units or unit combos to stabilise the matchups: marines, hydras and zealots/dragoons. In SC2, only Zerg lacks such a catch-all early game unit combo - something they can defend and/or win with - and surprise surprise, they're the race struggling the most.
Very nice write up.
/ Signed
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I agree with half of what he says. I am a toss player and I believe that zerg is too weak. I have a 90% win streak against zerg. I disagree that Terran is stronger early game and toss is stronger later game. I think what zerg needs is diversity. They have the least diversity out of all of the race, in addition, zerg is more APM intensive giving Terran and Toss a natural advantage. I am currently trying to learn zerg and I lose most of my games even if I severely damage there economy early on and destroy most of there army. For terran and toss, it is easy to stay ahead when you win a intensive battle, but it is much more difficult for zerg. There units has less HP and dies easier. It is generally accepted that a max zerg will lose to a max toss or terrain.
Only multa-ling or roaches are stable and effective builds for zerg. Zergling rush is soo effective due to the last patch against toss.
I wish that they would give zerg a early game spellcaster (terran has ghost and toss has sentry, they gave zerg a Queen which isn't very useful in battle.)
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Zerg has the best mid game scouting? really? This is news to me, last I checked suiciding a ling at a ramp usually gives little to no information about what tech the opponent is going. Sacking a floating supply depot is a pretty expensive a way to get information, especially when you have to do it over and over again. I'd rather have scans or an observer any day. Not to mention that until I pay another 100/100 for speed that floating supply depot takes like a year to get to his base and usually is sniped before information is gained without this speed.
Zerg midgame scouting is fine, remember, Observers force you into a very rigid tech path. Zerg just has to get lair up and they can have a relatively fast scout thats hard to deny quite easily for a 50/100 cost. As opposed to P, who is forced to early robo. In terms of detection, Overseers are very reliable while scans are not, and become a hassle midgame until you can get air.
Zerg early game scouting is the issue. I won't deny that. But I could agree with zerg midgame scouting, that +overspeed map control, you have no issues with scouting.
Its surviving those early game pushes with zero info that we need some help on.
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Zerg has very good scouting options. Zerglings/Overlords for the map, Speed Overlords or Overseers for the bases. (And then Mutalisks or Corrupters later.)
Overlord Speed is cheap (100/100) and researches quickly (60 time). If that's too slow for you, an Overseer is cheap (50/100) and morphs really quickly (17 time). Lair is available ~as quickly as Factory + Addon, if Terran performs a flying swap - the other races don't get in-base scouting any faster than you. (Well, unless Terran decides to floating a building, or scan. Dammit, Terran.)
Unfortunately, the maps are very small and everything walls Zerglings now --> Zerg early-game sucks --> Zerg can't afford to expand and get a quick lair. It's not Zerg's aerial scouting that's bad or delayed - it's actually very good. But Zerglings and Sunkens are significantly weaker than in BW, compared to the other races' early options, forcing Zerg to delay the Lair and rely on Queens.
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it is unfortunate but I have to agree with Idra. Not much that it makes sense since he said it. but that it pretty much is spot on with how I, and many other people felt. I really do question the mindset of Blizzard when they decided on those changes. I find it hard to believe that they would be so narrow minded in realizing what nerfing Protoss would do if nearly nothing is done to Terran. I would find it difficult to believe that people are unknowing of the sheer damage and ability of terran to push early game with Marauders, that it makes stalkers in a bad position. And what is the counter for Marauders, which was even noted in the challenge mode? Zealots, which have now been nerfed while Marauders were not touched. So one of the more difficulties and annoyances of PvT was worsened.
They did nearly nothing to help the Zerg out. They buffed a unit which is very late game and requires at least 3 bases to pull off. While being reluctant in addressing the entirely middle section of the game. The weaknesses and annoyances with the infestors. Which have now been fixed, preventing them from casting anything while burrowed. Which to a degree, made them far more useful then before.
It just makes me frustrated, these are things that should have been addressed pre-release. Since beta gave Blizzard the ability to patch quite quickly, and not keep us waiting on a patch that was barely any different from the status report (which was already lacking in changes).
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After near 300 games today someone massed hydras against me
man they srsly need some buff huh ?
near every unit kills them =X
slow, few hp, bad damage ....
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I honestly came here to flame IdrA... But I actually agree with what he says.
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im not sure about all this "overpowered/underpowered" i agree that races are better at certain things than other races, for example i love zergs ability to just summon an army out of thin air pretty much, im thinking the reason lots of people are struggling with zerg against other races is that maybe people arnt using enough hatches?
a few people ive been watching seem well able to support 3 hatch off 2 base, maybe if people stop limiting themselves to one hatch per base things might seem a little easier for zerg.
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On September 25 2010 13:16 CrimsonPhoenix wrote:
I honestly came here to flame IdrA... But I actually agree with what he says.
Same... Was expecting his usual rage, but what he says is generally correct. But it is hard to balance a game where the issues showing up are constantly changing.
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On September 25 2010 13:02 noD wrote:
After near 300 games today someone massed hydras against me
man they srsly need some buff huh ?
near every unit kills them =X
slow, few hp, bad damage ....
One problem with them is how ranged units attack. The first ones attack and until they die, the others behind them do not attack. They have a weird ability to shoot where unless you move them forward quite a bit, most of the army wont attack properly. So what do range units do to compensate? Well if small enough, they tend to ballup and run in. Problem with the hydra is that, unless they are on the creep, the moving up and attack just is not quick enough. In Sc:Bw, they were able to be quick, micro'd back and forth to be useful in that manner. But now, they just cant.
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I notice that too. To be effective, the Hydras in front have to be at melee range, while the ones in back shoot the target. So I tend to stick with small groups, so they make that arc shape behind my melee units/Roaches.
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I noticed that doing the challenge of single player but thought it was dumb ia or something =x
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I disagree with IdrA, I feel ZvP has changed, not that drastically, but it has changed slightly to help Zerg, but TvP and TvZ were largely unaddressed with TvP being made worse for P. The longer zealot build time and increased time on warp gates gives zerg that tiny bit more breathing room, but I still feel once it gets to 2 base play for P/3base for zerg, advantage is still with P. Zerglings, roaches, mutas and marauders need changes imo. All the zerg units are really weak except in specialized situations and marauders are just too strong.
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On September 25 2010 13:18 Minigin wrote:
im not sure about all this "overpowered/underpowered" i agree that races are better at certain things than other races, for example i love zergs ability to just summon an army out of thin air pretty much, im thinking the reason lots of people are struggling with zerg against other races is that maybe people arnt using enough hatches?
a few people ive been watching seem well able to support 3 hatch off 2 base, maybe if people stop limiting themselves to one hatch per base things might seem a little easier for zerg.
Hmm, no, I don't think so.
Larvae are a relatively plentiful resource thanks to Queens, and really I think most Zergs struggle with defending the myriad ways they can be harassed or attacked in the early-mid stages of the game, not with macroing up large armies.
Agree that Hydras have problems. Its Zergs first proper range unit in the tech tree and they are really pretty garbage. Difficult to see how they can really rebalance them without doing anything too drastic...but maybe drastic is what is needed and thats why Blizzard is gonna take their sweet time.
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On September 25 2010 07:04 heishe wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 06:35 Rabiator wrote:On September 25 2010 05:38 Headshot wrote:
Messing with damage/build time of certain units is not going to fix this game. There are serious problems with the Zerg infrastructure that only new units, and perhaps swapping the Roach and Hydralisk Den can fix. Scouting is also still going to be a problem. SC2 isn't any closer to being balanced than it was pre-1.1. New units will NOT solve the problem, because you still have to be able to afford them both in matters of minerals/gas AND larvae. That is not possible in the early game on the tiny Blizzard maps where early harrassment or pushes will cripple the Zerg economy. This usually ends with the Zerg losing if the opponent doesnt make a mistake. This systematic difference of the Zerg race is turned into a huge drawback by the faster development - compared to BW - of Terrans and Protoss. Sure the Queen gives extra larvae, but that doesnt really speed up the process compared to BW - where you got the extra larvae from more hatcheries - until after you have two hatcheries and two queens, but you still need to spend larvae on Drones. In any case you are at a disadvantage in your development. On September 25 2010 05:55 Jayrod wrote:
Ive read through every post on this thread and not once have I heard anyone mention an army composition that included more than 2 unit types. This isn't SC:BW... its time to evolve. Even marine/tank diversifies. This isn't SC1, blizzard isn't going to ruin the balance by making unnecessary buffs... zergs just need to explore strategies or go back to playing WoW because im sure 90% of zerg players are WoW players that whine until heroics get nerfed. It isnt possible for Zerg to "evolve", simply because they are hamstrung by fast Terran harrassment (Reapers or Hellions) or run over by super fast Protoss proxy Gateway pushes. Blizzard needs to make systematic changes and these probably include slowing down the Warp Gate research and increasing the size of the maps. Both of these are necessary to give Zerg the time to "evolve". May I ask where this change in attitude comes from? For the past few weeks/months you were like the king crusader of the (at first) "ZvT / ZvP is not imbalanced" and then the "It might not be as imbalanced as you say it is, Zergs need to l2p" movements, and now this?^^ Did you switch to Zerg or something?
I have NOT changed my attitude ... and attention to detail is the key to understanding. You say "ZvT / ZvP is not imbalanced", but that is NOT what I have said. I have said that TERRAN IS NOT OP, which is a totally different thing.
As I posted above there are SYSTEMATIC PROBLEMS which are the real issue for the inability of Zerg to perform well. I have been a crusader for bigger maps for weeks if you might remember and most of the "whining" contained a "Terran is OP" due to feature XYZ (which is always totally negated by the TvP-kinda-balanced-state ... which people are arguing is favored one way or another, but which isnt nearly as bad as TvZ).
So arguing that "TvZ is badly balanced" is the right way and then you just look at a game from the beginning and have to notice that Zerg gets to lose a ton of Drones from either Reaper or Hellion harrass. Are the units themselves "unfair"? Not really, because Reapers die easily and you can block Hellions out with a few Roaches ... you just need the TIME to get them and this isnt possible on Blizzards tiny maps like Steppes of War, unless you screw up your own economy and then you kinda kill the Drones yourself. Easy solution: make maps bigger. Shouldnt be too hard to figure out, but there are too many idiots who have zero attention to detail as my above example of "Terran is OP" vs "TvZ is badly balanced" shows.
EDIT: The same imbalance is true against Protoss, which can mass their forces very fast once the Warp Gate research is finished and usually succeed in taking out the first Zerg expansion. Slowing down Warp Gate research is the key here IMO, because the Protoss units can be proxied at the front and an increased rush distance doesnt matter.
EDIT: Part 2
There are some fears I have about larger maps, which will make Zerg (and maybe Protoss as well) totally dominate Terrans, because of the relative immobility of the Terrans. Protoss have Warp Gates to produce reinforcements right at the front (for most of their units) and Chrono Boost to focus their production on the important stuff. Zerg have Nydus Worms to almost instantly travel anywhere close to the front with their reinforcements, but Terrans really only have the Medivac to improve their movement speed and that is easily shot down by faster Mutas or Phoenixes. So on a really large map the Terrans will be "stuck on the field without reinforcements" and will probably die very easily in a war of attrition. Cutting off reinforcements should not be that hard with a bunch of very mobile Mutas or Speedlings.
If you take a larger map and try the good old "tank contain" on it you will notice that the siege tank nerf actually does matter, because you need to spread out your tanks quite a bit to cover a lot of ground. This makes them almost useless against a concentrated attack, because you could rush out and kill a few without losing an equal amount. The immobility of Thors doesnt help either and being able to protect the containing army against attacks from the air is going to be hard.
So larger maps will tilt the balance of the scale in quite a different direction and open up new problems, but a certain minimum ground rush distance is a requirement to give Zerg a fighting chance without having to totally revamp the starting balance of the entire game (which I would consider a major overhaul). Blizzard just needs to realize that Starcraft is a STRATEGY game and not an ACTION game.
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On September 25 2010 10:06 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 08:07 lambnrice wrote:On September 25 2010 08:02 oxxo wrote:On September 25 2010 06:02 Fa1nT wrote:
Because using 5 different zerg units means we have to research 10-15 different expensive upgrades for speed, range, energy, attack, defense, ect?
Just like every other race? Face it. Many zerg are sitting on 1-2 unit types while Terran and Protoss players are not. It's hard to feel sorry for the Zerg players that only do hydra/roach or ling/muta while T go MMM/tank/raven or P goes zealot/stalker/sentry/HT/collosus etc. etc. Well T and P only need a few different unit producing structures to make that nice composition. Zerg meanwhile needs to sac a drone/larva every time we want a different unit. Plus it takes twice as long to get the right unit comp. For example when we scout and see that we need roaches. We must do two things: Build a roach warren and then build roaches. Terran when they see that they need marauders only need to do one thing: Build mauraders. They already have barracks. Nothing is out of the way for them. Barrack Factory and Starport are just 3 buildings that contain the majority of the units that they need, ghost and BC are pretty auxiliary and not imperative to any unit composition. Tech labs are inexpensive and build fast without a worker and can be swapped. Lift and land easily fixes the need for a tech lab. Yeah the Zerg tech tree is more expensive (Z:1450/1050 VS T:1050 575 [1-1-1]) but you get with that quick production of all those unit types as needed which is pretty cool as demonstrated by Cool in GSL today when he puked out many Ultras asap. The price pretty much even once you raise that to 8 production buildings which you'll probably be sitting on at 2 base play. Its not like Terran or Toss can go "OH SNAP I NEED IMMORTALS / THORS" and puke out 5. I'm pretty sure the other races unites come with strings attached (i.e. research) before they become uber; Zealot legs, Blink, Stim, Shield, Conc nades, Infernal Preigniter, Extended thermal lance etc. Yeah Terran and Toss hit their later tech quicker and easier, but when Zerg tech it can churn it out in sustained numbers, Toss can warp in gateway units anywhere with a pylon and frontloads unit production so overall balance is much more complicated than "my tech tree is so expensive". Didn't really agree with Idras post, it was many words but didn't really offer much in the way of ideas and mostly amounted to "Everything Terran has is too strong, and stops my fast expand, Toss can stop my fast expand too easily". Yeah it was nice he expained the tank change didn't impact ZvT much, but everyone knew that anyway, yeah the pylon cannon contain is strong, thats not that new. T1 overlord speed and/or overseer keeping Contaminate / changling T2 would be reasonable though and probably help the scouting problems and help VS cloaked unit rushes.
The price is pretty much even because we can spit out an army thanks to the equal number of production buildings that a T can have. I understand the point you are trying to make, but the problem is not once the production building is done for zerg.
The difference lies in the fact that if I need roaches, it takes twice as long to be able to get to roaches. Meanwhile a Terran have the access to building marauders should they need them in half the time.
Sure zerg can build 2, 3, 4, times as many once the production building is complete. The argument I'm making is that you lose before you can even capitalize on having the ability to produce them. But terran can produce what they need prior to this happening.
Will terran have enough in time? That's a different question. That's a question answered by if they can macro fast enough, not if they fundamentally have enough time. Zerg just fundamentally doesn't have enough time to appropriately respond. This is why I'm advocating that they need better scouting mechanics.
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I think hydralisks could be used efficiently if every zerg starts focusing on spreading creep as fast as possible (tumors, overlords)
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On September 25 2010 16:08 DarkspearTribe wrote:
I think hydralisks could be used efficiently if every zerg starts focusing on spreading creep as fast as possible (tumors, overlords)
There are many Zergs who have done that already, and Hydras are still not really very viable.
ZvT - Hydra are simply overshadowed by the more effective and cheaper marines. 2 Marines equal the damage of a single hydra WITHOUT stim.
ZvP - Hydras work great on defense against Robo, but are weak on offense due to the incredible speed of stalkers. Use of mass amounts of Hydras forces you in to a defensive position without mobility, and leaves you open to colossi/ht. They are pretty much the unit you make "when you have to" to counteract certain unit mixes - not because they are going to win you the game, but you are forced due to the nature of needing to hard-counter Protoss..
ZvZ - they will already have made a baneling den 90% of the time. In which case mass amounts of hydras explode.
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The problem I see with Zerg now is this; the mindset behind creep and zerg is as follows. The zerg move quicker when on the creep. This I think is wrong, if that were the case, it would not a benefit and not a necessity to have creep everywhere. But that is simply not the case, units are slowed down when not on the creep. This way of thinking only shows that the area for which Zerg can move properly is far smaller then any other race. Creep is only enlarging an area that allows for your units to move properly. To me, that was one the most damage aspects of Sc II comapreably to that of Sc:Bw. Having Hydra move so bloody slow when not on the creep. It is pretty much saying; you have no choice but to have creep everywhere, otherwise your hydralisk are gimped beyond belief, and compared to some units, are nearly useless.
What I think happened was this. Blizzard had in their minds that units should move quicker when on creep. The problem with this is that, hydralisk would be moving at an incredible speed if left alone. Since having a normal (or upgradeable hydralisk) would be quick, but having it on creep would be insanely quick. With this mindset, the way to remedy the problem would be to have the Hydralisk move at upgraded (quick) speed only when on creep, while allowing all other units to move quicker on the creep. I get it, Hydralisk are to be more tankish, slower, with damage. But because of the gimped speed, they are not able to fully utilize their attacks. It is only a theory, but it makes sense to me. Don't you all love the idea that the only anti-air ground units for zerg are utterly gimped when moved off the creep (Meaning queen and hydralisk).
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On September 25 2010 18:39 Nilrem wrote:
The problem I see with Zerg now is this; the mindset behind creep and zerg is as follows. The zerg move quicker when on the creep. This I think is wrong, if that were the case, it would not a benefit and not a necessity to have creep everywhere. But that is simply not the case, units are slowed down when not on the creep. This way of thinking only shows that the area for which Zerg can move properly is far smaller then any other race. Creep is only enlarging an area that allows for your units to move properly. To me, that was one the most damage aspects of Sc II comapreably to that of Sc:Bw. Having Hydra move so bloody slow when not on the creep. It is pretty much saying; you have no choice but to have creep everywhere, otherwise your hydralisk are gimped beyond belief, and compared to some units, are nearly useless.
What I think happened was this. Blizzard had in their minds that units should move quicker when on creep. The problem with this is that, hydralisk would be moving at an incredible speed if left alone. Since having a normal (or upgradeable hydralisk) would be quick, but having it on creep would be insanely quick. With this mindset, the way to remedy the problem would be to have the Hydralisk move at upgraded (quick) speed only when on creep, while allowing all other units to move quicker on the creep. I get it, Hydralisk are to be more tankish, slower, with damage. But because of the gimped speed, they are not able to fully utilize their attacks. It is only a theory, but it makes sense to me. Don't you all love the idea that the only anti-air ground units for zerg are utterly gimped when moved off the creep (Meaning queen and hydralisk).
I totally agree about the 'reward on creep > penalty off creep' thing, definitely. But queens are deliberately slow, to keep them as a defensive, production supporting unit. Pretty sure they got slowed due to queen rushes in the beta. I'm totally agreeing with that also.
Hydras on the other hand are just too slow off creep, and there is not really a valid reason for it imo. They are quite expensive at lair tech and 100/50, they offer the same dps as 2 marines (yes, without the marines getting killed ofc) and have very low HP. The creep bonus for hydras is a whooping 50%, which is higher than the regular 30% that lings, roaches and most other units get. To me this tells a bit about the design philosophy, which seems to be that hydras are supposed to be a defensive unit. That leads to both our ground-to-air units being defensive, which forces us to go spire if we want to have an offense that can deal with air as well.
Zerg doesn't feel very zergy if we just have to sit around and wait until spire, since we can't really move out before that if there's a threat from above, or if we're up against a mobile army (I won't go into the topic of terran drops, that's another huge issue though). Creep should imo be something that the opponent have to worry about. It is easy to prevent creep spread as t or p, but most people don't really have to bother about it. They do it anyway in the later stages of the game (late-mid to late), but I'd love to see a more active approach towards stopping creep.
Hydras definitely need a speed increase off creep. Perhaps even keep the on-creep bonus as it is as well.
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Allow banelings the burrow-move capacity that upgraded roaches have.
Imagine that
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I wish Idra would make some propositions to Blizzard on how to balance ZvP and ZvT... He tells us how insufficient the patch is and doesn't make any suggestions to improve...
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On September 25 2010 19:28 rexyrex wrote:
I wish Idra would make some propositions to Blizzard on how to balance ZvP and ZvT... He tells us how insufficient the patch is and doesn't make any suggestions to improve...
He did just that in this thread...
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On September 25 2010 16:08 DarkspearTribe wrote:
I think hydralisks could be used efficiently if every zerg starts focusing on spreading creep as fast as possible (tumors, overlords)
Its not worth it, someone walks around with an ob/raven or simply a scan and there goes all your work in a matter of seconds... And even if you have the creep, I think hydra's die way too fast.
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Pretty much the same Cooler what said: " Its impossible for Zerg to win vs Terran on specific maps."
i agree with him
He actually just wrote down whats commonly known.and every statistic ever since release proof him right.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On September 25 2010 19:54 Keula wrote:
Pretty much the same Cooler what said: " Its impossible for Zerg to win vs Terran on specific maps."
i agree with him
He actually just wrote down whats commonly known.and every statistic ever since release proof him right.
Nothing is impossible, yes it's very, very hard, but it's not impossible.
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It's indeed possible. The Terran can just throw you the game, as we saw in Top vs Fruit Dealer Game 3.
What's possible is not under discussion - what's reasonable is.
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On September 25 2010 19:31 biskit wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 19:28 rexyrex wrote:
I wish Idra would make some propositions to Blizzard on how to balance ZvP and ZvT... He tells us how insufficient the patch is and doesn't make any suggestions to improve... He did just that in this thread...
Which page did he add comments? Maybe I missed it.
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So here are the changes I think need to happen to balance things out:
1) Maurader loses stim - they dont have it in the campaign, i dont know why they need to have it in multiplayer I thought marines were the dps units for Terran and mauraders were designed for support.
2) Concussive Shells require Engineering Bay - the idea here is to slow the bio ball from reaching its full potential so early in the game. It would allow for better scouting by speed zerglings as well.
3) Roach Speed to Tier 1 - just trying to make roaches more effective against hellion rushes and mass mauraders in a bio ball early in the game.
4) Hydralisks - obviously some major changes needed
a) Bring their hp to 100 - to help against everything really but particularly against Thor allins w/repair, banshees, tanks as Idra suggested.
b) Speed Upgrade - with this Zerg can add another damn good unit to their arsenal and its long overdue tbh
From that point Blizzard will just have to see how the Hydralisk gets used in games since it would become a viable option for the Zerg.
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ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game.
Honestly I don't understand how a race will become stronger after a nerf. I'll say it again, I think Idra is full of shit.
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On September 25 2010 20:39 Drk_ItachiX wrote:
So here are the changes I think need to happen to balance things out:
1) Maurader loses stim - they dont have it in the campaign, i dont know why they need to have it in multiplayer I thought marines were the dps units for Terran and mauraders were designed for support.
2) Concussive Shells require Engineering Bay - the idea here is to slow the bio ball from reaching its full potential so early in the game. It would allow for better scouting by speed zerglings as well.
3) Roach Speed to Tier 1 - just trying to make roaches more effective against hellion rushes and mass mauraders in a bio ball early in the game.
4) Hydralisks - obviously some major changes needed
a) Bring their hp to 100 - to help against everything really but particularly against Thor allins w/repair, banshees, tanks as Idra suggested.
b) Speed Upgrade - with this Zerg can add another damn good unit to their arsenal and its long overdue tbh
From that point Blizzard will just have to see how the Hydralisk gets used in games since it would become a viable option for the Zerg.
I confess after playing games post patch I do feel I agree with all, actually not with nerfs for marauders but with SEVERAL buffs for zerg ....
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well i think idra got point there.
But we cant flame blizzard guys about those changes.
there is millions people playing Sc2 not everyone is diamond players so blizz need to adjust game for lower lv players such as i
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On September 24 2010 10:43 De4ngus wrote:
I don't get why Blizzard doesn't realize the problem here is with Zerg. Patching Terran and Protoss doesn't do anything useful. Now tanks can't even be used TvP.
I agree, and they are going to be used less in TvT now aswell. The problem DOES lie on Zerg, and they need to patch Zerg and not P or T. As someone said before "Zerg life is hard" lol
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@ noD
The thing I have against buffing Zerg too much is that itll throw off ZvP too much. I personally feel that an improved Hyrdalisk would throw things in Zergs favor as it is....so thats why i went for a balance between Terran nerfs and Zerg buffs.
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On September 25 2010 20:47 Competent wrote:Show nested quote + ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. Honestly I don't understand how a race will become stronger after a nerf. I'll say it again, I think Idra is full of shit.
Ah, I see you are the retarded type competent, more like incompetent.
Protoss got nerf early game, with increased zealot build time which makes them more vulnerable. Terran late game got nerf, so that protoss lategame will be stronger.
And zergs remain largely unchanged, there are still issues. Idra really said it great, that this patch would be very good, if it was 1 month ago.
So who is full of shit, you or Idra?
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On September 25 2010 19:05 Devlin wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 18:39 Nilrem wrote:
The problem I see with Zerg now is this; the mindset behind creep and zerg is as follows. The zerg move quicker when on the creep. This I think is wrong, if that were the case, it would not a benefit and not a necessity to have creep everywhere. But that is simply not the case, units are slowed down when not on the creep. This way of thinking only shows that the area for which Zerg can move properly is far smaller then any other race. Creep is only enlarging an area that allows for your units to move properly. To me, that was one the most damage aspects of Sc II comapreably to that of Sc:Bw. Having Hydra move so bloody slow when not on the creep. It is pretty much saying; you have no choice but to have creep everywhere, otherwise your hydralisk are gimped beyond belief, and compared to some units, are nearly useless.
What I think happened was this. Blizzard had in their minds that units should move quicker when on creep. The problem with this is that, hydralisk would be moving at an incredible speed if left alone. Since having a normal (or upgradeable hydralisk) would be quick, but having it on creep would be insanely quick. With this mindset, the way to remedy the problem would be to have the Hydralisk move at upgraded (quick) speed only when on creep, while allowing all other units to move quicker on the creep. I get it, Hydralisk are to be more tankish, slower, with damage. But because of the gimped speed, they are not able to fully utilize their attacks. It is only a theory, but it makes sense to me. Don't you all love the idea that the only anti-air ground units for zerg are utterly gimped when moved off the creep (Meaning queen and hydralisk). I totally agree about the 'reward on creep > penalty off creep' thing, definitely. But queens are deliberately slow, to keep them as a defensive, production supporting unit. Pretty sure they got slowed due to queen rushes in the beta. I'm totally agreeing with that also. Hydras on the other hand are just too slow off creep, and there is not really a valid reason for it imo. They are quite expensive at lair tech and 100/50, they offer the same dps as 2 marines (yes, without the marines getting killed ofc) and have very low HP. The creep bonus for hydras is a whooping 50%, which is higher than the regular 30% that lings, roaches and most other units get. To me this tells a bit about the design philosophy, which seems to be that hydras are supposed to be a defensive unit. That leads to both our ground-to-air units being defensive, which forces us to go spire if we want to have an offense that can deal with air as well. Zerg doesn't feel very zergy if we just have to sit around and wait until spire, since we can't really move out before that if there's a threat from above, or if we're up against a mobile army (I won't go into the topic of terran drops, that's another huge issue though). Creep should imo be something that the opponent have to worry about. It is easy to prevent creep spread as t or p, but most people don't really have to bother about it. They do it anyway in the later stages of the game (late-mid to late), but I'd love to see a more active approach towards stopping creep. Hydras definitely need a speed increase off creep. Perhaps even keep the on-creep bonus as it is as well.
Why would queen rush be a bad thing? It would be an opening that would allow for some creativity and more choices.
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On September 25 2010 20:47 Competent wrote:Show nested quote + ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. Honestly I don't understand how a race will become stronger after a nerf. I'll say it again, I think Idra is full of shit.
Zealot cooldown nerf means terran will be stronger early, and tank damage nerf means P will be stronger late game. What's not to understand ?
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In addition to the changes i mentioned earlier for Zerg and Terran, Ima suggest this for Protoss:
1) Improve Guardian Shield - force field just doesnt do that great of a job against ranged bio balls imo so Id hope this could counter act the improved Terran early game in PvT post patch 1.1
To imporove Terrans position:
1) Ghosts snipe can hit Sentries - allow Ghosts snipe to work against mechanical targets as well so you can snipe the improved sentries (the energy cost for the ability should increase as well). The reason I have this is because I previously suggested a nerf for Mauraders to help out Zerg that I think should stand, so if I am going to buff Sentries, I at least need to make them more vulnerable.
2) Ghosts EMP has lower energy cost - make tanks more effective against things that will def kik their ass without a scratch post patch, like Immortals. This would make late-game PvT a bit easier in general imo.
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I agree with your changes, except for lower EMP. EMP is already quite strong, it's not necessary to make it stronger, right now it already makes tanks more effective against things that would kick their ass.
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go any other way of making Terran late-game? maybe just making ghosts cheaper? say 100 minerals 100 gas?
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On September 25 2010 21:06 Drk_ItachiX wrote:
@ noD
The thing I have against buffing Zerg too much is that itll throw off ZvP too much. I personally feel that an improved Hyrdalisk would throw things in Zergs favor as it is....so thats why i went for a balance between Terran nerfs and Zerg buffs.
ZvP heavily favors P so I don't see it as an issue.
Hydralisk are grossly underpowered. They are arguably weaker than a marine without stim by supply and cost 50 gas to boot.
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On September 25 2010 20:47 Competent wrote:Show nested quote + ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. Honestly I don't understand how a race will become stronger after a nerf. I'll say it again, I think Idra is full of shit.
How does a battlecruiser and siege tank nerf make Protoss stronger in lategame PvT? Hmmmmmm.....I have no idea honestly. I guess Idra is full of shit, and you're way more knowledgable than him. Which proteam did you join btw?
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@EnderCN
ah I was under the impression that PvZ was reasonably balanced.
What would you guys think of EMP with a cheaper energy cost but requires the player to upgrade it first. I made a list of my proposed changes on the bnet forums under the thread suggestions for Patch 1.2 (Im DrK VoiDX) if you get the time check em out.
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On September 25 2010 22:24 SubtleArt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 20:47 Competent wrote: ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. Honestly I don't understand how a race will become stronger after a nerf. I'll say it again, I think Idra is full of shit. How does a battlecruiser and siege tank nerf make Protoss stronger in lategame PvT? Hmmmmmm.....I have no idea honestly. I guess Idra is full of shit, and you're way more knowledgable than him. Which proteam did you join btw?
I heard idra is on EG at least.
I think I heard somewhere tasteless is there as well.
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In my opinion the game will never be balanced without some management changes by Blizzard. I think the game is in pretty horrible shape right now and given how long they have been working on it and the changes so far there has to be some bad decision making going on. Even if they start making bigger changes it is unlikely it will be balanced before HotS which may make the game even worse if the current people are still in charge.
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@ leveller
Tasteless joined EG as the SC2 team manager or something, I dont think he joined as a player.
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I think the game is in pretty horrible shape right now and given how long they have been working on it and the changes so far there has to be some bad decision making going on
I guess I just disagree. I wasn't expecting a new game to be balanced out of the box or in the first patch though, no other game in the history of RTS ever has been. Patch 1.1 was mostly good changes, there is no reason to lose any faith over it.
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On September 25 2010 23:43 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +I think the game is in pretty horrible shape right now and given how long they have been working on it and the changes so far there has to be some bad decision making going on I guess I just disagree. I wasn't expecting a new game to be balanced out of the box or in the first patch though, no other game in the history of RTS ever has been. Patch 1.1 was mostly good changes, there is no reason to lose any faith over it.
I think the game was at its most balanced state before the infamous 2 supply roach nerf.
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On September 25 2010 20:47 Competent wrote:Show nested quote + ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. Honestly I don't understand how a race will become stronger after a nerf. I'll say it again, I think Idra is full of shit.
Races can still become more powerful overtime even if they are nerfed because players generally keep getting better and better and are able to learn to utilise more of their race's potential.
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On September 26 2010 00:09 TheKing wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 20:47 Competent wrote: ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. Honestly I don't understand how a race will become stronger after a nerf. I'll say it again, I think Idra is full of shit. Races can still become more powerful overtime even if they are nerfed because players generally keep getting better and better and are able to learn to utilise more of their race's potential.
/facepalm
That has nothing to do with what he said. He was trying to sound like he knew more than idrA when in reality he doesn't even know more than most players on this forum as I've already seen 2-3 people put him in his place.
Zealot nerf = weaker P early game
Tank nerf = weaker T late game
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Okay so people were saying ZvT is imbalanced, hasn't anyone seen + Show Spoiler +Fruitseller's recent ZvT? got to ultras and he cleaned house EASILY, I don't know if that splash is a mistake or they will leave it.
edit: I do agree early game and transitions ZvT is still broken though.
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+ Show Spoiler +
top only lost game 3 coz he forgot to upgrade weapon and armor of the mass thors ....
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Idra thinks the TvZ balance situation is pretty severe. That being the case, I don't know how he could possibly expect that a single balance patch should fix everything (I could be reading his intentions wrong). Balance patches are necessarily going to be small changes. To demand otherwise is to expose yourself as completely ignorant to the balance process. Blizzard makes balance changes based on data. And to get good data, you can't just force a bunch of changes all at once. You have to isolate the variables; tweak things a little bit at a time, and see how they play out. That's just good science. Personally I'm happy blizzard didn't jump the gun in response to all the negativity. Just be happy that they seem to be moving in the right direction. You guys who are complaining that the patch isn't good enough need to realize that your expectations are too high. The sort of patch you're asking for is just too ambitious.
The second thing is this. Just think what the response from casual/new players would be if the game changed so drastically just after a couple months. What are they supposed to expect? Are they going to be playing a completely different game every other month? Is every patch going to be like this? First impressions guys. First impressions. That's what blizzard needs right now. And, that said, I think they've done an awesome job showing the community they care with this first patch. Bug fixes are something they are expected to do. But new features? cool new icons? That's awesome! Patch 1.1 is not just a balance patch. Blizzard doesn't want to make the players feel like they're still playing a beta that is "in the works." Try and be reasonable and see the bigger picture. Blizzard is responsible for a big diverse crowd, not just TL and its meta-gaming ilk.
So be positive! I can't imagine how much a negative attitude towards my race could stagnate my growth as a player. That can't be good at all.
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We should just basicly ask IdrA what he thinks would be good changes instead of asking him to destroy every change blizzard makes.
I love IdrA, but when will we see him satisfied with the state of the game? (perhaps when he wins all the time...)
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On September 26 2010 01:44 deViation- wrote:
We should just basicly ask IdrA what he thinks would be good changes instead of asking him to destroy every change blizzard makes.
I love IdrA, but when will we see him satisfied with the state of the game? (perhaps when he wins all the time...)
I think IdrA will be happy when the game is balanced.
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My 2 cents is that Blizzard should have retooled Zerg back in Beta. It was so blatantly obvious right from the beginning that Zerg had huge issues.
Terran and Protoss have a good handful of new units and casters that make for some really nice synergy throughout the game. Zerg is the "OMG we spent all out time doing cool stuff with Terran and Protoss" race haha.
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On September 26 2010 01:34 freezeframe wrote:
Idra thinks the TvZ balance situation is pretty severe. That being the case, I don't know how he could possibly expect that a single balance patch should fix everything (I could be reading his intentions wrong). Balance patches are necessarily going to be small changes. To demand otherwise is to expose yourself as completely ignorant to the balance process. Blizzard makes balance changes based on data. And to get good data, you can't just force a bunch of changes all at once. You have to isolate the variables; tweak things a little bit at a time, and see how they play out. That's just good science. Personally I'm happy blizzard didn't jump the gun in response to all the negativity. Just be happy that they seem to be moving in the right direction. You guys who are complaining that the patch isn't good enough need to realize that your expectations are too high. The sort of patch you're asking for is just too ambitious.
The complaints are a natural side effect of the simple fact that the game went out of beta too early. Throughout beta, if you saw a major problem, you could at least tell yourself, 'Well, it's just a beta, they'll fix it before release.' Well, guess what? It got released, and we still have significant issues on a basic structural level that shouldn't have made it out of beta. Now, patches are the only thing people have to cling to. People aren't going to stop complaining just because the kinds of changes that need to be done 'can't' be done in a typical patch. Blizzard put themselves in this situation, so they have only themselves to blame for it. And not holding them accountable for it as a side effect of understanding the standard patching process is silly.
On September 26 2010 01:34 freezeframe wrote:
The second thing is this. Just think what the response from casual/new players would be if the game changed so drastically just after a couple months. What are they supposed to expect? Are they going to be playing a completely different game every other month? Is every patch going to be like this?
Casual players aren't going to care about most of the things that patches change in the first place. Zergling stats tweaked up or down? Who cares, so long as it's still fast cheap swarming melee. But even if they did care, the whole mmorpg genre shows that you can make absolutely massive changes in a game without necessarily turning off new players from it. In fact, massive changes are often your only hope to reach an audience you wouldn't normally reach.
On September 26 2010 01:34 freezeframe wrote:
First impressions guys. First impressions. That's what blizzard needs right now. And, that said, I think they've done an awesome job showing the community they care with this first patch. Bug fixes are something they are expected to do. But new features? cool new icons? That's awesome! Patch 1.1 is not just a balance patch. Blizzard doesn't want to make the players feel like they're still playing a beta that is "in the works."
Then they should have stuck to their words and not released it until it was ready in the first place. Leaving bad mechanics in place to give an appearance of balance without the reality of it is idiotic, and most players are well-informed enough to know the difference between the two these days.
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On September 25 2010 05:10 BluRa wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 04:35 YueY. wrote:
I was a zerg player in bw and I feel that zerg is almost exactly the same way in sc2 than it is in bw. I mean he is complaining about zerg being hard countered by a lot of things when you go early hatch at your natural, well it was the same way in bw..you could get cheesed or all inned 50 different ways vs p or t, it all comes down to your drone count really, knowing when to make drones at X time and when to make lings or a spine crawler early on. I mean yeah its really annoying because if you don't scout it fast enough or at all you just have to guess which is retarded, but when you play enough and learn the game more you then have to guess less and more doors are closed as to what he is doing and you can narrow it down pretty quickly. I don't really know the mid game at all zvt because I don't play z in sc2 ,but that is just my thought for the early game zvt. I disagree that they are the same, but even if they were the same thats the problem, terran and protoss got better, but zerg stayed the same.
What do you mean zerg stayed the same? Honestly I would say zerg is the most different overall in sc2 mid and late game compared to terran and protoss, but the first 3-4 minutes of the game is pretty much exactly the same for all 3 races as it was in sc1...other than reapers early game vs z, though even with a reaper rush you will still need to cut drones at X time to make X lings to optimally beat his rush without over linging and not having enough drones for 5 minutes later. I don't see what is so different about the early game.
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On September 26 2010 02:45 Adonai wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2010 01:44 deViation- wrote:
We should just basicly ask IdrA what he thinks would be good changes instead of asking him to destroy every change blizzard makes.
I love IdrA, but when will we see him satisfied with the state of the game? (perhaps when he wins all the time...) I think IdrA will be happy when the game is balanced.
Idra cried about Protoss in SC1, even though that game is generally considered very balanced. It's fine to rage after losing a game (happens to everyone), but don't blame the game for your lose.
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On September 26 2010 06:36 Deathstar wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2010 02:45 Adonai wrote:On September 26 2010 01:44 deViation- wrote:
We should just basicly ask IdrA what he thinks would be good changes instead of asking him to destroy every change blizzard makes.
I love IdrA, but when will we see him satisfied with the state of the game? (perhaps when he wins all the time...) I think IdrA will be happy when the game is balanced. Idra cried about Protoss in SC1, even though that game is generally considered very balanced. It's fine to rage after losing a game (happens to everyone), but don't blame the game for your lose.
this
![[image loading]](http://i25.tinypic.com/25iambd.jpg)
User was warned for this post
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Come to think of it the only problems with early Zealots was proxy and 2gate rushes, and as Zerg I could almost always hold them off especially with my ZvP build having early Banelings, although I don't watch much PvT it does seem like protoss may be screwed with how much later their Zealots will be out, but hey, at least Reapers are slowed too.
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On September 26 2010 00:16 dRaW wrote:Okay so people were saying ZvT is imbalanced, hasn't anyone seen + Show Spoiler +Fruitseller's recent ZvT? got to ultras and he cleaned house EASILY, I don't know if that splash is a mistake or they will leave it. Either way, they should have focused more on cleaning up the early game and transitions from early to midgame and midgame to late game. I also find when I see all the GSL PvT games, Terran can still easily rush and the P can't really do much about it. This results in 1 base T being really strong vs any expanding, even late expanding P play so I find T dictates how the game will turn out in all matchups. edit: I do agree early game and transitions ZvT is still broken though.
are you joking?
the guy didn't have marauders or siege tanks; t's two answers to ultras.
he went pure thor and turtled?! what did he expect, mass muta after cool had seen many many many thors?
ultras are SPLASH with bonus against armored; if they didn't beat pure thor when 15 of them (imagine 15 collosus, or against thor, 30 immortals, same unit value as 15 ultra) spawned to instantly replaced a huge army, this would be a huge joke.
cool simply completely outplayed him..
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Well, after playing a couple of hours today after the patch, I really don't feel that much of a difference in terms of protoss gameplay, and it feels more or less like before, so I am not even sure how noticable the changes actually are. We got some new icons, but I don't even like them That's so typical Blizzard, they did that for WoW as well. They tossed in a lot of unnecessary changes like icon types for spells, but didn't really address the issues they had to address.
Anyway, I trust Idra's judgement. At first I was thinking he was a big jerk, but I've come to respect him over time. He does have a huge insight into the game balance, and once you stop taking his raging seriously... it becomes pure humor. I'm disappointed Blizzard didn't do anything to balance zerg.
Protoss still steamroll zerg late game, especially if it's a bad, bad zerg player who doesn't expo when needed.
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I keep on saying this: zerg is much stronger then you guys expect and I'm 100% sure that in a few months every tourney will be dominated by zerg. Their macro-mechanic is just too powerfull. The ultra is the strongest unit in the game. The broodlord is an insta win unit when the opponent doesn't scout them. The baneling destroys every bio army. The infestor is a great spellcaster imo. Roaches are decent. Hydra seems too slow. The mutalisks is dominating the air (yes, they beat vikings). The corruptor is pretty decent and when it's massed with broodlords, there is nothing you can do, unless you have a lot of vikings.
You can't win a macro game vs zerg and that shows that there is something wrong. I lost so many tvz's and those zergs always advice me to "not let zerg macro up". I win against 1600+toss and terran, but against 800+ zerg I have troubles. Zergs are starting to know their race and I'm sure that they will be almost unbeatable. Look at those korean zergs dominating (I know, only a few, but those few are imo unbeatable atm).
In sc1 zerg had to decide: drones or army. In sc2 zerg has EXTRA larvae so that decision is still there but not as hard as in sc1.
EVERY zerg I played agreed that I have to destroy them early game or I'm dead. Is that balanced guys? Please take a look at the terran side too. TvT and TvP are 10x easier for me then TvZ.
Pure bio:
You can advice the terran to spread out his army, but believe me, you can't spread out when speedlings are blocking your rines and while mutalisks are shooting. You can do drops, but against a good zerg you just can't. Overlords on key spots and there is no way that you can unload a medivac without 50 zerglings beneath it.
Pure mech:
You can go tank rine but when nicely surrounded there is no way you can stim your marines away from the banelings. Somethimes it works but if the zerg flanks, you're dead.
You can go thor tank helion, but ultras just destroy that so easy. You need a decent amount of thors and ultras >> thors.
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Dente, I believe the only reason it seems like zerg's macro mode is so much more powerful is because most terrans do not play such a heavily macro style. True zerg can expand more easily, but most terrans dont expand as much as they could. The mule almost allows for terran to make up for the fact that they need so many production buildings. If the only way for terran to win a game was to take five bases, I'm sure you would see that macro kind of play style more and it would be just as frightening as a zerg doing the same thing.
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Personally I'd just like the option to drop for medivacs become a fairly expensive and lengthy upgrade, and have Vikings be range 5 or 6 with the range-upagrde available at Fusion core for a good amount of money and time. The problem is that there's just no choosing involved in Terran atm, a Starport with reactor (you can swap to another tech lab if specifically needed) basically gives you late game counters to a ton of stuff with no upgrading, choosing or whatever involved. The fact that most terran would still build Vikings and Medivacs every game if they didnt have the land/drop ability is quite telling.
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My suggestion to balance Z:
1.Return of Lurker:: When T has Marauder and P Immotals, Z should get back Lurkers at least because these units are hard counter to Roach. In return, borrowed movement of Roach is removed. (its not used that often anyway as Blizzard expected)
2.make hydra t1 unit again: Its ridiculous that z has only queen to defend against air in early game. Also hydra could give more variable tactical possibility in early game.
3.Minimize the movement speed difference on- and off creep: Everybody thinks its not that crucial since z has creep tumor, but I think this is what makes z extremly vulnerable in whole game. e.g.; Look at Z vs T mech in scbw. Then tell me that with creep tumor z can deal with mmm / mech much better. (its not, Even without speed nerf z had more than enough trouble to deal with it.)
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On September 26 2010 01:44 deViation- wrote:
We should just basicly ask IdrA what he thinks would be good changes instead of asking him to destroy every change blizzard makes.
I love IdrA, but when will we see him satisfied with the state of the game? (perhaps when he wins all the time...)
Why is only IdrA qualified to answer that? Just use some common sense and analyze the problem!
Problem: Zerg are having trouble.
Question: Why?
a. Terrans use very early harrassment [Reaper or Hellion] to kill probes and stifle the economy and building enough defensive forces as a Zerg will do the same thing. Zerglings are LIGHT and both harrassing units have bonus damage vs. light.
b. Protoss can mass units very fast once they get the Warp Gate research done and since their units are tougher than Zerglings individually AND due to the "terrain changing bonus" of Forcefield they can chew up a Zerg defensive force in smaller pieces and survive.
c. Protoss can wall-in a Zerg with just one Probe and achieve and unfair advantage.
Question: How can you fix this?
a. The starting time for the harrassment needs to be pushed back.
b. The starting time for the massing of troops needs to be pushed back.
Question: How can you achieve these?
a1. Increase the build times for the units.
Question: Any problems with this solution?
Answer: Yes, an increased build time will make units less desirable in the later game and might even be compensated by just building one more production facility early on. The efficiency of the Reaper isnt really increased by massing a ton more, but rather by excellent micro and a few extra seconds will not make it that much worse.
a2. Make maps bigger so that scouting and ground rush distance [including the Reaper!] is far longer.
Question: Any problems with this solution?
Answer: Problem 1: Yes, it involves getting rid of action-maps like the tiny Steppes of War and only action games are good for eSports, even though Starcraft is a strategy game. [sarcastic version of "Blizzard tries to change the gametype of Starcraft from RTS to RTA in the hopes of making it more fun for casuals and thus selling to a wider audience. Its the same logic as for the movies: more / bigger explosions = more viewers"] Blizzard hasnt got a good reputation when it comes to making maps and they seem to be unwilling to admit that just yet or else they would have added a map or two with patch 1.1.
Problem 2: Todays kids - you know the ones with the attention span of a goldfish - cant be bothered to play a looong game. They get bored too easily.
b. Increase the Warp Gate research time.
Question: Any problems with this solution?
Answer: Players need to adjust their base building to be able to deal with Zerg / Terrans knocking on their door, but the map size increase will mitigate this.
c. Move the Overlord ability to dump creep to Tier 1 [right from the start].
Question: Any problems with this solution?
Answer: None that I can see. "Creeping up" an opponents expansion is not really viable because Terran and Protoss can easily shoot it down, so it is only useful in a defensive way to prevent pylons from being placed or to be able to place an early Spine Crawler near a cliff or ramp to provide additional defenses against cliffjumping Reapers or Hellions rushing up the ramp.
So you see, it isnt that hard to analyze the problem and come to a conclusion as to what needs to be done. It doesnt even involve fiddling around with the stats of the units, which is terribly hard to do and keep the balance between fighting units. Feel free to question my reasoning and improve upon the suggested solutions. Even I am not perfect in my thought process and could have overlooked something.
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On September 26 2010 08:37 Dente wrote:
I keep on saying this: zerg is much stronger then you guys expect and I'm 100% sure that in a few months every tourney will be dominated by zerg. Their macro-mechanic is just too powerfull. The ultra is the strongest unit in the game. The broodlord is an insta win unit when the opponent doesn't scout them. The baneling destroys every bio army. The infestor is a great spellcaster imo. Roaches are decent. Hydra seems too slow. The mutalisks is dominating the air (yes, they beat vikings). The corruptor is pretty decent and when it's massed with broodlords, there is nothing you can do, unless you have a lot of vikings.
You can't win a macro game vs zerg and that shows that there is something wrong. I lost so many tvz's and those zergs always advice me to "not let zerg macro up". I win against 1600+toss and terran, but against 800+ zerg I have troubles. Zergs are starting to know their race and I'm sure that they will be almost unbeatable. Look at those korean zergs dominating (I know, only a few, but those few are imo unbeatable atm).
In sc1 zerg had to decide: drones or army. In sc2 zerg has EXTRA larvae so that decision is still there but not as hard as in sc1.
EVERY zerg I played agreed that I have to destroy them early game or I'm dead. Is that balanced guys? Please take a look at the terran side too. TvT and TvP are 10x easier for me then TvZ.
Pure bio:
You can advice the terran to spread out his army, but believe me, you can't spread out when speedlings are blocking your rines and while mutalisks are shooting. You can do drops, but against a good zerg you just can't. Overlords on key spots and there is no way that you can unload a medivac without 50 zerglings beneath it.
Pure mech:
You can go tank rine but when nicely surrounded there is no way you can stim your marines away from the banelings. Somethimes it works but if the zerg flanks, you're dead.
You can go thor tank helion, but ultras just destroy that so easy. You need a decent amount of thors and ultras >> thors.
I think you really have to give us more information where you play in the league in order for us to gauge how reliable your information is. Please don't take it as an offense, but but the fact that you seem to let zerg macro up seems to indicate that you may be in the lower tiers, and thus your experience is very different to everyone elses and might not be applicable as a general statement.
The problem isn't the zerg's macro play: the problem is that zerg units die like... uh, domino bricks once you start hitting on them. As a protoss player, I can outmicro a zerg player's mutabox with my phoenix, and kill off all of their mutas and keep most of my phoenix alive. Or alternatively, I can toss in a couple of colossi into my ground army and those hydras fry to death just as fast as it takes to do a boil of instant noodles.
If you watch pro games, this issue will become very apparent. In game between IdrA and WhiteRa, IdrA had rached his 200 supply and had a rediculous roach/hydra army with some mutas. Even though WhiteRa lost some of his colossi because he was uncareful and left them unguarded, he still killed off all of IdrA's army, even though it looked like IdrA was going to win for a long time. Or look at the game where Fruitseller was massing up queens, and forced his protoss opponent on one base. Despite that he had like 4 bases and the protoss player one, a couple of colossi made such a huge difference in the game that the game turned instantly and Fruitseller lost.
This is the thing most zerg players feel frustrated over. Their macro play is supposed to make up for the fact that their units die faster than terran and protoss, but ultimately it makes no difference, especially if you just lost all of your army in one big battle. There is no way you are going to be able to truly macro up another army quick enough in order to save your bases at that point, and I've had a lot of games like that myself.
True now, I speak from a protoss perspective and my examples include protoss opponents, but even a very large bioball will be able to perform similar against zerg.
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On September 26 2010 09:26 Lea wrote:
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I think you really have to give us more information where you play in the league in order for us to gauge how reliable your information is. Please don't take it as an offense, but but the fact that you seem to let zerg macro up seems to indicate that you may be in the lower tiers, and thus your experience is very different to everyone elses and might not be applicable as a general statement.
The problem isn't the zerg's macro play: the problem is that zerg units die like... uh, domino bricks once you start hitting on them. .
I'm 1300 diamond (259-231), so I guess thats med-diamond?
Maybe some units die too fast, but you can't say that ultras die too fast or corruptors.
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On September 26 2010 09:13 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2010 01:44 deViation- wrote:
We should just basicly ask IdrA what he thinks would be good changes instead of asking him to destroy every change blizzard makes.
I love IdrA, but when will we see him satisfied with the state of the game? (perhaps when he wins all the time...) Why is only IdrA qualified to answer that? Just use some common sense and analyze the problem! <snip> So you see, it isnt that hard to analyze the problem and come to a conclusion as to what needs to be done. It doesnt even involve fiddling around with the stats of the units, which is terribly hard to do and keep the balance between fighting units. Feel free to question my reasoning and improve upon the suggested solutions. Even I am not perfect in my thought process and could have overlooked something.
Well... I noticed you only listed the pushing back of timings as possible solutions, artificially limiting our options to your favourite topic of restricting map variety to improve balance
IMO, giving Zerg more time to learn the Terran tune he has to dance to in each game is just making a nice big carpet to sweep the problem under. I've posted my thoughts on the matter in my blog, if you're interested.
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United Arab Emirates492 Posts
On September 26 2010 09:31 Dente wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2010 09:26 Lea wrote:
[
I think you really have to give us more information where you play in the league in order for us to gauge how reliable your information is. Please don't take it as an offense, but but the fact that you seem to let zerg macro up seems to indicate that you may be in the lower tiers, and thus your experience is very different to everyone elses and might not be applicable as a general statement.
The problem isn't the zerg's macro play: the problem is that zerg units die like... uh, domino bricks once you start hitting on them. . I'm 1300 diamond (259-231), so I guess thats med-diamond? Maybe some units die too fast, but you can't say that ultras die too fast or corruptors.
Dente you are seriously bashing Zerg race just because your not good in TvZ?
Case in point http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=150161
(Claiming the zerg just Amoves, while he played billion times better then you!!)
Lets just wait and see how this patch works out to be.
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On September 26 2010 08:37 Dente wrote:
Pure bio:
You can advice the terran to spread out his army, but believe me, you can't spread out when speedlings are blocking your rines and while mutalisks are shooting. You can do drops, but against a good zerg you just can't. Overlords on key spots and there is no way that you can unload a medivac without 50 zerglings beneath it.
Pure mech:
You can go tank rine but when nicely surrounded there is no way you can stim your marines away from the banelings. Somethimes it works but if the zerg flanks, you're dead.
You can go thor tank helion, but ultras just destroy that so easy. You need a decent amount of thors and ultras >> thors.
bio:
You don't need to spread out, if you have good macro and micro you can just kite and your army won't die. If they have infestors, get Ghosts. Ghosts are great against Mutas as well. You shouldn't get your army flanked, that's your fault.
mech: how is pure mech tank-marine? You can say Ultras destroy Siege Tanks easily, but have you ever tried having walls of buildings and turrets and planetary fortresses along with a lot of Siege Tanks? Siege Tanks are really good vs Ultras if you spread them out and have something to take the hits. You normally will be way ahead by the time they get Ultras anyway. Ghosts are cost-efficient against Ultras as well.
Seems like you're just bad
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On September 26 2010 09:36 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2010 09:13 Rabiator wrote:On September 26 2010 01:44 deViation- wrote:
We should just basicly ask IdrA what he thinks would be good changes instead of asking him to destroy every change blizzard makes.
I love IdrA, but when will we see him satisfied with the state of the game? (perhaps when he wins all the time...) Why is only IdrA qualified to answer that? Just use some common sense and analyze the problem! <snip> So you see, it isnt that hard to analyze the problem and come to a conclusion as to what needs to be done. It doesnt even involve fiddling around with the stats of the units, which is terribly hard to do and keep the balance between fighting units. Feel free to question my reasoning and improve upon the suggested solutions. Even I am not perfect in my thought process and could have overlooked something. Well... I noticed you only listed the pushing back of timings as possible solutions, artificially limiting our options to your favourite topic of restricting map variety to improve balance IMO, giving Zerg more time to learn the Terran tune he has to dance to in each game is just making a nice big carpet to sweep the problem under. I've posted my thoughts on the matter in my blog, if you're interested.
My favorite topic is restricting map variety? Well I do think that tiny maps screw too much with the balance and that you can not do a really good strategic macro game on them. So yes I want to "limit map variety" by kicking out the small ones.
There is no way for Zerg to adjust to the speed on Terran and Protoss without killing their traditional mechanic of "all units are spawned from larvae which are grown at the hatchery". Protoss and Terran produce their workers in a separate building and can constantly do so even while producing attacking units. That is a systematic difference between these races. So you want to "kill" that difference and make the races "the same" [in mechanics]?
Zerg dont need the time to "learn the Terran tune" but rather to have enough economy to be able to build defensive forces WITHOUT sacrificing their own economy. There is nothing to sweep under the carpet.
@Umpteen Blog
You suggest modifying Hydras heavily and moving them to T1.5, but the thing is that on tiny maps you probably wont be able to get to them if the opponent puts his mind to it. Modifying a unit so heavily as you suggested is going to cause more imbalance problems than just making maps "as big as they were in BW". The balance between units seems fairly good atm and fights can go either way, so changing one units that heavily is not a wise choice to do, because it has implications for the late game and might destabilize the whole thing. We have quite a few big tournaments running already and making such huge changes is not a good thing IMO.
The poll in THIS thread shows a significant majority of people agreeing with me on the map size issue. At - currently - 431 votes it isnt a large sample, but it should be large enough to give a clear indication of the discontent with the map size.
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On September 26 2010 15:51 Rabiator wrote:
My favorite topic is restricting map variety? Well I do think that tiny maps screw too much with the balance and that you can not do a really good strategic macro game on them. So yes I want to "limit map variety" by kicking out the small ones.
And close position spawning, presumably.
There is no way for Zerg to adjust to the speed on Terran and Protoss without killing their traditional mechanic of "all units are spawned from larvae which are grown at the hatchery". Protoss and Terran produce their workers in a separate building and can constantly do so even while producing attacking units. That is a systematic difference between these races. So you want to "kill" that difference and make the races "the same" [in mechanics]?
Oh no; I don't think I even implied anything of the kind. If anything, I want to restore that element of Zerg's identity by removing the obligation to slowly crank out queen after queen in order to be able to shoot upward in a timely fashion.
Zerg dont need the time to "learn the Terran tune" but rather to have enough economy to be able to build defensive forces WITHOUT sacrificing their own economy. There is nothing to sweep under the carpet.
I respectfully disagree. As I highlighted in my blog, quantity is a terrible substitute for the 'right' tech in early-game SC2 ZvT, unlike in SC1. And it does nothing for the lack of zerg aggressive options.
Furthermore, ramping up map sizes damages Zerg's ability to scout far more than it delays Terran forces, because overlords are so slow. Add 10 seconds to hellion travel time and you add - what, forty seconds to overlord transit time? What am I going to do with ten extra seconds of economy compared to forty seconds less opportunity to see what's coming?
@Umpteen Blog
You suggest modifying Hydras heavily and moving them to T1.5, but the thing is that on tiny maps you probably wont be able to get to them if the opponent puts his mind to it.
Why not? I can get roaches out in time on any map, right now - unless I try to fast-expand first, which is risky (and rightly so) when rush distances are short. What's wrong with giving Zerg the tools to play differently on different maps?
Modifying a unit so heavily as you suggested is going to cause more imbalance problems than just making maps "as big as they were in BW". The balance between units seems fairly good atm and fights can go either way,
I agree there will be some knock-on effects. I'm not sure how terribly serious they will be. All we're talking about is being able to shoot up and be a little more robust against marauders. Right now, Hydras aren't seeing much play in ZvT so I wouldn't necessarily agree with your assessment that the units are fine as they are.
so changing one units that heavily is not a wise choice to do, because it has implications for the late game and might destabilize the whole thing. We have quite a few big tournaments running already and making such huge changes is not a good thing IMO.
Sorry, but you can't justify maintaining a game in a broken state on those grounds.
Also, I might be wrong, but isn't it possible to start a custom match, save it, and then load and continue it even after a patch? Tournament organisers could create a large pool of such saves and use them to complete tourneys with consistent settings.
The poll in THIS thread shows a significant majority of people agreeing with me on the map size issue. At - currently - 431 votes it isnt a large sample, but it should be large enough to give a clear indication of the discontent with the map size.
I'm not going to argue with what people want. I just don't think it's the answer to this issue.
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On September 24 2010 10:26 Colbi wrote:Greg ' IdrA' Fields gives his thoughts on Blizzard's most recent patch for StarCraft 2. Below is an excerpt taken from the article: Show nested quote +The first balance patch for StarCraft2 came out roughly a month after release and consisted solely of changes that were announced weeks ago and that were actually already prepared at the start of phase 2 of the beta. Unfortunately, this is evident in the effect the changes will have on the game. Blizzard patched the state the game was in several weeks ago, and didn't address many developments in game play that have since made the patch almost irrelevant. ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. You can read the rest of his thoughts at http://www.myeg.net/article/article_detail.php?article_id=877Do you agree or disagree with what he has to say?
Emphasis mine. I find that hilarious. The absolute state of the game was exactly identical several weeks ago than a day before the patch. This is what Blizzard tries to keep track of. They don't care about flavor of the week "imba". They don't care about random people ranting about random things. What would Idra have them do, roll out a patch every few days to counteract the latest "imba" that's spreading on the forums?
Blizzard is actively forming a view of the game on their own (naturally, a part of this is monitoring player feedback, moreso from higher skilled players) and patching according to that. I don't think anyone can objectively argue that the patch wasn't a step in the right direction. Then again I don't think anyone around here can objectively argue about anything balance-related in the first place...
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On September 26 2010 22:39 Silu wrote:Show nested quote +On September 24 2010 10:26 Colbi wrote:Greg ' IdrA' Fields gives his thoughts on Blizzard's most recent patch for StarCraft 2. Below is an excerpt taken from the article: The first balance patch for StarCraft2 came out roughly a month after release and consisted solely of changes that were announced weeks ago and that were actually already prepared at the start of phase 2 of the beta. Unfortunately, this is evident in the effect the changes will have on the game. Blizzard patched the state the game was in several weeks ago, and didn't address many developments in game play that have since made the patch almost irrelevant. ZvT and ZvP will remain largely unchanged while the balance issues in TvP will only be made worse, terran will now be even stronger early and protoss even stronger late in the game. You can read the rest of his thoughts at http://www.myeg.net/article/article_detail.php?article_id=877Do you agree or disagree with what he has to say? Emphasis mine. I find that hilarious. The absolute state of the game was exactly identical several weeks ago than a day before the patch. This is what Blizzard tries to keep track of. They don't care about flavor of the week "imba". They don't care about random people ranting about random things. What would Idra have them do, roll out a patch every few days to counteract the latest "imba" that's spreading on the forums? Blizzard is actively forming a view of the game on their own (naturally, a part of this is monitoring player feedback, moreso from higher skilled players) and patching according to that. I don't think anyone can objectively argue that the patch wasn't a step in the right direction. Then again I don't think anyone around here can objectively argue about anything balance-related in the first place...
This isn't a flavor of the week problem. the game is broken in multiple fundamental ways. I'm not sure its even fixable just by tweaking numbers. People have been cutting Blizzard a ton of slack because they desperately want to like this game, I know I have.
I didn't start until phase 2 of the beta but as soon as I saw the beta patch notes I became very concerned. These were not the kind of changes you should be seeing right before release. Like everyone else I heard the game was postponed a year for Battlenet 2. How could they have an extra year and still be making changes that big? It seems a little ridiculous to be making huge changes right before release then adopt the attitude that you can only make tiny changes after release. Certainly it's preferable to make small changes but not when you missed this mark by this much.
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On September 24 2010 10:43 De4ngus wrote:
I don't get why Blizzard doesn't realize the problem here is with Zerg. Patching Terran and Protoss doesn't do anything useful. Now tanks can't even be used TvP.
Stole the thoughts out of my mind.
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I started a separate post for my question. Please ignore.
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Really, I think so many problems would be fixed if hydras were hatch tech. Reapers and hellions don't outrange them, they can shoot up and they do decently (but don't destroy) the main armies of Terran and Protoss. They just don't feel tier 2 and I don't understand why they are there.
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On September 27 2010 15:52 Novembermike wrote:
Really, I think so many problems would be fixed if hydras were hatch tech. Reapers and hellions don't outrange them, they can shoot up and they do decently (but don't destroy) the main armies of Terran and Protoss. They just don't feel tier 2 and I don't understand why they are there.
as a protoss player I totally agree with you....In fact i always thought that roaches felt more like a lair tech. So to me swap them and adjust stats accordingly
toasting hydras so easily with storm or colossi always makes me pause and think....wow that was alot of gas just down the drain...sure they massacre unchecked but one wrong move and its lights out for the squishy guys.
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On September 26 2010 18:56 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2010 15:51 Rabiator wrote:
My favorite topic is restricting map variety? Well I do think that tiny maps screw too much with the balance and that you can not do a really good strategic macro game on them. So yes I want to "limit map variety" by kicking out the small ones. And close position spawning, presumably.
Yes, I forgot to mention that dilemma on our 4-player maps.
On September 26 2010 18:56 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +There is no way for Zerg to adjust to the speed on Terran and Protoss without killing their traditional mechanic of "all units are spawned from larvae which are grown at the hatchery". Protoss and Terran produce their workers in a separate building and can constantly do so even while producing attacking units. That is a systematic difference between these races. So you want to "kill" that difference and make the races "the same" [in mechanics]? Oh no; I don't think I even implied anything of the kind. If anything, I want to restore that element of Zerg's identity by removing the obligation to slowly crank out queen after queen in order to be able to shoot upward in a timely fashion.
Well to adjust the development speed to a comparable level you could do more than change the Zerg - I was wrong saying that - you could also take away Warp Gate, Chrono Boost, MULE and Reactor (and consequently the Queen as well). Either way it is a heavy bunch of adjustments which do not belong into a "live" version of the game. Changing the map size is a really simple solution to these problems with the timing. Since the units themselves seem fairly balanced it is the easiest solution.
On September 26 2010 18:56 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +Zerg dont need the time to "learn the Terran tune" but rather to have enough economy to be able to build defensive forces WITHOUT sacrificing their own economy. There is nothing to sweep under the carpet. I respectfully disagree. As I highlighted in my blog, quantity is a terrible substitute for the 'right' tech in early-game SC2 ZvT, unlike in SC1. And it does nothing for the lack of zerg aggressive options. Furthermore, ramping up map sizes damages Zerg's ability to scout far more than it delays Terran forces, because overlords are so slow. Add 10 seconds to hellion travel time and you add - what, forty seconds to overlord transit time? What am I going to do with ten extra seconds of economy compared to forty seconds less opportunity to see what's coming?
So a Terran uses Hellions to scout and not a simple SCV? I think there is a bug in that logic somewhere. You cant just take the best thing from one side and the worst from another and compare them. On a large 4-player-map most good Zerg use a Drone to scout anyways, so what is the big problem?
Zerg players always rant on about scouting and how hard of a time they have while totally forgetting that scouting+reacting=defensive play and that puts you on the road to lose eventually most of the time. If a Terran is able to harrass them left and right with just a few units and all they can do is defend they will die to the "big push". You need to get the active role and on a larger map it is far easier / safer to get a sizeable stack of Mutalisks out than on a small map and dont say that Mutas suck at scouting and harrassing. Taking the offensive is MUCH easier with these units!
One important thing: Terrans are supposedly immobile and Zerg are supposedly mobile, but on a small map these advantages / disadvantages are practically negated. If you can cover 20% of the map with a bunch of sieged tanks it doesnt matter that they cant move [Steppes of War center of the map ...]. Outflanking isnt possible for the more mobile forces if they get funneled through the dozen small chokes and even Metalopolis has two relatively small paths running from one side to another, so that makes it kinda bad in a TvZ if the Terran gets enough sieged tanks at the Xel'Naga towers.
On September 26 2010 18:56 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +@Umpteen Blog
You suggest modifying Hydras heavily and moving them to T1.5, but the thing is that on tiny maps you probably wont be able to get to them if the opponent puts his mind to it. Why not? I can get roaches out in time on any map, right now - unless I try to fast-expand first, which is risky (and rightly so) when rush distances are short. What's wrong with giving Zerg the tools to play differently on different maps?
Sure you can get Roaches out in time, but these cost LARVAE which could have been Drones instead. This effectively slows down your economy the same way a successful harrass with 5-6 dead Drones does; it just feels better. You could also 6-pool on every map, but why doesnt any Zerg do it? Because it is bad for long term economy and getting Roaches out [too] early is the same.
On September 26 2010 18:56 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +Modifying a unit so heavily as you suggested is going to cause more imbalance problems than just making maps "as big as they were in BW". The balance between units seems fairly good atm and fights can go either way, I agree there will be some knock-on effects. I'm not sure how terribly serious they will be. All we're talking about is being able to shoot up and be a little more robust against marauders. Right now, Hydras aren't seeing much play in ZvT so I wouldn't necessarily agree with your assessment that the units are fine as they are.
The game is balanced unitwise ... much much much more than the systematic "harrassment = dead Zerg" and "pylon-ramp-block" problems. Really imbalanced units do not exist anymore and any "pushiver fights" result more from one building units which are vulnerable to the units of the other side than true imbalance. Obviously - taking the IQ of the average forum idiot into account - that doesnt stop people from whining about Siege Tanks, Force Fields and whatever.
Truly imbalanced units are those which will win you the game by only building that one unit. The 1-food Roach with 2 armor was such a case and the Marauder with Stimpack gets fairly close to it as well. [I would say that that dropping Stimpack from Marauders is a necessary thing, because they are too efficient in their drop-kill-Nexus-capability. Having a unit which can slow an enemy and haste itself is too good as well; either but not both is good.]
On September 26 2010 18:56 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +so changing one units that heavily is not a wise choice to do, because it has implications for the late game and might destabilize the whole thing. We have quite a few big tournaments running already and making such huge changes is not a good thing IMO. Sorry, but you can't justify maintaining a game in a broken state on those grounds. Also, I might be wrong, but isn't it possible to start a custom match, save it, and then load and continue it even after a patch? Tournament organisers could create a large pool of such saves and use them to complete tourneys with consistent settings.
You might get a working balance for your suggestions, BUT we arent in beta anymore and with a "permanently running" GSL with a big amount of money on the line and a lot of other big and small tournaments we do not have the time to do this anymore. Maybe for an expansion, but I doubt that would be a good time either.
On September 26 2010 18:56 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +The poll in THIS thread shows a significant majority of people agreeing with me on the map size issue. At - currently - 431 votes it isnt a large sample, but it should be large enough to give a clear indication of the discontent with the map size. I'm not going to argue with what people want. I just don't think it's the answer to this issue.
That is your right, but people want bigger maps for more than balance reasons. The complaint that SC2 maps are too small in comparison to BW has been around since the beginning of beta, although it was only a secondary issue compared to the problems of balancing the units.
Just remember: On a large map you can go for a much more interesting macro game and much wider variety of strategies than on a small map. The Nydus Network is used as a "direct assault vehicle" atm, but it could also be used as a "proxy pylon" for Zerg in a hidden position close to the base of your enemy. You could use it to surround your opponent and strike his army from the back. None of these tactics are viable on the current Maps and there may be others which arent used on the tiny maps. BW has a "containment" as a viable strategy and in the case of Terrans it involves a lot of bunkers and turrets outside the enemies base. I havent seen a game like that yet and most of the time the players just push into the base and "kill or be killed".
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The patch was very late, a lot has changed since they determined they were releasing this patch.
I feel like if there's an issue with TvZ and PvZ blizzard should tweak Z, not P and T.
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^ You do not have any mutalisks by the time you need to react to ANYTHING. This is one of the core problems with Zerg, they have absolutely no offense until mutalisks. Terran and Protoss can hold off infinite tier 1 units with no change to their builds at all.
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On September 27 2010 18:11 Rabiator wrote:
Changing the map size is a really simple solution to these problems with the timing. Since the units themselves seem fairly balanced it is the easiest solution.
That's the point though: it's not a timing problem.
Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2010 18:56 Umpteen wrote:
I respectfully disagree. As I highlighted in my blog, quantity is a terrible substitute for the 'right' tech in early-game SC2 ZvT, unlike in SC1. And it does nothing for the lack of zerg aggressive options.
Furthermore, ramping up map sizes damages Zerg's ability to scout far more than it delays Terran forces, because overlords are so slow. So a Terran uses Hellions to scout and not a simple SCV? I think there is a bug in that logic somewhere. You cant just take the best thing from one side and the worst from another and compare them. On a large 4-player-map most good Zerg use a Drone to scout anyways, so what is the big problem?
No, Terran uses workers and then scans to scout and Hellions to come and ruin my economy. Hellion production, just like Banshee and Reaper production, can easily be hidden from drones and lings. Further delaying the arrival of my overlord gives Terran that much more time to prepare his choice of nasty early-game surprise without meaningfully increasing the time I have to work on my defence and economy. And you're forgetting proxy builds, which are very low-risk against Zerg now because Terran buildings can fly and I have to tech to T2 before I can shoot upwards anywhere outside my own base.
The reason delaying aggression by a few seconds won't help is that Zerg still has to have prepared the exact appropriate response, no more and no less, or he'll lose. It's not about not having enough stuff, it's about having rolled the dice and made the wrong stuff.
Zerg players always rant on about scouting and how hard of a time they have while totally forgetting that scouting+reacting=defensive play and that puts you on the road to lose eventually most of the time. If a Terran is able to harrass them left and right with just a few units and all they can do is defend they will die to the "big push". You need to get the active role and on a larger map it is far easier / safer to get a sizeable stack of Mutalisks out than on a small map and dont say that Mutas suck at scouting and harrassing. Taking the offensive is MUCH easier with these units!
I understand what you're trying to do, because I too agree that 'improved scouting for Zerg' would be fixing the wrong problem. But larger maps wouldn't fix the right problem, either.
One important thing: Terrans are supposedly immobile and Zerg are supposedly mobile, but on a small map these advantages / disadvantages are practically negated. If you can cover 20% of the map with a bunch of sieged tanks it doesnt matter that they cant move [Steppes of War center of the map ...]
I quite agree, but that's a different, later-game issue.
Sure you can get Roaches out in time, but these cost LARVAE which could have been Drones instead. This effectively slows down your economy the same way a successful harrass with 5-6 dead Drones does; it just feels better. You could also 6-pool on every map, but why doesnt any Zerg do it? Because it is bad for long term economy and getting Roaches out [too] early is the same.
With respect, you're not thinking this through quite far enough. The problem with getting roaches out in time is not that they could have been drones. The problem, against Terran, is that they're roaches. Forced defensive roaches is fine vs Protoss because the early-game arms-race is pretty stable: lings and roaches can hold the fort and even be aggressive until muta/hydra. Even If I make roaches when I didn't need to, Protoss can legitimately interpret that as potential early aggression and end up sacrificing his own economy to insure against it (units, cannons etc).
If Terran sees me make a bunch of roaches or lings unnecessarily, he can relax. He knows my economy and tech is lagging, and he knows I'm not mobilizing an early push because there aren't any viable early pushes for Z against T. He can macro up, make his choice of hard-counter unit and attack at his leisure. If he sees me neglecting roaches, on the other hand, he can punish me with reapers or hellions in my mineral line very, very quickly - and larger maps aren't going to help that to any significant degree.
I tried to expound on the subject of stability in my blog; presumably not well enough though A stable game is one where decisions and mistakes have consequences in terms of what the right next move is on both sides and how closely each side is approaching victory, but where it takes a real clanger of a mistake or a shockingly bad decision to topple straight from 'doing fine' into defeat with no second chances. A good game is one where stability ramps up quickly and then gradually decays. Everything from football to poker to tennis to chess to monopoly to Mario to SC:BW obeys that cardinal rule. Games that are inherently unstable in high level play, like snooker, are played as lengthy BoX's to impose a more desirable stability curve.
If ZvT were symmetrically unstable, then BoX's would be an adequate solution. But it's not. Right now, it's all but impossible for a Terran player to make a decision or mistake in the early game that will cause them to just straight-up lose or suffer economically versus Zerg, and those that do exist, like not walling-in, are trivial to avoid. On the other hand, Zerg is faced with a series of limited-info choices and micro challenges, failure at any one of which spells defeat, success meaning that the game continues with little real advantage gained, and overwhelming success meaning that he's screwed three minutes down the line because, unlike Terran, he can't follow-through a crushing defensive win with aggression and thus exact commensurate economic damage.
The game is balanced unitwise ... much much much more than the systematic "harrassment = dead Zerg" and "pylon-ramp-block" problems. Really imbalanced units do not exist anymore and any "pushiver fights" result more from one building units which are vulnerable to the units of the other side than true imbalance.
I quite agree. The problem is, in ZvT I have no choice but to make units that are vulnerable to those of the other side. It's like some mad paper/scissors/stone where one guy gets two goes.
You might get a working balance for your suggestions, BUT we arent in beta anymore and with a "permanently running" GSL with a big amount of money on the line and a lot of other big and small tournaments we do not have the time to do this anymore. Maybe for an expansion, but I doubt that would be a good time either.
Blizzard could do what they have with WoW and make patch servers to conduct live beta-testing while leaving the main servers unchanged. Or the custom-game-save thing would work; bit of a chore but it only needs doing once and then publishing online for all tourneys to use - assuming it works, of course; I haven't tested it.
That is your right, but people want bigger maps for more than balance reasons. The complaint that SC2 maps are too small in comparison to BW has been around since the beginning of beta, although it was only a secondary issue compared to the problems of balancing the units.
Like I said, I'm not going to argue with you about people wanting bigger maps, provided their reasons aren't that it'll fix ZvT
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