|
If you have criticism, you need to address the content, not the hosts. Idra and Artosis are 2 (1.5) Zerg players, but you can't point that out and then blanket them as biased. Respond to the content.
You can't tell them to "get 2 Terran and Protoss players". That's fucking obtuse advice. "Yo just get 4 more high level players to record with you." Yes, I think everyone sees the value in getting it, but it's not practical.
Respond to the content and use evidence / logic to back up your claims. |
Hello, Teamliquid - I am a long-time lurker, first time poster, and I wanted to address a post in the first few pages of this thread that was definitely a gem floating in an ocean of shit that many people seem to have quoted and pledged agreement with. Saechiis's post, which should be applauded for its calm, level-headed tone, violates many rules of debate and offers little in the way of legitimate criticism. While my response is as lengthy as the original, I think I offer a lot in the way of proper thinking about these kinds of discussions, so please take the time to read it.
On February 03 2011 11:43 Saechiis wrote:
You explain how Starcraft 2 should be balanced around top level play since that's where the variable of "skill" relatively has the least influence. You fail to discuss though, the human factor, and what makes someone an objective judge of balance. Because let's face it, both you, IdrA and Artosis, are biased towards Zerg in the same way you were biased towards Terran when you played that race in BW. You're both easily the most vocal and quick in claiming imbalance in both versions of Starcraft and one can't help but notice that the arrow is always pointed at things that are disadvantageous to your race of play.
This is a mixture of ad-hominem and questioning credentials, neither of which pertain to the arguments presented by Idra and Artosis. If one were to read this paragraph without the context of having seen the episode, one might presume that the hosts are parading as game designers deciding upon what should or should not be changed in Starcraft 2. Neither of them claims that they are judges of balance - instead, the show's premise is based around the discussion of current strong trends in professional level Starcraft. In fact, they open the Colossus discussion with "talking about something that may or may not be imbalanced." This is not, in fact, a coy opening - Idra's stated conclusion is that a more diverse map pool will lead to an answer, and Artosis explicitly states he's not sold on the idea as-is. The entire twenty minutes between the opening and conclusion are spent discussing, not passing judgment.
On February 03 2011 11:43 Saechiis wrote:
Even though I can see that you've tried to at least make logical steps of reasoning, it's still so obvious that you're both not objective in your judgement. You talk a little bit about Colossi in TvP and how it's balanced there, but watching that as spectator you just feel your disinterest in the subject and how you seem to be getting that part out of the way to get to the point you "really" want to talk about. Which becomes pretty obvious when Artosis says "now let's talk about Colossi in ZvP" and you both can't help but get a huge grin on your face since you get to tell it's overpowered.
You have both stated to not be familiar enough with other races than Zerg to play them at a competetive level. Doesn't that say enough about the validity of your judgement as two talented, but still biased Zerg players?
More ad-hominem, and more questioning credentials... There is no good criticism here. Additionally, the race preference of the hosts and any future guests is completely irrelevant to the truth of their argument(s). If what they say is valid, then that's what you have to call into question, not their background.
On February 03 2011 11:43 Saechiis wrote:
You talk about the Colossus being a weapon of choice in all MU's and how it seriously obliterates ground. Concluding that it's too hard for Zerg to balance Corrupter count together with the economy required to churn them out. But that's obviously just 1 side of the story, you don't mention how Protoss gateway units all get totally raped by Roach/ Hydra, which is the reason why Toss needs ranged splash damage in the first place. The relative weakness of the core gateway units needs the additional DPS of Storm and Colossi for it to be cost-efficient. And since Storm is such an expensive and long tech path, Colossi are practically always the unit of choice to survive through midgame.
The other side of the story is that the Protoss tech to Colossi. This is an example of arguing in reverse - the point that Saechiis claims Idra and Artosis ignored was actually already assumed. It was also explicitly stated that the Colossus was not fundamentally broken - neither of these guys is suggesting that it should be removed, or that Protoss doesn't need the damage it provides.
Idra's conclusion is that the Zerg now has no direct response, unlike the Protoss's situation, where their next move against a roach/hydra army is to build colossi, and that the current map pool lacks both the resources and space to out-macro, outmaneuver or overwhelm a Colossus fueled army. He mentioned a possible alternative being proactive, using heavy Muta pressure and forcing a Protoss 2-base all-in instead of providing a direct response to Colossi. I don't know if he's right, but that's the point that you should be attacking.
On February 03 2011 11:43 Saechiis wrote:
TeamLiquid is already overrun with hundreds of brainless bronze Zergs that cling to every word IdrA says and will go rampaging through the forums every time the magic word *imbalance* is proclaimed. For every person that can see through obvious bias, oversimplification and exaggeration there are at least two that don't or won't and it shows in the continuous degradation of TL's SC2 Strategy Forums.
On February 03 2011 11:43 Saechiis wrote:
Basically, I feel that the only ones that are benefited by such a show are yourselves; whilst SC communities like the ones on TL, SCReddit and even the Bnet forums are left to deal with even more irrational balance whines than there are now.
These two quotes represent the real 'meat' of the post in question, I think - a truly valid opinion with some muscle behind it, and after lurking around Teamliquid, I can really empathize with Saechiis here. Regardless, it's not the job of any community's figureheads to pander to or consider the lowest common denominator of its membership. There are tons of intelligent people that are going to tune in, submit questions/have their questions answered, and influence discussion between their peers using the basis that Idra and Artosis have provided and it will be totally sweet - the amount of increased whining is unquantifiable, and an increased output of tripe that should already be ignored doesn't really matter... Zero times five equals zero, y'know?
Something unique to the SC2 community is its transparency - the people that are virtually celebrities not only produce content and stream games and give interviews are so very close to us that they interact with us directly on this board. No amount of baddie whining should detract from anyone's efforts to keep us close to the progamers that live at the bleeding edge of Starcraft 2's metagame and trends.
P.S. While writing this post and searching through the thread to see if anyone else had offered similar corrections, I stumbled upon Saechiis's post in response to Beetlelisk, where he simply launches another attack on character while either ignoring their arguments or twisting them into angles to attack their character. Notably, he never responded to any criticism of his initial post. I won't address the second post directly, but it is worth looking at to see how someone apparently level-headed can be completely abrasive and their words empty, which is why in these kinds of discussions, it's important to attack arguments, not people. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=7813653
|
On February 04 2011 08:28 MindRush wrote:
I heard TLO is ranked 1st in the world playing random
is that imbalanced also ?
User was warned for this post
was just stating the obvious
TLO is sooooooooooooo good he is overpowered
If you can't respect my opinion and warn me about it, then I remember something from way back where my country was under comunism
User was temp banned for this post.
|
I think the concept of having top level player discuss the current balance issues of various units in and of itself is a fantastic idea; however, after watching the video I was reminded of a thread posted by artosis about a week ago:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=186496
Around 8:25 Idra states:
"Zerg is only winning by getting lucky right now"
While I appreciate that in this show both of them tried to be as unbiased as they could it just doesn't seem rational to be accepting balance discussion from someone who made that statement so recently.
Outside of that I feel that the show degraded a little bit as it went along, the first 10 minutes were very strong but as the discussion became more in depth there were some fairly silly statements made such as:
"You can't engage mass colossus with a ground army"
Well... ya... thats (to over exaggerate to a painful extent) like saying that you can't engage mass muta with zealots, its kind of a given which is why Corrupters/Vikings are considered to be what you get to counter them.
Edit:
With regards to the very long and thought out post 2 above me: While I always appreciate the recognition of logical fallacy in criticism and whatever else, when discussing an activity in which the presenters take an active role from a first person perspective (eg. playing zerg in game) an ad-hominem argument becomes somewhat legitimised as the basis of their opinions can be called into question given that their opinions are formed from their personal experiences.
Not that its a good critique or anything, its just valid.
|
How did I not see this before?
For all the stuff that Idra does that I disagree with, I usually agree with most of what he says on balance. He exaggerates a bit, ok quite a bit, but a lot of times he's spot on.
Looking forward to this shenanigan-al series.
|
People shouldn't take this imbalance talk so seriously. Just because Idra and Artosis say it is doesn't mean it is true or false, it's just something to think about.
|
I like how some of the most biased users on TL are calling out on Idra/Artosis bias. I play Terran on SC2 as well and I'm not nearly close to biased as half of you, and I actually appreciate them doing this for the community
|
I'd just like to comment on that "imbalance does not exist at non pro level" thing that keeps coming up by various people.
Imbalance itself does exist on any level. Imagine you are doing a car race. Two people compete and one gets a slightly worse car. Of course if there are two amateurs competing they won't be able to use their respective cars to their fullest extent. However if the race is very close, it might very well have been decided by that small imbalance. That imbalance leads to the fact that the lesser skilled driver actually won the race.
Now can we can we tell from this experiment which of the drivers had the better car? Of course we can not because the drivers did a lot of mistakes and both didn't drive well -- the performance of the cars and of the players gets intermingled.
Thats where the pro level comes into play: If we know that the two drivers are both more or less "optimal" drivers, and we run that experiment often enough, we can deduce whether (or not) there is an imbalance between the cars. So long story short: I basically agree with the essence of what people say ("balance has to occur at pro level"), but I disagree with the fact that "balance does not affect non-pro level" -- that's not true as shown above. Its just not visible.
|
nice video, quite interesting and as a zerg player I can appreciate the cry for imbalance of colossus.
|
On February 04 2011 09:00 dogmeatstew wrote:
"You can't engage mass colossus with a ground army"
Well... ya... thats (to over exaggerate to a painful extent) like saying that you can't engage mass muta with zealots, its kind of a given which is why Corrupters/Vikings are considered to be what you get to counter them.
That wasn't what they took issue with either, they just stated it as a basis for the discussion even though it's an obvious fact.
|
On February 03 2011 11:43 Saechiis wrote:
Even though I actually enjoyed watching this introductory episode, I still think this entire show is a horrible idea. You've obviously chosen a subject close to your interests and it's obviously going to provide you with a ridiculous amounts of viewers that want to hear all about how their opponents have an unfair advantage. It's not, however, in the interest of the SC2 community.
TeamLiquid is already overrun with hundreds of brainless bronze Zergs that cling to every word IdrA says and will go rampaging through the forums every time the magic word *imbalance* is proclaimed. For every person that can see through obvious bias, oversimplification and exaggeration there are at least two that don't or won't and it shows in the continuous degradation of TL's SC2 Strategy Forums.
You explain how Starcraft 2 should be balanced around top level play since that's where the variable of "skill" relatively has the least influence. You fail to discuss though, the human factor, and what makes someone an objective judge of balance. Because let's face it, both you, IdrA and Artosis, are biased towards Zerg in the same way you were biased towards Terran when you played that race in BW. You're both easily the most vocal and quick in claiming imbalance in both versions of Starcraft and one can't help but notice that the arrow is always pointed at things that are disadvantageous to your race of play.
Even though I can see that you've tried to at least make logical steps of reasoning, it's still so obvious that you're both not objective in your judgement. You talk a little bit about Colossi in TvP and how it's balanced there, but watching that as spectator you just feel your disinterest in the subject and how you seem to be getting that part out of the way to get to the point you "really" want to talk about. Which becomes pretty obvious when Artosis says "now let's talk about Colossi in ZvP" and you both can't help but get a huge grin on your face since you get to tell it's overpowered.
You have both stated to not be familiar enough with other races than Zerg to play them at a competetive level. Doesn't that say enough about the validity of your judgement as two talented, but still biased Zerg players?
You talk about the Colossus being a weapon of choice in all MU's and how it seriously obliterates ground. Concluding that it's too hard for Zerg to balance Corrupter count together with the economy required to churn them out. But that's obviously just 1 side of the story, you don't mention how Protoss gateway units all get totally raped by Roach/ Hydra, which is the reason why Toss needs ranged splash damage in the first place. The relative weakness of the core gateway units needs the additional DPS of Storm and Colossi for it to be cost-efficient. And since Storm is such an expensive and long tech path, Colossi are practically always the unit of choice to survive through midgame.
Basically, I feel that the only ones that are benefited by such a show are yourselves; whilst SC communities like the ones on TL, SCReddit and even the Bnet forums are left to deal with even more irrational balance whines than there are now.
Thank you for this post, it's exceptional.
|
Look -- Idra is a good player, but it just sounds too much like he wants to beat Collosus (Protoss tier 3 with an expensive tier 3 upgrade) without building corruptors -- i.e. He wants to roll Protoss with a tier 1 roach/hydra army. And I don't think it's harder for a zerg to deal with Collosus than it is for protoss to use them -- but it is hard to deal with a Collosus army with full support. Well -- guess what -- a Protoss builds his army specifically to deal with hydra/roach, and guess what -- 99.9% of Zerg players build hydra roach anyway and then complain when their hydra/roach army gets beat by an army composed to beat it.
|
On February 04 2011 09:07 Crooser wrote:
Look -- Idra is a good player, but it just sounds too much like he wants to beat Collosus (Protoss tier 3 with an expensive tier 3 upgrade) without building corruptors -- i.e. He wants to roll Protoss with a tier 1 roach/hydra army. And I don't think it's harder for a zerg to deal with Collosus than it is for protoss to use them -- but it is hard to deal with a Collosus army with full support. Well -- guess what -- a Protoss builds his army specifically to deal with hydra/roach, and guess what -- 99.9% of Zerg players build hydra roach anyway and then complain when their hydra/roach army gets beat by an army composed to beat it.
Why do people keep saying this. Roach/Hydra is tier 1, marines/medivacs are tier 1, when they are very obviously not.
|
On February 04 2011 08:32 Kazang wrote:
In my humble opinion the problem with colossus is their mobility relative to their firepower.
The only other unit with comparable amounts of damage and range is a siege tank, which have very obvious drawbacks, such as not being able to move, having a minimum range and quite low HP for the cost.
The only drawback to colossus is it's vulnerability to air to air units, however this only really comes into play in PvT, as Vikings are the only Air to Air unit that really threatens colossus. In PvZ the corruptor doesn't have the range and alpha damage that makes the vikings so good against colossus. The mutalisk and broodlord can hit the colossus without it's "drawback" so it really doesn't add any weakness to exploit. Likewise in PvP, the voidray and carrier can hit ground units anyway and the only Air to Air unit, the phoenix(like the mutalisk) is a short range low damage unit that gets very quickly nullified by stalkers and doesn't hurt colossus much anyway so it's largely the same situation as PvZ.
It's a tenuous balance and there is not easy fix, assuming there is a problem to fix in the first place, which is really not certain.
Colossus has 2 big drawbacks 1 is which you stated vulnarablity to air and the second is it needs support of an army. A colossus in itself is really weak and while you can call it mobile it can only move as fast as the slowest unit in the army. If they are cut of they're 100% dead I feel like a lot of people overlook this fact. And bigger maps will also affect this since the protoss army isn't really that mobile the toss army will either need a lot of warp gates or HT to fend of harass since the colossus can't be everywhere at once. Maybe Zerg just doesn't need to hard counter it but try to drop with overlord or something ( this is just an idea from me ofc ) to abuse the mobility of the toss army.
Btw I was thinking maybe they could ask Tasteless into the programme he has knowledge of the game and I feel like he isn't very biased plus they know eachother well.
|
Watched the episode, it was really good, stating the problems in ZvP. In my opinion it wasn't biased at all, some really good arguments were given. I really liked the one where idra says that P shouldn't depend that much on one unit making the game one dimensional, which was my thinking exactly.
|
I like the simple style of the show. I want to suggest a cool artosis-style intro like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
An intro where the camera films the city of seoul only to unexpectedly find Artosis and Idra sitting around somewhere. Artosis and Idra will then get up, approach the camera, take their sunglasses off and greed the audience.
This should be the intro theme song of the show:
+ Show Spoiler +
|
I like that they touched on imbalance on multiple levels. To me there are two levels of imbalance:
1. A strategy/unit/tactic that, if done perfectly, other races cannot beat even if responded to perfectly.
and
2. A strategy/unit/tactic that is always the best option and stifles gameplay because all other options are inferior.
I think 1 is extremely hard to prove and extremely rare, but all too often that is straight where people go.
2 is much easier to identify and where most of the discussion needs to be imo. A great example is the reaper madness. To me it wasn't that it wasn't that reapers were impossible to beat as zerg, but the fact that there was absolutely no reason to do anything but reapers if you are T. It was good against any build order/unit composition from zerg and was easy to transition out of.
Idra and Artosis aren't claiming that collosus are unbeatable, just debating whether or not all PvZ builds will always revolve around collosus and stifle the matchup, which would be imbalance.
|
On February 04 2011 09:07 Crooser wrote:
Look -- Idra is a good player, but it just sounds too much like he wants to beat Collosus (Protoss tier 3 with an expensive tier 3 upgrade) without building corruptors -- i.e. He wants to roll Protoss with a tier 1 roach/hydra army. And I don't think it's harder for a zerg to deal with Collosus than it is for protoss to use them -- but it is hard to deal with a Collosus army with full support. Well -- guess what -- a Protoss builds his army specifically to deal with hydra/roach, and guess what -- 99.9% of Zerg players build hydra roach anyway and then complain when their hydra/roach army gets beat by an army composed to beat it.
Yes. Idra is a good player.
He doesn't want to beat collusus without corruptors, he wants corruptors to beat collusus. How is that not clear? he wants a dynamic like viking vs collosus in PvT. Said it like 3-4 times in the video.
Second part of your post is just nonsense.
|
Nice show. Just watched the first episode and liked it a lot!
Very deep insight and a lot of reasonable arguments imo. And I like that you want to discuss questions from the community.
I would love to see an episode about the Marauder in TvP (Going to mail this suggestion to their email aswell...)
Only one thing to point out is that you two should balance the loudness of your voices a bit <-- see what I did there...? :p
|
I know people keep saying "OH WELL, THEY DON'T KNOW NOTHING ABOUT NO PROTOSS OR THAT TERRAN RACE I HEAR ABOUT!".
They don't go into a discussion thinking that, "From a ZERG point of view I think PvP Colossi need some work.". Artosis, has been playing some Protoss, maybe not against pros at tournaments but I'm sure in high master league against pros.
IdrA has also stated that he off-races sometimes as T and P.
I'm also pretty damn sure that they talk to other people (like iNcontrol or Tasteless or Day[9] or anyone in the pro level) about thoughts about imbalance (take SoTG for example). So, even though they "only have 2 zergs" on the show, doesn't necessarily mean that they don't get input about things from other people.
Honestly, I think that this thread should be locked. Sadly, because I think that if people actually didn't take every word they say as a message from God then we could actually have a good discussion.
|
On February 04 2011 09:00 dogmeatstew wrote:
Edit:
With regards to the very long and thought out post 2 above me: While I always appreciate the recognition of logical fallacy in criticism and whatever else, when discussing an activity in which the presenters take an active role from a first person perspective (eg. playing zerg in game) an ad-hominem argument becomes somewhat legitimised as the basis of their opinions can be called into question given that their opinions are formed from their personal experiences.
Not that its a good critique or anything, its just valid.
It would be a valid method of rebuttal if Idra and Artosis were both Bronze level players, but since they partake in the context they're critiquing - highest level play - ad-hominem remains out of bounds, does it not?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
