|
Chill: This thread is about how the perception of balance is not in-line with hard statistics. If you don't have a comment about that fact, DO NOT post in this thread. |
While getting myself hyped for MLG Dallas starting tonight, I was starting to think about who could take it and it really got me to thinking, which Protoss will be the one to rise to the championship? I’m someone who if I have a small amount of time, and I’m not completely caught up on the GSL, I’ll watch a set before I’ll hit the ladder myself, I’m a Starcraft 2 spectator. And as excited as I am for the tournament season to begin with MLG and NASL soon there is one thing that really bothers me. On state of the game this week while talking about Idra, Incontrol said that he was sort of defeated by the match up, and that’s when I realized, as a spectator, I am too.
After watching this new style of Protoss vs. Zerg where Zerg has a huge base lead and creep literally covering half the map, and a 200/200 rolls what looks like on your screen as a massive lead it gets a little disheartening. Weather there is imbalance or not isn’t really the issue, it’s the mindset that the odds are in the favor of one side that makes the matches harder to spectate, now when I see a Zerg in the lead, like in Morrow vs. San I just remind myself over and over to hold judgment until the death ball moves out.
Using GCPL, TSL3(round 1), Assembly and GSL March code S, I went through Liquipedia (except for TLO games in which I had to go though the vods, if you though you were tired of him being random…) I used games instead of series’ in order to get more data and I found that PvZ had Protoss winning at a 56% clip, not nearly the 80% mentality that had taken over my mind, in fact it turns out assembly was hilariously Protoss dominated, and ignoring those results would give you a 52% Protoss win percentage. These aren’t exactly scrub tournaments, but seeing interview after interview with Zergs, Terrans and even Protoss saying “I don’t want to play any Protoss it’s my worst match up” it had begun to suck me in.
The funny thing is when I started my research for this post my intention was to express my disgust with what the current balance is doing for eSports as a viewer. But in light of my findings (Believe it or not PvT is statistically more imbalanced) none of which are recorded after the fungal/amulet patch, I have hope, is it 6% that remains to be seen. On the very same state of the game Incontrol hinted that with the patch so close to MLG a lot of international Zerg players have kept their hands close to their vest, and that we may see a new brand of ZvP at MLG. So instead of anger I bring hope, and I hope you all enjoy MLG this weekend, I’m looking forward to it now more than ever.
I have included the full statistical results in the spoiler.
+ Show Spoiler +
For these statistics I simply threw out all mirrors and did a tally. for Assembly I actually threw out all random games (including TLO) because I didn't want to sift through the glhf garbage in the LR thread, but for GCPL all TLO matches were confirmed for race via LR or VOD. Lastly I'd like to thank whoever did the Liquipedia updates for these tournaments, without you I couldn't have finished before MLG started which is important to my final product.
GCPL
regular season Playoffs Total
TvZ 14-10 6-8 20-18
TvP 16-18 6-6 22-24
ZvP 10-4 6-9 16-13
TSL3
TvZ 7-6
TvP 5-7
ZvP 4-6
Assembly
Pool Play W.Bracket Total
TvZ 25-17 2-5 27-22
TvP 17-28 8-14 25-42
ZvP 4-18 11-7 15-25
GSL March(code S only)
TvZ 11-11
TvP 8-18
ZvP 9-13
Grand Totals
TvZ 65-57(53% Terran)
TvP 60-91 (60% Protoss)
ZvP 44-57 (56% Protoss)
final note: I included winners bracket/playoff stats because it gives you a little more of a crem de la crem numbers, but I included everything in the totals because I felt it would be manipulating to not include everything I took the time to tally.
|
This topic again!! This will just ensue flaming , you are clearly stating that protoss is imbalance and QQing about Zergs.
If you wanna make topics like this, post it on blizzard's forums.
User was warned for this post
|
Not threadworthy.
User was warned for this post
|
|
|
Your statistics are pretty much bullshit because you took only statistics since last 1 month.
If you actually took the statistics since release, instead of just last month the trend would be overall better. In fact during release, terran was unbeatable by Protoss with a variety of play including 3 rax SCV all ins, Raven/Banshee all in, Thor all in and even BC all ins. Even ZvP was Z favored due to the prevalent ling-muta playstyle that was the preferred during that time. Protoss were nearly non-existent in the first two seasons of GSL past the round of 16
After that it has been nothing but protoss nerfs non-stop (apart from phoenix build time reduction and observer cost reduction). But still protoss has gone from losing most of the time to winning a lot more. A lot of it has to do with the maps becoming large, allowing protoss to defend all ins more reliably through scouting, and the movement of the general meta-game away from 1 base games to longer macro games.
At this current point of time, though it might seem that protoss has a slight advantage, I feel that its just a matter of time before someone finds a reliable way to exploit protoss weaknesses.
TL:DR; Stop crying imbalance within such a short span of time.
User was warned for this post
|
As a spectator every match i see where 12+ forcefields flat out win the game I get disheartened. It's gotten so bad I've poisoned myself against my own race and am strongly considering a race switch. The only thing stopping me is the thought I'll be on the receiving end of the shenanigans. woe is me
|
Protoss definitely benefits more from a death ball and is extremely boring to watch colossus kill everything with their massive splash damage but the way their race is designed relies on the force field colossus compositions and it is unfortunate. I don't know what else they could do to protoss in starcraft 2 with the race as Force fields are extremely strong but without them Protoss is horrible and almost unable to hold off any kind of pressure early on, without colossus protoss loses to Hydra to easily so it's a slippery slope that's for sure. I would personally like to see the colossus removed from heart of the swarm if possible and replaced with a more exciting unit, as seeing colossus death balls late game is not as exciting as seeing reaver drops or reaver play in general most would agree.
|
Why the hate guys? The OP isn't whining, he is saying there is little imbalance and as of the recent patches maybe none at all, and i think he has good reason to take only the recent games, because he wants to know how the recent games have been going, with all the patches and metagame (for lack of a better word) shifts since release and beta what use would there be in looking at all the data, as he wants to know how MLG will play out.
@PileDriver, you put a TL:DR at the end of your post, but apparently you didn't read his.
Not cool.
|
Poorly disguised imba thread. It doesn't help dressing your post up by saying 'I did research' and 'I have hope'.
User was warned for this post
|
If you remove all the games where:
1. One player makes a huuge blunder.
2. One player vastly outskills another player.
How many are you left with? Do you realize you are including oGsMC vs Ciara in your analysis?
Personally I think some of the matchups are somewhat skewed, but this analysis does nothing to either prove or disprove it.
To the guy over suggesting to include all games since release or something: LOL.
|
Surili's right, chill guys. I myself have noticed a slight protoss dominance, but it's true that it's only a matter of time before t's discover tank helion viking :D
|
On April 01 2011 22:58 Piledriver wrote:
TL:DR; Stop crying imbalance within such a short span of time.
If you had properly read the OP before going onto such a tangential rant this TL:DR would be a lot less glaringly wrong than it is.
OT: it's so refreshing seeing someone actually try to apply an objective filter their own personal bias; following arguments on the internet has made me so sick of anecdotal "evidence".
|
Every game i see one of the following things happen Iwonder why i watch and sometimes play this shit:
Protoss-Deathball steamrolling over a Z like the Z's army just evaporates barely putting a dent into the Ball... And basically every game a Protoss gets about 4 Colossi... SO DAMN BORING.
Forcefield instawin.
Actually, ZvP is just boring to watch and looks/is just stupid.
ZvT and PvZ + the Mirrors (except probably PvP) are fun to watch.
|
lol, its funny how you put it. Myself friends and I were also wondering 'Which protoss will win mlg'. Funny to see its not just us! Anyway the patch has come and in ZvP ive tried infestors, but ill just say its not as good as people make it out to be. its not a 260% dps upgrade as some people have tried to sloppily calculate it.
As for me, I've started going heavy muta ling with mass spines to ward off 4-6 gates. Im sure the game itself will change to a point where people try to discourage protoss to go sentry play; that or blizzard will nerf protoss. All in all, the only thing we can do is continue playing and trying to win i guess ^^
|
you sure did spent a lot of time on this, however it didn't have enough data to make argument of imbalance.
Blizzard take data from millions of game from ladder, I know the result of progamer will be more convince. I am sure Blizzard already have someone looking in to it.
|
I actually think you started with a great point, but then ended more on a imba complaint.
So I'll just address the first part.
Yes, when I watch ZvP, I'm always apprehensive for the Zerg even with a 50 food lead because it seems they can never win lategame, and I'm hoping the new fungal can fix that.
|
get 2-3 bases and defend until you are 200 supply. make colossus and void rays. attack move. win.
this is how fun protoss is
User was temp banned for this post.
|
On April 01 2011 22:58 Piledriver wrote:
Your statistics are pretty much bullshit because you took only statistics since last 1 month.
Maybe he is comparing the races after recent patches?
//tx
|
/Facepalm not again.....
P.S and yes i did read the whole thing
|
The OP feels really weird. It starts out like a balance whine, then just as you're getting ready to whip out the statistics to back your balance complaints, you turn around and say "Gee, it's not nearly as bad as I thought". I fail to see the point of the OP or the thread...?
|
The reason why Protoss are beating zerg is because zerg aren't doing it right in my opinion. Zerg's cannot just engage a 200/200 protoss deathball without a perfect unit comp and far better upgrades, sometimes that is not even enough. Zerg need's to be harrasing, dropping, nydus worming, pushing before deathball gets up and taking more bases aggresively vs that turtling protoss style, or the deathball will kill them.
User was warned for this post
|
I think the point of the thread is to show that balance is largely in your head and things are not as bad as you mentally make them out to be often.
|
Is there a reason that like every other post in here is someone grossly misinterpreting the OP? He is actually encouraged that the PvZ w/l is as close as it is because it feels like it's so much worse. He is not crying imbalance(in fact, he is saying that he himself will pull his qqing back because he now realizes it isn't nearly as statistically imbalanced as he thought).
|
It's definitely one of the least interesting matchups as a spectator right after PvP.
Does this say something about the overall design of protoss units? I think it does, especially when you hear the pros lament about PvP.
You can be in denial all you want about the retardedness of colossi and/or FF but I'm pretty sure one or both will be patched down the road. That or other units tweaked to deal with them better.
User was warned for this post
|
On April 01 2011 23:23 SupastaR wrote:
The reason why Protoss are beating zerg is because zerg aren't doing it right in my opinion. Zerg's cannot just engage a 200/200 protoss deathball without a perfect unit comp and far better upgrades, sometimes that is not even enough. Zerg need's to be harrasing, dropping, nydus worming, pushing before deathball gets up and taking more bases aggresively vs that turtling protoss style, or the deathball will kill them. I'm inclined to agree. People used to say to protoss and terran player who put no pressure on zerg and then got overrun 'Well yeah, it's zerg, if you put no pressure and don't force him to make units, he's just going to drone and overrun you, you've got to put pressure.'
Now this is sort of the case with protoss, if you just not attack in the mid game, he can get maxed, at that point he's stronger than you, and overrun you, you've got to keep the pressure on.
|
There is a lot of speculation over my intentions of the thread and I just want to say I'm honestly just trying to get people exited for MLG, hence the timing. If you like to get a little interactivity going when you watch Esports, like I do, then often times you get in on the LR threads here on tl. And the fact of the matter is, when you read some of the stuff that goes on live in those threads before the mods clean in it up it can really influence your feelings about the game. I'm still going to read LRs because thats part of how I enjoy Starcraft when I watch it live, but for people like me who had maybe been convinced to be disheartened I wanted to perhaps instill excitement. I'm sorry if you can't believe me.
|
I don't even care if PvZ is imba or anything... The thing that bothers me:
PROTOSS VS ZERG is so boring.
If the P is not going for some really fancy opening nothing special ever happens (will the Z win in the midgame or will he just get rolled?). Anf when it goes to lategame, no matter how the game started it will look the same anyway.
|
On April 01 2011 23:23 SupastaR wrote:
The reason why Protoss are beating zerg is because zerg aren't doing it right in my opinion. Zerg's cannot just engage a 200/200 protoss deathball without a perfect unit comp and far better upgrades, sometimes that is not even enough. Zerg need's to be harrasing, dropping, nydus worming, pushing before deathball gets up and taking more bases aggresively vs that turtling protoss style, or the deathball will kill them.
Hahahahaha.
"Use nydus more!"
Yeah, sounds familiar.
And as far as taking more bases, I'm sure anyone following enough pro games right now has seen 5-6-7 base zerg lose to 2-3 base toss deathball. So no, taking more bases doesn't help if the zerg army can't kill anything in the end.
|
Personally i don't have problem with Protoss in my games...(as zerg). Yah, i loose a lot, but i can still outplay them.
But as a spectator i fully agree...i am getting soooo depressed when watching ZvP (sometimes even ZvT, when looking at a slow siege/bunker push, and poor zerg not being able to do anything about it).
Protoss has several options, starting with a chance to end the game with few cannon, or unscouted hidden pylon in his base. Early poke that can end the game by ff the ramp. Then by doing some kind of 1-2base aggressive push, which doesn't effect them almost at all if zerg is prepared for it, they can just back of and take the 3ed, and if he overdrones...just go kill him. And if not that, there is a window of time where Toss has to turtle up, and push out with maxed army, this is the time where zerg can't do anything to stop it.
So yah...i am in the same boat :/
|
You arent giving TL mods enough credit, they smell a disgused "nerf" topic a mile away. You are stating that Protoss is INSANELY imbalanced against Zerg and thus killing esports, killing Team Liquid, killing South Korea, making Day9 sleep on the street somewhere in Skidrow, Husky living in a container, Blizzard going down in flames, Dustin Bowder hanged publicly...
...because some Protoss player beat a Zerg?
User was warned for this post
|
On April 01 2011 23:17 gavss wrote:
get 2-3 bases and defend until you are 200 supply. make colossus and void rays. attack move. win.
this is how fun protoss is
And zerg can do nothing to stop P getting a third base amiright?
This is just a blatant whine thread and should be locked. Really? Taking evidence from only 4 tournys? 56% win rate in that case is amazingly balanced since so many different factors come into play such as player skill, how the player felt that day, build order poker... etc etc
TL Buzz word of the day seems to be: Sample Size. So many people seem to totally not understand the concept.
As to the OP: You seem to completely miss the dynamic of the ZvP matchup.
After watching this new style of Protoss vs. Zerg where Zerg has a huge base lead and creep literally covering half the map, and a 200/200 rolls what looks like on your screen as a massive lead it gets a little disheartening
200 supply of Z was NEVER intended to beat 200 supply of P units (Since they can reinforce alot faster), as soon as you get that viewpoint out of your head you might enjoy spectating alot more. Likewise a Z with a baselead on P or T isn't "a massive lead", it's how the game is designed, Z is always meant to be ahead on bases and it's been like that since BW.
The way you are talking right now just makes it look like you lack any kind of game sense or foresight.
|
Zerg needs to trow constant aggression it seems. As long as there isn't BW multitasking being used, I am not certain if anyone can yell imbalance. Agreed, there is a different sort of multitasking needed in SCII than in BW. But I am pretty sure more harassing/nydus play is possible. Especially in ZvP, where there are no siege tanks to defend.
Against 200/200 balls Zerg needs to put more pressure on the home bases. Nydus should become mandatory. Therefore P won't dare to run out with the giant deathball they have now. Simply because P has to keep some units back to defend.
Also, Zerg needs to build roach warrands on different hatcheries.
My problem with SCII atm: You cant be cost effective with a small number of units against a big number of units. Which is bad for defenders.
|
With all the money getting pumped into tournaments for this game, and all the eyes on it, It would be pretty shameful a couple years down the line when people go, "oh wait this was totally unfair." Like people said about things earlier in the life of this game, and guess what? Blizzard changed things!
Like what happens in other games, like fighting games for instance, the characters with the easiest match-ups on paper tend to do consistently better than characters with hard ones. It's true! Some characters are actually better than others! Hard to believe, huh?
I don't understand the nay saying, blatant denial, and willful ignorance from this community of what could potentially be a humongous problem to a game with such incredibly high stakes(money wise) as this.
As a guy who watches a lot of Starcraft, BW and II, and a ton of other competetive games, this definitely puts a damper on things and makes me feel weird about how open Blizzard is to making drastic changes to this game, and nervous about how much money is on the line for something that could potentially be unfair.
|
When Nydus is buffed enough that you can't just kill it by grabbing your nearest pack or workers, we'll discuss how awesome Nydus can be. In the meantime, it's just by and large a big joke and a waste of huge amounts of gas in most games.
|
actually it is as bad as you think.
protoss players were using the "4 gate strategy" a lot in those tournaments. it is a risky strategy. if zerg holds a 4 gate rush without losing too many drones, he wins.
therefore protoss players started to use "turtle to get colossus & void" strategy. overlord dropping and nydus worms is not a viable counter to counter strategy. good placed pylons and a few stalkers defend really well.
meta game is changing and protoss win rate is increasing. colossus is a broken unit. i don't think protoss needs colossus at all. gateway units and sentry micro is good enough. watch ogsmc.
|
Yes, a 200 Zerg ball isn't supposed to beat a Protoss deathball of 200. Problem is most Zerg 200 deathballs will get decimated barely scratching that deathball thanks to forcefields. Also, with warp in, protoss can warp in as fast as, if not faster than zerg with many warpgates. Yes there is a cooldown but the fact that the unit directly joins battle makes it extremely frustrating.
And playing against Protoss with a harass style is very difficult as Zerg. Its very easy for harass to become very all-in-y. When a Terran harasses he has pretty cost efficient units and bunkers to fall back on, if he fails. A Zerg's harass, on the other hand, has to succeed. If damage is not done, protoss can at any time, add a few warpgates and bum rush you.
|
I think the OP is trying to say, that in reality there is LESS imbalance as it looks and as he feels.
he thought (for example) ZvP were imbalanced as shit, and then realized, that in the few tourneys he saw, it actually was not the perfect, but better balance than he thought.
I hop i understood it corrctly.
Exactly why I don't like Idra, he makes all Zergs (and other spectators) think the game is so much imbalanced, while in fact there is still a really high chance that any player can win vs any other.
|
On April 01 2011 23:32 Koshi wrote:
Zerg needs to trow constant aggression it seems. As long as there isn't BW multitasking being used, I am not certain if anyone can yell imbalance. Agreed, there is a different sort of multitasking needed in SCII than in BW. But I am pretty sure more harassing/nydus play is possible. Especially in ZvP, where there are no siege tanks to defend.
Against 200/200 balls Zerg needs to put more pressure on the home bases. Nydus should become mandatory. Therefore P won't dare to run out with the giant deathball they have now. Simply because P has to keep some units back to defend.
Also, Zerg needs to build roach warrands on different hatcheries.
My problem with SCII atm: You cant be cost effective with a small number of units against a big number of units. Which is bad for defenders.
Can you elaborate here? Obviously the more another army outnumbers another the less effective the other army will be.
|
On April 01 2011 23:23 SupastaR wrote:
The reason why Protoss are beating zerg is because zerg aren't doing it right in my opinion. Zerg's cannot just engage a 200/200 protoss deathball without a perfect unit comp and far better upgrades, sometimes that is not even enough. Zerg need's to be harrasing, dropping, nydus worming, pushing before deathball gets up and taking more bases aggresively vs that turtling protoss style, or the deathball will kill them.
While that is true when you think about it that in itself is a flaw.
Why does 1race have to do so much different stuff just to prevent other race from getting an army?
Yes i know races are different but the way you said it, it makes it looks even more there actually is a problem with the balance of the game.
|
And how do you harass a Protoss smallscale btw?
Drop a few lings?
Oh, he just warps a few Zealots in, Harass denied... The things you call harass are most of the time damn near Doomdrops or the Z army is actually split in half, small scale harass does not work against Protoss (except with Mutas).
The other problem with these "active" styles is... If the Protoss went for something entirely diffrent there is a high chance that your agression will just be crushed by a Protoss that also goes for a strong Push (6 Gate/Blink?).
|
This topic again!! This will just ensue flaming , you are clearly stating that protoss is imbalance and QQing about Zergs.
If you wanna make topics like this, post it on blizzard's forums.
You know what really bugs me? The fact that every single zerg whines and complains about their race... yet blizzard does nothing about it (Bet you weren't expecting that). It really makes no sense that Zergs would actually whine so much if their race was balanced.
After looking at the Starcraft 2 community, I now understand why politicians get nothing worthwhile done. Look at a collossus for instance. If the colossus is hitting 5 units then its doing 91 dps (excluding upgrades and armor). That's more DPS than any unit in the game. So what does blizzard and our excellent community tell zerg... that they need to make corrupters. Despite being terran, I've watched a lot of zerg vs protoss games and pretty much no matter what, zerg always come out on the bottom end of a final battle with the assurance that once they are on 5-6 bases to a protoss' 3 bases they can remax their army and then the fight is even again... But it never is, because a protoss deathball hard counters a practical zerg army at the loss of 30 food or less (practical, meaning an army that isnt super risky i.e. banelings).
You look at that kind of balance, and say, "Oh, the zerg just haven't figured out how to counter it yet." Does that really matter? This game is balanced in such a way that protoss have one tier 3 unit that is so much better than the counterpart (carriers), and all of their other units, that players would be fools not to get them. And after you get colossus, then the entire ground army that has been mustered throughout the whole game is now just the colossus' meatshield because it does that much damage!
Personally I find it ridiculous that protoss is built so colossus-centric. I think it makes them boring to watch, and definitely makes it look imbalanced when they're watched. That's actually something to think about also. Whenever a PvZ is being shoutcasted, doesn't it seem like all of the attention is on zerg? The shoutcaster will glance at the protoss' base just to make sure they aren't deviating in any way from the standard deathball build, but then the rest of the game, the focus is on zerg to see how zerg will stop this army that they've seen so many times, but have still failed to come up with a way to counter.
Who am I, a gold league terran, to judge the overall balance of a game? It might be balanced, but I think the way it's balanced is incorrect/boring, and it would be super interesting to see a month of what protoss would do if the collossus just didn't exist. We would probably see carriers, definately high templar, probably much more hallucination tactics and harass that is just unnecessary for protoss to do in the current state of colossus but would make them so much more exciting as a race to watch.
|
On April 01 2011 23:34 gavss wrote:
actually it is as bad as you think.
protoss players were using the "4 gate strategy" a lot in those tournaments. it is a risky strategy. if zerg holds a 4 gate rush without losing too many drones, he wins.
therefore protoss players started to use "turtle to get colossus & void" strategy. overlord dropping and nydus worms is not a viable counter to counter strategy. good placed pylons and a few stalkers defend really well.
meta game is changing and protoss win rate is increasing. colossus is a broken unit. i don't think protoss needs colossus at all. gateway units and sentry micro is good enough. watch ogsmc.
Yehhhh sooo all we have to do is be able to play like MC the best player in the world :D. Great, how bout you just watch/play like nestea. and im sure you will stomp any of the toss you are currently playing.
|
What *actually* will prevent observers from falling asleep is when zergs start using more harass-oriented strats. Roach/hydra is very immobile, while drops/nydus/muta harass/ling run-ins can be very effective. They also prevent P from getting 200/200 to easy -> problem solved
|
Not gonna talk about imbalance, but i do agree that ZvP games are just very boring to watch.
It's either a 4/5/6 gate timing attack, or a 200/200 deathball that moves out and the game is decided in 1 big battle. There is rarely any back and forth like in TvZ or (sometimes) TvP.
It just makes for boring one sided games, where you might aswell just skip 3/4 of the game because nothing is happening. Obviously i'm generalizing but that is just how it feels to me (i'm terran).
|
On April 01 2011 23:20 Zato-1 wrote:
The OP feels really weird. It starts out like a balance whine, then just as you're getting ready to whip out the statistics to back your balance complaints, you turn around and say "Gee, it's not nearly as bad as I thought". I fail to see the point of the OP or the thread...?
he descried a thought process and how he went on to confirm / deny it. He reported his findings and ended the thread saying he was surprised.
If you recognize yourself in his thought process like I do then this thread gives you a little hope that zergs have a chance.
I do however agree that with that data set you can't show anything and when I watch zvp or play it i still feel there's nothing I can buy with money that will make me feel safe. A feeling I've never had in a strategy game before.
|
On April 01 2011 23:23 SupastaR wrote:
The reason why Protoss are beating zerg is because zerg aren't doing it right in my opinion. Zerg's cannot just engage a 200/200 protoss deathball without a perfect unit comp and far better upgrades, sometimes that is not even enough. Zerg need's to be harrasing, dropping, nydus worming, pushing before deathball gets up and taking more bases aggresively vs that turtling protoss style, or the deathball will kill them.
this doesnt change the fact that zergs cant barely win as soon as protoss has the deathball. and in my opinion thats just not how the game is supposed to be.
assuming one player has a huge advantage over the other player in terms of number of bases and economy then he should be able to beat the other player.
but this is barely the case with the current protoss lategame deathball.
and yes hydra drops and nydus shenanigans might be able to crush a protoss. but still its imbalanced that zerg has to execute strategies which are risky and require lots of apm in order to counter protoss' 60apm-25min-turtling-deathball-strat.
|
|
|
so Protoss is up in both Matchups and Zerg is down in both. Seems balanced!
|
On April 01 2011 23:17 gavss wrote:
get 2-3 bases and defend until you are 200 supply. make colossus and void rays. attack move. win.
this is how fun protoss is
Get six bases without putting any agression on your opponent. Build a bunch of roaches and mutas and get ass handed to you by the protoss 200 deathball you've allowed to be built. QQ in TL about imbalance.
This is how fun zerg is.
|
I have just gotten my younger brother to start watching sc2 games for the past week. He doesn't understand the game fully yet but he can't understand why anyone would play any other race besides protoss 
|
People needs to chill. Wait for MLG this weekend and see how much impact the infestor change had, and we'll talk about it on monday.
|
On April 01 2011 23:45 Alexj wrote:
What *actually* will prevent observers from falling asleep is when zergs start using more harass-oriented strats. Roach/hydra is very immobile, while drops/nydus/muta harass/ling run-ins can be very effective. They also prevent P from getting 200/200 to easy -> problem solved
Problem is:
Protoss going for 4/6+ Timing = Z that wanted to play Harass will get killed because he needs Roaches/Hydras to defend against that stuff.
Protoss going for the 200/200 Ball = Z going also for high Econ better finish this with his first attack or it's over.
Z can't play "save/strong" against both this things as it seems... Thats why it ends up boring as hell. If Z prepares against either "baseline" strat (and the map supports that kind of play) the Toss is doing and is right the Toss will probably lose, if not he seems to have an instant win.
|
I see this in so many zerg games, both against protoss and terran. The zerg gains a huge food lead and is up like 190 vs 140...and then they sit on their ass while their opponent gets to 200 food uncontested, thus losing any army advantage they had in the mid-game.
|
i feel like every time i see protoss lose in this matchup its because they suck at walling off or because they got baneling busted
|
On April 02 2011 00:00 Logros wrote:
I see this in so many zerg games, both against protoss and terran. The zerg gains a huge food lead and is up like 190 vs 140...and then they sit on their ass while their opponent gets to 200 food uncontested, thus losing any army advantage they had in the mid-game.
attacking into forcefields and cannoned chokes is generally not worth it
|
Street Fighter 4: some matchups are up to 7-3 or 8-2, meaning someone with a specific character will win only 3 rounds out of ten, while a game is first to 2 (which means roughly 10% chances of winning a game, while some match have been in a first to 10). And yet, well, it was ok. Sagats was a bit EVERYWHERE and it was kind of boring, but no good player in his right mind would bash another for playing it.
Starcraft 2: 6-4 statistics, and best of seven for finals of the highest tournaments.
TL;DR: Get over it, bunch of pussy.
P.S: zerg OP, I got 25% win by 6pooling in diamond.
|
Some of the replies here show why balance discussion is best left between the pros and the developers. Players who aren't very good at the game talking about balance as if they know what they are talking about, and in many cases, talking in absolutes or using an opinion of a popular player to justify their own bias is painful to read.
I don't get what people try to achieve by talking about balance on Team Liquid.
|
First off, lol at the people who didn't read OP's post and think he's whining.
My thoughts: for some reason, the perceived imbalance makes PvZ the matchup I'm most interested in watching. The full deathball CANNOT be directly engaged, and that is not necessarily game-breaking. I enjoy watching the Zerg efforts to stop the ball from forming and the Protoss efforts to build it up. I enjoy when the Protoss doesn't go for the deathball and tries something that the internet denizens have deemed less effective.
And I like OP's stats. Including only recent games as the benefit of summing up the current metagame, but the detriment of being too small of a sample size to draw authoritative conclusions. Can someone doe the math, but isn't 56% win rate within one standard deviation of 50%?
Edit: What's with the balance whining in this thread? The OP has clarified the point of his post was to build excitement for spectating MLG, and that recent results suggest Protoss victory isn't a foregone conclusion. So...can we talk about whether or not the match-up is exciting and not about "zomg Protoss so imba?!?!"
|
I honestly do not think that 1/2 of the posters read the thread OP. I am glad you see the light OP,as a Terran the only thing I hate about how "imbalance" trend effect the game is that I face well over 50% protoss on the ladder right now due to ( I assume) people bandwagoning.
Side not, I am a Bronze player ( I have played about 40 total games in the month I have owned the game) and it is kinda silly the amount of Protoss I face that attack with a gateway force, and throw 2 random force fields in the middle of my army that due absolutely nothing..... Monkey see monkey do!
|
I don't believe there is real imbalancce in ZvP. One thing I do think is how it's just a very depressing matchup. From personal experience I know when I win I'm sad and when I lose I'm sad. It's just plain not fun to play.
From a spectator perspective the same applies. I just feel so empty watching ZvP games even when Z wins or P wins. There is no epicness about it. It's Protoss either absorbing pressure than killing Z or doing a timing attack and it's Z either high eco then dying or doing a timing attack.
Honestly nerfing HT did nothing good for the matchup. Protoss SHOULDN'T have to remain in a deathball to be effective. They should be able to engage around the place with smaller forces and be the mobile army we once saw and loved in BW. It's just silly that they have to create this boring dynamic because otherwise there's no hope for them.
|
On April 01 2011 23:44 LittleKrums wrote:Show nested quote +
This topic again!! This will just ensue flaming , you are clearly stating that protoss is imbalance and QQing about Zergs.
If you wanna make topics like this, post it on blizzard's forums.
You know what really bugs me? The fact that every single zerg whines and complains about their race... yet blizzard does nothing about it (Bet you weren't expecting that). It really makes no sense that Zergs would actually whine so much if their race was balanced. After looking at the Starcraft 2 community, I now understand why politicians get nothing worthwhile done. Look at a collossus for instance. If the colossus is hitting 5 units then its doing 91 dps (excluding upgrades and armor). That's more DPS than any unit in the game. So what does blizzard and our excellent community tell zerg... that they need to make corrupters. Despite being terran, I've watched a lot of zerg vs protoss games and pretty much no matter what, zerg always come out on the bottom end of a final battle with the assurance that once they are on 5-6 bases to a protoss' 3 bases they can remax their army and then the fight is even again... But it never is, because a protoss deathball hard counters a practical zerg army at the loss of 30 food or less (practical, meaning an army that isnt super risky i.e. banelings). You look at that kind of balance, and say, "Oh, the zerg just haven't figured out how to counter it yet." Does that really matter? This game is balanced in such a way that protoss have one tier 3 unit that is so much better than the counterpart (carriers), and all of their other units, that players would be fools not to get them. And after you get colossus, then the entire ground army that has been mustered throughout the whole game is now just the colossus' meatshield because it does that much damage! Personally I find it ridiculous that protoss is built so colossus-centric. I think it makes them boring to watch, and definitely makes it look imbalanced when they're watched. That's actually something to think about also. Whenever a PvZ is being shoutcasted, doesn't it seem like all of the attention is on zerg? The shoutcaster will glance at the protoss' base just to make sure they aren't deviating in any way from the standard deathball build, but then the rest of the game, the focus is on zerg to see how zerg will stop this army that they've seen so many times, but have still failed to come up with a way to counter. Who am I, a gold league terran, to judge the overall balance of a game? It might be balanced, but I think the way it's balanced is incorrect/boring, and it would be super interesting to see a month of what protoss would do if the collossus just didn't exist. We would probably see carriers, definately high templar, probably much more hallucination tactics and harass that is just unnecessary for protoss to do in the current state of colossus but would make them so much more exciting as a race to watch.
This, this is what bugs me more than anything. A gold league Terran player acting as if he knows this game inside and out, making the most absolutist statements.
How many Pros do you see making as absurd of statements as you do?
The day MC beat July Zerg using Gateway timing attacks, the thread exploded with upset people talking about how imbalanced force field is, yet the ONLY pro, a pro Zerg, who posted didn't even indulge in any of group think but argued against it, saying why July lost was not due to Force Field but him playing badly. Artosis shared the exact same sentiment whilst broadcasting, Tasteless poked some fun at people who argued in the forums all day but don't bother to try better themselves the next broadcast after the finals.
There is soo much bias in every TL thread, and often the players at the top don't share the same sentiments as the angry people who flood every thread about balance issues (as was the case with July vs MC finals and Force Field threads)
|
On April 02 2011 00:04 PinkSoviet wrote:
Street Fighter 4: some matchups are up to 7-3 or 8-2, meaning someone with a specific character will win only 3 rounds out of ten, while a game is first to 2 (which means roughly 10% chances of winning a game, while some match have been in a first to 10). And yet, well, it was ok. Sagats was a bit EVERYWHERE and it was kind of boring, but no good player in his right mind would bash another for playing it.
Starcraft 2: 6-4 statistics, and best of seven for finals of the highest tournaments.
TL;DR: Get over it, bunch of pussy.
P.S: zerg OP, I got 25% win by 6pooling in diamond.
In SSFIV it is pretty rare for a match up to be 7-3 (among top-mid tier at least) and there is almost zero 8-2 match ups (Probably a little more in Arcade Edition... God damn Yun...). And they have Double elimination tournaments with a lot of games played in the later rounds. For a game with only 3 races to choose from, being 60% and 56% against both of the others in recent major tournaments and have a mirror match that is anyone's game, that's pretty damn good. Why don't more people play Cody or Fuerte? They have a lot of 4-6 match ups, pretty fair right? Because its easier to just pick a character thats easier to win with. Why don't more people play Zerg? (Probably) The same reason.
|
It's a metagame thing.
Protoss changed its play style to cater to its strengths, the Tier 3 power units, and to minimize its weaknesses, the cost-inefficient T1 units and lack of mobility. Either other races have to change their playstyle, like Protoss did, or Protoss needs to be redesigned completely. Things like nerfing Colossi and/or Forcefields are laughable/impossible.
|
fungle + ultra is so strong vs colo ball... Why do zergs expect to win with tier 2 vs a tier3 heavy protoss army which obvsiously costs a lot.
Protoss units = more cost = 200/200 protoss army > 200/200 zerg army especially if its all roach hydra corruptor... quite logical
I think zerg just needs to find a build where if they scout a death ball build up, they do fast tech to hive and get broodlords or ultras, now those cannot be as easily beaten by a p ball
|
Personally as a spectator, I don't dislike protoss due to imbalance, I dislike them due to the ease with which their death-ball operates. The crux of the issue is the colossus. It's just an extremely newb-friendly unit. When I see 6 colossus walk up and start roasting things, the only impressive feat associated with that is 'Oh wow, the protoss managed to secure econ to build these death machines'. I don't think 'wow that player is really show-casing some skill in how he controls these things' unlike when I see marines split vs banelings, which is actually something to get excited about.
|
making a game balanced for all skill levels is difficult...
I'd be interested to see race stats for the entire ladder system.. and see which races are winning more games at each level..
you may find it's pretty even.. and Blizzard might see that as a success.. vs. just an extremely small sample of games you like to 'spectate' of the highest level of play..
you might think the money they give out is significant.. but I bet the money they make from general public sales is more
|
This reminds me of when people were talking about how imba Terran was. Now, Terran is losing quite a bit. Sure, there were patches that helped balance, but what it came down to was people figuring out how to beat Terran. Notice how Zerg and Protoss strategies have changed far more in the last couple months than Terran strategies have. Maybe it's time for Zerg and Terran to adapt to Protoss strategies.
Also, the statistics in the OP are irrelevant. Many of the games take place pre-patch, they don't take skill into account (if nestea had beaten San in GSL Jan, it would not speak to PvZ balance), it takes games into account that have nothing to do with balance (6-pools, cannon rushes, etc.). Finally, without an error range, we can't really take anything from the data, other than a very general idea.
|
On April 02 2011 00:53 LilClinkin wrote:
Personally as a spectator, I don't dislike protoss due to imbalance, I dislike them due to the ease with which their death-ball operates. The crux of the issue is the colossus. It's just an extremely newb-friendly unit. When I see 6 colossus walk up and start roasting things, the only impressive feat associated with that is 'Oh wow, the protoss managed to secure econ to build these death machines'. I don't think 'wow that player is really show-casing some skill in how he controls these things' unlike when I see marines split vs banelings, which is actually something to get excited about.
I feel the same way about MMM. Don't assume the problem is exclusive to non-protoss players.
|
On April 02 2011 00:06 Dommk wrote:
Some of the replies here show why balance discussion is best left between the pros and the developers. Players who aren't very good at the game talking about balance as if they know what they are talking about, and in many cases, talking in absolutes or using an opinion of a popular player to justify their own bias is painful to read.
I don't get what people try to achieve by talking about balance on Team Liquid.
So what, I do not play at all, just watch the games as a spectator. I don't care why something is boring to watch as long as it is boring to watch. It's for players, Blizzard and map developers to fix that, not me.
|
I don't think it's the win percentage that people are complaining about and definitely the balance problem doesn't exist at lower ends, but the problem is that it "seems" like zerg and terran players are reaching their skill cap and strategy optimization whereas everyday protoss seems to have a new version of the death ball.
I'm not sure that protoss is OP to say, however, if played correctly (scouting, macroing, microing) a protoss army will steam roll a terran or zerg army. Most players are imperfect, but as the top pros get better, it gets more and more obvious that protoss is really powerful when played perfectly.
It's kinda similar in scbw. Protoss is the "easy win race" however protoss have problems showing great tournament results, whereas terran is a much harder race, but the top of the top are usually terran.
MC is perhaps the only player good enough to really show the power of protoss, but over time It might become more obvious. Who knows, maybe 1 year from now (without any balance changes), zerg could be considered OP. The meta is constantly changing and people are discovering new ways of playing.
|
toss didn't became "imba" coz of a patch - they learned how to play their - race ... i dont liek the original post and all this imba imba talk :§
User was warned for this post
|
On April 01 2011 23:41 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2011 23:32 Koshi wrote:
Zerg needs to trow constant aggression it seems. As long as there isn't BW multitasking being used, I am not certain if anyone can yell imbalance. Agreed, there is a different sort of multitasking needed in SCII than in BW. But I am pretty sure more harassing/nydus play is possible. Especially in ZvP, where there are no siege tanks to defend.
Against 200/200 balls Zerg needs to put more pressure on the home bases. Nydus should become mandatory. Therefore P won't dare to run out with the giant deathball they have now. Simply because P has to keep some units back to defend.
Also, Zerg needs to build roach warrands on different hatcheries.
My problem with SCII atm: You cant be cost effective with a small number of units against a big number of units. Which is bad for defenders. Can you elaborate here? Obviously the more another army outnumbers another the less effective the other army will be.
For instance Lurkers with good position could beat a much larger amount of opposing units.
I guess this problem is mainly for Zerg though, since both Colossi and Siege Tanks can do this pretty well.
|
I just want to mention that Day[9] fucking called it. He said months and months ago that after Terran was considered OP, Protoss would be considered too strong. My bet is within 2 months or so, his last prediction of Zerg being "imbalanced" will come true.
On the topic of imbalance, can we really know if the game is imbalanced or not? Fuck no. We really don't know anything. The only way we can actually move beyond this lingering atmosphere of imbalances from the beta is to truly believe that the game is balanced and figure out the best ways to play. We still see new strategies popping up all over the place, proving we haven't fleshed out SC2 as much as we previously believed.
The only way to get past to get past imbalance is to remove it from our vocabulary. Simple as that.
|
On April 02 2011 01:24 dudeman001 wrote:
I just want to mention that Day[9] fucking called it. He said months and months ago that after Terran was considered OP, Protoss would be considered too strong. My bet is within 2 months or so, his last prediction of Zerg being "imbalanced" will come true.
On the topic of imbalance, can we really know if the game is imbalanced or not? Fuck no. We really don't know anything. The only way we can actually move beyond this lingering atmosphere of imbalances from the beta is to truly believe that the game is balanced and figure out the best ways to play. We still see new strategies popping up all over the place, proving we haven't fleshed out SC2 as much as we previously believed.
The only way to get past to get past imbalance is to remove it from our vocabulary. Simple as that.
Hard to do that when Blizzard is constantly putting out BALANCE updates every few months.
|
We protoss players just learned how to play the hard way. By losing every game from terrans from all skills levels. It was really frustrating and after weeks of play we managed to beat hem. Now the roles got reverted and it's up to the terrans to learn. I do agree that collusus are getting quite lame and boring to use. The problem is you don't really have another option. Gateway only is easy to beat and air units aren't really worth it except from phoenix play vs zerg. I would like to see a carrier buff or something next patch.
|
On April 02 2011 00:41 rexyrex wrote:
fungle + ultra is so strong vs colo ball... Why do zergs expect to win with tier 2 vs a tier3 heavy protoss army which obvsiously costs a lot.
Protoss units = more cost = 200/200 protoss army > 200/200 zerg army especially if its all roach hydra corruptor... quite logical
I think zerg just needs to find a build where if they scout a death ball build up, they do fast tech to hive and get broodlords or ultras, now those cannot be as easily beaten by a p ball
Voidrays shitting all over the Ultras and the Broods.
Colussus shitting all over the Hydras.
|
It really annoys me to see all of the people who havn't read the thread saying "omg it's another balance whine" where if you have half a brain and have actually read the OP you can see that he is arguing the contrary, so unless you mean it's another whine that the game is too balanced you really should read the whole post.
|
The statistics in the OP say it all...but recent games make the case even better. There are some huge problems...but people can overcome it right now with solid play, and shouldn't be worrying about imbalance. I agree it can be disheartening from a spectator point of view when you are watching the games though, which I don't think many people would disagree with.
There's still stuff to be figure'd out. If I were to make comment about "balance," I'd say if anything that a lot of it has to do with the cost effectiveness : effort ratio of current things in the game.
Some things are so disproportionate between the amount of effort required and the insane cost effectiveness that comes out of it - aka some things are way too easy to do. An example would be 4gate, which basically dominates PvP and I do agree when you watch stuff like that over and over it can be a little bit disheartening. I like how white-ra said in an interview basically 4 gate = "not using your brain." lol
|
On April 02 2011 01:31 Denzil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2011 00:41 rexyrex wrote:
fungle + ultra is so strong vs colo ball... Why do zergs expect to win with tier 2 vs a tier3 heavy protoss army which obvsiously costs a lot.
Protoss units = more cost = 200/200 protoss army > 200/200 zerg army especially if its all roach hydra corruptor... quite logical
I think zerg just needs to find a build where if they scout a death ball build up, they do fast tech to hive and get broodlords or ultras, now those cannot be as easily beaten by a p ball Voidrays shitting all over the Ultras and the Broods. Colussus shitting all over the Hydras.
Or...OR (and bear with me on this)...
Hydras shitting all over Voidrays
Ultras and Broods shitting all over Colossus.
Maybe just some radical idea for a zerg who doesn't totally suck ass at micro...
|
I think the other thing to remember is that even the ladder stats aren't showing massive swings toward one race or another. There are roughly one third of the population split between the races when you get to platinum or higher. Even on an everyday level, it's pretty balanced.
Like any complicated game, there are some very specific timings and combinations that are very strong. It could just be the zerg ones haven't been figured out beyond a 7 pool and a massive baneling bust against a very fast CC Terran.
|
Yet another demonstration of the fact that most posters on TL would fail a reading comprehension test. Maybe TL needs to introduce a series of checkpoints in the OP's text which have to be registered before a reply can be posted...
|
I also feel in some way many games are weird, NOW SPOILER. Most weird game was cruncher vs idra, i really felt cruncher is standard high-average lvl player. I don't mind guy at all, but it was so counter intuitive that he won somehow, even being behind in every aspect of game i think. I still hope there ar esome new strategies that will balance things out, but for now i too feel many zergs losing in some weird ways, that i feel shouldn't be happening. I'm zerg myself, and i often hate terrans for winning (imba! , but i often see really good terrans/protoss that deserved win over zergs. But somethimes it feels that worse player won, it's really dishearting. I cried after nearly all TSL zergs died one after another. And i don't say matchup is crazy imbalanced, i just feel that smth is wrong with it right now.
|
[QUOTE]On April 01 2011 23:44 LittleKrums wrote:
[quote]
Whenever a PvZ is being shoutcasted, doesn't it seem like all of the attention is on zerg? The shoutcaster will glance at the protoss' base just to make sure they aren't deviating in any way from the standard deathball build, but then the rest of the game, the focus is on zerg to see how zerg will stop this army that they've seen so many times, but have still failed to come up with a way to counter.
Who am I, a gold league terran, to judge the overall balance of a game? It might be balanced, but I think the way it's balanced is incorrect/boring, and it would be super interesting to see a month of what protoss would do if the collossus just didn't exist. We would probably see carriers, definately high templar, probably much more hallucination tactics and harass that is just unnecessary for protoss to do in the current state of colossus but would make them so much more exciting as a race to watch.[/QUOTE]
I thought I was the only one who felt like that. They really just wait to see what kind of strategy the zerg has came up with to stop the protoss.
//tx
|
Thanks for this topic.
As a spectator only, I'd started to feel the same way, that no matter how well zergs seem to be playing, a good protoss can always nullify that lead with forcefields/collossus/whatever and win the game. It's been making the matchup very frustrating to watch as a spectator.
But the statistics don't lie here I guess, which makes me hopeful! Let's see what happens at MLG!
|
As a spectator it's really disheartening when the zerg has the whole map covered with creep then toss comes with forcefields and colossi. It also happens almost the exact same way. Even artosis and tasteless are like "Yeah can't really see xx being able to defend this". They also told the colossus falling because it was imbalanced joke today. 
|
i think it needs more time. to be honest, in my opinion, nothing really major has changed since release, except for roach range and KA removal, tank dmg, etc. what may seem OP from protoss is forcefield, which remained unchanged and unit composition, which remained unchanged but the game has evolved to the point where protoss seems OP.
i think time will come until zerg adapts to it. every pvz i play, i've been doing 5gate pressure and i'm 3 for 3 with it in a very convincing way (i random so less chance of pvz). but give it some time and i think 5gate will become obsolete or not as OP as it looks now.
i think scourge could be a huuuuge help, i kind of see as lurker vs bioball + vessel relationship in bw.'
i think roach burrow is whats needed but at the same time, its easily "countered" by observers and its hard to take down observers without a unit like scourge.
i'm excited to see what will happen next since who is OP seems to change every month.
|
Wow I thought Zergs did very well at Assembly since we had a ZvZ finals. I guess Ret and Morrow are just super zerg bosses then.
|
A spectator doesn't know nearly enough about the game to spot imbalance if he saw it.
When a spectator talks about imbalance, it's usually:
1. Hopping on an "imbalance bandwagon" when he senses more experienced and confident players talking about balance.
2. When his favorite players lose.
3. Looking at statistics like tournament results and jumping to conclusions.
|
On April 02 2011 01:37 Rob28 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2011 01:31 Denzil wrote:On April 02 2011 00:41 rexyrex wrote:
fungle + ultra is so strong vs colo ball... Why do zergs expect to win with tier 2 vs a tier3 heavy protoss army which obvsiously costs a lot.
Protoss units = more cost = 200/200 protoss army > 200/200 zerg army especially if its all roach hydra corruptor... quite logical
I think zerg just needs to find a build where if they scout a death ball build up, they do fast tech to hive and get broodlords or ultras, now those cannot be as easily beaten by a p ball Voidrays shitting all over the Ultras and the Broods. Colussus shitting all over the Hydras. Or...OR (and bear with me on this)... Hydras shitting all over Voidrays Ultras and Broods shitting all over Colossus. Maybe just some radical idea for a zerg who doesn't totally suck ass at micro...
Colossi shit over hydras faster than hydras shit over void rays. Colossi are also faster and longer range than hydras, and void rays are faster and can fly.
|
On April 02 2011 04:05 loltb wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2011 01:37 Rob28 wrote:On April 02 2011 01:31 Denzil wrote:On April 02 2011 00:41 rexyrex wrote:
fungle + ultra is so strong vs colo ball... Why do zergs expect to win with tier 2 vs a tier3 heavy protoss army which obvsiously costs a lot.
Protoss units = more cost = 200/200 protoss army > 200/200 zerg army especially if its all roach hydra corruptor... quite logical
I think zerg just needs to find a build where if they scout a death ball build up, they do fast tech to hive and get broodlords or ultras, now those cannot be as easily beaten by a p ball Voidrays shitting all over the Ultras and the Broods. Colussus shitting all over the Hydras. Or...OR (and bear with me on this)... Hydras shitting all over Voidrays Ultras and Broods shitting all over Colossus. Maybe just some radical idea for a zerg who doesn't totally suck ass at micro... Colossi shit over hydras faster than hydras shit over void rays. Colossi are also faster and longer range than hydras, and void rays are faster and can fly.
Baiting with broodlords, flanking, group splitting... all easy tasks for any masters+ level player.
Lure in the ball with BLs, then close the distance with ultras to tank for the colossi and hydras just behind to focus fire the voids. Not complex at all really.
|
Colossus is hard-countered by Ultra-ling-bane-infestor.
As Zerg, I smile whenever I see a Robotics Bay. By the time he gets 3-4 Colossi, I have Ultras and it's GG. Colossus rush is even easier, I kill all the ground army with upgraded banes and lings and then swarm the Colossi from underneath.
|
On April 02 2011 04:05 loltb wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2011 01:37 Rob28 wrote:On April 02 2011 01:31 Denzil wrote:On April 02 2011 00:41 rexyrex wrote:
fungle + ultra is so strong vs colo ball... Why do zergs expect to win with tier 2 vs a tier3 heavy protoss army which obvsiously costs a lot.
Protoss units = more cost = 200/200 protoss army > 200/200 zerg army especially if its all roach hydra corruptor... quite logical
I think zerg just needs to find a build where if they scout a death ball build up, they do fast tech to hive and get broodlords or ultras, now those cannot be as easily beaten by a p ball Voidrays shitting all over the Ultras and the Broods. Colussus shitting all over the Hydras. Or...OR (and bear with me on this)... Hydras shitting all over Voidrays Ultras and Broods shitting all over Colossus. Maybe just some radical idea for a zerg who doesn't totally suck ass at micro... Colossi shit over hydras faster than hydras shit over void rays. Colossi are also faster and longer range than hydras, and void rays are faster and can fly.
or... OR ...
Broods shit over Colossi faster than void rays shit over Ultras. Also Ultras have 5 armor and splash and Broods can fly.
|
or... OR ...
Broods shit over Colossi faster than void rays shit over Ultras. Also Ultras have 5 armor and splash and Broods can fly.
Yeah, and then the Colossi die but you have no anti-air and the Voids proceed to kill you?
|
On April 01 2011 23:44 LittleKrums wrote:Show nested quote +
This topic again!! This will just ensue flaming , you are clearly stating that protoss is imbalance and QQing about Zergs.
If you wanna make topics like this, post it on blizzard's forums.
You know what really bugs me? The fact that every single zerg whines and complains about their race... yet blizzard does nothing about it (Bet you weren't expecting that). It really makes no sense that Zergs would actually whine so much if their race was balanced. After looking at the Starcraft 2 community, I now understand why politicians get nothing worthwhile done. Look at a collossus for instance. If the colossus is hitting 5 units then its doing 91 dps (excluding upgrades and armor). That's more DPS than any unit in the game. So what does blizzard and our excellent community tell zerg... that they need to make corrupters. Despite being terran, I've watched a lot of zerg vs protoss games and pretty much no matter what, zerg always come out on the bottom end of a final battle with the assurance that once they are on 5-6 bases to a protoss' 3 bases they can remax their army and then the fight is even again... But it never is, because a protoss deathball hard counters a practical zerg army at the loss of 30 food or less (practical, meaning an army that isnt super risky i.e. banelings). You look at that kind of balance, and say, "Oh, the zerg just haven't figured out how to counter it yet." Does that really matter? This game is balanced in such a way that protoss have one tier 3 unit that is so much better than the counterpart (carriers), and all of their other units, that players would be fools not to get them. And after you get colossus, then the entire ground army that has been mustered throughout the whole game is now just the colossus' meatshield because it does that much damage! Personally I find it ridiculous that protoss is built so colossus-centric. I think it makes them boring to watch, and definitely makes it look imbalanced when they're watched. That's actually something to think about also. Whenever a PvZ is being shoutcasted, doesn't it seem like all of the attention is on zerg? The shoutcaster will glance at the protoss' base just to make sure they aren't deviating in any way from the standard deathball build, but then the rest of the game, the focus is on zerg to see how zerg will stop this army that they've seen so many times, but have still failed to come up with a way to counter. Who am I, a gold league terran, to judge the overall balance of a game? It might be balanced, but I think the way it's balanced is incorrect/boring, and it would be super interesting to see a month of what protoss would do if the collossus just didn't exist. We would probably see carriers, definately high templar, probably much more hallucination tactics and harass that is just unnecessary for protoss to do in the current state of colossus but would make them so much more exciting as a race to watch.
Awesome post.
I rofl'd pretty hard @ "the whole game is now just the colossus' meatshield because it does that much damage!".
It's so funny because it is so true.
|
I think if you want to do an analysis of the difference in percieved imbalance with actual gameplay, you have to remove false data. The percieved imbalanced is that a zerg can't kill a protoss if he plays safe and gets a maxed army, usually consisting of 3-4 colossus, sentry, stalker, and some void rays. How many of the games where Z won in your research did the protoss reach that composition?
The problem for me is I never see a zerg breaking this composition, even though zerg win a decent amount of the time vs protoss. This is because zergs will put a ton of pressure when protoss wants to take his third and break him there, but he never reached that composition he wanted. That's what is so frustrating. It seems like once they do get that composition, there isn't a thing you can do. And once I see that composition as a spectator, I basically feel the game is over, and the rest is formality. I'm not saying the match is imbalanced, necissarily, just that I have yet to see satisfactory ways to kill an end game protoss as zerg, and I would like to see the stats reflecting how many of the zerg wins actually came from games where protoss reached their "perfect compositions" and remove data where zerg defended and won vs gateway all-ins, or broke the protoss early, etc
|
The only time i have been annoyed by something wich you could call "balance" was during the days of 5 rax reapers when i saw a game between idra and morrow
This was an imbalance so huge that it dominated the way everyone played and games became verry boring/predictable and annoying to watch
It realy was impossible to win as zerg
Atm i dont see such huge things when looking streams/tournaments
Every games feels different to me (at least way more different then the reaper games)and i see all races winning games against eachoter
Novalisk April 02 2011 03:52. Posts 178 PM Profile Quote #
A spectator doesn't know nearly enough about the game to spot imbalance if he saw it.
hmm i think you are right here and most spectators (like me) are probably only annoyed by HUGE imbalances
|
its been said before in this thread, but i cant help but to agree that if you factor out matches where neither player made huge blunders its probably closer
|
On April 02 2011 04:19 Arisen wrote:
I think if you want to do an analysis of the difference in percieved imbalance with actual gameplay, you have to remove false data. The percieved imbalanced is that a zerg can't kill a protoss if he plays safe and gets a maxed army, usually consisting of 3-4 colossus, sentry, stalker, and some void rays. How many of the games where Z won in your research did the protoss reach that composition?
The problem for me is I never see a zerg breaking this composition, even though zerg win a decent amount of the time vs protoss. This is because zergs will put a ton of pressure when protoss wants to take his third and break him there, but he never reached that composition he wanted. That's what is so frustrating. It seems like once they do get that composition, there isn't a thing you can do. And once I see that composition as a spectator, I basically feel the game is over, and the rest is formality. I'm not saying the match is imbalanced, necissarily, just that I have yet to see satisfactory ways to kill an end game protoss as zerg, and I would like to see the stats reflecting how many of the zerg wins actually came from games where protoss reached their "perfect compositions" and remove data where zerg defended and won vs gateway all-ins, or broke the protoss early, etc
It's not a perfect composition at all. It dies in 3 seconds to the right Zerg composition. It doesn't even require skill to beat it.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195058
|
On April 02 2011 04:19 Arisen wrote:
I think if you want to do an analysis of the difference in percieved imbalance with actual gameplay, you have to remove false data. The percieved imbalanced is that a zerg can't kill a protoss if he plays safe and gets a maxed army, usually consisting of 3-4 colossus, sentry, stalker, and some void rays. How many of the games where Z won in your research did the protoss reach that composition?
The problem for me is I never see a zerg breaking this composition, even though zerg win a decent amount of the time vs protoss. This is because zergs will put a ton of pressure when protoss wants to take his third and break him there, but he never reached that composition he wanted. That's what is so frustrating. It seems like once they do get that composition, there isn't a thing you can do. And once I see that composition as a spectator, I basically feel the game is over, and the rest is formality. I'm not saying the match is imbalanced, necissarily, just that I have yet to see satisfactory ways to kill an end game protoss as zerg, and I would like to see the stats reflecting how many of the zerg wins actually came from games where protoss reached their "perfect compositions" and remove data where zerg defended and won vs gateway all-ins, or broke the protoss early, etc
It's amusing that exactly what you're complaining about is what I enjoy. I like watching the Zerg pressure the Protoss and the Protoss struggling to stay safe until he can get his ideal comp. It requires thoughtful play.
And once the deathball is formed we all know that the Zerg loses if he engages it head on, so I get excited about what the Zerg might do to creatively handle it. HDWT spoiler: + Show Spoiler +like iNcontroL against Zelniq in the HDWT g3: yes, iNcontroL got the deathball and won but I was really excited to watch Zelniq's counterattack to see if it would work. It didn't, but it was fun.
Maybe I'm looking at the game through rose-colored glasses, but I'd prefer to look for things to enjoy than look for things to hate on.
|
On April 01 2011 23:33 Miketorreza wrote:
...Some characters are actually better than others! Hard to believe, huh?
I don't understand the nay saying, blatant denial, and willful ignorance from this community...
As a guy who watches a lot of Starcraft, BW and II, and a ton of other competetive games, this definitely puts a damper on things and makes me feel weird about how open Blizzard is to making drastic changes to this game, and nervous about how much money is on the line for something that could potentially be unfair.
A few things.
First, I'm not sure exactly where you're coming from, so I'm just going to say consider SC1 balance changes:
1.02: minor changes only. Hatchery 300 -> 350; Photon Cannon explosive -> normal damage
1.04 (BroodWar) a whole bunch of things changed, summed up here. More than half the units got tweaked to fit in with the new game. (This is what I expect to happen with HotS.)
1.08 in 2001: Terran was buffed, Protoss was nerfed (especially storm, still bitter about this, went from 224 damage (I think) to 112), and Zerg got a mixed bag. That was the last balance patch.
By contrast, SC2 has had a massive professional scene since beta, which does seem to force Blizzard's hand a little bit. If you compare the SC2 patch notes, you'll notice that this has resulted in faster and more balance patches. I count four so far, and while they change less than either of the two major BW patches, the cumulative change is greater. I think. I also think BW shows this is misguided: long-term, if the game is more or less playable now (which I would define as no one race averaging > 55% win rate across both its non-mirrors), Blizzard should just leave the game alone and see what happens - and if we've got balance problems, nerf/buff the obvious imbalance cause and see what happens.
(However, Blizzard's not dumb. We've got to realize - however obnoxious the short-term is - that they've got two expansions coming out which may (or likely may not) add new units, or at least upgrades, which will throw balance off. Essentially, with the business scheme they've set in place, long-term balance isn't a goal right now, so even though I think the current patch mindset is a long-term bad thing, I'm not worried because long-term isn't the goal yet, short-term (till the next expansion) is.)
The next question is balance itself. Obviously, if PvT is 60% P and PvZ is 56% P, Protoss looks imbalanced statistically and Blizzard should fix it even by my own "playable" criterion above. This doesn't say anything about the long-run, and can't adjust for factors like new (and better) maps coming out in the future, possible "revolutions", etc., but even from a spectator position (perhaps especially from a spectator position, as OP says) it looks bad.
However, you're completely right in saying balance does matter. Even from BW, while as best I can tell, 1.08 came out right after Boxer won his first OSL, things haven't been the same since, with a string of Terran bonjwas and so forth down to Flash today. (Try to beat Jaedong with 100 mineral turrets, mwahaha... sorry.) Whether you're arguing for patch ("this is imbalanced, please admit it") or against patch ("don't change things till we know how they'll work") it is important to recognize that the stats affect the game, not just pure skill.
The thing is, and to get to your main point, I don't thing TL is really in denial. I think 90 out of 100 people questioned would say there's something imbalanced somewhere in the game (and the other 10 are Protoss players (I kid! I kid!)). It's more an attitude that they're trying to encourage: play the game as-is, don't clutter the forum with complaints. Not been here long, but I don't think I've seen more than a few balance discussion threads that actually discussed e.g. 10-20 replays from different servers pointing out a common build (or unit composition at a given time) that was beating everything; even those that try rarely propose either current or patch solutions. Most balance threads seem to be more "OMG MC beat July and those damn forcefields are imba and I lose to it too Blizzard should nerf ff so I can win". From my impression I'd say it seems like attitude is almost as important as content, and most people considering balance aren't looking at it with the attitude TL wants.
(A trivial point, but: also, there isn't a balance forum. Strategy, yes, but balance falls under "general" here, and cluttering this forum up with balance threads would be, well, clutter.)
|
On April 02 2011 01:01 Datum wrote:
This reminds me of when people were talking about how imba Terran was. Now, Terran is losing quite a bit. Sure, there were patches that helped balance, but what it came down to was people figuring out how to beat Terran. Notice how Zerg and Protoss strategies have changed far more in the last couple months than Terran strategies have. Maybe it's time for Zerg and Terran to adapt to Protoss strategies.
Also, the statistics in the OP are irrelevant. Many of the games take place pre-patch, they don't take skill into account (if nestea had beaten San in GSL Jan, it would not speak to PvZ balance), it takes games into account that have nothing to do with balance (6-pools, cannon rushes, etc.). Finally, without an error range, we can't really take anything from the data, other than a very general idea.
Terrans started losing games when map pool changed. Not because of patches. But nevertheless metagame is still developing. I think Infestors are something to look for to solve zerg's problems in ZvP.
|
On April 02 2011 04:25 Psychlone wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2011 04:19 Arisen wrote:
I think if you want to do an analysis of the difference in percieved imbalance with actual gameplay, you have to remove false data. The percieved imbalanced is that a zerg can't kill a protoss if he plays safe and gets a maxed army, usually consisting of 3-4 colossus, sentry, stalker, and some void rays. How many of the games where Z won in your research did the protoss reach that composition?
The problem for me is I never see a zerg breaking this composition, even though zerg win a decent amount of the time vs protoss. This is because zergs will put a ton of pressure when protoss wants to take his third and break him there, but he never reached that composition he wanted. That's what is so frustrating. It seems like once they do get that composition, there isn't a thing you can do. And once I see that composition as a spectator, I basically feel the game is over, and the rest is formality. I'm not saying the match is imbalanced, necissarily, just that I have yet to see satisfactory ways to kill an end game protoss as zerg, and I would like to see the stats reflecting how many of the zerg wins actually came from games where protoss reached their "perfect compositions" and remove data where zerg defended and won vs gateway all-ins, or broke the protoss early, etc It's not a perfect composition at all. It dies in 3 seconds to the right Zerg composition. It doesn't even require skill to beat it. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195058
Wow I never thought of this before, except when I was watching pro players do it and it got raped by a protoss death ball!
As to the poster before me, yeah, it can be fun to watch the zerg try to break the protoss, but if th protoss is commited to playing safe (parking his army in between his bases so he can easily respond to nydus and drops and pressure at the front) you're just throwing away units if you engage into that fortified position. Then just like you said, the zerg loses when it goes up. Sure he can try for a base race, but the chances at this point in time of killing that ball are extremely slim. That's why it's frustrating to watch. Sure, it's fun to watch the lead up, but once he has it, it's no longer a mystery. He's going to roll out and win. Sure, there might be some way to kill it that we haven't discovered yet, and I'm not convinced blizzard needs to do something, but of the ways we know about, there isn't really a way to beat it, thus, if a protoss really wants a win, that's basically what he's going to do, and the zerg is basically screwed.
Sure, a lot of people like MC like to play risky, and a zerg can absolutely win versus that, and a zerg might be able to break a protoss before he gets his composition if the protoss messes up, but once he does have it, he basically wins, which is so anti-climactic and I think is a bad way for a matchup to work.
|
Well Protoss maybe have been a bit overpowered, but there were some recent nerfs and especially the MLG Maps (big, no close spawns) favor Zerg a lot.
So please chill.
|
I think part of the reason for being disappointed as a spectator watching Protoss matches comes from the lack of variety. When it seems the same thing happens every time, it is less fun to watch. This could clearly spiral into discussing re-distributing power among Protoss units, but that would be off topic. It's hard to really come up with a why here, but the OP has shown that perceptions can be very misleading without backing them up with some numbers; however, if you think about the Protoss games you've seen that were awesome and memorable, I would bet that they were not colossi death balls.
|
I remember coming to a similar conclusion when posting in the "Why is Protoss doing so bad in the GSL?" thread from back in the pre-MC era. You might feel like your race suffers a distinct disadvantage, but statistically they aren't doing as bad as it seems like they would be if there really was an imbalance. For what it's worth, note that the number of patch changes between then and now which actually have a beneficial impact on protoss are relatively few - the biggest of which was the change to the map pool...
|
Wow I never thought of this before, except when I was watching pro players do it and it got raped by a protoss death ball!
What pros? What match? All the pros I see make roaches against Protoss.
|
It's cool to see the statistics change so much off the back of one player.... All the stats are pretty close except GSL, where MC brings the average up to 60%. =D
On topic - balance is still evolving, as the metagame and the maps do. Give it a few years.
|
I want to thank Slusher for taking the time to write a thread summing up this statistical evidence, because I was getting tired of responding to every single imbalance QQ with "your opinion that it's *impossible* for Race X to beat Race Y is not defended by the statistics".
Awesome OP. It definitely shows that people might be over-reacting a bit too much towards their personal losses.
|
Mind. Blown.
Seriously though, the OP brings up a fantastic point, I'm honestly shocked that the w/l discrepancy in PvZ is that low.
Also Chill is a moderation God.
|
As of right now the game is fine ya zergs just need to learn how to adapt to the game and stop QQing about protoss death ball. Protoss don't need to be nerf to the ground.
|
As much as people blame blizzard for not understanding their own game, I think the game really has been getting more balanced with each patch.
|
On April 02 2011 04:54 00Visor wrote:
Well Protoss maybe have been a bit overpowered, but there were some recent nerfs and especially the MLG Maps (big, no close spawns) favor Zerg a lot.
So please chill.
The problem is that the new maps (and cross positions) theoretically also favor Protoss reaching this deathball level with two easily protected bases and also don't effect the efficiency of 4gate. It's not as black and white as "Zerg map" and "Protoss map."
I'd love to see the stats on the newer, larger maps for comparison as well as the composite stats of the older ones.
|
While i do agree that it is not the most entertaining to watch once protoss has their "death ball" and theres not really much a zerg is going to do to stop it, its all about stopping the toss from getting to that point. Just going to use Idra vs Cruncher TSL3 series as an example.
+ Show Spoiler +Game 1 Idra was just content to macro up and try the "zerg will replenish their units faster after getting wrecked by deathball" strategy, and its fairly obvious that against a unit comp like that roach/hydra isn't going to make any effect. Game 2 Idra came out playing harass crazy in one of the most entertaining gmaes i've seen in a while. I think that nobody will argue that if Idra had played like that in Game 1 he would have won without a doubt. Game 3 just needed better scouting. But its been sown that zerg has plenty of viable ways of beating of toss, maybe just not once they have their deathball... whether that is 'imba' is up to you i guess. - didn't know if i needed to spoiler that but i did to be safe.
User was warned for this post
|
This very thread is a death trap:D
|
I think people are just too impatient =/ Proper counters and metagames all take time to evolve for a RTS game.. for a while there was no doubt protoss looked terribly weak in the first few GSL's - remember back then when people were cheering for a protoss to go far (can't believe it now huh lol)? Then toss players started changing the style they play (despite not having received any significant buffs and mainly nerfs) and are now performing well. Could they be too strong? Possibly, but we don't know that right now, we need to give time for terran/zergs to try new things and adapt - from the release to now, there's always been something at any given point of time that seems overpowered or unfair in the game. If people demand changes instantly instead of playing it out, the game will never ever be balanced because there's always going to be something that seems too strong at that moment before the counter is figured out.
As a toss player and spectator though, I definitely do wish carriers/templars were stronger so that there are other play styles aside from collosus deathballs. Man, come to think of it, I really miss watching carriers in action
Also, yeah, I'd definitely be interested in seeing the race statistics for all the big tournaments in the last month or two (IEM, GSL, TSL etc. etc.) - I could be wrong, but from what I've seen so far myself, zergs have had their fair share of victories against protoss; I definitely don't think its as lopsided as some posters make it out to be.
|
I know how you feel, everytime I watch a ZvP I always start by expecting the Protoss to win because I've seen way too many games where Zergs seemed to outplay their opponents and still lose to what I think is completely ridiculous. It's like everytime I hear a zerg player getting matched up against a protoss player all the fun of the tournament evaporates.
|
On April 02 2011 04:45 bokeevboke wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2011 01:01 Datum wrote:
This reminds me of when people were talking about how imba Terran was. Now, Terran is losing quite a bit. Sure, there were patches that helped balance, but what it came down to was people figuring out how to beat Terran. Notice how Zerg and Protoss strategies have changed far more in the last couple months than Terran strategies have. Maybe it's time for Zerg and Terran to adapt to Protoss strategies.
Also, the statistics in the OP are irrelevant. Many of the games take place pre-patch, they don't take skill into account (if nestea had beaten San in GSL Jan, it would not speak to PvZ balance), it takes games into account that have nothing to do with balance (6-pools, cannon rushes, etc.). Finally, without an error range, we can't really take anything from the data, other than a very general idea. Terrans started losing games when map pool changed. Not because of patches. But nevertheless metagame is still developing. I think Infestors are something to look for to solve zerg's problems in ZvP.
I think ZvP's biggest problem is in the opening that P can do, if the P does what MC does where he open with just sentries like he is FEing and kills all scouting overlords and just 4gates, then there really is nothing zerg can do. And as a spectator it kills all the fun knowing that the zerg player can do absolutely nothing but guess.
|
|
|
Its a common thing in all rts games. Once a certain race is consider to be SLIGHTLY better than the others, the community instantly gets into "omg totally op, super imba"-mode.
ZvT was never as bad as many people said it was.
PvZ is not as bad as many people say it.
Fun fact: Some sc2 communities are a little bit behind regarting what race to blame while in "omg totally op, super imba"-mode. The german battle.net forums are full of Protosses claming that PvT is IMPOSSIBLE to win and all Terran needs to do is mass tier1 and a move.
|
On April 02 2011 10:03 Grummler wrote:
Its a common thing in all rts games. Once a certain race is consider to be SLIGHTLY better than the others, the community instantly gets into "omg totally op, super imba"-mode.
ZvT was never as bad as many people said it was.
PvZ is not as bad as many people say it.
Fun fact: Some sc2 communities are a little bit behind regarting what race to blame while in "omg totally op, super imba"-mode. The german battle.net forums are full of Protosses claming that PvT is IMPOSSIBLE to win and all Terran needs to do is mass tier1 and a move.
The difference here is that you can give them a replay of how a Protoss player can beat a Terran bio ball. But you can't really give a replay of how Zerg can beat a Protoss that kills their scouts and has a zerg player in the dark and then uses mass FF to kill a Zerg. You can't really help that, which is why its so depressing to watch.
|
I think most perceived imbalance comes from the community. Spending your time on forums full of QQ and over-analysis really destroys the fun of watching the game from an outside perspective.
|
Instead of screaming imbalance... maybe come up with some outside thinking on why you think.
My only complaint I see is the Forcefield. 12 seconds seems way too long. I've wanted forcefield to have less time (8 seconds maybe) or have Hit Points (100 is a good round number) but you would have to target them. (they would not be active like the scv repair)
One person also suggested that forcefields last less time on Creep only... I kinda of like that for ZvP.
I think once more strats come into play, the mechanics will even out. You don't see MnM vs toss in BW that much... it's purely mech play. Siege tanks, hellions, vikings might become the new build. It all comes on the evolution of playing!
|
Protoss can actually reinforce with a proxy pylon just a quickly as a zerg can remake units from their hatch. When a 4 gate comes they warp in volleys of 4 right outside your base (and FF your ramp). Ever seen any protoss not make a proxy pylon to continually reinforce? If a Zerg decides to attack early his roaches are going to be very slow getting across the map. Roaches and hydras are much slower than the protoss proxy pylon warp in. If a zerg chooses to be aggressive he usually gets his army split up by FF while his reinforcements are streaming from his base. Sure speedlings are fast but FF negates them. You need roaches. also sentry imba. dictating map terrain is a broken concept. why bother engaging in the open just to have your army size negated by a dozen FF that last 12 sec each. sure burrow is the answer but any mid game or late game protoss army will have an observer. You best snipe their observer before your army melts to voids and colossus.
|
That is interesting, although in line with my own experience on ladder (3828 masters P pre-set, having also played a lot of ZvP). I always felt that ZvP was actually not so bad, with the volatility mainly due to scouting difficulties, and that PvT was hilarious.
|
Well Zerg have always been the most vocal (rightly or wrongly is another matter) QQ'ers, probably largely due to the fact that Artosis is a prominent and influential part of the SC2 community and also Idra also QQ's harder that most.
As a P I remember when P was considered to be weak and under powered, and protoss still is a race where you also live and die by small decisions, really powerful when you play perfectly easy to abuse with mistakes. A player like MC plays so well and makes P look more OP than it is, add community zerg QQ and its easy to see why..
Personally I think units shouldn't be tweaked any further, every patch leaves me feeling depressed. Wait for the metagame to change it takes more than 1-2 months.
|
I think things will get better for zergs when heart of the swarm comes out if the Lurker gets added in as it will allow zergs to have area denial against protoss midgame strats it won't help against the 4 gate or the collossus death ball really but It should allow zerg to survive sentry heavy 6 gate pushes as the toss will now have to delay the push to get an observer and that alone would allow the zerg to be able to tech to something to deal with the death ball better I think.
|
People have a history of imagining slight advantages as overwhelming ones, and tiny favorites as sure winners after the fact. It certainly looks like Protoss is favored by a small amount at the very tip top, but way too often people jump from "oh he's 51% favorite" to "he's absolutely sure to win here because his race is imba and Blizzard has no idea how to design a game."
This has more to do with the way people look at things than just Starcraft alone. For one familiar example, anyone who has played poker has seen someone go insane when their Ace-King loses to undercards despite being not even a 65% favorite because 'the game is rigged' or whatnot. It's too difficult for the casual observer/player to distinguish between a large imbalance and a small one (and, if you look at Idra, possibly too difficult for many serious gamers as well). The end result is that everything ends up getting lumped into 'imba' in the brain which leads to the trashy 'unfair, this sucks, retarded protoss gayness' that clutters the LR threads.
The fact is we have a switch that goes between 'fair' and 'unfair,' and the numbers don't actually end up mattering whether you're a 99% favorite or a 51% favorite once you've decided everything is unfair.
|
On April 02 2011 11:27 spacemonkeyy wrote:
Personally I think units shouldn't be tweaked any further, every patch leaves me feeling depressed. Wait for the metagame to change it takes more than 1-2 months.
I've been thinking that it might be good to start tweaking more, also because the meta-game is constantly evolving anyway.
I don't think large changes to the game would lead to the statistics going way off the 50/50 mark after the initial break-in period. People adapt their strategies and make up for it anyway. The statistics won't be way off because new strategies themselves will work towards evening things out, regardless of balance.
My thoughts of Z having a hard time is based a lot on how Z are playing and not winrate. There hasn't really been any remarkable change in the meta-game, apart from taking more risks. These risks are what happens when the options are starting to run out.
Regarding the poker example those odds 65/35 would be awful if they reflected balance. I think it would require extreme changes instead of large changes for such a variance to occur. For me the T/P total of 60/84 looks like a clear indication, since metagame would work in favor of a 50/50 rate. The numbers themselves would definetely be statistically significant.
Which of course doesn't mean that a significant difference is caused by imbalance. While meta-game will balance itself out it would do so over time, and at any one time it might look very grim for one race and then change. But what to do when strategies stop evolving like I am spectating in the games?
So to sum things up, I would expect statistics that don't go far off from 50/50 in a game that is driven by constant change in strategy and also some parts luck (or anything above 1-set would be unnecessary). This also makes it extremely hard to say what is balanced, but I think that risk-taking (and successrate), how static strategies are, plus even small variations in statistics can indicate that it exists. The big question might be how long such indications need to exist before being taken as proof of imbalance. Myself I would like bigger changes overall, because I don't think it would be necessarily be bad if one race was buffed or nerfed too much instead of too little.
edit.. T/P stats not added up right in OP.
|
I'm legitimately curious because I am bad and want to know. Why don't people use more ultralisks? They're such a natural transition if you're going ling/bane on T1 and Infestor on T2. Ultras do insane +armored AoE damage against a death ball and with a couple of queens, they live for an extremely long time. They also take up a ton of space, so any colossus targeting them waste a good deal of the width of thermal lance.
Honestly, + Show Spoiler +Dimaga versus San was miserably boring to watch. Dimaga kind of just got rolled against a 200/200
|
Jinro vs anypro was horrible, it was literally:
+ Show Spoiler +Anypro makes deathball, and kills Jinro x 2
I admire Artosis and Tasteless for trying to give those games more depth but it just wasn't there. It seems most TvPs go that way, not saying that's all Protoss has to do or can do, but that currently it's all the most protoss are doing, and from a spectator's point of view that looks very very broken.
|
I don't think may people read the OP in full, because I thought it was super well done, and not a whine thread at all. On my thoughts, protoss are a little too strong, but I don't think there's an imbalance in TvP which is odd because that's tje most imabalanced match up according to the statistics (which is the kind of thing people missed from the OP). The High Templar nerf made it very one dimensional, but its not particularly imbalanced. And something that would help Zerg a lot is to make that one tier 3 unit that's really expensive and takes forever to get to, the ultralisk? I think if the ultralisk was good then everyone would be happy. Maybe marines too good? idk. Balance is boring, some games kind of make me feel bad for playing protoss.
Good news though, blizzard is fixing the bug where terran players could lose with patch 1.4.11 =)
|
I'm not surprised terran's getting ripped, in general (imo) it takes a lot more effort by an equally skilled terran to beat a toss. But I don't think there's any real imbalance, I do think the HT nerf was good and I'm still seeing HTs used and they're still plenty effective. I usually hold the idea of being a better player and outplaying the "imbalance" if there is any. Like when zerg goes for aggression in ZvP when they realize they could be going for the VR Collo deathball (Mondragon definitely stands out in my mind destroying Zeerax while Cruncher goes for a very similar build and kills IdrA).
|
On April 02 2011 10:24 catabowl wrote:
Instead of screaming imbalance... maybe come up with some outside thinking on why you think.
My only complaint I see is the Forcefield. 12 seconds seems way too long. I've wanted forcefield to have less time (8 seconds maybe) or have Hit Points (100 is a good round number) but you would have to target them. (they would not be active like the scv repair)
One person also suggested that forcefields last less time on Creep only... I kinda of like that for ZvP.
I think once more strats come into play, the mechanics will even out. You don't see MnM vs toss in BW that much... it's purely mech play. Siege tanks, hellions, vikings might become the new build. It all comes on the evolution of playing!
Good idea, then I die to every single all-in. Forcefield would be so good at protecting me, when it dies in 2 seconds because it has 100 health. It would be so worth it to get sentries, when in a late game scenario, you could box a group of units from your unit ball, select each forcefield, one-shot them, then forcefield will have done nothing but waste 100 gas on a unit that is horrible in an actual engagement.
Clearly the way to nerf forcefield is to make it worthless.
And plenty of games are won without a single forcefield in ZvP. Apparently every single P unit has become imba in the last couple months---voidray, colossus, blink stalker, sentry, phoenix, high templar, dark templar. Just give us zealots and plain stalkers, since everything else that has ever won a game for a protoss is imba.
|
One thing I think that helps game "balance" is making things generally more micro intensive. This is why I like the infestor buff, because it adds a cool way to gain an advantage late game or harass, but one that requires good unit control. I don't think players have come even close to really exhausting the potential of their race (e.g. overlord drops are just starting to be used, DTs for harass are becoming more common). Terran seems like the race that people have consistently used to harass really well, but I think there's more potential for the other races, especially zerg, to find more creative ways to harass the mineral line.
|
People view the same thing differently based on their background knowledge. For example, take any ZvP where Z wins. I'll watch it and, as a Toss player trying to improve, see where Zerg got major advantages and note them so I can focus on that in my gameplay. A random bronze observer who hasn't heard about TL and watches a lot of Husky casts could watch it and think it's very entertaining. A random bronze observer trying to improve and spends a lot of time on the strategy forum instead of working on their macro could try to analyze why Zerg won and think it's the answer to ZvP. A random Zerg player who's hit a wall with their gameplay could watch it and think, "That should never happen, Toss only loses when they make mistakes," because it's easier to blame your losses on imbalances rather than getting better.
I agree with BackPack that a lot of perceived imbalance comes from the community. I could show my friend MC vs. July GSL5 finals and, because he has a neutral point of view, he'd probably just be shocked at how good MC is. If I could travel back in time, show him all the, "FF imbalance" and "MC vs. July Analysis" threads on TL, and then show him the set, he'd probably have a much different view and would be more focused on, "How do you stop that? Forcefield really could be imbalanced," rather than watching the entire game.
|
The problem with the matter is that Zerg players have counted out several of their options from the beginning of beta while Protoss are actually using all of them. Especially commentators like Day[9] repeat the mantra of "Spine Crawlers which he didnt want to make" and thus influence the general opinion about them very negatively. That is partially BW thinking because Zergs static defenses arent as static anymore. Think of them as "Siege Tanks with longer siege time and shorter range but which COST NO FOOD". Especially against Protoss with their heavy reliance on armored Stalkers these can be efficient.
But lets look at a game where some Spine Crawlers were used: Moonglade vs. TT1 on Shakuras Plateau from the GSL world championships. TT1 was advancing through the middle of the map with a big clump of Stalkers and Sentries and whatever and moonglade was defending somewhat successfully with Roaches and Hydras. Sure people have commented that glade didnt have range upgraded for the Hydras, but that wasnt the only thing to improve. Moonglade had built a lousy TWO Spine Crawlers and advanced them into the middle, but what if he had built more of them? Zerg are always whining about Forcefields, but what if they built about 10 Spine Crawlers and brought them to the middle of the map a little back from the spot where you expect the fighting to be (maybe one Tumor away from the edge of the creep?)? Just having 1-2 Spine Crawlers helps you against the first push with maybe five Stalkers, but what happens when there are 20 of them later on? The Spine Crawlers just get one-shotted and deal zero damage due to regenerating shields. So the answer is to build LOTS of them - especially against someone without Colossi - and to use them to create a fallback position because Roaches and Hydras cant really escape when they try to retreat from Stalkers.
On very large maps it might be useful to use a Nydus worm to create a patch of Creep (which then gets expanded by a Queen) to grow a colony of Spine Crawlers close to the opponents base. If you contain the opponent early enough there might not be too much pressure coming from him to disrupt your own "master plan to win". Often enough the one who is dictating the game wins over the one who is passive and turtling and Zerg can easily do that if they started thinking outside the box of 1a2a3a and then some micro ftw. Start thinking strategically since this is a strategy game after all.
|
Totally agree with people being influenced a lot by what's going on in the community. Confirmation bias, finding what you're looking for and all that. Pretty strong effects and many outspoken people especially in the ZvP matchup. I expected that to be more skewed than TvP.
It's even worse if you start taking into the account that a percieved imbalance will result in worse results for people. Like when telling a classroom that a test will be easier for a certain group, the end results will favor that group. Something which doesn't happen when just saying nothing.
But I mean, it can't all be perceived either. And arguments and ideas aren't invalidated because something prompted them, simply because the same principle applies to everyone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
