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On April 06 2011 05:09 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2011 04:45 dave333 wrote:On April 06 2011 04:17 GinDo wrote:On April 04 2011 16:21 Zerokaiser wrote:On April 04 2011 16:16 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: What Idra says is true, but you can get two overlords past several marines if they're coming from different directions (not exactly true but i hope you know what i mean)
for example, against P u should almost always scout with 2 overlords (if u dont know what he's doing, aka almost all the time cus he might be tricking u) from 2 directions at the 7:00 min mark
and yes it's a guessing game but if there's 100% chance a zerg can find out then zerg would win every game right? unless you want the game to become whether or not you spent too much into scouting instead of defending a push, or if you want every game to come down to micro'ing against the push I don't believe you know what you're talking about at all, mate. Not only is 2 overlords way too much to sacrifice, the 7-minute mark is long past when marine/scv, 4gate, etc. hits, and longer past how early you need to scout to prepare against everything else. And in what world does Zerg win 100% of games if they scout? EDIT: Found another thing wrong with your post, what maps are you playing on that have 2 different locations to hide an overlord? On April 04 2011 16:15 xbankx wrote: I seen creative scouts (using ling+drone) by zergs as ling take hits(since its higher attack target) drone can go in base and scout.
Scouting goes both ways, as soon as soon as the first 4 lings comes out. I get pretty much no scouting down until my obs or hallucination is finished. Playing partially blind and reacting to game is part of the game.
I like that idea. Obviously it's not foolproof, but it should help a lot of the time. Other than that, as I said in the original post, I recognize that Protoss doesn't have many scouting options early as well, but it is also far less vulnerable to simply dying without a fight. As far as playing partially blind, it doesn't really exist. Zerg simply loses to the aforementioned builds if they don't have full and accurate information in a timely manner. That is the way the game is. Marine SCV all in is not an issue, thats old news especially with the new bunker time. YOu can have a spine and should have a blind spine placed asap. And don't give the crap that it puts you behind as a zerg player. People in BW put sunkens all the time really early on. And any how zergs usually float 2k minerals anyhow. 4gate maybe an issue, but thats the way it is in all matchups even PvP. The difference in BW was that you had creep colonies which were a bit cheaper; sure you had to pay extra to be a sunken, but you could pre-emptively put down the creep colony, then when you saw stuff move out, you could be like "oh shit" and swap them to sunkens to defend. And you don't float 2k when you're still in that vulnerable to rine/scv all in period -__- Whats your logic makes absolutely no sence. Not only did the Sunken have a longer build time it was more expensive. And your saying the 50 minerals saved before converting into a sunken really make a difference? People these days are so greedy. Terran FEs bunker 100minerals Toss FEs Cannon 150 minerals Zergs complaining on using 100 minerals to be safe from an all in while taking a heavy econ lead. Priceless.
Zergs needs more than 1 Spine crawler to be safe from an all in. So you are saying 300(3 SC) minerals that early is greedy? And actually a zerg also has to pay for the drone, so 1 Spine crawler costs you 150 minerals. It would be wrong to say it cost 150 tho, as the drone has it use before being a building, but you certainly cant say it cost 100 either.
Also 50 minerals SC1 is not 50 minerals in SC2. The economy is quite different.
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On April 06 2011 05:09 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2011 04:45 dave333 wrote:On April 06 2011 04:17 GinDo wrote:On April 04 2011 16:21 Zerokaiser wrote:On April 04 2011 16:16 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: What Idra says is true, but you can get two overlords past several marines if they're coming from different directions (not exactly true but i hope you know what i mean)
for example, against P u should almost always scout with 2 overlords (if u dont know what he's doing, aka almost all the time cus he might be tricking u) from 2 directions at the 7:00 min mark
and yes it's a guessing game but if there's 100% chance a zerg can find out then zerg would win every game right? unless you want the game to become whether or not you spent too much into scouting instead of defending a push, or if you want every game to come down to micro'ing against the push I don't believe you know what you're talking about at all, mate. Not only is 2 overlords way too much to sacrifice, the 7-minute mark is long past when marine/scv, 4gate, etc. hits, and longer past how early you need to scout to prepare against everything else. And in what world does Zerg win 100% of games if they scout? EDIT: Found another thing wrong with your post, what maps are you playing on that have 2 different locations to hide an overlord? On April 04 2011 16:15 xbankx wrote: I seen creative scouts (using ling+drone) by zergs as ling take hits(since its higher attack target) drone can go in base and scout.
Scouting goes both ways, as soon as soon as the first 4 lings comes out. I get pretty much no scouting down until my obs or hallucination is finished. Playing partially blind and reacting to game is part of the game.
I like that idea. Obviously it's not foolproof, but it should help a lot of the time. Other than that, as I said in the original post, I recognize that Protoss doesn't have many scouting options early as well, but it is also far less vulnerable to simply dying without a fight. As far as playing partially blind, it doesn't really exist. Zerg simply loses to the aforementioned builds if they don't have full and accurate information in a timely manner. That is the way the game is. Marine SCV all in is not an issue, thats old news especially with the new bunker time. YOu can have a spine and should have a blind spine placed asap. And don't give the crap that it puts you behind as a zerg player. People in BW put sunkens all the time really early on. And any how zergs usually float 2k minerals anyhow. 4gate maybe an issue, but thats the way it is in all matchups even PvP. The difference in BW was that you had creep colonies which were a bit cheaper; sure you had to pay extra to be a sunken, but you could pre-emptively put down the creep colony, then when you saw stuff move out, you could be like "oh shit" and swap them to sunkens to defend. And you don't float 2k when you're still in that vulnerable to rine/scv all in period -__- Whats your logic makes absolutely no sence. Not only did the Sunken have a longer build time it was more expensive. And your saying the 50 minerals saved before converting into a sunken really make a difference? People these days are so greedy. Terran FEs bunker 100minerals Toss FEs Cannon 150 minerals Zergs complaining on using 100 minerals to be safe from an all in while taking a heavy econ lead. Priceless.
Bunkers can be salvaged (yeah!), cannons hit land/air/detect, not to mention you need at most two with proper sim city and forcefields in PvZ.
Zerg needs more than one spine crawler, you have to put them down pre-emptively so if they don't attack, they're wasted. That 50 minerals you save before converting sunken is a drone! That's important. Instead of slowly slapping down entire sunken colonies, you can gradually plop down creep colonies till that MM push came and defend with lings and those fresh made sunkens. That 50 minerals saved each time is a drone, which is very very nice. Every single drone and unit counts, drones especially. Drones are more precious to zerg than you can probably imagine if you don't play zerg, or don't play zerg at a fairly high level.
Zerg needs to be as greedy as it possibly can to win. A safe zerg that tries to cover all possible attacks is a zerg that will easily fall behind and lose. This is why zerg has very specific responses to different types of aggression; so it can be greedy. Unfortunately, poor scouting makes this mechanic not work out quite as well.
100 minerals+drone is 150. Maybe that drone collected some money already, but you still lose a drone so you basically need to build another drone if you want to keep up in income rate. In other words, crawlers are really costly to a zerg when larva and drones are so precious.
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personally, I dont really think its the scouting thats much of an issue. If I had to change zerg, I definitly wouldnt put in better scouting, instead, Id put in stronger units. not overpowered strong, but strong as in actually a little scary to the other race. doesnt need all that much really. small things like no roach speed upgrade, roaches being fast enough to be useful offensively straight off the bat. or easier to get hydras, that move slightly faster off creep.
small things like that, that could make zerg units actually scary. that way, if you overproduce on units, instead of being way behind on economy, and having a useless army, you would be way behind on economy, and have an army. The main difference here would be that having an army wouldnt be useless. that way, more interesting things could happen. terran goes for 2rax, zerg is greedy, zerg dies. terran goes for 2rax, zerg makes just enough units, same as now. terran goes for 2rax, zerg makes more units than needed. zerg can now put some pressure back on the terran, terran has to delay his expo a little, and make an aditional bunker at the front to be safe.
the idea of allowing zerg units to be agressive early on would be much more interesting imo. either that, or making the terran and toss units slightly weaker early on.
I think a large part of the early on disparity between the strength of all-ins, and the ease of defenses for multiple races, comes mostly from the fact that the starting units have just changed so much in strength relative to one another. I mean, if you look at BW, mostly all of the starting units were pretty bad. and then they got upgrades, to make them better. stuff like hydra speed, and range, ling speed, dragoon range, zealot legs, vulture speed, and spider mines, marine range, and stim, and so on. Lots and lots of upgrades, without which the units were not really all that scary at all.
but then, going into SC 2, the concept was mostly throw out the window. instead of having upgrades to make bad units good, you now have upgrades to make good units better. for example, marines start with their extra range already, and get combat shields to be better. marauders are already pretty good, conc shells just make a good unit better. stalkers already have 6 range right off the bat, blink just makes them better. hellions have full speed already, blueflame just makes them better, and so on. And zerg was just the same, and got the same change in concept. thats right. back in beta, roaches were good, and had upgrades to become better too. so it was changed all around the board, not just for terran and toss. but then it turns out roaches were too good off the bat, and the upgrades to make them better made them way too good. so they were nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and the upgrades that made them too good were changed or removed, and so on, until we are in the state the game is in right now, where for example as toss, stalkers are good, blink makes them better. hellions are good, blueflame makes them better. roaches are bad, roach speed makes them good, burrow movement makes them better.
so in the end, there is a disparity in the strength of starting units, which wasnt as much the case in bw, and also apparently wasnt the intent in the beta. but its here now, and thats whats causing a lot of issues.
sc with perfect scouting information would be a bit boring, it wouldnt be very exciting, there wouldnt be much suspense, no gamer sense, and so on. Im a zerg, and Im against better scouting for everyone. Im for better units, or worse units for everyone though, so that if you do make 20 units instead of 20 drones, you can at least force a cannon or delay an expo.
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Scouting is an absolute necessity with the addition of "hard counters" (read: severe bonuses to armor types). Also I'm sympathetic to Protoss who cannot scout until observers/hallucination also, but keep in mind Stalkers hit both ground and air, as do sentries so they are better prepared for all cases just based on unit selection. Better scouting should not be free though, and putting it at spawning pool tech is too early imo. I think evolution chamber is much better.
The other issue is zerg upgrades are not streamlined at all. Minus attack/armor upgs, zerg have 1 hatchery upgrade, at least 8 upgrades at lair tech, and 2 upgrades at hive (3 if you count greater spire). The disproportionate amount of upgrades may be why zergs feel they get "stuck" at lair.
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I agree with you morimacil, I know that sc1 is a different game from sc2 yet that game didn't have perfect scouting for zerg either, ovie speed was still a lair upgrade.
It all points to the starting units, and honestly while at hatch tech zerg got shafted in that department.
I have always said that change the hydra to lair was creating a fundamental flaw in the way zerg interacts with the other 2 races. Both terran and protoss get the tech for their hydra equivalent not only at tier 1 but in any build they chose to do, being able to build a stalker or a marine is alway at their disposal. While for zerg even in bw they had to build a seperate tech building to get hydras and now its made much worse with the lair requirement.
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I and probably every other master league zerg agree with you 100%, zerg scouting is ridiculously hard and so easy to hide, this wouldn't be a problem if zerg was a safer race but as you said there are completely different response required to all the different kinds of all ins players can do, especially protoss when it comes to a 4 gate and stopping at the 20-21 drone mark, looks exactly the same as a 3 gate, stargate all in that we saw NesTea hold off in GSL again ChoyafOu. Zerg is left to guess and cross our fingers, however I don't know what can be done to help this seeing as if you speed up the overlord it becomes a little bit to strong for zerg and being able to deny scouting becomes to difficult. I just don't know what Blizzard could do to fix this problem, besides adding new units to zerg in Heart of the Swarm.
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On April 06 2011 07:35 HEROwithNOlegacy wrote: I and probably every other master league zerg agree with you 100%, zerg scouting is ridiculously hard and so easy to hide, this wouldn't be a problem if zerg was a safer race but as you said there are completely different response required to all the different kinds of all ins players can do, especially protoss when it comes to a 4 gate and stopping at the 20-21 drone mark, looks exactly the same as a 3 gate, stargate all in that we saw NesTea hold off in GSL again ChoyafOu. Zerg is left to guess and cross our fingers, however I don't know what can be done to help this seeing as if you speed up the overlord it becomes a little bit to strong for zerg and being able to deny scouting becomes to difficult. I just don't know what Blizzard could do to fix this problem, besides adding new units to zerg in Heart of the Swarm.
either improve the zerg tier1 anti-air or boost overlords; maybe OL speed upgrade being a hatchery tech or decrease build times for evo chamber/spore crawlers
in my opinion its just paradox that the race that is the most vulnerable to hidden techs doesnt have a decent scouting option; the state of the art is now that most P and T use standard strats and doesnt realize the power of being unpredictable and actively prevent scouting
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Has anyone tried different builds that respond to a variety of build orders instead of just crying on the forums? I don't think I'm alone in saying I have a variety of builds ZvP/ZvT/ZvZ with a solid foundation and can easily be adapted once you have better scouting methods or once you can get a good read on your opponent. Having solid builds and solid mechanics will solve 90% of the issues for non-pro players, and the rest comes from decision making. If you can read your opponent and think his build can branch off in two directions, prepare a solution that isn't perfect for each direction your opponent goes but is a compromise between the two.
If anyone is wondering what I'm talking about, watch Titan107's stream. He has a good foundation for his builds, but once he has the ability to scout his opponents better, he takes full advantage of it and adapts accordingly.
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Terran scouts with SCVs, Toss with probe.
Why not scout with your drone?
The maps are bigger so you'll have more time to counter all ins.
Leave a ling outside the base. Take Xel'naga towers. place overlords in key positions.
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I think that if queens were better, or even just better anti-air, Zergs would be a lot happier.
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There are a ton of cheesy builds that T and P can do, so a lot of the time it is a guessing game. Sometimes though you can read the build, but its even harder when your opponent conceals it. I try to counter everything with my builds though. Getting a bunch of queens help
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On April 06 2011 07:57 hidiliho wrote: Terran scouts with SCVs, Toss with probe.
Why not scout with your drone?
The maps are bigger so you'll have more time to counter all ins.
Leave a ling outside the base. Take Xel'naga towers. place overlords in key positions.
Are you serious?
This thread is about the moment your drone dies to a stalker or marine, and shit becomes a pure guessing game for the next 5 minutes as you throw an overlord away every minute to HOPE you see what your opponent is doing.
Overlords all over the map? Hope protoss doesn't make a phoenix, or you just lost 500-1000 minerals. Terran putting on bio pressure? Better hope you don't get supply blocked.
We always do have towers, but it's the build we need to see, not the units moving out.
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So I've just come off a few ladder losses to protoss players so this may be completely irrational. That said, why not simply increase the cooldown on warp gates the further the pylon is from your nearest nexus?
Not a huge change, maybe on the biggest map (lets say cross spawn typhon peaks or shakuras or something) a proxy pylon at zergs base would end up making the cooldown of the warpgates roughly equal to gateway's production time. But if you warp your shit in near your base, its like normal? And halfway is halfway.
Seems like this would also solve PvP revolving around 4 gate? Or not, I have no idea. Feel free to call me a retard.
edit: i know this about scouting and everyones already gave an opinion to change how zerg could scout easier, but this way could maybe leave scouting as is and you don't instalose if you don't scout the 4 gate in time.
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On April 06 2011 08:21 DamnCats wrote: So I've just come off a few ladder losses to protoss players so this may be completely irrational. That said, why not simply increase the cooldown on warp gates the further the pylon is from your nearest nexus?
Not a huge change, maybe on the biggest map (lets say cross spawn typhon peaks or shakuras or something) a proxy pylon at zergs base would end up making the cooldown of the warpgates roughly equal to gateway's production time. But if you warp your shit in near your base, its like normal? And halfway is halfway.
Seems like this would also solve PvP revolving around 4 gate? Or not, I have no idea. Feel free to call me a retard.
edit: i know this about scouting and everyones already gave an opinion to change how zerg could scout easier, but this way could maybe leave scouting as is and you don't instalose if you don't scout the 4 gate in time. Better yet, make warpgate's cooldown depend on the distance the unit warps in, the further the warped units from the warpgates, the more cooldown they will have. It solves pvp problem for sure.
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On April 06 2011 06:39 jhsu98 wrote: Scouting is an absolute necessity with the addition of "hard counters" (read: severe bonuses to armor types). Also I'm sympathetic to Protoss who cannot scout until observers/hallucination also, but keep in mind Stalkers hit both ground and air, as do sentries so they are better prepared for all cases just based on unit selection. Better scouting should not be free though, and putting it at spawning pool tech is too early imo. I think evolution chamber is much better.
The other issue is zerg upgrades are not streamlined at all. Minus attack/armor upgs, zerg have 1 hatchery upgrade, at least 8 upgrades at lair tech, and 2 upgrades at hive (3 if you count greater spire). The disproportionate amount of upgrades may be why zergs feel they get "stuck" at lair.
SC1 had 'hard counters' too. This has been discussed to death already.
Both other races require 'lair' tech to unlock upgrades. Toss requires council which requires cyber. Terran requires armory + tech labs.
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Protoss and Terran can't scout after speedlings are out (unless they sac a mule) until higher tech is available. Scouting goes both ways early game.
Larger maps leave plenty of time to drop spines after Terran/Toss leave their base. Scout for proxy pylons with patrol speedlings. Don't be afraid to get aggressive. Terran/Protoss don't worry about scouting early because almost every zerg sits back to build drones. After lings deny their scouting a quick 2-base baneling bust can cripple any terran who went tech/FE and isn't prepared for a zerg attack. Same with protoss, just go for fast 2 base roaches (you can usually skip the queen) and protoss who tech stargate will not have enough firepower to stop you effectively.
Basically what I am saying is you don't always have to drone up and wait for them to attack. Force them to react to you.
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On April 06 2011 08:36 canikizu wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2011 08:21 DamnCats wrote: So I've just come off a few ladder losses to protoss players so this may be completely irrational. That said, why not simply increase the cooldown on warp gates the further the pylon is from your nearest nexus?
Not a huge change, maybe on the biggest map (lets say cross spawn typhon peaks or shakuras or something) a proxy pylon at zergs base would end up making the cooldown of the warpgates roughly equal to gateway's production time. But if you warp your shit in near your base, its like normal? And halfway is halfway.
Seems like this would also solve PvP revolving around 4 gate? Or not, I have no idea. Feel free to call me a retard.
edit: i know this about scouting and everyones already gave an opinion to change how zerg could scout easier, but this way could maybe leave scouting as is and you don't instalose if you don't scout the 4 gate in time. Better yet, make warpgate's cooldown depend on the distance the unit warps in, the further the warped units from the warpgates, the more cooldown they will have. It solves pvp problem for sure.
This would be incredibly annoying, moreso than it would be useful for anyone (4gate becomes 5gate, whoo)
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On April 06 2011 09:15 oxxo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2011 06:39 jhsu98 wrote: Scouting is an absolute necessity with the addition of "hard counters" (read: severe bonuses to armor types). Also I'm sympathetic to Protoss who cannot scout until observers/hallucination also, but keep in mind Stalkers hit both ground and air, as do sentries so they are better prepared for all cases just based on unit selection. Better scouting should not be free though, and putting it at spawning pool tech is too early imo. I think evolution chamber is much better.
The other issue is zerg upgrades are not streamlined at all. Minus attack/armor upgs, zerg have 1 hatchery upgrade, at least 8 upgrades at lair tech, and 2 upgrades at hive (3 if you count greater spire). The disproportionate amount of upgrades may be why zergs feel they get "stuck" at lair. SC1 had 'hard counters' too. This has been discussed to death already. Both other races require 'lair' tech to unlock upgrades. Toss requires council which requires cyber. Terran requires armory + tech labs. aye, but as I already mentioned above, these upgrades arent really on the same level.
Theres some stuff that is just required to make units decent. and then there are upgrades that made decent units better. Who would go around in BW meching with tanks that dont have siege, and slow vultures without spider mines? Who ever makes slowlings past the first few minutes of the game? and so on. If you take a stalker for example. A stalker performs perfectly well at everything it should do, just like that. then, if you get blink, suddenly stalkers get even better. but you can do perfectly fine without blink. take hellions. hellions do their stuff perfectly well as is. they are really really good against light units. you can upgrade to blueflame, to make them even better, but its far from a requirement for using them. now take roaches. they suck without speed. you cant do anything with them without speed. Once you do have roach speed, they get on the same level as other units, they are actually useful. and then they get burrow and burrowed movement, which are really nice upgrades, but arent actually required, similar to blink.
Sure, other races also have upgrades to unlock. but seriously, unlocking halucination, blink, Caduceus Reactor(medivac energy! :D ), gravitic boost, 250mm strike cannons, and so on, are really far from being upgrades that are as critical as roach speed, hydra range, ling speed, baneling speed, and so on. Zergs have a ton of upgrades required to make the units be actually decent, instead of that are there to improve already decent units. thats a big part of what makes us weak early on. Its not to say that other races dont have critical upgrades too, for example, colossus range is in the same boat there. You would have to be stupid to try and use coloxen without range, just as you would have to be stupid to try and mass slowlings past the 5 minute mark. These kind of upgrades are just not in the same boat. Getting medivacs without Caduceus Reactor, or getting stalkers without blink, is perfectly fine. They function quite well without the upgrade too. You can get bansheese without cloak, and they still work fine, and you can decide to make reactored hellions instead of blueflamed ones, and it still works out just the same.
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I'm interested in seeing some of these flexible zerg builds that were mentioned.
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Make OL speed a tier 1 upgrade. This way it delays lair tech, cuts into some droning power, but you get scouting that comes at a cost much like hallucinate and scans. I play protoss and I think this would be fine
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