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I think this is a problem that I'm not alone with, but I don't think it's really been discussed specifically on larger maps.
A notorious Zerg complaint has been lack of viable scouting options and being reduced to guessing what the opponent is doing. More so than Protoss and Terran, Zerg has very limited options and specific responses to many Protoss and Terran builds which will kill the Zerg player outright if the Zerg doesn't have ample preparation time.
The problem with that is that those builds which will kill the Zerg player all hit before Zerg has access to better scouting methods. While it's true that Protoss also suffers from poor scouting before hallucination or robotics tech, Protoss walks less of a razor's edge leading into the mid-game and has more "catch all" builds that leave the Protoss player capable of responding to most threats.
As far as Zerg goes, the biggest "I need to scout" threats are 4gate, void rays, banshees, and marine/scv all-ins. Less common rushes such as Dark Templar are also possible. In addition, many "normal" Terran builds can kill the Zerg player that isn't properly prepared, even the somewhat silly mass-hellion. Failing to scout one of the above builds with plenty of time to prepare is GG for the Zerg player.
Zerg has 2 methods for scouting in the early game: Overlords and checking the front. In the past, this has been effective on most maps and in most circumstances. However, it has still been possible for a player to deny both methods of scouting by means of hiding tech and revealing units from the front and keeping marines or stalkers patrolling around the base to shoot down overlords. This problem is exaggerated on large maps.
On many large maps such as Typhon Peaks it is impossible to guarantee yourself a chance at scouting with an overlord. With 3 possible bases to scout there is no way to know where you will need an overlord to be, since the distance is too far to have an overlord at all three (or even 2). Cross spots in particular are a problem, since even your first overlord can't cross the entire map before a marine could be out to shoot it down.
Good luck getting an overlord in my base!
Zerg is left with scouting the front of the base. Unfortunately, the game is such that it is not difficult to hide information from the Zerg player, and it is just as easy to outright deceive them.
Cross position on Typhon Peaks, ZvP. Your zergling has scouted a zealot and stalker at the front, and warpgate tech is being chronoboosted at the cybernetics core. It looks like a 4gate or otherwise early pressure, and you switch into heavy ling/roach production. A few minutes later, after realizing it's too late for the 4gate, the void rays fly into your base and it's GG.
With builds that kill outright, there is the luxury that "smoothness" and refinement of the build can be sacrificed in the name of deception. Although the Protoss player has used his chronoboost and 50 gas on tech that he has no intention of using, it is a meaningless sacrifice given the decisiveness of void rays that have not been prepared against.
In the above example, the Zerg player will die to the 4gate if he chooses to drone much higher than 21 or 22 drones. It is a guessing game. If he loses to the 4gate, he is a fool for having not prepared. If he loses to the void rays, he is justified, but no better off in the end.
Terran, with faster anti-air, can be even harder to scout given the ease of hiding their buildings. Should a Terran player wall off, keep a couple marines patrolling his base, and hide an additional 2 barracks and marines in the furthest corner of their base, there is no way to be sure you can scout it. Even if you have an overlord at their base, there is a strong likelyhood that it will be shot down before it sees what it needs to see.
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Basically, I feel like without viable scouting in the early game, Zerg is doomed to a complete guessing game on 4 player maps with large rush distances a significant percentage of the time. What could fix it? Perhaps having overlord speed moved to Spawning Pool tech.
In the immortal words of Idra, "No amount of creativity will get a zergling past a wall or an overlord past a marine." Do other Zergs feel blind on large maps?
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I have been sending my first overlord to the middle of the map and 9 drone scouting in order to find which direction I should then send it before it actually gets to the middle of the map.
I'm not sure if it's actually doing me any good >_>
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I feel the exact same way. This is true on Taldarim too, if you dont get to your opponent with your first overlord even a light pressure can kill you outright if you guess wrong.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Well This is the eternal problem... Zergs need bigger map for better macro/expo play and still they are not capable of scouting at biggest maps Personaly I think that if they move Overlord speed upgrade to Tier1 It would solve the scouting problem so much! You would still need to choice which upgrade use so its not that much gamebreaking, still need to sac ovie ( but with more scouting info ) so its not like you have instavision...
But to you question - Yes I feel very blind at large maps, but I still feel very vulnerable at smaller ones
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On a large map you can probably throw down an evo chamber and spore colonies before the void rays get to your base. Why can't you simply ring a few zerglings around his base to spot one leaving? Same goes for hunting proxy pylons.
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On April 04 2011 16:23 TheLink wrote: On a large map you can probably throw down an evo chamber and spore colonies before the void rays get to your base. Why can't you simply ring a few zerglings around his base to spot one leaving? Same goes for hunting proxy pylons.
The problem is not voidrays, its scouting the voidrays. If you pre-emptively throw dore a spore colony and the protoss is actually 6gating you then your in a lot of trouble.
I have also found this to be a major problem for me, especially on Taldarim. I mean by the time i get a lair and overlord speed or an overseer its too late. I saw a game on husky's stream where a zerg player drilled past a zealot which seemed quite effective and want to incorporate into my play, but havent been able to test yet.
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On April 04 2011 16:23 TheLink wrote: On a large map you can probably throw down an evo chamber and spore colonies before the void rays get to your base. Why can't you simply ring a few zerglings around his base to spot one leaving? Same goes for hunting proxy pylons.
You cannot build an evo chamber and spores before void rays get to your base, even if you see them. If you invest them needlessly, you die to 4gate.
Hunting proxy pylons * DOES* help against 4gate, but exhausting every corner of the map routinely is supremely difficult unless you make lots of zerglings blind. Even so, a 4 gate can kill an unprepared zerg even without an initial proxy as a starting point.
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You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat.
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On April 04 2011 16:28 Jumbled wrote: You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat.
You cannot prepare for 4gate and voidrays at the same time. Even if you invest heavily in defenses and could, hypothetically hold off both a 4gate and voidrays, it means you have an abysmal drone count and will lose to any normal build in the game.
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On April 04 2011 16:10 Zerokaiser wrote: Basically, I feel like without viable scouting in the early game, Zerg is doomed to a complete guessing game on 4 player maps with large rush distances a significant percentage of the time. What could fix it? Perhaps having overlord speed moved to Spawning Pool tech. I think the idea of moving Ovie speed down the tech tree was touched upon by Idra in one of his rare TL posts (I forgot in which thread, though. He basically did an informal Q&A in the thread).
On one hand, it is quite difficult to scout on larger maps. On the other hand, the larger the map is, the more difficult early pressure/attack builds become to execute. I think the idea of early Zerg map control with Lings is not to be underestimated, especially on larger maps where there could still be a bit more time to prepare for surprise openings (such as on Tal'Darim).
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There are plenty of players who don't scout until very late.
Perhaps you're going about this the wrong way.
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There are other topics very similar to this one, so I suggest trying out the search feature. One similar thread I found:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195837
That said, yours has a nice picture and is laid out more nicely, so well done in that respect.
Anyways, with regards to scouting Protoss:
It is always possible to get a drone into their base, assuming they haven't done anything crazy like a full wall-off. Even if you are scouting late and they have their zealot up, you can phase through it to get inside. This will give you some pretty important information:
a) do they have both of their gases? If you early scout, you can steal their 2nd gas to slow down any tech heavy builds. Moreover, if you keep up with your extractor cancel micro, after 3-4 cancels you can try to run the drone around their base for more info. If you are late, and they have both gases, how much have they mined? If you are late, and they only have 1 gas, then they are either gonna 4-gate you or do some kind of early expo without a ton of sentries.
b) how much energy do they have on their nexus? A lot of saved up chrono boost generally points towards a 4-gate. If they aren't chronoboosting their cybercore AND have energy, then they might be saving it up for chronoboosting out of a stargate or chronoboosting blink research. If they have no saved up chrono boost or are still chronoing probes, you don't have to worry about a hardcore 4-gate.
c) how many pylons do they have in their base? If your drone is going around in their base and they only have 2 pylons in their main when your drone dies to their first sentry/stalker, then you should probably check for proxy pylons.
d) what is their first unit after their zealot? If it is a stalker and they have both gases, their gas has to be going somewhere. If it's a sentry, you don't have to worry about the zealot/stalker poke.
Once your drone is dead and you get lings out, you can continue poking the front, searching for proxies, etc. You should at the very least be able to narrow down what your opponent is doing. Making a couple extra queens if there is a chance of a stargate, building an evo chamber to be able to make spores in case of DT or stargate, having a spine at the front in case of the zealot/stalker poke, are all ways of just playing safe in general. Extra queens are always good b/c they can also get your creep spread going and save up energy for transfuse in case of an attack.
Against a good Terran, scouting is not quite as easy as against Protoss, but the good news is that any early Terran push will have to move out the front of his base, and you can scout it with a forward ling or two. Also, assuming you have decent control, queens + spines + ling/bling/roach can hold off pretty much any early Terran aggression. Assuming you have the roach warren and bling nest + a 3rd queen + a spine, you should be able to create the units you need before he reaches your base. Good creep spread also really helps.
TL;DR No, I don't feel blind on large maps. I will hardly ever know for certain EXACTLY what they are doing, but I always feel like I know what their options are and I am prepared for any of them.
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On April 04 2011 16:28 Jumbled wrote: You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat.
I agree with this. I think while it's unfortunate that a large part of this game is based on strategy as opposed to mechanic, which creates an element of luck, it is a random element that you can't really eliminate. Perfect scouting without significantly sacrifices in other areas is impossible, even for the best players. This is true in broodwar, especially in ZvT and PvZ (See Jaedong vs Flash at Hana Datoo msl finals set 1, in which Flash hid his goliath timing perfectly from Jaedong, who tried every reasonable method to scout, but could not do so). Zerg race is also inherently vulnerable to early game pressure, and by itself this isn't a problem, but just how the game is designed. Protoss and to a smaller extent terran is also has trouble scouting zerg, and even the best toss player will lose to a random 3 roach rush if unlucky.
However, it's true that zerg rushes are much more allin than that of terran and protoss, and are generally weaker. I think the right approach regarding the problem of zerg scouting for blizzard is not actually to give zerg better ways to scout, but to make stuff like 4 gates and 2 star voidrays even more riskier than what it currently is, thus forcing the toss and terran to have to make a difficult decision before choosing an "allin" strategy. I.e. They need to make it so that if you can win quickly with a 4 gate, you should lose as surely as a zerg who failed a 6 pool.
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Why do you emphasis early game? You even say you 'can't get an overlord to the terrans base before a marine is out to shoot it down'. But how is that unique to Zerg? Toss can't scout till we get hallucination or an observer. And you could maybe say that toss has less effective means of denying scout early game, since they can't chase off probes till a stalker is out, but I guess that is somewhat of a different issue.
Anyway my point being that until hallu/obs, toss has the same capacity to scout early game as Zerg does. Terran has it a bit easier cause they can scan/float a building, but that still comes at a cost.
Mid game is a bit of a different story though.
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i agree on you that base scouting for zerg has become harder on these big maps. But i am really really happy about it. Maps like these are so mega big for me as a terran player. That the moment i move out my base to attack i have a really high chance to get spotted by a 25 minerals worth ling i just missed by my 2 or 4 marines in the front, or an odd placed overlord. And because of the big distance a zerg has so much time to prepare for me... that it feels for me that he even can make an other round of drones (not true i know) and is safe. If zerg already scouted my base at those big distance i sure would have a chance to make a one base built do enough damage to be even with the zerg player.
against p i think it is very hard for z... but against t you got the time.
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Played on Typhon Peaks against a Terran as Zerg.
I spawned on the 11 O'clock position and he spawned on the 7 O'clock position - meaning that when I eventually scouted his base, I had to get my overlord all around the map in order to make sure that it arrived (as the ramp is placed along the edge that I would normally pass by - and the base layout means I would need a hero Ovie to have it survive long enough to scout anything placed in-base)... Meanwhile I kept Zerglings at his wall, constantly checking what he was doing. I could see a single rax from the front, of which he produced some marines.
He moved out with about 4 marines and positioned them as if he was about to lift his CC down to expand, so I kept scouting and droned a little while retaining a few larvas for lings or roaches. Then I sacrificed 2 Zerglings to run past his marines and into his base, scouting 3 rax MM, and in that same instant he moved out...
I don't know if you have tried that but it takes approximately 2 seconds for the Terran to arrive at your natural, horribly horribly destroying my defences with his MM force - I didn't really stand a chance - didn't even have enough time to get my first batch of roaches out, and at that time my spines were already gone. (I build x2 for defences when I early expo) Meanwhile, my Overlord wasn't even ready to move into his base to scout. (which would die to his marines anyway)
That made me kind of frustrated.
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On April 04 2011 16:33 Zerokaiser wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:28 Jumbled wrote: You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat. You cannot prepare for 4gate and voidrays at the same time. Even if you invest heavily in defenses and could, hypothetically hold off both a 4gate and voidrays, it means you have an abysmal drone count and will lose to any normal build in the game. Check out Spanishiwa's 16h/15p opening. Queens + spines + good creep spread is safe against 4-gate and VRs, and has an enormous drone count.
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You should never assume. We, as Zerg players, need to respond reactively. What I like to do as of late is make a general opening, and hold it while I do what I can to break through. However, a lot of their wall techniques for Protoss make the late game objective blatantly obvious. I did a match today where he was making void rays, and I couldn't get into his base due to a wall with a forge, gateway and a LOT of cannons, so I expanded, expanded and expanded, and just starved him to death. Basically we have a good spot in late game if we play our cards right, especially if we have a capped army and high mineral count....we can replenish that quickly with a lot of expansion areas. Quickly take over as much of the map as you can, he will throw units at yours, and destroy a lot of them, trading some of his. You will replenish before he does. Done.
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been saccing ovies. also I have been getting better at reading what build is about to hit me. but yeah I am blind most of the time. but what would the fun be if I always knew what was coming? like how much scouting do you guys want? even in brood war the zerg had crap to scout with. at least we have changeling.
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On April 04 2011 16:38 Virid wrote: There are plenty of players who don't scout until very late.
Perhaps you're going about this the wrong way.
Who? I'm pretty sure even Sjow scouts now. The problem for zerg is that you have to know what's going on or you're completely fucked. There are so many options for a terran or protoss to mess you up (banshees, blue flame hellions, 3 racks, 4 gate, dt rush, etc) that zergs have to know what their options are. Hell even a fast expo unscouted can end up in a sure loss.
:edit:
In ZvP I've been trying to get 4 queens up quickly in positions where I suspect a quick stargate may be a possibility. It's expensive early but can come in handy later when I want to transfuse a spine crawler vs 4gate. I don't play a lot of macro Protoss though so that clearly punishes my style.
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Well against P, just get a zergling attack blocking zealot and ghostwalk a drone through the zealot by clicking on a mineral patch, at a good timing. I do this to tell if its stargate, 3 gate or 4 gate sometimes.
Against Terran, you've got to check if he got gas and constantly scout front. honestly vs terran you can go with speedling/baneling and be safe against everything but banshee. delay spire for a safe build. If you steal gas, you can usually hold of banshees blind with 3 queens. sometimes a hydra den will save you, because a spire takes too long.
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On April 04 2011 16:41 TanX wrote: Played on Typhon Peaks against a Terran as Zerg.
I spawned on the 11 O'clock position and he spawned on the 7 O'clock position - meaning that when I eventually scouted his base, I had to get my overlord all around the map in order to make sure that it arrived (as the ramp is placed along the edge that I would normally pass by - and the base layout means I would need a hero Ovie to have it survive long enough to scout anything placed in-base)... Meanwhile I kept Zerglings at his wall, constantly checking what he was doing. I could see a single rax from the front, of which he produced some marines.
He moved out with about 4 marines and positioned them as if he was about to lift his CC down to expand, so I kept scouting and droned a little while retaining a few larvas for lings or roaches. Then I sacrificed 2 Zerglings to run past his marines and into his base, scouting 3 rax MM, and in that same instant he moved out...
I don't know if you have tried that but it takes approximately 2 seconds for the Terran to arrive at your natural, horribly horribly destroying my defences with his MM force - I didn't really stand a chance - didn't even have enough time to get my first batch of roaches out, and at that time my spines were already gone. (I build x2 for defences when I early expo) Meanwhile, my Overlord wasn't even ready to move into his base to scout. (which would die to his marines anyway)
That made me kind of frustrated. I'm sure this can be frustrating, but you can't really blame the loss on anything but yourself. Given those positions, you should be able to have an ovy scouting his natural to see if he is actually floating a CC over there. If you don't see a CC, you can't just sit back and relax and drone up. Until you confirm that he is expanding, you're not safe. One thing you could have done is produced more lings. If he IS expanding, you can deny the expo with your lings for a little bit, until he has enough marines to force you to back away. If you see 4 marines move down the ramp alone, and you have 12-16 lings, you can just surround and kill them. And if he is just hiding a 3 rax, now you have more lings which you can defend with.
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Anyone who actually played/plays zerg will agree with the OP, simple as that (as I do). I actually play P a lil bit as well on the side and I tried T for a while a few weeks back, and you simply feel SO much safer.
As mentioned above already, zerg is just way too fragile to be able to survive an attack they don't know is coming - even if they DO know, they often times don't survive or barely. As a T/P i'm still always amazed at how my army actually kills stuff and at how much I can rely on it without having to try various micro-intensive techniques to get a slight amount of efficiency out of my units.
There are things on which zerg is easier though of course, such as reinforcing during fights etc, but I believe the scouting part really is problematic as well as it is simply too vital.
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On April 04 2011 16:41 TanX wrote: Played on Typhon Peaks against a Terran as Zerg.
I spawned on the 11 O'clock position and he spawned on the 7 O'clock position - meaning that when I eventually scouted his base, I had to get my overlord all around the map in order to make sure that it arrived (as the ramp is placed along the edge that I would normally pass by - and the base layout means I would need a hero Ovie to have it survive long enough to scout anything placed in-base)... Meanwhile I kept Zerglings at his wall, constantly checking what he was doing. I could see a single rax from the front, of which he produced some marines.
He moved out with about 4 marines and positioned them as if he was about to lift his CC down to expand, so I kept scouting and droned a little while retaining a few larvas for lings or roaches. Then I sacrificed 2 Zerglings to run past his marines and into his base, scouting 3 rax MM, and in that same instant he moved out...
I don't know if you have tried that but it takes approximately 2 seconds for the Terran to arrive at your natural, horribly horribly destroying my defences with his MM force - I didn't really stand a chance - didn't even have enough time to get my first batch of roaches out, and at that time my spines were already gone. (I build x2 for defences when I early expo) Meanwhile, my Overlord wasn't even ready to move into his base to scout. (which would die to his marines anyway)
That made me kind of frustrated.
I play terran primarily, but also off-race as zerg. A 3 rax opener is quite possibly all-in as when that first push is broken, terran is facing an extremely uphill battle. Secondly, what was mentioned above is that a safer build order is needed.
I can 15 hatch vs terrans and hold off most early pressure. You might want to try going 14 gas 14 pool and 18 hatching. Even though you're hatching you want to drone only a bit saving larva for units. Speedlings can easily hold anything early on.
Getting a few speedlings + 3 queens + 1 spine is relatively safe. Just drone smartly and get a reasonably timed baneling nest and lair.
Drones and lings can stop 2 rax bunker pushes. (even after 14/15 hatching) Queens, lings, and 1 spine can stop blue flame hellion rushes. (assuming good control) Mass lings and a decently timed baneling nest can hold 3 rax pushes. Having a 3rd queen and decently timed lair can hold 2 port banshee. (assuming you respond properly as soon as you see it)
Obviously, none of is this is easy to pull off, nor is it a "hard counter". If they outplay you, they outplayed you regardless of what you want to do.
EDIT: roaches are typically a poor opening vs terran. (I said typically... not always. )
REGARDLESS OF ABOVE.
Yes, zerg scout options are limited and may need tweaking. However, this is definitely more of a problem at higher levels. Unique and well-executed all-ins are less impact full and less common on the ladder where it also matters less. All players and all races lose once in a while to an all-in they could have or couldn't have scouted.
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On April 04 2011 16:51 RedDragon571 wrote: Against Terran, you've got to check if he got gas and constantly scout front. honestly vs terran you can go with speedling/baneling and be safe against everything but banshee. delay spire for a safe build. If you steal gas, you can usually hold of banshees blind with 3 queens. sometimes a hydra den will save you, because a spire takes too long. Would you be confident you can hold even against fast blue-flame hellions? That would be my main fear if I was doing a speedling/baneling opening in ZvT.
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Why couldn't they buff overlord speed?
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On April 04 2011 17:09 Jumbled wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:51 RedDragon571 wrote: Against Terran, you've got to check if he got gas and constantly scout front. honestly vs terran you can go with speedling/baneling and be safe against everything but banshee. delay spire for a safe build. If you steal gas, you can usually hold of banshees blind with 3 queens. sometimes a hydra den will save you, because a spire takes too long. Would you be confident you can hold even against fast blue-flame hellions? That would be my main fear if I was doing a speedling/baneling opening in ZvT.
In short, yes. Pull your nat drones to the main. Block your ramp. 3 queens + 1 spine are awesome. Even quick evo chamber blocks are nice. Speedlings nom nom nom over-committed hellions.
edit: 3rd queen -> awesome creep spread and pretty good early defense.
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The problem is a combination of weak early game units AND poor scouting. Zerglings are absolute poop at defending all ins unless you are 100% sure the all in is coming and overproduce. Spines are great but put you really far behind in economy if for whatever reason they decide to not all. In addition, spines leave you with no counterattacking force to punish the all in flip-flop. Teching to roaches early is completely viable if you are, again, sure that the all in is coming(mostly against 4 gates and your timing has to be excellent((heavily map dependent as well)).
The difference for terran and protoss is they have really strong early game units. As a Protoss if you 3 gate sentry expand, you are 100% safe from anything that is coming unless you pull a huk and run across the map with your sentries or have really bad forcefield micro. Even then, it's really hard to mess up the 3 gate expand. For Terran you do have to worry about the baneling bust and 4 gate. The difference is that if you over prepare for either of these builds and they don't come, you're actually not that far behind in economy because of how cost efficient your units become later in the game. Making marines early will never put you behind because they will be part of your core army later. Making zerglings will put you behind because as zerg you absolutely need those eggs to be drones instead.
If Zerg had either stronger early game units with our current scouting methods we would be fine. If Zerg had stronger scouting methods with our current weak early game units, we would be fine. It's not so much that we're not fine as it is, if you guess right you are in GREAT shape for the mid game. The problem currently is that if a protoss/terran opponent doesn't want you to see what they're doing, you won't.
TL;DR: Combination of weak early game units + poor early game scouting options are the issue for zergs currently. Fix one(not both) and Zerg stands a much better chance of getting into the mid game. Protoss/Terran don't have this issue because of strong early game units that keep them safe until their method of scouting is available.
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Or you could use the advantage of a large map, anticipate the attack at critical signs (no expo at X time), and make just enough forces that 1 more round will be enough to hold off the attack. It's not like Voidrays are super fast at crossing the map on CROSS POSITIONS. Same goes for everything else except maybe Hellion harass.
On further spawns, you sacrifice the ability to scout certain builds in exchange for the assurance that many of those pushes are rendered null by the very distance denying your scout.
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Get a third queen, or drone scout if you're not going pool
You mentioned 4 warpgate. You realize that it hurts the Protoss economy, and that you have to sit on less drones than before to compensate for that. I somewhat disagree with you having said it needs to be around 21. It is map dependent in a sense. Your op implies it is not just Typhon, you are referring to all "larger" maps, correct? My advice on denying that is to attempt to rid him of planting forward pylons. What strategy do you usually employ? Different people have different styles. PM me about this if you are having trouble fending off 4 warpgate.
You mentioned you were having trouble with Void Rays. How many queens do you normally build? I'm assuming you're talking about when P makes Phoenix with it? Are you talking about straight up VR? You should be able to keep your queens alive if they didn't proxy if it is on a large map.
You mentioned Banshee openers in passing. Yet again Queens can fend this off. You can judge whether or not they are teching by marine counts/bunker at the ramp. If they bunker the ramp, and you don't see a 2nd OC, you can bank they are teching. I would be looking to make as little lings as I can, and make sure they are not just opening BF Hellions or expanding, at which point (when I believe it is banshee) I would be looking towards making a 3rd/4th queen and morphing an overseer.
vs BitByBit style, you're saying you're worried about scouting on a large map... you should not be having trouble with this on a large map. You can easily scout a marine/scv all in with a zergling.
I don't feel this is really justified. You have overlords to scout air paths, you don't have to send them into the base to die. To reiterate, you could go with a 3rd queen or drone scout, and you would eliminate the harassment style hurting you as bad. You still might be susceptible to 4gate/3rax/2rax+scv but these are things that you can scout with speedlings. I would work on larva management and timings. Ret writes timings down. Just notice where the scouting probe went, and if you kill the scout, be considering when the 4gate will hit. Most losses will come more from poor mechanics and macro as opposed to lack of scouting.
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Everything boils down to the worker speed being slightly to slow. Simply increasing mining delay and everything else in the game remains the same except worker defense gets slightly better (which would be good for the game) and scouting becomes more effective.
The moment I saw my first scouting worker die to slow lings without micro I had a bad feeling about the game. I have gotten over this now, but this seemingly insignificant event has huge consequences on the rest of the game.
Simply increasing the worker move speed just slightly to that of a slow zergling would be all it would take.
Scouts would still be very "killable" with good micro, but scouting micro would actually be rewarded. If you could keep a scout alive in the opponents base just a tiny bit longer just a few "timings" would be "scoutable" if you had good scouting micro. Hiding tech would cost some time or good micro would be required to remove the scout in time. A second scout on the map against zerg would be possible as lings wouldn't automatically kill it anymore.
Since this forum is not the place for requesting balance changes here are some possible solutions. Some are already mentioned.
1. Steal gas. If you are having problems against a variety of builds delaying the second gas of the opponent and seeing if they attack the gas is a simple way of "cutting" the number of possible strategies they can use against you. This plus scouting the front will give you a good idea of what's coming.
2. Incorporate a faster evo chamber into your build. This doesn't mean use it immediately for upgrades or automatically make spore's. Simply be aware of banshee/voidray/phoenix timings and incorporate it into your build if you haven't already determined that it isn't something else. At every level except the very top 75 minerals and a drone won't lose you the game, but it can keep you in many.
3. Escort your overlords into position. If you are having problems getting an overlord to a base use scouting paths and timings that, if needed, allow you to get lings there in time to "escort" it to safety.
4. Leave a single ling behind. Keeping at least 1 ling on the map after the opponent moves out. This gives you the ability to continue to scout even if you are "contained". Most of the time if you are using a solid build its not the first attack that you didn't scout that kills you, but the second. Sometimes you can even snipe an scv building an expansion or get a free run around in the opponents base or even some free workers.
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On April 04 2011 18:01 Betalump wrote: Everything boils down to the worker speed being slightly to slow. Simply increasing mining delay and everything else in the game remains the same except worker defense gets slightly better (which would be good for the game) and scouting becomes more effective.
The moment I saw my first scouting worker die to slow lings without micro I had a bad feeling about the game. I have gotten over this now, but this seemingly insignificant event has huge consequences on the rest of the game.
Simply increasing the worker move speed just slightly to that of a slow zergling would be all it would take.
Scouts would still be very "killable" with good micro, but scouting micro would actually be rewarded. If you could keep a scout alive in the opponents base just a tiny bit longer just a few "timings" would be "scoutable" if you had good scouting micro. Hiding tech would cost some time or good micro would be required to remove the scout in time. A second scout on the map against zerg would be possible as lings wouldn't automatically kill it anymore.
Since this forum is not the place for requesting balance changes here are some possible solutions. Some are already mentioned.
1. Steal gas. If you are having problems against a variety of builds delaying the second gas of the opponent and seeing if they attack the gas is a simple way of "cutting" the number of possible strategies they can use against you. This plus scouting the front will give you a good idea of what's coming.
2. Incorporate a faster evo chamber into your build. This doesn't mean use it immediately for upgrades or automatically make spore's. Simply be aware of banshee/voidray/phoenix timings and incorporate it into your build if you haven't already determined that it isn't something else. At every level except the very top 75 minerals and a drone won't lose you the game, but it can keep you in many.
3. Escort your overlords into position. If you are having problems getting an overlord to a base use scouting paths and timings that, if needed, allow you to get lings there in time to "escort" it to safety.
4. Leave a single ling behind. Keeping at least 1 ling on the map after the opponent moves out. This gives you the ability to continue to scout even if you are "contained". Most of the time if you are using a solid build its not the first attack that you didn't scout that kills you, but the second. Sometimes you can even snipe an scv building an expansion or get a free run around in the opponents base or even some free workers.
My biggest nitpick with this post is the gas stealing. Gas stealing is something I do on a regular basis, but * large maps * make it so that most of the time, your drone won't be there in time to steal gas.
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If they have a second gas that fast that tells you something.
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You can drone scout and if you have all the xel naga towers you should be able to spot the attacks and prepare for them and try to stall the attack with lings and get sunkens to defend.
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On April 04 2011 18:07 Betalump wrote: If they have a second gas that fast that tells you something.
Again, it takes literally zero effort to just make a second gas and never use it. Many players will make their second gas when they see your drone just so you don't steal it, and them even using their second gas can still mean 4gate, void rays, DTs, anything.
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I agree 100% with the OP.
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On April 04 2011 16:14 ZyM wrote: I feel the exact same way. This is true on Taldarim too, if you dont get to your opponent with your first overlord even a light pressure can kill you outright if you guess wrong. dude it is IMPOSSIBLE to overlord scout on TDA vs anyone who is smart enough to line their perim with buildings/marines during the scout denying phase of the early-game.
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zergs are treating big maps as an excuse to be as greedy as possible but really they should be treating them as opportunities to be as safe as possible.
on small maps zerg can do tons of things to scout and can therefore prepare for the one thing that the opponent is meaning to throw at them, on the huge maps, zerg scouting is terrible and the lower value of the xel naga towers is punishing the typical lazy idle zergling scouting that most people are used to on metal and XN caverns. these are the unrealized disadvantages to a large map, whereas the benefits are obvious, longer rush distance, more time to prepare for an attack, typical cheese timings are that much longer, everyone knows about this.
well take that information imbalance and couple it with most of sc2 zergs never being able to expand without grief and you get the most insanely greedy/aggressive corner cutting zerg play i've ever seen in my life.
basically on those maps yes, you need to fast expand, but you also need 2 spines 3 queen and a SPORE CRAWLER yes SPORE CRAWLER in between those spines. that is of course the bare minimum but really guys what do you expect your opponent to do if you make an aggressive econ move like hatch first? you utilized a map advantage to get a stronger econ, if you also had perfect scouting then there is literally no way you can lose, this is balanced by having to prepare for dozens of different types of harassment plays or rushes that can straight end the game if they are effective. when i nexus first, which admittedly is more ec. aggressive than a hatch first, i build 10+ cannons, they might not go cloak banshee or 3 rax, they might counter expand or double expand, but there's no way for me to know their exact response based on limited information.
playing starcraft is hard and yes playing zerg is probably even harder, but seriously this thread is basically "why can't i fast expand for free AND get a perfect scout in all my games on these maps?'
also protip: if you lay down a hatch first AFTER their scout has arrived and don't KNOW they're cross map, you're making a huge mistake - why do people keep doing it? theres a reason everyone 0:50 scouts zerg 90% of the time.
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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.
but, isn't it an "unfair" part of the game when the time you aren't scouting leaves the zerg to get a couple extra drones, while the time zerg doesn't scout you could be making something that kills him. the threat doesn't go both ways because of FFing ramps, so, it isn't a big deal to not scout the zerg at that point. he either is droning hard and making a guess as to what you are doing, or is making too many attack units that will be useless.
Sound fair?
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On April 04 2011 16:16 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: 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?
Actually, you can see a forge FE, then a 6gate pressure and a third being put, without any deviation whatsoever, and being stomped by the lolball. At pro level, it's kind of like Z players know what it's going on, but it still don't guarantee them a win.
Also, I really would like to hear the pros opinion on matchups, but not from the Z ones. At my nooby level, the best ideas I had to force the decision against T or P player was found by either watching games of the other race, or asking my friends what they feared and why.
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On April 04 2011 16:39 5unrise wrote: ....I think while it's unfortunate that a large part of this game is based on strategy as opposed to mechanic, which creates an element of luck, it is a random element that you can't really eliminate.....
Am I the only one who thinks that this statement is as horrible wrong as it gets? An ideal real time strategy game would not require any mechanics but the games would be decided by your strategy, your decisions and your quick thinking. I realize, that the balancing would be harder, but just imagine a game where your creativity, decisiveness, strategical thinking and tactical instinct would be the deciding factor.
If you think you need more mechanics, base mining speed of how fast you can tap a certain rhythm with your feet while playing...
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On April 04 2011 19:04 Thrombozyt wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:39 5unrise wrote: ....I think while it's unfortunate that a large part of this game is based on strategy as opposed to mechanic, which creates an element of luck, it is a random element that you can't really eliminate..... Am I the only one who thinks that this statement is as horrible wrong as it gets? An ideal real time strategy game would not require any mechanics but the games would be decided by your strategy, your decisions and your quick thinking. I realize, that the balancing would be harder, but just imagine a game where your creativity, decisiveness, strategical thinking and tactical instinct would be the deciding factor. If you think you need more mechanics, base mining speed of how fast you can tap a certain rhythm with your feet while playing...
well okay, let me rephrase that: It is unfortunate that the error of choosing the wrong strategy is much more difficult to remedy with superior mechanics in this game. Happy?
No an ideal real time strategy is just as much about mechanics as it is about strategy, otherwise you should go play a turn-based strategy game.
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On April 04 2011 18:41 carbon_based wrote: zergs are treating big maps as an excuse to be as greedy as possible but really they should be treating them as opportunities to be as safe as possible.
This should be set in stone.
Anyway. For some reason, Zergs want to have every aspect to be inclined of the game for their favor. Every one of you agrees that big maps do give you a significant advantage, so its only natural that they also give you a disatvantage. It seems to me that everything that denies the Zerg infinite drone greediness "unfair". Its just a well hidden balance cry and last time I checked this was discouraged here.
I think that sharing ideas about how to scout or how to react to the limited information I have is totally nice and fruitfull. So why do you always have to make a cry thread?
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On April 04 2011 19:14 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 18:41 carbon_based wrote: zergs are treating big maps as an excuse to be as greedy as possible but really they should be treating them as opportunities to be as safe as possible.
This should be set in stone. Anyway. For some reason, Zergs want to have every aspect to be inclined of the game for their favor. Every one of you agrees that big maps do give you a significant advantage, so its only natural that they also give you a disatvantage. It seems to me that everything that denies the Zerg infinite drone greediness "unfair". Its just a well hidden balance cry and last time I checked this was discouraged here. I think that sharing ideas about how to scout or how to react to the limited information I have is totally nice and fruitfull. So why do you always have to make a cry thread?
Please don't turn this into a flame thread.
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On April 04 2011 19:09 5unrise wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 19:04 Thrombozyt wrote:On April 04 2011 16:39 5unrise wrote: ....I think while it's unfortunate that a large part of this game is based on strategy as opposed to mechanic, which creates an element of luck, it is a random element that you can't really eliminate..... Am I the only one who thinks that this statement is as horrible wrong as it gets? An ideal real time strategy game would not require any mechanics but the games would be decided by your strategy, your decisions and your quick thinking. I realize, that the balancing would be harder, but just imagine a game where your creativity, decisiveness, strategical thinking and tactical instinct would be the deciding factor. If you think you need more mechanics, base mining speed of how fast you can tap a certain rhythm with your feet while playing... well okay, let me rephrase that: It is unfortunate that the error of choosing the wrong strategy is much more difficult to remedy with superior mechanics in this game. Happy? No an ideal real time strategy is just as much about mechanics as it is about strategy, otherwise you should go play a turn-based strategy game.
Actually I'm not happy. It's a strategy game after all. If you pick an inferior strategy, you should turn it around by using tactical advantages. Being able to make bad decisions and win because you can click faster and more consistently isn't ideal.
And a turn-based game would give you unlimited time to think your strategy over and changes how tactical advantages work. RTS would still be about seizing the moment - just with the better decisions opposed to the faster mouse.
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I kinda wonder why overseers need Lair to be made I mean it would help alot if they didnt and it would still be quiet the investment early to put 100 gas into an overseer.
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On April 04 2011 19:24 Igaryu85 wrote: I kinda wonder why overseers need Lair to be made I mean it would help alot if they didnt and it would still be quiet the investment early to put 100 gas into an overseer.
Contaminate that early in the game would be overpowered.
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On April 04 2011 19:21 Thrombozyt wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 19:09 5unrise wrote:On April 04 2011 19:04 Thrombozyt wrote:On April 04 2011 16:39 5unrise wrote: ....I think while it's unfortunate that a large part of this game is based on strategy as opposed to mechanic, which creates an element of luck, it is a random element that you can't really eliminate..... Am I the only one who thinks that this statement is as horrible wrong as it gets? An ideal real time strategy game would not require any mechanics but the games would be decided by your strategy, your decisions and your quick thinking. I realize, that the balancing would be harder, but just imagine a game where your creativity, decisiveness, strategical thinking and tactical instinct would be the deciding factor. If you think you need more mechanics, base mining speed of how fast you can tap a certain rhythm with your feet while playing... well okay, let me rephrase that: It is unfortunate that the error of choosing the wrong strategy is much more difficult to remedy with superior mechanics in this game. Happy? No an ideal real time strategy is just as much about mechanics as it is about strategy, otherwise you should go play a turn-based strategy game. Actually I'm not happy. It's a strategy game after all. If you pick an inferior strategy, you should turn it around by using tactical advantages. Being able to make bad decisions and win because you can click faster and more consistently isn't ideal. And a turn-based game would give you unlimited time to think your strategy over and changes how tactical advantages work. RTS would still be about seizing the moment - just with the better decisions opposed to the faster mouse.
Mechanics =/= clicking faster, it's about what you click, where you click, game sense, knowing your build order, and clicking with coordination. It is generally what separates pros from people who mainly watches the game, know the strategies, and who simply don't practise enough to execute them well. By your logic, a random silver player who is mechanically awful yet understands high level play would be able to triumph over the likes of IdrA and Dimaga in a world where only pure strategy matters. He obviously plays less, devote less time (strategy is much easier to know than mastering mechanics), and has less game sense, yet you think he should deserve to win just as much?
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I also have this same problem but this is just how Zerg has been since the beta, if somebody wants to deny scouting or hide buildings size of the map won't make a difference. Just put importance on drone scouting early and write down some conclusions you find that are like x% of players go this strategy when they have this much chronoboost and a second gas +/- stalker second etc.
The other option is to play as an aggressor (Kyrix style or LosirA style ZvT and sling/bane ZvP) to let you get control of the game and force opponent to react to you
When in doubt throw down an evo chamber and one spore at each base and it should (hopefully) tide you over.
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Personally I gave up on really getting much info from overlord scouting a long time ago, so I don't feel the big maps matter greatly in that regard, but you do feel a lot more blind before overlord speed on large maps I admit.
For me this element isnt a huge problem. I'm low/mid masters, and I feel that it isnt too bad to scout at my level. In ZvP I can guess correct 4/5 times and if Im wrong I can still manage almost half the time... There are certain drawbacks though, f ex that if I meet 1base blink stalkers I will 99% certainly have a spore in my mineral lines EVERY single time which of course sets me back, simply because stargate opening and dt openings look so similar and are much more common. In zvt, roach/ling opening can deal with most stuff. The only thing I consistently lose to is 2port banshee because the ONLY way to prepare for that is by overlord scouting it...
I believe this is worst in A) high masters where people are good enough to know exactly what to do to trick perfectly (damn you MC for making people more aware of the nexus-cancel 4gate -.-), and B) below diamond where people have such poor execution that even if you know exactly what to scout for, you simply cannot trust that your opponent is good enough to actually do these little subtle things, and you encounter more crazy 1base builds ( f ex colossus off 1 base).
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On April 04 2011 19:21 Thrombozyt wrote: Actually I'm not happy. It's a strategy game after all. If you pick an inferior strategy, you should turn it around by using tactical advantages. Being able to make bad decisions and win because you can click faster and more consistently isn't ideal.
And a turn-based game would give you unlimited time to think your strategy over and changes how tactical advantages work. RTS would still be about seizing the moment - just with the better decisions opposed to the faster mouse.
The mechanics part of RTS comes from the Real-time portion of the word. You want less of a mechanical distribution of skill to the successor of the most mechanically demanding game of all time?
And to answer your quote.
You can turn it around using tactical advantages, or using superior micro and macro, just as it was meant to be.
Also, I don't see any problems scouting and using limited information to get safety measures up.
Based on numbers of gases, units coming out, units at his front, his chrono boost, timing of his buildings, people mining the gasses you should know what you can hold and what is worrying to you, and change your build accordingly.
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terrans also take precautions just like a toss does when he walls hin, making his main base later on really hard to access by his own units. Terrans of course are perfect at this, and can move their defense posis away or recycle it etc. (and it would be unfair if they couldn't hehe having the weakest starting units.) But their scouting is by far the most expensiv. You can lose 3 overlords if a terran did scan you and you will only notice this in the far late game when minerals run out, where the terran would have had to take atleast 1/2 of the minerals of your bases, to keep up hehe.
Also while a zerg may have it harder to defend early aggression, if they do so they punish this hard, as there is no retreat for the opponent if he didn't wiped out the whole zerg army. Also zerg just like the terra can completly recicle his defenses. Get some fast queens and spines nothing on ground that is not t2+ can break this and you are save from air also you can move the spines and you need the queens anyway.
Here is my ranking of scouting after the worker died. Lifted barracks > overlord > scan > toss (they have kinda nothing at the timing unless they go hallu before warp tech, but they don't need it anyway, so they are fine.)
For some time i went fast t2 for an overseer ^^ and let him burp on high tech or reactored building to even my investment out. Later on when I became a bit faster i could simply scout with my lings and see any aggression before. Still got an overseer anyway you have 4 free scouts every now and then. And if your opponent doesn't notice them they are like 5 scans in a row
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Get overlord speed, Lair tech is not hard to get to and if you're build orders are fleshed out you can get Overlord speed by 6-7 minute mark.
If you're too much of a cheap ass to get Overlord speed get a Overseer, but tbh, you're better off getting overlord speed.
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What kind of scouting does Protoss have that Z doesn't? Before T2 all we have is the option to research hallu, which finishes researching around the time t2 is achieved anyway (significantly reducing our ability to defend a push on our expo, esp if we're going 3 gate expo) and probe scouting.
Terrans scan is good but sacrifices a mule and then they can't scout until T2 as well... Having vie speed at t1 would be retiredly overpowered. Z would always know everything about the enemy on big maps too.
Seriously, what are we complaining about here? Seems to me you zerg players want to have the cake and eat it too...
Edit: Not to mention that a good z will keep their scout drone in the toss' base forever. Not being able to deny early scouting is a bitch. Meanwhile Toss is left blind for awhile thanks to lings/marines destroying probes so early on.
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On April 04 2011 19:52 Ethic wrote: Get overlord speed, Lair tech is not hard to get to and if you're build orders are fleshed out you can get Overlord speed by 6-7 minute mark.
If you're too much of a cheap ass to get Overlord speed get a Overseer, but tbh, you're better off getting overlord speed.
The 6-7 minute mark is far too late to be prepared for the things that take zerg by surprise (in fact, it's after you've already been attacked and lost the game for many builds), and you don't even know what time overlord speed usually finishes. Please don't comment if you have no idea what you're talking about.
On April 04 2011 20:07 Protein wrote: What kind of scouting does Protoss have that Z doesn't? Before T2 all we have is the option to research hallu, which finishes researching around the time t2 is achieved anyway (significantly reducing our ability to defend a push on our expo, esp if we're going 3 gate expo) and probe scouting.
Terrans scan is good but sacrifices a mule and then they can't scout until T2 as well...
Seriously, what are we complaining about here?
Reading the OP is not hard.
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On April 04 2011 19:31 5unrise wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 19:21 Thrombozyt wrote:On April 04 2011 19:09 5unrise wrote:On April 04 2011 19:04 Thrombozyt wrote:On April 04 2011 16:39 5unrise wrote: ....I think while it's unfortunate that a large part of this game is based on strategy as opposed to mechanic, which creates an element of luck, it is a random element that you can't really eliminate..... Am I the only one who thinks that this statement is as horrible wrong as it gets? An ideal real time strategy game would not require any mechanics but the games would be decided by your strategy, your decisions and your quick thinking. I realize, that the balancing would be harder, but just imagine a game where your creativity, decisiveness, strategical thinking and tactical instinct would be the deciding factor. If you think you need more mechanics, base mining speed of how fast you can tap a certain rhythm with your feet while playing... well okay, let me rephrase that: It is unfortunate that the error of choosing the wrong strategy is much more difficult to remedy with superior mechanics in this game. Happy? No an ideal real time strategy is just as much about mechanics as it is about strategy, otherwise you should go play a turn-based strategy game. Actually I'm not happy. It's a strategy game after all. If you pick an inferior strategy, you should turn it around by using tactical advantages. Being able to make bad decisions and win because you can click faster and more consistently isn't ideal. And a turn-based game would give you unlimited time to think your strategy over and changes how tactical advantages work. RTS would still be about seizing the moment - just with the better decisions opposed to the faster mouse. Mechanics =/= clicking faster, it's about what you click, where you click, game sense, knowing your build order, and clicking with coordination. It is generally what separates pros from people who mainly watches the game, know the strategies, and who simply don't practise enough to execute them well. By your logic, a random silver player who is mechanically awful yet understands high level play would be able to triumph over the likes of IdrA and Dimaga in a world where only pure strategy matters. He obviously plays less, devote less time (strategy is much easier to know than mastering mechanics), and has less game sense, yet you think he should deserve to win just as much?
I don't want to derail the thread too much, but a random silver player that comes up with a strategy that defeats the strategy of Idra or Dimaga and knows the tactical ins and outs of his strategy (e.g. how to disguise his intentions, what to scout for, how his strategy should react to his opponents strategy) should lose, because - dispite him being extremely creative and one step ahead throughout the game - he cannot click the buttons fast enough and precisely enough? Pro gamers will still have the advantage, because they will have seen more situations, where strategy X fails against strategy Y because of tactical circumstance Z.
I realize, that due to the interface, there are mechanical limits on the player and a player has to train his fingers to push the limits further so he can execute even more demanding strategies correctly or that his units actually react the way he wants them to. But I feel that an RTS game could only benefit, if the game responds to the players will with as little limits as possible and the thought that a game should be mechanically more demanding just to give a non-cerebral option to win despite poorer decisions is a bad idea.
@Dalavita: The mechanical part comes from the interface not from the real-time part. Real-time would still mean you could miss stuff that's in your vision for only a short time or make poor decisions because your are under too much pressure or surprised. You can make a turn-based game mechanically challenging, too by giving it a poorer interface - but that would obviously be stupid so it's not done.
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On April 04 2011 19:14 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 18:41 carbon_based wrote: zergs are treating big maps as an excuse to be as greedy as possible but really they should be treating them as opportunities to be as safe as possible.
This should be set in stone. Anyway. For some reason, Zergs want to have every aspect to be inclined of the game for their favor. Every one of you agrees that big maps do give you a significant advantage, so its only natural that they also give you a disatvantage. It seems to me that everything that denies the Zerg infinite drone greediness "unfair". Its just a well hidden balance cry and last time I checked this was discouraged here. I think that sharing ideas about how to scout or how to react to the limited information I have is totally nice and fruitfull. So why do you always have to make a cry thread?
I agree and I don't agree with you.
First of all, no race should have a certain type of map that they have all the advantages on. For example this map is large and has a huge middle, so I'm at an advantage at every point in this certain matchup.
But that is a map balance thing, that is more or less still being figured out. We can still see that mapmakers are experimenting with stuff, but that's a whole other topic.
The problem that I have with the forementioned things is the certain area where it gets harder for zerg.
In my opinion this game should be less off, hey you do X, and I do Y, and there isn't really a way for you to be sure so I just gained a huge advantage by actually doing it, or just the fact that it is a possibility.
And it is just that in the PvZ matchup you are just not allowed to make mistakes, and you have to react perfectly, or you are just gonna be behind or you will die.
I actually strongly advise protoss players to actually play zerg for some games, and actually try to come out ahead in the early to midgame with the limited scouting information you have on these maps. You either resort to coinflips and get lucky, and be in a good position (and yes there is stuff to keep in mind such as mindgames, things players have done in the past, but on ladder that isn't happening since you are very rarely playing the same player multiple times unless you are in that very top tier part of the ladder). Or you guess wrong and die, or you try to be safe against all the possibility's that are still open, and you are just doing a build that is just behind no matter what the protoss does.
And I know that I'm gonna get a lot of flak for this, but I actually feel like this is more a combination of 2 factors.
The well known 4gate, and zerg scouting coupled with how the race is played that leads to these situations.
a 4 gate is just such a hard build to beat, at just any level, unless you are 100% preparing for it you are just not gonna hold it. A lot of people are then saying, well just play safe dude! Well the problem again is, if you suspect 4 gate, but you don't know for sure yet, and you are starting to prepare for it, and it doesn't come in you are just way to far behind.
And at this stage of the game, I think we can all agree, that if you are behind, no matter what matchup it is, you are gonna have to do some crazy stuff to actually get ahead, how everything pans out, a couple of those advantages quickly snowball out of control into a big game-ending timing push.
And then there are the large amount of other things he could be doing, I'm not gonna go into all the possibility's, because everyone will know them at this point.
Also to add again, there is also a lot of scouting information that can be manipulated by protoss, by doing a slightly less effective build they can basicly trick zerg into thinking a certain build is incoming, and then ride out that advantage by either expanding or doing a certain push.
For example, the 4gate expand build of MC that he did against July.
I had it happen to myself, even in the other way (scouting the 4gate, him faking the 4gate perfectly, moving out at the correct time, and then just expanding, leaving me with a useless army and a economy that is shot).
When a protoss 3 gate expands in a normal way, I'm actually very happy, not because he's planning for a more longer game (usually, the 5/6gate option is still there), but now the MU hasn't gone to these guessing games, and I actually get a chance to scout, react and play on an even footing, and from that point on I actually feel like if I lose, I just got outplayed.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that PvZ is just a unwinnable matchup that is completly broken, far from it, as usual in starcraft2, the game isn't that imbalanced that you might as well leave when certain race X or build shows up like what has happened in other similar rts games.
But I do think that for a competitive game like this, the early game, and the way you go into the midgame can't just be decided by getting lucky, by just doing a certain build, or just doign a coinflip. And even if that is okay for some of you people here (since some people seem to think that the game should be decided by strategy alone, and I guess games that are decided by a cancelled building or just choosing a certain build is probably fun for them), The fact is that protoss just had the advantage in this early game, because they are the ones that decide the flow of the game, and they are the ones that actually decide what is gonna happen at that point, so they are actually the ones benefitting from it.
The worst that could happen to them is basicly that the zerg makes a lucky coinflip and they can stay on equal footing or get slightly ahead, or they can hold off the allin.
In the end, I just don't think the game should be decided on the forementioned points, but there should just be more to it then that. Maybe some people want to believe that they are outplaying their opponent by 4 gating (in one of those situations described above), but I just don't agree.
Also don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that toss should be nerfed to the ground completely, or zerg should get some silly way of scouting every pixel of the map in the early game.
As with ZvT maybe the matchup will just float towards a certain point where these things become less of an issue (ZvT can kinda be this way sometimes, but in the majority of games I would actually say it's one person outplaying the other, or just actually being to greedy, but the biggest offender in this, the reaper build has been nerfed), and maybe the ZvP matchup hasn't had enough time to get to that point yet (since the biggest troubles for ZvP have only arisen in the last couple of weeks).
But the first part of a processs like this, is actually agreeing that there are problems that need to be figured out/fixed, and that is basicly the thing that I am trying to explain, that the matchup has these problems in the early due to factors such as the scouting before lair tech.
But maybe I am wrong, I could be, but if you react to this post, do it in a constructed way, explaining why certain things are wrong, I have tried to put effort into writing up my thoughts, so don't reply with just a "lol imba whine, qq".
thanks
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Whenever I am against protoss, my plan is to stay alive through the early game so I make lots of speedlings,,, if he doesnt 4gate I can use those lings to keep map control and delay his first expansion and put him on the defense. I usually have enough time to pump out an extra queen if I see a void ray crossing the map as it will in most cases fly into an overlord or above my lings long before it arrives at my base. I am not afraid of void rays anymore. What I also do to make sure I get a drone in my enemys base is scouting at 9. Whatever few minerals I lose by scouting early is totally worth it imo.
Finally I have thumbed down Tal´Darim. Just cant stand ZvZ on that map.
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The main difference a lot of people don't seem to get is that even though perhaps f ex protoss cant scout any earlier than zerg can, they simply do not need it... Even risky builds can deal with almost anything zerg does, and if you play safe and standard you can for sure handle absolute anything untill hallucination or observer is done and you can react to your opponent.
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On April 04 2011 20:19 Thrombozyt wrote: You can make a turn-based game mechanically challenging, too by giving it a poorer interface - but that would obviously be stupid so it's not done.
Difference being that a turn based game wouldn't make a difference what your mechanics were, since you had all the time in the world to pull off what you needed to do. Mechanics are an aspect of RTS games only.
On April 04 2011 20:19 Thrombozyt wrote: I don't want to derail the thread too much, but a random silver player that comes up with a strategy that defeats the strategy of Idra or Dimaga and knows the tactical ins and outs of his strategy (e.g. how to disguise his intentions, what to scout for, how his strategy should react to his opponents strategy) should lose, because - dispite him being extremely creative and one step ahead throughout the game - he cannot click the buttons fast enough and precisely enough?
Yes, yes he should. He lacks the mechanics to perform what's needed, which is the skill part of the game.
It's like saying that people in CS if they work together to surround someone and he scores 4 head shots on all of them because he's godly at aiming is unfair.
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On April 04 2011 16:41 TanX wrote: Played on Typhon Peaks against a Terran as Zerg.
I spawned on the 11 O'clock position and he spawned on the 7 O'clock position - meaning that when I eventually scouted his base, I had to get my overlord all around the map in order to make sure that it arrived (as the ramp is placed along the edge that I would normally pass by - and the base layout means I would need a hero Ovie to have it survive long enough to scout anything placed in-base)... Meanwhile I kept Zerglings at his wall, constantly checking what he was doing. I could see a single rax from the front, of which he produced some marines.
He moved out with about 4 marines and positioned them as if he was about to lift his CC down to expand, so I kept scouting and droned a little while retaining a few larvas for lings or roaches. Then I sacrificed 2 Zerglings to run past his marines and into his base, scouting 3 rax MM, and in that same instant he moved out...
I don't know if you have tried that but it takes approximately 2 seconds for the Terran to arrive at your natural, horribly horribly destroying my defences with his MM force - I didn't really stand a chance - didn't even have enough time to get my first batch of roaches out, and at that time my spines were already gone. (I build x2 for defences when I early expo) Meanwhile, my Overlord wasn't even ready to move into his base to scout. (which would die to his marines anyway)
That made me kind of frustrated.
Hang on hang on. If you scouted with 2 zerglings, what's the problem? Just do that earlier.
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On April 04 2011 20:19 Thrombozyt wrote: I don't want to derail the thread too much, but a random silver player that comes up with a strategy that defeats the strategy of Idra or Dimaga and knows the tactical ins and outs of his strategy (e.g. how to disguise his intentions, what to scout for, how his strategy should react to his opponents strategy) should lose, because - dispite him being extremely creative and one step ahead throughout the game - he cannot click the buttons fast enough and precisely enough?
I don't know about should lose, he WILL lose. If he was good enough to come up with that strategy and execute it he wouldn't be in silver.
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What happened to Zergs liking large maps?
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On April 04 2011 20:38 Dalavita wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 20:19 Thrombozyt wrote: You can make a turn-based game mechanically challenging, too by giving it a poorer interface - but that would obviously be stupid so it's not done. Difference being that a turn based game wouldn't make a difference what your mechanics were, since you had all the time in the world to pull off what you needed to do. Mechanics are an aspect of RTS games only. Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 20:19 Thrombozyt wrote: I don't want to derail the thread too much, but a random silver player that comes up with a strategy that defeats the strategy of Idra or Dimaga and knows the tactical ins and outs of his strategy (e.g. how to disguise his intentions, what to scout for, how his strategy should react to his opponents strategy) should lose, because - dispite him being extremely creative and one step ahead throughout the game - he cannot click the buttons fast enough and precisely enough? Yes, yes he should. He lacks the mechanics to perform what's needed, which is the skill part of the game. It's like saying that people in CS if they work together to surround someone and he scores 4 head shots on all of them because he's godly at aiming is unfair.
I think we are talking about different stuff. In SC2 in it's current incarnation he will lose and probably also should lose because that's the way the game is. But you you have the choice of a starcraft game where mechanics do not limit you or a game where you need mechanics, would you prefer the later? Because my comments are about what the game should be in response to 5unrise's comment about how the game should have more mechanical barriers so that players can compensate poor decisions by better mechanics.
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On April 04 2011 19:52 Ethic wrote: Get overlord speed, Lair tech is not hard to get to and if you're build orders are fleshed out you can get Overlord speed by 6-7 minute mark.
If you're too much of a cheap ass to get Overlord speed get a Overseer, but tbh, you're better off getting overlord speed.
No way you are holding a 4 gate if you go for that quick Lair + OL speed
Losing when you constantly check the ramp and can't get OL to scout in time(~5:00-30 minutes), but still not being able to figure out what the T/P is doing and then he moves out and steamrolls you. That is the worst way to loose, and it happens a lot.
And to the people who says Zerg should just "play it safe". When zerg does that, we loose badly to eco builds.
I don't think the problem is that Zerg cant scout everything. But currently, the little intel a zerg can get, can result in so many different builds which require different responses( Air-/Groundtiming/Eco ).
Although Typhoon Peaks should be a good Zerg map. It's actually my worst map(think I got around 30% win rate on it(including mirror)), and I wouldn't be surprised if other Zerg has it as a weak map. Because often you don't get to scout what your opponent is doing before he moves out, and at that point it is to late.
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dont worry zergs always six pool me and i scout them last and it kills me on the big maps. its really not fair i feel the big maps invite so much more cheese than the other ones just because of how long it takes to scout.
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On April 04 2011 20:48 Thrombozyt wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 20:38 Dalavita wrote:On April 04 2011 20:19 Thrombozyt wrote: You can make a turn-based game mechanically challenging, too by giving it a poorer interface - but that would obviously be stupid so it's not done. Difference being that a turn based game wouldn't make a difference what your mechanics were, since you had all the time in the world to pull off what you needed to do. Mechanics are an aspect of RTS games only. On April 04 2011 20:19 Thrombozyt wrote: I don't want to derail the thread too much, but a random silver player that comes up with a strategy that defeats the strategy of Idra or Dimaga and knows the tactical ins and outs of his strategy (e.g. how to disguise his intentions, what to scout for, how his strategy should react to his opponents strategy) should lose, because - dispite him being extremely creative and one step ahead throughout the game - he cannot click the buttons fast enough and precisely enough? Yes, yes he should. He lacks the mechanics to perform what's needed, which is the skill part of the game. It's like saying that people in CS if they work together to surround someone and he scores 4 head shots on all of them because he's godly at aiming is unfair. I think we are talking about different stuff. In SC2 in it's current incarnation he will lose and probably also should lose because that's the way the game is. But you you have the choice of a starcraft game where mechanics do not limit you or a game where you need mechanics, would you prefer the later? Because my comments are about what the game should be in response to 5unrise's comment about how the game should have more mechanical barriers so that players can compensate poor decisions by better mechanics.
Well some times what you compensate for with mechanics is not even "poor decisions" but, rather, unlucky decisions or choices that you made with a guess because perfect scouting does not exist. In this situation, it is very easy for a bad player to beat a good one, especially against zerg, which is dependant on scouting, by denying scouting information, since all it takes is a wrong guess no matter how good the zerg is. It is nothing but luck, not even strategy. Given this situation, good players should have the option of falling back onto mechanics to produce a comeback.
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You need good decisions and good mechanics for this game. One does not compensate for the other; they are entwined.
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On April 04 2011 20:48 Thrombozyt wrote: I think we are talking about different stuff. In SC2 in it's current incarnation he will lose and probably also should lose because that's the way the game is. But you you have the choice of a starcraft game where mechanics do not limit you or a game where you need mechanics, would you prefer the later? Because my comments are about what the game should be in response to 5unrise's comment about how the game should have more mechanical barriers so that players can compensate poor decisions by better mechanics.
I would definitively take the game that requires good mechanics and has the strategical depth over one that only requires strategy to pull off.
Seeing MKP pull off a marine split against mass banes while sniping overlord drops and doing multi pronged attacks with medivacs is impressive because you know how hard it is to pull off, on top of it being a strategical genius play. Also, players who develop excellent mechanics also open up new strategic play because of what they can do with their units. Just like SC1 was an impressive game because it was hard to pull off, on top of people doing genius plays, SC2 follows in its footsteps.
The mechanics are simplified enough that I don't think anyone could complain about them.
On April 04 2011 20:50 Ichobicho wrote: Losing when you constantly check the ramp and can't get OL to scout in time(~5:00-30 minutes), but still not being able to figure out what the T/P is doing and then he moves out and steamrolls you. That is the worst way to loose, and it happens a lot.
Please. You can spot a potential 4gate way before your worker gets killed off. 1 gas? cyber after gateway? Stalker as the second unit produced? Saved up chrono boosts for the cyber?
It's probably a 4gate. Hell, zergs have the additional advantage where they can grab an extractor to either force a build, or delay the death of their drone and get additional scouting.
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On April 04 2011 16:10 Zerokaiser wrote: Good luck getting an overlord in my base!
Get overlord speed.
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On April 04 2011 21:05 Striding Strider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:10 Zerokaiser wrote: Good luck getting an overlord in my base! Get overlord speed.
Yeah, waste 200 gas before the 6-min mark on lair and OL speed just so you can know that you are going to die to a 4gate, since you teched so early.
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If you got vision on the xel naga towers you could also snipe the probe coming out to put the pylon down with lings, at that point he won't have to many units and won't kill enough of your lings but it'll delay him greatly and show off the 4gate.
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On April 04 2011 21:05 Dalavita wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 20:50 Ichobicho wrote: Losing when you constantly check the ramp and can't get OL to scout in time(~5:00-30 minutes), but still not being able to figure out what the T/P is doing and then he moves out and steamrolls you. That is the worst way to loose, and it happens a lot. Please. You can spot a potential 4gate way before your worker gets killed off. 1 gas? cyber after gateway? Stalker as the second unit produced? Saved up chrono boosts for the cyber? It's probably a 4gate. Hell, zergs have the additional advantage where they can grab an extractor to either force a build, or delay the death of their drone and get additional scouting.
1. It's not hard to not show the Stalker / 1 Stalkers. It can still be a FE or Air(air is rare tho). But 1 stalkers hints at it yes. 2. saved up chrono for cyber is not the only way to do a 4 gate. And most don't do it that way cause it's obvious what they are doing. Why would they show you they are 4 gateing 3 minutes into the game? 3. Rarely does P go anything but Cyber after GW(if it's GW first). I'm sorry but saying Cyber after GW hints at 4gate just makes me doubt your whole post. Cyber after GW tells you it's not some Mass Zealot cheese. 4. I don't want to grab an extractor. I need the probe for extra eco (which is important even against a 4 gate). Stealing the gas can result in the Stalkers/zealot 4gate which is one of the worst 4 gates, it can also be 3gate forge expand, so you cant mass army. 5. there are plenty of 4gates which uses 2 gas.
I can spot a potential 4gate. The problem is that in many cases it can also be a potential FE. If I go mass Eco I loose to 4 gate, mass defense I loose to FE. If I go for something balanced, it can still be hard to hold the 4 gate.
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On April 04 2011 21:05 Dalavita wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 20:48 Thrombozyt wrote: I think we are talking about different stuff. In SC2 in it's current incarnation he will lose and probably also should lose because that's the way the game is. But you you have the choice of a starcraft game where mechanics do not limit you or a game where you need mechanics, would you prefer the later? Because my comments are about what the game should be in response to 5unrise's comment about how the game should have more mechanical barriers so that players can compensate poor decisions by better mechanics. I would definitively take the game that requires good mechanics and has the strategical depth over one that only requires strategy to pull off. Seeing MKP pull off a marine split against mass banes while sniping overlord drops and doing multi pronged attacks with medivacs is impressive because you know how hard it is to pull off, on top of it being a strategical genius play. Also, players who develop excellent mechanics also open up new strategic play because of what they can do with their units. Just like SC1 was an impressive game because it was hard to pull off, on top of people doing genius plays, SC2 follows in its footsteps. The mechanics are simplified enough that I don't think anyone could complain about them. Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 20:50 Ichobicho wrote: Losing when you constantly check the ramp and can't get OL to scout in time(~5:00-30 minutes), but still not being able to figure out what the T/P is doing and then he moves out and steamrolls you. That is the worst way to loose, and it happens a lot. Please. You can spot a potential 4gate way before your worker gets killed off. 1 gas? cyber after gateway? Stalker as the second unit produced? Saved up chrono boosts for the cyber? It's probably a 4gate. Hell, zergs have the additional advantage where they can grab an extractor to either force a build, or delay the death of their drone and get additional scouting.
See my earlier post.
Let's assume for this situation the overlord didn't reach the base in time, or it suicided, but 1 gate was hidden, but I have this information that you just described. it just comes down to what the protoss decides to (you could make some arguments for the extractor trick, but if the game is balanced around getting the extractor off, it's just silly. Hell protoss could just take the extractor slightly earlier, maybe not mine it, or maybe stop mining when the probe is dead etc).
It isn't hard for protoss to just expand at that point or go for a 3gate stargate play or whatever (just like huk did in the shakuras game vs Idra in mlg last night).
Do I prepare for the 4gate, and be behind if he doesn't do it? Because he can still move out with his intitial units to snipe the lings to pretend it's a 4gate
Do I decide to not prepare for the 4gate? Trying to get ahead if he expands or preparing for one of the other builds he does, but if he 4gates I just die anyway?
Or do I a bit of everything? With as result that I am behind if he expo's or I still die to the 4gate?
That is the whole point, this isn't a smart strategical decision, it's just a coinflip, and if I decide right, I am ahead, in all other cases I am dead.
And the game is just decided on either player just picking a certain build, and then just deciding the game upon that.
Refer to my earlier post where I explain it more, but this is just the whole point that everyone is trying to make here.
edit: Basicly the same that the person above said.
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On April 04 2011 20:50 leadphyc wrote: dont worry zergs always six pool me and i scout them last and it kills me on the big maps. its really not fair i feel the big maps invite so much more cheese than the other ones just because of how long it takes to scout.
Even if you dont scout a 6 pool you can just wall with an extra gate why you get your first zeal chronod, or learn to micro probes.
Zerg chooses to defend allins and lose to econ builds, or win econ and lose to allins. Protoss will be slightly behind if his allin fails or outright win.
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even if you`re not able to enter the enemys base on larger maps, due to any kind of block, the distance is what makes my zerg love the big maps. If the walking distance is that big, that it takes the enemy more time to come to you then a hatching-cycle takes, zerg is in a comfortable position. Even if you can`t scout, I feel kinda safe and can react properly when the toss or terran moves out. Until that moment you just need an army big enough to defend any kind of harrasment and prepare yourself for multiple scenarios.
I prefer playing drone heavy and expand as soon as possible. When I can`t scout my opponent, I get some anti air (extra queens, spores or hydra den), add the roach warren, zergling speed or/and get the banelings nest. During this time it is extremly important to drone up and make sure you have enough supply to pump out as many (counter)units as possible. If necessary morph spines.
On smaller maps I might get the chance to scout my opponent earlier and keep my drone in his base, but any good player will kill the scout before placing a secret telling structure. Real gosu players might even trick you and place a building, then kill your scout and cancel the building afterwards. Thats why i prefer the larger maps and scout the actual army when my enemy walks out his gates.
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This problem is not exclusive to zerg. All three races have terrible scouting during the point in the game when knowing what your opponent is doing is most important.
Blizz should make these changes imo:
- Scan/mule cost 25 energy. scans and mules last half as long. orbitals start with 25 energy. - Observers can be build out of the nexus, requiring a cybernetics core. - Overlord speed changed to hatch tech and costs 50/50.
This would mean that there would be a lot less coinflip guessing game builds, and people would be more inclinced to do safe, reliable builds.
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I don't think Zerg's are having any more trouble defending/scouting all ins anymore than T/P. eg) I scan and see that he got his baneling nest right after his lair. I think that the next aggression I will see will be from his mutalisks, I add another barack's to my wall only to be greeted by ~10 banelings who blast their way through. gg.
Every race can lose games because of not scouting. If you are blind, you should take extra measures towards not losing to something he could be doing. TL;DR: Make a spinecrawler/extra lings.
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On April 04 2011 23:00 Xolo wrote: This problem is not exclusive to zerg. All three races have terrible scouting during the point in the game when knowing what your opponent is doing is most important.
Blizz should make these changes imo:
- Scan/mule cost 25 energy. scans and mules last half as long. orbitals start with 25 energy. - Observers can be build out of the nexus, requiring a cybernetics core. - Overlord speed changed to hatch tech and costs 50/50.
This would mean that there would be a lot less coinflip guessing game builds, and people would be more inclinced to do safe, reliable builds. Well thats a start but these changes bring problems except the overlord one,Orbital starting with 25 energy would be quite a hit to terran early game and would make terran immune to any kind of stealth unit, protoss one would give protoss to much freedom to abuse their 4 gates and 6 gates without getting so punished for it.I honestly can`t find anything wrong with the zerg one and i play terran. SC2 shouldn`t be about guessing games.
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Early overlord speed wouldnt set you back very much.
Because you use the overlord speed to constantly know what the other player is doing, you will be able to drone extremely efficiently.
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On April 04 2011 23:15 Techno wrote: Early overlord speed wouldnt set you back very much.
Because you use the overlord speed to constantly know what the other player is doing, you will be able to drone extremely efficiently. You just die to 4gates and the likes if you get it,zerg has a very calculated way to beat these builds without getting behind and you just can`t come up ahead if you just spend 250/200 in a tech that will just tell you which build you`re dying too. Its useful in the late game but it doesn`t solve the issues zerg has in the early game.
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On April 04 2011 16:53 JDub wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:41 TanX wrote: Played on Typhon Peaks against a Terran as Zerg.
I spawned on the 11 O'clock position and he spawned on the 7 O'clock position - meaning that when I eventually scouted his base, I had to get my overlord all around the map in order to make sure that it arrived (as the ramp is placed along the edge that I would normally pass by - and the base layout means I would need a hero Ovie to have it survive long enough to scout anything placed in-base)... Meanwhile I kept Zerglings at his wall, constantly checking what he was doing. I could see a single rax from the front, of which he produced some marines.
He moved out with about 4 marines and positioned them as if he was about to lift his CC down to expand, so I kept scouting and droned a little while retaining a few larvas for lings or roaches. Then I sacrificed 2 Zerglings to run past his marines and into his base, scouting 3 rax MM, and in that same instant he moved out...
I don't know if you have tried that but it takes approximately 2 seconds for the Terran to arrive at your natural, horribly horribly destroying my defences with his MM force - I didn't really stand a chance - didn't even have enough time to get my first batch of roaches out, and at that time my spines were already gone. (I build x2 for defences when I early expo) Meanwhile, my Overlord wasn't even ready to move into his base to scout. (which would die to his marines anyway)
That made me kind of frustrated. I'm sure this can be frustrating, but you can't really blame the loss on anything but yourself. Given those positions, you should be able to have an ovy scouting his natural to see if he is actually floating a CC over there. If you don't see a CC, you can't just sit back and relax and drone up. Until you confirm that he is expanding, you're not safe. One thing you could have done is produced more lings. If he IS expanding, you can deny the expo with your lings for a little bit, until he has enough marines to force you to back away. If you see 4 marines move down the ramp alone, and you have 12-16 lings, you can just surround and kill them. And if he is just hiding a 3 rax, now you have more lings which you can defend with.
I never build that many lings if I don't expect aggression.
I scouted with about 2 lings (only build a set to scout his base and another set to take watchtowers) and ran around peeping in and out of his expo... when I didn't see the CCC for a few seconds I ran in with the zerglings into his base and scouted the 3 rax.
THEN I started massing units... I never ever ever mass units without having to use them, if I did mass units blindly I would be far behind in ECO if he went fast expo and would then have to do an all-in speedling push to deny his expo.
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I think making scouting easier (for every race) is akin to curing s fractured knee by cutting off the whole leg. The game should have a certain degree of uncertainty, at all stages of the game. One player trying to scout, and the other trying to deny scouting, is an interesting dynamic that increases the skill-cap, and should stay in the game.
That said, each race should be capable of playing safe without falling behind in economy/tech vs a player who isn't greedy. PvT is like that to an extent in SC2. Both races have builds that allow them to deflect any heavy aggression or cheesy tech play (banshees/DTs/Thor rush etc) while still keeping a good economy up and taking an expansion at a reasonable timing. Both of them can also get greedy (1 rax no gas expand and 1 gate no gas expand or Nexus first) in order to secure an early lead, and both can get punished for it in various ways. This, in my opinion, is the way it should work.
So, as I see it, the problem with Zerg isn't so much that they can't scout well enough, but that they have no "safe" builds that can deal with everything up to a certain point without sacrificing a lot of economy. Whether this is inherent, and such builds simply do not exist, or if Zergs simply haven't found them yet, I'm not sure. Some options are pretty obvious and are already being implemented, like getting an early third Queen/evo chamber to counteract possible Stargate play, or a Spinecrawler at the natural to deflect any surprise Hellions.
So, I would very much prefer to see this problem as a result of general bad design of Zerg, rather than scouting inadequacy.
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Protoss used to have more trouble scouting than they do currently. Then Blizzard made it cheaper and/or faster to get out Phoenixes or Observers, or to research Hallucination.
I think the fix for Zerg should be similarly straightforward--easier access to the Overlord speed upgrade.
If Overlord speed was, instead of 100/100 and 60 seconds, something like 50/50 and 40 seconds and came from the hatchery, it would make it much easier to fit it into a build in such a way that players could get it early enough that it could help with scouting in the early game without being too much of an economic setback.
Now, detection still wouldn't come until lair tech--but the faster overlords would at least give Zerg players enough time to scout enough to know they are going to need detection, and react to it before they are being abused cloaked enemies.
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This complaint happens a lot, and I'm still bewildered by it.
Can't you just Queen/Drone --> Spines @ 6:00 with a spore @ 7:00 (to block DT if your opponent hasn't already revealed his hand), and then flood with Speedlings or Roaches against pretty much any PvZ opening? Obviously as soon as Protoss expands you can tech up and cut back on unit production.
Against Terran it's more annoying since Cloaked Banshees force better detection coverage, but Terran has obvious tells for whether or not they're teching.
EDIT: On a lot of maps you can reliably gas steal your opponent, drastically reducing the realm of possible builds.
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I've been playing with Spanishiwa's build for the past week and it's surprisingly and amazingly good. It fends off early pressure so well that he uses it exclusively in ZvX matchups.
If you're skeptical, check out his thread, watch some replays, and try it out, because as skeptical as I was, as I began to practice with it and watched his stream, I started to see how strong it was.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=207017
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This is one of the main reasons why I start hating this game so effin much. Typhon peaks if the perfect example. If I don't have an overlord nearby the protoss' base at 4:45 it is IMPOSSIBLE to tell what he's doing and I have to admit that I really hate guessing. If I try to prepare for kind of everything - get roaches, spores, not too many drones, not too many units - then I'm already behind no matter what he's doing.
Super large maps are also imbalanced, because you dont get more income from having more bases (thanks LaLush for pointing this out) thus the race with the most cost efficient unit (Protoss) will be overpowered.
Short rush distances also suck for obvious reasons. You're hugely behind just because you spawned close position on meta.
IdrA has been saying it for months now. Overlord speed needs to be hatch tech and cost 50 50.
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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.
the difference is zerg has nothing that makes you insta-lose if not scouted in that window, so you don't really have to worry too much.
I definitely feel the pain on this, generally making extra queens/spines for safety sake until I can puzzle out what they are doing...
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Flying an overlord into a base usually covers it. Even if I see it coming usually it will see the main part of my base before marines can be positioned to take it out. I think the real problem for you is that you don't know what to look for when you scout. As terran scouting a protoss I check gas timings and energy on the nexus to tell me what build he's doing. Wasting a scan early on and hoping i hit the right part of his base isn't what you want to do so you look for other tells. Also on bigger maps like Tal'darim you have map control early game vs terran with a couple lings so just take the towers which would allow you to react before a scv marine allin (Unless its super early which is not the type of scouting you can do as any race it's just a micro battle.)
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On April 05 2011 00:37 Severedevil wrote: This complaint happens a lot, and I'm still bewildered by it.
Can't you just Queen/Drone --> Spines @ 6:00 with a spore @ 7:00 (to block DT if your opponent hasn't already revealed his hand), and then flood with Speedlings or Roaches against pretty much any PvZ opening? Obviously as soon as Protoss expands you can tech up and cut back on unit production.
Against Terran it's more annoying since Cloaked Banshees force better detection coverage, but Terran has obvious tells for whether or not they're teching.
EDIT: On a lot of maps you can reliably gas steal your opponent, drastically reducing the realm of possible builds.
No, you can't.
It's real nice that you got a spore for AA and detection back at home, but that won't help you with your attack :/ In case you didn't know. 1 zealot > any realistic number of zerglings. 1 vray/DT > any realsitic number of roaches. 1 Sentry -> enough time to get vrays/DTs/a big enough army out.
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not saying this is super easy to pull of but combined knowledge of how many bases they are on plus how many gases they have, peak with overlords around the back really limits it to 1-2 builds, assuming you know the timings and whatnot also sacking an ovie at the right time has like a 75% chance of yielding results that let you prepare.
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On April 05 2011 00:37 Severedevil wrote: This complaint happens a lot, and I'm still bewildered by it.
Can't you just Queen/Drone --> Spines @ 6:00 with a spore @ 7:00 (to block DT if your opponent hasn't already revealed his hand), and then flood with Speedlings or Roaches against pretty much any PvZ opening? Obviously as soon as Protoss expands you can tech up and cut back on unit production. .
If you queen/drone till the 6minute mark you are dead by the 4gate easy peasy. Personally Air is not that much of a problem for me as I like early upgrades, which will in return give me fast detection (spore crawlers).
Try flooding a protoss with Zerglings and roaches, only to have him let a few in between the forcefield. Try flooding a 1 base Terran which has invested more in army than you have cause you've gone with eco (2 bases) Try flooding a Protoss who already is killing your nat Try flooding a, I can make quite alot more of theese. Flooding is just a bad idea, 2 base against 1 base that early.
If you mean simply just building a lot of units after X amount of time, this doesnt work. As 4 gate or eco build will own you most of the time if you balance it just slightly wrong.
am I not suppose to tech up against a 1 base colo, or 1 base double starport. What?
On April 05 2011 00:37 Severedevil wrote:n. Terran has obvious tells for whether or not they're teching. . I'm sorry what? How can you possible tell what the Terran is doing if he has a supply depot and a barrack on the bottom of his ramp? You can't. (ye okey, you can on some maps, but only a few where you can scout at the right time, and you can always miss the buildings) Same goes for any kind of wall in. That is of course unless the Terran doesn't play mind games and just has what he is teching to standing by the ramp, which most high players will not do.
On April 04 2011 23:35 Toadvine wrote: So, as I see it, the problem with Zerg isn't so much that they can't scout well enough, but that they have no "safe" builds that can deal with everything up to a certain point without sacrificing a lot of economy. Whether this is inherent, and such builds simply do not exist, or if Zergs simply haven't found them yet, I'm not sure. Some options are pretty obvious and are already being implemented, like getting an early third Queen/evo chamber to counteract possible Stargate play, or a Spinecrawler at the natural to deflect any surprise Hellions.
I think this is actually spot on. Giving Zerg easy scouting might not be a good idea, there should always be some randomness. But ZvP can often feel like "If he's not doing X(4gate/FE/other) now, I'm dead)". And I'd be ok with that if Protoss felt somehow the same way, but they don't.
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On April 05 2011 01:00 decaf wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 00:37 Severedevil wrote: This complaint happens a lot, and I'm still bewildered by it.
Can't you just Queen/Drone --> Spines @ 6:00 with a spore @ 7:00 (to block DT if your opponent hasn't already revealed his hand), and then flood with Speedlings or Roaches against pretty much any PvZ opening? Obviously as soon as Protoss expands you can tech up and cut back on unit production.
Against Terran it's more annoying since Cloaked Banshees force better detection coverage, but Terran has obvious tells for whether or not they're teching.
EDIT: On a lot of maps you can reliably gas steal your opponent, drastically reducing the realm of possible builds. No, you can't. It's real nice that you got a spore for AA and detection back at home, but that won't help you with your attack :/ In case you didn't know. 1 zealot > any realistic number of zerglings. 1 vray/DT > any realsitic number of roaches. 1 Sentry -> enough time to get vrays/DTs/a big enough army out. ???
This is a high-econ defensive play. You're not trying to break the Protoss's main, you're trying to safely acquire two saturated bases.
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On April 05 2011 01:15 Severedevil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 01:00 decaf wrote:On April 05 2011 00:37 Severedevil wrote: This complaint happens a lot, and I'm still bewildered by it.
Can't you just Queen/Drone --> Spines @ 6:00 with a spore @ 7:00 (to block DT if your opponent hasn't already revealed his hand), and then flood with Speedlings or Roaches against pretty much any PvZ opening? Obviously as soon as Protoss expands you can tech up and cut back on unit production.
Against Terran it's more annoying since Cloaked Banshees force better detection coverage, but Terran has obvious tells for whether or not they're teching.
EDIT: On a lot of maps you can reliably gas steal your opponent, drastically reducing the realm of possible builds. No, you can't. It's real nice that you got a spore for AA and detection back at home, but that won't help you with your attack :/ In case you didn't know. 1 zealot > any realistic number of zerglings. 1 vray/DT > any realsitic number of roaches. 1 Sentry -> enough time to get vrays/DTs/a big enough army out. ??? This is a high-econ defensive play. You're not trying to break the Protoss's main, you're trying to safely acquire two saturated bases.
making only army at one point in the game is not high econ defensive play. It's High econ play into High defensive play(were you will loose having the best econ eventually).
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A four gate can hit earlier than 6.00 and kill you if you didn't spot the pylon in time.
Or you might spot four gates early, pump units, and find your opponent kept making probes and did a fairly high eco four-gate, which eventually just overpowers you.
Or they can make four gates, let you scout it, cancel one and expand.
It's a really fine line. Mind games are very strong against zerg, even at a pro level (cancel nexus into sentry heavy four gate!).
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Protoss are really the only race that purely benefits from large maps. And I say this as Toss.
Zerg love to take lots of bases and macro up. But there are a boatload of 2 and even 3 base timing pushes that Terran and Toss can execute that are nightmarishly hard for Zergs to survive. A lot of "macro" maps have a setup whereby it is very, very easy to get to 3 bases, and becomes progressively more difficult after that. This lets Terran and Toss FE with impunity and execute nasty, nasty timing pushes every time. Shakuras Plateau, especially in its old incarnation, fell victim to this syndrome a lot.
In addition, there is, as you say, the scouting issue which is worse for Zerg than for anyone else.
A lot of popular Terran builds aren't terribly strong in the lategame, so unless they're executing a specific timing push like I outlined above, they'll lose a macro game against Z or P. Now, I don't know that this is necessarily intrinsic to the race, as there are some Terran who have success with an econ-oriented macro strat, but they're rare and I think most Terrans aren't at all used to playing that way. Bigger maps therefore can push a lot of Terrans to just focus on timing pushes, which become predictable and eventually counterable.
Mutas are also a horrific nightmare for Terran to try to deal with on huge maps, because until you have a few Thors up there's no real way to execute a major push without losing all your workers to muta harassment.
Protoss, IMO, have it easier and easier the bigger maps get, for a few reasons:
1.) Warp gates. Distance is a non-factor to most of the Protoss army. This cannot be overstated. Long rush distances mean something to Terran and Zerg--they introduce a sizable defender's advantage. terran can push out, Zerg will see what's comign and will have time to pump out a ton of units to help deal with it. But one pylon can go down, and suddenly Toss has an army at your door and can continuously reinforce it. Simply put, expanding map distance makes attacking much harder for two of the races than it does for the third.
2.) The deathball. Terran don't want to let Zerg macro up, and Zerg don't want to let Terran execute a number of their nastiest timing pushes. But nobody wants to let Protoss build their deathball. If you have a map that just lets each side macro and tech up for a while to their heart's content, it makes it very easy for Protoss to build an unstable lasertoss army that will melt anything else in the game. At that point, it doesn't matter if Zerg is 2 bases ahead, nothing they can throw at the Protoss will stop them--especially if, as many Protoss do, the P builds a bunch of extra gateways so they can instantly remax and reinforce with warp-in cycles of 10+ units.
3.) Blink and cliffwalking. Nearly every big map has a decent number of cliffs dividing it up, which artifically expands the length by forcing units to choose roundabout routes. Unless, that is, you have a way to bypass cliffs completely. Which Protoss do for two of their most important staple units--Stalkers and Colossi. This makes the Protoss deathball vastly more mobile than, say, a Terran mech army (Terran bio is really mobile, but melts to Colossi). Terran do have reapers--but stalkers and colossi are actual threats and used all the time in every matchup, whereas reapers are scouts/harassers and not used much.
4.) Phoenixes and Void Rays. Every Zerg knows what a nightmare it is trying to wrest air superiority away from a Toss who has committed to Stargate play, and a strong Phoenix/Void Ray composition can be incredibly fast and mobile, and capable of dishing out huge dps. Zerg have something like this in ZvT in their muta death flocks, but Toss are less vulnerable to that. Terran really only have banshee cheese, as despite Vikings' incredible effectiveness as air superiority fighters they are too slow and vulnerable to stalkers to be allowed to fly around without ground army support.
These 4 factors mean that the bigger the map, the deadlier Protoss becomes in a way that is not true for T or Z.
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I don't think many players are scouting properly as zerg, just because we have overlords doesn't mean that we should rely on them solely and if we can't do what we need to (due to lots of ground/ease to snipe) then we should just give up. A couple of lings outside the base(1 at nat, one right outside typical vision of ramp so they don't just poke out kill your scout ling then retreat back up)
We're just throwing our hands in the air and saying "well shit, i can't beat 4gate". Why not do a variation of 7RR as typical vP? Save that 100gas you'd be spending on ling speed and spend it on something else. A protoss will be all too happy on 4gate 1 gas to just make zealots to take out slings. A small group of 8-10 lings will be more than happy to distract a couple of stalkers while the roaches take out the zealots - all the while the spine crawler is poking people with a stick. Is it the perfect solution to a perfectly executed 4gate? I don't know, but it helps me beat diamond protoss 4gaters.
As a race, we're falling into a rut and just giving up because the "most efficient build" isn't always working. Guess what, once 4gate doesn't 100% work anymore because zerg found a safe build to use, I'm sure the standard protoss will change (and god help me not break a monitor if it goes into phoenix harass)
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These 4 factors mean that the bigger the map, the deadlier Protoss becomes in a way that is not true for T or Z.
Yeah, that.
Increasing the map size was almost entirely an attempt to help Zerg out to survive against Terran one-base and even two-base all-in style play, and to some extent Protoss one-base play, as well as protect Protoss from Terran one-base play.
But alongside that, Protoss players became very adept at expanding safely against both Protoss and Zerg, while macro Terran builds are difficult to be both safe and economical. Watching a Terran with a CC in base bunkering up in fear of 3-gate expanding Protoss exerting a heavy contain lately is really eye opening. And Protoss lategame is very scary for everyone.
So now we're in an awkward situation where Terran really struggles to put much pressure on Zerg on the huge maps, and where Protoss can indiscriminately expand without much fear of reprisal. And even if Protoss doesn't make use of its attacking power, the fact they could limits the builds from Terran (and to some extent Zerg), much like the threat of cloaked banshees forces an earlyish robo from Protoss, even if no starport is ever made.
I don't really know if macro-Terran has been properly explored in ZvT, as frankly there was never much need to on smaller maps. But ZvP and TvP on large maps is certainly much more favourable to Protoss than it is on small maps.
(Whether all that is okay and balanced, I don't know, but making larger maps to help out Zerg against T has really had some serious unintended consequences in my opinion.)
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If you've already decided that Zerg can't do anything, the problem is you.
Queen/Spine/Drone will not be broken by a frontal assault or an aerial assault. One base Terran or Protoss will not economically overpower a two-base Zerg who is pumping drones. If your opponent insists on one-basing, he will have to all-in and you will win. If your opponent expands, you can tech and there isn't a problem.
Go pester Spanishwa in his thread if you don't think Zerg can open high econ defensive on two bases.
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It´s mostly about timing. Do you not see the protoss put up an expansion at 5:50-6:10? Start building units. Does he move out? If he doesn´t have a huge army to attack you, you get an evo chamber, one spore per base, on some maps one good positioned spore is enough to handle dts (around 7-7:30 depending on build, sentry or no sentry). Then get additional queens all while droning hard, after one additional queen at your main get lair and be prepared for air. If he hasn´t expoed by now it´s a big all in and you should go pure units at this point.
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Here is a simple solution that every Zerg should do against toss. Try scouting with a drone. There is no way a toss can kill a drone b4 the first ranged unit comes out. Unless he walls off completely, he cannot stop you from getting information.
Then you might say well this doesn't help because he hasn't thrown down the 3 extra gates or the Stargate until the first stalker appears. Well I will tell you just steal a gas. If he is going Stargate play, then you just successfully stalled it. If he is FEing on sentries and zealots, you just stalled it. If he is 4gating, you will know because you can always cancel the drone and scout. Stealing gas is powerful, use it.
I personally do it against Terran because some early tank and banshees 1base all-ins are difficult for me to handle. It is by far the simplest solution.
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Zerg scouting is obviously a problem but I think hatchery tech overlord speed upgrades would make zerg scouting way too easy unless they modify the upgrade speed
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I think a bigger issue with the large maps is that they more easily allow for all races to max out easily, which hurts Zerg in a disproportionate way. A maxed Protoss especially is pretty much invincible, but a maxed Zerg isn't nearly as big of a threat. Even if a deathball is scouted, Zerg still has a pretty high chance of losing in the late-game.
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Zergs biggest problem is it has no early units that are multi roll in nature thus making them very susceptible to build order losses
Terran Has the marine which is both high DPS and more importantly has range 5 and can shoot up. If you build a few of these at the start of the game + the added bonus of free bunkers, wall ins and the ComSat Scan makes it almost impervious to build order losses.
Protoss
Has the Stalker which has good health reasonable damage, range 6, shoot up and high mobility. While it comes out a little later than the marine its still a very good all round unit. The only thing Protoss has to worry about is Bancheese from Terran, hence most Protoss players go for a Robo early to get the all important Observer out . Also Sentries are an amazing unit as we all know
Hallucinated Phoenix is also available if the player is worried about checking out the opponent early.
Zerg
No race struggles with Balance more than this one. One dimensional units are its greatest curse. Whenever there is balance issue in this game its almost always Zerg related
It has no multi role unit until Hydras mid game, no ability to block off its ramp and no fast scouting methods early on unlike the other races.
I really do think Blizzard should just bite the bullet and make a massive change to this race to prevent coin-flip early game.Either:- 1/ Improve Queen into a viable unit for defence 2/ Swap Hydra with Roach in Tech Tree ( adjust cost/ unit strength) 3/ Make Spine crawlers multi roll with better build times and rooting times This has all been hashed over in many posts in the past and tbh I don't think anything will be done about it. I really do think Zerg is currently a poorly designed race in its current state
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On April 04 2011 21:23 Ichobicho wrote: 1. It's not hard to not show the Stalker / 1 Stalkers. It can still be a FE or Air(air is rare tho). But 1 stalkers hints at it yes. 2. saved up chrono for cyber is not the only way to do a 4 gate. And most don't do it that way cause it's obvious what they are doing. Why would they show you they are 4 gateing 3 minutes into the game? 3. Rarely does P go anything but Cyber after GW(if it's GW first). I'm sorry but saying Cyber after GW hints at 4gate just makes me doubt your whole post. Cyber after GW tells you it's not some Mass Zealot cheese. 4. I don't want to grab an extractor. I need the probe for extra eco (which is important even against a 4 gate). Stealing the gas can result in the Stalkers/zealot 4gate which is one of the worst 4 gates, it can also be 3gate forge expand, so you cant mass army. 5. there are plenty of 4gates which uses 2 gas.
I can spot a potential 4gate. The problem is that in many cases it can also be a potential FE. If I go mass Eco I loose to 4 gate, mass defense I loose to FE. If I go for something balanced, it can still be hard to hold the 4 gate.
1. It's impossible not to show either a stalker or a sentry, as your worker is faster than the zealot, and losing your worker before a ranged unit can kill it off simply means you sucked and should micro better.
2. Non-saved up chrono for a cyber means delayed 4 gate, the less time that passes, the weaker it gets, and the more your expansion and drone count kicks in. The whole purpose of the 4gate is to do it as fast as possible and abuse the massive army you're going to throw at an opponent who's underprepared.
3. Obviously. It's all part of the same build tho and not as binary as CY after GW = 4gate. One gas, saved up chronos, CY after GW, Stalker as second unit, chrono boosts on the CY and instant warp in research will indicate the 4gate enough that you should prepare for it.
4. Whatever. Grabbing an extractor is one way of doing it. If you don't want to do it, then don't. That also means you have to get your probe out before the stalker comes out which is lost scouting for you. That one probe mining for two minutes isn't going to be the difference of you holding a 4gate or not.
5. And they're all lower economy than your standard 4gate. You should never cross out a rush just because it's delayed, but it also means that if it comes, it's going to be weaker. And how can you not scout the FE? A 4gate will come at around 6 minutes in, have a ling at his natural and check for the expansion around 4-5 minutes. Anything else can't be called a FE.
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There's a reason why the best Zerg in the world is nicknamed the detective Zerg. NesTea just has a knack for figuring out what crazy cheeses are coming. Going into the game with "What the hell are they going to try to do to me" at the forefront of your mind is the correct way to play Zerg I think. For the first 10 minutes of every game I try to play detective as well since those are the minutes that give me the most trouble. If you can't scout their base, you just have to make educated guesses through experience and play safe. Getting an evo chamber and an extra queen pretty much always seems like the best response when you don't know what's coming, since it covers the most bases through detection and air defense.
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I don't understand why so many non-Zerg players are discussing something that only who plays Zerg can understand...
what I do in big maps is to send my overlord to the center of the map and my scout drone to the nearest spawn position. sometimes the overlord can see from where his scouting worker is coming from and my overlord won't be so far away from the enemy's base.
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On April 05 2011 04:14 Tachion wrote: There's a reason why the best Zerg in the world is nicknamed the detective Zerg. NesTea just has a knack for figuring out what crazy cheeses are coming. Going into the game with "What the hell are they going to try to do to me" at the forefront of your mind is the correct way to play Zerg I think. For the first 10 minutes of every game I try to play detective as well since those are the minutes that give me the most trouble. If you can't scout their base, you just have to make educated guesses through experience and play safe. Getting an evo chamber and an extra queen pretty much always seems like the best response when you don't know what's coming, since it covers the most bases through detection and air defense.
All top level zerg do this, if you watch closely.
Quessing games do not belong in a strategy game. If a player is willing to get behind economically by throwing overlords away, then they should be able to scout. Terrans can scan anywhere for an econ hit and a protoss can make extremely cheap, cloaked observers if they invest into a robo.
Both of these come out long before a zerg hits lair, and are needed less because T and P dictate the game.
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On April 05 2011 04:21 Mailing wrote: Quessing games do not belong in a strategy game. If a player is willing to get behind economically by throwing overlords away, then they should be able to scout. Terrans can scan anywhere for an econ hit and a protoss can make extremely cheap, cloaked observers if they invest into a robo.
Both of these come out long before a zerg hits lair, and are needed less because T and P dictate the game.
Except scanning is the very definition of guessing, and doesn't necessarily show you the key building you're looking for, and observers come in later than most cheese.
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On April 05 2011 04:21 Mailing wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 04:14 Tachion wrote: There's a reason why the best Zerg in the world is nicknamed the detective Zerg. NesTea just has a knack for figuring out what crazy cheeses are coming. Going into the game with "What the hell are they going to try to do to me" at the forefront of your mind is the correct way to play Zerg I think. For the first 10 minutes of every game I try to play detective as well since those are the minutes that give me the most trouble. If you can't scout their base, you just have to make educated guesses through experience and play safe. Getting an evo chamber and an extra queen pretty much always seems like the best response when you don't know what's coming, since it covers the most bases through detection and air defense. All top level zerg do this, if you watch closely. Quessing games do not belong in a strategy game. If a player is willing to get behind economically by throwing overlords away, then they should be able to scout. Terrans can scan anywhere for an econ hit and a protoss can make extremely cheap, cloaked observers if they invest into a robo. Both of these come out long before a zerg hits lair, and are needed less because T and P dictate the game.
obs comes out way before zerg hits lair? what game are you playing??
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On April 05 2011 04:28 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 04:21 Mailing wrote:On April 05 2011 04:14 Tachion wrote: There's a reason why the best Zerg in the world is nicknamed the detective Zerg. NesTea just has a knack for figuring out what crazy cheeses are coming. Going into the game with "What the hell are they going to try to do to me" at the forefront of your mind is the correct way to play Zerg I think. For the first 10 minutes of every game I try to play detective as well since those are the minutes that give me the most trouble. If you can't scout their base, you just have to make educated guesses through experience and play safe. Getting an evo chamber and an extra queen pretty much always seems like the best response when you don't know what's coming, since it covers the most bases through detection and air defense. All top level zerg do this, if you watch closely. Quessing games do not belong in a strategy game. If a player is willing to get behind economically by throwing overlords away, then they should be able to scout. Terrans can scan anywhere for an econ hit and a protoss can make extremely cheap, cloaked observers if they invest into a robo. Both of these come out long before a zerg hits lair, and are needed less because T and P dictate the game. obs comes out way before zerg hits lair? what game are you playing??
Umm yea.. all races need better means of scouting I think. They all rather bad and it's much harder to stop stuff now days.
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It sucks, but you just have to find an opening that is safe. I recommend 16h/15p. You get spines, queens, creep, and full 2base saturation before most timing pushes hit you. As soon as you hit full mineral saturation, you take all 4 gas and tech hard (I rush lair and ling speed, scout, then choose my tech path). It's surprisingly easy to hold off an early push with 4 spines and 4 queens, especially with your creep spread insanely far as it will be with all those queens. Remember to transfuse and SPEND YOUR MONEY on what you need as soon as the larva is there and you can afford it.
Unless it's ZvZ. then there's no way to know he's not just gonna 2 spine+ling rush you, even on a giant map, and even if you went 14pool you won't have anything.....
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So, I was thinking.
I've never quite understood why Zergs feel they can only produce either drones or units at one time. It's entirely possible to individually select larva and make some of them drones and some of them units.
I mean, if a push MIGHT be coming, instead of guessing and saying "he's probably faking, I'll make drones", why not make half drones and half units?
I think a lot of the reason Zergs lose is because they think they need to spend all 3 larva on drones all the time, or all 3 larva on units all the time. I'm not suggesting that as a solution or anything but I feel like it's something people don't consider enough.
Or I could be completely wrong. I figured I'd just throw my relatively innocent and "untainted" viewpoint into the mix.
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I agree with the OP, and based on the responses I'm seeing, there's a ton of posters in this thread who are not playing ZvX at even a moderately high level.
It really is a guessing game playing zerg, if you guess right, you don't die (i.e. you are even, not ahead), and if you guess wrong, you die.
There isn't one single zerg build that is safe vs everything, this is why it's so important for zerg to be able to scout what their opponent is doing.
For example, vs void rays or phoenix you should be making an extra queen and spores at each base. This is the correct response against void rays, or phoenix, or dt. But if protoss does a 4gate, you die. If protoss does 3gate expand, you are now behind in econ. If protoss did blink stalkers, you die.
Another example, in ZvT if you are unable to scout igniter hellions and you didn't blindly put down a roach warren and get roaches, you are dead most of the time. I've seen countless replays where zerg isn't able to see blue flame hellions, tries to survive with queen/spine/zerglings, and either dies or loses almost all of their drones because they don't have any roaches to deter the hellions (here's a recent example of this happening).
There are many different 1 base strategies that both terran and protoss can use, and while a few of them share the same response (like void rays & dt), most of them require completely different responses, and you can't just simply make roach warren, lings, extra queens, fast lair, spores, evo chamber, and baneling nest without completely crippling your econ against a standard build.
The truth is, you can keep your drone alive in his base as long as possible, continually scout the ramp with zerglings, and sacrifice two overlords, and still not be able to determine what your opponent is doing. At this point you are forced to guess what your opponent is doing, if you guess wrong, you die. This happens even in tournaments ALL the time.
Oh and I also agree with the OP that large maps exacerbates the problem, because you can't get 2 overlords to their start location in time, and depending on the position, you may not even be able to sac one overlord in time (typhon peaks is a good example of this, if you spawn vertical to your opponent, your initial overlord won't be in the right spot, you need to sac the overlord from the side to avoid going directly over the ramp).
edit: I don't necessarily have a solution for this, but I do recognize it as a problem with zerg early-game.
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Lately I've been using my second 100 gas for lair, and getting a fast overseer. Makes scouting on larger maps not as difficult. Sometimes I put down a spire also, and it helps to stop some of the air harass that is sometimes difficult to hold off.
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nobody has mentioned hallucination as Protoss' early scouting option, before they ever think about getting a robo. It's so good, and useful throughout the game, and comes out very early if Protoss so chooses.
Just imagine if zerg had a tier 1 spell, we could make a fake mutalisk and be able to indefinitely scout EVERYTHING that the opponent is doing, as many times as we want (or had the energy for)
that would certainly solve a lot of the "guessing game" issues that current zergs are forced to play
or give us Overlord speed at tier 1, researchable from the hatchery at 100/100. That would be on par with Hallucination IMO.
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Zergs should use more changelings
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On April 05 2011 05:09 BlasiuS wrote: I agree with the OP, and based on the responses I'm seeing, there's a ton of posters in this thread who are not playing ZvX at even a moderately high level.
People post about it cause zerg players are seen as generally more prone to overexaggeration and "balance whine". It's been like that since release and i guess people want to give a different take on the situation.
You can't just say that people who don't play zerg at high level should keep out and let the thread just fill up with "i agree" posts, no interesting discussion or solution will come of it.
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On April 05 2011 05:23 00Visor wrote: Zergs should use more changelings
still doesn't solve zerg's early game scouting problems. By the time we can get an overseer and changelings, scouting shouldn't be an issue anyway because you should be getting overlord speed as soon as you get lair anyway....
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The problem with zerg is they need to dedicate on the counter build to hold and move into the mid phase of the game. They do not have a well rounded build that can react to most of the time by making adjustments at the last minute.
The thread really shows who played zerg and who didn't. You don't build random spores around unless you enjoyo losing to 4/6 gates. You don't just build 2 spines around for the heck of it and lol when void comes.
3. Obviously. It's all part of the same build tho and not as binary as CY after GW = 4gate. One gas, saved up chronos, CY after GW, Stalker as second unit, chrono boosts on the CY and instant warp in research will indicate the 4gate enough that you should prepare for it.
Do you have any idea how zerg reacts to it? Build nothing but save larva from 5:10. Tried thinking of abusing it? Power probe, get sentries and forge, expand. There are so many ways to play mind games with 4 gates vs zerg. Expo cancel 4 gate. Chrono CCore stargate. Chrono nexus 4 gate. start with 2 sentries, get +1 chargelots and 4 gate and the list goes on. Each needs a different tech buildings and unit comp to counter.
Heck, you can chrono random stuff and zerg will mess up 30% of the time.
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everyone please read my first post its at the top of page three and it answers everything addressed before and after it. furthermeore people have already detailed at length how to scout as zerg and if something happens between the 3 and 8 minute mark that wasn't revealed by your scout the plain story is that the build you just lost to wasn't optimal and you were outplayed by failing to be able to respond to it or micromanage. even at your blindest a zergling at the ramp will see the push out and composition and you will have well over the 44 game seconds required for a larvae cycle and if your existing army plus 12 extra larvae worth of units is unable to counter, you aren't playing safe or smart. complain all you want about nexus cancel 4 gates, air play, dark temps, what have you, it was either A: revealed by your first scout you just need to learn the tells or B: not optimal and you should have been prepared blind or your build/style isn't safe or smart. sorry bro.
the only legitimate posts i've read are about how the big maps cater to protoss 3 base play, something i've said repeatedly on these forums, and i'm preparing my opus about how the ridiculous strength of terran bio has spurred map expansion and tipped the scales hugely in protoss' favor, but that's for another day. the pure and simple is big maps are good for zerg early play because you CANNOT DENY that it allows you to drone harder and longer, the only tradeoff is that scouting is more difficult, seriously tho guys read my first post and quit complaining about falling behind due to bad scouting, occassionally you fall behind in starcraft games guys, and occasionally its your fault and not due to something like map design or game balance.
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On April 05 2011 05:09 BlasiuS wrote:Another example, in ZvT if you are unable to scout igniter hellions and you didn't blindly put down a roach warren and get roaches, you are dead most of the time. I've seen countless replays where zerg isn't able to see blue flame hellions, tries to survive with queen/spine/zerglings, and either dies or loses almost all of their drones because they don't have any roaches to deter the hellions ( here's a recent example of this happening).
Wasn't there a recent GSL game where this happened? (I don't mean the MKP expand into blue-flame marine, attack and win game, I mean, another one.)
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albeit this is true, u could look at the other perspective. large maps = long distance to ur base. u could prepare safely in the meantime while still droning hard (2-4 spines) perhaps this will encourage the metagame of producing 3 queens at the start (one for creep and future prep of third hatch). These long distances also could mean u can lair faster to then defend or scout it
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On April 05 2011 05:25 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 05:09 BlasiuS wrote: I agree with the OP, and based on the responses I'm seeing, there's a ton of posters in this thread who are not playing ZvX at even a moderately high level.
People post about it cause zerg players are seen as generally more prone to overexaggeration and "balance whine". It's been like that since release and i guess people want to give a different take on the situation. You can't just say that people who don't play zerg at high level should keep out and let the thread just fill up with "i agree" posts, no interesting discussion or solution will come of it.
No, that's not what he's talking about. There's a lot of posters who are saying things like "Split your larvae between drones and units", "Get overlord speed faster", "Get extra queens", "Get Spines and Spore Crawlers at both your bases" that clearly don't have an understanding of the problem or a possible solution.
Many people are explicitly saying things like "You can have overlord speed by the 6 minute mark", which even if it were true, is 20 seconds after you're already dying to 4gate, and it's far too late to prepare for anything that comes after that.
If you split your larvae between drones and units, you die to a 4gate. If you spend money on lair or even just an evo chamber, you die to a 4gate. People at lower levels and people who don't play zerg don't understand what a well-executed 4gate or marine/scv all-in requires to stop, and they're suggesting things that aren't even theorycraft, they're just bunk.
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On April 05 2011 05:25 karpo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 05:09 BlasiuS wrote: I agree with the OP, and based on the responses I'm seeing, there's a ton of posters in this thread who are not playing ZvX at even a moderately high level.
People post about it cause zerg players are seen as generally more prone to overexaggeration and "balance whine". It's been like that since release and i guess people want to give a different take on the situation. You can't just say that people who don't play zerg at high level should keep out and let the thread just fill up with "i agree" posts, no interesting discussion or solution will come of it.
I didn't say they should keep out, just don't post something that's incorrect. I'm all for discussing and trying to come up with a solution, but posts like these:
+ Show Spoiler +On April 04 2011 16:23 TheLink wrote: On a large map you can probably throw down an evo chamber and spore colonies before the void rays get to your base. Why can't you simply ring a few zerglings around his base to spot one leaving? Same goes for hunting proxy pylons. On April 04 2011 16:38 Virid wrote: There are plenty of players who don't scout until very late.
Perhaps you're going about this the wrong way. On April 04 2011 19:52 Ethic wrote: Get overlord speed, Lair tech is not hard to get to and if you're build orders are fleshed out you can get Overlord speed by 6-7 minute mark.
If you're too much of a cheap ass to get Overlord speed get a Overseer, but tbh, you're better off getting overlord speed. On April 04 2011 20:07 Protein wrote: What kind of scouting does Protoss have that Z doesn't? Before T2 all we have is the option to research hallu, which finishes researching around the time t2 is achieved anyway (significantly reducing our ability to defend a push on our expo, esp if we're going 3 gate expo) and probe scouting.
Terrans scan is good but sacrifices a mule and then they can't scout until T2 as well... Having vie speed at t1 would be retiredly overpowered. Z would always know everything about the enemy on big maps too.
Seriously, what are we complaining about here? Seems to me you zerg players want to have the cake and eat it too...
Edit: Not to mention that a good z will keep their scout drone in the toss' base forever. Not being able to deny early scouting is a bitch. Meanwhile Toss is left blind for awhile thanks to lings/marines destroying probes so early on. On April 04 2011 21:05 Striding Strider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:10 Zerokaiser wrote: Good luck getting an overlord in my base! Get overlord speed. On April 05 2011 00:37 Severedevil wrote: This complaint happens a lot, and I'm still bewildered by it.
Can't you just Queen/Drone --> Spines @ 6:00 with a spore @ 7:00 (to block DT if your opponent hasn't already revealed his hand), and then flood with Speedlings or Roaches against pretty much any PvZ opening? Obviously as soon as Protoss expands you can tech up and cut back on unit production.
Against Terran it's more annoying since Cloaked Banshees force better detection coverage, but Terran has obvious tells for whether or not they're teching.
EDIT: On a lot of maps you can reliably gas steal your opponent, drastically reducing the realm of possible builds. On April 05 2011 05:23 00Visor wrote: Zergs should use more changelings
are not even applicable and are basically just de-railing the thread.
The lack of available early-game zerg scouting is something that's an issue at high levels of play, I think it's reasonable to expect a high-level discussion about it.
The only useful posts I've seen are someone mentioned using a ling+drone drill to get the drone in the base, which is cool and something I haven't tried. However even then it doesn't do much beyond just keeping your initial scout drone alive. Another person mentioned upping the overlord's unupgraded base speed, so that sacrificing an overlord has a much better chance of actually scouting something useful.
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On April 05 2011 05:28 carbon_based wrote: everyone please read my first post its at the top of page three and it answers everything addressed before and after it. furthermeore people have already detailed at length how to scout as zerg and if something happens between the 3 and 8 minute mark that wasn't revealed by your scout the plain story is that the build you just lost to wasn't optimal and you were outplayed by failing to be able to respond to it or micromanage. even at your blindest a zergling at the ramp will see the push out and composition and you will have well over the 44 game seconds required for a larvae cycle and if your existing army plus 12 extra larvae worth of units is unable to counter, you aren't playing safe or smart. complain all you want about nexus cancel 4 gates, air play, dark temps, what have you, it was either A: revealed by your first scout you just need to learn the tells or B: not optimal and you should have been prepared blind or your build/style isn't safe or smart. sorry bro.
the only legitimate posts i've read are about how the big maps cater to protoss 3 base play, something i've said repeatedly on these forums, and i'm preparing my opus about how the ridiculous strength of terran bio has spurred map expansion and tipped the scales hugely in protoss' favor, but that's for another day. the pure and simple is big maps are good for zerg early play because you CANNOT DENY that it allows you to drone harder and longer, the only tradeoff is that scouting is more difficult, seriously tho guys read my first post and quit complaining about falling behind due to bad scouting, occassionally you fall behind in starcraft games guys, and occasionally its your fault and not due to something like map design or game balance.
You suggested blindly building 2 spines and a spore crawler in every game. I assume most others disregarded the post as nonsense at that point, as I did. You also seem to be of the opinion that a zerg fast expanding is by definition a greedy econ opening. Unless one-base cheesing, zerg has to expand by 21 supply, not for economy per se, but for larva production. 14 gas / 14 pool into 20/21 hatchery, and 15 hatch are much of a muchness in this respect. 15 hatch is not an "aggressive econ opening". What defines that is how zerg chooses to use the larvae in the early game.
@ the OP: I think this is a problem all zergs are facing. One of my main concerns on first seeing the new ladder maps was actually the lack of viable positions for overlords, both for sacrificing and for monitoring attack paths. I do think we need to get cleverer with our deductions - JDub had a good checklist for ZvP on the first page. However, I do sympathize with the pain of not knowing whether a terran is building 2 reactored barracks, a reactored factory, or a command center behind the wall.
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On April 05 2011 03:09 Dalavita wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 21:23 Ichobicho wrote: 1. It's not hard to not show the Stalker / 1 Stalkers. It can still be a FE or Air(air is rare tho). But 1 stalkers hints at it yes. 2. saved up chrono for cyber is not the only way to do a 4 gate. And most don't do it that way cause it's obvious what they are doing. Why would they show you they are 4 gateing 3 minutes into the game? 3. Rarely does P go anything but Cyber after GW(if it's GW first). I'm sorry but saying Cyber after GW hints at 4gate just makes me doubt your whole post. Cyber after GW tells you it's not some Mass Zealot cheese. 4. I don't want to grab an extractor. I need the probe for extra eco (which is important even against a 4 gate). Stealing the gas can result in the Stalkers/zealot 4gate which is one of the worst 4 gates, it can also be 3gate forge expand, so you cant mass army. 5. there are plenty of 4gates which uses 2 gas.
I can spot a potential 4gate. The problem is that in many cases it can also be a potential FE. If I go mass Eco I loose to 4 gate, mass defense I loose to FE. If I go for something balanced, it can still be hard to hold the 4 gate. 1. It's impossible not to show either a stalker or a sentry, as your worker is faster than the zealot, and losing your worker before a ranged unit can kill it off simply means you sucked and should micro better. 2. Non-saved up chrono for a cyber means delayed 4 gate, the less time that passes, the weaker it gets, and the more your expansion and drone count kicks in. The whole purpose of the 4gate is to do it as fast as possible and abuse the massive army you're going to throw at an opponent who's underprepared. 3. Obviously. It's all part of the same build tho and not as binary as CY after GW = 4gate. One gas, saved up chronos, CY after GW, Stalker as second unit, chrono boosts on the CY and instant warp in research will indicate the 4gate enough that you should prepare for it. 4. Whatever. Grabbing an extractor is one way of doing it. If you don't want to do it, then don't. That also means you have to get your probe out before the stalker comes out which is lost scouting for you. That one probe mining for two minutes isn't going to be the difference of you holding a 4gate or not. 5. And they're all lower economy than your standard 4gate. You should never cross out a rush just because it's delayed, but it also means that if it comes, it's going to be weaker. And how can you not scout the FE? A 4gate will come at around 6 minutes in, have a ling at his natural and check for the expansion around 4-5 minutes. Anything else can't be called a FE.
1. Yes, but my point was that stalker second is not 100% 4gate, you cant mass army just cause you saw the stalker
2. . While the 4gate gets delayed. Most Zerg will also make more drones, less army when seeing this. A delayed 4gate isn't necessary weaker, because the Zerg will be less prepared cause the zerg will not see enough signs to be sure of what is coming(the point of this tread). I'll also disagree that the 4gate is "to do it as fast as possible and abuse the massive army you're going to throw at an opponent". It's more about it suddenly being at at the Zerg front door, with a great reinforcement rate. While the Zerg is unable to stabilize a army while holding his second. At high level it's way more important to do the 4gate disguised, than doing it fastest possible.
3. Most P uses a chrono boost on the warp gate anyways (sentry FE f.ex.). Most P are to smart to save up chrono (if your scout can see it). Everything your saying here can indicate both Air, Sentry expand, the 4gate Zealot>DT, 4gates, 2-3gate SG. Altough 4gate is the highest possiblity im not sure you are actually reading what I'm saying? A protoss(and Terran, but Terran isn't as hard cause they are a bit easier to read and feel) can come out with a lot of different builds, based on the same stuff being seen at the ramp. Even if you know both gas timings/a gas steal.
4. One extra set of Zerglings or a Spine Crawler can easily be the difference defending a 4gate, most 4 gates defends are really close in tipping both ways. This has a lot to do with the fact that you can never know for sure before it comes, so you need to stay right on the edge eco & army wise.
5. I don't cross it out, but you don't get how it works, so I'll explain: Around 5 minutes you need to worry about 4gate, the fastest one can hit around 5:25 I think. So at this point you need a decent army(before he moves out) Ok, so we wont call it a FE. But Protoss often expand in the 5-7 minute area (sentry expand depending on how risky they are). I'd say for a P this is kinda a fast expand, but lets not call it that(that's not the point anyways). lets say(Timings are examples, but should be somewhat correct): example 1. P moves at 6 minutes, your zergling at ramp sees this as its moving out and its clearly a 4gate coming. You put up 1-2 SC, Start pumping army 100%. It's still hard to defend. Micro/army comp decides winner. example 2. Nothing comes at 6 minutes, so you make 70% zerglings 30% drones(which should be very safe). He moves 10 seconds later, you need to wait on larvae. You get a round of lings/roach while he is waiting for his pylon 8-10 P units rolls over the zerg. P most likely going to win. example 3. Nothing comes at 6 minutes, so you make 70% zerglings 30% drones(which should be very safe). He moves 10 seconds later, having spent two chrono boost on the Core, to fake me out. The rest on probes. Puts down a nexus. And you already got yourself a big big disadvantage and your most likely going to loose, as the P quickly gets up a good eco while you sit there with your army who can do nothing. The Zerg rarely come out on top when this happens, even if the game last 35 min. A lot gets decided when the P has a better eco at 7 minutes, cause the zerg has to prepare for 4 gate untill the Z knows it's not coming.
6. If you see every sign of the 4gate, it can still be another build. Excluding the constant Chrono boost on Core. If you prepare for 4gate cause you see all the signs but the constant boosts, it backfires so hard every time it's not a 4gate.
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Good rule of thumb, if you don't see an expo between 25-30 food, it's time to cut drones, grab a lair, a bling nest if he's T, maybe make another queen, and start massing lings. This is of course assuming you couldn't sack an OL in time.
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I can relate to this, most of my losses have been in that scouting gap where I guess wrong. In the specific scenario of Typhoon what I do is sent my first overlord horizontally, my 9OL vertically and at around 12-13 drones I send a drone scout cross positions (checking for proxy pylons in the process).
By the time my drone ends up seeing what's in cross pos the overlords have gone 3/4 and 2/4 of the distance respectively so if the enemy does indeed end up being in CP I just redirect both of them and they can get to the enemy base around that crucial 6 minute mark when you need them sacc'ed.
This doesn't really solve the guessing problem however since it's so easy to hide tech/shoot down the OL with just a couple hundred mineral's worth of units that it's silly.
Now, to get things straight - here's why I consider this as legitimate QQ. I don't mind dying from an all-in like 7-pool, marine SCV, proxy gate, cannon rush. I can scout those, it's my mistake if I don't and I don't consider this imbalance just because we only have a single rush option (6pool against T/P) that isn't really that viable since the worker buff. As zerg, I trade my ability to cheese early on with the opportunity to dominate the late game, great harass, map control, the ability to easily switch tech etc.
However I do consider it imbalance when the game doesn't give me the option to react to my opponent, presenting me with a rock-paper-scissor guessing situation. Where's the strategy there and how do you differentiate player skill when even a bronze level player can easily deny the OL sac with 2 marines then banshee rush and kill a zerg that guessed wrong and prepared for BFH?
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How is this a Zerg only problem? Scouting before the 7 minute mark as protoss is just as annoying. We have to sacrifice a worker to not even see in the main base at all on most occasions. Once the zerg has lings out, or a terran has marines, we get no scouting until robo or hallucinate(which you won't have before 7 minutes anyway).
I'm not saying that you don't do this, but as I've gotten better, I've learned to read what I can see from sacrificing a worker. Yesterday for example, against a T, I saw him with no expansion and a bunker on the top of is ramp. It means he was teching. I made a cannon in my mineral line before the banshee's even got there. It isn't always going to work, but it is better than nothing.
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Yeah, but you are able to see if zerg is expanding or not with your first scout. And if he is expanding there is nothing special he can throw at P.
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On April 05 2011 22:49 Cataphract wrote: How is this a Zerg only problem? Scouting before the 7 minute mark as protoss is just as annoying. We have to sacrifice a worker to not even see in the main base at all on most occasions. Once the zerg has lings out, or a terran has marines, we get no scouting until robo or hallucinate(which you won't have before 7 minutes anyway).
I'm not saying that you don't do this, but as I've gotten better, I've learned to read what I can see from sacrificing a worker. Yesterday for example, against a T, I saw him with no expansion and a bunker on the top of is ramp. It means he was teching. I made a cannon in my mineral line before the banshee's even got there. It isn't always going to work, but it is better than nothing. Because you don't straight up die thanks to cushions like force fields and not needing to fast expand. The other difference is design; toss and terran can always make workers but zerg must choose; defending costs econ. If you get faked out on aggression, you fall way behind relative. Not to mention zerg has nothing like a 2 gate robo that is quite safe and versatile against a variety of threats; zerg needs extremely specific responses that don't overlap. Again, very unlike tossterran.
In your situation against a blind terran, you only really need to fear that banshee. Were you going to be afraid of a hellion rush? Probably not since that cannon can handle it as well and your units are better against them; you can handle both a hellion or banshee. Zerg needs different reponses for each.
Zerg basically just gets punished harder because they need specific responses. Don't know why people still miss this fact.
Wait right, cause they don't play zerg and haven't a clue what its like.
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I used to complain about lack of Zerg scouting early game, still do actually. It especially became problematic with the new larger maps. However, I've simply moved up my scouting drone 9 and use an extractor trick. Most of the time I get into the base and it gives me time to correct my scouting OL path for a later sacrifice. It's still tough/impossible to know exactly what an opponent is doing and it should be. Only Terran gets the all seeing eye of Sauron.
Generally, I rely on the gas or gas/chrono to give me a vague idea whether the opponent is teching or not. 2 gas, obviously it's going into something gas heavy what can that be? Took me a while to get into day9's thought process of what eliminating what it's not and getting out of the mindset he's going OMGWTFBBQ DT, Void, 4gate Blink Rush all at the same time. =) I suck, I'm bad, I make frequent decisions errors by reading the scouting information wrong. But I don't really feel like I'm flying blind anymore.
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I think if you were to balance change this, make it so that it is possible to put up reactive spines or spores if you see something. As of right now the spine itself takes longer than a creep+sunken in sc1. If you can catch units moving out and put up spine crawlers that finish right as the units hit, or requiring some delay tactics to do so, this will allow for a lot better games. IMO
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Canada13372 Posts
i am entirely serious with this post so no flames please. i never played bw on iccup and rately on bmet when i was much younger. the little of bw i did play provides me with the following question
how is the current issue of scouting different in sc2 than in bw? i know the timing attacks are different but larva mechanic and defending against scoutable all ins or pushes and the scouting mechanics of each race are barely different now than before afaik.
please enlighten. me in a pm or here if you played bw on iccup or online 1v1 with the same or more fervour as you play sc2 to help me understand.
note hallucination imo is not much different than investing the robo at the same time and getting obs.
thanks all
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A lot of things were different in BW, but being able to make hydras without upgrading to lair was a big difference. Also consider the difference between banshees and wraiths, and void rays compared to scouts.
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I don't get why zergs have problems against protoss cheese. If you scout the front and see a sentry then you shouldn't fear DT's as it will take a lot longer to get out after that sentry. If you see a stalker expect a 4gate or air play. either of these should have you making spinecrawlers and possibly a 4th queen for transfuse (You should already have 3 queens out to get creep spread and deal with the rushed voidray).
Once you get to lair tech scouting becomes easy, one overseer with a few changelings will cover all your scouting needs. Failing that, get multiple overseers, then you never have to worry about scouting again.
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On April 06 2011 00:26 dave333 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 22:49 Cataphract wrote: How is this a Zerg only problem? Scouting before the 7 minute mark as protoss is just as annoying. We have to sacrifice a worker to not even see in the main base at all on most occasions. Once the zerg has lings out, or a terran has marines, we get no scouting until robo or hallucinate(which you won't have before 7 minutes anyway).
I'm not saying that you don't do this, but as I've gotten better, I've learned to read what I can see from sacrificing a worker. Yesterday for example, against a T, I saw him with no expansion and a bunker on the top of is ramp. It means he was teching. I made a cannon in my mineral line before the banshee's even got there. It isn't always going to work, but it is better than nothing. Because you don't straight up die thanks to cushions like force fields and not needing to fast expand. The other difference is design; toss and terran can always make workers but zerg must choose; defending costs econ. If you get faked out on aggression, you fall way behind relative. Not to mention zerg has nothing like a 2 gate robo that is quite safe and versatile against a variety of threats; zerg needs extremely specific responses that don't overlap. Again, very unlike tossterran. In your situation against a blind terran, you only really need to fear that banshee. Were you going to be afraid of a hellion rush? Probably not since that cannon can handle it as well and your units are better against them; you can handle both a hellion or banshee. Zerg needs different reponses for each. Zerg basically just gets punished harder because they need specific responses. Don't know why people still miss this fact. Wait right, cause they don't play zerg and haven't a clue what its like.
Yes, toss don't die immediately to a front push due to ff but it doesn't mean just keep ffing on ramp doesn't really win you the game either. Just because I can keep roaches out of my main base doesn't mean Ill win 1-base toss versus 2 base fully saturated zerg. The idea is no different then zerg building units early game instead of drones. If all toss is doing is staying 1 base and defend with ff. Toss will fall behind macro-wise.
Zerg already have anti hellion/banshee in the form of a unit called the queen which most zerg at least get 2-of sometimes 3 for creep spreading.
You complaint of zerg has to choose between unit or drone. I don't know how you can even complain about that. That attribute is what separate zerg from other two races. Zergs can overproduce units or drones since they all come from 1 production units. If you want to drone, you will out make toss or terran. If you want to make units, you will out "number-wise" terran/protoss. Zerg can always make fighting units and drone at same time. Granted that won't optimize your play. But the notion that having a separate unit producing structure is an advantage just shows how you don't understand the game.
Also getting faked out aggression can happen to all races. I seen terran throw down 3-4 bunkers when I "fake" 4-gate. Then instead of making units, I just throw down an expo and tech to colossus. Sometimes, I play against zerg and he makes lots of lings and I throw down 2 cannons at each mineral line in fear of mutas that never came. If you are preparing for something that is not there you will fall behind it is true for all races.
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On April 06 2011 02:29 xbankx wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2011 00:26 dave333 wrote:On April 05 2011 22:49 Cataphract wrote: How is this a Zerg only problem? Scouting before the 7 minute mark as protoss is just as annoying. We have to sacrifice a worker to not even see in the main base at all on most occasions. Once the zerg has lings out, or a terran has marines, we get no scouting until robo or hallucinate(which you won't have before 7 minutes anyway).
I'm not saying that you don't do this, but as I've gotten better, I've learned to read what I can see from sacrificing a worker. Yesterday for example, against a T, I saw him with no expansion and a bunker on the top of is ramp. It means he was teching. I made a cannon in my mineral line before the banshee's even got there. It isn't always going to work, but it is better than nothing. Because you don't straight up die thanks to cushions like force fields and not needing to fast expand. The other difference is design; toss and terran can always make workers but zerg must choose; defending costs econ. If you get faked out on aggression, you fall way behind relative. Not to mention zerg has nothing like a 2 gate robo that is quite safe and versatile against a variety of threats; zerg needs extremely specific responses that don't overlap. Again, very unlike tossterran. In your situation against a blind terran, you only really need to fear that banshee. Were you going to be afraid of a hellion rush? Probably not since that cannon can handle it as well and your units are better against them; you can handle both a hellion or banshee. Zerg needs different reponses for each. Zerg basically just gets punished harder because they need specific responses. Don't know why people still miss this fact. Wait right, cause they don't play zerg and haven't a clue what its like. Yes, toss don't die immediately to a front push due to ff but it doesn't mean just keep ffing on ramp doesn't really win you the game either. Just because I can keep roaches out of my main base doesn't mean Ill win 1-base toss versus 2 base fully saturated zerg. The idea is no different then zerg building units early game instead of drones. If all toss is doing is staying 1 base and defend with ff. Toss will fall behind macro-wise. Zerg already have anti hellion/banshee in the form of a unit called the queen which most zerg at least get 2-of sometimes 3 for creep spreading. You complaint of zerg has to choose between unit or drone. I don't know how you can even complain about that. That attribute is what separate zerg from other two races. Zergs can overproduce units or drones since they all come from 1 production units. If you want to drone, you will out make toss or terran. If you want to make units, you will out "number-wise" terran/protoss. Zerg can always make fighting units and drone at same time. Granted that won't optimize your play. But the notion that having a separate unit producing structure is an advantage just shows how you don't understand the game. Also getting faked out aggression can happen to all races. I seen terran throw down 3-4 bunkers when I "fake" 4-gate. Then instead of making units, I just throw down an expo and tech to colossus. Sometimes, I play against zerg and he makes lots of lings and I throw down 2 cannons at each mineral line in fear of mutas that never came. If you are preparing for something that is not there you will fall behind it is true for all races.
Bunkers can salvage, and a roach rush by nature cannot be fully saturated two base. Your post is so full of random non-sense. You clearly don't understand zerg.
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[B]On April 06 2011 02:29 xbankx wrote:[/B Show nested quote +On April 06 2011 00:26 dave333 wrote:On April 05 2011 22:49 Cataphract wrote: How is this a Zerg only problem? Scouting before the 7 minute mark as protoss is just as annoying. We have to sacrifice a worker to not even see in the main base at all on most occasions. Once the zerg has lings out, or a terran has marines, we get no scouting until robo or hallucinate(which you won't have before 7 minutes anyway).
I'm not saying that you don't do this, but as I've gotten better, I've learned to read what I can see from sacrificing a worker. Yesterday for example, against a T, I saw him with no expansion and a bunker on the top of is ramp. It means he was teching. I made a cannon in my mineral line before the banshee's even got there. It isn't always going to work, but it is better than nothing. Because you don't straight up die thanks to cushions like force fields and not needing to fast expand. The other difference is design; toss and terran can always make workers but zerg must choose; defending costs econ. If you get faked out on aggression, you fall way behind relative. Not to mention zerg has nothing like a 2 gate robo that is quite safe and versatile against a variety of threats; zerg needs extremely specific responses that don't overlap. Again, very unlike tossterran. In your situation against a blind terran, you only really need to fear that banshee. Were you going to be afraid of a hellion rush? Probably not since that cannon can handle it as well and your units are better against them; you can handle both a hellion or banshee. Zerg needs different reponses for each. Zerg basically just gets punished harder because they need specific responses. Don't know why people still miss this fact. Wait right, cause they don't play zerg and haven't a clue what its like. Yes, toss don't die immediately to a front push due to ff but it doesn't mean just keep ffing on ramp doesn't really win you the game either. Just because I can keep roaches out of my main base doesn't mean Ill win 1-base toss versus 2 base fully saturated zerg. The idea is no different then zerg building units early game instead of drones. If all toss is doing is staying 1 base and defend with ff. Toss will fall behind macro-wise. Zerg already have anti hellion/banshee in the form of a unit called the queen which most zerg at least get 2-of sometimes 3 for creep spreading. You complaint of zerg has to choose between unit or drone. I don't know how you can even complain about that. That attribute is what separate zerg from other two races. Zergs can overproduce units or drones since they all come from 1 production units. If you want to drone, you will out make toss or terran. If you want to make units, you will out "number-wise" terran/protoss. Zerg can always make fighting units and drone at same time. Granted that won't optimize your play. But the notion that having a separate unit producing structure is an advantage just shows how you don't understand the game. Also getting faked out aggression can happen to all races. I seen terran throw down 3-4 bunkers when I "fake" 4-gate. Then instead of making units, I just throw down an expo and tech to colossus. Sometimes, I play against zerg and he makes lots of lings and I throw down 2 cannons at each mineral line in fear of mutas that never came. If you are preparing for something that is not there you will fall behind it is true for all races.
If your letting a Zerg get two fully saturated bases and contain you(ie bigger army). Then you have been supply blocked a lot, or something else fatal.
Queen anti hellion? what? How long does it take for 2 queens to kill 3 (blue flame) hellions? not to mention how Terrans often come out with 6-7 regular hellions.
You can't compare a Zerg preparing for a 4gate(which turns out to be fake 4gate -> Expansion), and a Protoss trowing down two cannons for muta defense. A Zerg economy will be shambled, while the P will still have defense against counters with lings, while his economy shouldn't take any damage, it could but what? 1-2 probes? The Zerg often ends up with 5-8 drones less. That also happens earlier in the game.
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i haven't read the whole thread because there have already been a bunch like this and people without a clue keep saying that you can send in 4 overlords at a time and dumb stuff like that. What would be interesting is having a poll asking zerg players how much they lose due to the impossibility to scout. I would estimate that 50% of my losses against terran are due to a ca. 6-8 min push which type I could not scout.
Protoss is less of a problem right now because the only thing that can kill you is a 4gate disguised as an expand or vice versa, and very few people do that. Although if that became more popular I would QQ more.
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At a somewhat high level (EU top200) it has become unplayable lately in any map and positionin ZvZ-ZvP, i managed to work around a build to play ZvT that works wonders and allows me to play Zerg how it's meant to be, funny enough the only reason why it works is the fact that it doesn't rely on scouting, the Stimpack nerf also helped quite a bit. In the other two MUs tho, being scouting virtually impossible at that level, you're left with two choice:
1 You play heavily aggressive yourself, something like what July does, basically you're constantly all in as most early game attacks don't have a transition for Zerg, either you do some game ending damages or the game is gone.
2 You play heavily defensive, overproducing static defenses, queens, buildings and massing drones up until both your bases are saturated and you have your lair tech scouting options available, your opponent will always try to crush you with some sort of all in, should you hold without major losses you most likely have the game won.
As of now, playing reactionary is just not possible, the game is too fast for the current scouting options Zerg has before lair.
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i wonder if terrans and tosses would complain about the same thing, if they could produce workers from raks and gates. wah my eco is scrambled because i had to produce units instead of workers from my raks. Anyway offensiv power early game for the zerg is high really high, which includes their defense is high as well. Though the positional defense power of the other races is way higher. The outcome is that zerg easily has map control early on. As long as he prevents the other races from setting up save spots. So i don't really know, but when i have the map control it means i see more then my opponent . Wonder why a zerg complains anyway, toss can scout around way later, they should be the ones to complain.
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I came across a genius little fact that if you click the mineral patch vs protoss, ur drone will unit walk through the zealot and thus gives you scouting information till the stalker is out.
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On April 06 2011 03:09 FeyFey wrote:So i don't really know, but when i have the map control it means i see more then my opponent . Wonder why a zerg complains anyway, toss can scout around way later, they should be the ones to complain.
Protoss can choose to sacrifice something to get safety. in PvZ they can get sentries and be safe against anything. In PvT they can rush an observer and react in time to be safe against anything.
Yes protoss has to give something up for that, it may be the possibility of a faster expansion or different tech. But there is a safe build.
Zerg has none of this. The only way zerg can survive is scouting what the opponent is doing and react, and scouting is IMPOSSIBLE. We cannot trade anything for safety, every zerg on this planet has tried to find a cookie-cutter build simply to get rid of the ridiculous amount of losses we accumulate before the 10 minute mark, and there is NONE.
I'm frankly tired of explaining this again and again.
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I think the issue falls less on perfect scouting and more on zerg hatch tech bieng too one deminsional. Without an all perpose unit like the marine and stalker at hatch level it leaves you more open having to responed perfectly to what ever your opponent is doing essentially making scouting that much more vital.
So for example in the scenario you described were all you can scout indicates 4gate but really its a voidray rush that's coming, either way your preparing to defend but if you had hydras in hatch tech you wouldn't need to confrim either one you just gotta know he's gonna be aggressive early.
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The long rush distance gives you time to churn out a wave of units to defend. Although much more labour intensive than scouting by P or T, it may be worth it to use lings (as they are the cheapest unit) and spread them around the perimeter of the enemy base to see the enemy unit composition as it leaves their base.
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no amout of rush distance is going to give you detection if you have no lair or magically turn the last 10 drones you made into units. or give you a roach warren instantly, or 4 more queens.
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BW Zerg didn't have as many scouting issues. Ovies gave detection, you had well rounded hydras, and the cheese options weren't as strong (banshees, blue flame hellions, warpgate pushes), nor as quick (no chronos, addon switching, etc.). Not to mention zerglings were also relatively stronger back then. In ZvT you could put down cheaper creep colonies if a MM push was coming, so that when you saw it moving out, you could get them to quickly morph into sunkens very quickly to defend.
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On April 06 2011 03:48 Frobert wrote: The long rush distance gives you time to churn out a wave of units to defend. Although much more labour intensive than scouting by P or T, it may be worth it to use lings (as they are the cheapest unit) and spread them around the perimeter of the enemy base to see the enemy unit composition as it leaves their base.
Keep in mind that the 4gating Protoss, will also get in a additional wave thanks to warp in. If the protoss has a good army advantage when he moves out, you often don't get the chance to respond and make a good enough army to defend it. Scouting the 4gate as it moves out is to late to react to it, you need to prepare for it before that.
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On April 04 2011 16:21 Zerokaiser wrote:Show nested quote +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? Show nested quote +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.
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On April 05 2011 05:25 karpo wrote: You can't just say that people who don't play zerg at high level should keep out and let the thread just fill up with "i agree" posts, no interesting discussion or solution will come of it.
Quite the opposite, no interesting discussion came of this thread because it's filled with low level players or protoss/terran saying 'drone scout', 'get overlord speed' and 'make more queens' (like we had never thought of doing that), or saying 'well our race can't scout early either!' (when they don't need to nearly as much, and it's basically offtopic).
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The bigger 4p maps have me thinking a lot more carefully about planning my overlord patterns. This is something that really has gotten me thinking, and I'm fairly conflicted about how to use my 2nd overlord.
1st overlord goes cross-map, maybe not straight through the middle of the map but aims for a hiding spot near the cross-position. 2nd overlord goes along an edge (safer route) towards one of the closer positions. As soon as I drone scout and find out where he is, I redirect overlords along safe routes. I want to be able to get 2 overlords to his base without crossing open territory, regardless of where he is. I don't just send my first overlord to the closest base to look for him, because if he is not there it will be poorly positioned.
For example, on backwater gulch, if I spawn 7 o'clock. First overlord goes to 1 o'clock, to the airspace behind 2 o'clocks natural. Second overlord goes to the airspace near 5 o'clocks main.
If the enemy is actually at 11 o'clock: The 1st overlord follows the edge of the map to the airspace at 11-12 o'clock. A new overlord (probably 3rd) from home goes to the gap behind their natural. If they are 2 o'clock, my first overlord is already there, and 2nd overlord works its way north along the edge. If they are 5 o'clock, my first overlord comes down to behind their natural, and 2nd overlord is already there.
I use similar patterns on typhon and tal'darim.
When I plan it out like this, I almost always have an overlord ready to sacrifice by the 5:45-6 minute mark where I would consider doing it. But that doesn't mean i get my perfect scouting information, plenty of things can go wrong.
For example, he can just outright deny the overlord. simultaneously poking the front sometimes works, but usually just tells you that he has at least 4 marines. I haven't lost my first overlord to a hunting marine yet, but it's probably possible. One of the big problems is 2nd overlord not camping at my natural. I try to plan the routes so that it flies over my natural on its way, but usually there is a window before the hatch finishes where I don't have full vision, and I need a roaming drone to try to spot for bunkers or pylons.
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On April 06 2011 03:16 Falcon_NL wrote: I came across a genius little fact that if you click the mineral patch vs protoss, ur drone will unit walk through the zealot and thus gives you scouting information till the stalker is out.
This is neat, but it's no different than just leaving your initial drone scout alive in his base until the stalker is out.
Basically all it allows you to do is delay your drone scout until after he built his zealot...hardly significant.
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On April 06 2011 04:17 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +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 -__-
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On April 06 2011 04:45 dave333 wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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On April 06 2011 04:17 GinDo wrote:Show nested quote +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 only reason zerg players put sunken colonies in BW is that double expand is the zerg counter to protoss/terran fast expand. It's standard for zerg to expand twice while the other races were expanding once.
The issue here is that zerg has no tier 1 anti-air except queens, which can't be used to attack. Terran and protoss can defend both ground and air rushes using the same units and counterattack using those same units. Zerg can't. Switching the hydralisk to lair and the roach to hatchery was a mistake.
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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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There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat.
Everything that needs to be said. On maps like Tal'darim, you are pretty damn safe against anything short of stuff like proxy 2gate with things like 15hatch, and you can definitely have the econ to blindly make 2 spines and 3 queens and get detection before these builds will get across the map to you. Also extermely helpful: run down their scouting probe and have lings outside their base to know when he moves out. 4gate is much easier to stop on huge maps like tal'darim
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So how do you guys feel about a change to "Pneumatic Carapace" or Overseers. I'm talking about skipping the Lair prerequisite. I wonder if any Terran or Tosser would argue that it makes Zerg overpowered since you gotta sacrifice a fast t1 if you want the upgrade so it gives T&T even more time for timing pushes and nasty allins... on the other hand it would finally teach Terrans to proxy their starports (because obviously it'll get scouted inbase) AND would give Zergs more opportunity to screw up their Overlordspread in the early game.
In exchange we get better scouting information... any thoughts?
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Ol speed at T1 might fix the scouting problem, but it would also be incredibly boring. then, zergs would have knowledge of exactly what their opponents are doing, throughout the game.
if you can know what the opponent is doing during the whole game, not only would it probably be OP, but it would be boring. Then you are just reacting to what you see, there is no gamesense, strategies become pretty meaningless, and its all just about mechanics. whats interesting is when both players have different opening strategies that they can do based on the metagame, cluse of the opponent's build, faking, gamesense, timings, and so on, with incomplete information, and whoever executed it better, had the best strategy and timings, and found out what the other was doing, has the advantage. whats annoying, is when its a guessing game, with clues and where you can be faked, but if you dont have it perfectly right, you immediatly lose.
SC with maphacks would seriously be no fun, and OL speed at hatch tech would make it incredibly easy to know exactly what the opponent is doing at all times, at least until he takes his third.
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You need to make reads. It was the same deal in Brood War. You probably weren't seeing into his base past the drone scout, and that means you have to make an educated guess. Listen to Day9's BW Podcast called "Building Triggers and the Imaginary Player". The notion of the imaginary player is that you need to account for every possible opponent possible. You can make a very informed decision on who that player is by what you do and do not see. For example...
You scout a protoss going 1 gas, 1 gate, 1 core. He makes a stalker as the second unit out of his gateway and off's your drone. At this point, you know he's either...
A) Not doing a 3 gate sentry expand, or B) Not doing the most efficient 3 gate sentry expand.
At this point, you can say to yourself that a 4 gate is a good possibility. Why would an early expander make anything other than a sentry with his gateways? It's a waste of minerals he could be using to get a nexus up. Now, that's not to say he can't be doing a 3 gate sentry expand, but if he is, it's not the most efficient he could do it, so it's ok to match his possible aggression with some lings. If he is trying to fake you out, sure, you missed some drones, but he is delaying his expo, so it evens itself out. At this point you're bobbing up and down his ramp to check his additional gate units and chronoboost usage. If you see a chronoboost on warpgate, you know he's either going for aggression in the form of a 4 gate, or he's trying to fake you out, either way, you need to respond with your own units. Everything you do and do not see is a hint. If he's super dedicated to faking a 4 gate, and ends up doing a void ray rush, he's doing it inifficently, so you'll have an ovie in position in time to sac it and find out (he opened up with one gas and is using his chrono's not on additional voids, but on his "fake" 4 gate, so you're 2 queens will be enough to hold off that void and give you ample time to builld a third to respond to additional. You know by past analysis that by the amount of pylons/probes with your initial worker, that there's either a proxy pylon or not at the time of your drone scout, and if there's a probe out on the map. Eventually, through enough analysis, you'll figure these things out without having a scout in his base. It's harder for zerg right now because we don't have scan/obs, but as the game gets figured out more and more, zergs will figure out these clues and be able to be safer through analysis of their games and relations to their own builds.
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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?
Huh? It's a lot but it's worth it.
Sorry, I mean after the early ling pokes and such, talking more about ZvP here where if he doesn't push yet you check again at 7 minutes.
They don't, but if they know from the 1 minute mark what they're doing you should win 100% of the time. That's an extreme but that's the point I was trying to make. If you can scout as early as when they only have 1 marine (according to Idra you can't get 1 overlord past 1 marine), and know what they're doing, or even only the dangerous possibilities, you should win. Similarly, even if you scout at the 3 or 4 minute mark, before early pushes come in, you should still win 95% of the time. If you don't then you should improve decision making skills. Now if you scout at 7 minutes and the push comes at 7:30, you will probably lose right there if it was an all-in or some very aggressive push.
Any map? You don't hide the overlords, you send them in from opposite sides.
Idk what you're doing wrong, all you need to do is sacrifice some overlords.
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On April 06 2011 04:17 GinDo wrote: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.
A) Marine/SCV all in doesn't involve bunkers, that's a bunker rush. B) Marine/SCV all in runs over a spine, you need a fairly early bane nest vs most of them. C) Creep colonies cost half as much, zerglings were stronger, marines were weaker in BW. D) ....It's literally impossible to float 2k minerals at this point in the game.
But thanks for coming into the thread and tell zergs how to play, always great to get another terran perspective.
In ZvP I've switched to going for a gas steal 100% of the time, the second my drone gets to their base it makes a run right for a geyser, as long as I can steal a gas there is nothing they can do that will hit critical mass and kill me before I can react that I can't scout by poking lings up the front another key benifit of gas steal is that you can see their nexus which lets you see when exactly they start using up stored energy (which normally gives away the direction they are going in) and if it's on the nexus or not.
In ZvT I'm having a much much harder time so I'd appreciate any scouting guides people have for terran.
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On April 04 2011 16:10 Zerokaiser wrote: I think this is a problem that I'm not alone with, but I don't think it's really been discussed specifically on larger maps. A notorious Zerg complaint has been lack of viable scouting options and being reduced to guessing what the opponent is doing. More so than Protoss and Terran, Zerg has very limited options and specific responses to many Protoss and Terran builds which will kill the Zerg player outright if the Zerg doesn't have ample preparation time. The problem with that is that those builds which will kill the Zerg player all hit before Zerg has access to better scouting methods. While it's true that Protoss also suffers from poor scouting before hallucination or robotics tech, Protoss walks less of a razor's edge leading into the mid-game and has more "catch all" builds that leave the Protoss player capable of responding to most threats. As far as Zerg goes, the biggest "I need to scout" threats are 4gate, void rays, banshees, and marine/scv all-ins. Less common rushes such as Dark Templar are also possible. In addition, many "normal" Terran builds can kill the Zerg player that isn't properly prepared, even the somewhat silly mass-hellion. Failing to scout one of the above builds with plenty of time to prepare is GG for the Zerg player. Zerg has 2 methods for scouting in the early game: Overlords and checking the front. In the past, this has been effective on most maps and in most circumstances. However, it has still been possible for a player to deny both methods of scouting by means of hiding tech and revealing units from the front and keeping marines or stalkers patrolling around the base to shoot down overlords. This problem is exaggerated on large maps. On many large maps such as Typhon Peaks it is impossible to guarantee yourself a chance at scouting with an overlord. With 3 possible bases to scout there is no way to know where you will need an overlord to be, since the distance is too far to have an overlord at all three (or even 2). Cross spots in particular are a problem, since even your first overlord can't cross the entire map before a marine could be out to shoot it down. Good luck getting an overlord in my base! Zerg is left with scouting the front of the base. Unfortunately, the game is such that it is not difficult to hide information from the Zerg player, and it is just as easy to outright deceive them. Cross position on Typhon Peaks, ZvP. Your zergling has scouted a zealot and stalker at the front, and warpgate tech is being chronoboosted at the cybernetics core. It looks like a 4gate or otherwise early pressure, and you switch into heavy ling/roach production. A few minutes later, after realizing it's too late for the 4gate, the void rays fly into your base and it's GG. With builds that kill outright, there is the luxury that "smoothness" and refinement of the build can be sacrificed in the name of deception. Although the Protoss player has used his chronoboost and 50 gas on tech that he has no intention of using, it is a meaningless sacrifice given the decisiveness of void rays that have not been prepared against. In the above example, the Zerg player will die to the 4gate if he chooses to drone much higher than 21 or 22 drones. It is a guessing game. If he loses to the 4gate, he is a fool for having not prepared. If he loses to the void rays, he is justified, but no better off in the end. Terran, with faster anti-air, can be even harder to scout given the ease of hiding their buildings. Should a Terran player wall off, keep a couple marines patrolling his base, and hide an additional 2 barracks and marines in the furthest corner of their base, there is no way to be sure you can scout it. Even if you have an overlord at their base, there is a strong likelyhood that it will be shot down before it sees what it needs to see. ________________ Basically, I feel like without viable scouting in the early game, Zerg is doomed to a complete guessing game on 4 player maps with large rush distances a significant percentage of the time. What could fix it? Perhaps having overlord speed moved to Spawning Pool tech. In the immortal words of Idra, "No amount of creativity will get a zergling past a wall or an overlord past a marine." Do other Zergs feel blind on large maps?
When I get Zerg, I don't feel blind. On bigger maps, I throw down 1 spore crawler and 1 spine per base, so that I don't get killed by banshees. As soon as I get lair, I start overlord speed upgrade and morph a few overseers. Then I also scout the ground with speedlings, which you can have done before a 4 gate. Besides, as Zerg, you are supposed to sac an overlord. If you make it to late game as a Zerg player on a large map, you practically won the game assuming you don't goof up big time.
When I scout an opponent with an overlord/seer, I move it around to the far side of their base and bring it back towards me.
Example: my opponent spawned in the 2 o'clock position on Shakuras. I cram my overlord in the corner at the beginning of the game and during midgame and then bring it at a diagonal through their base. Sure, he dies, but he reveals more than a head on Ovy run in scouting.
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xBANKx, all sorts of wrongs in your post so I'll just micro-quote:
On April 06 2011 02:29 xbankx wrote: Yes, toss don't die immediately to a front push due to ff but it doesn't mean just keep ffing on ramp doesn't really win you the game either.
The difference between lack of scouting ability causing immediate and frustrating death as is the case with Zerg and a Protoss playing safe and "not really winning the game" with his safe build is, you know, kind of huge.
Just because I can keep roaches out of my main base doesn't mean Ill win 1-base toss versus 2 base fully saturated zerg. The idea is no different then zerg building units early game instead of drones. If all toss is doing is staying 1 base and defend with ff. Toss will fall behind macro-wise.
My roach rush is scoutable. There's no way I can hide those roaches or roach warren from you because if you send in a probe and see my massing roach army you'll immediately get a feel for what's going on. If I hide my roaches you can just walk up the ramp and see the warren. We can't do this since we have no access to your ramp.
Zerg already have anti hellion/banshee in the form of a unit called the queen which most zerg at least get 2-of sometimes 3 for creep spreading.
This is perhaps a fair point, but do note the following - to have that many queens we need to fast expand or we won't have the minerals (or the hatcheries) to produce 3 queens in time. If you fast expand 2 of your queens should normally have no energy left so transfuse is not viable. Still, I guess queens are a partial solution to the no-scouting problem since they're a sort of jack-of-all trades when it comes to counters.
You complaint of zerg has to choose between unit or drone. I don't know how you can even complain about that. That attribute is what separate zerg from other two races. Zergs can overproduce units or drones since they all come from 1 production units. If you want to drone, you will out make toss or terran. If you want to make units, you will out "number-wise" terran/protoss. Zerg can always make fighting units and drone at same time. Granted that won't optimize your play. But the notion that having a separate unit producing structure is an advantage just shows how you don't understand the game.
Wrong again and the elitist spin at the end doesn't help you get your point across. Please don't forget the following - the production capabilities of the zerg are a huge boon mid and late game, but early on they are a setback. Remeber that:
- we sacrifice a drone for each building - we're larvae starved in the beginning - if we have 5 larvae and make 5 drones instead of 5 roaches it's gg (this however should be avoidable through ramp scouting and xel naga control) - our MULE/chrono ability which speeds up production is entirely dependent on our queen's positioning - if our queens need to run around blocking a hellion or chasing a banshee we are set back in production/resource gathering
Since I don't want to make any snotty remarks, please watch any PvZ replay where the zerg fast expands and look at the drone/probe count and realize that even a fast expanding zerg is actually catching up to the protoss in worker count up until the 6-7th minute or so, by which time we usually die from your cheese/allin. So you see, what you deem as an advantage is actually a curse - we make drones to catch up, we die to the cheese. We make units or tech to defend the cheese, we lose our racial advantage in late game.
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im by no means a good zerg but getting a fast lair (after ling speed) for changelings has worked ok so far.
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Yeah this is totally true. All I can do as a zerg is send a ling up the ramp or get lucky with my overlord placement on a large map.
I usually die before lair tech to voids or 4gate which is why I haven't been playing 1v1's that much.
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You need to make reads. It was the same deal in Brood War. You probably weren't seeing into his base past the drone scout, and that means you have to make an educated guess. Listen to Day9's BW Podcast called "Building Triggers and the Imaginary Player". The notion of the imaginary player is that you need to account for every possible opponent possible. You can make a very informed decision on who that player is by what you do and do not see. For example...
You scout a protoss going 1 gas, 1 gate, 1 core. He makes a stalker as the second unit out of his gateway and off's your drone. At this point, you know he's either...
A) Not doing a 3 gate sentry expand, or B) Not doing the most efficient 3 gate sentry expand. [...]
aye, educated guesses are an awesome and important part of the game. thats another reason why overseers or OL speed on hatch tech wouldnt be good for the game.
The main problem isnt the fact that you have to make educated guesses, the main problem is that if your educated guess is wrong, you flat out lose 90% of the time. For example, if you see someone get 2 gas, a lot of sentries, a pylon at the bottom of his ramp, and start a nexus. You can now make an educated guess. either he is doing a 3gate expand or he is doing another build, but not the most efficient version of it.
But it turns out, that even not the most efficient version of a 4game can kill you, if you made the wrong educated guess (ie, you guessed he was going 3gate expand after seeing a lot of sentries and a nexus.) educated guesses are good, in fact, they are great for the game. But when you outright lose each time your educated guess is wrong, thats the issue.
for example, if you see someone open with 1 gas, and a stalker, you can make an educated guess that he is probably not going stargate, and its more likely that he is doing a 4gate. if he is going stargate, then it wont be the most efficient stargate build. But even a non efficient stargate build can quite easily outright kill you if you prepared for a 4gate. And on the other hand, if you see someone going double gas very early on, and making a stalker first, and not moving out with a probe by the 6:30 mark to make a pylon, you can make an educated guess that hes probably doing something with tech. But unfortunately, if your educated guess is wrong, and he was doing a slightly less efficient 4gate, and built up a couple of rounds of units before moving out, and you made extra drones, an evo, 2 spores, and 2 extra queens, you just flat out die again.
The problem isnt the way the scouting system works, with faking, clues, hints, and educated guesses. That system is quite awesome. the problem is the fact that even inefficient builds can outright kill zergs quite easily, should the zerg have prepared for something else instead. and the other problem, is that due to lack of agression that isnt all-in from zerg, its impossible for a zerg to effectively limit the opponent's options.
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As Z I've felt really safe recently, probably because I committed to the race full-time and have really learned the timings for pre-lair all-ins. I still work in the fast evo and extra queen so I'm safe against banshees or voids, but against 4gates or marine all-ins it's possible to be bulletproof with just a good sense of the timings and a couple of lings outside your enemies base/a sacked overlord.
All you REALLY need to see is 1) They aren't expanding & 2) Did they take both gasses. If 1 is no, then you KNOW an attack is coming, and if you see no gas, 1 gas, or 2 gasses, you can make some guesses as to what kind of attack it'll be.
And what's this nonsense that you can't prepare for a 4gate and voids at the same time? Queens are awesome for holding both those things
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On April 06 2011 12:46 morimacil wrote: Ol speed at T1 might fix the scouting problem, but it would also be incredibly boring. then, zergs would have knowledge of exactly what their opponents are doing, throughout the game.
if you can know what the opponent is doing during the whole game, not only would it probably be OP, but it would be boring. Then you are just reacting to what you see, there is no gamesense, strategies become pretty meaningless, and its all just about mechanics. whats interesting is when both players have different opening strategies that they can do based on the metagame, cluse of the opponent's build, faking, gamesense, timings, and so on, with incomplete information, and whoever executed it better, had the best strategy and timings, and found out what the other was doing, has the advantage. whats annoying, is when its a guessing game, with clues and where you can be faked, but if you dont have it perfectly right, you immediatly lose.
SC with maphacks would seriously be no fun, and OL speed at hatch tech would make it incredibly easy to know exactly what the opponent is doing at all times, at least until he takes his third.
Well although I'm not agreeing with you I see your point. Thing is even though Terran HAS maphacks they still get suprised by dark templar or mutas some times. Because you have to execute the scouting at the right time! We can't argue that scan can be denied for sure but speed overlords running in a terrans/tossers base can be killed. I don't see the change as imbalance but an opportunity for Zerg to make right decisions early and get as much intel as the other two races can get their way.
My problem is not to react to what I see but to actually see something on the big maps and I feel either overseers or ovi speed on T1 could fix that. Again, it comes with the cost of delayed Lair and gives more opportunity for timing atacks.
Don't get me wrong I love the guessing game but especially on the big maps it turns into "I better spine up/build units and get my queens or I lose to something NOW" --> then dying later because of unnecessary precaution.
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On April 04 2011 16:10 Zerokaiser wrote: A notorious Zerg complaint has been lack of viable scouting options and being reduced to guessing what the opponent is doing. More so than Protoss and Terran, Zerg has very limited options and specific responses to many Protoss and Terran builds which will kill the Zerg player outright if the Zerg doesn't have ample preparation time.
The problem with that is that those builds which will kill the Zerg player all hit before Zerg has access to better scouting methods. While it's true that Protoss also suffers from poor scouting before hallucination or robotics tech, Protoss walks less of a razor's edge leading into the mid-game and has more "catch all" builds that leave the Protoss player capable of responding to most threats.
As far as Zerg goes, the biggest "I need to scout" threats are 4gate, void rays, banshees, and marine/scv all-ins. Less common rushes such as Dark Templar are also possible. In addition, many "normal" Terran builds can kill the Zerg player that isn't properly prepared, even the somewhat silly mass-hellion. Failing to scout one of the above builds with plenty of time to prepare is GG for the Zerg player.
Zerg has 2 methods for scouting in the early game: Overlords and checking the front. In the past, this has been effective on most maps and in most circumstances. However, it has still been possible for a player to deny both methods of scouting by means of hiding tech and revealing units from the front and keeping marines or stalkers patrolling around the base to shoot down overlords. This problem is exaggerated on large maps. I think Zerg players are going about scouting the wrong way. Scouting is always thought of as "looking into the opponents base to see what he is doing". Even that can be totally useless if your Protoss opponent proxies a Stargate or Twilight Council somewhere else on that large map you are concerned about.
But what could be an alternative? IMO the Zerg should switch their focus from trying to scout the enemy base fast to scouting the possible "points of access into their base" early. This close scouting is done best with EARLY CREEP and it could also prevent that stupid pylon - which allows the Protoss to warp into your base - from being built. Try along the following lines:- expand early,
- get two Queens for two hatcheries,
- use the first energy on a creep tumor for both Queens and dont forget to cover the back of your base with creep,
- only build a few Zerglings (6-10) for mobile scouting,
- drone up and build LOTS of Spine Crawlers (enough to crush early rushes and withstand four warpgate) ... certainly more than the 1-2 because they have an awesome range and can block your chokes easily,
- build more Queens which can spread more creep (it is a LARGE map after all and the sooner you start the better) AND which can be used for Transfuse on Spine Crawlers and as air defense.
Day[9] isnt taken too serious by certain progamers, but the "non-stop Queens funday monday" showed a style which might even work on the pro level. Sadly Zerg players are too much into the "build a horde of Zerglings" and "Queens are only good for Larva inject" mantras.
Seans usual sentence of "thats a Spine Crawler which he didnt want to make" is somewhat stupid IMO, because it doesnt figure in the MOBILITY of the Spine Crawler. Sure in BW the Sunken Colony was immobile and totally wasted if the enemy never comes to it, but in Starcraft 2 you can pick up your Spine Crawlers and take them to the middle of the map and create a "fallback position" with a ton of Spine Crawlers into which a force of pursuing Stalkers or terran bio would not want to follow your retreating Hydras. One of the complaints about the Hydra was that it lacked the mobility and that you couldnt really retreat. Be creative and give them a safe place to retreat to!
The bottom line is: I think Zerg players are playing inefficient in the early game when they dont really have the resources to produce and reproduce an "unlimited" amount of Zerglings. Defensive structures and Transfuse are underused and keep their usefulness later in the game and should be used to create early defenses which can withstand early pressure no matter what is knocking on your front door or comes sailing through the skies. Queens and Spine Crawlers = no early scouting is needed as desperately as people make it.
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On April 04 2011 16:42 JDub wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:33 Zerokaiser wrote:On April 04 2011 16:28 Jumbled wrote: You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat. You cannot prepare for 4gate and voidrays at the same time. Even if you invest heavily in defenses and could, hypothetically hold off both a 4gate and voidrays, it means you have an abysmal drone count and will lose to any normal build in the game. Check out Spanishiwa's 16h/15p opening. Queens + spines + good creep spread is safe against 4-gate and VRs, and has an enormous drone count.
This was my first thought as well. Queens + Spines can hold a lot, and they don't cost larvae (okay the spines cost a worker).
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On April 06 2011 15:41 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:10 Zerokaiser wrote: A notorious Zerg complaint has been lack of viable scouting options and being reduced to guessing what the opponent is doing. More so than Protoss and Terran, Zerg has very limited options and specific responses to many Protoss and Terran builds which will kill the Zerg player outright if the Zerg doesn't have ample preparation time.
The problem with that is that those builds which will kill the Zerg player all hit before Zerg has access to better scouting methods. While it's true that Protoss also suffers from poor scouting before hallucination or robotics tech, Protoss walks less of a razor's edge leading into the mid-game and has more "catch all" builds that leave the Protoss player capable of responding to most threats.
As far as Zerg goes, the biggest "I need to scout" threats are 4gate, void rays, banshees, and marine/scv all-ins. Less common rushes such as Dark Templar are also possible. In addition, many "normal" Terran builds can kill the Zerg player that isn't properly prepared, even the somewhat silly mass-hellion. Failing to scout one of the above builds with plenty of time to prepare is GG for the Zerg player.
Zerg has 2 methods for scouting in the early game: Overlords and checking the front. In the past, this has been effective on most maps and in most circumstances. However, it has still been possible for a player to deny both methods of scouting by means of hiding tech and revealing units from the front and keeping marines or stalkers patrolling around the base to shoot down overlords. This problem is exaggerated on large maps. I think Zerg players are going about scouting the wrong way. Scouting is always thought of as "looking into the opponents base to see what he is doing". Even that can be totally useless if your Protoss opponent proxies a Stargate or Twilight Council somewhere else on that large map you are concerned about. But what could be an alternative? IMO the Zerg should switch their focus from trying to scout the enemy base fast to scouting the possible "points of access into their base" early. This close scouting is done best with EARLY CREEP and it could also prevent that stupid pylon - which allows the Protoss to warp into your base - from being built. Try along the following lines: - expand early,
- get two Queens for two hatcheries,
- use the first energy on a creep tumor for both Queens and dont forget to cover the back of your base with creep,
- only build a few Zerglings (6-10) for mobile scouting,
- drone up and build LOTS of Spine Crawlers (enough to crush early rushes and withstand four warpgate) ... certainly more than the 1-2 because they have an awesome range and can block your chokes easily,
- build more Queens which can spread more creep (it is a LARGE map after all and the sooner you start the better) AND which can be used for Transfuse on Spine Crawlers and as air defense.
Day[9] isnt taken too serious by certain progamers, but the "non-stop Queens funday monday" showed a style which might even work on the pro level. Sadly Zerg players are too much into the "build a horde of Zerglings" and "Queens are only good for Larva inject" mantras. Seans usual sentence of "thats a Spine Crawler which he didnt want to make" is somewhat stupid IMO, because it doesnt figure in the MOBILITY of the Spine Crawler. Sure in BW the Sunken Colony was immobile and totally wasted if the enemy never comes to it, but in Starcraft 2 you can pick up your Spine Crawlers and take them to the middle of the map and create a "fallback position" with a ton of Spine Crawlers into which a force of pursuing Stalkers or terran bio would not want to follow your retreating Hydras. One of the complaints about the Hydra was that it lacked the mobility and that you couldnt really retreat. Be creative and give them a safe place to retreat to! The bottom line is: I think Zerg players are playing inefficient in the early game when they dont really have the resources to produce and reproduce an "unlimited" amount of Zerglings. Defensive structures and Transfuse are underused and keep their usefulness later in the game and should be used to create early defenses which can withstand early pressure no matter what is knocking on your front door or comes sailing through the skies. Queens and Spine Crawlers = no early scouting is needed as desperately as people make it.
Day9's prime example for non-stop queens was Catz, and Catz himself later debunked it. Throwing that out there.
The only thing spine crawlers are usually useful for in the late game is defending against drops, creep is far too easy to destroy for Zerg to hold a position in the middle of the map with them, and it takes too damn many (with exceptions when you're maxed for 10 minutes and you are clearing supply).
Siege tanks and a protoss ball don't really care about any number of spinecrawlers.
Going through the other part of your post...
Who is putting pylons right in your base? Pros already get 2 queens and use the energy of one on a creep tumour.
This next part really demonstrates that you don't understand the zerg early game, so I'm gonna kind of link them together.
You recommend "droning up and makings LOTS of spinecrawlers", but you also recommend getting 6-10 zerglings, which is already grossly overmaking lings. If you asked most pro zergs, I bet they'd tell you that making 10 zerglings that early is equivalent to all-inning. Not only that, but LOTS of spinecrawlers take LOTS of drones. We lose drones when we make buildings.
You say imply that spinecrawlers and queens are enough to defend against a 4gate, and I really don't believe this is true. If you want to go into custom games and test that, I'd love to try. For it to be true, you would need to cover every angle on your natural with enough spinecrawlers to hold off ~20 protoss units, and by that point transfuse doesn't do anything. Spinecrawlers are only effective with support from an army. The point of defending a 4gate is to surround the protoss units in range of the spines, but where the spines can't be hit back.
Not only that, but let's think about the numbers involved here.
You want at least 2 queens, 6 lings, it would probably take 8-10 spinecrawlers to make a protoss turn away, so that's 8-10 drones down the drain at 150 minerals a pop.
Best case scenario, even without making any lings, you're recommending a 1500 mineral, 8 drone investment by the 5:40 mark solely to defend against something that might not even be coming. There is literally no way in fucking hell that the zerg player is even close to economically even at this point, even if the protoss player did exactly what you wanted and 4gated directly into spinecrawlers and stood there for 20 seconds on hold position.
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The funny thing is about all this... is that I have the most trouble hiding what my plans are from a zerg when I ladder. I always feel exposed om the early game waiting for that overlord to fly in and scout my plans. Its the same feeling I get when a Terran uses their third MULE for a scan instead and catches my warp prism as it leaves the base towards theirs. I think that alot of zerg players would really benefit from really putting some dedicated time into the other races. I think to really be a solid Masters player you need to have at least put in some offrace effort on the other races to understand yours better.
Part of my "exposed" feeling is due to the fact that I'm actually exposed to them and part of the feeling is due to me knowing what all the tells of my race are... Like for instance... I know what a zerg is thinking, or SHOULD BE thinking, when they poke up my ramp and I have a stalker as my second unit instead of a sentry. I know what that means and I know the effect that getting the stalker and not the sentry means for the early stages of the game as well as know some tendencies that stalker symbolizes. I think alot of zergs below master level probably don't even consider what that second unit means to them or don't know exactly the impact it has on potential builds. Its a delayed expansion, its a guarantee they cant safely move out against a good zerg that went for fast speed, its suggestive of aggressive openings, etc.
I guess the bush im slowing beating around is that... its nearly impossible to have a meaningful discussion about this unless you can guarantee the posters commenting on it are high level. Scouting is a pretty difficult thing to get a grasp of and I think even in high diamond/low masters people don't actually know what it is they're looking at when they see it. Its because people dont focus enough on studying replays. For several months I painstakingly studied replay after replay... my own and others until I really got a grasp of what conclusions I could draw from what I saw... There's nothing innate about it... it just takes alot of time and effort to improve your scouting. Its so worth it though.
IMO, if you're not at the very LEAST very high diamond, I would focus on getting the most information out of what you actually are able to see before asking for handouts from blizzard. I'm 99% there alot of information you are actually seeing, but not processing in your matches that would win you tons and tons of games and make you feel more comfortable. Someone posted midway on this thread about how they really feel safe now after really digging into zerg and making an effort to understand the timings. If you want to be a whiny forum scrub, then ask for buffs, but if you want to get good at starcraft, make the best of the current situation and take your scouting and game sense to another level by studying the everliving shit out of the game.
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I think the real difference in T and P is that with T on any map zerg has time mostly, due to difference in what zerg want to scout for.
Often it's enough for Zerg to see Terrans Army aka scout the front or when he moves out and then respond. but against Protoss because of warp gates and pylons (specially on bigger maps where they can be nearly impossible to find without luck) you need to see what buildings he actually has! as 2/3 of his army will be coming in next to your base and not walk across the map. which makes the response time so much less.
Anyway thats my two cents.
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I don't buy into the whole "Z must adapt builds perfectly to every opening P or T can do to them" complaint that Z's like to use (I am primarily a zerg player). The only obtuse openings that require an extreme reaction IMO are proxy cloak banshee and proxy voidrays, and these have tell-tale signs as has been mentioned earlier in this thread. Every other opening simply requires good micro of queens, speedlings, and a spine or two. In the case of terran openings, baneling nest will have to go up eventually, it's not much of a sacrifice to make a precautionary one early if you scout an add-on to the rax.
Also, I don't buy into the whole 'Z must sit at home and make drones until the last minute' philosophy that many zergs have. I know many players feel 'guilt' if they morph zerglings needlessly that could have been drones. While it is true you sacrificed a slight economic edge by making zerglings instead of drones, those zerglings aren't useless as you can use them to patrol, to pressure the front, to deny any expansion attempts your opponent might make, and to counter-attack when they hit you with some cheesy voidray strategy. They will also make a fine addition to your army later on in the game as zerglings IMO are a severely under-rated zerg unit and not produced in nearly large enough quantities.
edit: I'd also like to add, no one ever seems to mention about what you don't scout as a zerg. If its the 6 minute mark and there are still no signs or attempts from your opponent to expand, and you yourself have early expanded, is it really that much of a stretch to stop and think "hmm, maybe they have units that can kill me sitting in their base?". Maybe its time to stop producing drones 100% and start making an army. You don't need 50 drones on 2 bases to be even with a 1-basing opponent, I'd argue going beyond 30 drones in such a scenario is pushing your luck.
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I really wish people would stop with the "Just make 6-10 lings and many many spine crawlers and Queens and your fine", cause your not. Sure that will hold the 4 gate, but it will put you loooong behind a macro Protoss. People who still says this just feels like trolls tbh.
This thread isn't about how to hold a 4 gate 100% of the time (which will make you loose to every non 4 gate 100% of the time). This thread is about how the Zerg can't scout efficiently(on some maps like Typhoon Peaks) after the first Marine/Stalker (untill hive Tech), and how if the Zerg make the wrong guess/read. The Zerg will most likely get run over.
A ZvP is very often decided around the 7 minute mark, even if the game last 20+ minutes. Of course good mechanics etc. can save you and change the outcome in the long games. But still a lot of ZvPs gets a clear favorite around the 6-7 minute mark. This usually happens cause the Zerg makes the wrong read, and get run over army wise or behind eco wise.
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On April 06 2011 16:05 Zerokaiser wrote: Siege tanks and a protoss ball don't really care about any number of spinecrawlers.
You recommend "droning up and makings LOTS of spinecrawlers", but you also recommend getting 6-10 zerglings, which is already grossly overmaking lings. If you asked most pro zergs, I bet they'd tell you that making 10 zerglings that early is equivalent to all-inning. Not only that, but LOTS of spinecrawlers take LOTS of drones. We lose drones when we make buildings.
You say imply that spinecrawlers and queens are enough to defend against a 4gate, and I really don't believe this is true. If you want to go into custom games and test that, I'd love to try. For it to be true, you would need to cover every angle on your natural with enough spinecrawlers to hold off ~20 protoss units, and by that point transfuse doesn't do anything. Spinecrawlers are only effective with support from an army. The point of defending a 4gate is to surround the protoss units in range of the spines, but where the spines can't be hit back.
Not only that, but let's think about the numbers involved here.
You want at least 2 queens, 6 lings, it would probably take 8-10 spinecrawlers to make a protoss turn away, so that's 8-10 drones down the drain at 150 minerals a pop.
Best case scenario, even without making any lings, you're recommending a 1500 mineral, 8 drone investment by the 5:40 mark solely to defend against something that might not even be coming. There is literally no way in fucking hell that the zerg player is even close to economically even at this point, even if the protoss player did exactly what you wanted and 4gated directly into spinecrawlers and stood there for 20 seconds on hold position. The point I was trying to make is that Zerglings are usually part of the Zerg defense, BUT they are extremely squishy and need to be reproduced A LOT. Spine Crawlers can hold out longer and thus give you more drones for workers in the end and this brings you to a point where you should have an earlier economic advantage.
The problem of Zerg units is that they are weaker on a 1v1 basis when compared against other races and thus they need large numbers to make up for it. Zerg cant get large numbers early on if they continue to lose 10 lings or 4 Roaches here and there. Thats where the Spine Crawler-Queen combo comes in and the faster economy should help enabling the growth of the "Zerg swarm". Obviously you need some mobile units to defend EARLY ON, but the Spines and Queens are nice block enemies comppletely while your mobile units are prodding and poking.
The Siege Tanks and Protoss ball you mention are not something you have to worry early on, so thats not something I was talking about. Obviously you need to have transitioned into your kind of army by that time, but starting with Spine Crawler-Queen should leave you with a better economy to switch.
Btw. in my kind of logic I count the drones as a resource as well and 1 Spine Crawler for 150 minerals is cheaper than 6 Zerglings for 150 ... because you save 2 larvae. Thats the whole point about Spine Crawlers that you can get more Drones.
The whole point of this thread is SCOUTING and my point of relying more on beefy units / structures to defend early on the very early pressure might not be as successful as it is now and thus making fast scouting unnecessary. Thats the whole point I was trying to make ... the specifics of how to do it are up to the players but the players need to change their way of thinking.
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On April 06 2011 17:09 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2011 16:05 Zerokaiser wrote: Siege tanks and a protoss ball don't really care about any number of spinecrawlers.
You recommend "droning up and makings LOTS of spinecrawlers", but you also recommend getting 6-10 zerglings, which is already grossly overmaking lings. If you asked most pro zergs, I bet they'd tell you that making 10 zerglings that early is equivalent to all-inning. Not only that, but LOTS of spinecrawlers take LOTS of drones. We lose drones when we make buildings.
You say imply that spinecrawlers and queens are enough to defend against a 4gate, and I really don't believe this is true. If you want to go into custom games and test that, I'd love to try. For it to be true, you would need to cover every angle on your natural with enough spinecrawlers to hold off ~20 protoss units, and by that point transfuse doesn't do anything. Spinecrawlers are only effective with support from an army. The point of defending a 4gate is to surround the protoss units in range of the spines, but where the spines can't be hit back.
Not only that, but let's think about the numbers involved here.
You want at least 2 queens, 6 lings, it would probably take 8-10 spinecrawlers to make a protoss turn away, so that's 8-10 drones down the drain at 150 minerals a pop.
Best case scenario, even without making any lings, you're recommending a 1500 mineral, 8 drone investment by the 5:40 mark solely to defend against something that might not even be coming. There is literally no way in fucking hell that the zerg player is even close to economically even at this point, even if the protoss player did exactly what you wanted and 4gated directly into spinecrawlers and stood there for 20 seconds on hold position. The point I was trying to make is that Zerglings are usually part of the Zerg defense, BUT they are extremely squishy and need to be reproduced A LOT. Spine Crawlers can hold out longer and thus give you more drones for workers in the end and this brings you to a point where you should have an earlier economic advantage. The problem of Zerg units is that they are weaker on a 1v1 basis when compared against other races and thus they need large numbers to make up for it. Zerg cant get large numbers early on if they continue to lose 10 lings or 4 Roaches here and there. Thats where the Spine Crawler-Queen combo comes in and the faster economy should help enabling the growth of the "Zerg swarm". Obviously you need some mobile units to defend EARLY ON, but the Spines and Queens are nice block enemies comppletely while your mobile units are prodding and poking. The Siege Tanks and Protoss ball you mention are not something you have to worry early on, so thats not something I was talking about. Obviously you need to have transitioned into your kind of army by that time, but starting with Spine Crawler-Queen should leave you with a better economy to switch. Btw. in my kind of logic I count the drones as a resource as well and 1 Spine Crawler for 150 minerals is cheaper than 6 Zerglings for 150 ... because you save 2 larvae. Thats the whole point about Spine Crawlers that you can get more Drones. The whole point of this thread is SCOUTING and my point of relying more on beefy units / structures to defend early on the very early pressure might not be as successful as it is now and thus making fast scouting unnecessary. Thats the whole point I was trying to make ... the specifics of how to do it are up to the players but the players need to change their way of thinking.
You know what happens when you base your defense on Spine crawlers? The opponent either walks around them and harass/kill the natural if they are to clumped up. Or they engage 2 at a time if the spine crawlers are spread.
On most of the current maps you need a good spread(cause naturals are wiiide) and 5-6 Spinecrawlers if your only basing it on queens + spinecrawlers.
Players need to change their way of thinking? If you defend a all in with pure Spinecrawlers, how hard is it for the opponent to take a base and get up a economy? It's not very all in when it's against only defensive buildings. Because even if it doesn't work, you get 0 pressure back on you after. While if you defend all ins with army + Spine Crawler, you should have won the game cause you can deny the 2nd base.
You need to realize why people are doing what they are doing today, and not blame them for not beeing able to change their way of thinking when it makes little sense to do so.
Also a defense based on Queens and Spinecrawlers is so easy to counter(the spanishiwa build). How? Take a fast 3rd base(or double expand if your on one base), and I'm never doing that build again when I realized that. Because more and more will do this when they realize what is happening.
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I am 100% sure zerg will get an early game unit that can scout well in the next expansion... zerg is so fucked by scout denying/fake outs its not even funny.
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On April 06 2011 17:40 Ichobicho wrote: You know what happens when you base your defense on Spine crawlers? The opponent either walks around them and harass/kill the natural if they are to clumped up. Or they engage 2 at a time if the spine crawlers are spread.
On most of the current maps you need a good spread(cause naturals are wiiide) and 5-6 Spinecrawlers if your only basing it on queens + spinecrawlers.
Players need to change their way of thinking? If you defend a all in with pure Spinecrawlers, how hard is it for the opponent to take a base and get up a economy? It's not very all in when it's against only defensive buildings. Because even if it doesn't work, you get 0 pressure back on you after. While if you defend all ins with army + Spine Crawler, you should have won the game cause you can deny the 2nd base.
You need to realize why people are doing what they are doing today, and not blame them for not beeing able to change their way of thinking when it makes little sense to do so.
Also a defense based on Queens and Spinecrawlers is so easy to counter(the spanishiwa build). How? Take a fast 3rd base(or double expand if your on one base), and I'm never doing that build again when I realized that. Because more and more will do this when they realize what is happening. First, I can think of two currently used maps which have a wiiide natural to defend: Metalopolis and Xel'Naga caverns. Do you notice the connection? Yes, they are Blizzard made. None of the GSL maps are without choke points to focus defenses on and these two maps also arent the biggest maps either ... which was the point of the OP ... scouting on large maps.
Second, if you are defending against an all-in with Spine Crawlers and Queens (which cost ZERO larvae) you should have a much better economy than the opponent who probably cut workers to make his all-in work in the first place. He wont be able to expand by snapping his fingers and Spine Crawler-Queen defense is all about higher efficiency per unit compared to pure Zergling / Roach defense. Zerglings are more or less "throw away units" and that is lost resources.
Basically the early problems of Zerg is that they are always losing units because they have the weakest units. Protoss and Terrans can run in and kill a few Zerglings and you have to reproduce them ... which totally screws your drone production. Spine Crawlers and Queens break this "oh I need to reproduce my defensive units to survive" cycle because they have a lot more hit points and dont die in a few seconds. Also the Queens add the benefit of creep spread and thus close scouting.
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On April 06 2011 17:57 Rabiator wrote: First, I can think of two currently used maps which have a wiiide natural to defend: Metalopolis and Xel'Naga caverns. Do you notice the connection? Yes, they are Blizzard made. None of the GSL maps are without choke points to focus defenses on and these two maps also arent the biggest maps either ... which was the point of the OP ... scouting on large maps.
It's funny how you tell me I don't know what this thread is about, and then you say Blizzard maps doesn't count.Typhoon peaks (blizzard map) is mentioned specifically in the first post. If we play the maps regularly they count, you cant just disclude them cause they are made by X, or used by Y. Who made the maps also has nothing to do with anything related to this thread, it's how the maps looks that matters.
GSL uses several Blizzard maps, one of which is Typhoon Peaks(used in GSTL so might not be used in GSL but still). Typhoon Peaks is one of the worst maps to scout on(already mentioned in first post). I don't get your point here? The scouting isn't a problem on all maps, but on some(cause some maps you can use OL), as the OP mentions.
On April 06 2011 17:57 Rabiator wrote: Second, if you are defending against an all-in with Spine Crawlers and Queens (which cost ZERO larvae) you should have a much better economy than the opponent who probably cut workers to make his all-in work in the first place. He wont be able to expand by snapping his fingers and Spine Crawler-Queen defense is all about higher efficiency per unit compared to pure Zergling / Roach defense. Zerglings are more or less "throw away units" and that is lost resources.
You do realize when Zerg defends we make army and not drones, so we cut workers as well. So we wont saturate up two bases while defending an all in. Sometimes you don't have a view of his natural, so you don't know when you can stop making units and drone up. They probably also start producing workers before this. On paper a Zerg stops unit production when the Allin stops, in reality the Zerg stop army production when he knows the all in is stopped. Queens are also not a 100% cost effective unit, if they die before they get to use some energy (they need +25 after spawning to transfuse). Then I wouldn't call them cost effective against Ground all ins.
On April 06 2011 17:43 Vei wrote: I am 100% sure zerg will get an early game unit that can scout well in the next expansion... zerg is so fucked by scout denying/fake outs its not even funny. I don't think that will happen, I rather Zerg get some unit which is better at defending early. I think Hydras with reduced dps would be great, and then you put a dps upgrade in the Hydra Den that requires Lair(which makes the dps what it is now), the range would also require Lair. OL speed at hatch tech will just be to good imo. something to complement the T1 would be better
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the point that most non-zergs dont seem to understand is that preparing for things that wont come causes a huge disadvantage
for example its zvt and all you see are marines; then you assume that there will be a factory for hellions so you go for spine crawlers and/or roaches - thats a lot of resources and drones in early stage; if you dont have more scouting information everything could happen - a 2nd factory with tanks, more barracks or stargates
preparing for everything would mean spine crawlers/roach warren, baneling nest, extra queens, evolution chamber and spore crawlers for detection and the result is a weaker economy and even worse a slower lair tech and without their speed upgrades banelings and roaches are terrible off creep; in zvp its much better as you dont rely on these upgrades and lair units
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I dont understand zergs, First most of you rage because the maps are to small now its to big? Not to seem like a idiot but make 2 overseer and sack it in from 2 different directions. And you know EXACTLY what your opponent have/dont have.
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On April 06 2011 19:44 asha wrote: I dont understand zergs, First most of you rage because the maps are to small now its to big? Not to seem like a idiot but make 2 overseer and sack it in from 2 different directions. And you know EXACTLY what your opponent have/dont have. it takes alot of time to get two overlords across for example taldarim cross posi if you get there bei 5minutes he will already have atleast 3-4 sentrys / stalkers / marines snipe of your overlords and you wont be able too see alot
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some maps suck like hell I hate how I cant harass with medivac, leave it somewhere to harass some more later. It's all alnd and you can't squeeze medivacs/banshees in. For zergs it's even worse. Some maps are made like you can't even make a flank or a decent drop. They counter it with a few units who catch up to your dropships, coz everywhere is too much land.
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What I've been trying to do is: 1) Send first overlord into middle of map. 2) 10 drone scout (as in, right when I spend the 50 minerals on the drone after the overlord). 3) Send the drone scout to the same vertical position as I am in (if I am at 9, send it to 12), that way I can position the overlord between the two other bases, and when I find the correct position, move behind the right base. 4) Send the second overlord against protoss (not terran) to the other side of their base, to check on expansion timing. Against terran, I'd rather use the second overlord to be strategically placed to scout for bunkers against my 15 hatch.
I don't build more than 2 set of lings, and no spine crawlers initially. I just send them off, one ling to xel naga, or scout the map, another to scout their ramp / expansion / move out timing, and 2 to kill off scouting probes / scv's trying to get into my base or place proxy pylons. Most protoss place proxy pylons in the same sort of places, so it's not impossible - but luck based - whether or not you find them before they are done.
I'll still be surprised quite often. Well, I lost most of my playing skill after a two months break too, so not surprising.
edit: If hatcheries spawned with full creep spread allready, mostly this wouldn't be an issue, as you would be much more free to place down buildings to simcity like terran and protoss. Since they don't, you are forced to place your tech in your main where it's easily scanned vs terran, and you won't have time always to place down evo chamber etc near ramp to block it, if you don't use early energy for creep tumour at expansion. Also, a spine crawler would then be able to be placed to deny scv / probe scouting completely much faster, making it more of a guessing game for your opponent.
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Day[9] isnt taken too serious by certain progamers, but the "non-stop Queens funday monday" showed a style which might even work on the pro level. Sadly Zerg players are too much into the "build a horde of Zerglings" and "Queens are only good for Larva inject" mantras.
There's no doubt that queens are decent jack-of-all-trades, but in many cases you simply can't build enough of them to hold off the timings/cheese. Even if you fast expand or go for a 11/18 BO you will not have a mass of queens ready. Besides, shouldn't building units blindly be discouraged in a strategy game with a race that is designed around the word "reactionary"? I'd rather be able to scout and have my skill/decision making ability (or the lack of it) decide where I take the game to.
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Completely agree with the scouting issue, especially on Typon Peaks. No way to get overlord to their base if its cross positions. If its top-down its also hard to sneak it past since the air gap is so small, marine / stalker can shoot it down before it can see anything.
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On April 06 2011 19:44 asha wrote: I dont understand zergs, First most of you rage because the maps are to small now its to big? Not to seem like a idiot but make 2 overseer and sack it in from 2 different directions. And you know EXACTLY what your opponent have/dont have.
The timing on an overseer is obviously way too late to scout most early game all-ins. In fact rushing a lair will result in instant death against some 4gates.
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