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On June 30 2014 19:52 Hider wrote:
@BigJ.
But notice you only showed me one game with Mutalisk dominating. After Curious vs Innovation (and some Scarlett games), I thought Mutalisks would indeed be extremely dominant in every late game TvZ, but it turned out to be the exception rather than the rule. I can't remember the last time I saw 30 Mutalisks in a progame completley owning the terran player
There are of course quite a lot other such games, such as the DRG vs INnoVation series, basically every game Snute ever plays, Scarlett as you say. But you are right, at the Korean level it's hard to find such games and a lot of the popular ones are quite old.
I looked through all the recent proleague TvZs that a Zerg won to find some evidence for mutalisk dominance vs bio and the terrans 4th timings, but each of those games was a failed Terran timing/cheese, a Zerg timing/cheese or Mech. It seems like Terrans that actually try to go for bio mcaro games are quite rare.
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This happens all the time. Every single game Snute plays, as Big J pointed out.
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On July 01 2014 00:25 johnbongham wrote:
Whining about balance whining has become this community's worst trait.
No it has not. I dislike reading balance whine. The TL rules are set up against balance whine. They're not enforcing it a whole lot, at least not as much as I would, that's up to them, it's their house. But you don't get to tell me I should enjoy it.
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How about a lategame upgrade for terran that would allow reactored rax to produce TL units and vise versa, without allowing of course double marauders/ghosts production.
Something like allowing 2x marines, reapers and 1x marau/ghosts. From everyrax.
That would help a lot against late game zerg and protoss remax since Marine aren't that usefull in lategame anyway and you need marau AND ghost to be produced after a fight in TvP but you can only chose one at the time.
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On July 01 2014 00:25 johnbongham wrote:
Whining about balance whining has become this community's worst trait.
Absolutely. No matter how much effort one puts in, or how many stats and examples, if you talk about balance and how it might not be totally fine, you are sure to get abuse from a number of posters.
The irony of it is that the ones most likely to "whine" about "balance whining" are exactly the most biased and whine-prone posters.
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On July 01 2014 00:37 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 00:25 johnbongham wrote:
Whining about balance whining has become this community's worst trait. Absolutely. No matter how much effort one puts in, or how many stats and examples, if you talk about balance and how it might not be totally fine, you are sure to get abuse from a number of posters. The irony of it is that the ones most likely to "whine" about "balance whining" are exactly the most biased and whine-prone posters.
That's not ironic at all. I'm biased, I've never pretended otherwise. We would gain a great deal of time if everyone in these threads would admit that they're biased, it's not like we're fooling anyone.
I don't know that I need to write this, but balance discussion and balance whine aren't the same thing, and the difference between the two isn't the effort you put in your posting. No matter how much effort one puts in, the purpose of balance whine is still the same. It's not to change the game. It's not to change opinions. It's not to create a discussion with someone who disagrees. It's to complain about things, in a way that won't make anything change. A post like Faust's last post isn't balance whine. He's offering an idea, and we get to discuss the implications of his idea. There is a purpose, there is a discussion to be had. That's completely fine.
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On July 01 2014 00:32 Faust852 wrote:
How about a lategame upgrade for terran that would allow reactored rax to produce TL units and vise versa, without allowing of course double marauders/ghosts production.
Something like allowing 2x marines, reapers and 1x marau/ghosts. From everyrax.
That would help a lot against late game zerg and protoss remax since Marine aren't that usefull in lategame anyway and you need marau AND ghost to be produced after a fight in TvP but you can only chose one at the time.
How about the original Caduceus Reactor hots buff that increased medivac healing rate? Instead of scrapping it completely and having an upgrade no one gets, it should have required fusion core tech and increased cost.
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On July 01 2014 00:43 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 00:37 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 01 2014 00:25 johnbongham wrote:
Whining about balance whining has become this community's worst trait. Absolutely. No matter how much effort one puts in, or how many stats and examples, if you talk about balance and how it might not be totally fine, you are sure to get abuse from a number of posters. The irony of it is that the ones most likely to "whine" about "balance whining" are exactly the most biased and whine-prone posters. That's not ironic at all. I'm biased, I've never pretended otherwise. We would gain a great deal of time if everyone in these threads would admit that they're biased, it's not like we're fooling anyone. I don't know that I need to write this, but balance discussion and balance whine aren't the same thing, and the difference between the two isn't the effort you put in your posting. No matter how much effort one puts in, the purpose of balance whine is still the same. It's not to change the game. It's not to change opinions. It's not to create a discussion with someone who disagrees. It's to complain about things, in a way that won't make anything change. A post like Faust's last post isn't balance whine. He's offering an idea, and we get to discuss the implications of his idea. There is a purpose, there is a discussion to be had. That's completely fine.
I agree with all of that.
"Protoss OP easy race!!" is balance whine. A huge post with dozens of examples and stats and strategy analysis is balance discussion, no matter the tone.
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I think giving the terrans the drop pods will solve a lot of issues lol. I'm already thinking about all the all-ins that can come with that  Same thing with defending all-ins.
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On June 30 2014 23:57 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 19:52 Hider wrote:
@BigJ.
But notice you only showed me one game with Mutalisk dominating. After Curious vs Innovation (and some Scarlett games), I thought Mutalisks would indeed be extremely dominant in every late game TvZ, but it turned out to be the exception rather than the rule. I can't remember the last time I saw 30 Mutalisks in a progame completley owning the terran player
There are of course quite a lot other such games, such as the DRG vs INnoVation series, basically every game Snute ever plays, Scarlett as you say. But you are right, at the Korean level it's hard to find such games and a lot of the popular ones are quite old. I looked through all the recent proleague TvZs that a Zerg won to find some evidence for mutalisk dominance vs bio and the terrans 4th timings, but each of those games was a failed Terran timing/cheese, a Zerg timing/cheese or Mech. It seems like Terrans that actually try to go for bio mcaro games are quite rare.
What do you mean by timing? If your thinking about standard migame bio pressure vs zerg to try and kill the 4th of the zerg, the reason terran has so much trouble putting any pressure on the zerg in the midgame atm is due to the weaker Widow Mine. Prepatch terran could actually be a lot more active out on the mid in the midgame, even with inferior army value as engaging widow mines was difficult as zerg. That's just not the case anymore which forces terran to sit back alot more.
And in situations where they still try and be active out on the map, it's not unrare to see the zerg player simply overrun the terran player and basically end the game right there.
This happens all the time. Every single game Snute plays, as Big J pointed out.
What we see most often is Zergs getting Mutalisks to kill drops, use them in battles and go for the occational harass-play. That's absolultely fine in my opinion and provides exciting gameplay. It's a lot more rare that we see Mutalisks killing terran bases left and right and making it impossible for the terran player to leave his base.
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On July 01 2014 01:03 Hider wrote:
What we see most often is Zergs getting Mutalisks to kill drops, use them in battles and go for the occational harass-play. That's absolultely fine in my opinion and provides exciting gameplay. It's a lot more rare that we see Mutalisks killing terran bases left and right and making it impossible for the terran player to leave his base.
Yeah that happens more if the Zerg is already way ahead or if he's just a better player. Muta outright killing bases is not as common. But the huge flock of Muta flying around is, if the player is careful at controlling it. Guys like Snute who almost never lose more than a few Muta always end up with a huge ball of them and way more than enough gas to mass Baneling.
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On July 01 2014 01:03 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 23:57 Big J wrote:On June 30 2014 19:52 Hider wrote:
@BigJ.
But notice you only showed me one game with Mutalisk dominating. After Curious vs Innovation (and some Scarlett games), I thought Mutalisks would indeed be extremely dominant in every late game TvZ, but it turned out to be the exception rather than the rule. I can't remember the last time I saw 30 Mutalisks in a progame completley owning the terran player
There are of course quite a lot other such games, such as the DRG vs INnoVation series, basically every game Snute ever plays, Scarlett as you say. But you are right, at the Korean level it's hard to find such games and a lot of the popular ones are quite old. I looked through all the recent proleague TvZs that a Zerg won to find some evidence for mutalisk dominance vs bio and the terrans 4th timings, but each of those games was a failed Terran timing/cheese, a Zerg timing/cheese or Mech. It seems like Terrans that actually try to go for bio mcaro games are quite rare. What do you mean by timing? If your thinking about standard migame bio pressure vs zerg to try and kill the 4th of the zerg, the reason terran has so much trouble putting any pressure on the zerg in the midgame atm is due to the weaker Widow Mine. Prepatch terran could actually be a lot more active out on the mid in the midgame, even with inferior army value as engaging widow mines was difficult as zerg. That's just not the case anymore which forces terran to sit back alot more.
Timings/Cheeses as in Maru floating to the gold, whatever Marineking does, hellbat pushes.
It's not just the mine that has changed. Terrans use builds that are inherently weaker than previously, as I said. Later 4ths, later extra raxes, earlier/more turrets.
Shamelessly stolen from TheDwf's thread, Taeja vs Snute.
http://www.twitch.tv/taketv/b/536234505?t=6h06m10s
Taeja does some damage with his drops... Yet his modern build starts its 4th at 15:45, compared to the old INnoVation Build with its 12min 4th.
Snute is saturated at his 4th at 14:30 (which is rather late these days). Taeja starts mining from his 4th at 19:30 (which is pretty standard these days).
Eventually this economy advantage just snowballs into a mass baneling/ultralisk/mass mutalisk composition with 30mutas going rampant on everything that is not protected by 50marines.
Imo, Terrans don't even build those crucial 4th bases on time anymore, because when they try to, they cannot hold them against mutalisks without taking massive damage somewhere. Hence, pushing more commitetly than previously is much more prevalent. (the mine nerf of course playing a big part in, why the mutalisks have all the freedom to harass so early)
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On July 01 2014 02:05 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 01:03 Hider wrote:On June 30 2014 23:57 Big J wrote:On June 30 2014 19:52 Hider wrote:
@BigJ.
But notice you only showed me one game with Mutalisk dominating. After Curious vs Innovation (and some Scarlett games), I thought Mutalisks would indeed be extremely dominant in every late game TvZ, but it turned out to be the exception rather than the rule. I can't remember the last time I saw 30 Mutalisks in a progame completley owning the terran player
There are of course quite a lot other such games, such as the DRG vs INnoVation series, basically every game Snute ever plays, Scarlett as you say. But you are right, at the Korean level it's hard to find such games and a lot of the popular ones are quite old. I looked through all the recent proleague TvZs that a Zerg won to find some evidence for mutalisk dominance vs bio and the terrans 4th timings, but each of those games was a failed Terran timing/cheese, a Zerg timing/cheese or Mech. It seems like Terrans that actually try to go for bio mcaro games are quite rare. What do you mean by timing? If your thinking about standard migame bio pressure vs zerg to try and kill the 4th of the zerg, the reason terran has so much trouble putting any pressure on the zerg in the midgame atm is due to the weaker Widow Mine. Prepatch terran could actually be a lot more active out on the mid in the midgame, even with inferior army value as engaging widow mines was difficult as zerg. That's just not the case anymore which forces terran to sit back alot more. Timings/Cheeses as in Maru floating to the gold, whatever Marineking does, hellbat pushes. It's not just the mine that has changed. Terrans use builds that are inherently weaker than previously, as I said. Later 4ths, later extra raxes, earlier/more turrets. Shamelessly stolen from TheDwf's thread, Taeja vs Snute. http://www.twitch.tv/taketv/b/536234505?t=6h06m10sTaeja does some damage with his drops... Yet his modern build starts its 4th at 15:45, compared to the old INnoVation Build with its 12min 4th. Snute is saturated at his 4th at 14:30 (which is rather late these days). Taeja starts mining from his 4th at 19:30 (which is pretty standard these days). Eventually this economy advantage just snowballs into a mass baneling/ultralisk/mass mutalisk composition with 30mutas going rampant on everything that is not protected by 50marines. Imo, Terrans don't even build those crucial 4th bases on time anymore, because when they try to, they cannot hold them against mutalisks without taking massive damage somewhere. Hence, pushing more commitetly than previously is much more prevalent. (the mine nerf of course playing a big part in, why the mutalisks have all the freedom to harass so early)
I don't think thats true at all. If what you said is true, then there would still be a ton more games where a terran did get a 4th (because this still happens often) and then ended up getting absolutely outharassed by Mutalisks.
I am not sure why terran would get an earlier 4th? Terran typically stops at 65 workers, and 3base saturation fit them kinda well. It's pretty ineffective for terran to prioritize a 4th over production infastructure as it disallows them any type of pressure in the midgame. At least when you "delay" your 4th you can be much more active around the 15th minute mark.
Further, this is some kind of inconsistency with your theory. Why does Mutalisks matter to whether terrans get a 4th at the 12-13th minute mark or the 16th minute mark? If anything, the Mutalisks threat is a ton lower in the earlier midgame relative to the later stages of the midgame. Like if terran rushed out a 4th at 12-13th minute mark, so they could land it at around 15th minute mark, then the Mutalisk count still isn't high enough to absolutely crush down multiple turrets and split the terran player completely apart. Instead, if the terran player gets a 4th so he cand land it at 15 th minute mark, he is a ton more likely to have the inferior ground army.
In order to secure bases as terran vs zerg, you need to have the stronger figthing army. You have that in the late early game as your Hellions grant you mapcontrol in this phase of the game which allows you to put down a 3rd, but you do not really have that in the earlier stages of the midgame. At least you cannot both obtain a very fast 4th + a strong enough fighting army to secure it.
But it's not true that a higher sized army supply of terran cannot defend Mutalisks on 4 bases. You even linked to the series between Taeja and Snute, but clearly Taeja didn't have significant issues defending his bases from mass Mutalisks that game.
It's ofc true that Mutalisks are strong, but so are Marines and Medivacs. The question is how you wanna balance the game. Do you wanna balance it around both races having microintensive and multitaskbased units or do you wanna balance the game around units that are worse at harassing and doesn't create microinteractions? I much more prefer the former, and that's why I am fine with strong Mutalisks as long as terran gets the AOE it deserves in order to force the zerg army to micro during engagements.
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I am not sure why terran would get an earlier 4th?
The 12-13min 4th isn't my idea, that's plainly what players like Innovation and Flash did back in 2013.
I guess it is because ~15mins your main isn't fully mining anymore with several mineral patches being sacrificed to the Mule-Gods, hence, if you don't have the 4th, you are effectively 2basing.
Imo what we see often is that the Terran is taking damage from the mutalisks + he invests into defense and then his supply starts to stagnate, while the Zerg supply is skyrocketing around the time the first push has been cleaned up or if it didn't come.
The idea that mutalisks are the core problem isn't just motivated by ZvT. ZvZ, for as long as mutalisks could do any kind of damage, they were by far the best option, pinning the opponent back and expanding faster.
In ZvP, the only reason why mutalisks don't dominate every game is that Protoss can crush them, not just minimize damage but really just plainly reach a state where it's an insta-loss if you have mutalisks and where anytime you try to do damage, some mutalisks have to die.
In ZvT, mutas were fine for as long as they were pinned back, never harassing at all and are fine once a Terran reaches some Viking/Raven/Thor combo with 50turrets. But when they are allowed to leave their half of the map, it's usually the same theme everygame: Zerg gets the much higher army value up.
And yes, as you say, Terran needs an army that can combat Zerg to get up expansions. You don't get a such if you are only rebuilding from what you are losing when being harassed, while also being down at least 1 mining base.
And it's not about "just sitting at home", but mutalisks impose too many restrictions on a Terran opponent in my opinion. There is a border between "microintense, fun" and "can do too much", which in the second case often leaves you handwaving without options to punish an opponent for what you know he will be doing, but it doesn't matter that you know.
I mean, watch through Terran games and see how often they make the mistake to make turrets at 10mins, when the Zerg spire only finishes at 12mins. Sure it's a mistake to invest into a safety measure for something that isn't there. Question is what happens if it would come. You are restricted to build those turrets that early, when you would rather spend that money on anything else. Later on you are restricted to be capable of defending your main base against some 50-60 or more supply army appearing in a second and leaving anytime it gets too hot.
You can get the AoE against them, Thors are one of the best counters to mutalisks in the game in combat. But they cannot defend all your bases, and even if they do there is a difference between defending mutalisks and something else: mutas heal up, so defending =/= gaining ground.
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On June 30 2014 17:25 Sajaki wrote:
After reading DWF's editorial, and thinking about my own experience with Terran and its matchups, I think I've come up with a (widow mine) buff to terran that: Promotes micro on both sides, does not reward A-move from terrans side at all, and doesn't change the stat of the unit in any way. Currently, widow mines are just too unreliable against lategame zerg armies. My simple suggestion is this: Give widowmines a manual targeting feature. Make it an actual key you have to press, like R. Make it so that this Manual Targetting command only applies to 1 widowmine per R click, like storm or any other caster ability.
You might say that you can already manual target with widowmines. This is absolutely true, BUT you have to manually click each individual mine, and then click its target. If you have all the time in the world this is easy, but when the zerg army is rolling at you you will NEVER have the time to manually target any more than 2 mines AND split sufficient. Furthermore, you cannot even select all your widowmines and shift-target multiple units like different banelings or whatever, since the stupid mine AI will just overkill the target with literally all mines in range.
This change would simply make it easier to actually utilize mines without getting into the messy numbers of the unit. It would allow mines to actually target the threatening units like baneling clumps and allow Terran to compete better against lategame zerg armies. Not through a buff in power, but through a buff in ease-of-access.
FOR A MORE DETAILED EXPLANATION
Mines have 5 range. Currently, even if using the inefficient click mine, click target method, YOU CANNOT TARGET A UNIT, SHIFT OR OTHERWISE, outside 5 range. With my proposed change, we keep the range the same but add a cast range of Manual Targetting to something like 7. When the Terran presses the Manual Targetting key and clicks an enemy unit, that unit is tagged by a single mine (the closest mine to the target, like any other targeted ability). The mine will NOT attack any other target, except the one tagged, when it gets into the widowmine's range (5) so long as the tagged unit remains in the Tagged range (something like 7). If the tagged unit gets out of the tagged range, than the tag is lost and the widowmine returns to automatic function like it does right now.
If a widowmine is currently targetting a unit automatically, and is in the 1.5 second phase before it shoots, and is issued a Manual Targetting command, it will drops its current target and behave like the mine in the situation above (won't attack any unit except the tagged unit, when the tagged unit comes in the mines attack range and as long as the unit doesn't leave the mines "tagged range").
I think, ultimately, it's a change that would:
Add more micro on the terrans side (targeting mines)
Add more micro on the zergs side (splitting to mitigate damage)
Give absolutely 0 advantage to an A-moving terran player who doesn't target
Punish a zerg who doesn't micro vs a player that targets.
All without changing the numbers of the unit at all from what it is right now.
Thoughts anyone? Good idea, bad idea, nonsensical? I really think this change would be a step in the right direction for tvz, without mucking up the unit stats...
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The main downside with manual single Mines is that they are not Siege Tanks.
With only range of 5, the mass roll-in of Banelings will swamp your Mines before they can deal with them.
Siege Tanks were more useful for manual targetting because they had 13 range and fired immediately.
It also does not help the fact that the reduced splash (instead of 40 all-round) is not killing as many Banelings as you need them to.
As for suggestions, the one I have been throwing out is to reduce the MSC speed to that of the old Overlords (like 0.88 or something) and add a speed upgrade to the Cybernetics Core with 50/50 and 110 or 140 seconds research time.
This way the Protoss player will have to choose between Warp Gate and MSC Speed, reducing the damage/threat of Blink attacks. The MSC could still slowly waddle over to the Terran base but it would be very vulnerable and could only get back to base quickly via Recall. Defensively it would not change too much as you can park the MSC between the main and the natural. It also reduces the early threat the MSC itself brings.
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he 12-13min 4th isn't my idea, that's plainly what players like Innovation and Flash did back in 2013.
I guess it is because ~15mins your main isn't fully mining anymore with several mineral patches being sacrificed to the Mule-Gods, hence, if you don't have the 4th, you are effectively 2basing.
The reason terran takes a later 4th is that the advantages of getting out a larger army outweights the disadvantas of a marginally better economy. That might not have been the case in earlier HOTS where a smaller terran army could deal better with a larger Zerg army.
Imo what we see often is that the Terran is taking damage from the mutalisks + he invests into defense and then his supply starts to stagnate, while the Zerg supply is skyrocketing around the time the first push has been cleaned up or if it didn't come.
Note that zerg skyrockets due to how their production/economy works. For your theory to be correct, there would need to be a lot of games where Mutalisks does a lot of damage in the midgame. It's imo very rarely that Mutalisks kill more than a couple of workers/1-2 Turrets in this phase of the game (when it is harassing).
I mean, watch through Terran games and see how often they make the mistake to make turrets at 10mins, when the Zerg spire only finishes at 12mins. Sure it's a mistake to invest into a safety measure for something that isn't there. Question is what happens if it would come. You are restricted to build those turrets that early, when you would rather spend that money on anything else. Later on you are restricted to be capable of defending your main base against some 50-60 or more supply army appearing in a second and leaving anytime it gets too hot.
Well that's how the game is balanced. The Mutalisk threat exists and forces the terran play in a certain way. Is that fun or not? That's really the main way I look at it in terms of assessing whether Mutalisk should be nerfed or Widow Mines buffed. I think the latter creates far more interesting gameplay.
You can get the AoE against them, Thors are one of the best counters to mutalisks in the game in combat. But they cannot defend all your bases, and even if they do there is a difference between defending mutalisks and something else: mutas heal up, so defending =/= gaining ground.
Well it allows terran to split up his bases a lot better. But doesn't you need to find more games where terran (once he goes on 4+bases) gets kinda torn apart by Mutalisk in the late game? I referred to the Snue vs Taeja series that you linked to as an example that Taeja "easily" could secure 4bases without dying to Mutalisk threat. I am sure I could find a lot more games where this is the case as well, but games where terrans gets shredded are IMO a lot less common.
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they just need to give us the old mine back
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On July 01 2014 00:37 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 00:25 johnbongham wrote:
Whining about balance whining has become this community's worst trait. Absolutely. No matter how much effort one puts in, or how many stats and examples, if you talk about balance and how it might not be totally fine, you are sure to get abuse from a number of posters. The irony of it is that the ones most likely to "whine" about "balance whining" are exactly the most biased and whine-prone posters.
So its ok to balance whine when it suits your purpose? People who disagree with you become the scourge of humanity until your race is on top again then no one has the right to balance whine.
See what I did there, according to your logic I am whining about your whining of people who whine on people who balance whine. That's a lot of wine.
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EPT
