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On September 23 2014 08:25 404AlphaSquad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2014 07:42 Cricketer12 wrote: zerg and protoss are waay to weak, zerg is designed to only win if they have insane macro, or life's balls, hence why only one or 2 zergs can really compete at the highest level, toss is a terribly weak race: mass marine only minz killz mass toss deathball mass gas Thank you for your wonderful contribution to this discussion.
Hey at least people now dismiss this kind of comment
A few hundred pages ago this might have started a 50 page balance whine
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Northern Ireland23798 Posts
To be fair we had Protoss players claiming Blink builds weren't an issue so I can understand the Terran rage
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On September 23 2014 08:46 DinoMight wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2014 08:25 404AlphaSquad wrote:On September 23 2014 07:42 Cricketer12 wrote: zerg and protoss are waay to weak, zerg is designed to only win if they have insane macro, or life's balls, hence why only one or 2 zergs can really compete at the highest level, toss is a terribly weak race: mass marine only minz killz mass toss deathball mass gas Thank you for your wonderful contribution to this discussion. Hey at least people now dismiss this kind of comment A few hundred pages ago this might have started a 50 page balance whine 
Not too late to start?
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Everyone forgetting overseer speed buff? That is a pretty huge indirect nerf to mines.
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Northern Ireland23798 Posts
That was a great change as it gave Zergs abilities to counter-attack a lot less riskily
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On September 23 2014 09:08 Wombat_NI wrote: That was a great change as it gave Zergs abilities to counter-attack a lot less riskily
And overseer buff directly affects 4M that all the Zergs here are whining about. Mines being core in 4M, not hellbats and thors.
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Thor splash is still negated by magic box, and the situation in which a pack of mutas tries to snipe a Mine under the surveillance of a Thor is unchanged pre- and post-patch (since there are only air targets anyway). Plus not all pro Terrans constantly build Thors. Some like Flash or Polt do, some like Bogus produce them episodically, some like Maru, Cure or Bomber don't get them at all in some games. Even for that aspect that may seem straightforward there's no consensus yet…
Problem with magic box is that it's quite an ineffective way to postion Mutas during an engagement. Zerg would definitely prefer if they could clump them and up and not be punished for it.
Also, Banshee's are 100/100 now. Hellbat transformation is also a small buff to terran as it does allow someone who has kept his initial hellions alive to put on stronger pressure in the early midgame.
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On September 23 2014 07:36 LSN wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2014 06:39 TheDwf wrote:
Except that:
1. The "initial balance" remains unknown since Blizzard patched the game before both sides found/refined the optimal way(s) to play the match-up… 2. Merged upgrades have no impact on 4M; 3. Increased attack speed for Tanks has no impact on 4M; 4. Hellbat timings would be a problem if they weighed Zerg standard builds down so much that they would lose to other stuff (straight 3OC, etc.) but that's not the case. Zerg isn't forced to open blind defensive Roaches every game, plus all Hellbat openings end up behind against correct Zerg defence or even have straight build order losses that adjust their risk/reward ratio (in short they're a "metagaming tool" and not a standard); 5. Thor splash is still negated by magic box, and the situation in which a pack of mutas tries to snipe a Mine under the surveillance of a Thor is unchanged pre- and post-patch (since there are only air targets anyway). Plus not all pro Terrans constantly build Thors. Some like Flash or Polt do, some like Bogus produce them episodically, some like Maru, Cure or Bomber don't get them at all in some games. Even for that aspect that may seem straightforward there's no consensus yet…
Last point, Zerg play is still evolving. Zerg isn't stuck in a bottomless pit like Terran was the past few months. There's still the potentially giant wave of Swarm host play after mutas waiting to crash on the TvZ shore. In Europe that's already the standard way to play for pros like Snute, TargA or Kane, and it's spreading. Who knows, in 2 months this thread may be full of rage towards Locusts being standard in TvZ… I guess terrans have more room to evolve thans zergs these days (what your own examples obviously prove). This is also true for countering and preventing swarmhost play. Ravens are still one of the most overpowered units in the game when being massed. Terrans maybe coulda evolve into raven transitions if zergs do stuff like hosts, who knows. Putting the chance to evolve only on the side of zerg, smells a bit like bias. As well as claiming that when Terran is behind in the current meta it is in the final state and nothing can evolve anymore but when zerg is behind they got alot of room to evolve always.
I think that TheDwf never argued that terran was UP or that Terran was at its pinnacle of play. The fact that Terran was developed quite highly was put forward earlier in a different context, but quite inconclusively (Terran has indeed evolved a lot, but nobody knows how much relative to their potential). However, I do think a lot of balance whiners claim that Terran is played to its full potential whenever Terran seems weak, but we don't have to pay any attention to those people. Rather, TheDwf simply argued against the hasty conclusion that Terran is OP.
I don't think the idea of slow Zerg evolution is very controversial or especially biased. Given our experiences with WoL, Zerg in general take a much longer time to converge on a very competitive style. It might look like it's been much quicker in HotS; but it's difficult to say right now.
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On September 23 2014 07:36 LSN wrote: Putting the chance to evolve only on the side of zerg, smells a bit like bias. As well as claiming that when Terran is behind in the current meta it is in the final state and nothing can evolve anymore but when zerg is behind they got alot of room to evolve always.
I also wonder that you speak like tank buff and hellbat buff had no effect on TvZ. You talk about 4M instead of TvZ, so you strictly speaking wanna say that these buffs have no effect on the whole matchup at all?
Just saying, this is no neutral view on things. Are you actually implying that TheDwf might be terran-biased? Wow. I thought this was not allowed since the publication of the mile-long-Terran-is-UP-we-need-a-patch post.
(but now everything is fine, shush)
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On September 23 2014 09:13 plogamer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2014 09:08 Wombat_NI wrote: That was a great change as it gave Zergs abilities to counter-attack a lot less riskily And overseer buff directly affects 4M that all the Zergs here are whining about. Mines being core in 4M, not hellbats and thors. The overseer buff put zvt into a winnable state vs good terrans past the 15 minute mark apparently.
Arguing about the balance of the game back then seems funky, especially regarding thors.
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On September 23 2014 09:38 TokO wrote: I think that TheDwf never argued that terran was UP Did we read the same post two months ago? 
On September 23 2014 09:38 TokO wrote: However, I do think a lot of balance whiners claim that Terran is played to its full potential whenever Terran seems weak, but we don't have to pay any attention to those people. That's a pretty common thing (race-neutral). The currently winning race is always winning easily while the others are played at their full potential and still lose. Well in case of Terran that's actually true, but that's just me 
My real question is: how the hell do you know how to even speak about balance? Winrates are only used by people who think they can use them to improve their arguments. The same winrates are ignored by people who think they don't fit in their view of the world. Race representation? Where? When? Skill requirement? How do you measure that? I see terrans play, I see shift-clicked drops and marine queues. Other see perfect splits and great drops. We can't use caster analysis to judge this given the amount of fake hype they (have to) build.
Everything is completely subjective. Is there something somewhere, a measure of anything, that could be used as a reference point for actual balance discussion or is this just subjective arguing?
If we can't use win rates, tournament wins, ro8, ro4 or anything related to... well... anything, what can actually be used to talk about this? Aligulac was apparently useful to talk about how terran was underperforming not long ago, but is completely irrelevant now to say that terran might be overperforming a bit. So... what else? Wait for next year? After Blizzcon and the "empty" season, when things *might* be moving again?
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On September 23 2014 01:55 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2014 13:44 Quigly4000 wrote: Well I just finished viewing every TvZ from GSL round of 16.
Not a single zerg beat a terran that went bio mine. An extremely alarming situation considering the sample size of 5 games (among which only 2 even macro games). Show nested quote +Cure vs Solar Game 1: Hell bat timing fails and solar wins with roach/baneling followup (no widow mines built) Game 2: Cure kills third with hellbat timing, followup attack kills 4th solar GG's Game 3: banshee + hellion harrass kill 38 drones and followup attack wins Game 4: Standard macro, cure camps outside zerg 4th with bio mine.. zerg never gets a favorable engagement. GG. What an objective summary... Game 2: the Hatchery loses 80% of its hit points to Reapers/Hellions, after which Hellbats finish it. Yep, on Nimbus you can't protect your third with only Queens against 3 Reapers + Hellions if you take the inbase natural (because of the choke + no creep down there). Solar would have never ran into this problem had he taken this base as his natural (DRG did it vs Bogus). Sorry if Terran is allowed to win against a Zerg losing his third and going 9'15 lair + 1/1. Game 3: You somehow fail to mention that Solar opens 14/14 against a CC first opening, which means that his attempt at metagaming a Reaper opening or a 2 rax FAILED; CC first completes the expand before Speed is done, so Terran can lift behind his wall and is economically ahead from there. After that Solar doesn't sacrifice an over (despite the fact he has one in position) and is surprised by a Cloak Banshee, losing 10 drones in the process, up to 38 after a Hellion raid and Banshees coming back again. He then loses to Cure pushing. Exactly what is even remotely patch-related in that game?… Game 4: "Standard" macro, haha… with Zerg losing 21 drones to Hellion raid + Mine drop (Solar had even scouted the 3OC 1-1-1 infrastructure, and from memory Cure had played the same build order against him in the Pughcraft Invitational!) AND forgetting/delaying bane speed (not expert in Zerg builds but considering Solar didn't have gas available for either Spire or bane speed when Lair completed I'm almost sure he messed up his gas timings) AND engaging 15 seconds before it completed. Notice Solar is on 88 drones (!) at this stage and could have actually held (despite all his early game blunders) had he waited bane speed. He started the Spire at 9'45 with 350/235 resources banked at this moment, so he could have started the bane speed at the same time but only started it at… 12 minutes. Is it the fault of the patch too? Show nested quote +Innovation vs DRG Game 1: lolturtlemech Game 2: Macro game taking place pretty much all at the zerg 4th base which eventually falls to bio mine and GG. Game 3: DRG actually maintains 4th base till the 22 minute mark against standard bio mine but never has breathing room to tech to hive, 3/3 or get a 5th much less engage terran on his side of the map, GG Game 1: lol I realized at 14'15 my opponent is meching and I don't replenish my lost drones, remaining on 60-70 when I need 85-90. Game 2: No mention of the fact DRG flew his mutas (lost 7-8 in the process) over Bogus' army after he destroyed some of his economy, no mention of the fact Bogus never built a fourth. (Also DRG forgot +2 melee for the whole game.) Game 3: Lol. At least get your facts straight. DRG lost because Bogus managed to whittle down his economy to 70 drones, then took a superb engagement on creep against DRG's mis-synchronized charge (banes and mutas sent too late after most of the lings had already been wiped, no flank into a concave). End of story. Show nested quote + What is painfully obvious is that everytime terran plays bio mine the same scenario seems to occur. Terran camps outside zerg 4th until it dies. http://www.twitch.tv/pughydude/b/568130257?t=3h49m00shttp://www.twitch.tv/khaldor/b/570387510?t=2h10m00sAny comments?
I'm not sure you took my game summaries in the way I intended them. Just because a terran won the game does not mean I was implying they are overpowered or that the zerg player didn't make any mistakes (hell, soO lost over 20 drones against flash and still won.. though not against bio mine). I wanted to point out most importantly that zerg only ever won in games where his opponent did NOT go bio mine. This is the case in every TvZ in GSL ro16 onward and in every TvZ in red bull battlgrounds this past weekend. Is it overpowered? Perhaps not by itself, but with the addition of the other buffs terran received there is certainly cause for concern.
It's also amusing that you tried to disprove my analysis of DRG vs Inno game 3 with your screen shot of the game 10 seconds before DRG gg's (where he had just started upgrades and his 5th was starting with not even a shred of creep connection and innovation's fourth was firmly in place for minutes already).
As your first example of zerg beating bio mine. Dark definitely took a nice engagement at his 4th and it was fun to watch. I could be wrong but I felt like maru's gameplay in this match was pretty poor compared to what I'm used to seeing. He invested a lot into his harrassment and it didn't really get anything done. It delayed his 3rd till almost 11 minutes. As a result his push on the zerg 4th didn't occur until 14 minutes and there was no reinforcing army behind it. Compare that to Innovation vs DRG (which is still not even a very well played game by Innovation) where his third is down at 9:30.. he is harrassing with 2 full medivacs at 11 minutes and clearing creep and harrassing several times by the 14 minute mark (and taking at least a few extremly poor engagements). And for funzies, compare even this to Bomber vs DRG who just maxed out 200/200 at 12:45 with a 2k mineral bank and walked across the map and won. My point? I'm sure there are examples of zerg beating bio mine play.. but then I beat bio mine play everyday on ladder. My concern is with the best of the best..where zerg plays an awesome game of starcraft and terran plays an awesome game of starcraft and yet it still appears totally one sided in favor of terran.
The second example.. I don't even get it. First who is GuMiho? I can't find any notable results from this player anywhere recently. But lets pretend he is a top terran and look at this game anyway. He engages at the zerg 4th with a pretty heavy supply disadvantage and 1 widow mine (which kills 20 zerglings).. loses.. then engages again with 2 widow mines that don't even burrow till his supported bio dies to the baneling hits. I think its also important to note that even after failing to do any damage, the resources lost tab was over 1000 resources in favor of terran (which by the way is why the game is always decided at the 4th base).
If these are the best two examples of how to beat bio mine play in action then I feel like you're only serving to call further into the question the balance in this matchup.
I'll reiterate one more time - maybe the matchup is fine but I for one am getting tired of watching TvZ in premier tournaments because its been totally one sided in favor of terran or a boring roach all in/timing since the widow mine buff. This matchup needs to be scrutinized and whether its the hellbat buff, thor buff, widow mine buff, or some combination of the 3 matters not to me as long as people are keeping an eye on zergs ability or inability to deal with the biomine playstyle.
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remove +shield damage from widow mines=TvP problem solved. i dont understand why terrans are so scared of playing with chargelot archons.its easier to deal with them now with the new hellbat patch.
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On September 23 2014 09:52 Maniak_ wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 23 2014 09:38 TokO wrote: I think that TheDwf never argued that terran was UP Did we read the same post two months ago? + Show Spoiler +On September 23 2014 09:38 TokO wrote: However, I do think a lot of balance whiners claim that Terran is played to its full potential whenever Terran seems weak, but we don't have to pay any attention to those people. That's a pretty common thing (race-neutral). The currently winning race is always winning easily while the others are played at their full potential and still lose. Well in case of Terran that's actually true, but that's just me  My real question is: how the hell do you know how to even speak about balance? Winrates are only used by people who think they can use them to improve their arguments. The same winrates are ignored by people who think they don't fit in their view of the world. Race representation? Where? When? Skill requirement? How do you measure that? I see terrans play, I see shift-clicked drops and marine queues. Other see perfect splits and great drops. We can't use caster analysis to judge this given the amount of fake hype they (have to) build. Everything is completely subjective. Is there something somewhere, a measure of anything, that could be used as a reference point for actual balance discussion or is this just subjective arguing? If we can't use win rates, tournament wins, ro8, ro4 or anything related to... well... anything, what can actually be used to talk about this? Aligulac was apparently useful to talk about how terran was underperforming not long ago, but is completely irrelevant now to say that terran might be overperforming a bit. So... what else? Wait for next year? After Blizzcon and the "empty" season, when things *might* be moving again?
I couldn't find that post, looking through TheDwf's post history, couldn't find his epic post against Protoss. I did however find some good discussion on 2rax, though. (I still think it is strong, but not close to an auto-win build, which LSN very uneloquently argued it seemed).
I think we should be able to talk about balance without resorting to OP or UP yelling. Given the last 9 months, I feel like HotS has seen quite a few fluctuations in terms of styles and refinement, which makes it hard to conclude on definite balance.
When it comes to widow mines though. Between marines, ghosts, hellbats and landed vikings, I feel like Terran doesn't really need another zealot cleaver. +shields on WM is what I'm most upset about because nobody seemed to criticise Blizz for it, most likely because of the timing of the patch (when Toss was winning a lot).
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Both the +shield and the +bio (spore) buffs are dumb because they are inelegant. I don't know if they're really broken or not--but even if we assume that they're not broken they are still inelegant and brutish answers to simple problems.
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They need to readd the siege mode upgrade, make the splash radius bigger, and add +shields dmg. Biggest downside is that they become notably stronger vs roach/hydra style, but we could also take back their increased fire rate.
They aren't supposed to be rapid fire, minor damaging units imo, but rather hard hitting, slow firing. Makes it more positional based and punishing if the enemy accidentally gets in range.
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On September 23 2014 10:40 FabledIntegral wrote: They need to readd the siege mode upgrade, make the splash radius bigger, and add +shields dmg. Biggest downside is that they become notably stronger vs roach/hydra style, but we could also take back their increased fire rate.
They aren't supposed to be rapid fire, minor damaging units imo, but rather hard hitting, slow firing. Makes it more positional based and punishing if the enemy accidentally gets in range. by removing siege mode upgrade zerg will just roach allin every game & win..
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Personally I think they overdid it a bit with the Spore buff.. ZvZ used to be a bit more entertaining to watch. Roach vs. Roach is literally the most boring thing in the game. Even Swarm Host vs. Swarm Host is like, ironically funny.
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People tend to be inconsistant with their arguments. The main one I see is pointing to alligulac win rates when it suites their race and ignoring it when it doesn't, but people being hypocritical doesn't change whether win rates are a decent indication of balance, and they are at the very least an indication of the current meta-game's balance. These are the last 2 aligulac periods:
118 PvT 122–127 (49.00%) PvZ 220–233 (48.57%) TvZ 164–133 (55.22%)
119 PvT 191–182 (51.21%) PvZ 248–259 (48.92%) TvZ 222–190 (53.88%)
So at the very least in the current meta it is pretty clear that Terran is beating Zerg. Will it remain into the future or is there some way to adapt around the new patches? Time will tell, but while it's too early to call the match up imbalanced its also too early to say its balanced.
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I could have sworn I've seen those numbers before, but with a lot more discussion of trends and other factors.
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