On October 10 2011 09:33 wxwx wrote: The bias here is ridiculous. At this point, ALL posts here should be about how to prevent protoss from going extinct. Good players all the way to pro players have already come to this consensus. Why are we being so slow here on teamliquid, I thought we were the forefront of evolving strategies...?
Complaint: No protoss in GSL, no protoss in IPL How to fix it and why this needs to be done: Starcraft consisting of 2 races just doesn't feel right. Right now we need to re-think strategies and let this new patch settle.
I'm worried because there is a possibility that there's only going to be 2 protosses in GSL next season. Seeing how the new patch changed things won't work if we're basing it off only HuK and Sangho's games. Worst case scenario is they lose, and we're stuck in hole because two players sucking does not justify a balance patch. The opposite scenario, the Code A'ers with potential rise up and show us new strategies that validates protoss as a competitive race again. Best case scenario? Among them we discover our own sAviOr.
If I am to predict the future; a lot more nexus first (already happening), a lot more phoenix+zealot split attacks against zerg, better control (double/triple phoenix groups with a couple warp prisms),
The problem is everyone is complaining "No Protoss in GSL", and while TvP is a huge monstrosity right now, ZvP is fine. Protoss seem intent on spreading this myth that Zerg is OP, but ladder and tournament results have shown complete balance.
The only tournament with issues, is GSL Code S. Not GSTL, not Code A, but only Code S, where the existence of half a dozen Protoss players ARE the population size. When 2 of those Protoss lost to 6 pools by going Nexus first, another lost games he should've won by making huge blunders by failing to wall in and letting every zergling in the Koprulu sector in - twice, and by accidentally losing all his colossi, then all his sentries, and then all his stalkers, by accidentally move commanding them to the edge of the map, then there's an explanation for the supposed 'imbalance'.
In other words, maybe you should watch the games instead of crying about balance. Terran didn't cry about imbalance in Season 4 when a bunch were knocked out, because their 2 rax all-in got figured out. Same, exact thing. I assure you that MC, Hongun, Anypro, all went home and were kicking themselves for huge blunders in games they had won, not crying about imbalance.
On October 10 2011 08:01 OmiDeLta wrote: Hello...I'm new around the balance discussion and maybe as a lower-league player I shouldn't be talking about this, but, I'll take the risk. I always thought that players of certain races only saw the weakness within their own race and thereby thought the game was pretty evenly balanced, but looking around more and more, I see more and more Protoss struggling badly. I think I might have a few suggestions...let's see what you think?
Problem: Colossi seem to have very little health, completely melting under enemy fire... Solution: Either give Colossi more health or maybe a set-damage ability like Immortals have... Side Effects: I am not sure. I'm not high level enough to predict this.
Problem: Carriers have been rendered essentially useless by their long, long build time... Solution: Reduce the build time of Carriers slightly, and make them spawn with interceptors. Maybe reduce gas cost a tiny bit too, down from 225 to 200? Side Effects: Carriers might become viable, giving the Protoss more air-play options? That seems fair to me...
I think that would help the Protoss out at least somewhat. What do the rest of you think? o.o
(The Carriers suggestion might provide an answer to the question above me about dealing with infestors and brood lords.)
You should protect your colossi better. They are in no way of "very little" health. There are reasons why Protoss is dying to Terran at the moment but Colossus is probably not the most prominent reason. Carriers should be totally redesigned. As of now they are air colossus that also hits air as well as ground. And they are a boring a-move unit.
Okay. I'll take your word for it. I'm not high level so I can't be running around proclaiming I know everything about balance - I DON'T. However I'm VERY against trying to get rid of the archon toilet. It's not OP; it's merely a creative use of the Mothership's abilities. And since the Mothership isn't very powerful in and of itself, you have to get creative with it to make anything work. But it is true; Carriers NEED to be redesigned ASAP. The Protoss have so little in the way of the air game...
Blizzard has stated that the mothership was never intended/balance for competitive play, and even without archon toilet is has some extremely powerful abilities in recall and vortex (used not abusively). There's also the whole it-cloaks-your-whole-god-damn-army.
It's definitely OP. How can you not watch the VODs I've discussed and think it's balanced?
complexity rsvp shows it in his games vs Destiny and Minigun. Kiwikaki did it against Stephano in a game he should have lost. Of course the Kiwikaki vs Stephano game was extremely close and anyone's game, I'm not bitching about the results at all, but archon toilet is definitely OP. 3 archons and a vortex being able to kill an infinite number of broodlords/Corruptors/mutas with no regard to how many archons or broodlords exist is ridiculous.
I understand what thors are, fyi, and you can see a thor, and it doesnt have an attack that has over 6 effective range in diameter.
Yeah and a few infestors can kill an infinite amount of carriers and void rays. You can't seriously have watched Stephano's games this IPL and think Protoss has any chance in the late game without the archon toilet.
On October 10 2011 10:22 Belial88 wrote: Blizzard has stated that the mothership was never intended/balance for competitive play, and even without archon toilet is has some extremely powerful abilities in recall and vortex (used not abusively). There's also the whole it-cloaks-your-whole-god-damn-army.
The arbiter in SCBW had 2/3 of the abilities you listed along with more and no one had issues with them because they learned how to deal with said abilities. The same needs to happen in SC2. Give it time before demanding drastic changes. There are huge liabilities in using the mothership, but people haven't figured out how to exploit these liabilities yet. In time this will happen and then there will be answers for how to deal with it. The build you are discussing, basically zealot/archon with a mothership mixed in, dies quickly as soon as the mothership is taken out to any number of common zerg compositions, especially roach/hydra. All zergs need to do is figure out a way to deal with the mothership and this build dies and the protoss loses the whole game. Again, give it time before demanding drastic changes.
I think they should move EMP to the raven and remove seeker missile. This fixes a lot of the problem of feedbacking ghosts and having to constantly use observers to prevent cloaked ghosts from decimating all your casters. What seems to be most difficult for protoss is preventing the ghosts from getting off their EMP's before they are feedbacked and dealt with. This is largely because ghosts are very small, mobile, cloaked, and have a long range on the spell, not to mention a low gas cost now... Moving the spell to ravens fixes a lot of those countering issues. Ravens obviously don't have cloak, are large targets, still mobile but in a different way (not as fast, but can fly obv). Also ravens are a bit harder to get to than ghosts due to the gas costs.
Obviously ghosts would need to get something to compensate for the loss of a spell.
On October 10 2011 10:22 Belial88 wrote: Blizzard has stated that the mothership was never intended/balance for competitive play, and even without archon toilet is has some extremely powerful abilities in recall and vortex (used not abusively). There's also the whole it-cloaks-your-whole-god-damn-army.
It's definitely OP. How can you not watch the VODs I've discussed and think it's balanced?
complexity rsvp shows it in his games vs Destiny and Minigun. Kiwikaki did it against Stephano in a game he should have lost. Of course the Kiwikaki vs Stephano game was extremely close and anyone's game, I'm not bitching about the results at all, but archon toilet is definitely OP. 3 archons and a vortex being able to kill an infinite number of broodlords/Corruptors/mutas with no regard to how many archons or broodlords exist is ridiculous.
I understand what thors are, fyi, and you can see a thor, and it doesnt have an attack that has over 6 effective range in diameter.
Wow that video is impressive.
I actually read a post on TL that col rsvp had written about using carriers and the mothership and now I see how he has such success with this unit comp.
I don't care what anyone says but that archon toilet is definitely OP. Zerg lost 14 BLs and a half a dozen corrupters in 2 seconds after being clumped from vortext and receiving splash damage. The army counter put zerg behind by nearly 100 supply with the majority of the Toss army remaining intact.
That army disparity is so great that even if Zerg replaces some of its army, Zerg will certainly die to the oncoming high tech Toss push.
If there is no Archon Toilet, what does toss do in that situation? The archon toilet is the only thing that allows Protoss to compete against a zerg deathball of infestors broodlords and corruptors. The toilet does destroy brood lords, if they are clumped up, spread them out and don't let one vortex hit everything and it will be less effective
On October 10 2011 09:33 wxwx wrote: The bias here is ridiculous. At this point, ALL posts here should be about how to prevent protoss from going extinct. Good players all the way to pro players have already come to this consensus. Why are we being so slow here on teamliquid, I thought we were the forefront of evolving strategies...?
Complaint: No protoss in GSL, no protoss in IPL How to fix it and why this needs to be done: Starcraft consisting of 2 races just doesn't feel right. Right now we need to re-think strategies and let this new patch settle.
I'm worried because there is a possibility that there's only going to be 2 protosses in GSL next season. Seeing how the new patch changed things won't work if we're basing it off only HuK and Sangho's games. Worst case scenario is they lose, and we're stuck in hole because two players sucking does not justify a balance patch. The opposite scenario, the Code A'ers with potential rise up and show us new strategies that validates protoss as a competitive race again. Best case scenario? Among them we discover our own sAviOr.
If I am to predict the future; a lot more nexus first (already happening), a lot more phoenix+zealot split attacks against zerg, better control (double/triple phoenix groups with a couple warp prisms),
The problem is everyone is complaining "No Protoss in GSL", and while TvP is a huge monstrosity right now, ZvP is fine. Protoss seem intent on spreading this myth that Zerg is OP, but ladder and tournament results have shown complete balance.
The only tournament with issues, is GSL Code S. Not GSTL, not Code A, but only Code S, where the existence of half a dozen Protoss players ARE the population size. When 2 of those Protoss lost to 6 pools by going Nexus first, another lost games he should've won by making huge blunders by failing to wall in and letting every zergling in the Koprulu sector in - twice, and by accidentally losing all his colossi, then all his sentries, and then all his stalkers, by accidentally move commanding them to the edge of the map, then there's an explanation for the supposed 'imbalance'.
In other words, maybe you should watch the games instead of crying about balance. Terran didn't cry about imbalance in Season 4 when a bunch were knocked out, because their 2 rax all-in got figured out. Same, exact thing. I assure you that MC, Hongun, Anypro, all went home and were kicking themselves for huge blunders in games they had won, not crying about imbalance.
Ya, I think Protoss have many advantages and assets at their hands, it's just a matter of using them. The rational for this is the Korean ladder. If you look in the top 15 ranking spots, the majority of players are *Surprise Toss!
Although the GSL may be Terran dominated, it is only a matter of time before the GSL follows the trend of the Korean ladder.
Currently, Protoss need to use the huge buffs that were given to them (Immortals are amazing now and they were amazing before), as well the huge buff to Collosi in PvZ since NP has 2 less range. As a Top 6 master Terran, I lost 2 weeks ago to a Platinum toss who 1 base immortal rush'ed me. And I didn't react poorly. This demonstrates to me that this build order is extremely strong such that a much weaker player can A-move win against a much better player.
I think there's a need for Toss to be more creative and use the tools that they have available
Okay, Belial, you have to be the author of like 25% of the posts in this and all the other balance threads put together, and you're consistently making misinformed and/or biased statements while acting like you're the only one in the thread who doesn't. I'm about to do the exact same thing to you.
Just from the last couple of pages alone:
On October 10 2011 10:06 Belial88 wrote: The problem is everyone is complaining "No Protoss in GSL", and while TvP is a huge monstrosity right now, ZvP is fine. Protoss seem intent on spreading this myth that Zerg is OP, but ladder and tournament results have shown complete balance.
On October 10 2011 09:11 Belial88 wrote: Protoss is struggling against Terran, but not against Zerg. I don't know why people are so insistent on this, when ladder stats show that Protoss is favored on every level except GM KR, in which case Nestea and Losira fuck shit up, and it's only 47% vs 53 PvZ, which is acceptable.
Also the fact that you used the "everything is fine except among the people who actually know how to play" excuse (Just like Blizzard did!) pretty much undermines everything balance related you've ever said.
On October 10 2011 07:37 Belial88 wrote: At the Masters+ level of play, or I'd say "normal' play since people are executing basic gameplay, forgiveness in a race no longer matters. Sure, it's annoying Protoss can back into a game by sitting behind 3 sentries and a wall-off against a 6 base Zerg and turtling up a deathball, or Terran can still be in the game after losing all their workers using MULEs they stacked up, or Zerg can make 40 drones at once in the end-game after a nuke landed, but if Terran had been keeping up with MULEs, he would've won. With proper play, the Protoss will die anyways. And the Zerg would've overrun you and killed you if he didn't have to remake drones.
So don't worry about forgiveness in a race, because it doesn't really matter. Sure, it can be annoying, but it doesn't translate to game results or balance once you get to Diamond+.
Forgiveness doesn't matter? It's a tremendous part of the problem with Terran; mules, scans, sealed-building walls and a ranged AA mineral-only initial unit let them get away with and recover from things the other races flat-out cannot.
Does that make them OP? I have no idea. I'm nowhere near good enough to say. In this case I completely agree that making the mule cd shorter will do absolutely nothing, but the point you drew from that - that forgiveness is irrelevant above diamond - is ridiculous.
Also P turtling on two bases behind 3 sentries hardly works against a 6 base zerg. Even most of the two-base allins vs a 3 base zerg have been figured out. While you were being hyperbolic, it's also a complete fallacy and shows your zerg bias quite clearly.
And that's really my whole point with this; you're obviously making a concerted effort to be reasonable and I agree with a surprising amount of what you say, but at the same time you've assumed the local role of knowledgeable, neutral mediator of discussion with such gusto that you end up acting like you yourself are above bias and being wrong.
On October 10 2011 09:11 Belial88 wrote: And then, another answer could be that maybe Protoss shouldn't let Zerg reach that point.
Lol
Oh no Zerg can get their version of the death ball no problem, toss just shouldn't let them get to that point....NO SHUT UP YOU PROTOSS DEATHBALL NOOBS IMBA NERF NERF NOW.
However I think any carrier buff need to be handled carefully. From what I've seen of rsvp's games, once a critical amount of them is reached in PvZ along with a couple of colossi/archons/HTs + a mothership, there is very little zerg can do against it head on other than max out corruptors.
lol I do love when zerg say "you shouldn't let us get to that point", but then they call us noobs when we make a timing push to ensure they don't get "to that point".
Yeah and a few infestors can kill an infinite amount of carriers and void rays. You can't seriously have watched Stephano's games this IPL and think Protoss has any chance in the late game without the archon toilet.
It wasn't like Kiwikaki was holding on to dear life the entire game. He did extremely well and then the entire map was mined out. Kiwikaki just lost too much in the army trades and a few of his recalls did not go so great. I can't believe you'd say that you think Protoss has no chance in late game when this game was proof that Protoss can stick around in end game.
Now are they favored? That's debatable, and I think they are favored, but I wouldn't argue it. But they can definitely toe to toe with Zerg without having to archon toilet. We often see late game PvZ's where Protoss wins, and they don't need a mothership to do it. I am by no means saying that this means motherships aren't needed or are useless or are too strong, I'm simply saying that Protoss CAN stay viable in the lategame, and that archon toilet is not just OP, but broken.
And it saddens me every day that they buff the mothership before they buff the carrier
Any buffing short of totally making it completely OP is useless. The carrier is a unit that can't really exist in this game, kind of like hydralisks (and just like hydras in TvZ). They were used to kill siege tank lines in BW, and right now we don't see late game siege tanks in PvZ because of the marauder, and because of the immortal. Get rid of the immortal, you may see more carriers as a response to the increased use of siege tanks. Get rid of the marauder, and you'd definitely see siege tanks, to which you'd definitely see carriers.
It's not that carriers are useless, it's that why would Terran ever make mass siege tanks when they can make marauders and not have to deal with immortals. When Terran starts going MMM vs Zerg, you might see hydralisks in the match-up too.
The toilet does destroy brood lords, if they are clumped up, spread them out and don't let one vortex hit everything and it will be less effective
It has an effective diameter/range of 6 wide. In the first example it was clumped, just a bit, but the other videos, and the game against Stephano, they were not clumped up. That's why "lol spread void rays" is a stupid thing for Zerg to say against Protoss, and that the answer to infestors or EMP is not "lol spread out" but HT, or in the case of EMP, imbalance (not my words, others. I don't care to comment on TvP).
TLPD win rates.
If you actually look at the scale of the win rates, you'd notice that they are always within 5% except for recently, which has been skewed by the GSL results and the metagame. A single month of September with win rates 2% above the 5% margin of error does not prove imbalance or that "OMG Zerg so favored, Protoss screwed!".
Also the fact that you used the "everything is fine except among the people who actually know how to play" excuse (Just like Blizzard did!) pretty much undermines everything balance related you've ever said.
My only statements in regards to balance is that Zerg is balanced against the other 2 races, except that archon toilet is broken. One very extreme, late game unit no one uses or has explored yet (mothership) that has just been buffed into viability and just had a huge, popular metagame counter nerfed (NP) has not made an impact in win rates.
I know I'm QQing about the archon toilet, but I will say it has an extremely negligible impact on ZvP win rates or the game. It's an extremely rare situation in extreme late game with a unit that's very unpopular, but the OP still exists. Should it be on the top of the list of things-to-be-patched? Probably not. But it's still OP nonetheless.
Besides the archon toilet, I haven't commented on anything else in regards to balance. I think a few things are questionable, but I don't know if they should be patched or worth speaking about.
But god forbid I take the stance that I think the game is balanced, and we should wait it out or that the game is too early to tell or that a few players making huge blunders decides the state of the game.
You can't have two "unanswerable" compositions; that's immediately contradictory. What happens when BL/infestor meets the classic deathball? BL/infestor usually wins; that's why people are complaining. So the deathball has an answer, while BL/infestor is still being figured out... which is where the whole mothership discussion comes from.
The deathball beats BL/Infestor, especially if HT are included. We saw in quite a few battles that Protoss beats it. Neither are 'unanswerable' compositions, but there is a discussion about how early the Protoss deathball comes vs the Zerg deathball, I suppose. I never really said the Protoss deathball was a problem.
but the point you drew from that - that forgiveness is irrelevant above diamond - is ridiculous.
Why do you say that? If you have Nestea vs MVP, to give an example, MVP forgetting MULEs or having to call down supplies hurts him, hard. Not as hard as Nestea getting supply blocked, but Nestea isn't going to get supply blocked. I don't know exactly what you mean, please elaborate.
Even at the top level of play, can Terran be more forgiving and benefit from it? Sure, of course. Will they win games from it? It could keep them in it. But the Zerg could look at the game, see he got blocked, and if he hadn't vs the Terran who did calldown supplies, he would've won or been better off. We all know Zerg is the least forgiving, but that doesn't mean they are UP, at all.
It helps. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think adding a cooldown like that is beneficial. Sure, some masters Terrans would go back to Diamond, but at the top level of play, with 2 players playing well, it won't matter.
Even if it's such a small factor it doesn't decide games, if it is OP, then it should be removed. But my argument is that I don't think it's OP. I mean, say if they brought in auto-larva inject. I think lots of lower level Zergs would benefit, but at the top level of play, Zerg will still be the same. They may win some games, but it wouldn't make them OP, it would just make them very strong.
This may be why Terran is winning so much - that they are forgiving, and not necessarily OP. So you know, whatever. Personally, I just think a race so reliant on micro needs a bit more forgiveness.
but at the same time you've assumed the local role of knowledgeable, neutral mediator of discussion with such gusto that you end up acting like you yourself are above bias and being wrong.
I'll keep that in mind. I'm not trying to be presumptuous at all, I merely believe what I say is correct, which is of course what everyone thinks of their opinions. I'm not trying to be offensive at all, I just argue what I have to say and present what I believe backs it up. I'm definitely not above bias at all, I'm a Zerg player more than a Random player or Masters player, and everyone should keep that in mind, but I think what I've brought up in discussion has been valid, regardless of bias.
I mean look at the GSL games. You could look at them, and it's obvious that MC lost because he lost all his stalkers when he blinked them forward in G3 against Monster, and in G2 he let lings run into his base twice. MC lost against an inferior opponent, who played superb nonetheless. I think actually looking at the games provides a better insight than the tournament results, although I think tournament results are still relevant.
The tournament results raise the question of if Zerg is OP in ZvP. But I think the actual games answer with a definitive "NO".
If you actually look at the scale of the win rates, you'd notice that they are always within 5% except for recently, which has been skewed by the GSL results and the metagame. A single month of September with win rates 2% above the 5% margin of error does not prove imbalance or that "OMG Zerg so favored, Protoss screwed!".
We also have to look at the representation of Korean Protoss in international events. Right now, it's pretty much constrained to Alicia, MC, and Hero, 2 of which have been in really bad (relative) shape recently and the other isn't enough to skew results on his own. Even then, MC gets invited everywhere anyways, so he plays only a handful of games to end up influencing results. On the other hand, you have Coca, DRG, Lucky, and sometimes July and/or Check for Zerg, and pretty much every A class Slayers Terran as well as a couple of Terrans from other teams (Bomber, Polt, etc.) making appearances and skewing results before knocking one another out near the finals. Most of those runs end up in open tournaments, improving their impact on stats.
What this all gets at is that a small slouch in Korean Protoss is likely to skew results against overall numbers as long as Koreans continue to have a large presence in top placements.
That being said, are there any (semi)pro Terrans who have had no prior RTS experience before SC2? I know there's Destiny for Zerg and Minigun for Protoss, but I can't think of a Terran.
At least Protoss and Zerg have a deathball to build. I don't think Terran has any. Everybody keeps complaining how Terran plays cheesy shit to win, but you kinda have to. The same thing has been going on since beta. Early game T is strong and late game they kinda suck. Why they win so much and occupy so many spots in GSL? It's because early game happens before late game; two players similar skills then obviously Terran has higher chance to win since he has the advantage first. Shocking! I know.
If you actually look at the scale of the win rates, you'd notice that they are always within 5% except for recently, which has been skewed by the GSL results and the metagame. A single month of September with win rates 2% above the 5% margin of error does not prove imbalance or that "OMG Zerg so favored, Protoss screwed!".
We also have to look at the representation of Korean Protoss in international events. Right now, it's pretty much constrained to Alicia, MC, and Hero, 2 of which have been in really bad (relative) shape recently and the other isn't enough to skew results on his own. Even then, MC gets invited everywhere anyways, so he plays only a handful of games to end up influencing results. On the other hand, you have Coca, DRG, Lucky, and sometimes July and/or Check for Zerg, and pretty much every A class Slayers Terran as well as a couple of Terrans from other teams (Bomber, Polt, etc.) making appearances and skewing results before knocking one another out near the finals. Most of those runs end up in open tournaments, improving their impact on stats.
What this all gets at is that a small slouch in Korean Protoss is likely to skew results against overall numbers as long as Koreans continue to have a large presence in top placements.
That being said, are there any (semi)pro Terrans who have had no prior RTS experience before SC2? I know there's Destiny for Zerg and Minigun for Protoss, but I can't think of a Terran.
Ah, but you can't say for sure that this is not because of balance.
Is the reason why there are so few Protoss progamers being successful in Korea because of luck or because the game is imbalanced and Protoss is underpowered? Not only would this make it hard to become successful with Protoss, but it would also deter people from choosing Protoss as a race when becoming pro, so it has side effects like that.
There seems to be a notion going round at the moment that Zerg and especially Terran players are just a lot better than Protoss players at the moment. This idea is absolutely laughable - while the Protoss President and Artosis' old love child, Alicia, are slumping, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest - and therefore absolutely no reason to believe - that Terran players are somehow innately better at the game than Protoss players.
Also, on the subject of the percentages. Blizzard has already made patches to the Infestor and nerfing Protoss deathball when the percentages were well within their allowed limits. They patched because they thought from looking at games that Protoss was winning too easily vs Zerg. Now look what's happened - the percentages are on the edge of going into the BAD zone, but Blizzard doesn't want to issue a major buff like they did for Zerg.
EPT
