|
On July 06 2013 10:02 plogamer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 09:43 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 09:16 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 08:54 ETisME wrote:
Definitely do not only balance the game at top level.
Game needs to be fairly balanced by the amount of skill needed to win a game and equally as fun.
Right now zvt is extremely frustrating to play in since zerg is either all in or stays defensive until one big good engage and counterattack win.
But tvz is extremely fun, you put on non stop aggression and has total tempo control of the game.
Stopping a drop is definitely not as fun as doing a drop
Let's see how good the split is, let's see if the terran target fire the mine correctly etc. Every action is terran.
For Zerg, it's only the fungal left
Used to have muta control magic box, sniping medivac and tanks, or surround etc. All disappeared
You could very well make a perfectly balanced game by giving each race same units and mechanics. But just look at pvp in wol, not fun at all.
Designers need to put more focus on how to make the game fun on both sides (they had the right idea that more action is more entertaining) and less about what is op or not if it's fun to watch and play.
They also need to think about how to introduce diversity for the game. Mech right now is so outshined by bio style, every Zvt is almost ling baneling muta vs bio mine mid game. Zergs can still split mutas, lings, banes - attack in staggering waves to trigger mines. Surrounds and flanks are still possible, just not blindly. Zergs will need to send in a small wave of flank to trigger mines, then rush in with the rest once the mines are disabled. I cannot recall the exact game, but I saw a pro Zerg send a couple of roaches and lings. Roaches to soak up Terran fire until lings trigger the mines for minimal cost. Widow-mines raised the skill-ceiling for Z in ZvT imo. almost every pro zerg split units to take less damage but it isn't exactly the type of micro that is spectacular and not necessarily amazing to watch. It's more of a basic marine stutterstep micro which isn't that amazing to watch anymore other than some scenario like scv marine all in IF it was more like ling baneling micro in ZvZ, it would be way better and exciting to watch. Zerg 1 tries to sent a few lings to kill the banelings Zerg 2 runs back the banelings and use main pack of lings to kill it Zerg 1 then sent some banelings to chase away that pack of lings Right now we see some zerg units sent in and terran bio either kill it (if mines are unburrowed) or stop the mines from firing (if they were burrowed). The micro emphasis is still on the terran side. You are too quick to discount Zerg micro, and over-value Terran micro. Especially when you throw in a highly subjective criteria as "spectacular and entertaining to watch". Marine splitting was spectacular because it was an inherently Terran trick to survive the AoE they faced or get utterly annihilated. Lings splits are more difficult imo since they are so fast, but not as entertaining because it didn't really matter in TvZ in WoL. Now with widow mines in HotS, I can differentiate between Zergs with amazing micro in TvZ against Zergs who don't. A lot of Zerg players were still in WoL mode unfortunately and responded terribly to widow mines. That's why we saw so much QQ over widow mines in the beginning of HotS. And now? Nothing. A lot of viewers are in WoL-mode too. They would cringe if a Terran did not split against banes, but take it as normal when Zergs don't split well enough to mitigate mine shots. No, it should be as great a mistake!
Marine splitting IS spectacular, the one I am saying is not that amazing to watch is stutterstep.
WoL zerg had a lot of micro tools: muta micro, ling counter attack sometimes with burrow, sending in a few lings to tank the initial tank shots before sending the whole pack, sent up flanks, force siege up, burrow infestor for infested terran tanking tank shots etc.
I don't think I am being that subjective at all. unless you think zerg sending in some units to bait the mine/ focus firing the mine is spectacular (the mine hit itself can be awesome to watch but definitly not the micro because you can't even see it happening other than the mine is being selected) compared to dodging fungal or splitting against banelings etc.
What other zerg micro in Hots other than Hyun's burrow infestor fungal, sent in some units to bait mine shots, drop defense micro, occasionally ling vs hellion surround micro and increasily rare queen transfuse ultra
So many micros and interesting things are missing right now from the zerg side. One huge disappointment is the muta buff just makes it a better drop defense unit rather than a harassing unit.
|
On July 06 2013 01:21 Usernameffs wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2013 22:49 Schroedinger wrote:
Imho it is delusional to expect mule nerf.
Now I won´t argue if mules are op.
But do you really think Blizzard would EVER consider to nerf mules ?
Even if mules would be op, there won´t be any "huge" changes like a mule nerf before Legacy of the Void. I don't think many understands the power of having a lot of ccs. As soon terran start sacking scvs because they have mules i don't think anything can beat it. And if you scout that terrans playing macro you have to allin, terran doesn't even care what you do, he only build some bunkers if you allin. Thats how the matchup is right now, if the allin gives a better win ratio then 50% terran will stop making 3ccs and be less greedy if its 50% they will continue doing it and the matchup is fucked until something changes.
if you just built a bunker to win then why did innovation lose against allins?
|
On July 06 2013 10:19 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 10:02 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 09:43 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 09:16 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 08:54 ETisME wrote:
Definitely do not only balance the game at top level.
Game needs to be fairly balanced by the amount of skill needed to win a game and equally as fun.
Right now zvt is extremely frustrating to play in since zerg is either all in or stays defensive until one big good engage and counterattack win.
But tvz is extremely fun, you put on non stop aggression and has total tempo control of the game.
Stopping a drop is definitely not as fun as doing a drop
Let's see how good the split is, let's see if the terran target fire the mine correctly etc. Every action is terran.
For Zerg, it's only the fungal left
Used to have muta control magic box, sniping medivac and tanks, or surround etc. All disappeared
You could very well make a perfectly balanced game by giving each race same units and mechanics. But just look at pvp in wol, not fun at all.
Designers need to put more focus on how to make the game fun on both sides (they had the right idea that more action is more entertaining) and less about what is op or not if it's fun to watch and play.
They also need to think about how to introduce diversity for the game. Mech right now is so outshined by bio style, every Zvt is almost ling baneling muta vs bio mine mid game. Zergs can still split mutas, lings, banes - attack in staggering waves to trigger mines. Surrounds and flanks are still possible, just not blindly. Zergs will need to send in a small wave of flank to trigger mines, then rush in with the rest once the mines are disabled. I cannot recall the exact game, but I saw a pro Zerg send a couple of roaches and lings. Roaches to soak up Terran fire until lings trigger the mines for minimal cost. Widow-mines raised the skill-ceiling for Z in ZvT imo. almost every pro zerg split units to take less damage but it isn't exactly the type of micro that is spectacular and not necessarily amazing to watch. It's more of a basic marine stutterstep micro which isn't that amazing to watch anymore other than some scenario like scv marine all in IF it was more like ling baneling micro in ZvZ, it would be way better and exciting to watch. Zerg 1 tries to sent a few lings to kill the banelings Zerg 2 runs back the banelings and use main pack of lings to kill it Zerg 1 then sent some banelings to chase away that pack of lings Right now we see some zerg units sent in and terran bio either kill it (if mines are unburrowed) or stop the mines from firing (if they were burrowed). The micro emphasis is still on the terran side. You are too quick to discount Zerg micro, and over-value Terran micro. Especially when you throw in a highly subjective criteria as "spectacular and entertaining to watch". Marine splitting was spectacular because it was an inherently Terran trick to survive the AoE they faced or get utterly annihilated. Lings splits are more difficult imo since they are so fast, but not as entertaining because it didn't really matter in TvZ in WoL. Now with widow mines in HotS, I can differentiate between Zergs with amazing micro in TvZ against Zergs who don't. A lot of Zerg players were still in WoL mode unfortunately and responded terribly to widow mines. That's why we saw so much QQ over widow mines in the beginning of HotS. And now? Nothing. A lot of viewers are in WoL-mode too. They would cringe if a Terran did not split against banes, but take it as normal when Zergs don't split well enough to mitigate mine shots. No, it should be as great a mistake! Marine splitting IS spectacular, the one I am saying is not that amazing to watch is stutterstep. WoL zerg had a lot of micro tools: muta micro, ling counter attack sometimes with burrow, sending in a few lings to tank the initial tank shots before sending the whole pack, sent up flanks, force siege up, burrow infestor for infested terran tanking tank shots etc. I don't think I am being that subjective at all. unless you think zerg sending in some units to bait the mine/ focus firing the mine is spectacular (the mine hit itself can be awesome to watch but definitly not the micro because you can't even see it happening other than the mine is being selected) compared to dodging fungal or splitting against banelings etc. What other zerg micro in Hots other than Hyun's burrow infestor fungal, sent in some units to bait mine shots, drop defense micro, occasionally ling vs hellion surround micro and increasily rare queen transfuse ultra So many micros and interesting things are missing right now from the zerg side. One huge disappointment is the muta buff just makes it a better drop defense unit rather than a harassing unit.
But the WoL Zerg micro has not completely disappeared.
- Mutas still require micro or you lose them.
- Ling counter attacks with burrow can still take place, just have to send a few lings first to take potential widow-mine shots.
- Sending in a few lings to soak tank shots is not that different from sending in few units to trigger mine shots
- Forcing mine burrow is a lot like forcing seige-up. But seriously, seige tanks got nerfed into the ground so who cares.
- Burrow-infestor for infested terran is still done against mines in few games I've seen.
/edit
You lament the loss of sending in few lings or using infested Terrans to tank shots. But you don't care that the same tactic applies to widow-mines.
That's what I mean when you are being subjective. Because it sounds to me like you miss seigetanks in TvZ, and I do too, but they are too weak in their current incarnation, and the shape/size of the map-pools. Add more chokes, ledges, and seige tanks might be decent again.
btw:
If you play Terran, then it is quite spectacular to watch a pro Terran stutter-micro while maintaining perfect macro. I still remember when Polt was stutter-stepping his main army and stutter-stepping his drop that was facing a zealot warp-in; all while maintaining his macro. O-M-G.
|
I think to talk about balances in SC2 it is good to do do it fractional. This is not about whole matchups but about time frames like early mid late game, certain mechanics etc.
Also important is to accept that the game is imbalanced. A game with different units/mechanics can not be 100% balanced. Results of tournaments that seem evenly spread amongst races is no evidence for the opposite.
Let me bring up some mechanics that I consider imbalanced and I will stick to TvZ:
1. Terran can pose threat to zerg with bio/dropships without taking adequate risks.
As zerg usually has no mobile anti air and terran can just do kind of all-inish attacks load in and fly away before or after damage is done. Even when losing the units, medivacs usually survive this and get out. Most likely they carry out big parts of the army as well.
2. The unit killing mechanic (kind of 80/20 thing): When Zerg crushes a T army it is very likely that zerg loses 80% of his army as well. When Terran crushes a Zerg army the terran army survives to an extend of 80% usually.
As banelings explode and are expensive, zerg can not cost effectively fight against terran armies the same way terran can. Just consider what it takes to kill a certain bio army with zergling/baneling. With little splitting zerg even when winning the fight has same to similar amounts of ressources lost as the terran. When terran wins the fight its usually a huge win ressource-wise (also due to the medivacs fly away and in best case carry units away mechanic after action is being done while zerg units getting chased down by stimmed bio reinforcements after an attack and might still die terran just flies away and takes about close to zero risks).
3. Kill expansions mechanic:
When terran attacks the zerg expension it can be killed. Other way round it just lifts up and later on lands again. Even if it gets killed terran can fly a close OC/CC to the place to continue the expansion without much delay. Planetary+scv repair even makes it quite impossible to attack terran expansions effectively in many situations before lategame. Therefore terran for a long time and in many game scenarios plays in a relatively safe environment. All-ins can be dangerous if not scouted but with scv/reaper/scan scouting on high level it is almost impossible not to scout it.
4. The mule thing: in lategame terran can more and more replace scv with mules and therefore can obtain higher amry supply. It should be defenitely the other way round considering the cost effectiveness of bio, widow mines and other units like ravens(heavy damage, survive most battles), bc (hard to have adequate anti air for zerg in most setups), medivacs (survive most battles).
5. Spider mine effort vs benefit mechanic: Easy to use, 0 micro, very hard to deal with. One mistake by zerg in early game vs spider mine can instant lose games due to a single or few lucky shot into banelings/mutalisks. Mixture of random single mines and stacks of backup/defensive mines just seem inadequatly cost efficient. Anti air of mines on top of this makes a little to no cost unit way too cost efficient. Widow mines deny zerg activity and aggression very well and on the other hand make any play in advantagious position for terran even more easy and more impossible to come back for zerg.
6. The terran gas demand issue: Terran units usually are not limited by gas (also supported by the fact that medivacs survive almost all fights). Therefore terran loses in fights only the amount of minerals that the units costs in opposite to the zerg that loses both mins/gas. This is what I consider one of the major things in the matchup and general race design of terran and should be addressed by blizzard. It is the reason why terran with any strategy can go for full upgrades/tech without taking any major trade offs for it. Terran just does it all at any time and is perfectly fine, while zerg has to decide when to upgrade and when to build gas units (to react on threats or make pressure) terran just does it all at once basically (_basically_!!).
some other things could be mentioned but I think it covers the most. While all of these mechanics defenitely are part of the race design and are wanted to be this way I personally consider it a bit too much of everything. It is too easy to damage the zerg, it is a bit to easy to be active player as the terran and force the reactive zerg into mistakes. It is too easy to drop an expansion kill it and fly back with zero losses. It is to hard and risky to get aggressive vs T during the same stage of the game without going all-in. It is too easy to defend expansions with mines/planetary/bunkers/lift off. It is too easy to just a click + little splitting one after another bio army into the zerg knowing about the fact that zerg anyway has waste alot of expensive banelings and you can stim run back to pull zerg into mines, load in and fly away to make your units still survive in bad situations. There is no risk. It is a bit too easy for terran to get all upgrades that are needed and in lategame switch instantly into heavy tech like raven/bc as early game units that can die (marines/maurauder/mines/scv) barely cost any gas at all. Therfore it is also too easy for terran to get all needed upgrades in time without any major trade offs. Its just a build order trade off not a question if you can build 3-4 more maurauders or not.
Just look at last game MLG finals polt vs hyun. This game was SO single sided, zerg cannot come back at all from these situations. You never see zerg winning games like this AT ALL on this level of play. And this is what you can watch alot. Zerg does a mistakes in the early stages and cannot come back from being behind due to unfair terran units/mechanics like widow mines and bio drops (also in this live vs flash final at least one game was easy win due to a single widow mine shot). Games where terran is behind oftenly can be turned around due to mules and cost effectiveness of terran bio + dropship mechanic. While it is good that terran can do this it is imbalanced because zergs cannot. This is imbalance, I am pretty sure guys. It is maybe only little and in many situations can be evened out by almost perfect zerg play but I feel serious about this is imbalance.
But in general the state of the game is good. Just terrans bit too easily make things done without taking risks that other races had to take for similar chances to win games short and simple. And don't forget the gas issue. It is huge for the whole gameplay situation.
edit I have some minor suggestions for balancing:
- reduce mule hp to a very low amount like 10 15 or 20.
- maybe give zerg buildings again more hitpoints (so focussing down hatchery or tech structures and flying away becomes more difficult, more time for zerg to react).
- maybe reduce medivac hitpoints (more easy to fungal them, more easy to keep them away with queens, spore crawlers).
been not talking about this firebat at all. No need to say that it has to be fixed. Another 0 gas almost good vs everything unit, but this is already being addressed from what I know, so no need to talk about this too much anymore.
|
On July 07 2013 13:50 LSN wrote:I + Show Spoiler + think to talk about balances in SC2 it is good to do do it fractional. This is not about whole matchups but about time frames like early mid late game, certain mechanics etc.
Also important is to accept that the game is imbalanced. A game with different units/mechanics can not be 100% balanced. Results of tournaments that seem evenly spread amongst races is no evidence for the opposite.
Let me bring up some mechanics that I consider imbalanced and I will stick to TvZ:
1. Terran can pose threat to zerg with bio/dropships without taking adequate risks.
As zerg usually has no mobile anti air and terran can just do kind of all-inish attacks load in and fly away before or after damage is done. Even when losing the units, medivacs usually survive this and get out. Most likely they carry out big parts of the army as well.
2. The unit killing mechanic (kind of 80/20 thing): When Zerg crushes a T army it is very likely that zerg loses 80% of his army as well. When Terran crushes a Zerg army the terran army survives to an extend of 80% usually.
As banelings explode and are expensive, zerg can not cost effectively fight against terran armies the same way terran can. Just consider what it takes to kill a certain bio army with zergling/baneling. With little splitting zerg even when winning the fight has same to similar amounts of ressources lost as the terran. When terran wins the fight its usually a huge win ressource-wise (also due to the medivacs fly away and in best case carry units away mechanic after action is being done while zerg units getting chased down by stimmed bio reinforcements after an attack and might still die terran just flies away and takes about close to zero risks).
3. Kill expansions mechanic:
When terran attacks the zerg expension it can be killed. Other way round it just lifts up and later on lands again. Even if it gets killed terran can fly a close OC/CC to the place to continue the expansion without much delay. Planetary+scv repair even makes it quite impossible to attack terran expansions effectively in many situations before lategame. Therefore terran for a long time and in many game scenarios plays in a relatively safe environment. All-ins can be dangerous if not scouted but with scv/reaper/scan scouting on high level it is almost impossible not to scout it.
4. The mule thing: in lategame terran can more and more replace scv with mules and therefore can obtain higher amry supply. It should be defenitely the other way round considering the cost effectiveness of bio, widow mines and other units like ravens(heavy damage, survive most battles), bc (hard to have adequate anti air for zerg in most setups), medivacs (survive most battles).
5. Spider mine effort vs benefit mechanic: Easy to use, 0 micro, very hard to deal with. One mistake by zerg in early game vs spider mine can instant lose games due to a single or few lucky shot into banelings/mutalisks. Mixture of random single mines and stacks of backup/defensive mines just seem inadequatly cost efficient. Anti air of mines on top of this makes a little to no cost unit way too cost efficient. Widow mines deny zerg activity and aggression very well and on the other hand make any play in advantagious position for terran even more easy and more impossible to come back for zerg.
6. The terran gas demand issue: Terran units usually are not limited by gas (also supported by the fact that medivacs survive almost all fights). Therefore terran loses in fights only the amount of minerals that the units costs in opposite to the zerg that loses both mins/gas. This is what I consider one of the major things in the matchup and general race design of terran and should be addressed by blizzard. It is the reason why terran with any strategy can go for full upgrades/tech without taking any major trade offs for it. Terran just does it all at any time and is perfectly fine, while zerg has to decide when to upgrade and when to build gas units (to react on threats or make pressure) terran just does it all at once basically (_basically_!!).
some other things could be mentioned but I think it covers the most. While all of these mechanics defenitely are part of the race design and are wanted to be this way I personally consider it a bit too much of everything. It is too easy to damage the zerg, it is a bit to easy to be active player as the terran and force the reactive zerg into mistakes. It is too easy to drop an expansion kill it and fly back with zero losses. It is to hard and risky to get aggressive vs T during the same stage of the game without going all-in. It is too easy to defend expansions with mines/planetary/bunkers/lift off. It is too easy to just a click + little splitting one after another bio army into the zerg knowing about the fact that zerg anyway has waste alot of expensive banelings and you can stim run back to pull zerg into mines, load in and fly away to make your units still survive in bad situations. There is no risk. It is a bit too easy for terran to get all upgrades that are needed and in lategame switch instantly into heavy tech like raven/bc as early game units that can die (marines/maurauder/mines/scv) barely cost any gas at all. Therfore it is also too easy for terran to get all needed upgrades in time without any major trade offs. Its just a build order trade off not a question if you can build 3-4 more maurauders or not.
Just look at last game MLG finals polt vs hyun. This game was SO single sided, zerg cannot come back at all from these situations. You never see zerg winning games like this AT ALL on this level of play. And this is what you can watch alot. Zerg does a mistakes in the early stages and cannot come back from being behind due to unfair terran units/mechanics like widow mines and bio drops (also in this live vs flash final at least one game was easy win due to a single widow mine shot). Games where terran is behind oftenly can be turned around due to mules and cost effectiveness of terran bio + dropship mechanic. While it is good that terran can do this it is imbalanced because zergs cannot. This is imbalance, I am pretty sure guys. It is maybe only little and in many situations can be evened out by almost perfect zerg play but I feel serious about this is imbalance.
But in general the state of the game is good. Just terrans bit too easily make things done without taking risks that other races had to take for similar chances to win games short and simple. And don't forget the gas issue. It is huge for the whole gameplay situation.
If everything you said is true, then TvZ is impossible for Zergs at top-level.
And then again, Hyun just beat MMA in RSL(not sure if correct tourney).
|
On July 07 2013 14:15 plogamer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 13:50 LSN wrote:I + Show Spoiler + think to talk about balances in SC2 it is good to do do it fractional. This is not about whole matchups but about time frames like early mid late game, certain mechanics etc.
Also important is to accept that the game is imbalanced. A game with different units/mechanics can not be 100% balanced. Results of tournaments that seem evenly spread amongst races is no evidence for the opposite.
Let me bring up some mechanics that I consider imbalanced and I will stick to TvZ:
1. Terran can pose threat to zerg with bio/dropships without taking adequate risks.
As zerg usually has no mobile anti air and terran can just do kind of all-inish attacks load in and fly away before or after damage is done. Even when losing the units, medivacs usually survive this and get out. Most likely they carry out big parts of the army as well.
2. The unit killing mechanic (kind of 80/20 thing): When Zerg crushes a T army it is very likely that zerg loses 80% of his army as well. When Terran crushes a Zerg army the terran army survives to an extend of 80% usually.
As banelings explode and are expensive, zerg can not cost effectively fight against terran armies the same way terran can. Just consider what it takes to kill a certain bio army with zergling/baneling. With little splitting zerg even when winning the fight has same to similar amounts of ressources lost as the terran. When terran wins the fight its usually a huge win ressource-wise (also due to the medivacs fly away and in best case carry units away mechanic after action is being done while zerg units getting chased down by stimmed bio reinforcements after an attack and might still die terran just flies away and takes about close to zero risks).
3. Kill expansions mechanic:
When terran attacks the zerg expension it can be killed. Other way round it just lifts up and later on lands again. Even if it gets killed terran can fly a close OC/CC to the place to continue the expansion without much delay. Planetary+scv repair even makes it quite impossible to attack terran expansions effectively in many situations before lategame. Therefore terran for a long time and in many game scenarios plays in a relatively safe environment. All-ins can be dangerous if not scouted but with scv/reaper/scan scouting on high level it is almost impossible not to scout it.
4. The mule thing: in lategame terran can more and more replace scv with mules and therefore can obtain higher amry supply. It should be defenitely the other way round considering the cost effectiveness of bio, widow mines and other units like ravens(heavy damage, survive most battles), bc (hard to have adequate anti air for zerg in most setups), medivacs (survive most battles).
5. Spider mine effort vs benefit mechanic: Easy to use, 0 micro, very hard to deal with. One mistake by zerg in early game vs spider mine can instant lose games due to a single or few lucky shot into banelings/mutalisks. Mixture of random single mines and stacks of backup/defensive mines just seem inadequatly cost efficient. Anti air of mines on top of this makes a little to no cost unit way too cost efficient. Widow mines deny zerg activity and aggression very well and on the other hand make any play in advantagious position for terran even more easy and more impossible to come back for zerg.
6. The terran gas demand issue: Terran units usually are not limited by gas (also supported by the fact that medivacs survive almost all fights). Therefore terran loses in fights only the amount of minerals that the units costs in opposite to the zerg that loses both mins/gas. This is what I consider one of the major things in the matchup and general race design of terran and should be addressed by blizzard. It is the reason why terran with any strategy can go for full upgrades/tech without taking any major trade offs for it. Terran just does it all at any time and is perfectly fine, while zerg has to decide when to upgrade and when to build gas units (to react on threats or make pressure) terran just does it all at once basically (_basically_!!).
some other things could be mentioned but I think it covers the most. While all of these mechanics defenitely are part of the race design and are wanted to be this way I personally consider it a bit too much of everything. It is too easy to damage the zerg, it is a bit to easy to be active player as the terran and force the reactive zerg into mistakes. It is too easy to drop an expansion kill it and fly back with zero losses. It is to hard and risky to get aggressive vs T during the same stage of the game without going all-in. It is too easy to defend expansions with mines/planetary/bunkers/lift off. It is too easy to just a click + little splitting one after another bio army into the zerg knowing about the fact that zerg anyway has waste alot of expensive banelings and you can stim run back to pull zerg into mines, load in and fly away to make your units still survive in bad situations. There is no risk. It is a bit too easy for terran to get all upgrades that are needed and in lategame switch instantly into heavy tech like raven/bc as early game units that can die (marines/maurauder/mines/scv) barely cost any gas at all. Therfore it is also too easy for terran to get all needed upgrades in time without any major trade offs. Its just a build order trade off not a question if you can build 3-4 more maurauders or not.
Just look at last game MLG finals polt vs hyun. This game was SO single sided, zerg cannot come back at all from these situations. You never see zerg winning games like this AT ALL on this level of play. And this is what you can watch alot. Zerg does a mistakes in the early stages and cannot come back from being behind due to unfair terran units/mechanics like widow mines and bio drops (also in this live vs flash final at least one game was easy win due to a single widow mine shot). Games where terran is behind oftenly can be turned around due to mules and cost effectiveness of terran bio + dropship mechanic. While it is good that terran can do this it is imbalanced because zergs cannot. This is imbalance, I am pretty sure guys. It is maybe only little and in many situations can be evened out by almost perfect zerg play but I feel serious about this is imbalance.
But in general the state of the game is good. Just terrans bit too easily make things done without taking risks that other races had to take for similar chances to win games short and simple. And don't forget the gas issue. It is huge for the whole gameplay situation. If everything you said is true, then TvZ is impossible for Zergs at top-level. And then again, Hyun just beat MMA in RSL(not sure if correct tourney).
you didn't read my posting well. Just watch how easy terran win some games. This is not even only a balance issue but a general entertainment issue. Noone wants to see games where zerg does one minor mistake and playes the next 7-8 minutes from behind to see the inevitable eventual defeat. Zergs don't and cannot come back in these games. Disadvantages can be taken back from terran, zerg can in many to all cases not. Please also note the suggestions that I edited in to get a general idea about how much I think it is imbalanced lol (to name it again, I think little changes adjustments are enaugh to start with and observe development).
And did you forget how fruitdealer won GSL#1 in an undoubtedly almost unplayable game setting considering early terran all-ins and map design?
It is the same as in TvP the drop defense of P. Sure pro players in 4 of 5 games have these 5 stalkers back there to fend off the dropships while closely defending the frontal terran aggression with a perfect split of units. But in this 1/5 cases when they have not it is an instant lose and this makes imbalance. Noone says that pro players do not manage to deal with these things in many or most cases. But what if not? Why terran wins instant then cause bio focuses down everything in few seconds and then just drop fly away in medivacs with zero loss without even taking any risks in the process of making the decision to perform this action? :D
... it is for sure imbalance man :p
and yes it has already been said. Its not about amounts of games/tournaments won. It is about how easily terran can win in some, maybe few, situations due to a minor mistake while others cant.
And I am quite sure tournament results will more and more turn into this once more terrans learn how to abuse these mechanics while being more or less completely safe themselves. Alot of terran in the hots past lost games due to taking risks they didnt have to take. E.g. flash moving out vs unscouted life 3 base baneling all-in while having zero widow mines on the map and taking his 4th and so on (someting that on this level of play is quite a major player mistake). Next game flash wins vs life due to single widow mine shot into banelings after 1-2 attack waves and after a few minuts. Terrans also use to play greedy, getting 3 CC early vs 2 base zerg aggression into 3rd hatch and so on. Its a matter of how not about the fact that pro players know how to deal with these imba mechanics in most cases but if not instant lose early to midgame.
|
On July 07 2013 04:13 plogamer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 10:19 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 10:02 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 09:43 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 09:16 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 08:54 ETisME wrote:
Definitely do not only balance the game at top level.
Game needs to be fairly balanced by the amount of skill needed to win a game and equally as fun.
Right now zvt is extremely frustrating to play in since zerg is either all in or stays defensive until one big good engage and counterattack win.
But tvz is extremely fun, you put on non stop aggression and has total tempo control of the game.
Stopping a drop is definitely not as fun as doing a drop
Let's see how good the split is, let's see if the terran target fire the mine correctly etc. Every action is terran.
For Zerg, it's only the fungal left
Used to have muta control magic box, sniping medivac and tanks, or surround etc. All disappeared
You could very well make a perfectly balanced game by giving each race same units and mechanics. But just look at pvp in wol, not fun at all.
Designers need to put more focus on how to make the game fun on both sides (they had the right idea that more action is more entertaining) and less about what is op or not if it's fun to watch and play.
They also need to think about how to introduce diversity for the game. Mech right now is so outshined by bio style, every Zvt is almost ling baneling muta vs bio mine mid game. Zergs can still split mutas, lings, banes - attack in staggering waves to trigger mines. Surrounds and flanks are still possible, just not blindly. Zergs will need to send in a small wave of flank to trigger mines, then rush in with the rest once the mines are disabled. I cannot recall the exact game, but I saw a pro Zerg send a couple of roaches and lings. Roaches to soak up Terran fire until lings trigger the mines for minimal cost. Widow-mines raised the skill-ceiling for Z in ZvT imo. almost every pro zerg split units to take less damage but it isn't exactly the type of micro that is spectacular and not necessarily amazing to watch. It's more of a basic marine stutterstep micro which isn't that amazing to watch anymore other than some scenario like scv marine all in IF it was more like ling baneling micro in ZvZ, it would be way better and exciting to watch. Zerg 1 tries to sent a few lings to kill the banelings Zerg 2 runs back the banelings and use main pack of lings to kill it Zerg 1 then sent some banelings to chase away that pack of lings Right now we see some zerg units sent in and terran bio either kill it (if mines are unburrowed) or stop the mines from firing (if they were burrowed). The micro emphasis is still on the terran side. You are too quick to discount Zerg micro, and over-value Terran micro. Especially when you throw in a highly subjective criteria as "spectacular and entertaining to watch". Marine splitting was spectacular because it was an inherently Terran trick to survive the AoE they faced or get utterly annihilated. Lings splits are more difficult imo since they are so fast, but not as entertaining because it didn't really matter in TvZ in WoL. Now with widow mines in HotS, I can differentiate between Zergs with amazing micro in TvZ against Zergs who don't. A lot of Zerg players were still in WoL mode unfortunately and responded terribly to widow mines. That's why we saw so much QQ over widow mines in the beginning of HotS. And now? Nothing. A lot of viewers are in WoL-mode too. They would cringe if a Terran did not split against banes, but take it as normal when Zergs don't split well enough to mitigate mine shots. No, it should be as great a mistake! Marine splitting IS spectacular, the one I am saying is not that amazing to watch is stutterstep. WoL zerg had a lot of micro tools: muta micro, ling counter attack sometimes with burrow, sending in a few lings to tank the initial tank shots before sending the whole pack, sent up flanks, force siege up, burrow infestor for infested terran tanking tank shots etc. I don't think I am being that subjective at all. unless you think zerg sending in some units to bait the mine/ focus firing the mine is spectacular (the mine hit itself can be awesome to watch but definitly not the micro because you can't even see it happening other than the mine is being selected) compared to dodging fungal or splitting against banelings etc. What other zerg micro in Hots other than Hyun's burrow infestor fungal, sent in some units to bait mine shots, drop defense micro, occasionally ling vs hellion surround micro and increasily rare queen transfuse ultra So many micros and interesting things are missing right now from the zerg side. One huge disappointment is the muta buff just makes it a better drop defense unit rather than a harassing unit. But the WoL Zerg micro has not completely disappeared. - Mutas still require micro or you lose them. - Ling counter attacks with burrow can still take place, just have to send a few lings first to take potential widow-mine shots. - Sending in a few lings to soak tank shots is not that different from sending in few units to trigger mine shots - Forcing mine burrow is a lot like forcing seige-up. But seriously, seige tanks got nerfed into the ground so who cares. - Burrow-infestor for infested terran is still done against mines in few games I've seen. /edit You lament the loss of sending in few lings or using infested Terrans to tank shots. But you don't care that the same tactic applies to widow-mines. That's what I mean when you are being subjective. Because it sounds to me like you miss seigetanks in TvZ, and I do too, but they are too weak in their current incarnation, and the shape/size of the map-pools. Add more chokes, ledges, and seige tanks might be decent again. btw: If you play Terran, then it is quite spectacular to watch a pro Terran stutter-micro while maintaining perfect macro. I still remember when Polt was stutter-stepping his main army and stutter-stepping his drop that was facing a zealot warp-in; all while maintaining his macro. O-M-G.
Of cause zerg micro hasn't completely disappeared.
What I am saying is Hots has much less actions from Zerg side.
A lot of hots TvZ the zerg can't even put on counter aggression and sometimes die before moving to the terran half of map in a macro game, such as the ragnarok game in GSTL yesterday against hack.
Yes, I do miss siege tanks. But what I miss the most is the interaction it has with ling baneling muta style, zerg being able to do counter attacks, cutting off reinforcements, baiting siege ups, harassing, multi prone attacks, burrow banelings etc.
there were tonnes more how zerg could put on pressure back in WoL days in comparison.
Actually the early days of Hots TvZ looked extremely amazing, back and forth with lots of tradings everywhere, muta could harass etc. But since the terran figured out a more stable opener etc, it just falls to the terran putting on all the actions while zerg kept defending.
And yes, I do play all races, TvZ stutter step micro is really not that special because what's more important is whether the mine hits or not.
|
On July 07 2013 14:23 LSN wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 14:15 plogamer wrote:On July 07 2013 13:50 LSN wrote:I + Show Spoiler + think to talk about balances in SC2 it is good to do do it fractional. This is not about whole matchups but about time frames like early mid late game, certain mechanics etc.
Also important is to accept that the game is imbalanced. A game with different units/mechanics can not be 100% balanced. Results of tournaments that seem evenly spread amongst races is no evidence for the opposite.
Let me bring up some mechanics that I consider imbalanced and I will stick to TvZ:
1. Terran can pose threat to zerg with bio/dropships without taking adequate risks.
As zerg usually has no mobile anti air and terran can just do kind of all-inish attacks load in and fly away before or after damage is done. Even when losing the units, medivacs usually survive this and get out. Most likely they carry out big parts of the army as well.
2. The unit killing mechanic (kind of 80/20 thing): When Zerg crushes a T army it is very likely that zerg loses 80% of his army as well. When Terran crushes a Zerg army the terran army survives to an extend of 80% usually.
As banelings explode and are expensive, zerg can not cost effectively fight against terran armies the same way terran can. Just consider what it takes to kill a certain bio army with zergling/baneling. With little splitting zerg even when winning the fight has same to similar amounts of ressources lost as the terran. When terran wins the fight its usually a huge win ressource-wise (also due to the medivacs fly away and in best case carry units away mechanic after action is being done while zerg units getting chased down by stimmed bio reinforcements after an attack and might still die terran just flies away and takes about close to zero risks).
3. Kill expansions mechanic:
When terran attacks the zerg expension it can be killed. Other way round it just lifts up and later on lands again. Even if it gets killed terran can fly a close OC/CC to the place to continue the expansion without much delay. Planetary+scv repair even makes it quite impossible to attack terran expansions effectively in many situations before lategame. Therefore terran for a long time and in many game scenarios plays in a relatively safe environment. All-ins can be dangerous if not scouted but with scv/reaper/scan scouting on high level it is almost impossible not to scout it.
4. The mule thing: in lategame terran can more and more replace scv with mules and therefore can obtain higher amry supply. It should be defenitely the other way round considering the cost effectiveness of bio, widow mines and other units like ravens(heavy damage, survive most battles), bc (hard to have adequate anti air for zerg in most setups), medivacs (survive most battles).
5. Spider mine effort vs benefit mechanic: Easy to use, 0 micro, very hard to deal with. One mistake by zerg in early game vs spider mine can instant lose games due to a single or few lucky shot into banelings/mutalisks. Mixture of random single mines and stacks of backup/defensive mines just seem inadequatly cost efficient. Anti air of mines on top of this makes a little to no cost unit way too cost efficient. Widow mines deny zerg activity and aggression very well and on the other hand make any play in advantagious position for terran even more easy and more impossible to come back for zerg.
6. The terran gas demand issue: Terran units usually are not limited by gas (also supported by the fact that medivacs survive almost all fights). Therefore terran loses in fights only the amount of minerals that the units costs in opposite to the zerg that loses both mins/gas. This is what I consider one of the major things in the matchup and general race design of terran and should be addressed by blizzard. It is the reason why terran with any strategy can go for full upgrades/tech without taking any major trade offs for it. Terran just does it all at any time and is perfectly fine, while zerg has to decide when to upgrade and when to build gas units (to react on threats or make pressure) terran just does it all at once basically (_basically_!!).
some other things could be mentioned but I think it covers the most. While all of these mechanics defenitely are part of the race design and are wanted to be this way I personally consider it a bit too much of everything. It is too easy to damage the zerg, it is a bit to easy to be active player as the terran and force the reactive zerg into mistakes. It is too easy to drop an expansion kill it and fly back with zero losses. It is to hard and risky to get aggressive vs T during the same stage of the game without going all-in. It is too easy to defend expansions with mines/planetary/bunkers/lift off. It is too easy to just a click + little splitting one after another bio army into the zerg knowing about the fact that zerg anyway has waste alot of expensive banelings and you can stim run back to pull zerg into mines, load in and fly away to make your units still survive in bad situations. There is no risk. It is a bit too easy for terran to get all upgrades that are needed and in lategame switch instantly into heavy tech like raven/bc as early game units that can die (marines/maurauder/mines/scv) barely cost any gas at all. Therfore it is also too easy for terran to get all needed upgrades in time without any major trade offs. Its just a build order trade off not a question if you can build 3-4 more maurauders or not.
Just look at last game MLG finals polt vs hyun. This game was SO single sided, zerg cannot come back at all from these situations. You never see zerg winning games like this AT ALL on this level of play. And this is what you can watch alot. Zerg does a mistakes in the early stages and cannot come back from being behind due to unfair terran units/mechanics like widow mines and bio drops (also in this live vs flash final at least one game was easy win due to a single widow mine shot). Games where terran is behind oftenly can be turned around due to mules and cost effectiveness of terran bio + dropship mechanic. While it is good that terran can do this it is imbalanced because zergs cannot. This is imbalance, I am pretty sure guys. It is maybe only little and in many situations can be evened out by almost perfect zerg play but I feel serious about this is imbalance.
But in general the state of the game is good. Just terrans bit too easily make things done without taking risks that other races had to take for similar chances to win games short and simple. And don't forget the gas issue. It is huge for the whole gameplay situation. If everything you said is true, then TvZ is impossible for Zergs at top-level. And then again, Hyun just beat MMA in RSL(not sure if correct tourney). you didn't read my posting well. Just watch how easy terran win some games. This is not even only a balance issue but a general entertainment issue. Noone wants to see games where zerg does one minor mistake and playes the next 7-8 minutes from behind to see the inevitable eventual defeat. Zergs don't and cannot come back in these games. Disadvantages can be taken back from terran, zerg can in many to all cases not. Please also note the suggestions that I edited in to get a general idea about how much I think it is imbalanced lol (to name it again, I think little changes adjustments are enaugh to start with and observe development). And did you forget how fruitdealer won GSL#1 in an undoubtedly almost unplayable game setting considering early terran all-ins and map design? It is the same as in TvP the drop defense of P. Sure pro players in 4 of 5 games have these 5 stalkers back there to fend off the dropships while closely defending the frontal terran aggression with a perfect split of units. But in this 1/5 cases when they have not it is an instant lose and this makes imbalance. Noone says that pro players do not manage to deal with these things in many or most cases. But what if not? Why terran wins instant then cause bio focuses down everything in few seconds and then just drop fly away in medivacs with zero loss without even taking any risks in the process of making the decision to perform this action? :D ... it is for sure imbalance man :p and yes it has already been said. Its not about amounts of games/tournaments won. It is about how easily terran can win in some, maybe few, situations due to a minor mistake while others cant. And I am quite sure tournament results will more and more turn into this once more terrans learn how to abuse these mechanics while being more or less completely safe themselves. Alot of terran in the hots past lost games due to taking risks they didnt have to take. E.g. flash moving out vs unscouted life 3 base baneling all-in while having zero widow mines on the map and taking his 4th and so on (someting that on this level of play is quite a major player mistake). Next game flash wins vs life due to single widow mine shot into banelings after 1-2 attack waves and after a few minuts. Terrans also use to play greedy, getting 3 CC early vs 2 base zerg aggression into 3rd hatch and so on. Its a matter of how not about the fact that pro players know how to deal with these imba mechanics in most cases but if not instant lose early to midgame.
Fruitdealer was so ahead of his time.
You have not even made clear what is this "minor mistake" that puts a Zerg behind for 7-8 minutes (lol). One widowmine shot that killed 20 lings? Learn to split units. Terrans have to do it all the time. Would you say that a clumped marine-ball against banelings is a minor mistake?
Medivac retreat is nothing compared to the ability of the ENTIRE zerg army (except broodlords?) to retreat at the drop of a dime. No boost needed; units boosted 24/7. And mutalisks + lings shut down medivacs if they can't reach back home by the time boost is over. And Protoss have their archmage, I mean, mothership core for easy retreat.
Okay, pro players in 4 of 5 games have their depot raised. But when it is down, ling runby does way too much damage! Imba! .. duh. Another one, pro players in 4 of 5 games have perfect split, but when they don't, banes/fungals/storms are imba!
I agree that -how- a player wins can be indicative of balance. But, you have not raised anything substantial except one widowmine-shot causing Life to lose. The imbalance of Terran-retreat using medivacs is highly exaggerated, especially when other races have MUCH nice alternatives.
|
On July 07 2013 15:43 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 04:13 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 10:19 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 10:02 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 09:43 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 09:16 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 08:54 ETisME wrote:
Definitely do not only balance the game at top level.
Game needs to be fairly balanced by the amount of skill needed to win a game and equally as fun.
Right now zvt is extremely frustrating to play in since zerg is either all in or stays defensive until one big good engage and counterattack win.
But tvz is extremely fun, you put on non stop aggression and has total tempo control of the game.
Stopping a drop is definitely not as fun as doing a drop
Let's see how good the split is, let's see if the terran target fire the mine correctly etc. Every action is terran.
For Zerg, it's only the fungal left
Used to have muta control magic box, sniping medivac and tanks, or surround etc. All disappeared
You could very well make a perfectly balanced game by giving each race same units and mechanics. But just look at pvp in wol, not fun at all.
Designers need to put more focus on how to make the game fun on both sides (they had the right idea that more action is more entertaining) and less about what is op or not if it's fun to watch and play.
They also need to think about how to introduce diversity for the game. Mech right now is so outshined by bio style, every Zvt is almost ling baneling muta vs bio mine mid game. Zergs can still split mutas, lings, banes - attack in staggering waves to trigger mines. Surrounds and flanks are still possible, just not blindly. Zergs will need to send in a small wave of flank to trigger mines, then rush in with the rest once the mines are disabled. I cannot recall the exact game, but I saw a pro Zerg send a couple of roaches and lings. Roaches to soak up Terran fire until lings trigger the mines for minimal cost. Widow-mines raised the skill-ceiling for Z in ZvT imo. almost every pro zerg split units to take less damage but it isn't exactly the type of micro that is spectacular and not necessarily amazing to watch. It's more of a basic marine stutterstep micro which isn't that amazing to watch anymore other than some scenario like scv marine all in IF it was more like ling baneling micro in ZvZ, it would be way better and exciting to watch. Zerg 1 tries to sent a few lings to kill the banelings Zerg 2 runs back the banelings and use main pack of lings to kill it Zerg 1 then sent some banelings to chase away that pack of lings Right now we see some zerg units sent in and terran bio either kill it (if mines are unburrowed) or stop the mines from firing (if they were burrowed). The micro emphasis is still on the terran side. You are too quick to discount Zerg micro, and over-value Terran micro. Especially when you throw in a highly subjective criteria as "spectacular and entertaining to watch". Marine splitting was spectacular because it was an inherently Terran trick to survive the AoE they faced or get utterly annihilated. Lings splits are more difficult imo since they are so fast, but not as entertaining because it didn't really matter in TvZ in WoL. Now with widow mines in HotS, I can differentiate between Zergs with amazing micro in TvZ against Zergs who don't. A lot of Zerg players were still in WoL mode unfortunately and responded terribly to widow mines. That's why we saw so much QQ over widow mines in the beginning of HotS. And now? Nothing. A lot of viewers are in WoL-mode too. They would cringe if a Terran did not split against banes, but take it as normal when Zergs don't split well enough to mitigate mine shots. No, it should be as great a mistake! Marine splitting IS spectacular, the one I am saying is not that amazing to watch is stutterstep. WoL zerg had a lot of micro tools: muta micro, ling counter attack sometimes with burrow, sending in a few lings to tank the initial tank shots before sending the whole pack, sent up flanks, force siege up, burrow infestor for infested terran tanking tank shots etc. I don't think I am being that subjective at all. unless you think zerg sending in some units to bait the mine/ focus firing the mine is spectacular (the mine hit itself can be awesome to watch but definitly not the micro because you can't even see it happening other than the mine is being selected) compared to dodging fungal or splitting against banelings etc. What other zerg micro in Hots other than Hyun's burrow infestor fungal, sent in some units to bait mine shots, drop defense micro, occasionally ling vs hellion surround micro and increasily rare queen transfuse ultra So many micros and interesting things are missing right now from the zerg side. One huge disappointment is the muta buff just makes it a better drop defense unit rather than a harassing unit. But the WoL Zerg micro has not completely disappeared. - Mutas still require micro or you lose them. - Ling counter attacks with burrow can still take place, just have to send a few lings first to take potential widow-mine shots. - Sending in a few lings to soak tank shots is not that different from sending in few units to trigger mine shots - Forcing mine burrow is a lot like forcing seige-up. But seriously, seige tanks got nerfed into the ground so who cares. - Burrow-infestor for infested terran is still done against mines in few games I've seen. /edit You lament the loss of sending in few lings or using infested Terrans to tank shots. But you don't care that the same tactic applies to widow-mines. That's what I mean when you are being subjective. Because it sounds to me like you miss seigetanks in TvZ, and I do too, but they are too weak in their current incarnation, and the shape/size of the map-pools. Add more chokes, ledges, and seige tanks might be decent again. btw: If you play Terran, then it is quite spectacular to watch a pro Terran stutter-micro while maintaining perfect macro. I still remember when Polt was stutter-stepping his main army and stutter-stepping his drop that was facing a zealot warp-in; all while maintaining his macro. O-M-G. Of cause zerg micro hasn't completely disappeared. What I am saying is Hots has much less actions from Zerg side. A lot of hots TvZ the zerg can't even put on counter aggression and sometimes die before moving to the terran half of map in a macro game, such as the ragnarok game in GSTL yesterday against hack. Yes, I do miss siege tanks. But what I miss the most is the interaction it has with ling baneling muta style, zerg being able to do counter attacks, cutting off reinforcements, baiting siege ups, harassing, multi prone attacks, burrow banelings etc. there were tonnes more how zerg could put on pressure back in WoL days in comparison. Actually the early days of Hots TvZ looked extremely amazing, back and forth with lots of tradings everywhere, muta could harass etc. But since the terran figured out a more stable opener etc, it just falls to the terran putting on all the actions while zerg kept defending.
I would like to see a medium sized very flat map with very open 3rd and 4th bases play out in ZvT. Basically, something where Terran can't rally down his units to one central minefield and can't dropharass supereasily. When Terran has to play more timing based, instead of doing the "plant mine, set rally point".
Maybe there, Zerg would have more breathing room and a better time to setup counterattacks. But apart from that, I don't think that this will change anytime soon as it is largely caused by basic unit counterrelations.
|
On July 07 2013 17:22 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 15:43 ETisME wrote:On July 07 2013 04:13 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 10:19 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 10:02 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 09:43 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 09:16 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 08:54 ETisME wrote:
Definitely do not only balance the game at top level.
Game needs to be fairly balanced by the amount of skill needed to win a game and equally as fun.
Right now zvt is extremely frustrating to play in since zerg is either all in or stays defensive until one big good engage and counterattack win.
But tvz is extremely fun, you put on non stop aggression and has total tempo control of the game.
Stopping a drop is definitely not as fun as doing a drop
Let's see how good the split is, let's see if the terran target fire the mine correctly etc. Every action is terran.
For Zerg, it's only the fungal left
Used to have muta control magic box, sniping medivac and tanks, or surround etc. All disappeared
You could very well make a perfectly balanced game by giving each race same units and mechanics. But just look at pvp in wol, not fun at all.
Designers need to put more focus on how to make the game fun on both sides (they had the right idea that more action is more entertaining) and less about what is op or not if it's fun to watch and play.
They also need to think about how to introduce diversity for the game. Mech right now is so outshined by bio style, every Zvt is almost ling baneling muta vs bio mine mid game. Zergs can still split mutas, lings, banes - attack in staggering waves to trigger mines. Surrounds and flanks are still possible, just not blindly. Zergs will need to send in a small wave of flank to trigger mines, then rush in with the rest once the mines are disabled. I cannot recall the exact game, but I saw a pro Zerg send a couple of roaches and lings. Roaches to soak up Terran fire until lings trigger the mines for minimal cost. Widow-mines raised the skill-ceiling for Z in ZvT imo. almost every pro zerg split units to take less damage but it isn't exactly the type of micro that is spectacular and not necessarily amazing to watch. It's more of a basic marine stutterstep micro which isn't that amazing to watch anymore other than some scenario like scv marine all in IF it was more like ling baneling micro in ZvZ, it would be way better and exciting to watch. Zerg 1 tries to sent a few lings to kill the banelings Zerg 2 runs back the banelings and use main pack of lings to kill it Zerg 1 then sent some banelings to chase away that pack of lings Right now we see some zerg units sent in and terran bio either kill it (if mines are unburrowed) or stop the mines from firing (if they were burrowed). The micro emphasis is still on the terran side. You are too quick to discount Zerg micro, and over-value Terran micro. Especially when you throw in a highly subjective criteria as "spectacular and entertaining to watch". Marine splitting was spectacular because it was an inherently Terran trick to survive the AoE they faced or get utterly annihilated. Lings splits are more difficult imo since they are so fast, but not as entertaining because it didn't really matter in TvZ in WoL. Now with widow mines in HotS, I can differentiate between Zergs with amazing micro in TvZ against Zergs who don't. A lot of Zerg players were still in WoL mode unfortunately and responded terribly to widow mines. That's why we saw so much QQ over widow mines in the beginning of HotS. And now? Nothing. A lot of viewers are in WoL-mode too. They would cringe if a Terran did not split against banes, but take it as normal when Zergs don't split well enough to mitigate mine shots. No, it should be as great a mistake! Marine splitting IS spectacular, the one I am saying is not that amazing to watch is stutterstep. WoL zerg had a lot of micro tools: muta micro, ling counter attack sometimes with burrow, sending in a few lings to tank the initial tank shots before sending the whole pack, sent up flanks, force siege up, burrow infestor for infested terran tanking tank shots etc. I don't think I am being that subjective at all. unless you think zerg sending in some units to bait the mine/ focus firing the mine is spectacular (the mine hit itself can be awesome to watch but definitly not the micro because you can't even see it happening other than the mine is being selected) compared to dodging fungal or splitting against banelings etc. What other zerg micro in Hots other than Hyun's burrow infestor fungal, sent in some units to bait mine shots, drop defense micro, occasionally ling vs hellion surround micro and increasily rare queen transfuse ultra So many micros and interesting things are missing right now from the zerg side. One huge disappointment is the muta buff just makes it a better drop defense unit rather than a harassing unit. But the WoL Zerg micro has not completely disappeared. - Mutas still require micro or you lose them. - Ling counter attacks with burrow can still take place, just have to send a few lings first to take potential widow-mine shots. - Sending in a few lings to soak tank shots is not that different from sending in few units to trigger mine shots - Forcing mine burrow is a lot like forcing seige-up. But seriously, seige tanks got nerfed into the ground so who cares. - Burrow-infestor for infested terran is still done against mines in few games I've seen. /edit You lament the loss of sending in few lings or using infested Terrans to tank shots. But you don't care that the same tactic applies to widow-mines. That's what I mean when you are being subjective. Because it sounds to me like you miss seigetanks in TvZ, and I do too, but they are too weak in their current incarnation, and the shape/size of the map-pools. Add more chokes, ledges, and seige tanks might be decent again. btw: If you play Terran, then it is quite spectacular to watch a pro Terran stutter-micro while maintaining perfect macro. I still remember when Polt was stutter-stepping his main army and stutter-stepping his drop that was facing a zealot warp-in; all while maintaining his macro. O-M-G. Of cause zerg micro hasn't completely disappeared. What I am saying is Hots has much less actions from Zerg side. A lot of hots TvZ the zerg can't even put on counter aggression and sometimes die before moving to the terran half of map in a macro game, such as the ragnarok game in GSTL yesterday against hack. Yes, I do miss siege tanks. But what I miss the most is the interaction it has with ling baneling muta style, zerg being able to do counter attacks, cutting off reinforcements, baiting siege ups, harassing, multi prone attacks, burrow banelings etc. there were tonnes more how zerg could put on pressure back in WoL days in comparison. Actually the early days of Hots TvZ looked extremely amazing, back and forth with lots of tradings everywhere, muta could harass etc. But since the terran figured out a more stable opener etc, it just falls to the terran putting on all the actions while zerg kept defending. I would like to see a medium sized very flat map with very open 3rd and 4th bases play out in ZvT. Basically, something where Terran can't rally down his units to one central minefield and can't dropharass supereasily. When Terran has to play more timing based, instead of doing the "plant mine, set rally point". Maybe there, Zerg would have more breathing room and a better time to setup counterattacks. But apart from that, I don't think that this will change anytime soon as it is largely caused by basic unit counterrelations.
Oh those evil lazy Terrans ... just rally and a-move to victory. Rofl.
Zerg just need to learn to defend against drop harrassment and that includes Spore Crawlers and covering the edges of the main base with creep (which isnt usually done until it is too late) on maps with larger main bases. Oh and positioning the Spore Crawlers in a way where they shoot at the Medivac BEFORE it starts to unload would help a lot ... so no cheap "1 Spore in the middle of the mineral line" junk. Additionally a few more Queens could help as well, but too many Zergs are focused fully on "offense" or "economy" while ignoring "defense". Researching burrow helps too, at least the Terran needs to use a scan too to kill drones.
Since the way to win as a Terran is to disrupt a Zerg economy early on it seems a wise choice to focus on defense early on. I have never understood why losing 10 Zerglings (=5 larvae) to defend stuff is cheaper than spending the resources on Spines and Spores in sufficient numbers. That should be far cheaper (for the larvae invested) since these "static" defenses have a lot more health and wont die easily and ultimately better for the economy. Spine Crawlers are also ranged compared to melee Zerglings and thus can not be "abused" by clever positioning the dropped units in a niche.
Since it is possible for a Terran to lose 4 double-Medivac Hellion drops without being behind much, it seems necessary to really build those static defenses in sufficient numbers since the economy and production capacity increase over time and defending with Zerglings (or units you need to move there in general) seems totally inefficient. Many Zerg slack there and that is really bad, since they need a lot of firepower to clean up a drop from 4 Medivacs while the Hellbats / Marines / Marauders are easy to use.
|
On July 07 2013 18:13 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 17:22 Big J wrote:On July 07 2013 15:43 ETisME wrote:On July 07 2013 04:13 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 10:19 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 10:02 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 09:43 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 09:16 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 08:54 ETisME wrote:
Definitely do not only balance the game at top level.
Game needs to be fairly balanced by the amount of skill needed to win a game and equally as fun.
Right now zvt is extremely frustrating to play in since zerg is either all in or stays defensive until one big good engage and counterattack win.
But tvz is extremely fun, you put on non stop aggression and has total tempo control of the game.
Stopping a drop is definitely not as fun as doing a drop
Let's see how good the split is, let's see if the terran target fire the mine correctly etc. Every action is terran.
For Zerg, it's only the fungal left
Used to have muta control magic box, sniping medivac and tanks, or surround etc. All disappeared
You could very well make a perfectly balanced game by giving each race same units and mechanics. But just look at pvp in wol, not fun at all.
Designers need to put more focus on how to make the game fun on both sides (they had the right idea that more action is more entertaining) and less about what is op or not if it's fun to watch and play.
They also need to think about how to introduce diversity for the game. Mech right now is so outshined by bio style, every Zvt is almost ling baneling muta vs bio mine mid game. Zergs can still split mutas, lings, banes - attack in staggering waves to trigger mines. Surrounds and flanks are still possible, just not blindly. Zergs will need to send in a small wave of flank to trigger mines, then rush in with the rest once the mines are disabled. I cannot recall the exact game, but I saw a pro Zerg send a couple of roaches and lings. Roaches to soak up Terran fire until lings trigger the mines for minimal cost. Widow-mines raised the skill-ceiling for Z in ZvT imo. almost every pro zerg split units to take less damage but it isn't exactly the type of micro that is spectacular and not necessarily amazing to watch. It's more of a basic marine stutterstep micro which isn't that amazing to watch anymore other than some scenario like scv marine all in IF it was more like ling baneling micro in ZvZ, it would be way better and exciting to watch. Zerg 1 tries to sent a few lings to kill the banelings Zerg 2 runs back the banelings and use main pack of lings to kill it Zerg 1 then sent some banelings to chase away that pack of lings Right now we see some zerg units sent in and terran bio either kill it (if mines are unburrowed) or stop the mines from firing (if they were burrowed). The micro emphasis is still on the terran side. You are too quick to discount Zerg micro, and over-value Terran micro. Especially when you throw in a highly subjective criteria as "spectacular and entertaining to watch". Marine splitting was spectacular because it was an inherently Terran trick to survive the AoE they faced or get utterly annihilated. Lings splits are more difficult imo since they are so fast, but not as entertaining because it didn't really matter in TvZ in WoL. Now with widow mines in HotS, I can differentiate between Zergs with amazing micro in TvZ against Zergs who don't. A lot of Zerg players were still in WoL mode unfortunately and responded terribly to widow mines. That's why we saw so much QQ over widow mines in the beginning of HotS. And now? Nothing. A lot of viewers are in WoL-mode too. They would cringe if a Terran did not split against banes, but take it as normal when Zergs don't split well enough to mitigate mine shots. No, it should be as great a mistake! Marine splitting IS spectacular, the one I am saying is not that amazing to watch is stutterstep. WoL zerg had a lot of micro tools: muta micro, ling counter attack sometimes with burrow, sending in a few lings to tank the initial tank shots before sending the whole pack, sent up flanks, force siege up, burrow infestor for infested terran tanking tank shots etc. I don't think I am being that subjective at all. unless you think zerg sending in some units to bait the mine/ focus firing the mine is spectacular (the mine hit itself can be awesome to watch but definitly not the micro because you can't even see it happening other than the mine is being selected) compared to dodging fungal or splitting against banelings etc. What other zerg micro in Hots other than Hyun's burrow infestor fungal, sent in some units to bait mine shots, drop defense micro, occasionally ling vs hellion surround micro and increasily rare queen transfuse ultra So many micros and interesting things are missing right now from the zerg side. One huge disappointment is the muta buff just makes it a better drop defense unit rather than a harassing unit. But the WoL Zerg micro has not completely disappeared. - Mutas still require micro or you lose them. - Ling counter attacks with burrow can still take place, just have to send a few lings first to take potential widow-mine shots. - Sending in a few lings to soak tank shots is not that different from sending in few units to trigger mine shots - Forcing mine burrow is a lot like forcing seige-up. But seriously, seige tanks got nerfed into the ground so who cares. - Burrow-infestor for infested terran is still done against mines in few games I've seen. /edit You lament the loss of sending in few lings or using infested Terrans to tank shots. But you don't care that the same tactic applies to widow-mines. That's what I mean when you are being subjective. Because it sounds to me like you miss seigetanks in TvZ, and I do too, but they are too weak in their current incarnation, and the shape/size of the map-pools. Add more chokes, ledges, and seige tanks might be decent again. btw: If you play Terran, then it is quite spectacular to watch a pro Terran stutter-micro while maintaining perfect macro. I still remember when Polt was stutter-stepping his main army and stutter-stepping his drop that was facing a zealot warp-in; all while maintaining his macro. O-M-G. Of cause zerg micro hasn't completely disappeared. What I am saying is Hots has much less actions from Zerg side. A lot of hots TvZ the zerg can't even put on counter aggression and sometimes die before moving to the terran half of map in a macro game, such as the ragnarok game in GSTL yesterday against hack. Yes, I do miss siege tanks. But what I miss the most is the interaction it has with ling baneling muta style, zerg being able to do counter attacks, cutting off reinforcements, baiting siege ups, harassing, multi prone attacks, burrow banelings etc. there were tonnes more how zerg could put on pressure back in WoL days in comparison. Actually the early days of Hots TvZ looked extremely amazing, back and forth with lots of tradings everywhere, muta could harass etc. But since the terran figured out a more stable opener etc, it just falls to the terran putting on all the actions while zerg kept defending. I would like to see a medium sized very flat map with very open 3rd and 4th bases play out in ZvT. Basically, something where Terran can't rally down his units to one central minefield and can't dropharass supereasily. When Terran has to play more timing based, instead of doing the "plant mine, set rally point". Maybe there, Zerg would have more breathing room and a better time to setup counterattacks. But apart from that, I don't think that this will change anytime soon as it is largely caused by basic unit counterrelations. Oh those evil lazy Terrans ... just rally and a-move to victory. Rofl.
Didn't say that. Just said that right now Terran is not doing timing attacks but a constant unit rally to midmap or front, due to not getting counterattacked.
Nowhere did I state that it is "amove" from there.
On July 07 2013 18:13 Rabiator wrote:
Zerg just need to learn to defend against drop harrassment and that includes Spore Crawlers and covering the edges of the main base with creep (which isnt usually done until it is too late) on maps with larger main bases. Oh and positioning the Spore Crawlers in a way where they shoot at the Medivac BEFORE it starts to unload would help a lot ... so no cheap "1 Spore in the middle of the mineral line" junk. Additionally a few more Queens could help as well, but too many Zergs are focused fully on "offense" or "economy" while ignoring "defense". Researching burrow helps too, at least the Terran needs to use a scan too to kill drones.
And then the Terran frontal pushes you and you have what? 10banelings and 3mutas? The spore sits in the middle of the mineral line because there it is costefficient, unlike 10spores at the edge of every base when the Terran just realizes he should frontal push.
On July 07 2013 18:13 Rabiator wrote:
Since the way to win as a Terran is to disrupt a Zerg economy early on it seems a wise choice to focus on defense early on. I have never understood why losing 10 Zerglings (=5 larvae) to defend stuff is cheaper than spending the resources on Spines and Spores in sufficient numbers. That should be far cheaper (for the larvae invested) since these "static" defenses have a lot more health and wont die easily and ultimately better for the economy. Spine Crawlers are also ranged compared to melee Zerglings and thus can not be "abused" by clever positioning the dropped units in a niche.
Bullshit. The strongest Terran style aka 3base double upgrade with hellions does not attack before the zerg has 70drones.
On July 07 2013 18:13 Rabiator wrote:
Since it is possible for a Terran to lose 4 double-Medivac Hellion drops without being behind much, it seems necessary to really build those static defenses in sufficient numbers since the economy and production capacity increase over time and defending with Zerglings (or units you need to move there in general) seems totally inefficient. Many Zerg slack there and that is really bad, since they need a lot of firepower to clean up a drop from 4 Medivacs while the Hellbats / Marines / Marauders are easy to use.
What game are you playing where Terran extensively drops hellions?
|
Etisme and LSN, you say great things
Also balance aside, the funfactor rises alot higher if everyrace can be agressive or defensive
Example: zerg cant counterattack against terran in macrogame(no agressiveness at all, only defend)
Would be so much funnier if zerg actually could attack, could be the agressor
it could switch back and forth, the one that takes the initative better becomes the agressor
Only not in tvz but tvp also, protoss defends for 10-15 min now, imagine if Protoss were the agressor some games
They fight for the initiatve and bam some side gets it(you never know which side)
I talk in general
And in tvz, terran has his plantery forrreress +3turrers
as LSN said before zerg cant really kill this cost effecitent early to midgame(maybe not even lategame)
This becomes kinda stale
Terran in this point doesnt need to show any defensive skills
Which makes the game less dynamic and boring in the long run
|
On July 07 2013 18:13 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 17:22 Big J wrote:On July 07 2013 15:43 ETisME wrote:On July 07 2013 04:13 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 10:19 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 10:02 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 09:43 ETisME wrote:On July 06 2013 09:16 plogamer wrote:On July 06 2013 08:54 ETisME wrote:
Definitely do not only balance the game at top level.
Game needs to be fairly balanced by the amount of skill needed to win a game and equally as fun.
Right now zvt is extremely frustrating to play in since zerg is either all in or stays defensive until one big good engage and counterattack win.
But tvz is extremely fun, you put on non stop aggression and has total tempo control of the game.
Stopping a drop is definitely not as fun as doing a drop
Let's see how good the split is, let's see if the terran target fire the mine correctly etc. Every action is terran.
For Zerg, it's only the fungal left
Used to have muta control magic box, sniping medivac and tanks, or surround etc. All disappeared
You could very well make a perfectly balanced game by giving each race same units and mechanics. But just look at pvp in wol, not fun at all.
Designers need to put more focus on how to make the game fun on both sides (they had the right idea that more action is more entertaining) and less about what is op or not if it's fun to watch and play.
They also need to think about how to introduce diversity for the game. Mech right now is so outshined by bio style, every Zvt is almost ling baneling muta vs bio mine mid game. Zergs can still split mutas, lings, banes - attack in staggering waves to trigger mines. Surrounds and flanks are still possible, just not blindly. Zergs will need to send in a small wave of flank to trigger mines, then rush in with the rest once the mines are disabled. I cannot recall the exact game, but I saw a pro Zerg send a couple of roaches and lings. Roaches to soak up Terran fire until lings trigger the mines for minimal cost. Widow-mines raised the skill-ceiling for Z in ZvT imo. almost every pro zerg split units to take less damage but it isn't exactly the type of micro that is spectacular and not necessarily amazing to watch. It's more of a basic marine stutterstep micro which isn't that amazing to watch anymore other than some scenario like scv marine all in IF it was more like ling baneling micro in ZvZ, it would be way better and exciting to watch. Zerg 1 tries to sent a few lings to kill the banelings Zerg 2 runs back the banelings and use main pack of lings to kill it Zerg 1 then sent some banelings to chase away that pack of lings Right now we see some zerg units sent in and terran bio either kill it (if mines are unburrowed) or stop the mines from firing (if they were burrowed). The micro emphasis is still on the terran side. You are too quick to discount Zerg micro, and over-value Terran micro. Especially when you throw in a highly subjective criteria as "spectacular and entertaining to watch". Marine splitting was spectacular because it was an inherently Terran trick to survive the AoE they faced or get utterly annihilated. Lings splits are more difficult imo since they are so fast, but not as entertaining because it didn't really matter in TvZ in WoL. Now with widow mines in HotS, I can differentiate between Zergs with amazing micro in TvZ against Zergs who don't. A lot of Zerg players were still in WoL mode unfortunately and responded terribly to widow mines. That's why we saw so much QQ over widow mines in the beginning of HotS. And now? Nothing. A lot of viewers are in WoL-mode too. They would cringe if a Terran did not split against banes, but take it as normal when Zergs don't split well enough to mitigate mine shots. No, it should be as great a mistake! Marine splitting IS spectacular, the one I am saying is not that amazing to watch is stutterstep. WoL zerg had a lot of micro tools: muta micro, ling counter attack sometimes with burrow, sending in a few lings to tank the initial tank shots before sending the whole pack, sent up flanks, force siege up, burrow infestor for infested terran tanking tank shots etc. I don't think I am being that subjective at all. unless you think zerg sending in some units to bait the mine/ focus firing the mine is spectacular (the mine hit itself can be awesome to watch but definitly not the micro because you can't even see it happening other than the mine is being selected) compared to dodging fungal or splitting against banelings etc. What other zerg micro in Hots other than Hyun's burrow infestor fungal, sent in some units to bait mine shots, drop defense micro, occasionally ling vs hellion surround micro and increasily rare queen transfuse ultra So many micros and interesting things are missing right now from the zerg side. One huge disappointment is the muta buff just makes it a better drop defense unit rather than a harassing unit. But the WoL Zerg micro has not completely disappeared. - Mutas still require micro or you lose them. - Ling counter attacks with burrow can still take place, just have to send a few lings first to take potential widow-mine shots. - Sending in a few lings to soak tank shots is not that different from sending in few units to trigger mine shots - Forcing mine burrow is a lot like forcing seige-up. But seriously, seige tanks got nerfed into the ground so who cares. - Burrow-infestor for infested terran is still done against mines in few games I've seen. /edit You lament the loss of sending in few lings or using infested Terrans to tank shots. But you don't care that the same tactic applies to widow-mines. That's what I mean when you are being subjective. Because it sounds to me like you miss seigetanks in TvZ, and I do too, but they are too weak in their current incarnation, and the shape/size of the map-pools. Add more chokes, ledges, and seige tanks might be decent again. btw: If you play Terran, then it is quite spectacular to watch a pro Terran stutter-micro while maintaining perfect macro. I still remember when Polt was stutter-stepping his main army and stutter-stepping his drop that was facing a zealot warp-in; all while maintaining his macro. O-M-G. Of cause zerg micro hasn't completely disappeared. What I am saying is Hots has much less actions from Zerg side. A lot of hots TvZ the zerg can't even put on counter aggression and sometimes die before moving to the terran half of map in a macro game, such as the ragnarok game in GSTL yesterday against hack. Yes, I do miss siege tanks. But what I miss the most is the interaction it has with ling baneling muta style, zerg being able to do counter attacks, cutting off reinforcements, baiting siege ups, harassing, multi prone attacks, burrow banelings etc. there were tonnes more how zerg could put on pressure back in WoL days in comparison. Actually the early days of Hots TvZ looked extremely amazing, back and forth with lots of tradings everywhere, muta could harass etc. But since the terran figured out a more stable opener etc, it just falls to the terran putting on all the actions while zerg kept defending. I would like to see a medium sized very flat map with very open 3rd and 4th bases play out in ZvT. Basically, something where Terran can't rally down his units to one central minefield and can't dropharass supereasily. When Terran has to play more timing based, instead of doing the "plant mine, set rally point". Maybe there, Zerg would have more breathing room and a better time to setup counterattacks. But apart from that, I don't think that this will change anytime soon as it is largely caused by basic unit counterrelations. Oh those evil lazy Terrans ... just rally and a-move to victory. Rofl. Zerg just need to learn to defend against drop harrassment and that includes Spore Crawlers and covering the edges of the main base with creep (which isnt usually done until it is too late) on maps with larger main bases. Oh and positioning the Spore Crawlers in a way where they shoot at the Medivac BEFORE it starts to unload would help a lot ... so no cheap "1 Spore in the middle of the mineral line" junk. Additionally a few more Queens could help as well, but too many Zergs are focused fully on "offense" or "economy" while ignoring "defense". Researching burrow helps too, at least the Terran needs to use a scan too to kill drones. Since the way to win as a Terran is to disrupt a Zerg economy early on it seems a wise choice to focus on defense early on. I have never understood why losing 10 Zerglings (=5 larvae) to defend stuff is cheaper than spending the resources on Spines and Spores in sufficient numbers. That should be far cheaper (for the larvae invested) since these "static" defenses have a lot more health and wont die easily and ultimately better for the economy. Spine Crawlers are also ranged compared to melee Zerglings and thus can not be "abused" by clever positioning the dropped units in a niche. Since it is possible for a Terran to lose 4 double-Medivac Hellion drops without being behind much, it seems necessary to really build those static defenses in sufficient numbers since the economy and production capacity increase over time and defending with Zerglings (or units you need to move there in general) seems totally inefficient. Many Zerg slack there and that is really bad, since they need a lot of firepower to clean up a drop from 4 Medivacs while the Hellbats / Marines / Marauders are easy to use.
the current metagame is not to disrupt zerg economy early, it is to out macro the zerg with 3CC economy with super cost efficient bio mine style when zerg is at lair tech with 3 base.
that is why usually we see some triple prone drops action when zerg just runs out of units to defend the drops and the units get more and more cost inefficient .
lair tech and the increased in mobility of pushes and drops makes zerg not able to get to hive at all since all the gas are needed to donate to banelings, roaches, muta or infestors.
it's very easy to say that all you need is to build static defense but in reality, the zerg needs to catch up with terran's macro because you can't put pressure onto terran if you are playing a defensive macro. It's also why zerg tend to stay at lair tech in order to stay mobile with a big army instead of investing on hive units and upgrades like life.
hyun and polt game is the perfect example, using lair tech heavy with infestor to get to hive, rely on spores for drop defense, the terran has a tonnes of economy and time to prepare for any hive tech switches.
polt's drops and pushes are not just a way to make zerg build units, it's also to have total map control and control zerg's gas amount and army position while he was macro-ing extremely hard behind. he was completely ready for any tech that hyun could have thrown at him.
|
On July 07 2013 13:50 LSN wrote:
I think to talk about balances in SC2 it is good to do do it fractional. This is not about whole matchups but about time frames like early mid late game, certain mechanics etc.
Also important is to accept that the game is imbalanced. A game with different units/mechanics can not be 100% balanced. Results of tournaments that seem evenly spread amongst races is no evidence for the opposite.
Let me bring up some mechanics that I consider imbalanced and I will stick to TvZ:
1. Terran can pose threat to zerg with bio/dropships without taking adequate risks.
As zerg usually has no mobile anti air and terran can just do kind of all-inish attacks load in and fly away before or after damage is done. Even when losing the units, medivacs usually survive this and get out. Most likely they carry out big parts of the army as well.
Wait, zerg has no mobile anti air? Wow that sucks for zerg. Btw, what happened to the muta (after phoenix fastest anti-air unit in game, and way more flexible)? Or the hydra (on creep, which is where you should be in drop defense, as fast as stimmed marines)?
2. The unit killing mechanic (kind of 80/20 thing): When Zerg crushes a T army it is very likely that zerg loses 80% of his army as well. When Terran crushes a Zerg army the terran army survives to an extend of 80% usually.
As banelings explode and are expensive, zerg can not cost effectively fight against terran armies the same way terran can. Just consider what it takes to kill a certain bio army with zergling/baneling. With little splitting zerg even when winning the fight has same to similar amounts of ressources lost as the terran. When terran wins the fight its usually a huge win ressource-wise (also due to the medivacs fly away and in best case carry units away mechanic after action is being done while zerg units getting chased down by stimmed bio reinforcements after an attack and might still die terran just flies away and takes about close to zero risks).
I jhave my own thingie when playing against zerg, I call it the three strikes law: You have to anhilate a zerg army three times roughly before they are nice and stay down. If I push with a mech army, and lose half my army while anhilating the zerg army somewhere halfwhere on the map, I have to retreat. Since otherwise zerg reinforcements will walk over my remaining army long before my reinforcements can make a difference.
3. Kill expansions mechanic:
When terran attacks the zerg expension it can be killed. Other way round it just lifts up and later on lands again. Even if it gets killed terran can fly a close OC/CC to the place to continue the expansion without much delay. Planetary+scv repair even makes it quite impossible to attack terran expansions effectively in many situations before lategame. Therefore terran for a long time and in many game scenarios plays in a relatively safe environment. All-ins can be dangerous if not scouted but with scv/reaper/scan scouting on high level it is almost impossible not to scout it.
Wait, is now the issue that our expansions fly away or that they are PFs, which FYI can't fly. Would be cool though if they could fly, nice anti-muta weapon.
I also have one for you: When terran attacks a zerg expansion and kill all drones, 30 seconds later a wave of larvas replenished them all. When zerg attacks a terran expansion, the SCVs all die and take way longer to replace.
4. The mule thing: in lategame terran can more and more replace scv with mules and therefore can obtain higher amry supply. It should be defenitely the other way round considering the cost effectiveness of bio, widow mines and other units like ravens(heavy damage, survive most battles), bc (hard to have adequate anti air for zerg in most setups), medivacs (survive most battles).
Why does having a cost effective army means you shouldn't be able to obtain higher army supply? I think you are confusing cost and supply efficiency. And guess what, most of those units you mention are quite supply ineffective. And terrans dont have insta-remax.
5. Spider mine effort vs benefit mechanic: Easy to use, 0 micro, very hard to deal with. One mistake by zerg in early game vs spider mine can instant lose games due to a single or few lucky shot into banelings/mutalisks. Mixture of random single mines and stacks of backup/defensive mines just seem inadequatly cost efficient. Anti air of mines on top of this makes a little to no cost unit way too cost efficient. Widow mines deny zerg activity and aggression very well and on the other hand make any play in advantagious position for terran even more easy and more impossible to come back for zerg.
Believe me, terran can lose fine against 0 micro'd banelings by making a single mistake. Also if you just plant mines and dont do any micro around it, they are pretty bad. Check in unit tester, marines + mines vs equal supply of lings. When a-moving both sides it is a draw, simply because mines deal almost as much friendly damage as enemy damage.
With the healing rate of mutas it is also unlikely a simple mistake will cost you the game due to them being anhilated by widow mines (that is what they are called btw), you must really screw up to lose all your mutalisks to widow mines accidently.
6. The terran gas demand issue: Terran units usually are not limited by gas (also supported by the fact that medivacs survive almost all fights). Therefore terran loses in fights only the amount of minerals that the units costs in opposite to the zerg that loses both mins/gas. This is what I consider one of the major things in the matchup and general race design of terran and should be addressed by blizzard. It is the reason why terran with any strategy can go for full upgrades/tech without taking any major trade offs for it. Terran just does it all at any time and is perfectly fine, while zerg has to decide when to upgrade and when to build gas units (to react on threats or make pressure) terran just does it all at once basically (_basically_!!).
And toss does it even faster.
been not talking about this firebat at all. No need to say that it has to be fixed. Another 0 gas almost good vs everything unit, but this is already being addressed from what I know, so no need to talk about this too much anymore.
I wouldn't hold your breath, at best it might be changed it takes 3 shots to kill drones before upgrades, but still 2 to kill lings.
If you would read your post you would actually think terran is currently stronger than zerg, while that really is doubtfull. It would be nice if you would make more of a distinction between what you consider to be imbalanced, and what is just differences between races. First you act like terran is horribly overpowered (the parts I quoted above), next you apparantly only want to nerf terran slightly into the ground. Make up your mind.
|
i think infestors should be a lair unit, you could even nerf the damage over time untill you research infest pit but they can be used to root enemys which will counter the drop pay, the spore might just do the damage it needs to if you root at right time, also thinking about it, its a pretty big investment for the zerg to spend the gas on a couple of infestors early enough to have the energy to deal with the drop play. right now i get laughed at cos i dont make enough static D, then i make too much and get laughed at and then the terran drops away from it making all of it a total waste of money
im not sure but drop play vs zerg with the now ++ damage(or guaranteed SOME damage with the hellbats at no cost really) they can do needs to be addressed one way or another. the above might just make the spore crawler a little useful, cos lets face it, mostly when the drop comes in you dont have the stuff either out or near the base and you end up loosing too much shit.
as the game goes on this just gets worse as the terran just seem way too cost effective . . other than that, get rid of mules and do something else to help their macro cos right now what im seeing . . no gm and all that is that the terran can outmacro the zerg if we dont do some stupid alliny kind of early aggression to keep them in check
|
^ I think you meant hatch tech because infestor is already lair unit lol
as for Sissors comment, I just want to say, muta (the 2nd fastest unit in the game) is now only a defensive unit against drop.
You can't catchup with medivac when they boost and if you sway too far with muta, you will get dropped in other places or not in position to defend a terran bio mine push. this is why they aren't even used to harass anymore
and hydra? just no. you are gonna make the zerg even more difficult to put on pressure back onto terran and let terran has total map control.
thinking that killing 30 drones do nothing to zerg is just silly. lots of zerg running out units defending these drops and push and you say losing 30 drones is nothing as zerg can use all larva back to drone is just mind blowingly wrong
|
On July 07 2013 14:15 plogamer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2013 13:50 LSN wrote:I + Show Spoiler + think to talk about balances in SC2 it is good to do do it fractional. This is not about whole matchups but about time frames like early mid late game, certain mechanics etc.
Also important is to accept that the game is imbalanced. A game with different units/mechanics can not be 100% balanced. Results of tournaments that seem evenly spread amongst races is no evidence for the opposite.
Let me bring up some mechanics that I consider imbalanced and I will stick to TvZ:
1. Terran can pose threat to zerg with bio/dropships without taking adequate risks.
As zerg usually has no mobile anti air and terran can just do kind of all-inish attacks load in and fly away before or after damage is done. Even when losing the units, medivacs usually survive this and get out. Most likely they carry out big parts of the army as well.
2. The unit killing mechanic (kind of 80/20 thing): When Zerg crushes a T army it is very likely that zerg loses 80% of his army as well. When Terran crushes a Zerg army the terran army survives to an extend of 80% usually.
As banelings explode and are expensive, zerg can not cost effectively fight against terran armies the same way terran can. Just consider what it takes to kill a certain bio army with zergling/baneling. With little splitting zerg even when winning the fight has same to similar amounts of ressources lost as the terran. When terran wins the fight its usually a huge win ressource-wise (also due to the medivacs fly away and in best case carry units away mechanic after action is being done while zerg units getting chased down by stimmed bio reinforcements after an attack and might still die terran just flies away and takes about close to zero risks).
3. Kill expansions mechanic:
When terran attacks the zerg expension it can be killed. Other way round it just lifts up and later on lands again. Even if it gets killed terran can fly a close OC/CC to the place to continue the expansion without much delay. Planetary+scv repair even makes it quite impossible to attack terran expansions effectively in many situations before lategame. Therefore terran for a long time and in many game scenarios plays in a relatively safe environment. All-ins can be dangerous if not scouted but with scv/reaper/scan scouting on high level it is almost impossible not to scout it.
4. The mule thing: in lategame terran can more and more replace scv with mules and therefore can obtain higher amry supply. It should be defenitely the other way round considering the cost effectiveness of bio, widow mines and other units like ravens(heavy damage, survive most battles), bc (hard to have adequate anti air for zerg in most setups), medivacs (survive most battles).
5. Spider mine effort vs benefit mechanic: Easy to use, 0 micro, very hard to deal with. One mistake by zerg in early game vs spider mine can instant lose games due to a single or few lucky shot into banelings/mutalisks. Mixture of random single mines and stacks of backup/defensive mines just seem inadequatly cost efficient. Anti air of mines on top of this makes a little to no cost unit way too cost efficient. Widow mines deny zerg activity and aggression very well and on the other hand make any play in advantagious position for terran even more easy and more impossible to come back for zerg.
6. The terran gas demand issue: Terran units usually are not limited by gas (also supported by the fact that medivacs survive almost all fights). Therefore terran loses in fights only the amount of minerals that the units costs in opposite to the zerg that loses both mins/gas. This is what I consider one of the major things in the matchup and general race design of terran and should be addressed by blizzard. It is the reason why terran with any strategy can go for full upgrades/tech without taking any major trade offs for it. Terran just does it all at any time and is perfectly fine, while zerg has to decide when to upgrade and when to build gas units (to react on threats or make pressure) terran just does it all at once basically (_basically_!!).
some other things could be mentioned but I think it covers the most. While all of these mechanics defenitely are part of the race design and are wanted to be this way I personally consider it a bit too much of everything. It is too easy to damage the zerg, it is a bit to easy to be active player as the terran and force the reactive zerg into mistakes. It is too easy to drop an expansion kill it and fly back with zero losses. It is to hard and risky to get aggressive vs T during the same stage of the game without going all-in. It is too easy to defend expansions with mines/planetary/bunkers/lift off. It is too easy to just a click + little splitting one after another bio army into the zerg knowing about the fact that zerg anyway has waste alot of expensive banelings and you can stim run back to pull zerg into mines, load in and fly away to make your units still survive in bad situations. There is no risk. It is a bit too easy for terran to get all upgrades that are needed and in lategame switch instantly into heavy tech like raven/bc as early game units that can die (marines/maurauder/mines/scv) barely cost any gas at all. Therfore it is also too easy for terran to get all needed upgrades in time without any major trade offs. Its just a build order trade off not a question if you can build 3-4 more maurauders or not.
Just look at last game MLG finals polt vs hyun. This game was SO single sided, zerg cannot come back at all from these situations. You never see zerg winning games like this AT ALL on this level of play. And this is what you can watch alot. Zerg does a mistakes in the early stages and cannot come back from being behind due to unfair terran units/mechanics like widow mines and bio drops (also in this live vs flash final at least one game was easy win due to a single widow mine shot). Games where terran is behind oftenly can be turned around due to mules and cost effectiveness of terran bio + dropship mechanic. While it is good that terran can do this it is imbalanced because zergs cannot. This is imbalance, I am pretty sure guys. It is maybe only little and in many situations can be evened out by almost perfect zerg play but I feel serious about this is imbalance.
But in general the state of the game is good. Just terrans bit too easily make things done without taking risks that other races had to take for similar chances to win games short and simple. And don't forget the gas issue. It is huge for the whole gameplay situation. If everything you said is true, then TvZ is impossible for Zergs at top-level. And then again, Hyun just beat MMA in RSL(not sure if correct tourney).
This + then we would see much more blue in this list: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/hots/individual-leagues
I understand zergs tough, they were used to a much easier zvt in wol 
|
obviously everyone who is defending terran mechanics here with his life is a terran player that benefits greatly from several new easy win mechanics.
As I said before, you basically just don't see zergs win games in ZvT this way at all. But in a bo7 series terran basically always wins 1+ games totally one-sided where the zerg cannot come back after one single action in early game or early stages of midgame. And yes this is what I call minor mistake, cause terran does not induce it by going all-in but within the normal macro game.
Examples?
Life vs Flash: flash kills ~13 banelings relatively early with one widow mine shot from the usual macro game attack wave (no trade offs, no risks, no dangers) = gg zerg cannot come back, game ends few minutes after. One wasted game for zerg, audience and in general in the series.
Hyun vs Polt: Last game, polt easy win. No way to come back for zerg vs bio+mine play. Not induced by all-in play but usual macro-game situation. Zergs have to go all-in to create such situations and then still have high risks of instant losing the game when failing. Terran induces this in usual macro game without any trade-offs or drawbacks just a matter of every-game play! When terran fails it is not a big deal, due to the terran killing mechanic vs zerg, where zerg always has to waste alot of zerglings, banelings and what else to defend against it.
PvT in general: 5 Stalker defense vs 2 Dropships. If they are in place at right time, all right. Terran just flies away and nothing changed. If in 1 out of 5 or 1 out of 7 games stalkers are not in place and 2 dropships unload bio in mainbase while terran army attacks front it is usually instant GG. No trade offs, no big risks (speedvacs) no change of build order needed, no special gas costs for this attack, no delayed expansion etc.
This makes the imbalance of terran. In most games it doesn't do any effect on the game WHEN the defender has his stuff in place. But if not then we see these single sided terran OP games that we see in very high level play very oftenly and that are neither fun to watch nor at all fair by any means. Even a poorly executed attack kill 50-80% of zerg units(banelings and zerglings mostly all die anyway) while terran loses 50-80% (medivacs fly away with maybe some guys inside). Poorly executed zerg attack is nearly like zerg loses 100% of units (no they won't run away once attacked into stimmed bio + mines + whatever even tho many units are fast, cause zerg has to fully commit to attacks) while terran loses 0-25% of units used in this fight (poorly executed from zerg).
! 8(
|
On July 07 2013 21:01 LSN wrote:
obviously everyone who is defending terran mechanics here with his life is a terran player that benefits greatly of several new easy win mechanics.
As I said before, you basically just don't see zergs win games in ZvT this way at all. But in a bo7 series terran basically always wins 1+ games totally one-sided where the zerg cannot come back after one single action in early game. And yes this is what I call minor mistake, cause terran does not induce it by going all-in but within the normal macro game.
Examples?
Life vs Flash: flash kills ~13 banelings relatively early with one widow mine shot from the usual macro game attack wave (no trade offs, no risks, no dangers) = gg zerg cannot come back, game ends few minutes after. One wasted game for zerg, audience and in general in the series.
Hyun vs Polt: Last game, polt easy win. No way to come back for zerg vs bio+mine play. Not induced by all-in play but usual macro-game situation. Zergs have to go all-in to create such situations and then still have high risks of instant losing the game when failing. Terran induces this in usual macro game without any trade-offs or drawbacks just a matter of every-game play! When terran fails it is not a big deal, due to the terran killing mechanic vs zerg, where zerg always has to waste alot of zerglings, banelings and what else to defend against it.
PvT in general: 5 Stalker defense vs 2 Dropships. If they are in place at right time, all right. Terran just flies away and nothing changed. If in 1 out of 5 or 1 out of 7 games stalkers are not in place and 2 dropships unload bio in mainbase while terran army attacks front it is usually instant GG. No trade offs, no big risks (speedvacs) no change of build order needed, no special gas costs for this attack, no delayed expansion etc.
This makes the imbalance of terran. In most games it doesn't do any effect on the game WHEN the defender has his stuff in place. But if not then we see these single sided terran OP games that we see in very high level play very oftenly and that are neither fun to watch nor at all fair by any means. Even a poorly executed attack kill 50-80% of zerg units while terran loses 50-80% (medivacs fly away with maybe some guys inside). Poorly executed zerg attack is nearly like zerg loses 100% of units (no they won't run away once attacked into stimmed bio even tho many units are fast, cause zerg has to fully commit to attacks) while terran loses 0-25% of units used in this fight.
! 8(
Soulkey vs innovation: innovation drops 2 medivacs, loses them to mutas, no risk, no change of build order needed, no special gas costs for this attack. Game over.
3 burrowed banelings kill 30 marines: game over, no risk, no change of build needed.
A terran who has for 3 seconds not code S split micro: game over.
A terran that can't do damage vs a camping toss behind his cannons in the midgame: game over.
A terran who forgot to build a turret, like in 1 game out of 7, and 3 dt's come in: game over.
All by 1 simple mistake! So unfair ;DDDDDDDD
|
no you don't need code S split micro. It is more like zergs need to make banelings use in almost a perfect manner vs basic split micro to get an even trade off at all and not losing too many banelings to hard units like maurauders and hellbats while the major forces of terran remain untouched and you lose game after this. Also micro of terran to just stim a click attack into zerg with rines/rauders to react with ctrl-click marines and move them back into offensive widow mine protection while maurauders stay where they are and take baneling hits and the marines run behind widow mines that kill the left over banelings and spread marines manually into 3-4 groups is rather doable these days.
Game soulkey vs innovation is what I talk about terran taking unnecessary risks. You just don't drop with 2 medivacs into a zerg that has 15+ mutalisks out there for defense and use speed of medivacs beforehand so you can't get away anymore without unloading. This is like zerg running 20 mutalisks into 40 marines + medivacs loses all while killing 8 marines and then complaining about imbalance. No zerg does this and its completely bullshit. This is terrans playing over-aggressive opting for the fast win/fast advantage what is completely unecessary - its a major player mistake to drop into mutatiming while having scans and other scouting options up. It is not the same than having not the perfect drop defense at 2-3+ locations and therefore instant lose the game (potentially). Terran loses due to his own aggression which is always a major mistake when you do this aggression while it is unviable (2 dropships drop vs heavy mutalisks = major mistake). Zerg/Protoss loses to Terran aggression in defensive mode when not having the perfect combination in the perfect locations at any given time (= minor mistkae).
Sorry but you are a noob saying this dt thing. Since days of BW terrans don't even need turrets to fend off dts. Just some spare scans is basically enaugh. Losing to dt because of having no scan/no turret is a matter of not having scouted an all-inish protoss dt build that once scouted and dealt with correctly by the terran instant loses the game for P and therefore doesnt happen on prolevel - or totally greedy T play (I don't need any turrets and spare scans vs a protoss that I am not sure about what he is doing). Protoss takes heavy trade offs when going DT in build order, gas, army size, other needed tech. Therefore protoss actually instant loses the game when not doing any damage with this vs terran macro game. Terran instead creates these situations with his usual macro game and no trade offs and this is the exact thing I am talking about that you have not understood yet. It is an every-game play of terran to get marines, mauraudes, mines, medivacs. You use them before mutalisks are out or again once mutalisk count has been reduced already. Not vs freshly spawned 15 mutalisks lol.
And the baneling mines is a trade-off for zerg. This is why so few zergs use it. Why?
1. Because Zerg needs alot of gas for everything in early game. Developing burrow and using dozens of burrowed banelings heavily delays upgrades, tech and other needed fighting units.
2. Its unreliable. If terran takes other route or just moves units 1-2 cm next to your banelings they are useless and you are way behind due to the fact that is described in 1.
3. It is heavy micro based. When you miss the perfect situation to let your banelings explode then its missed. This might happen because you see some units walking over it and you expect it not to be worth it to let them explode now and wait for the next wave of terran units to get a better hit/connection. Then this might not happen anymore and terran does not move over it anymore at all or just walks different path etc. Its heavy decisionmaking within seconds for zerg, its heavy micro and skill that is needed to recognize the perfect situation and let them explode in time.
Why god damn do you think pro-level ZvT almost never has baneling mines? :D
Even if you have lets say 5 burrowed banelings that connect into marines and kill 10-15 of them (more is quite unlikely) just count ressources lost:
15 marines = 10x50=500mins - 15x50 = 750minerals
4 banelings lost = 5x50 = 250 minerals and 5x25gas = 125gas = ~250 minerals value = total value 500 minerals of zerg
so 500 minerals of value zerg vs 500-750 minerals of terran not taking into account the drawbacks of early burrow research which delays eiher your lair, 1-1 upgrades or your general baneling amount.
Also you need banelings on several locations to make it more likely that terran walks over a bunch of them. Therefore the initial costs are alot higher than the expected earnings. The chance/risk ratio of this mechanic is in no way over cost-efficient for zerg at all.
please learn to use your brain and calculate through these situations in a realistic environment considering all the effects of it and taking the right premises (such are zerg has to delay other tech/units for burrow due to gas limitation and has to use alot of banelings to make a few be able to potentially hit the terran eventually, also if they don't hit zerg is way behind due to the investment into this).
How can you compare this to an every-game attack of the terran where a widow mine can just take a lucky shot every here and then and therefore instantly wins the game?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
