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On January 02 2014 04:34 Survivor61316 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 03:43 USvBleakill wrote:On January 02 2014 03:29 Bagi wrote:
Weren't winrates pretty good during the BL/infestor era too?
Not trying to say that makes them irrelevant but TvP right now is similar to what TvZ was towards the end of WOL, nearly impossible to put on pressure and all you could do was a pre-hive timing attack and hope the game snowballs in your favor. Even if it creates for even winrates its the design and flow of the match-up thats the problem. The Problem with winrates is the same as with every other statistc: Without further knowledge how the data is collected and how it was generated it is useless. Imagine a Tournament with 100 players, 48 Protoss, 49 Zerg and 3 Terrans. The numbers say that there is no chance for Terran but if the 3 T´s are Teaja, Maru and Innovation you will most likely have 3 of them in the Ro8. That was always the problem and thats why Terran is hard to balance. Look what innovation did with hellbats. I think to "help" Terran on a "normal player/pro" base there has to be a solution that "buffs" without making the absolute top tier players imba. I know it was a half parody but this remembers me of the "rise of the patchzerg" article on TL. What we need is a Terran buff for "white people" like back then with the queen buff. It´s kinda sad that the best foreign Terran left couldn´t celebrate his dreamhack victory because it would be illigal to hand him over the champagne (talking about HeroMarine he is like 15 or so). The problem with balancing Terran is that it is almost impossible to not buff those top tier players when buffing the race. Idk what it is, be it someway in which the race is designed (meaning a higher skill ceiling with the race) or just the pros who play it (i.e. more talented players), but it always seems that when the majority of Terran players are doing even with the other races, there are always a few top Terrans making things look so easy. And so the game always gets balanced around those few top players, and the rest of the race suffers as a result.
It is definetly not impossible. The difference between a "good" Terran like lets say Lucifron or Kas and Teaja is that Teaja is able to get much more value out of his units.
Lets compare 2 units a Marauder and a Colossus. The value that Teaja gets out of a Marauder in comparison to Lucifron is much higher that the "more" of value that sOs gets out of a colossus in comparison to say HasuObs is way way less. Thats the gap that Terran allows and thats the problem because you have to balance around your very best or something like the queen buff happens.
The solution of that is relatively simple. Even blizzard alread came up with it. It was called "Warhound".
A simple, easy to use unit with a much much smaller gap between "average usage" and "best possible usage". And everyone hated it for good reason.
Honestly i don´t think think that there has to be a Protoss or a Zerg nerf to help "white people" Terran, numbers are not the problem. The problem is that the whole metagame of Protoss and Zerg can evolve around one or two terran builds and one and a half compositions that never change. Some people already mentioned that P and Z stopped scouting because it isn´t necessary anymore.
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I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates.
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United States7483 Posts
On January 02 2014 04:34 Survivor61316 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 03:43 USvBleakill wrote:On January 02 2014 03:29 Bagi wrote:
Weren't winrates pretty good during the BL/infestor era too?
Not trying to say that makes them irrelevant but TvP right now is similar to what TvZ was towards the end of WOL, nearly impossible to put on pressure and all you could do was a pre-hive timing attack and hope the game snowballs in your favor. Even if it creates for even winrates its the design and flow of the match-up thats the problem. The Problem with winrates is the same as with every other statistc: Without further knowledge how the data is collected and how it was generated it is useless. Imagine a Tournament with 100 players, 48 Protoss, 49 Zerg and 3 Terrans. The numbers say that there is no chance for Terran but if the 3 T´s are Teaja, Maru and Innovation you will most likely have 3 of them in the Ro8. That was always the problem and thats why Terran is hard to balance. Look what innovation did with hellbats. I think to "help" Terran on a "normal player/pro" base there has to be a solution that "buffs" without making the absolute top tier players imba. I know it was a half parody but this remembers me of the "rise of the patchzerg" article on TL. What we need is a Terran buff for "white people" like back then with the queen buff. It´s kinda sad that the best foreign Terran left couldn´t celebrate his dreamhack victory because it would be illigal to hand him over the champagne (talking about HeroMarine he is like 15 or so). The problem with balancing Terran is that it is almost impossible to not buff those top tier players when buffing the race. Idk what it is, be it someway in which the race is designed (meaning a higher skill ceiling with the race) or just the pros who play it (i.e. more talented players), but it always seems that when the majority of Terran players are doing even with the other races, there are always a few top Terrans making things look so easy. And so the game always gets balanced around those few top players, and the rest of the race suffers as a result.
Same thing might happen if there was ever a period when protoss or zerg was winning every tournament (with the exception of end of WoL, there was no excuse for that shit), except there still hasn't come a time where protoss is winning every tournament, or even close to it.
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On January 02 2014 05:08 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 04:34 Survivor61316 wrote:On January 02 2014 03:43 USvBleakill wrote:On January 02 2014 03:29 Bagi wrote:
Weren't winrates pretty good during the BL/infestor era too?
Not trying to say that makes them irrelevant but TvP right now is similar to what TvZ was towards the end of WOL, nearly impossible to put on pressure and all you could do was a pre-hive timing attack and hope the game snowballs in your favor. Even if it creates for even winrates its the design and flow of the match-up thats the problem. The Problem with winrates is the same as with every other statistc: Without further knowledge how the data is collected and how it was generated it is useless. Imagine a Tournament with 100 players, 48 Protoss, 49 Zerg and 3 Terrans. The numbers say that there is no chance for Terran but if the 3 T´s are Teaja, Maru and Innovation you will most likely have 3 of them in the Ro8. That was always the problem and thats why Terran is hard to balance. Look what innovation did with hellbats. I think to "help" Terran on a "normal player/pro" base there has to be a solution that "buffs" without making the absolute top tier players imba. I know it was a half parody but this remembers me of the "rise of the patchzerg" article on TL. What we need is a Terran buff for "white people" like back then with the queen buff. It´s kinda sad that the best foreign Terran left couldn´t celebrate his dreamhack victory because it would be illigal to hand him over the champagne (talking about HeroMarine he is like 15 or so). The problem with balancing Terran is that it is almost impossible to not buff those top tier players when buffing the race. Idk what it is, be it someway in which the race is designed (meaning a higher skill ceiling with the race) or just the pros who play it (i.e. more talented players), but it always seems that when the majority of Terran players are doing even with the other races, there are always a few top Terrans making things look so easy. And so the game always gets balanced around those few top players, and the rest of the race suffers as a result. Same thing might happen if there was ever a period when protoss or zerg was winning every tournament (with the exception of end of WoL, there was no excuse for that shit), except there still hasn't come a time where protoss is winning every tournament, or even close to it.
Well, if we look at the recent biggest tournaments, they are very much Protoss dominated. Dear did just win the GSL and the global finals, while sOs picked up the slack and won Blizzcon after that. That's the three biggest tournaments.
Smaller tournaments always suffer from representation issues. But Rain once again picked up the seeded Hot6ix Cup, and HerO and Parting have won smaller tournaments randomly.
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I'm a little lost on the balance scene as I haven't played since HotS beta. Is Protoss considered the most powerful race? How come Terran mech still isn't viable against protoss?
Edit: Regarding Terran mech. What the hell is up with the Thor? Honestly, this unit takes forever to make and it's slow as hell, and it gets absolutely wrecked except in niche situations in TvZ where Terran has hit a critical mass of 3/3 Thors. Why not lower the supply cost? Build time? Increase ground damage but decrease air damage? I just find it odd that the best tier 3 unit Terran has to offer is a Cattlebruiser that isn't useful until it's 3/3 and has support from mass Ravens.
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On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players
Exactly. Which is why Terran has actually no problem in this regard, while Protoss has a big one (Zerg mechanics are demanding enough to allow distinction, even if too many Zerg units have limited micro potential). I don't agree at all with people claiming that Protoss has a "lower skill ceiling" (e. g. even if many units are a-move by design, there are lots of other skill-based areas in Protoss play) or that the race doesn't allow you to show skill; personally I can clearly see the difference between the likes or Rain, PartinG, Dear, etc. and lower tier Protoss—at least when they play complex things. The big problem lies at the other end of the spectrum (at the floor rather than at the ceiling, to go on with the metaphor), with weak/mediocre Protoss players overperforming because they benefit too much from Protoss' noob-friendly tools (e. g Warpgate, MSC, Zealots, Archons, Immortals, Colossi, Voids). And ironically enough, PvP is not untouched by this phenomenon.
On January 02 2014 05:29 sagefreke wrote:
I'm a little lost on the balance scene as I haven't played since HotS beta. Is Protoss considered the most powerful race? How come Terran mech still isn't viable against protoss?
Because Blizzard refuses to adress the core issue, i. e. Tanks being too weak against Protoss overall, and Immortals (you can add Tempests too) being way too strong against ground mech. They're also clearly biased towards bio play, so they don't care much about mech.
As for Thors, yes, they're a major failure as a unit. A smaller, quicker, cheaper (and of course less powerful) model is needed.
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On January 02 2014 05:29 sagefreke wrote:
I'm a little lost on the balance scene as I haven't played since HotS beta. Is Protoss considered the most powerful race? How come Terran mech still isn't viable against protoss?
Edit: Regarding Terran mech. What the hell is up with the Thor? Honestly, this unit takes forever to make and it's slow as hell, and it gets absolutely wrecked except in niche situations in TvZ where Terran has hit a critical mass of 3/3 Thors. Why not lower the supply cost? Build time? Increase ground damage but decrease air damage? I just find it odd that the best tier 3 unit Terran has to offer is a Cattlebruiser that isn't useful until it's 3/3 and has support from mass Ravens.
Thors are not the most interesting units in the game anyway. I'm not bothered by them not being super good.
I watched 30 minutes of avilo's stream yesterday and the guy likes massing up thors behind PFs. Let me tell you, it doesn't make for the fastest-paced games.
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On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates.
Terran's design has hardly been modified since the beginning of WoL. During that time, the race has changed from totally dominant to totally shit, to dominant, and now to somewhat shitty again. It's kind of romantic to say that the "beautiful design" is causing the problems.
Anyway this derives from a discussion in which we're saying there's no difference between how the best protoss vs how foreign protoss play, so I'm not sure I should really get involved in this.
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On January 02 2014 05:48 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates. Terran's design has hardly been modified since the beginning of WoL. During that time, the race has changed from totally dominant to totally shit, to dominant, and now to somewhat shitty again. It's kind of romantic to say that the "beautiful design" is causing the problems. Anyway this derives from a discussion in which we're saying there's no difference between how the best protoss vs how foreign protoss play, so I'm not sure I should really get involved in this.
Meh, without blizzard random intervention the game would have still be successful and beautiful to watch.
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DWFs point is a strong and valid one... There is a STRONG Plateau of skill with protoss.... Once you learn how to Successfully link Tech while microing You pretty much Start to Wreck Terran... That's as simple as it gets.... for a LONNNGGG time until you start gettign up to Mid GM and Terrans are still uncomfortable about playing against Protoss to even the point of playing against Players like demuslim who has a really really good description of why we have problems with TvP on Reddit.....
Terran options are pretty limited. So that even if he did try something crazy you can ROFLSTOMP it with simply MSC or Oracles....
On the other hand Protoss has to simply link Techs together to make any play Viable.... if you don't believe me look at Monday's proleague.... LOL It's almost as if Terran is now the Crutch of proleague hahaha
1 Protoss Proxy Gateway in base into Proxy oracle into Storms then colo.
I've seen on ladder People Proxy gate me into proxy oracle into DT into Chargelot Archon..... then into Storms Colo.... Just the options that are there are seemingly ridiculous where pretty much every opener is destoryed except gas first 1/1/1 - 2 rax if protoss doesn't aggress and 3 rax thats it... its not hard to figure out which one terran is doing and as a matter of fact you can FORCE him to go 3 rax if you go an early aggressive build like 2 base blink which also talked about on Reddit by progamers......
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On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates.
It's hardly beautiful design when the race consists of massing their first combat units and a handful of other ones for support. One viable unit comp, no transitions, nothing but the same timing attack game after game. You might consider the race ideal if you thought this a game of mechanics and nothing else, but many of us would rather have more than that.
The race needs to be much, much less reliant on the marine, no matter how much of a boner some people have for microing them.
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On January 02 2014 06:04 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates. It's hardly beautiful design when the race consists of massing their first combat units and a handful of other ones for support. One viable unit comp, no transitions, nothing but the same timing attack game after game. You might consider the race ideal if you thought this a game of mechanics and nothing else, but many of us would rather have more than that. The race needs to be much, much less reliant on the marine, no matter how much of a boner some people have for microing them.
Well, Blizzard heard you. You might see less marines from now on.
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On January 02 2014 06:04 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates. It's hardly beautiful design when the race consists of massing their first combat units and a handful of other ones for support. One viable unit comp, no transitions, nothing but the same timing attack game after game. You might consider the race ideal if you thought this a game of mechanics and nothing else, but many of us would rather have more than that. The race needs to be much, much less reliant on the marine, no matter how much of a boner some people have for microing them.
What the zerg does ? Massing zergling and banelings. Addind mutas in midgames and if he wants, either keep making mutas or switching ultralisks.
What the terran does ? Massing marines, then marauders and medivacs and mines. To finally try a transition into raven if he wants to.
It's ridiculous to be blind as fuck about that, all race spam t1 units and add t2 and t3 into lategame, terrans a bit less, but in fine terran has produced more different kinds of units than the zergs.
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On January 02 2014 06:07 ZenithM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 06:04 Bagi wrote:On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates. It's hardly beautiful design when the race consists of massing their first combat units and a handful of other ones for support. One viable unit comp, no transitions, nothing but the same timing attack game after game. You might consider the race ideal if you thought this a game of mechanics and nothing else, but many of us would rather have more than that. The race needs to be much, much less reliant on the marine, no matter how much of a boner some people have for microing them. Well, Blizzard heard you. You might see less marines from now on.
Why do you say that? Did I miss something?
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On January 02 2014 06:04 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates. It's hardly beautiful design when the race consists of massing their first combat units and a handful of other ones for support. One viable unit comp, no transitions, nothing but the same timing attack game after game. You might consider the race ideal if you thought this a game of mechanics and nothing else, but many of us would rather have more than that. The race needs to be much, much less reliant on the marine, no matter how much of a boner some people have for microing them.
Thing is, mech issues in TvP/Z (more in TvP than in TvZ) are not only due to the fact mech is not very well built in SC2; it's also because the other side has so much hardcounter nonsense. Units like the Immortal, the Tempest, the Swarm host or the Viper are also, if not mostly, responsible for Terran being forced or "'strongly encouraged" to play bio.
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When other units are usable (e.g. hellbats and mines), Sjow beats Life and everybody goes to the battle.net forums to complain.
I think what would be more urgent (but won't be done, obviously) is to give Protoss and Zerg more micro-able shit to do and balance around that, rather than give Terran microless compositions of its own.
Then, on the other hand, it's a bit up to personal taste. I'm not one of those BW elitist guys who say that the game should be mechanically harder and NO AUTO-MINE!! and whatnot, but if you like complex strategy and planning, there is other stuff to play and do than Starcraft. Being able to do the best you can among many things you can do, all at once, trumps "cool transitions" and 20 minutes planning ahead for me.
Edit: And btw, I would be up for trying something else than bio, but my main point is that it would be a mistake to make Terran more like Protoss and Zerg rather than the contrary.
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On January 02 2014 06:04 Bagi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates. The race needs to be much, much less reliant on the marine, no matter how much of a boner some people have for microing them.
I think most people mistakenly blame marines, whereas medivacs are the real issue.
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On January 02 2014 06:28 saddaromma wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2014 06:04 Bagi wrote:On January 02 2014 04:59 ZenithM wrote:
I like how Terran's problem is its beautiful design :'(
It's a good thing that top players are able to distinguish themselves from decent players, I wouldn't trade that off for a few % in winrates. The race needs to be much, much less reliant on the marine, no matter how much of a boner some people have for microing them. I think most people mistakenly blame marines, whereas medivacs are the real issue.
What exactly does this mean? Both marines and medivacs are very good units. Separately they're alright, but they also have a great deal of synergy together. An "issue" could arise if the units were so strong together that the game became imbalanced in favor of Terran, although it wouldn't be at all meaningful to try to localize the "issue" to one unit or the other. If Terran were too strong (it's not, as far as I know), and seemed to be winning games so much mostly because marines and medivacs worked so well together, the "issue" would at least be delocalized over the two units – and even then you couldn't really say that the issue is with those units, rather than, say, MULEs for giving Terran more marines or widow mines for reducing the effectiveness of splash damage against those marines.
It doesn't mean anything to say "the real issue was with infestors" or "the real issue was with broodlords." The issue was with broodlord infestor.
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Well, it's a bit true that Marines+Medivacs are better than the rest of Terran units combined (that's the two units I would keep if I weren't allowed to build more than two types of units :D).
But "medivacs/marines are an issue" is a really weird thing to say when there are shit like the mothership core, the oracle or the tempest on the other side.
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It honestly comes down to core design of the game and also the maps. It just feels like you don't even need to bother with map control. If players were forced to get more bases and spread out there units maybe the game would improve but this also shows the core design issue. The deathball needs to go and map control made the primary factor of the game again. I remember in brood war that if you gave up map control you're basically giving away the game.
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