- You can't play upon the upgrade advantage unless you went 4' EB. Otherwise Forges + chrono allow Protoss to catch up. - You keep saying "if Protoss does this he just outplayed the Terran" without providing any argument. - More Terran options doesn't necessarily mean a better Terran winrate. - Winrates don't matter anyway when you have not a field with players of even or roughly even skill.
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
So whether the game is balanced or not depends on the players who are playing it? If that's not the most useless definition of the word 'balance' I've ever encountered, I don't know what is. What if Maru and Polt stop playing SC2 tomorrow, suddenly TvP takes a huge dive because no one else can mechanically reproduce their success, and, what? The game is now imbalanced because it went from 50/50 to 55/45 based on two top 5 players disappearing? That's a joke if ever there was one.
What if we make Terran even harder to play mechanically than it is now, so that there are zero Terrans in Code S. There's still the chance that if a good enough player comes along to play Terran, like, five times better than Maru is now, he'll slaughter everyone... so... I guess the game would still be potentially imbalanced in Terran's favor, in some absurd and clearly useless meaning of the words?
A balanced MU is one where Hypothetical Player playing Race A can play his mirror universe twin who plays Race B and they will come out at 50/50 over any long-enough stretch. That is balance. Very simple. Objectively immeasurable because there are no mirror universe twins who have been playing different races for the exact same period of time, but subjectively very measurable because we have brains that are capable of entertaining hypothetical scenarios.
Like here's a hypothetical scenario, MVP.Tails starts playing Terran. He's never heard from again for as long as he lives. That's not balance.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Please show me the Terran who has said that, if Terran gets new options and they are too strong for Protoss to handle, shifting the balance completely in Terran's favor, we are against a Protoss buff.
Cart before the horse.
If we have evidence that a matchup can be 50:50 and is being executed as such--we don't ignore that data.
If Maru and Polt never existed, and we have 0 players in top ranks, then you can make the hypothesis (based on evidence at hand) that Terran cannot beat Protoss.
Right now we have empirical proof that Terrans can beat protoss consistently, some terrans at least. What we don't have proof of is if this performance is repeatable. Whether we are okay or not with its irrepeatability is a different one from balance.
- You can't play upon the upgrade advantage unless you went 4' EB. Otherwise Forges + chrono allow Protoss to catch up. - You keep saying "if Protoss does this he just outplayed the Terran" without providing any argument. - More Terran options doesn't necessarily mean a better Terran winrate. - Winrates don't matter anyway when you have not a field with players of even or roughly even skill.
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced. Certain races being under or overrepresented can be fixed by trends as much as it can be fixed with patches. Patches are of course faster and more efficient, but they are not necessarily needed.
EDIT:
Its a verbage thing, I don't like the idea of just throwing the "imbalance" word when what we really mean is that the matchup is not working as intended.
PvZ was pretty even in WoL once people figured it out. But it definitely was NOT working as intended, hence the need for it to be fixed.
Imagine this: Say I invite a bunch of my bronze friends over to play some games. I play terran and choose and choose 50% handicap so all my units have half HP.
After a while, I look at my win/rates vs these guys and notice that they are are 50/50. But does that make the '50% less HP terran race' balanced? Should all HP of terran untis be reduced by 50% because it makes the game balanced according to win/rates? Or is the only reason for why we have a 50/50 win/rate that I am far superior to my opponents?
The latter here is definitely the true. Now imagine, what would actually happen if all units of terran had a 50% HP reduction. ALL GM's/masters would probably go back to silver/bronze league, where they would end up with 50/50 win/rates. According to your logic, it's balanced and the meta has to figure it out for us..............
You see your flawed logic?
Win/rates simply always goes down towards 50/50, the only persistent change is the race distribution and therfore, that's actually the relevant metric to look at. That's the true indicator of balance.
One could have applied the same logic to the Infestor/broodlord area in mid 2012, yet balance there kept getting worse and terran representation kept declining. Point is, there is simply no logical reasons for why it's always gonna be the underrepresented race that figures out stuff. Some times it's the dominant race that get's even better, other times it's vice verse.
- You can't play upon the upgrade advantage unless you went 4' EB. Otherwise Forges + chrono allow Protoss to catch up. - You keep saying "if Protoss does this he just outplayed the Terran" without providing any argument. - More Terran options doesn't necessarily mean a better Terran winrate. - Winrates don't matter anyway when you have not a field with players of even or roughly even skill.
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
So whether the game is balanced or not depends on the players who are playing it? If that's not the most useless definition of the word 'balance' I've ever encountered, I don't know what is. What if Maru and Polt stop playing SC2 tomorrow, suddenly TvP takes a huge dive because no one else can mechanically reproduce their success, and, what? The game is now imbalanced because it went from 50/50 to 55/45 based on two top 5 players disappearing? That's a joke if ever there was one.
What if we make Terran even harder to play mechanically than it is now, so that there are zero Terrans in Code S. There's still the chance that if a good enough player comes along to play Terran, like, five times better than Maru is now, he'll slaughter everyone... so... I guess the game would still be potentially imbalanced in Terran's favor, in some absurd and clearly useless meaning of the words?
A balanced MU is one where Hypothetical Player playing Race A can play his mirror universe twin who plays Race B and they will come out at 50/50 over any long-enough stretch. That is balance. Very simple. Objectively immeasurable because there are no mirror universe twins who have been playing different races for the exact same period of time, but subjectively very measurable because we have brains that are capable of entertaining hypothetical scenarios.
Like here's a hypothetical scenario, MVP.Tails starts playing Terran. He's never heard from again for as long as he lives. That's not balance.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Please show me the Terran who has said that, if Terran gets new options and they are too strong for Protoss to handle, shifting the balance completely in Terran's favor, we are against a Protoss buff.
Cart before the horse.
If we have evidence that a matchup can be 50:50 and is being executed as such--we don't ignore that data.
If Maru and Polt never existed, and we have 0 players in top ranks, then you can make the hypothesis (based on evidence at hand) that Terran cannot beat Protoss.
Right now we have empirical proof that Terrans can beat protoss consistently, some terrans at least. What we don't have proof of is if this performance is repeatable. Whether we are okay or not with its irrepeatability is a different one from balance.
Let me get this right. So until Maru, arguably the best Terran in the world, possibly the best player in the world, starts to have a less than 50-50 record against someone like Tassadar, we can't judge the game to be imbalanced?
Please tell me your position is not reducible to that.
Arguments in here are getting pretty rediculous, it's degraded into arguing about nothing (or too general of an argument i.e. is Terran vs Protoss balanced) once more. The point being argued was that Protoss isn't having troubles taking a third in TvP atm and could in fact take it earlier than Terran with some level of consistency, and it was backed up from multiple videos from TheDwf by a style that's been around for quite awhile. Whether this is a gimmick style that relies on imperfect information from Terran or a reliable build that could be executed even if Terran had perfect information is up for debate.
That aside, I haven't really seen much evidence that Protoss are taking later thirds vs Terran since the Widow Mine nerf in general, Protoss has always been taking their third between 9-12 minutes depending on personal preference and this still seems to hold true from the games I've seen post mine buff.
- You can't play upon the upgrade advantage unless you went 4' EB. Otherwise Forges + chrono allow Protoss to catch up. - You keep saying "if Protoss does this he just outplayed the Terran" without providing any argument. - More Terran options doesn't necessarily mean a better Terran winrate. - Winrates don't matter anyway when you have not a field with players of even or roughly even skill.
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
If protoss opts for templar defense (really the only option with a fast 3rd base), just execute some proper bio mine pushes and you should break him. Early ghost can be effective with the push since you won't need vikings. Templar builds don't have gas for good upgrades and can't really afford much of anything except zealots to go with them. If he opts for colossus, you should be able to break him with an scv pull or just kill him with drops, colossus aren't mobile enough and he won't have enough.
So apparently you're unaware that Protoss commonly go mass Blink Stalkers afterwards so you can't do anything with your first 2-4 Medivacs, then tech Charge and Storm so they can hold later agression when Stalkers start being inefficient against bio.
Again, you should have a huge upgrade advantage and should just be able to roll him over with a later bio/mine push. If Protoss goes fast 3rd into mass blink stalker into charge/storm and manages to hold, he just plain outplayed the terran.
I'd like to see a protoss try that against a player like Maru and see how that works out. Unfortunately, you're not likely to see that kind of build against a player as good as Maru.
You were saying?
Maru didn't get a reaper or any scouting, and Zest's build abused that. Maru had no idea the third was there until it was too late, and that is not a testament to a safe or standard build protoss can get away with regularly. I would suggest that for this reason, command center first is a risky build compared to a reaper expand. You're sacrificing the ability to see what's going on for an early econ advantage, and Zest picked up on that. Further, maru did not go for a bio/mine push, he just did an scv all-in vs. mass gateway units. He almost broke through despite the defense being almost perfect for zest as well. There's a reason you don't do that all-in unless he's going for colossus, the cost of the colossus ties up a ton of gas and you hit at a time where there isn't enough return for that investment. Zest took a big risk and got away with it because Maru didn't commit to getting a scout. This is not indicative of something protoss can do as a standard, but rather what can happen if terran decides to gamble.
So yeah, if you want to argue that if terran opens command center first and gets denied all scouting constantly with the oracle that protoss can take a super fast 3rd, then I'll agree with that. Perhaps that's why you shouldn't go command center first.
On May 04 2014 07:21 Faust852 wrote: I like how Whitewing just stopped answering after DwF gave in the VOD.
Some of us don't sit in front of our computers all day just to argue in a thread, I went to watch a movie. Sorry I offended you.
On May 04 2014 06:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:05 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:44 TheDwf wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:34 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:30 TheDwf wrote: [quote] How?
If protoss opts for templar defense (really the only option with a fast 3rd base), just execute some proper bio mine pushes and you should break him. Early ghost can be effective with the push since you won't need vikings. Templar builds don't have gas for good upgrades and can't really afford much of anything except zealots to go with them. If he opts for colossus, you should be able to break him with an scv pull or just kill him with drops, colossus aren't mobile enough and he won't have enough.
So apparently you're unaware that Protoss commonly go mass Blink Stalkers afterwards so you can't do anything with your first 2-4 Medivacs, then tech Charge and Storm so they can hold later agression when Stalkers start being inefficient against bio.
Again, you should have a huge upgrade advantage and should just be able to roll him over with a later bio/mine push. If Protoss goes fast 3rd into mass blink stalker into charge/storm and manages to hold, he just plain outplayed the terran.
I'd like to see a protoss try that against a player like Maru and see how that works out. Unfortunately, you're not likely to see that kind of build against a player as good as Maru.
Regardless, my initial question hasn't been answered yet: if Terran wins half the time right now, that means winrates are balanced. Aligulac suggests this is the case. If you give terran more options, that's a power swing. What then would you give to protoss to compensate for that new advantage to balance things out?
Options =/= Strength
Strength = Strength
If terran bio was good, and terran mech was good, bio doesn't suddenly become stronger
Much like Protoss going fast storm is good, and protoss going fast robo is also good.
Options =/= Stronger
Options do equal strength though, just indirectly. Consider: if terran gains new early game options that are viable strategies, then protoss has to be prepared for them or will simply blindly lose games. If they have to prepare, then that means their build has to take those options into account, which reduces their own options. Terran has aggressive options right now, like widow mine drops, hellbat marauder all-ins, cloak banshee openers, etc. It's just that protoss builds currently take these options into account and defend them, so terrans don't really consider them options. If you introduce new options, you take options away from the opponent. That is the same as adding strength. Hypothetically, let's say banshees got a buff of some sort (let's say movement speed so they could outrun stalkers easily). Suddenly cloak banshee openers are more viable and more common. What impact does this have? Every toss build now must include detection, which means robo skipping 2 base stalker blink builds or super fast 3rd builds just cease to exist unless they want to gamble that terran isn't going banshee. This limits protoss to early robo builds, early cannon builds, and early stargate builds. Terran no longer needs to be nearly as concerned about fast twilight builds because the threat of banshees prevents them from being a standard. You'd still see them as gamble builds occasionally, but they aren't usable as a standard (just like widow mine drops aren't usable as a standard).
That's just a hypothetical example. Let's say you give terran attack options by nerfing the photon overcharge. Suddenly every protoss has to spend much of the early game being worried about defending everything, which means investments into more sentries and early stalkers, etc. That's a big buff to terran because you're killing protoss build options and limiting their growth rates.
Okay, let's say you make it so terran can attack early more regularly, because you decide you don't like protoss being able to play with their current standard builds. That's going to result in a shift in power towards terran, because even if terran doesn't use those timings and plays like they currently do, protoss has to take that potential into account. What do you propose protoss gains in return to balance out the matchup if you make a change of that nature?
You don't seem to understand what the word "Options" means.
Nerfin Photon Overcharge is not giving options, it is giving a Terran attack more strength. Giving Banshees more speed is buffing a unit so that an attack is stronger.
Changing the reaper's stats, movement speed, and tech requirements *changed its role* from early harass that could scout to pure scout. Its damage, was weakened. Its top end speed, was weakened. The unit as a whole was nerfed, its tech availability sped up, and its role changed into something different than what it used to be.
Making timing attacks that already occur stronger is, by definition, stronger.
Giving a terran options does not weaken or buff anything. Right now the terran early game is diverse--but the responses to it is linear. Terran midgame and lategame is linear--it does not matter how Terran opens they ALWAYS use the same midgame and lategame. When people ask for Terran options all they ask for is having variant options during the midgame and lategame. You seem to be scared of new timing attacks as if that is the only thing people are asking for; that is ridiculous.
Terran has options, they're just weaker than people want them to be. You can open cloak banshee, it just gets shut down if toss has a robo or a stargate, so people choose not to. You can open widow mine drops, but it gets shut down by a forge and cannons. Hellion rushes are an option, but protoss can defend those reasonably easily. Thus, they aren't really considered 'options'. People aren't asking for more midgame stuff, they want early game attack options. How do you give more options without making something stronger? If it isn't at least as strong as things done at the exact same time, it isn't an option that's going to be used at all, and if it doesn't have a different response than normal toss play, it might as well not be there. If it does have a different response, then toss builds are affected and that's a power boost to terran.
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
On May 04 2014 06:35 Thieving Magpie wrote: [quote]
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
So whether the game is balanced or not depends on the players who are playing it? If that's not the most useless definition of the word 'balance' I've ever encountered, I don't know what is. What if Maru and Polt stop playing SC2 tomorrow, suddenly TvP takes a huge dive because no one else can mechanically reproduce their success, and, what? The game is now imbalanced because it went from 50/50 to 55/45 based on two top 5 players disappearing? That's a joke if ever there was one.
What if we make Terran even harder to play mechanically than it is now, so that there are zero Terrans in Code S. There's still the chance that if a good enough player comes along to play Terran, like, five times better than Maru is now, he'll slaughter everyone... so... I guess the game would still be potentially imbalanced in Terran's favor, in some absurd and clearly useless meaning of the words?
A balanced MU is one where Hypothetical Player playing Race A can play his mirror universe twin who plays Race B and they will come out at 50/50 over any long-enough stretch. That is balance. Very simple. Objectively immeasurable because there are no mirror universe twins who have been playing different races for the exact same period of time, but subjectively very measurable because we have brains that are capable of entertaining hypothetical scenarios.
Like here's a hypothetical scenario, MVP.Tails starts playing Terran. He's never heard from again for as long as he lives. That's not balance.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Please show me the Terran who has said that, if Terran gets new options and they are too strong for Protoss to handle, shifting the balance completely in Terran's favor, we are against a Protoss buff.
Cart before the horse.
If we have evidence that a matchup can be 50:50 and is being executed as such--we don't ignore that data.
If Maru and Polt never existed, and we have 0 players in top ranks, then you can make the hypothesis (based on evidence at hand) that Terran cannot beat Protoss.
Right now we have empirical proof that Terrans can beat protoss consistently, some terrans at least. What we don't have proof of is if this performance is repeatable. Whether we are okay or not with its irrepeatability is a different one from balance.
Let me get this right. So until Maru, arguably the best Terran in the world, possibly the best player in the world, starts to have a less than 50-50 record against someone like Tassadar, we can't judge the game to be imbalanced?
Please tell me your position is not reducible to that.
I'm saying that we can't use evidence for things it does not show causation to.
Maru is is able to stay in the top ranks of the GSL. That means that it is possible to play terran in the top ranks of the GSL. The top terran players have about a 50% winrate vs top protoss players--that means (by definition) that top level TvP is balanced.
Just because its balanced does not mean it isn't problematic. Patches can be introduced to fix things that aren't imbalanced but are problematic.
The reason I say this is because a lot of players conflate lack of Terran representation with winrate imbalance when they are not the same things. They usually show correlation, but they don't causate.
Once again, its about statistics. Terran has an overall 50% winrate against Protoss. They also have a lack of representation. Right now, people want to attribute the lack of representation to be caused by imbalance. But there is no proof of that.
Lack of representation, combined with with even winrates in top level play, suggests that the problem is ability to execute strategies. Either Protoss Strategies are too easy to execute, or Terran strategies are too difficult to execute. And that is assuming the lack of terran representation is correlated to high level of protoss representation. Zerg might be kicking terrans out, out of game problems that strangely affects terrans more ("wrist issues"), etc...
But you can't blame imbalance when there's a 50/50 winrate.
- You can't play upon the upgrade advantage unless you went 4' EB. Otherwise Forges + chrono allow Protoss to catch up. - You keep saying "if Protoss does this he just outplayed the Terran" without providing any argument. - More Terran options doesn't necessarily mean a better Terran winrate. - Winrates don't matter anyway when you have not a field with players of even or roughly even skill.
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
On May 04 2014 09:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 09:04 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:19 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:18 TheDwf wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:05 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:44 TheDwf wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:34 Whitewing wrote: [quote]
If protoss opts for templar defense (really the only option with a fast 3rd base), just execute some proper bio mine pushes and you should break him. Early ghost can be effective with the push since you won't need vikings. Templar builds don't have gas for good upgrades and can't really afford much of anything except zealots to go with them. If he opts for colossus, you should be able to break him with an scv pull or just kill him with drops, colossus aren't mobile enough and he won't have enough.
So apparently you're unaware that Protoss commonly go mass Blink Stalkers afterwards so you can't do anything with your first 2-4 Medivacs, then tech Charge and Storm so they can hold later agression when Stalkers start being inefficient against bio.
Again, you should have a huge upgrade advantage and should just be able to roll him over with a later bio/mine push. If Protoss goes fast 3rd into mass blink stalker into charge/storm and manages to hold, he just plain outplayed the terran.
I'd like to see a protoss try that against a player like Maru and see how that works out. Unfortunately, you're not likely to see that kind of build against a player as good as Maru.
Maru didn't get a reaper or any scouting, and Zest's build abused that. Maru had no idea the third was there until it was too late, and that is not a testament to a safe or standard build protoss can get away with regularly. I would suggest that for this reason, command center first is a risky build compared to a reaper expand. You're sacrificing the ability to see what's going on for an early econ advantage, and Zest picked up on that. Further, maru did not go for a bio/mine push, he just did an scv all-in vs. mass gateway units. He almost broke through despite the defense being almost perfect for zest as well. There's a reason you don't do that all-in unless he's going for colossus, the cost of the colossus ties up a ton of gas and you hit at a time where there isn't enough return for that investment. Zest took a big risk and got away with it because Maru didn't commit to getting a scout. This is not indicative of something protoss can do as a standard, but rather what can happen if terran decides to gamble.
So yeah, if you want to argue that if terran opens command center first and gets denied all scouting constantly with the oracle that protoss can take a super fast 3rd, then I'll agree with that. Perhaps that's why you shouldn't go command center first.
On May 04 2014 07:21 Faust852 wrote: I like how Whitewing just stopped answering after DwF gave in the VOD.
Some of us don't sit in front of our computers all day just to argue in a thread, I went to watch a movie. Sorry I offended you.
On May 04 2014 06:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:05 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:44 TheDwf wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:34 Whitewing wrote: [quote]
If protoss opts for templar defense (really the only option with a fast 3rd base), just execute some proper bio mine pushes and you should break him. Early ghost can be effective with the push since you won't need vikings. Templar builds don't have gas for good upgrades and can't really afford much of anything except zealots to go with them. If he opts for colossus, you should be able to break him with an scv pull or just kill him with drops, colossus aren't mobile enough and he won't have enough.
So apparently you're unaware that Protoss commonly go mass Blink Stalkers afterwards so you can't do anything with your first 2-4 Medivacs, then tech Charge and Storm so they can hold later agression when Stalkers start being inefficient against bio.
Again, you should have a huge upgrade advantage and should just be able to roll him over with a later bio/mine push. If Protoss goes fast 3rd into mass blink stalker into charge/storm and manages to hold, he just plain outplayed the terran.
I'd like to see a protoss try that against a player like Maru and see how that works out. Unfortunately, you're not likely to see that kind of build against a player as good as Maru.
Regardless, my initial question hasn't been answered yet: if Terran wins half the time right now, that means winrates are balanced. Aligulac suggests this is the case. If you give terran more options, that's a power swing. What then would you give to protoss to compensate for that new advantage to balance things out?
Options =/= Strength
Strength = Strength
If terran bio was good, and terran mech was good, bio doesn't suddenly become stronger
Much like Protoss going fast storm is good, and protoss going fast robo is also good.
Options =/= Stronger
Options do equal strength though, just indirectly. Consider: if terran gains new early game options that are viable strategies, then protoss has to be prepared for them or will simply blindly lose games. If they have to prepare, then that means their build has to take those options into account, which reduces their own options. Terran has aggressive options right now, like widow mine drops, hellbat marauder all-ins, cloak banshee openers, etc. It's just that protoss builds currently take these options into account and defend them, so terrans don't really consider them options. If you introduce new options, you take options away from the opponent. That is the same as adding strength. Hypothetically, let's say banshees got a buff of some sort (let's say movement speed so they could outrun stalkers easily). Suddenly cloak banshee openers are more viable and more common. What impact does this have? Every toss build now must include detection, which means robo skipping 2 base stalker blink builds or super fast 3rd builds just cease to exist unless they want to gamble that terran isn't going banshee. This limits protoss to early robo builds, early cannon builds, and early stargate builds. Terran no longer needs to be nearly as concerned about fast twilight builds because the threat of banshees prevents them from being a standard. You'd still see them as gamble builds occasionally, but they aren't usable as a standard (just like widow mine drops aren't usable as a standard).
That's just a hypothetical example. Let's say you give terran attack options by nerfing the photon overcharge. Suddenly every protoss has to spend much of the early game being worried about defending everything, which means investments into more sentries and early stalkers, etc. That's a big buff to terran because you're killing protoss build options and limiting their growth rates.
Okay, let's say you make it so terran can attack early more regularly, because you decide you don't like protoss being able to play with their current standard builds. That's going to result in a shift in power towards terran, because even if terran doesn't use those timings and plays like they currently do, protoss has to take that potential into account. What do you propose protoss gains in return to balance out the matchup if you make a change of that nature?
You don't seem to understand what the word "Options" means.
Nerfin Photon Overcharge is not giving options, it is giving a Terran attack more strength. Giving Banshees more speed is buffing a unit so that an attack is stronger.
Changing the reaper's stats, movement speed, and tech requirements *changed its role* from early harass that could scout to pure scout. Its damage, was weakened. Its top end speed, was weakened. The unit as a whole was nerfed, its tech availability sped up, and its role changed into something different than what it used to be.
Making timing attacks that already occur stronger is, by definition, stronger.
Giving a terran options does not weaken or buff anything. Right now the terran early game is diverse--but the responses to it is linear. Terran midgame and lategame is linear--it does not matter how Terran opens they ALWAYS use the same midgame and lategame. When people ask for Terran options all they ask for is having variant options during the midgame and lategame. You seem to be scared of new timing attacks as if that is the only thing people are asking for; that is ridiculous.
Terran has options, they're just weaker than people want them to be. You can open cloak banshee, it just gets shut down if toss has a robo or a stargate, so people choose not to. You can open widow mine drops, but it gets shut down by a forge and cannons. Hellion rushes are an option, but protoss can defend those reasonably easily. Thus, they aren't really considered 'options'. People aren't asking for more midgame stuff, they want early game attack options. How do you give more options without making something stronger? If it isn't at least as strong as things done at the exact same time, it isn't an option that's going to be used at all, and if it doesn't have a different response than normal toss play, it might as well not be there. If it does have a different response, then toss builds are affected and that's a power boost to terran.
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
- You can't play upon the upgrade advantage unless you went 4' EB. Otherwise Forges + chrono allow Protoss to catch up. - You keep saying "if Protoss does this he just outplayed the Terran" without providing any argument. - More Terran options doesn't necessarily mean a better Terran winrate. - Winrates don't matter anyway when you have not a field with players of even or roughly even skill.
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced. Certain races being under or overrepresented can be fixed by trends as much as it can be fixed with patches. Patches are of course faster and more efficient, but they are not necessarily needed.
EDIT:
Its a verbage thing, I don't like the idea of just throwing the "imbalance" word when what we really mean is that the matchup is not working as intended.
PvZ was pretty even in WoL once people figured it out. But it definitely was NOT working as intended, hence the need for it to be fixed.
Imagine this: Say I invite a bunch of my bronze friends over to play some games. I play terran and choose and choose 50% handicap so all my units have half HP.
After a while, I look at my win/rates vs these guys and notice that they are are 50/50. But does that make the '50% less HP terran race' balanced? Should all HP of terran untis be reduced by 50% because it makes the game balanced according to win/rates? Or is the only reason for why we have a 50/50 win/rate that I am far superior to my opponents?
The latter here is definitely the true. Now imagine, what would actually happen if all units of terran had a 50% HP reduction. ALL GM's/masters would probably go back to silver/bronze league, where they would end up with 50/50 win/rates. According to your logic, it's balanced and the meta has to figure it out for us..............
You see your flawed logic?
Win/rates simply always goes down towards 50/50, the only persistent change is the race distribution and therfore, that's actually the relevant metric to look at. That's the true indicator of balance.
One could have applied the same logic to the Infestor/broodlord area in mid 2012, yet balance there kept getting worse and terran representation kept declining. Point is, there is simply no logical reasons for why it's always gonna be the underrepresented race that figures out stuff. Some times it's the dominant race that get's even better, other times it's vice verse.
For your population example yes, its true. In a population of you and your friends the game is more even with terran units at 50% hitpoints.
You can't, of course, assume that your population of you and your friends correlate with the total population of Starcraft2 players.
Now, if you put this overall balance change based of you and your friends and enforced it onto higher level players--then the changes affect the population differently. That is because your population example is not a good population sample.
The reason we use top level game play for balancing is because the goal is to make a game where we assume that if the best players play the game is even. Maru being 50/50 while consistently reaching high levels in the GSL shows that assuming players make as much or less mistakes than Maru, they too can do well in the GSL.
Also, the only time winrates always go to 50% are in forced environments like the SC2 ladder. Hence why we don't use ladder winrates to show balance but usually keep track of it in tournaments. Hence why Maru has kept being brought up in this thread. Its for the same reason Nestea and MC kept being used as proof that Zerg and Protoss were not too weak during the GomTvT era--because how can you say that T was overpowered when MC, Nestea, DRG, Losira kept dominating Korea and Huk, Naniwa, Socke, etc... kept dominating foreigner rankings?
Now there is a problem with Terran representation. I am not arguing that. I'm not even saying we don't patch things to fix terran representation. I just hate hearing people say its imbalanced when top players are still even with each other.
- You can't play upon the upgrade advantage unless you went 4' EB. Otherwise Forges + chrono allow Protoss to catch up. - You keep saying "if Protoss does this he just outplayed the Terran" without providing any argument. - More Terran options doesn't necessarily mean a better Terran winrate. - Winrates don't matter anyway when you have not a field with players of even or roughly even skill.
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
On May 04 2014 09:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 09:04 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:19 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:18 TheDwf wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:05 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:44 TheDwf wrote: [quote] So apparently you're unaware that Protoss commonly go mass Blink Stalkers afterwards so you can't do anything with your first 2-4 Medivacs, then tech Charge and Storm so they can hold later agression when Stalkers start being inefficient against bio.
Again, you should have a huge upgrade advantage and should just be able to roll him over with a later bio/mine push. If Protoss goes fast 3rd into mass blink stalker into charge/storm and manages to hold, he just plain outplayed the terran.
I'd like to see a protoss try that against a player like Maru and see how that works out. Unfortunately, you're not likely to see that kind of build against a player as good as Maru.
Maru didn't get a reaper or any scouting, and Zest's build abused that. Maru had no idea the third was there until it was too late, and that is not a testament to a safe or standard build protoss can get away with regularly. I would suggest that for this reason, command center first is a risky build compared to a reaper expand. You're sacrificing the ability to see what's going on for an early econ advantage, and Zest picked up on that. Further, maru did not go for a bio/mine push, he just did an scv all-in vs. mass gateway units. He almost broke through despite the defense being almost perfect for zest as well. There's a reason you don't do that all-in unless he's going for colossus, the cost of the colossus ties up a ton of gas and you hit at a time where there isn't enough return for that investment. Zest took a big risk and got away with it because Maru didn't commit to getting a scout. This is not indicative of something protoss can do as a standard, but rather what can happen if terran decides to gamble.
So yeah, if you want to argue that if terran opens command center first and gets denied all scouting constantly with the oracle that protoss can take a super fast 3rd, then I'll agree with that. Perhaps that's why you shouldn't go command center first.
On May 04 2014 07:21 Faust852 wrote: I like how Whitewing just stopped answering after DwF gave in the VOD.
Some of us don't sit in front of our computers all day just to argue in a thread, I went to watch a movie. Sorry I offended you.
On May 04 2014 06:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:05 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 05:44 TheDwf wrote: [quote] So apparently you're unaware that Protoss commonly go mass Blink Stalkers afterwards so you can't do anything with your first 2-4 Medivacs, then tech Charge and Storm so they can hold later agression when Stalkers start being inefficient against bio.
Again, you should have a huge upgrade advantage and should just be able to roll him over with a later bio/mine push. If Protoss goes fast 3rd into mass blink stalker into charge/storm and manages to hold, he just plain outplayed the terran.
I'd like to see a protoss try that against a player like Maru and see how that works out. Unfortunately, you're not likely to see that kind of build against a player as good as Maru.
Regardless, my initial question hasn't been answered yet: if Terran wins half the time right now, that means winrates are balanced. Aligulac suggests this is the case. If you give terran more options, that's a power swing. What then would you give to protoss to compensate for that new advantage to balance things out?
Options =/= Strength
Strength = Strength
If terran bio was good, and terran mech was good, bio doesn't suddenly become stronger
Much like Protoss going fast storm is good, and protoss going fast robo is also good.
Options =/= Stronger
Options do equal strength though, just indirectly. Consider: if terran gains new early game options that are viable strategies, then protoss has to be prepared for them or will simply blindly lose games. If they have to prepare, then that means their build has to take those options into account, which reduces their own options. Terran has aggressive options right now, like widow mine drops, hellbat marauder all-ins, cloak banshee openers, etc. It's just that protoss builds currently take these options into account and defend them, so terrans don't really consider them options. If you introduce new options, you take options away from the opponent. That is the same as adding strength. Hypothetically, let's say banshees got a buff of some sort (let's say movement speed so they could outrun stalkers easily). Suddenly cloak banshee openers are more viable and more common. What impact does this have? Every toss build now must include detection, which means robo skipping 2 base stalker blink builds or super fast 3rd builds just cease to exist unless they want to gamble that terran isn't going banshee. This limits protoss to early robo builds, early cannon builds, and early stargate builds. Terran no longer needs to be nearly as concerned about fast twilight builds because the threat of banshees prevents them from being a standard. You'd still see them as gamble builds occasionally, but they aren't usable as a standard (just like widow mine drops aren't usable as a standard).
That's just a hypothetical example. Let's say you give terran attack options by nerfing the photon overcharge. Suddenly every protoss has to spend much of the early game being worried about defending everything, which means investments into more sentries and early stalkers, etc. That's a big buff to terran because you're killing protoss build options and limiting their growth rates.
Okay, let's say you make it so terran can attack early more regularly, because you decide you don't like protoss being able to play with their current standard builds. That's going to result in a shift in power towards terran, because even if terran doesn't use those timings and plays like they currently do, protoss has to take that potential into account. What do you propose protoss gains in return to balance out the matchup if you make a change of that nature?
You don't seem to understand what the word "Options" means.
Nerfin Photon Overcharge is not giving options, it is giving a Terran attack more strength. Giving Banshees more speed is buffing a unit so that an attack is stronger.
Changing the reaper's stats, movement speed, and tech requirements *changed its role* from early harass that could scout to pure scout. Its damage, was weakened. Its top end speed, was weakened. The unit as a whole was nerfed, its tech availability sped up, and its role changed into something different than what it used to be.
Making timing attacks that already occur stronger is, by definition, stronger.
Giving a terran options does not weaken or buff anything. Right now the terran early game is diverse--but the responses to it is linear. Terran midgame and lategame is linear--it does not matter how Terran opens they ALWAYS use the same midgame and lategame. When people ask for Terran options all they ask for is having variant options during the midgame and lategame. You seem to be scared of new timing attacks as if that is the only thing people are asking for; that is ridiculous.
Terran has options, they're just weaker than people want them to be. You can open cloak banshee, it just gets shut down if toss has a robo or a stargate, so people choose not to. You can open widow mine drops, but it gets shut down by a forge and cannons. Hellion rushes are an option, but protoss can defend those reasonably easily. Thus, they aren't really considered 'options'. People aren't asking for more midgame stuff, they want early game attack options. How do you give more options without making something stronger? If it isn't at least as strong as things done at the exact same time, it isn't an option that's going to be used at all, and if it doesn't have a different response than normal toss play, it might as well not be there. If it does have a different response, then toss builds are affected and that's a power boost to terran.
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
On May 04 2014 06:35 Thieving Magpie wrote: [quote]
Winrates matter a lot actually.
The reason winrates are evening out is because only the top level terrans are left. Maru is about 50/50 with his protoss opponents, and being that Maru is one of the few terrans left, he takes up a large percentage of the terran population. Which tells us it is *possible* to get 50/50 in TvP so long as all terran players play like Maru.
Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
On May 04 2014 09:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 09:04 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:19 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:18 TheDwf wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:05 Whitewing wrote: [quote]
Again, you should have a huge upgrade advantage and should just be able to roll him over with a later bio/mine push. If Protoss goes fast 3rd into mass blink stalker into charge/storm and manages to hold, he just plain outplayed the terran.
I'd like to see a protoss try that against a player like Maru and see how that works out. Unfortunately, you're not likely to see that kind of build against a player as good as Maru.
Maru didn't get a reaper or any scouting, and Zest's build abused that. Maru had no idea the third was there until it was too late, and that is not a testament to a safe or standard build protoss can get away with regularly. I would suggest that for this reason, command center first is a risky build compared to a reaper expand. You're sacrificing the ability to see what's going on for an early econ advantage, and Zest picked up on that. Further, maru did not go for a bio/mine push, he just did an scv all-in vs. mass gateway units. He almost broke through despite the defense being almost perfect for zest as well. There's a reason you don't do that all-in unless he's going for colossus, the cost of the colossus ties up a ton of gas and you hit at a time where there isn't enough return for that investment. Zest took a big risk and got away with it because Maru didn't commit to getting a scout. This is not indicative of something protoss can do as a standard, but rather what can happen if terran decides to gamble.
So yeah, if you want to argue that if terran opens command center first and gets denied all scouting constantly with the oracle that protoss can take a super fast 3rd, then I'll agree with that. Perhaps that's why you shouldn't go command center first.
On May 04 2014 07:21 Faust852 wrote: I like how Whitewing just stopped answering after DwF gave in the VOD.
Some of us don't sit in front of our computers all day just to argue in a thread, I went to watch a movie. Sorry I offended you.
On May 04 2014 06:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 06:05 Whitewing wrote: [quote]
Again, you should have a huge upgrade advantage and should just be able to roll him over with a later bio/mine push. If Protoss goes fast 3rd into mass blink stalker into charge/storm and manages to hold, he just plain outplayed the terran.
I'd like to see a protoss try that against a player like Maru and see how that works out. Unfortunately, you're not likely to see that kind of build against a player as good as Maru.
Regardless, my initial question hasn't been answered yet: if Terran wins half the time right now, that means winrates are balanced. Aligulac suggests this is the case. If you give terran more options, that's a power swing. What then would you give to protoss to compensate for that new advantage to balance things out?
Options =/= Strength
Strength = Strength
If terran bio was good, and terran mech was good, bio doesn't suddenly become stronger
Much like Protoss going fast storm is good, and protoss going fast robo is also good.
Options =/= Stronger
Options do equal strength though, just indirectly. Consider: if terran gains new early game options that are viable strategies, then protoss has to be prepared for them or will simply blindly lose games. If they have to prepare, then that means their build has to take those options into account, which reduces their own options. Terran has aggressive options right now, like widow mine drops, hellbat marauder all-ins, cloak banshee openers, etc. It's just that protoss builds currently take these options into account and defend them, so terrans don't really consider them options. If you introduce new options, you take options away from the opponent. That is the same as adding strength. Hypothetically, let's say banshees got a buff of some sort (let's say movement speed so they could outrun stalkers easily). Suddenly cloak banshee openers are more viable and more common. What impact does this have? Every toss build now must include detection, which means robo skipping 2 base stalker blink builds or super fast 3rd builds just cease to exist unless they want to gamble that terran isn't going banshee. This limits protoss to early robo builds, early cannon builds, and early stargate builds. Terran no longer needs to be nearly as concerned about fast twilight builds because the threat of banshees prevents them from being a standard. You'd still see them as gamble builds occasionally, but they aren't usable as a standard (just like widow mine drops aren't usable as a standard).
That's just a hypothetical example. Let's say you give terran attack options by nerfing the photon overcharge. Suddenly every protoss has to spend much of the early game being worried about defending everything, which means investments into more sentries and early stalkers, etc. That's a big buff to terran because you're killing protoss build options and limiting their growth rates.
Okay, let's say you make it so terran can attack early more regularly, because you decide you don't like protoss being able to play with their current standard builds. That's going to result in a shift in power towards terran, because even if terran doesn't use those timings and plays like they currently do, protoss has to take that potential into account. What do you propose protoss gains in return to balance out the matchup if you make a change of that nature?
You don't seem to understand what the word "Options" means.
Nerfin Photon Overcharge is not giving options, it is giving a Terran attack more strength. Giving Banshees more speed is buffing a unit so that an attack is stronger.
Changing the reaper's stats, movement speed, and tech requirements *changed its role* from early harass that could scout to pure scout. Its damage, was weakened. Its top end speed, was weakened. The unit as a whole was nerfed, its tech availability sped up, and its role changed into something different than what it used to be.
Making timing attacks that already occur stronger is, by definition, stronger.
Giving a terran options does not weaken or buff anything. Right now the terran early game is diverse--but the responses to it is linear. Terran midgame and lategame is linear--it does not matter how Terran opens they ALWAYS use the same midgame and lategame. When people ask for Terran options all they ask for is having variant options during the midgame and lategame. You seem to be scared of new timing attacks as if that is the only thing people are asking for; that is ridiculous.
Terran has options, they're just weaker than people want them to be. You can open cloak banshee, it just gets shut down if toss has a robo or a stargate, so people choose not to. You can open widow mine drops, but it gets shut down by a forge and cannons. Hellion rushes are an option, but protoss can defend those reasonably easily. Thus, they aren't really considered 'options'. People aren't asking for more midgame stuff, they want early game attack options. How do you give more options without making something stronger? If it isn't at least as strong as things done at the exact same time, it isn't an option that's going to be used at all, and if it doesn't have a different response than normal toss play, it might as well not be there. If it does have a different response, then toss builds are affected and that's a power boost to terran.
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
It's not a question of scouting. My build has to take into account various potential things you can do. Of course I scout, but my build has to be designed to take your build into account and have the potential to react. If you can open mech and just outright kill blink all-ins all the time as a viable standard, I can't do blink builds anymore. Certainly you don't go blink after observer, unless you want it to be too late. Your response is just plain silly. Bio is perfectly valid against protoss, you don't need tanks against them, therefore tanks being bad against them is irrelevant. Just like protoss don't really make carriers against terran (tanks are more common vs. toss than carriers are vs. terran).
Anytime you limit your opponents options that's a buff for your race. Anytime you introduce options for one player, you are removing options for the opponent. That's a buff. I'm sorry but it is. If you want to argue that we should nerf protoss that's different, but pretending it's not a buff for terran in the matchup is just ridiculous.
And if you think stargate becoming a viable opener in PvT wasn't a buff to protoss, you're off your rocker.
On May 04 2014 06:40 TheDwf wrote: [quote] Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
Maru didn't get a reaper or any scouting, and Zest's build abused that. Maru had no idea the third was there until it was too late, and that is not a testament to a safe or standard build protoss can get away with regularly. I would suggest that for this reason, command center first is a risky build compared to a reaper expand. You're sacrificing the ability to see what's going on for an early econ advantage, and Zest picked up on that. Further, maru did not go for a bio/mine push, he just did an scv all-in vs. mass gateway units. He almost broke through despite the defense being almost perfect for zest as well. There's a reason you don't do that all-in unless he's going for colossus, the cost of the colossus ties up a ton of gas and you hit at a time where there isn't enough return for that investment. Zest took a big risk and got away with it because Maru didn't commit to getting a scout. This is not indicative of something protoss can do as a standard, but rather what can happen if terran decides to gamble.
So yeah, if you want to argue that if terran opens command center first and gets denied all scouting constantly with the oracle that protoss can take a super fast 3rd, then I'll agree with that. Perhaps that's why you shouldn't go command center first.
On May 04 2014 07:21 Faust852 wrote: I like how Whitewing just stopped answering after DwF gave in the VOD.
Some of us don't sit in front of our computers all day just to argue in a thread, I went to watch a movie. Sorry I offended you.
On May 04 2014 06:33 Thieving Magpie wrote: [quote]
Options =/= Strength
Strength = Strength
If terran bio was good, and terran mech was good, bio doesn't suddenly become stronger
Much like Protoss going fast storm is good, and protoss going fast robo is also good.
Options =/= Stronger
Options do equal strength though, just indirectly. Consider: if terran gains new early game options that are viable strategies, then protoss has to be prepared for them or will simply blindly lose games. If they have to prepare, then that means their build has to take those options into account, which reduces their own options. Terran has aggressive options right now, like widow mine drops, hellbat marauder all-ins, cloak banshee openers, etc. It's just that protoss builds currently take these options into account and defend them, so terrans don't really consider them options. If you introduce new options, you take options away from the opponent. That is the same as adding strength. Hypothetically, let's say banshees got a buff of some sort (let's say movement speed so they could outrun stalkers easily). Suddenly cloak banshee openers are more viable and more common. What impact does this have? Every toss build now must include detection, which means robo skipping 2 base stalker blink builds or super fast 3rd builds just cease to exist unless they want to gamble that terran isn't going banshee. This limits protoss to early robo builds, early cannon builds, and early stargate builds. Terran no longer needs to be nearly as concerned about fast twilight builds because the threat of banshees prevents them from being a standard. You'd still see them as gamble builds occasionally, but they aren't usable as a standard (just like widow mine drops aren't usable as a standard).
That's just a hypothetical example. Let's say you give terran attack options by nerfing the photon overcharge. Suddenly every protoss has to spend much of the early game being worried about defending everything, which means investments into more sentries and early stalkers, etc. That's a big buff to terran because you're killing protoss build options and limiting their growth rates.
Okay, let's say you make it so terran can attack early more regularly, because you decide you don't like protoss being able to play with their current standard builds. That's going to result in a shift in power towards terran, because even if terran doesn't use those timings and plays like they currently do, protoss has to take that potential into account. What do you propose protoss gains in return to balance out the matchup if you make a change of that nature?
You don't seem to understand what the word "Options" means.
Nerfin Photon Overcharge is not giving options, it is giving a Terran attack more strength. Giving Banshees more speed is buffing a unit so that an attack is stronger.
Changing the reaper's stats, movement speed, and tech requirements *changed its role* from early harass that could scout to pure scout. Its damage, was weakened. Its top end speed, was weakened. The unit as a whole was nerfed, its tech availability sped up, and its role changed into something different than what it used to be.
Making timing attacks that already occur stronger is, by definition, stronger.
Giving a terran options does not weaken or buff anything. Right now the terran early game is diverse--but the responses to it is linear. Terran midgame and lategame is linear--it does not matter how Terran opens they ALWAYS use the same midgame and lategame. When people ask for Terran options all they ask for is having variant options during the midgame and lategame. You seem to be scared of new timing attacks as if that is the only thing people are asking for; that is ridiculous.
Terran has options, they're just weaker than people want them to be. You can open cloak banshee, it just gets shut down if toss has a robo or a stargate, so people choose not to. You can open widow mine drops, but it gets shut down by a forge and cannons. Hellion rushes are an option, but protoss can defend those reasonably easily. Thus, they aren't really considered 'options'. People aren't asking for more midgame stuff, they want early game attack options. How do you give more options without making something stronger? If it isn't at least as strong as things done at the exact same time, it isn't an option that's going to be used at all, and if it doesn't have a different response than normal toss play, it might as well not be there. If it does have a different response, then toss builds are affected and that's a power boost to terran.
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
It's not a question of scouting. My build has to take into account various potential things you can do. Of course I scout, but my build has to be designed to take your build into account and have the potential to react. If you can open mech and just outright kill blink all-ins all the time as a viable standard, I can't do blink builds anymore. Certainly you don't go blink after observer, unless you want it to be too late. Your response is just plain silly. Bio is perfectly valid against protoss, you don't need tanks against them, therefore tanks being bad against them is irrelevant. Just like protoss don't really make carriers against terran (tanks are more common vs. toss than carriers are vs. terran).
Anytime you limit your opponents options that's a buff for your race. Anytime you introduce options for one player, you are removing options for the opponent. That's a buff. I'm sorry but it is. If you want to argue that we should nerf protoss that's different, but pretending it's not a buff for terran in the matchup is just ridiculous.
And if you think stargate becoming a viable opener in PvT wasn't a buff to protoss, you're off your rocker.
You're just trolling.
You don't need colossus against Terrans. Templars work just fine, so if we nerf Colossus to deal 1 damage then it doesn't matter since you can beat terrans without colossus.
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to scout your opponent? Between probe/zealot pokes (to track infantry numbers), hallucinated phoenix scouts, mothership (supported by stalkers), Protoss has a lot of ways to scout whether or not Terran has made 1 or 4 Factories. Your argument is literally that you can't use 1 of your many ways to scout terran?
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to find out if terran is making infantry or if terran is making tanks or if terran is making vikings?
Needing to scout the opponent is the complete opposite of a fucking buff, its literally the first step in making any Fog of War based game. The less you need to scout the less finished your RTS is.
On May 04 2014 06:50 Thieving Magpie wrote: [quote]
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
On May 04 2014 09:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 09:04 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:19 Whitewing wrote: [quote]
Maru didn't get a reaper or any scouting, and Zest's build abused that. Maru had no idea the third was there until it was too late, and that is not a testament to a safe or standard build protoss can get away with regularly. I would suggest that for this reason, command center first is a risky build compared to a reaper expand. You're sacrificing the ability to see what's going on for an early econ advantage, and Zest picked up on that. Further, maru did not go for a bio/mine push, he just did an scv all-in vs. mass gateway units. He almost broke through despite the defense being almost perfect for zest as well. There's a reason you don't do that all-in unless he's going for colossus, the cost of the colossus ties up a ton of gas and you hit at a time where there isn't enough return for that investment. Zest took a big risk and got away with it because Maru didn't commit to getting a scout. This is not indicative of something protoss can do as a standard, but rather what can happen if terran decides to gamble.
So yeah, if you want to argue that if terran opens command center first and gets denied all scouting constantly with the oracle that protoss can take a super fast 3rd, then I'll agree with that. Perhaps that's why you shouldn't go command center first.
[quote]
Some of us don't sit in front of our computers all day just to argue in a thread, I went to watch a movie. Sorry I offended you.
[quote]
Options do equal strength though, just indirectly. Consider: if terran gains new early game options that are viable strategies, then protoss has to be prepared for them or will simply blindly lose games. If they have to prepare, then that means their build has to take those options into account, which reduces their own options. Terran has aggressive options right now, like widow mine drops, hellbat marauder all-ins, cloak banshee openers, etc. It's just that protoss builds currently take these options into account and defend them, so terrans don't really consider them options. If you introduce new options, you take options away from the opponent. That is the same as adding strength. Hypothetically, let's say banshees got a buff of some sort (let's say movement speed so they could outrun stalkers easily). Suddenly cloak banshee openers are more viable and more common. What impact does this have? Every toss build now must include detection, which means robo skipping 2 base stalker blink builds or super fast 3rd builds just cease to exist unless they want to gamble that terran isn't going banshee. This limits protoss to early robo builds, early cannon builds, and early stargate builds. Terran no longer needs to be nearly as concerned about fast twilight builds because the threat of banshees prevents them from being a standard. You'd still see them as gamble builds occasionally, but they aren't usable as a standard (just like widow mine drops aren't usable as a standard).
That's just a hypothetical example. Let's say you give terran attack options by nerfing the photon overcharge. Suddenly every protoss has to spend much of the early game being worried about defending everything, which means investments into more sentries and early stalkers, etc. That's a big buff to terran because you're killing protoss build options and limiting their growth rates.
Okay, let's say you make it so terran can attack early more regularly, because you decide you don't like protoss being able to play with their current standard builds. That's going to result in a shift in power towards terran, because even if terran doesn't use those timings and plays like they currently do, protoss has to take that potential into account. What do you propose protoss gains in return to balance out the matchup if you make a change of that nature?
You don't seem to understand what the word "Options" means.
Nerfin Photon Overcharge is not giving options, it is giving a Terran attack more strength. Giving Banshees more speed is buffing a unit so that an attack is stronger.
Changing the reaper's stats, movement speed, and tech requirements *changed its role* from early harass that could scout to pure scout. Its damage, was weakened. Its top end speed, was weakened. The unit as a whole was nerfed, its tech availability sped up, and its role changed into something different than what it used to be.
Making timing attacks that already occur stronger is, by definition, stronger.
Giving a terran options does not weaken or buff anything. Right now the terran early game is diverse--but the responses to it is linear. Terran midgame and lategame is linear--it does not matter how Terran opens they ALWAYS use the same midgame and lategame. When people ask for Terran options all they ask for is having variant options during the midgame and lategame. You seem to be scared of new timing attacks as if that is the only thing people are asking for; that is ridiculous.
Terran has options, they're just weaker than people want them to be. You can open cloak banshee, it just gets shut down if toss has a robo or a stargate, so people choose not to. You can open widow mine drops, but it gets shut down by a forge and cannons. Hellion rushes are an option, but protoss can defend those reasonably easily. Thus, they aren't really considered 'options'. People aren't asking for more midgame stuff, they want early game attack options. How do you give more options without making something stronger? If it isn't at least as strong as things done at the exact same time, it isn't an option that's going to be used at all, and if it doesn't have a different response than normal toss play, it might as well not be there. If it does have a different response, then toss builds are affected and that's a power boost to terran.
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
It's not a question of scouting. My build has to take into account various potential things you can do. Of course I scout, but my build has to be designed to take your build into account and have the potential to react. If you can open mech and just outright kill blink all-ins all the time as a viable standard, I can't do blink builds anymore. Certainly you don't go blink after observer, unless you want it to be too late. Your response is just plain silly. Bio is perfectly valid against protoss, you don't need tanks against them, therefore tanks being bad against them is irrelevant. Just like protoss don't really make carriers against terran (tanks are more common vs. toss than carriers are vs. terran).
Anytime you limit your opponents options that's a buff for your race. Anytime you introduce options for one player, you are removing options for the opponent. That's a buff. I'm sorry but it is. If you want to argue that we should nerf protoss that's different, but pretending it's not a buff for terran in the matchup is just ridiculous.
And if you think stargate becoming a viable opener in PvT wasn't a buff to protoss, you're off your rocker.
You're just trolling.
You don't need colossus against Terrans. Templars work just fine, so if we nerf Colossus to deal 1 damage then it doesn't matter since you can beat terrans without colossus.
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to scout your opponent? Between probe/zealot pokes (to track infantry numbers), hallucinated phoenix scouts, mothership (supported by stalkers), Protoss has a lot of ways to scout whether or not Terran has made 1 or 4 Factories. Your argument is literally that you can't use 1 of your many ways to scout terran?
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to find out if terran is making infantry or if terran is making tanks or if terran is making vikings?
Needing to scout the opponent is the complete opposite of a fucking buff, its literally the first step in making any Fog of War based game. The less you need to scout the less finished your RTS is.
Colossus are necessary for PvT. If the game goes long enough and enough ghosts come out, you must have colossus to fight that.
It has nothing to do with not scouting, and everything to do with the stuff leading up to the scouting. Of course you scout, but your build has to take into account the new options including your prepared reaction after you scout.
You don't know what you're talking about, and no, I'm not trolling.
On May 04 2014 06:56 TheDwf wrote: [quote] Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
On May 04 2014 09:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 09:04 Whitewing wrote:
On May 04 2014 08:55 Thieving Magpie wrote: [quote]
You don't seem to understand what the word "Options" means.
Nerfin Photon Overcharge is not giving options, it is giving a Terran attack more strength. Giving Banshees more speed is buffing a unit so that an attack is stronger.
Changing the reaper's stats, movement speed, and tech requirements *changed its role* from early harass that could scout to pure scout. Its damage, was weakened. Its top end speed, was weakened. The unit as a whole was nerfed, its tech availability sped up, and its role changed into something different than what it used to be.
Making timing attacks that already occur stronger is, by definition, stronger.
Giving a terran options does not weaken or buff anything. Right now the terran early game is diverse--but the responses to it is linear. Terran midgame and lategame is linear--it does not matter how Terran opens they ALWAYS use the same midgame and lategame. When people ask for Terran options all they ask for is having variant options during the midgame and lategame. You seem to be scared of new timing attacks as if that is the only thing people are asking for; that is ridiculous.
Terran has options, they're just weaker than people want them to be. You can open cloak banshee, it just gets shut down if toss has a robo or a stargate, so people choose not to. You can open widow mine drops, but it gets shut down by a forge and cannons. Hellion rushes are an option, but protoss can defend those reasonably easily. Thus, they aren't really considered 'options'. People aren't asking for more midgame stuff, they want early game attack options. How do you give more options without making something stronger? If it isn't at least as strong as things done at the exact same time, it isn't an option that's going to be used at all, and if it doesn't have a different response than normal toss play, it might as well not be there. If it does have a different response, then toss builds are affected and that's a power boost to terran.
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
It's not a question of scouting. My build has to take into account various potential things you can do. Of course I scout, but my build has to be designed to take your build into account and have the potential to react. If you can open mech and just outright kill blink all-ins all the time as a viable standard, I can't do blink builds anymore. Certainly you don't go blink after observer, unless you want it to be too late. Your response is just plain silly. Bio is perfectly valid against protoss, you don't need tanks against them, therefore tanks being bad against them is irrelevant. Just like protoss don't really make carriers against terran (tanks are more common vs. toss than carriers are vs. terran).
Anytime you limit your opponents options that's a buff for your race. Anytime you introduce options for one player, you are removing options for the opponent. That's a buff. I'm sorry but it is. If you want to argue that we should nerf protoss that's different, but pretending it's not a buff for terran in the matchup is just ridiculous.
And if you think stargate becoming a viable opener in PvT wasn't a buff to protoss, you're off your rocker.
You're just trolling.
You don't need colossus against Terrans. Templars work just fine, so if we nerf Colossus to deal 1 damage then it doesn't matter since you can beat terrans without colossus.
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to scout your opponent? Between probe/zealot pokes (to track infantry numbers), hallucinated phoenix scouts, mothership (supported by stalkers), Protoss has a lot of ways to scout whether or not Terran has made 1 or 4 Factories. Your argument is literally that you can't use 1 of your many ways to scout terran?
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to find out if terran is making infantry or if terran is making tanks or if terran is making vikings?
Needing to scout the opponent is the complete opposite of a fucking buff, its literally the first step in making any Fog of War based game. The less you need to scout the less finished your RTS is.
Colossus are necessary for PvT. If the game goes long enough and enough ghosts come out, you must have colossus to fight that.
It has nothing to do with not scouting, and everything to do with the stuff leading up to the scouting. Of course you scout, but your build has to take into account the new options including your prepared reaction after you scout.
You don't know what you're talking about, and no, I'm not trolling.
What the hell are you talking about?
Your example explicitly says that you don't want to make Mech viable because you don't want to send an observer to the terran base to have to know if terran has spent 800mineral/400gas on factories.
On May 04 2014 07:08 Thieving Magpie wrote: [quote]
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
On May 04 2014 09:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:
On May 04 2014 09:04 Whitewing wrote: [quote]
Terran has options, they're just weaker than people want them to be. You can open cloak banshee, it just gets shut down if toss has a robo or a stargate, so people choose not to. You can open widow mine drops, but it gets shut down by a forge and cannons. Hellion rushes are an option, but protoss can defend those reasonably easily. Thus, they aren't really considered 'options'. People aren't asking for more midgame stuff, they want early game attack options. How do you give more options without making something stronger? If it isn't at least as strong as things done at the exact same time, it isn't an option that's going to be used at all, and if it doesn't have a different response than normal toss play, it might as well not be there. If it does have a different response, then toss builds are affected and that's a power boost to terran.
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
It's not a question of scouting. My build has to take into account various potential things you can do. Of course I scout, but my build has to be designed to take your build into account and have the potential to react. If you can open mech and just outright kill blink all-ins all the time as a viable standard, I can't do blink builds anymore. Certainly you don't go blink after observer, unless you want it to be too late. Your response is just plain silly. Bio is perfectly valid against protoss, you don't need tanks against them, therefore tanks being bad against them is irrelevant. Just like protoss don't really make carriers against terran (tanks are more common vs. toss than carriers are vs. terran).
Anytime you limit your opponents options that's a buff for your race. Anytime you introduce options for one player, you are removing options for the opponent. That's a buff. I'm sorry but it is. If you want to argue that we should nerf protoss that's different, but pretending it's not a buff for terran in the matchup is just ridiculous.
And if you think stargate becoming a viable opener in PvT wasn't a buff to protoss, you're off your rocker.
You're just trolling.
You don't need colossus against Terrans. Templars work just fine, so if we nerf Colossus to deal 1 damage then it doesn't matter since you can beat terrans without colossus.
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to scout your opponent? Between probe/zealot pokes (to track infantry numbers), hallucinated phoenix scouts, mothership (supported by stalkers), Protoss has a lot of ways to scout whether or not Terran has made 1 or 4 Factories. Your argument is literally that you can't use 1 of your many ways to scout terran?
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to find out if terran is making infantry or if terran is making tanks or if terran is making vikings?
Needing to scout the opponent is the complete opposite of a fucking buff, its literally the first step in making any Fog of War based game. The less you need to scout the less finished your RTS is.
Colossus are necessary for PvT. If the game goes long enough and enough ghosts come out, you must have colossus to fight that.
It has nothing to do with not scouting, and everything to do with the stuff leading up to the scouting. Of course you scout, but your build has to take into account the new options including your prepared reaction after you scout.
You don't know what you're talking about, and no, I'm not trolling.
What the hell are you talking about?
Your example explicitly says that you don't want to make Mech viable because you don't want to send an observer to the terran base to have to know if terran has spent 800mineral/400gas on factories.
No, it has nothing to do with what I do or do not want. I'm merely stating that it's a buff to terran.
On May 04 2014 09:14 TheDwf wrote: [quote] No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
On May 04 2014 09:16 Thieving Magpie wrote: [quote]
They want midgame viability. They feel the best way to provide that is by giving terran better ability to pressure early. That is a seperate discussion from the "more Options" discussion because terran already HAVE early game pressure and people are asking for that pressure to be stronger.
When people ask for more OPTIONS that is a separate request where MMM is no longer the only tech being used for the mid and late game.
Currently, Terran has many options for early game pressure--people want those options to be stronger.
Terran also has few to no other options for midgame and lategame terran compositions and strategy--people want those options to be more plentiful.
The people asking for PO nerfs and timing buffs want *stronger* terran options. The people asking for Mech, Sky, Biomech, bioSky, etc... want more terran options.
Both tactics are an attempt to resolve the same issue of too few terran representation in the tournament scene.
Try not to get them confused because both require different arguments and different answers.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
It's not a question of scouting. My build has to take into account various potential things you can do. Of course I scout, but my build has to be designed to take your build into account and have the potential to react. If you can open mech and just outright kill blink all-ins all the time as a viable standard, I can't do blink builds anymore. Certainly you don't go blink after observer, unless you want it to be too late. Your response is just plain silly. Bio is perfectly valid against protoss, you don't need tanks against them, therefore tanks being bad against them is irrelevant. Just like protoss don't really make carriers against terran (tanks are more common vs. toss than carriers are vs. terran).
Anytime you limit your opponents options that's a buff for your race. Anytime you introduce options for one player, you are removing options for the opponent. That's a buff. I'm sorry but it is. If you want to argue that we should nerf protoss that's different, but pretending it's not a buff for terran in the matchup is just ridiculous.
And if you think stargate becoming a viable opener in PvT wasn't a buff to protoss, you're off your rocker.
You're just trolling.
You don't need colossus against Terrans. Templars work just fine, so if we nerf Colossus to deal 1 damage then it doesn't matter since you can beat terrans without colossus.
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to scout your opponent? Between probe/zealot pokes (to track infantry numbers), hallucinated phoenix scouts, mothership (supported by stalkers), Protoss has a lot of ways to scout whether or not Terran has made 1 or 4 Factories. Your argument is literally that you can't use 1 of your many ways to scout terran?
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to find out if terran is making infantry or if terran is making tanks or if terran is making vikings?
Needing to scout the opponent is the complete opposite of a fucking buff, its literally the first step in making any Fog of War based game. The less you need to scout the less finished your RTS is.
Colossus are necessary for PvT. If the game goes long enough and enough ghosts come out, you must have colossus to fight that.
It has nothing to do with not scouting, and everything to do with the stuff leading up to the scouting. Of course you scout, but your build has to take into account the new options including your prepared reaction after you scout.
You don't know what you're talking about, and no, I'm not trolling.
What the hell are you talking about?
Your example explicitly says that you don't want to make Mech viable because you don't want to send an observer to the terran base to have to know if terran has spent 800mineral/400gas on factories.
No, it has nothing to do with what I do or do not want. I'm merely stating that it's a buff to terran.
And I'm telling you that needing to scout terran is not a fucking buff. It is simply bringing the race to the minimum standards of what an RTS should be.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
[quote]
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
It's not a question of scouting. My build has to take into account various potential things you can do. Of course I scout, but my build has to be designed to take your build into account and have the potential to react. If you can open mech and just outright kill blink all-ins all the time as a viable standard, I can't do blink builds anymore. Certainly you don't go blink after observer, unless you want it to be too late. Your response is just plain silly. Bio is perfectly valid against protoss, you don't need tanks against them, therefore tanks being bad against them is irrelevant. Just like protoss don't really make carriers against terran (tanks are more common vs. toss than carriers are vs. terran).
Anytime you limit your opponents options that's a buff for your race. Anytime you introduce options for one player, you are removing options for the opponent. That's a buff. I'm sorry but it is. If you want to argue that we should nerf protoss that's different, but pretending it's not a buff for terran in the matchup is just ridiculous.
And if you think stargate becoming a viable opener in PvT wasn't a buff to protoss, you're off your rocker.
You're just trolling.
You don't need colossus against Terrans. Templars work just fine, so if we nerf Colossus to deal 1 damage then it doesn't matter since you can beat terrans without colossus.
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to scout your opponent? Between probe/zealot pokes (to track infantry numbers), hallucinated phoenix scouts, mothership (supported by stalkers), Protoss has a lot of ways to scout whether or not Terran has made 1 or 4 Factories. Your argument is literally that you can't use 1 of your many ways to scout terran?
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to find out if terran is making infantry or if terran is making tanks or if terran is making vikings?
Needing to scout the opponent is the complete opposite of a fucking buff, its literally the first step in making any Fog of War based game. The less you need to scout the less finished your RTS is.
Colossus are necessary for PvT. If the game goes long enough and enough ghosts come out, you must have colossus to fight that.
It has nothing to do with not scouting, and everything to do with the stuff leading up to the scouting. Of course you scout, but your build has to take into account the new options including your prepared reaction after you scout.
You don't know what you're talking about, and no, I'm not trolling.
What the hell are you talking about?
Your example explicitly says that you don't want to make Mech viable because you don't want to send an observer to the terran base to have to know if terran has spent 800mineral/400gas on factories.
No, it has nothing to do with what I do or do not want. I'm merely stating that it's a buff to terran.
And I'm telling you that needing to scout terran is not a fucking buff. It is simply bringing the race to the minimum standards of what an RTS should be.
On May 04 2014 11:47 Thieving Magpie wrote: [quote]
Options are not a buff. Protoss needing to scout if theres only 1-2 factories or if there's 6-7 factories is not a terran buff its the whole fucking point of an RTS.
Of course it's a buff! It's an entirely different playstyle that has an entirely different reaction. Consider: let's say protoss wants to do a blink stalker all-in but tanks are better against toss because they buffed them to make mech more viable, so toss runs into 3 tanks and gets obliterated. Well, that build isn't viable anymore. Or how about this: different maps will favor different builds. Some maps are better for mech and some are better for bio. Where do you balance for mech compared to bio? How do you balance protoss's anti-mech vs mech on various maps?
You cannot add more options to a race without buffing them. Options are a buff to the race as a whole, plain and simple.
Why isn't your hypothetical protoss player scouting? Reacting to what he learns? Reacting to how the terran is playing?
Just because terran *can* play differently and protoss *can't* just blindly pick whatever build they want does not make it a buff.
Let me put it this way.
Terran player wants to make tanks, oh wait, the opponent is protoss? Protoss must be overpowered since tanks sucks vs Protoss, nerf the entire protoss race then until Terran can build 3 tanks every PvT and be able to win games with it.
That would be a stupid reason to nerf protoss. Terran being able to either go for tanks in the midgame OR infantry in the midgame is not a fucking buff for the same reason Protoss being able to go Robo or Twilight or Stargate is not a fucking buff. Its literally just fucking options to play a fucking game.
It's not a question of scouting. My build has to take into account various potential things you can do. Of course I scout, but my build has to be designed to take your build into account and have the potential to react. If you can open mech and just outright kill blink all-ins all the time as a viable standard, I can't do blink builds anymore. Certainly you don't go blink after observer, unless you want it to be too late. Your response is just plain silly. Bio is perfectly valid against protoss, you don't need tanks against them, therefore tanks being bad against them is irrelevant. Just like protoss don't really make carriers against terran (tanks are more common vs. toss than carriers are vs. terran).
Anytime you limit your opponents options that's a buff for your race. Anytime you introduce options for one player, you are removing options for the opponent. That's a buff. I'm sorry but it is. If you want to argue that we should nerf protoss that's different, but pretending it's not a buff for terran in the matchup is just ridiculous.
And if you think stargate becoming a viable opener in PvT wasn't a buff to protoss, you're off your rocker.
You're just trolling.
You don't need colossus against Terrans. Templars work just fine, so if we nerf Colossus to deal 1 damage then it doesn't matter since you can beat terrans without colossus.
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to scout your opponent? Between probe/zealot pokes (to track infantry numbers), hallucinated phoenix scouts, mothership (supported by stalkers), Protoss has a lot of ways to scout whether or not Terran has made 1 or 4 Factories. Your argument is literally that you can't use 1 of your many ways to scout terran?
Your argument is literally that you don't want to have to find out if terran is making infantry or if terran is making tanks or if terran is making vikings?
Needing to scout the opponent is the complete opposite of a fucking buff, its literally the first step in making any Fog of War based game. The less you need to scout the less finished your RTS is.
Colossus are necessary for PvT. If the game goes long enough and enough ghosts come out, you must have colossus to fight that.
It has nothing to do with not scouting, and everything to do with the stuff leading up to the scouting. Of course you scout, but your build has to take into account the new options including your prepared reaction after you scout.
You don't know what you're talking about, and no, I'm not trolling.
What the hell are you talking about?
Your example explicitly says that you don't want to make Mech viable because you don't want to send an observer to the terran base to have to know if terran has spent 800mineral/400gas on factories.
No, it has nothing to do with what I do or do not want. I'm merely stating that it's a buff to terran.
And I'm telling you that needing to scout terran is not a fucking buff. It is simply bringing the race to the minimum standards of what an RTS should be.
Those aren't mutually exclusive.
Replacing flat tires in a car =/= buffing a car. Bringing something to working condition is not buffing it.
I hope I misread but are protoss players really arguing that having to scout the Terran is a freaking buff?? Are guys just trolling or has protoss had such a easy time on the ladder vs terran, that they could blindly do silly things like blink all ins, macro *insert random weird protoss*build
There is a reason terran is pretty much forced into reaper expand every single game vs protoss....they HAVE to know what build they are doing or they die early/mid game.
On May 04 2014 14:41 LingBlingBling wrote: I hope I misread but are protoss players really arguing that having to scout the Terran is a freaking buff?? Are guys just trolling or has protoss had such a easy time on the ladder vs terran, that they could blindly do silly things like blink all ins, macro *insert random weird protoss*build
There is a reason terran is pretty much forced into reaper expand every single game vs protoss....they HAVE to know what build they are doing or they die early/mid game.
In fairness to Protoss, its just Whitewing saying it.
I suggested that Terran wanted either stronger timing attacks or better mid/late game options so that they can spam something other than MMM. His complaint cited that he would have to scout with an obs before making non-stop stalkers--which is ridiculous.
On May 04 2014 06:40 TheDwf wrote: [quote] Yes, I meant that 50:50 ≠ balance because of that kind of phenomenon.
Yes, but the resolution to this phenomenon is not by whining about balance. Under representation of a race is far more complex of a matter to resolve.
Sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with the previous subject?
When a matchup is 50/50 by definition it is balanced.
No: if AvB is 50:50 but the statistics involve top10 players from the race A against top50 players of the race B, this is a sign of imbalance.
Not really, it's a sign that one race is harder to play than the other. If the best terran can go 50/50 against the best toss, that's balance, and everything else is irrelevant.
So whether the game is balanced or not depends on the players who are playing it? If that's not the most useless definition of the word 'balance' I've ever encountered, I don't know what is. What if Maru and Polt stop playing SC2 tomorrow, suddenly TvP takes a huge dive because no one else can mechanically reproduce their success, and, what? The game is now imbalanced because it went from 50/50 to 55/45 based on two top 5 players disappearing? That's a joke if ever there was one.
What if we make Terran even harder to play mechanically than it is now, so that there are zero Terrans in Code S. There's still the chance that if a good enough player comes along to play Terran, like, five times better than Maru is now, he'll slaughter everyone... so... I guess the game would still be potentially imbalanced in Terran's favor, in some absurd and clearly useless meaning of the words?
A balanced MU is one where Hypothetical Player playing Race A can play his mirror universe twin who plays Race B and they will come out at 50/50 over any long-enough stretch. That is balance. Very simple. Objectively immeasurable because there are no mirror universe twins who have been playing different races for the exact same period of time, but subjectively very measurable because we have brains that are capable of entertaining hypothetical scenarios.
Like here's a hypothetical scenario, MVP.Tails starts playing Terran. He's never heard from again for as long as he lives. That's not balance.
Options are a buff. If terran can go mech and have it be equally as effective as bio, then that's a buff because protoss builds and strategies need to take that into account. That limits protoss, which is a buff.
Please show me the Terran who has said that, if Terran gets new options and they are too strong for Protoss to handle, shifting the balance completely in Terran's favor, we are against a Protoss buff.
Cart before the horse.
If we have evidence that a matchup can be 50:50 and is being executed as such--we don't ignore that data.
If Maru and Polt never existed, and we have 0 players in top ranks, then you can make the hypothesis (based on evidence at hand) that Terran cannot beat Protoss.
Right now we have empirical proof that Terrans can beat protoss consistently, some terrans at least. What we don't have proof of is if this performance is repeatable. Whether we are okay or not with its irrepeatability is a different one from balance.
Let me get this right. So until Maru, arguably the best Terran in the world, possibly the best player in the world, starts to have a less than 50-50 record against someone like Tassadar, we can't judge the game to be imbalanced?
Please tell me your position is not reducible to that.
I'm saying that we can't use evidence for things it does not show causation to.
Maru is is able to stay in the top ranks of the GSL. That means that it is possible to play terran in the top ranks of the GSL. The top terran players have about a 50% winrate vs top protoss players--that means (by definition) that top level TvP is balanced.
Just because its balanced does not mean it isn't problematic. Patches can be introduced to fix things that aren't imbalanced but are problematic.
The reason I say this is because a lot of players conflate lack of Terran representation with winrate imbalance when they are not the same things. They usually show correlation, but they don't causate.
Once again, its about statistics. Terran has an overall 50% winrate against Protoss. They also have a lack of representation. Right now, people want to attribute the lack of representation to be caused by imbalance. But there is no proof of that.
Lack of representation, combined with with even winrates in top level play, suggests that the problem is ability to execute strategies. Either Protoss Strategies are too easy to execute, or Terran strategies are too difficult to execute. And that is assuming the lack of terran representation is correlated to high level of protoss representation. Zerg might be kicking terrans out, out of game problems that strangely affects terrans more ("wrist issues"), etc...
But you can't blame imbalance when there's a 50/50 winrate.
Lol, using your theory, we can't ever talk about imbalance at all. Why are you using Maru, he is the best terran in the world but hardly 'perfect'. True imbalance by your definition can only be achieved when both players playing perfectly which has never and will never happen.
Even back in the 1-1-1 days, I can go to any 1-1-1 game and point out where the protoss made a mistake.
And even your last point, the difficulty of execution IS part of balance.
When most people talk about balance at the top level, it probably means if you have the top 10-20 of each race play each other, you get a close to 50/50 win rate.
EPT
