|
On September 06 2011 07:33 SpinmovE wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 06:00 Truedot wrote:On September 05 2011 22:56 BronzeKnee wrote:On September 05 2011 22:45 chestnutcc wrote:
A v subjective and amateur viewpoint here; apologies beforehand. I used to play age of empires and age of mythology extensively a few years back, and could not help but notice some interesting distinctions between that series and starcraft 2 (I have no experience with broodwar).
In the age series, macro focused around four resources and the ease of collection of each varied according to its relative importance. For example, gold (or stone) would be randomly flung about the map in concentrated amounts, wood was abundant for the most part etc. Additionally, resource collection required only a low cost dumping structure (such as a granary)*. The effect of this multiplicity of resources was that harassment (or raiding as it is known in that community) was a v integral part of the game. Constant raiding was a feature of even the most macro oriented games (the age series had a interesting blend of hard macro and intensive harass). Since games did not usually end with a few decisive encounters, it was the ability of players to resupply and macro up constantly that won games, and this was what the continuous harass targeted.
iamke55 in an excellent thread** outlines the PvT metagame, which ends in the current state (forget the 1-1-1 for now) of terran taxing protoss multitasking with constant harass. Terran in particular are v suited to this style of play, all thanks (imo) to the mule. This is critical to their playstyle. Count the raiding avenues they have: Reapers, hellions, banshees and drops.
The shift in the zerg meta game may be attributed to the aggressive nestea-losira style (in tastosis terms, nestea being pure reactionary harass, while losira forcing his will on the opponent with constant harass). Zerg have speedlings, mutas and even baneling drops (nydus worms are less seen).
Toss have at best, blink stalkers and phoenix, the latter of which I think are neutralized by a few turrets. I am unsure of the efficacy of DTs, they seem to do better late game, when the opponents attention is stretched over multiple bases, early to mid game a single detector can neutralize them, and they are (taking the tech path into consideration) cost ineffective. Warp prisms are rarely seen, and early to midgame appear to be cost ineffective, due to the constraints the macro game places on toss army size (all ins aside). The interesting thing is that both terran and zerg can effectively pressure from the get go, toss is at a disadvantage here; this is sort of how the game is supposed to be. It would seem toss needs a raiding unit of some sort, to exert some counter pressure cost effectively***.
*This basically meant a single raid wasn't usually game ending, good macro could always resupply efficiently. It was only one part of a larger war of attrition, and effects multiplied the longer the game got. Also note that four resources provided more avenues for effective harass; in sc2 the concentration of two resources at one generally hard to access and defensible spot means the efficacy of harass, when it happens, is vastly increased i.e. a single good raid can end the game.The distinction between harassment and timing attacks is obvious.
**http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=196385
***The inability to do this imo, provides timing windows, which builds like the 1-1-1 exploit. Good post. I would like to add to this that the reason Warp Prisms are rarely seen is due to a three fundamental problems it has: #1 The unit has no other uses. Medivacs and Overlords are necessary pieces in nearly every T and every Z build even if they don't drop units, and thus drops become a cheap option for both races that they can deploy if they sense a weakness. If you build a Warp Prism and suddenly the window to drop closes, you've wasted 200 minerals. #2 The Warp Prism takes away precious time from the Robo facility. #3 Protoss doesn't have a really good worker kills that you would want to drop. 8 Marines with Stim can decimate workers, as can Zerglings/Hellions/Banelings. Zealots do decent damage but are too slow, Stalkers, Immortals and Sentries cost too much and do too little DPS. DT's are HT's are the best options, but both are very high up the tech tree, and thus still open up timings like the 1-1-1. Furthermore, since DT's are cloaked, they often do no need the help of a Warp Prism to reach the opponents mineral line. The proposed change to increase the shields of the Warp Prism is welcome, but doesn't solve the three fundamental problems with the unit. It sounds like Blizzard knows this from what I've heard, and will include better harrassment options for Protoss. I'd like to add that I loved the Age of mythology game for exactly that reason. Not only was playing norse cool to me, with their wolf head/fur wearing basic attack unit guys, but the gameplay style, as mentioned above seemed perfectly strategic. you could go for a head on attack, and you could easily harass and take away resources, but superior gameplay tended to win out ever time. IN SC2, because Dustin Browder and Co tried to make it "e-sport friendly, where wild upsets and degrees of success lead to the winner and its more entertaining", suddenly the game is a lot more uncertain about win or loss based on skill, and sometimes you can simply nuke something important that ends the game before they even lose their army. Warp prisms don't have more uses? Proxy pylon that can fly over cliffs seems like a damn good use? ever try a warp prism following a colossus into a fight, and morphing it right at the start to reinforce on the spot? its deadly to zergs in a standup fight. I just don't see that argument holding water. If you said LIMITED, I might agree. Or you could just proxy a pylon instead which would reinforce at virtually the same speed and give you +8 supply instead of -2, not take robo time away from other units, and lastly costs half as much. Where warp prisms really shine is in the late game where you are able to warp in units (dts) at 2+ different bases on different sides of maps and maybe take out a key tech building. They are virtually useless for trying to maximize efficient army reinforcing, that's why you never see anyone do it.
warp in time for pylons = what, 25 seconds? Warp in time for morphing a WP into a mobile pylon = 2 seconds.
And Im talking about putting it right on the enemy creep, a place a pylon cant go. But whatever, you're free to think what you like, even if its wrong.
On September 06 2011 09:13 Bagi wrote:
We've had literally one game where ghosts were used very effectively against zerg and people are already crying for nerfs?
Is this for real?
its less the point that ghost is Anti-caster and now appears to be Anti-ARMY. How does that make sense?
In Brood war, ghosts sucked vs Mech (or medium and large units) hard. Their main use was to provide EMP and nukes.
With the addition of SNIPE, they've literally become Anti-Zerg en masse. Because Zerg has no mech.
|
On September 06 2011 10:29 kodas wrote:
I don't see why everyone is complaining so hard. From what I see there is nothing over a 5% deviation, which is pretty good, i'm sorry your race isn't on the uprise
right because terran having over 60% win rate at times is less than 5% deviation...
|
On September 06 2011 23:59 Truedot wrote:
In Brood war, ghosts sucked vs Mech (or medium and large units) hard. Their main use was to provide EMP and nukes.
Uh? In BW ghosts didnt have EMP
|
On September 06 2011 13:32 Not_That wrote:
I don't know how you can argue that. His argument boils down to 'Terran players are just better'. How does one go about proving such a thing? In a game with millions of players (and 114,000 players on the Korean server), can you really make the argument that the ones who chose Terran are simply better? Wouldn't it be more realistic to consider the possibility that the game is not balanced?
What I meant was that these win rates reflect balance at a pro-level. Korea obviously has a history with competitive gaming and with the release of a new game such as Starcraft II a lot of Koreans started to play knowing they were capable of playing at a competitive level, perhaps because they were already good at Brood War. It's not a stretch at all to say that there might be certain factors that could lead to a higher percentage of professional players picking Terran as their race, since they made their race choice with competitive play in mind.
1. Terran was strongest at release.
2. Terran was always the race with the best representation at higher levels.
3. Terran is the most successful race in Brood War.
4. Boxer and Nada were high-profile Terran players that switched to Starcraft II and might have inspired some youngsters to pick Terran.
5. Terran allows for multitasking and plays similar to Brood War's Terran.
6. If you ask a lot of pros what their advice would be to an aspiring pro, they'd say: pick Terran. This might be a joke, but I think it's still accepted in Korea Terran is the best race for competitive play. It might be a wrong impression by them, but it would still be influential in some way.
If this is true - it might be, I don't know - then just using the GSL in a discussion about balance is likely flawed as you would need broader data. It's also dangerous in that people can get bored of TvT, so I suppose Blizzard should keep an eye on stuff like this.
|
On September 06 2011 16:25 tomatriedes wrote:
I wonder if the terran player/fans would be quite so sanguine about these win rates if it were the other races that were ahead. Methinks not.
Well - of course not. It has nothing to do with being Terran though. Whichever race is the strongest at a certain point in time will gladly complain when they are on the bottom of the food chain.
The only problem is that the vast majority of people turn into whiny 5th graders saying stuff like "LOL now it's my turn to whine.." etc. taking away from any meaningful discussion.
|
Terran has been above 50% winrate consistently... this nerf can't come soon enough!
|
I hate when people think:
A) This applies to them
B) The game will not evolve further
|
On September 06 2011 15:03 j0ker wrote:
terran is the most popular race in korea. korean has more top pros playing terran. not only does this affect the numbers by itself, but builds and strategies grow exponentially faster because there are more heads working together. not saying terran isn't the strongest overall, but its certainly not dramatic. and i would love for a zerg to argue tvz is imbalanced.
more people playing one race or the other wont make a difference. because:
if both races have perfect balance, 50/50 W:L between T and P will still be observed.
As All P's eventually lose because it has an equal chance of winning vs T, and there's more T's so eventually they lose, then it will be TvT, which are all thrown out when considering W:L since T can still only win 50% of the time.
Lets make an example
2P and 10T.
after 4 games, assuming P wins the first game, There is no more P, and only T left. TvT obviously won't increase the winrate of TvP. So even though there's a lot more Ts in the game it did nothing to affect the W:L between TvP.
This is of course assuming that there's equally skilled players playing both T and P, which is what does occur when Ts and Ps make it to the same tournament. they have demonstrated that level of skill.
|
On September 07 2011 00:17 Anwyn wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 23:59 Truedot wrote:
In Brood war, ghosts sucked vs Mech (or medium and large units) hard. Their main use was to provide EMP and nukes.
Uh? In BW ghosts didnt have EMP
you're right, it was lockdown, which targeted a mech unit and made it immobile + unable to attack. Oh the QQ if infestor Fungal did that.
|
Will be fun to see T % drop to 45% for a years and see how much they wine. ^^
P and Z could sit down and just say : NOW IT'S YOUR TURN! :-D
|
On September 07 2011 00:33 Truedot wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2011 15:03 j0ker wrote:
terran is the most popular race in korea. korean has more top pros playing terran. not only does this affect the numbers by itself, but builds and strategies grow exponentially faster because there are more heads working together. not saying terran isn't the strongest overall, but its certainly not dramatic. and i would love for a zerg to argue tvz is imbalanced. more people playing one race or the other wont make a difference. because: if both races have perfect balance, 50/50 W:L between T and P will still be observed. As All P's eventually lose because it has an equal chance of winning vs T, and there's more T's so eventually they lose, then it will be TvT, which are all thrown out when considering W:L since T can still only win 50% of the time. Lets make an example 2P and 10T. after 4 games, assuming P wins the first game, There is no more P, and only T left. TvT obviously won't increase the winrate of TvP. So even though there's a lot more Ts in the game it did nothing to affect the W:L between TvP. This is of course assuming that there's equally skilled players playing both T and P, which is what does occur when Ts and Ps make it to the same tournament. they have demonstrated that level of skill.
Not true! More T means more player thinking about T and a faster evolving metagame for T!
If 100 Protoss try to figure out a solution to 1-1-1 it obviously going to take a longer time than if there were 1000 Protoss (lets asume equal skill, picking another race doesn't make you more skilled!)
|
On September 07 2011 00:36 Skydancer wrote:
Will be fun to see T % drop to 45% for a years and see how much they wine. ^^
P and Z could sit down and just say : NOW IT'S YOUR TURN! :-D Doesn't really matter to the average TL user anyway. It's the korean terrans with pristine mechanics/multitasking/micro that really make it shine, the standard diamond/masters terran on ladder hasn't been dominating all this time lol.
Same reasoning makes it silly that people complain so much, if you are losing it's almost guaranteed to be due to your own terrible mistakes rather than imbalance.
|
On September 06 2011 23:59 Truedot wrote:
In Brood war, ghosts sucked vs Mech (or medium and large units) hard. Their main use was to provide EMP and nukes.
With the addition of SNIPE, they've literally become Anti-Zerg en masse. Because Zerg has no mech.
In BW the ghost hadn't EMP.
|
On September 07 2011 00:59 merlin101 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 00:33 Truedot wrote:On September 06 2011 15:03 j0ker wrote:
terran is the most popular race in korea. korean has more top pros playing terran. not only does this affect the numbers by itself, but builds and strategies grow exponentially faster because there are more heads working together. not saying terran isn't the strongest overall, but its certainly not dramatic. and i would love for a zerg to argue tvz is imbalanced. more people playing one race or the other wont make a difference. because: if both races have perfect balance, 50/50 W:L between T and P will still be observed. As All P's eventually lose because it has an equal chance of winning vs T, and there's more T's so eventually they lose, then it will be TvT, which are all thrown out when considering W:L since T can still only win 50% of the time. Lets make an example 2P and 10T. after 4 games, assuming P wins the first game, There is no more P, and only T left. TvT obviously won't increase the winrate of TvP. So even though there's a lot more Ts in the game it did nothing to affect the W:L between TvP. This is of course assuming that there's equally skilled players playing both T and P, which is what does occur when Ts and Ps make it to the same tournament. they have demonstrated that level of skill. Not true! More T means more player thinking about T and a faster evolving metagame for T! If 100 Protoss try to figure out a solution to 1-1-1 it obviously going to take a longer time than if there were 1000 Protoss (lets asume equal skill, picking another race doesn't make you more skilled!)
If only we could see the results of the Terran "evolving metagame" in anything but TvT. TvZ and TvP have mostly been the same thing over and over since release, just with improving execution. If what you're doing works, then why change it? Protoss and Zerg innovation was an effect of these races struggling in their matchups - and lo and behold, PvZ is by far the matchup that sees the most change in strategies and playstyles.
|
On September 07 2011 00:59 merlin101 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 00:33 Truedot wrote:On September 06 2011 15:03 j0ker wrote:
terran is the most popular race in korea. korean has more top pros playing terran. not only does this affect the numbers by itself, but builds and strategies grow exponentially faster because there are more heads working together. not saying terran isn't the strongest overall, but its certainly not dramatic. and i would love for a zerg to argue tvz is imbalanced. more people playing one race or the other wont make a difference. because: if both races have perfect balance, 50/50 W:L between T and P will still be observed. As All P's eventually lose because it has an equal chance of winning vs T, and there's more T's so eventually they lose, then it will be TvT, which are all thrown out when considering W:L since T can still only win 50% of the time. Lets make an example 2P and 10T. after 4 games, assuming P wins the first game, There is no more P, and only T left. TvT obviously won't increase the winrate of TvP. So even though there's a lot more Ts in the game it did nothing to affect the W:L between TvP. This is of course assuming that there's equally skilled players playing both T and P, which is what does occur when Ts and Ps make it to the same tournament. they have demonstrated that level of skill. Not true! More T means more player thinking about T and a faster evolving metagame for T! If 100 Protoss try to figure out a solution to 1-1-1 it obviously going to take a longer time than if there were 1000 Protoss (lets asume equal skill, picking another race doesn't make you more skilled!)
ever hear of "too many cooks in the kitchen"? There will be entropy with the supposed growth of Terran builds because of the fact that build X which beats Protoss build Y won't be necessary because Protoss build Y hasn't been invented yet due to lower numbers of Protoss. So saying that Terrans will build build X when it has no use is akin to saying that people will build a giant spaceship right now to flee Earth because its going to be destroyed in 10 million years when the sun finally explodes.
There's no way they're going to do that because its not a forseeable future that can be planned around.
The slower growing race sets the pace. So your reasoning is flawed.. If the Terrans do Build X to beat P build Y, which P hasn't even invented yet, then It will only help P as it will reveal what P CAN do.
|
On September 07 2011 01:04 Nexic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 00:36 Skydancer wrote:
Will be fun to see T % drop to 45% for a years and see how much they wine. ^^
P and Z could sit down and just say : NOW IT'S YOUR TURN! :-D Doesn't really matter to the average TL user anyway. It's the korean terrans with pristine mechanics/multitasking/micro that really make it shine, the standard diamond/masters terran on ladder hasn't been dominating all this time lol. Same reasoning makes it silly that people complain so much, if you are losing it's almost guaranteed to be due to your own terrible mistakes rather than imbalance.
Not true at all. The average master ladder terran sees korean terran going for 1 base allin, copies it and wins easily. The thing is that you don't really need "pristine mechanics/multitasking/micro" to execute this 1 base builds which win you most of the TvP.
|
On September 07 2011 01:04 Nexic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 00:36 Skydancer wrote:
Will be fun to see T % drop to 45% for a years and see how much they wine. ^^
P and Z could sit down and just say : NOW IT'S YOUR TURN! :-D Doesn't really matter to the average TL user anyway. It's the korean terrans with pristine mechanics/multitasking/micro that really make it shine, the standard diamond/masters terran on ladder hasn't been dominating all this time lol. Same reasoning makes it silly that people complain so much, if you are losing it's almost guaranteed to be due to your own terrible mistakes rather than imbalance.
It DOES matter to the average TL user. Not because it affects them when they play, but it definitely affects the highest level matches, which many TL users watch. If SC2 is not fun to watch for protoss and zerg players because terrans are too dominant, then a large portion of the fan base will stop watching MLG and the GSL and esports will take a big hit. Making sure one race does not dominate is imperative for the game to survive long enough to even reach the last expansion.
|
On September 07 2011 00:35 Truedot wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2011 00:17 Anwyn wrote:On September 06 2011 23:59 Truedot wrote:
In Brood war, ghosts sucked vs Mech (or medium and large units) hard. Their main use was to provide EMP and nukes.
Uh? In BW ghosts didnt have EMP you're right, it was lockdown, which targeted a mech unit and made it immobile + unable to attack. Oh the QQ if infestor Fungal did that.
Um yeah, I'm sure people would QQ if a single-target ability from Brood War was given a large AOE...Though I suppose neural parasite does the same thing, just for a much shorter period of time and lets you have control over the unit.
|
On September 05 2011 20:09 SwampZero wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2011 20:04 spacemonkeyy wrote:
Yet according to Idra- protoss still OP. Fucking LOL. Protoss do have some insanely OP abilities, but are nerfed overally to balance them out. Sentry Force Field is such a hard ability, it should not even exist.
One fungal does the same thing as 6 forcefields, and it does damage... and it allow zergling/ultra melee units to attack trapped units... and it hits/traps air... and you can't burrow move under it or pick up units with dropships out of it.
But FF is OP?
|
On September 07 2011 05:57 RemrafGrez wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2011 20:09 SwampZero wrote:On September 05 2011 20:04 spacemonkeyy wrote:
Yet according to Idra- protoss still OP. Fucking LOL. Protoss do have some insanely OP abilities, but are nerfed overally to balance them out. Sentry Force Field is such a hard ability, it should not even exist. One fungal does the same thing as 6 forcefields, and it does damage... and it allow zergling/ultra melee units to attack trapped units... and it hits/traps air... and you can't burrow move under it or pick up units with dropships out of it. But FF is OP?
Force Field lasts 3.5 times as long.
Zerg would trade all of fungals damage for that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
