[Aug] TLPD Race Winrate Graphs - Page 8

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.

On September 05 2011 22:56 BronzeKnee wrote:


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.

On September 06 2011 07:54 harhar! wrote:
do the MLG results count?
if yes, then it would be a major flaw in these statistics, since they always invite like 6 t and 2 p and z. and obviously a t will be winning.

On September 05 2011 20:34 Truedot wrote:


so you're saying there's a fundamental design flaw with the game.

On September 06 2011 08:41 Derity wrote:
july had no composition, he sent like 10 ultras without support into nothing and some more weird moves

stats looks quite good to me.

On September 06 2011 08:47 Orcasgt24 wrote:

The last attack Jully had 13 Ultralisks, 9 Broodlords, 7ish Infestors and some Corruptors. + random zerg cannon fodders.

Ghosts killed 80% of that using just snipe and the 6 Thors finished the clean-up. He EMPed ONCE and disabled all the Infestors.

After seeing that game I think EMP needs to be a single target ability.