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On December 03 2012 09:12 Ben... wrote:That would break TvP. How would Protoss hold stim timings? The Terran would just run through the forcefields with their units (stim and the slow would almost cancel each other out) and then win. The 2 medivac timings we see at 10-11 minutes or so would be insanely hard to hold. The other thing to keep in mind is that forcefield prevents vision up ramps. In HOTS this wouldn't matter but in WOL this would make 4gate only for PvP again because you could just sacrifice a unit running into the slow forcefield up the ramp, gain vision, then warp in.
Thats thé whole point of changing/removing forcefields. The whole protoss early game is revolving around forcefields and Blizz seems to be afraid/lazy of changing it, since it will take a considerable amount of time/energy to make it work. IMO it would be far more interesting if they just remove it straight away and rebalance the game accordingly later (I'm a toss player so I'd suffer as much as everyone), even if it takes months to set up everything I think it would be far benefical than the current balance philosophy they are addopting.
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On December 03 2012 07:06 zmansman17 wrote:
Note that the queen range was ostensibly buffed to help Zergs defend against 11/11 rax.
This is wrong. The reason given was helping Zerg vs. early Hellions where they needed none.
On December 03 2012 09:31 Hider wrote:
Why do so many people rewrite history? Prequeen patch everyone went reactor hellion first (almost noone went reapers). This was a great build for terrans as you was very safe and you had map control --> zerg could not counter anything you did reactionary. Was this build a bit too strong? Probably.
But Blizzard made a terrible choice by buffing queens as this made first 10-14 mins extremely boring. I remember predicint that terans probably would completely skip harassing and open siege tank --> quick 3rd. That predicting didn't turn out to be completely true as terrans went into banshee/hellion ( though it was difficult to predict that banshees could work vs mass queens...). But that opening kinda got figured out as well. Hellion openings are still okay'ish, but zerg always has fully control of the game if they no what they are doing and terran can't really harss efficiently early game which makes the game boring.
When that is said I think zerg would have been imbalanced no matter what. Infestors are strong regardless of whether zergs get an early game lead (as they do with queen buff) or doesn't.
The only actual problems with the Reactor Hellion Expand were how easily a 2-Factory Mass Hellion push could be masked as one and how prevalent the opener itself was. And even then, the opener itself played out entertainingly on both sides - Zerg had a multitude of different ways to repel the Hellions from Spine reroots to Roaches to mass speedlings. The key thing is that the spine reroots took a lot of time and attention and roaches and lings cost larvae. The Zerg economy was hindered, yes, but it was a setback from the insane brokenness that is the unhindered Zerg economy to being normal and fair.
During the opener both sides also had a lot of room to make gains with good control - if Terran was sloppy with his Hellions he could totally lose map control for a very long time, letting Zerg do whatever the please. Zerg sloppiness, well... I'm sure you're all familiar with Hellion runbys. Many people act as if the Hellion opener was a runby opener and an autowin. It was not. Proper defense made trying a runby very risky. Crying that the build was an autowin is akin to a Terran or toss crying that Zerglings are imba when they do not bother to wall in: To be laughed at, not to be taken seriously.
Back to the build, a high stakes early game lead to a long, eventful, skirmishy midgame typically of marine-tank vs. muta-ling or ling-infestor and then T trying to win against the deathball. The critical thing here is that T had much, much more time. In the old days a 14 minute Hive was greedy. Now 12 minutes is safe and standard. That is a lot of time lost for Terran in setting up production capabilities to deal with the deathball.
So, a ridiculously good metagame, usually hailed as the best one in the game, rivaling TvT. Very even winrates and a good overall feeling of sanity. A bit of blandness in opener CHOICE, not in gameplay. Only problem was an easily masked all-in, which did have a Zerg response if they knew it was coming. The Ferrarilord upgrade fixed that. The Queen patch was, in short, total overkill and completely misguided. I have no idea where Blizzard got the idea that the Hellion opener needed fixing, but I guess it is the same place the Snipe nerf, -20 HP eggs and other assorted pieces of insanity are born, where the game is a-ok and absolutely does not have hideous design problems.
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The only actual problems with the Reactor Hellion Expand were how easily a 2-Factory Mass Hellion push could be masked as one and how prevalent the opener itself was. And even then, the opener itself played out entertainingly on both sides - Zerg had a multitude of different ways to repel the Hellions from Spine reroots to Roaches to mass speedlings. The key thing is that the spine reroots took a lot of time and attention and roaches and lings cost larvae. The Zerg economy was hindered, yes, but it was a setback from the insane brokenness that is the unhindered Zerg economy to being normal and fair.
that's the strange thing. let's give zerg both a buff to a unit that the zergs have to, and should build anyways to hold all-ins, AND THEN also give them an overlord buff if the zerg has a brain to use it so they can see everything the terran can do at that point.
honestly the overlord buff was nice, but giving the buff to the queen was too much with it (or rather. only one is best, otherwise it promotes boring NR15minplz games that are actually REALLY BORING to spectators... or at least me /shrug
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Had a random idea today that I thought I'd share:
What about reverting the Queen range buff but putting an upgrade at Hatch tech, at the Hatchery, that gave you the range back? The cost and upgrade time of this tech could be adjusted fairly easily so that Zergs who want to deflect early Hellion pressure using Queens can invest in this tech, otherwise they'll go to speedlings/roaches to deflect and use Queens to focus specifically on creep spread and injects.
Doesn't solve all of the problems but seems like an idea that would be easy to iterate on through proper testing.
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On December 03 2012 10:30 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 07:06 zmansman17 wrote:
Note that the queen range was ostensibly buffed to help Zergs defend against 11/11 rax.
This is wrong. The reason given was helping Zerg vs. early Hellions where they needed none. Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 09:31 Hider wrote:
Why do so many people rewrite history? Prequeen patch everyone went reactor hellion first (almost noone went reapers). This was a great build for terrans as you was very safe and you had map control --> zerg could not counter anything you did reactionary. Was this build a bit too strong? Probably.
But Blizzard made a terrible choice by buffing queens as this made first 10-14 mins extremely boring. I remember predicint that terans probably would completely skip harassing and open siege tank --> quick 3rd. That predicting didn't turn out to be completely true as terrans went into banshee/hellion ( though it was difficult to predict that banshees could work vs mass queens...). But that opening kinda got figured out as well. Hellion openings are still okay'ish, but zerg always has fully control of the game if they no what they are doing and terran can't really harss efficiently early game which makes the game boring.
When that is said I think zerg would have been imbalanced no matter what. Infestors are strong regardless of whether zergs get an early game lead (as they do with queen buff) or doesn't. The only actual problems with the Reactor Hellion Expand were how easily a 2-Factory Mass Hellion push could be masked as one and how prevalent the opener itself was. And even then, the opener itself played out entertainingly on both sides - Zerg had a multitude of different ways to repel the Hellions from Spine reroots to Roaches to mass speedlings. The key thing is that the spine reroots took a lot of time and attention and roaches and lings cost larvae. The Zerg economy was hindered, yes, but it was a setback from the insane brokenness that is the unhindered Zerg economy to being normal and fair. During the opener both sides also had a lot of room to make gains with good control - if Terran was sloppy with his Hellions he could totally lose map control for a very long time, letting Zerg do whatever the please. Zerg sloppiness, well... I'm sure you're all familiar with Hellion runbys. Many people act as if the Hellion opener was a runby opener and an autowin. It was not. Proper defense made trying a runby very risky. Crying that the build was an autowin is akin to a Terran or toss crying that Zerglings are imba when they do not bother to wall in: To be laughed at, not to be taken seriously. Back to the build, a high stakes early game lead to a long, eventful, skirmishy midgame typically of marine-tank vs. muta-ling or ling-infestor and then T trying to win against the deathball. The critical thing here is that T had much, much more time. In the old days a 14 minute Hive was greedy. Now 12 minutes is safe and standard. That is a lot of time lost for Terran in setting up production capabilities to deal with the deathball. So, a ridiculously good metagame, usually hailed as the best one in the game, rivaling TvT. Very even winrates and a good overall feeling of sanity. A bit of blandness in opener CHOICE, not in gameplay. Only problem was an easily masked all-in, which did have a Zerg response if they knew it was coming. The Ferrarilord upgrade fixed that. The Queen patch was, in short, total overkill and completely misguided. I have no idea where Blizzard got the idea that the Hellion opener needed fixing, but I guess it is the same place the Snipe nerf, -20 HP eggs and other assorted pieces of insanity are born, where the game is a-ok and absolutely does not have hideous design problems.
I kinda agree. The opening was pretty entertaining. It was definitely a much better metagame than the current one we see now. Also I don't get how Blizzard couldn't predict this. How exactly did they think tvz openings would look like? Did they think terran would play medivac-drop play openings or wtf were they thinking as a reponds to zergs massing queens?
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On December 03 2012 10:43 ShamW0W wrote:
Had a random idea today that I thought I'd share:
What about reverting the Queen range buff but putting an upgrade at Hatch tech, at the Hatchery, that gave you the range back? The cost and upgrade time of this tech could be adjusted fairly easily so that Zergs who want to deflect early Hellion pressure using Queens can invest in this tech, otherwise they'll go to speedlings/roaches to deflect and use Queens to focus specifically on creep spread and injects.
Doesn't solve all of the problems but seems like an idea that would be easy to iterate on through proper testing.
well the question is, why wouldn't you get it so you can hold off most of the all-ins that can come without (much) scouting?
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On December 03 2012 10:53 zhurai wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 10:43 ShamW0W wrote:
Had a random idea today that I thought I'd share:
What about reverting the Queen range buff but putting an upgrade at Hatch tech, at the Hatchery, that gave you the range back? The cost and upgrade time of this tech could be adjusted fairly easily so that Zergs who want to deflect early Hellion pressure using Queens can invest in this tech, otherwise they'll go to speedlings/roaches to deflect and use Queens to focus specifically on creep spread and injects.
Doesn't solve all of the problems but seems like an idea that would be easy to iterate on through proper testing. well the question is, why wouldn't you get it so you can hold off most of the all-ins that can come without (much) scouting?
There's a cost/time that makes it a true decision rather than just giving it to Zerg for free. For instance, not suggesting this, if it cost 100 minerals + 100 gas I assume Zerg players wouldn't research it often. Maybe at 50m/50g with a 60 second research time they would?
The main point is that if you put the range buff behind an upgrade you can tweak the investment required to achieve a more balanced early game state.
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I just want to say, and I'm not the first to say this, the issues is NOT entirely about balance. PvZ is NOT FUN in its current state. It's not fun to play, it's not fun to watch, and I think saying it is ruining the game is hyperbole, but its certainly not helping to capture new viewers. The matchup needs a pretty significant shake-up and the infestor (along with force fields to a lesser extent) are the two pretty obvious culprits for the stagnation. Each race pretty much needs them in order to be competitive against the other and there is very little drawback to just massing them up. Sentries I feel are a bit less of an issue because you really can't just go all sentry with a tiny support army like Zerg can go mostly infestor with a relatively small easily replaceable support army.
Ultimately the stats continue to say that the matchup is more or less balanced (it is definitely no worse than other matchups have been at various phases of the metagame). Blizzard prizes that balance above almost everything and they're scared to death that doing anything to significantly change the matchup will screw it all up...
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On December 03 2012 10:26 ishida66 wrote:On December 03 2012 09:12 Ben... wrote: Show nested quote +That would break TvP. How would Protoss hold stim timings? The Terran would just run through the forcefields with their units (stim and the slow would almost cancel each other out) and then win. The 2 medivac timings we see at 10-11 minutes or so would be insanely hard to hold. The other thing to keep in mind is that forcefield prevents vision up ramps. In HOTS this wouldn't matter but in WOL this would make 4gate only for PvP again because you could just sacrifice a unit running into the slow forcefield up the ramp, gain vision, then warp in. Thats thé whole point of changing/removing forcefields. The whole protoss early game is revolving around forcefields and Blizz seems to be afraid/lazy of changing it, since it will take a considerable amount of time/energy to make it work. IMO it would be far more interesting if they just remove it straight away and rebalance the game accordingly later (I'm a toss player so I'd suffer as much as everyone), even if it takes months to set up everything I think it would be far benefical than the current balance philosophy they are addopting. Oh I'm fully aware of that. It is just any redesign to protoss (which is needed as any protoss will tell you) will never happen, and since it will never happen they can't mess with forcefield. I want to have protoss not live and die by the forcefield too, it just will never happen with how Blizzard is handling balance in this game. Instead they look at those magical numbers they have never actually explained how they got (as a person who has taken a number of university level statistics classes, I am curious how they get them) and tell us that we are all crazy and the game is balanced.
In reality it doesn't matter what their numbers say in terms of balance, they seem to be missing the point that people aren't having as much fun anymore. The first thought that comes into my head when I see I am playing a zerg isn't "Yay PvZ!" anymore, it is more akin to "I hope this doesn't take an hour".
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On December 02 2012 06:52 SuperYo1000 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2012 06:48 mrjpark wrote:
Uh, isn't the egg nerf actually a decent nerf? It means one storm will now kill however many eggs are within the radius, while feedbacks are always options in the earlier part of the game to just deal with the infestors themselves. oh come on please...how many times has this been corrected. One storm WILL NOT kill eggs. Eggs just like every other zerg unit regen life. eggs survive with 1 or 2 hp
Right, they might as well be dead with 1 hp. Or is your army doing nothing?
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On December 03 2012 13:30 mrjpark wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2012 06:52 SuperYo1000 wrote:On December 02 2012 06:48 mrjpark wrote:
Uh, isn't the egg nerf actually a decent nerf? It means one storm will now kill however many eggs are within the radius, while feedbacks are always options in the earlier part of the game to just deal with the infestors themselves. oh come on please...how many times has this been corrected. One storm WILL NOT kill eggs. Eggs just like every other zerg unit regen life. eggs survive with 1 or 2 hp Right, they might as well be dead with 1 hp. Or is your army doing nothing?
Maybe killing other units which do cost something?
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How can they realistically believe that zerg players don't have a general advantage? MLG, GSL, and now IPL have all had ZvZ finals. It's ridiculous.
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You need to have the storm dropped in the first second the egg goes down, and fire on them with other units when the eggs have no target priority so you have to shift click through them all. Any damage you do to an egg that doesn't kill it is wasted because the IT starts with full health regardless of the egg's condition. And there's little reason zerg couldn't spread out their eggs when they throw them down..
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On December 03 2012 13:30 mrjpark wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2012 06:52 SuperYo1000 wrote:On December 02 2012 06:48 mrjpark wrote:
Uh, isn't the egg nerf actually a decent nerf? It means one storm will now kill however many eggs are within the radius, while feedbacks are always options in the earlier part of the game to just deal with the infestors themselves. oh come on please...how many times has this been corrected. One storm WILL NOT kill eggs. Eggs just like every other zerg unit regen life. eggs survive with 1 or 2 hp Right, they might as well be dead with 1 hp. Or is your army doing nothing?
You know that when they hatch they get 100% hp?
Eggs, just by themselves, add so much hp to an army (also act very much like FF by walling stuff off) and if you don't manage to kill the damn eggs (even 1 hp right before hatch) they will spawn with full 50hp AND with massive dps. Each infested terran adds a 150 hp (130 with this patch) tank to the Zerg army if not killed. That's stupidly ridiculous when you think about it that way. Your army wastes so much DPS on the IT that the Z army will kill you. If you ignore eggs and fire on army eggs hatch and do massive dps, and all you need is 2-3 fungals to ensure that the opposing army cannot escape.
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On December 03 2012 11:00 ShamW0W wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 10:53 zhurai wrote:On December 03 2012 10:43 ShamW0W wrote:
Had a random idea today that I thought I'd share:
What about reverting the Queen range buff but putting an upgrade at Hatch tech, at the Hatchery, that gave you the range back? The cost and upgrade time of this tech could be adjusted fairly easily so that Zergs who want to deflect early Hellion pressure using Queens can invest in this tech, otherwise they'll go to speedlings/roaches to deflect and use Queens to focus specifically on creep spread and injects.
Doesn't solve all of the problems but seems like an idea that would be easy to iterate on through proper testing. well the question is, why wouldn't you get it so you can hold off most of the all-ins that can come without (much) scouting? There's a cost/time that makes it a true decision rather than just giving it to Zerg for free. For instance, not suggesting this, if it cost 100 minerals + 100 gas I assume Zerg players wouldn't research it often. Maybe at 50m/50g with a 60 second research time they would? The main point is that if you put the range buff behind an upgrade you can tweak the investment required to achieve a more balanced early game state.
I really like this idea. If this whole issue started with the Queen patch, then this sounds like a reasonable fix. Even if it doesn't change the game significantly, it still takes away a couple of early drones from the zerg.
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As a former Terran, I'm actually glad that Blizzard is coming up with such wimpy, flaccid balance changes. If they made any real progress towards balancing this game, I might be tempted to start playing again. Glad I don't have to worry about that - back to AC3!
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On December 03 2012 10:30 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 07:06 zmansman17 wrote:
Note that the queen range was ostensibly buffed to help Zergs defend against 11/11 rax.
This is wrong. The reason given was helping Zerg vs. early Hellions where they needed none. Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 09:31 Hider wrote:
Why do so many people rewrite history? Prequeen patch everyone went reactor hellion first (almost noone went reapers). This was a great build for terrans as you was very safe and you had map control --> zerg could not counter anything you did reactionary. Was this build a bit too strong? Probably.
But Blizzard made a terrible choice by buffing queens as this made first 10-14 mins extremely boring. I remember predicint that terans probably would completely skip harassing and open siege tank --> quick 3rd. That predicting didn't turn out to be completely true as terrans went into banshee/hellion ( though it was difficult to predict that banshees could work vs mass queens...). But that opening kinda got figured out as well. Hellion openings are still okay'ish, but zerg always has fully control of the game if they no what they are doing and terran can't really harss efficiently early game which makes the game boring.
When that is said I think zerg would have been imbalanced no matter what. Infestors are strong regardless of whether zergs get an early game lead (as they do with queen buff) or doesn't. The only actual problems with the Reactor Hellion Expand were how easily a 2-Factory Mass Hellion push could be masked as one and how prevalent the opener itself was. And even then, the opener itself played out entertainingly on both sides - Zerg had a multitude of different ways to repel the Hellions from Spine reroots to Roaches to mass speedlings. The key thing is that the spine reroots took a lot of time and attention and roaches and lings cost larvae. The Zerg economy was hindered, yes, but it was a setback from the insane brokenness that is the unhindered Zerg economy to being normal and fair. During the opener both sides also had a lot of room to make gains with good control - if Terran was sloppy with his Hellions he could totally lose map control for a very long time, letting Zerg do whatever the please. Zerg sloppiness, well... I'm sure you're all familiar with Hellion runbys. Many people act as if the Hellion opener was a runby opener and an autowin. It was not. Proper defense made trying a runby very risky. Crying that the build was an autowin is akin to a Terran or toss crying that Zerglings are imba when they do not bother to wall in: To be laughed at, not to be taken seriously. Back to the build, a high stakes early game lead to a long, eventful, skirmishy midgame typically of marine-tank vs. muta-ling or ling-infestor and then T trying to win against the deathball. The critical thing here is that T had much, much more time. In the old days a 14 minute Hive was greedy. Now 12 minutes is safe and standard. That is a lot of time lost for Terran in setting up production capabilities to deal with the deathball. So, a ridiculously good metagame, usually hailed as the best one in the game, rivaling TvT. Very even winrates and a good overall feeling of sanity. A bit of blandness in opener CHOICE, not in gameplay. Only problem was an easily masked all-in, which did have a Zerg response if they knew it was coming. The Ferrarilord upgrade fixed that. The Queen patch was, in short, total overkill and completely misguided. I have no idea where Blizzard got the idea that the Hellion opener needed fixing, but I guess it is the same place the Snipe nerf, -20 HP eggs and other assorted pieces of insanity are born, where the game is a-ok and absolutely does not have hideous design problems.
I just want to say this is a ridiculously good post and perfectly puts into words how I've felt about the current state of TvZ. The matchup used to be exciting because it played out on a razor's edge. The only issue was Zergs getting destroyed by all-ins because they couldn't scout, not because they didn't have the tools to stop them.
That being said, the queen patch did reveal just how absurd infestors are as a lategame unit, and how ridiculous broodlord/infestor is lategame. An rts should not have a race with a nearly unbeatable lategame composition, instead all 3 races need to be balanced lategame so that when the lategame phase is reached it comes down to decision making and multitasking and not the amount of time played. Maybe the queen buff was absolutely atrocious, but at least it revealed just how poorly designed lategame zerg is and hopefully will lead to a fix. Then again David Kim has already said he likes for races to be stronger at certain points in the game, so we may be screwed because he simply doesn't understand what makes for fun and entertaining game design.
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Northern Ireland23760 Posts
On December 03 2012 10:30 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 07:06 zmansman17 wrote:
Note that the queen range was ostensibly buffed to help Zergs defend against 11/11 rax.
This is wrong. The reason given was helping Zerg vs. early Hellions where they needed none. Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 09:31 Hider wrote:
Why do so many people rewrite history? Prequeen patch everyone went reactor hellion first (almost noone went reapers). This was a great build for terrans as you was very safe and you had map control --> zerg could not counter anything you did reactionary. Was this build a bit too strong? Probably.
But Blizzard made a terrible choice by buffing queens as this made first 10-14 mins extremely boring. I remember predicint that terans probably would completely skip harassing and open siege tank --> quick 3rd. That predicting didn't turn out to be completely true as terrans went into banshee/hellion ( though it was difficult to predict that banshees could work vs mass queens...). But that opening kinda got figured out as well. Hellion openings are still okay'ish, but zerg always has fully control of the game if they no what they are doing and terran can't really harss efficiently early game which makes the game boring.
When that is said I think zerg would have been imbalanced no matter what. Infestors are strong regardless of whether zergs get an early game lead (as they do with queen buff) or doesn't. The only actual problems with the Reactor Hellion Expand were how easily a 2-Factory Mass Hellion push could be masked as one and how prevalent the opener itself was. And even then, the opener itself played out entertainingly on both sides - Zerg had a multitude of different ways to repel the Hellions from Spine reroots to Roaches to mass speedlings. The key thing is that the spine reroots took a lot of time and attention and roaches and lings cost larvae. The Zerg economy was hindered, yes, but it was a setback from the insane brokenness that is the unhindered Zerg economy to being normal and fair. During the opener both sides also had a lot of room to make gains with good control - if Terran was sloppy with his Hellions he could totally lose map control for a very long time, letting Zerg do whatever the please. Zerg sloppiness, well... I'm sure you're all familiar with Hellion runbys. Many people act as if the Hellion opener was a runby opener and an autowin. It was not. Proper defense made trying a runby very risky. Crying that the build was an autowin is akin to a Terran or toss crying that Zerglings are imba when they do not bother to wall in: To be laughed at, not to be taken seriously. Back to the build, a high stakes early game lead to a long, eventful, skirmishy midgame typically of marine-tank vs. muta-ling or ling-infestor and then T trying to win against the deathball. The critical thing here is that T had much, much more time. In the old days a 14 minute Hive was greedy. Now 12 minutes is safe and standard. That is a lot of time lost for Terran in setting up production capabilities to deal with the deathball. So, a ridiculously good metagame, usually hailed as the best one in the game, rivaling TvT. Very even winrates and a good overall feeling of sanity. A bit of blandness in opener CHOICE, not in gameplay. Only problem was an easily masked all-in, which did have a Zerg response if they knew it was coming. The Ferrarilord upgrade fixed that. The Queen patch was, in short, total overkill and completely misguided. I have no idea where Blizzard got the idea that the Hellion opener needed fixing, but I guess it is the same place the Snipe nerf, -20 HP eggs and other assorted pieces of insanity are born, where the game is a-ok and absolutely does not have hideous design problems.
Sick post, or at least from my view. Have a huge thread I'm trying to write about this and other fundamental design issues etc. It kind of deals with what you're talking about, would be interested in discussing further via PM if you're game?
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Northern Ireland23760 Posts
@Swords, having a super nigh-on unbeatable comp isn't inherently bad, if the difficulty in getting there is proportional to its strength. Blizzard 'done goofed' by giving Zergs a free pass to their lategame, or if not a 'free pass', then making it easier. I mean Inf/BL has been around as a composition for ages it's just a hell of a lot more refined.
I mean, in terms of a similar composition, consider the kind of army Thorzain has been getting lately to beat Naniwa, and lose to HerO with at Dreamhack Winter. That composition of a smattering of bio/mass ghosts/mass vikings with medivac support, assuming the ratios are pretty sensible is theoretically unbeatable. There's also the sacrificing of SCVs to transition to a mule-only, or mule-heavy economy. That's only really possible if Terran sacrifice their SCVs at the right times which is a tough transition to gauge, and also the composition isn't particularly mobile.
Also bear in mind that even though it's something you can get, you cede a lot of other advantages to get there, such as map presence and aggressive potential in the midgame. Now, if you sacrifice these things, Protoss will find it easier to get more bases, and you'll find it harder to subsequently expand later. Protoss get a big economy boost in this specific period, that they can choose to employ later.
I can reference my own personal take of both the flaws and advantages of Thorzain's unique (Happy maybe?) approach to TvP, and why he beat Naniwa playing the style but lost to HerO, and why. That's if you require further explanation of the basic concepts to be grounded in actual matches rather than as a concept.
Where the fuck are these kind of fundamental risk/reward decisions to make when it comes to current Zerg? I don't blame Zergs or denigrate their achievements, or insult people for playing them, but I mean come on it's ridiculous.
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On December 03 2012 10:43 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 10:30 Coffee Zombie wrote:On December 03 2012 07:06 zmansman17 wrote:
Note that the queen range was ostensibly buffed to help Zergs defend against 11/11 rax.
This is wrong. The reason given was helping Zerg vs. early Hellions where they needed none. On December 03 2012 09:31 Hider wrote:
Why do so many people rewrite history? Prequeen patch everyone went reactor hellion first (almost noone went reapers). This was a great build for terrans as you was very safe and you had map control --> zerg could not counter anything you did reactionary. Was this build a bit too strong? Probably.
But Blizzard made a terrible choice by buffing queens as this made first 10-14 mins extremely boring. I remember predicint that terans probably would completely skip harassing and open siege tank --> quick 3rd. That predicting didn't turn out to be completely true as terrans went into banshee/hellion ( though it was difficult to predict that banshees could work vs mass queens...). But that opening kinda got figured out as well. Hellion openings are still okay'ish, but zerg always has fully control of the game if they no what they are doing and terran can't really harss efficiently early game which makes the game boring.
When that is said I think zerg would have been imbalanced no matter what. Infestors are strong regardless of whether zergs get an early game lead (as they do with queen buff) or doesn't. The only actual problems with the Reactor Hellion Expand were how easily a 2-Factory Mass Hellion push could be masked as one and how prevalent the opener itself was. And even then, the opener itself played out entertainingly on both sides - Zerg had a multitude of different ways to repel the Hellions from Spine reroots to Roaches to mass speedlings. The key thing is that the spine reroots took a lot of time and attention and roaches and lings cost larvae. The Zerg economy was hindered, yes, but it was a setback from the insane brokenness that is the unhindered Zerg economy to being normal and fair. During the opener both sides also had a lot of room to make gains with good control - if Terran was sloppy with his Hellions he could totally lose map control for a very long time, letting Zerg do whatever the please. Zerg sloppiness, well... I'm sure you're all familiar with Hellion runbys. Many people act as if the Hellion opener was a runby opener and an autowin. It was not. Proper defense made trying a runby very risky. Crying that the build was an autowin is akin to a Terran or toss crying that Zerglings are imba when they do not bother to wall in: To be laughed at, not to be taken seriously. Back to the build, a high stakes early game lead to a long, eventful, skirmishy midgame typically of marine-tank vs. muta-ling or ling-infestor and then T trying to win against the deathball. The critical thing here is that T had much, much more time. In the old days a 14 minute Hive was greedy. Now 12 minutes is safe and standard. That is a lot of time lost for Terran in setting up production capabilities to deal with the deathball. So, a ridiculously good metagame, usually hailed as the best one in the game, rivaling TvT. Very even winrates and a good overall feeling of sanity. A bit of blandness in opener CHOICE, not in gameplay. Only problem was an easily masked all-in, which did have a Zerg response if they knew it was coming. The Ferrarilord upgrade fixed that. The Queen patch was, in short, total overkill and completely misguided. I have no idea where Blizzard got the idea that the Hellion opener needed fixing, but I guess it is the same place the Snipe nerf, -20 HP eggs and other assorted pieces of insanity are born, where the game is a-ok and absolutely does not have hideous design problems. I kinda agree. The opening was pretty entertaining. It was definitely a much better metagame than the current one we see now. Also I don't get how Blizzard couldn't predict this. How exactly did they think tvz openings would look like? Did they think terran would play medivac-drop play openings or wtf were they thinking as a reponds to zergs massing queens?
I generally disagree. It's not interesting to watch how zerg is contained in 2 bases while the terran goes safe quick 3rd. The games usually led to different kind of 2 bases all in or zerg's roach baneling bust too
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EPT
