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On November 30 2012 11:29 SuperYo1000 wrote:
Global statistics don’t give us the impression that Zerg players have a general advantage, especially at the highest levels of play
In what universe are they getting there info from? At first I thought I must be taking crazy pills....Turns out...blizzard is sucking these down like candy
Zerg was always the least represented race at the highest level, for more than 2 years, now that they're the highest percentage in Code S Ro16, do you realize terran dominated for more than a year? That we had protoss PvP finals? That WCS ended up with a 3 Protoss podium? So yeah, Life being the best player atm, Stephano still kicking ass like he did 10 months ago, and Leenock being the genius he already was in early seasons of Code S, doest mean anything, it's just a great excuse for people like you to complain about the game.
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On December 03 2012 22:08 mahO wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2012 11:29 SuperYo1000 wrote:
Global statistics don’t give us the impression that Zerg players have a general advantage, especially at the highest levels of play
In what universe are they getting there info from? At first I thought I must be taking crazy pills....Turns out...blizzard is sucking these down like candy Zerg was always the least represented race at the highest level, for more than 2 years, now that they're the highest percentage in Code S Ro16, do you realize terran dominated for more than a year? That we had protoss PvP finals? That WCS ended up with a 3 Protoss podium? So yeah, Life being the best player atm, Stephano still kicking ass like he did 10 months ago, and Leenock being the genius he already was in early seasons of Code S, doest mean anything, it's just a great excuse for people like you to complain about the game.
3 of last 4 biggest tournaments ended wih ZvZ finals. Also Zerg wan never less succesfull than Protoss.
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Northern Ireland26301 Posts
On December 03 2012 21:40 Tritanis wrote:
Why can't blizz balance the game so that every end-game army is equal, like in BW. TvP is a race against time for terran, as is PvZ and TvZ for the zerg opponents...
Because Zerg macro mechanics allow them to reach the point of equal armies faster than their equivalents for the other race. That's pretty much how the game is now, if you're talking optimal superlategame compositions.
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On December 03 2012 22:23 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 21:40 Tritanis wrote:
Why can't blizz balance the game so that every end-game army is equal, like in BW. TvP is a race against time for terran, as is PvZ and TvZ for the zerg opponents... Because Zerg macro mechanics allow them to reach the point of equal armies faster than their equivalents for the other race. That's pretty much how the game is now, if you're talking optimal superlategame compositions.
equal army? it takes a long time to get broodlords/ultras out.
it doesn't matter what race you are, if you lose the deathball fight kind of unevenly, you will lose because you can't remax into an equal value army to defend.
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On December 03 2012 19:36 FrogOfWar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 19:23 Rabiator wrote:On December 03 2012 19:16 avilo wrote:On December 03 2012 19:10 kmh wrote:
dukem, why not? you done goofed. Probably because it's terrible game design for your opponent to be able to click F once and then snare down all of your units repeatedly without any chance for micro to decide the outcome. In above screenshot the game is basically insta-gg. Now imagine if the spell worked something like the SC1 queen's ensnare, and only slowed the units down. Now now Avilo ... dont start suggesting such heresy of replacing the shit of SC2 with the working stuff of BW. You might get burned alive by braindead "everything new MUST BE BETTER" new-tech-worshippers and "I believe in Blizzard" fanboys. After sooo many flames you probably have developed quite an immunity to fire though. I wonder when Blizzard will finally understand that there are only so many ways to add spells to the game and that they cant put in "nifty new stuff" without making that ridiculous, useless or totally overpowered. They CANT invent the "wheel 2.0", because the wheel is already perfect. It only goes downhill from there and thats what we got: Innovation in placed where we didnt need it. Going back to things that work is a sensible thing, but Blizzard is either too proud or too dumb to recognize that the one thing mech needs is called Goliath and it could easily replace the stupid immobile Thor. It seems to me that it's pretty much a community consensus by now that making fungal a slow would be a good remedy of the current situation. No need to resort to name-calling because some people hold the view that Brood War isn't exactly the wheel. That doesn't make any sense anyway. If Brood War as a whole is the wheel, it was already a mistake to even develop SC2. And single units can't be the wheel becausey the need to work in a totally different environment. I highly doubt people would be happy if they replaced fungal with BW plague.
Brood War is NOT the wheel "as a whole", but many of the units of it were. As a result we have gotten non-circular-wheels in SC2 because Blizzard devs are trying to "be different no matter what". Since you cant make things that much better than the simple BW design they have a problem. How many units dont "feel right" in SC2? The Thor doesnt do what it is supposed to do; neither Carriers nor Battlecruisers are really the "big and tough T3 spaceships" they were in BW; the Void Ray always hovers between too weak or too powerful; the Viking and Banshee are somewhat too limited in their utility; the Hydralisk seems a tad too weak while the Broodlord seems a lot too strong ... Especially the wonky unit design for HotS shows how easily they go "over the top" with their unit design because it has to be something totally new.
The game got too complicated due to the "bonus damage system", which makes many units pretty much useless against half of the other army. This rock-paper-scissors principle doesnt work as an advantage for the game but rather limits units in their usefulness. It should be renamed from "bonus damage" (which is positive) to "limited damage" to represent the true nature of it.
One of the reasons why Zerg are good and having an easy time is that they have the least bonus damage of the three races. One of the reasons why Siege Tanks are junk is the fact that they have "limited damage".
On December 03 2012 22:28 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 22:23 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 03 2012 21:40 Tritanis wrote:
Why can't blizz balance the game so that every end-game army is equal, like in BW. TvP is a race against time for terran, as is PvZ and TvZ for the zerg opponents... Because Zerg macro mechanics allow them to reach the point of equal armies faster than their equivalents for the other race. That's pretty much how the game is now, if you're talking optimal superlategame compositions. equal army? it takes a long time to get broodlords/ultras out. it doesn't matter what race you are, if you lose the deathball fight kind of unevenly, you will lose because you can't remax into an equal value army to defend.
No it doesnt take that long to the the Broodlord/Infestor army out, because Zerg have the highest economy due to map control and only through denying that - endless harrass - can you win as Protoss or Terran. "Dont let them get there" is a stupid way to balance an overpowered unit mix for one race.
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Northern Ireland26301 Posts
On December 03 2012 22:42 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 19:36 FrogOfWar wrote:On December 03 2012 19:23 Rabiator wrote:On December 03 2012 19:16 avilo wrote:On December 03 2012 19:10 kmh wrote:
dukem, why not? you done goofed. Probably because it's terrible game design for your opponent to be able to click F once and then snare down all of your units repeatedly without any chance for micro to decide the outcome. In above screenshot the game is basically insta-gg. Now imagine if the spell worked something like the SC1 queen's ensnare, and only slowed the units down. Now now Avilo ... dont start suggesting such heresy of replacing the shit of SC2 with the working stuff of BW. You might get burned alive by braindead "everything new MUST BE BETTER" new-tech-worshippers and "I believe in Blizzard" fanboys. After sooo many flames you probably have developed quite an immunity to fire though. I wonder when Blizzard will finally understand that there are only so many ways to add spells to the game and that they cant put in "nifty new stuff" without making that ridiculous, useless or totally overpowered. They CANT invent the "wheel 2.0", because the wheel is already perfect. It only goes downhill from there and thats what we got: Innovation in placed where we didnt need it. Going back to things that work is a sensible thing, but Blizzard is either too proud or too dumb to recognize that the one thing mech needs is called Goliath and it could easily replace the stupid immobile Thor. It seems to me that it's pretty much a community consensus by now that making fungal a slow would be a good remedy of the current situation. No need to resort to name-calling because some people hold the view that Brood War isn't exactly the wheel. That doesn't make any sense anyway. If Brood War as a whole is the wheel, it was already a mistake to even develop SC2. And single units can't be the wheel becausey the need to work in a totally different environment. I highly doubt people would be happy if they replaced fungal with BW plague. Brood War is NOT the wheel "as a whole", but many of the units of it were. As a result we have gotten non-circular-wheels in SC2 because Blizzard devs are trying to "be different no matter what". Since you cant make things that much better than the simple BW design they have a problem. How many units dont "feel right" in SC2? The Thor doesnt do what it is supposed to do; neither Carriers nor Battlecruisers are really the "big and tough T3 spaceships" they were in BW; the Void Ray always hovers between too weak or too powerful; the Viking and Banshee are somewhat too limited in their utility; the Hydralisk seems a tad too weak while the Broodlord seems a lot too strong ... Especially the wonky unit design for HotS shows how easily they go "over the top" with their unit design because it has to be something totally new. The game got too complicated due to the "bonus damage system", which makes many units pretty much useless against half of the other army. This rock-paper-scissors principle doesnt work as an advantage for the game but rather limits units in their usefulness. It should be renamed from "bonus damage" (which is positive) to "limited damage" to represent the true nature of it. One of the reasons why Zerg are good and having an easy time is that they have the least bonus damage of the three races. One of the reasons why Siege Tanks are junk is the fact that they have "limited damage". Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 22:28 ETisME wrote:On December 03 2012 22:23 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 03 2012 21:40 Tritanis wrote:
Why can't blizz balance the game so that every end-game army is equal, like in BW. TvP is a race against time for terran, as is PvZ and TvZ for the zerg opponents... Because Zerg macro mechanics allow them to reach the point of equal armies faster than their equivalents for the other race. That's pretty much how the game is now, if you're talking optimal superlategame compositions. equal army? it takes a long time to get broodlords/ultras out. it doesn't matter what race you are, if you lose the deathball fight kind of unevenly, you will lose because you can't remax into an equal value army to defend. No it doesnt take that long to the the Broodlord/Infestor army out, because Zerg have the highest economy due to map control and only through denying that - endless harrass - can you win as Protoss or Terran. "Dont let them get there" is a stupid way to balance an overpowered unit mix for one race.
Yeah that's correct man, your analysis, at least in my view. I was thinking about the issue earlier, and kind of had a theory as to why that pattern, while evident in other matchups, is only really applicable to Zerg as a 'rule'. Protoss shows the kind of relationship that you describe with Terran in the bolded point. However, Protoss, when it comes to PvZ do not at all fit that pattern. They used to however, in the days of Roach/Hydra/Corruptor vs Collosus/Void! Zerg however, have that phenomenon you described, but defining both their non-mirror matchups.
Anywhere, here's the reference point that I used to form the theory.
The 'ETA' Concept
This concept, in terms of ETA is pretty on the money in terms of how it applies to general good Starcraft practice. However, I don't feel it fully gives you the tools to consider Zerg's current balance woes, in the thread.
If you make a small tweak to the concept, you can make it applicable to the trend I was describing. I think the issue with that thread is that it is based in really sound theory, but it makes the assumption that ETA is exploitable equally by each race. I don't think this is the case, I think Zerg are figuring out ways to distort it. I mean, visually imagine ETA as being an equilateral triangle, with the letters corresponding to each concept being positioned within it. If you accept this conception of the relationship, and subsequently how it relates to the races as being inherently symmetrical Zerg should not be functioning as it currently does.
The final sort of hoop I jumped through is trying to figure, what specifically enabled Zerg to do this and I think it's the combination of their larva, and their production mechanics. The idea of ETA is sound, but Zergs ability to focus heavily on one aspect of it (especially economy) enables the subsequent advantages to snowball more than chronoboost and mules allow Protoss and Terran to do.
If you want a kind of, visualisation of this concept, here it is. Consider re-evaluating the relationship between the ETA concept and the applicability to interracial matchups. In the case of Zerg, it is not longer an equilateral triangle, but a form of uneven triangle. Zergs can push and distort the ETA ratio (which theoretically in importance = 1:1:1 ratio) in one direction, say economy.
However, the change to economy and how it affects say, the 'army' part isn't directly correlative. Zerg push their economy advantage to a certain direction, but it's not balanced by the corresponding disadvantage 'snapping back' in the other direction, once the Zerg decides to focus on another aspect, say 'tech'. Other races produce and tech and build workers simultaneously, so anything they do at any specific point kind of has a more equalising, or cost/benefit kind of relationship. In the case of Zerg, a huge, huge economy advantage gives them a much bigger overall advantage in terms of later advantages in BOTH tech and army.
This idea isn't imbalanced at its heart, I like the underlying concept of Zergs taking risks to gain huge advantages. What I don't like is in terms of how it's functioning currently. To me, instinctively and based on no real data, it just feels like Zergs are figuring out how to play really really greedily, but also safely if that makes sense.
The only way I'm seeing players try to deal with this is via hitting specific refined timing attacks, especially in the case of Protoss v Zerg. While it is possible to beat Zerg in 'straight up' macro games for sure, it's kind of difficult to do. Consider also that Zerg is meant to be the kind of, 'reactiv'e race. When the the drone or army conundrum used to be much harder to judge, this was very much the case. In the current metagame, it seems that kind of concept of cutting corners for later advantages has almost been made 'safe' to non-committal pressures and pokes. Also consider that the reactive race is currently being approached with the mentality that both Protoss and Terran have to react to what the Zerg is doing!
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The underlying causes of that is that while other factions can make the swings, Zerg do them much more quickly. Terran can, to a degree, do something similar with macro Orbitals and mass rax or multi-reactor Hellion spam, but the possibilities are still slower, more limited and more resource intensive.
The second factor is simply that in the past Zerg could be forced back to fairness because defending pushes absolutely required larvae. Just the 4 Roaches to ward the contain, while certainly cost-effective, took 5 larvae and required the investment of a larva and some minerals for an Extractor earlier. The Queen holds cost similar amounts of resources, but no larvae and the gas can be used to tech. As a bonus, they do better vs. air and help exert map control via insane amounts of creep. The Queen patch basically broke down the one limiting factor of Zerg brokenness.
(Yours truly is a bug fan, and likes Zerg's potential for brokenness. It just should come from good game sense, judicious use of larvae and good positioning, not as a given due to lack of larva requirements and insane amounts of free map control due to ovie hiding spots. Fair, standard units, a broken economy that can be forced to normalcy via pressure. I have spoken.)
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On December 03 2012 22:08 mahO wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2012 11:29 SuperYo1000 wrote:
Global statistics don’t give us the impression that Zerg players have a general advantage, especially at the highest levels of play
In what universe are they getting there info from? At first I thought I must be taking crazy pills....Turns out...blizzard is sucking these down like candy Zerg was always the least represented race at the highest level, for more than 2 years, now that they're the highest percentage in Code S Ro16, do you realize terran dominated for more than a year? That we had protoss PvP finals? That WCS ended up with a 3 Protoss podium? So yeah, Life being the best player atm, Stephano still kicking ass like he did 10 months ago, and Leenock being the genius he already was in early seasons of Code S, doest mean anything, it's just a great excuse for people like you to complain about the game.
WCS? Really? You sink that low?
Terran is the most played race. OF course they are supposed to dominate. ASsuming that roughly 40% of korean top players plays terran, terrans ahven't been overpresented for more than 1-3 seasons at most throughout history.
And the problem is also this: There would never be a terran player who goes to school for half of the today and/or didn't have a succesfull background in RTS gaming who suddenly began dominating, as terran is a much more difficult race to play than in any other race. It's also been like this, but now its not just difficult. It's directly imbalanced even at the top level. Hence this is why many peope conclude that the game is worse of balancewise than at any point since SC2's release.
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On December 03 2012 21:42 Kal_rA wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 21:00 aksfjh wrote:On December 03 2012 19:04 dukem wrote:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fhRDc.jpg) Pretty bad "split", but got catched off guard really hard. This shouldn't be allowed to happen nonetheless. You know, we don't necessarily need fungal to be a slow to prevent this from happening. Just make fungal not allow units to move (instead of snaring). It would still allow air units to spread out, like they naturally do when stopped. I actually really like this idea 
Never mind. I just tried it out in a unit tester. They don't unclump fast enough, and the AoE of fungal is too large. The latter making the bigger difference...
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Can't we just make Ravens cost 200 Min / 100 Gas and keep the research requirement?
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Northern Ireland26301 Posts
On December 03 2012 23:37 Coffee Zombie wrote:
The underlying causes of that is that while other factions can make the swings, Zerg do them much more quickly. Terran can, to a degree, do something similar with macro Orbitals and mass rax or multi-reactor Hellion spam, but the possibilities are still slower, more limited and more resource intensive.
The second factor is simply that in the past Zerg could be forced back to fairness because defending pushes absolutely required larvae. Just the 4 Roaches to ward the contain, while certainly cost-effective, took 5 larvae and required the investment of a larva and some minerals for an Extractor earlier. The Queen holds cost similar amounts of resources, but no larvae and the gas can be used to tech. As a bonus, they do better vs. air and help exert map control via insane amounts of creep. The Queen patch basically broke down the one limiting factor of Zerg brokenness.
(Yours truly is a bug fan, and likes Zerg's potential for brokenness. It just should come from good game sense, judicious use of larvae and good positioning, not as a given due to lack of larva requirements and insane amounts of free map control due to ovie hiding spots. Fair, standard units, a broken economy that can be forced to normalcy via pressure. I have spoken.)
Damnit, I misread your post, as saying 'yours truly is a big fan' initially. I was so initially flattered, thought you were professing your admiration for my posts, then realised it said bug and you were a scumbag Zerg 
I mean, I just think the race is kind of broken these days. I think of the skill level of the Zerg players I knew who were mid-high master when I played the game say, 6-12 months ago. Guys I practiced with, they clearly knew what the fuck they were doing and had refined timings and a good gauge of when to drone. The kind of skills that Zerg is meant to require. I mean, I never really liked PvZ, but if I lost to some of my friends, I really had no problems with it, hell one of the guys, while nowhere near pro level managed to get to go to IESF in Korea! The thing is, you could see how he was good! He wasn't a mechanically fast player, his micro wasn't amazing but he had a clearly definable amazing gauge of drone timings in the era where actually gauging that was much more important.
I know some guys now who don't have these skills but in terms of ladder rank relative to the rest of Bnet are at the exact same ranks as the first group. They're coasting on a combination of the 'blind' safety of Queens, and the 'blind' option of Broodlords. They're not making these decisions, they've got an endgame, they've got a plan and they've got a ton of little incremental advantages in the time between the first period I mentioned and now that help them get there. You can win games in a way with Zerg that you just can't with the other races.
I mean for a while Terran was quite strategically 'blind' in the sense that they'd go say, marine/tank and just hope to win through having basic build flow, but primarily through macro, positioning and micro aka the execution stuff. Yeah, it's strategically limited in terms of 'Oh I'm going marine-tank again', but it's hard to execute, and it's also good to watch.
Incidentally dude, made a thread about what we PMed about earlier, fancy a link or something?
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this topic makes my day. better than tv.
stop flaming, learn to split units.
and zerg dont win more tournements. please check before you write such a .....
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Okay so rather than add to the madness and theorycrafting that makes up this thread, I'll contribute some notes from actually testing the "balance" map. These notes come solely from TvZ practice games. I'm only going to address items applicable to this Call to Action (read: I'm not going to talk about fungal since it's not even on the table for discussion in this instance).
After over 30 test games with mid-masters down through diamond league friends and trying both mech and bio-mech compositions I can say...the HSM buff is a nice thought but doesn't lend itself to changing how the matchup is played. Here's why:
- The early through mid-game still plays out the same way
- The egg buff doesn't change anything. When tossed into siege lines, the tanks may still waste a volley (or 2) if the player wasn't fast enough to notice and focus fire either the infestors (if visible) or other units. Mass IT volleys are still an issue.
- Trying to get ravens earlier than late game reduces other important mid-game gas units (tanks/thors/medivacs) and/or important upgrade timings (+2/+2, stim/shield/cs/siege/blueflame)...As a result, my mid-game is army is actually weaker and taking battles is considerably more difficult
- Actually using HSM mid-game is not even remotely cost effective as mid-game units (roach, ling, bling, muta, infestor) can all very easily dodge incoming HSM or FG just shuts down Ravens before they're in range. Even if the player doesn't effectively dodge the missile(s) the number of units killed is usually so small that it's still inefficient. (note: drone harassment with HSM is not advised as auto-turret is infinitely more efficient/effective)
- As a result of the above, Ravens are still relegated to the late game where it would've been feasible to spend the resources & time to research HSM in the first place. The fact that it's already researched is nice, but doesn't change any timings, or the how the late game plays out
Hope that helps.
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I didn't think the fungal nerf was the correct nerf, but is the solution really to nerf the egg health of ITs? I think they should just lower the insane dps of ITs, and maybe increase fungal spell cost or make it a projectile again or lower the amount of time units are snared.
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WCG : Asian qualification happened months ago, and there was no serious Korean Zerg at the start.
Dreamhack open winter : not one single Korean Zerg invited.
BNet world championship : once again, happened several months ago and there was no serious Korean Zerg except Curious.
IEM season VII : no serious Korean Zerg invited once again (top 3 : sting, grubby, slivko).
BNet world championship : quoting 2 times bnet world championship ? quite a low logical fallacy
ESWC 2012 : not one single Korean Zerg invited, and Stephano would have won against forGG had he not messed up miserably like he admitted it himself.
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You should look at the list of participants in each of those tournaments you listed. None of them have a top zerg in attendence, I think the only one that does has curious and Roro at BWC, but compared to parting, hero, HerO, creator, Rain. I mean, some of those are Taeja, forGG, theSTC, and Hero vs. no one from zerg. And another is Parting, Yongwa, MKP vs. no one from zerg.
PS, to make your list longer you listed BWC twice.
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First impression of possible changes;
Infested Terran change:
I don't believe this at all solves the issues with IT's. Yes, the IT's have very high DPS and can soak up a lot of damage; BUT they are also very limited in that they have to take time to hatch and are very limited in mobility once they do hatch. Admittedly you can always throw around a lot of them to compensate but that would require energy. In my opinion, the real issue and the issue that everyone is complaining about is fungals. The problem with fungals in comparison to IT's is that fungal growth has no limitations. The spell is too versatile and multidimensional. It is pretty much a combination of all the other races' spell casters. This test obviously does nothing to address that issue, which is in my opinion the real problem.
Hunter Seeker change:
I think this change deals with the exact same issue as the IT change, it completely misses the issue at hand. I like the idea of buffing the HSM; however, it is not the correct buff in my opinion. The problem with HSM is not the damage nor the speed; rather, it is the range in which it has to be cast. I believe the range of the HSM is 3 (correct me if I'm wrong please) and I think that is much too little. The problem with the short range is that every raven that attempts to cast a HSM is pretty much a suicide raven because it gets sniped every single time it goes to cast HSM. There is no other unit besides melee units that have such a short range, and to have an expensive spell caster have such short range and be so vulnerable is just not balanced. People will argue that the HSM needs to have a higher speed but I think a range buff would be sufficient because it would either force the opponent to micro his units which takes up his APM or absorb a huge spell with AOE damage. So just in my opinion a slight range buff to the HSM range would make the raven much more useful.
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EPT
