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Northern Ireland27200 Posts
On December 09 2012 06:44 alhazrel wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2012 06:44 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 07 2012 06:42 alhazrel wrote:
It seems like satire that never quite reaches the dizzy height of being funny. Is it a passive-aggressive whine about balance whiners? Is it a caricature of the melodramatic community response to every blizzard balance change? Is it a dig at the massive spell of terran dominance that a lot of terran players still claim was due to pro terrans just being better? (old blue flame hellions were the best thing...)
I dunno, maybe the reason I don't find it funny is because there seems to be a slight balance problem at the moment in favour of Zerg at a high level. Maaybe it's 'cause I actually do think spells that prevent people playing are stupid. Where do you get the energy to write all that? The gag to word ratio wasn't anywhere near high enough.
Also I guess all the people posting things like 'if you were as clever as me and the OP you'd get the joke and find it funny' annoy me a bit. There were like 3 bits that made me laugh, the rest is just hand-in-your-pants self congratulation. Simply. 1. Serious analysis, why the current metagame sucks with lots of examples and historical references 2. Humour/satire part with the things you've noticed. I think the problem you're experiencing is seeing good, intelligent analysis, seeing jokey satire and figuring out where the transition occurs? There's no good, intelligent analysis. Perhaps you're mistaking generalised, factually absent, heavily ironic story-telling for analysis? The OP is engaging and well-written without being accurate. I just read through it again to make sure you're wrong and the first reasonable line that I noticed was, 'If Byun had lost his army to banelings from one direction, then one could call him sloppy as it takes several seconds for banelings to appear in vision and close in for the kill. That is fair. Fungal has much less margin for error.' That line is sitting half way through feeling very lonely. If you have the energy to go through the OP and pick out all the pieces of intelligent analysis you can find, I'll try super hard to make sure I respond to it.
As a piece on why there's a lot of disenfranchisement with the game from the spectator's point of view I do feel it's got a lot of validity. I do feel perhaps it is overly subjective on certain things, especially when it comes to clarifying things like 'skill' in terms of dynamic, fun-to-watch and 'fair' matches to the observer I think he has a lot of points. References some classic games, describing a dynamic and micro-filled matchup from bothsides. Things like the foreigner v Korean stats are kind of presupposing that all three races have equivalent players, may not necessarily be true. Obviously these are cherry-picked examples, by both the author and me and are relatively subjective I do realise this. Tried to pick out the examples that weren't bashing Z players or foreigners, jokingly or otherwise. Many of the old examples highlight both the skill of the Terran, but also the skill and micro required on the Zerg's part as well!
Patchzerg is a pretty unfair stick used to beat some players with, imo:
'The Patchzerg Myth'
Anyway, if you could be bothered reading that or not, onto the article quotes I figured worth looking at.
'Good' Starcraft for the Spectator
'A fight where in-battle micro actually can occur: a concept anathema to today's games. sC has to split his marines continuously and target fire with tanks, while Nestea has to control his banelings and set up proper flanks to limit the micro potential sC has.'
'Here, Jjakji kills Leenock's 4th base, so Leenock maneuvers to interpose between Jjakji's main army and reinforcements. Then, he can envelop JJakji's isolated main army and win a crushing victory. In order to forestall such a plan, Jjakji drops Leenock's natural and forces him to rescue it, thus disrupting the planned concentration and allowing Jjakji to safely link up forces. Tactical Depth in SC2? What is this! '
Bad
'Now, if you say, made the infestor off limits, and put Life/Leenock/DRG in a group with any number of foreigner Zergs, could you pick out the former three in a ZvT? Without question: muta/ling/bling play actually lets Zerg players differentiate themselves precisely because it is difficult to execute and contains a lot of tactical depth. Turtle rushing to infestor/broodlord does not.'
'Once upon a time (pre March 22nd 2011, the true origin of the patchzerg) Zerg was actually a very difficult race to play against Terran, as muta/ling/bling, was at least as demanding as playing as Terran if not harder. PvZ was of course still stupid and ill-conceived, and here Zergs had no way to just auto win once it got to lategame. If it was decided Zerg needed an improvement, Blizzard could have simply made the mutalisk, baneling, or zergling stronger. Another option would be to enhance multitasking tools such as drops or nydus, or weaken their counters (thor/colossus, sensor tower, etc). Then we could have kept the same dynamic and chaotic TvZ, riveting to spectate and play. Who knows, maybe PvZ would have even been watchable and featured something other than turtling lategame, 1a clashes midgame, or 2 base allins; I'm sure this is hard to imagine, but keep trying to picture it: you might see it eventually''
'Instead of a Zerg army racing in circles around its opponent, picking off units piece by piece and winning with well-timed backstabs or grand envelopments, Zergs now simply have to make some infestors, f-click occasionally from massive range, and later attack with an unstoppable army. Blizzard has made broodlord/infestor/queen/corruptor so utterly powerful that Zergs have now adopted the highly innovative tactic of sacrificing all of their bases just in order to buy enough time to make one broodlord army, which then wins the game on its own; sadly, this is not an exaggeration. Outside of the egregious Scarlett vs Hero game already mentioned, other examples include: Vibe vs San from MLG Dallas on Cloud Kingdom, where Vibe loses every base but his main, Leenock vs Hero on Antiga in GSL where Leenock voluntarily forfeits expansions to harass just to ensure the creation of one army that auto wins the game after casting neural parasite, and Leenock vs Bomber, where Leenock only retains his natural and main. In the end, their loss of bases is was irrelevant because they made 1 broodlord/infestor army,'
'When it looked like Terran was winning too many lategames with ghost turtling in a 3 month period, far less than Zergs are now in the past 6 months, the ghost got immediately axed to the point of uselessness. The patch was a great idea, as watching turtle terrans make 30 ghosts and snipe hive blobs or die to fungal +broodlings was hardly the most exciting play to watch; so long as it wasn't done in isolation. Unfortunately it was a straight nerf to Terran, with no other changes. Here, Blizzard had a chance to retool lategame TvZ and make it as enjoyable to watch and play as the midgame'
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I didn't even realize for myself... but this... this makes sense. This explains, what I have intuitively known in my heart to be true over the past year of watching Starcraft.
I... I'd had thought that the decrease in excitement is because I got to know the game or because the novelty wear off. But no, the fact of the matter is waiting to see if the immortal sentry timing wins or not is no where near as exciting as the frontier spectacle of FruitDealer's run through open season 1, NesTea's solid play in a sea of cheese in GSL 2 or MC's manhandling of Terran in GSL Open 3.
I... I always wanted to play Zerg... I dreamed of it. But now... I find myself... forcing myself to make VoidRays and HT work vs infestors. I feel disgusting, please make it stop.
PATCHZERGG
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..and it turned out Hyun was the patchzerg, not sortof. I guess a lot of people must be feeling like complete fucking idiots.
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On December 09 2012 19:47 m0ck wrote:
..and it turned out Hyun was the patchzerg, not sortof. I guess a lot of people must be feeling like complete fucking idiots.
No it just turned out that Zerg is low skillcap, coinflippy race which shows mostly in ZvZ.
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I'd be happy to have that much time to waste on writing an completely pointless article. You put pretty much effort in writing a completely unneccessary text, which may have the only purpose to piss people off.
I'd rather see people using their energy to make SC2 a better game.
Readers! Don't let the author troll you, he wastes your time.
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On December 09 2012 19:59 Ogww wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 19:47 m0ck wrote:
..and it turned out Hyun was the patchzerg, not sortof. I guess a lot of people must be feeling like complete fucking idiots. No it just turned out that Zerg is low skillcap, coinflippy race which shows mostly in ZvZ.
Haha, I was kidding. I realize that none of the jackasses in this thread will feel any remorse for thrashing the hard work of other people and that no result will ever prove them wrong. I mean, why admit fault when you can simply rationalize away reality contradicting your beliefs? No, better to just keep repeating: "patchzerg, no skill, luck".
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On December 09 2012 20:46 Gabriel Verlaine wrote:
I'd be happy to have that much time to waste on writing an completely pointless article. You put pretty much effort in writing a completely unneccessary text, which may have the only purpose to piss people off.
I'd rather see people using their energy to make SC2 a better game.
Readers! Don't let the author troll you, he wastes your time.
I thought it was a great read, and seeing the responses in this thread I'd say far more people liked it rather than dislikeing it.
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On December 09 2012 20:47 m0ck wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 19:59 Ogww wrote:On December 09 2012 19:47 m0ck wrote:
..and it turned out Hyun was the patchzerg, not sortof. I guess a lot of people must be feeling like complete fucking idiots. No it just turned out that Zerg is low skillcap, coinflippy race which shows mostly in ZvZ. Haha, I was kidding. I realize that none of the jackasses in this thread will feel any remorse for thrashing the hard work of other people and that no result will ever prove them wrong. I mean, why admit fault when you can simply rationalize away reality contradicting your beliefs? No, better to just keep repeating: "patchzerg, no skill, luck".
Snute to win next GSL. He's better than Life, owned him 2-1 son.
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Northern Ireland27200 Posts
On December 09 2012 20:53 kyllinghest wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2012 20:46 Gabriel Verlaine wrote:
I'd be happy to have that much time to waste on writing an completely pointless article. You put pretty much effort in writing a completely unneccessary text, which may have the only purpose to piss people off.
I'd rather see people using their energy to make SC2 a better game.
Readers! Don't let the author troll you, he wastes your time. I thought it was a great read, and seeing the responses in this thread I'd say far more people liked it rather than dislikeing it.
Quite amusing really, people even saying it was an example of 'hatespeech'. Ah the lengths of some Zerg players go to defend their own egos, the ones who are just bad at the game and won't accept that their race is helping them out.
Not meant as a bash on people who play Zerg, in fact I frequently defend Z players from the dreaded 'patchzerg' tag but the author tapped in to why the term exists in the first place pretty well.
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Quite a waste of time reading this. Can't understand why someone would spend this much time on an article when all it contains is pointless whining. I agree that the game is somewhat broken now (or was before the recent patch at least), but if you don't have anything constructive to say you better remain silent.
Btw, TvZ isn't really broken from a balance perspective, but the design is. A terran playins his A-game and makes no mistakes will win vs pretty much any zerg, while a terran not playing perfectly will lose even to mid-tier foreigners.
What's really broken is PvZ, broken in every was possible. Again, talking about pre-patch.
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funny to read 
even my heart beats for the swarm i have to admit i enjoyed watching gsl more at the old terra is op times
rooting for evry single zerg in the gsl was kinda ezy (nestea zenio curious losira there were not that many xD
and rooating for rising stars aka leenok or drg was awesome it gave u the feeling yes they can break the imballance with pure skil
but now evry1 claims zerg op , so its kinda hard to root for them and watching zvz is kinda boring. i like fast buildorder win pvp , i like tvts , and dislike colossus wars :-)
i d love watching muta ling bane and i really dislike blord infa , thats kinda boring evry1 does it (have to admit i play ultras in evry matchup over blords with mass lign drops /nydus evrywhere xD)
but also it was so painfull to watch when ppl built this 2-3 base colossus deathball or those mech sit back do nothing klick a win strats .(i actually h8 evrything toss does to win vs zerg XD)
so ye i get the point the TO and agree to a part , but without infas at all we were back to those boring sit back maxout klick a toss timings i cant stand at all (i dislike those way more than blord infa xD)
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this patch zerg you refer is not responsible of every crime of this world.
zerg becam strong a year after the infestor buff
and the buff of queen had nothing to do with the IMBA late game army
in each of the game you show the zerg has limited gameplan, now they have insane trick and adaptation to go to fast T3 with no weakness to obvious
the patch is innocent, the players are the cause of this
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On December 09 2012 22:12 plouer wrote:
this patch zerg you refer is not responsible of every crime of this world.
zerg becam strong a year after the infestor buff
and the buff of queen had nothing to do with the IMBA late game army
in each of the game you show the zerg has limited gameplan, now they have insane trick and adaptation to go to fast T3 with no weakness to obvious
the patch is innocent, the players are the cause of this
The queen change was what allowed zergs to econ cheese all the way up till hive while still being defended against everything. That is what allows zerg to make such a ridiculous army every single time. Queens are what pushed an already existing imbalance way overboard.
The worst thing is that Blizzard couldn't see it coming.
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On December 09 2012 21:56 PerryHooter wrote:
Quite a waste of time reading this. Can't understand why someone would spend this much time on an article when all it contains is pointless whining. I agree that the game is somewhat broken now (or was before the recent patch at least), but if you don't have anything constructive to say you better remain silent.
Btw, TvZ isn't really broken from a balance perspective, but the design is. A terran playins his A-game and makes no mistakes will win vs pretty much any zerg, while a terran not playing perfectly will lose even to mid-tier foreigners.
What's really broken is PvZ, broken in every was possible. Again, talking about pre-patch.
You can't assume the Automaton micro-bot is playing. The matchup is not balanced right now, and the OP presents tons of stats and examples showing this.
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while i agree with some of the things you say, the idea that they changed the game in order for white people to win is ridiculous.
they changed the game because zerg was getting rofl stomped way too easily. they did make zerg OP in almost every scenario. especially the ones you presented where a player looked away for 1 second. but again that is what makes a good player, never losing focus for one second, especially when it matters. Like when you're walking on creep or attacking. Which in almost every scenario was the case.
I have said before that the idea to beat zerg these days should not be to kill the BL, infestor army. but to kill the hive. Kill the hive before it gets morphed. Kill the infestation pit before the gland upgrade hits. or before hive can be morped. kill the damn spire for christ's sake! These are strategies seldom seen in tournaments. People wait in there base biting their nails hoping they can survive against the zerg player.
I'd like it if you looked at ThorZain's play versus Zerg. He seems to do very well.
Moving forward, rather than nerfing zerg perhaps blizzard could buff P and T. Give vikings a missile upgrade, or make fungal not work on Massive units like Thors and BCs. If an ultralisk can't be fungaled then why can a thor be fungaled? stupid design that's why. Blizzard should look at that. Or giving some kind of anti fungal to protoss, like guardian shield could protect versus spells like fungal or storm. That is so viable! why don't they do that energy using sentry to protect against energy using infestors.
Recent patch: making fungal a projectile is almost a good fix... but it still fungals things allowing them to be chain fungaled.
All in all, a lengthy read but good points aside from the conspiracy notion.
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So this article basically just complains about the same stuff that everyone complains about in a slightly ironic way, is that what it is? For me personally it didn't work that well, it wasn't really my kind of humour if it's meant to be taken as satire. It can be read as just another, really lengthy whine post if you take it seriously. If anything the whole conspiracy part is so absurd that its actually funny. On the other hand certain things mentioned in the OP are true, like the current metagame being terrible to watch, but that stuff has already been discussed to death... And I feel like now we're just waiting for HotS to change everything again anyways.
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Of course I've known this all along - I got banned for 1 week complaining about how infestors and fungal growth is overpowered - my argument was on the general lines of that one spell should not be able to change the game that fungal can possibly do.
I remember in another LR thread where I responded to the lines of "Why doesn't Yoda make vikings to counter BLs?" with "Vikings are useless because they will lose to infestor/corrupter/BLs anyways. At least if you don't make them, you can hit timing attacks or possibly win if the zerg goes ultras". Of course, I got the usual chorus of disapproval that Yoda must've make some mistake and there exists an imaginary counter to infestor/corrupter/BL.
Thank goodness I finally have a very respected strategic authority to link back to. For those that are unaware, Ver is a noted strategic since the BW days and author of the "How to improve" article.
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On December 10 2012 00:40 Azzur wrote:
Of course I've known this all along - I got banned for 1 week complaining about how infestors and fungal growth is overpowered - my argument was on the general lines of that one spell should not be able to change the game that fungal can possibly do.
I remember in another LR thread where I responded to the lines of "Why doesn't Yoda make vikings to counter BLs?" with "Vikings are useless because they will lose to infestor/corrupter/BLs anyways. At least if you don't make them, you can hit timing attacks or possibly win if the zerg goes ultras". Of course, I got the usual chorus of disapproval that Yoda must've make some mistake and there exists an imaginary counter to infestor/corrupter/BL.
Thank goodness I finally have a very respected strategic authority to link back to. For those that are unaware, Ver is a noted strategic since the BW days and author of the "How to improve" article.
And all the same he will be labeled and dismissed by many as a "whiner". Sometimes I really can't agree with the whole anti-whiner stance TL has taken, it's really hurt the community's mindset imo.
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haha, had a good laugh reading this. Very nicely done Ver. Probably the most entertaining piece of writing I read on TL this year. I first laughed while reading it, then laughed again while reading the replies of people who clearly didn't get the point of this writing. Now That's entertainment.
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This is basically a balance whine with a fake conspiracy theory thrown in at the end so that when people respond to the first part you can be like "DUDE LOL YOU OBVIOUSLY JUST DON'T GET IT, TARDBOY IT'S TONGUE IN CHEEK BRO".
That being said I still agree with the conclusions of the first part on balance. and even think there's a grain of truth to the 2nd part. And it was entertaining I suppose.
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EPT
