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Lings of Liberty: The Rise of the Patchzergs - Page 75

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9404 Posts
December 10 2012 02:49 GMT
#1481
On December 10 2012 02:38 Gendi2545 wrote:
I must be one cynical bastard because I can easily believe this, after all far more important things than SC2 are rigged these days. Since Activision took over Blizz has become just another giant company out to screw people for profit, it's a crying shame because SC2 could have been so awesome.

Really nice exposition, it explains a lot.

EDIT: Reading the comments, it seems the OP was a joke? God I don't get it, I don't rate it as proper trolling if it sounds like it's serious (like the TL Pro Mod). The OP still makes sense to me though.


Lol please use logic.
What exactly did Activision do?
They let Blizzard use 12 years to create an inferior game which barely created any revenue to the consolidated income statment of ATVI.

Yeh I guess they are too blame for sc2 being badly designed...

Sarcasm off.
D4V3Z02
Profile Joined April 2011
Germany693 Posts
December 10 2012 07:45 GMT
#1482
Thats a long, polemic post.
http://www.twitch.tv/d4v3z02 all your base are belong to overlord
mongmong
Profile Joined November 2011
Korea (South)1389 Posts
December 10 2012 08:07 GMT
#1483
I want to give my full list of patchzergs in this thread

but since I dont want banhammer ill just keep it to myself
어헣 ↗ 어헣 ↗
Alastor
Profile Joined September 2010
Brazil30 Posts
December 10 2012 10:23 GMT
#1484
Interesting to see Nestea ZvT without any Infestors
Zombo Joe
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada850 Posts
December 10 2012 10:25 GMT
#1485
On December 10 2012 19:23 Alastor wrote:
Interesting to see Nestea ZvT without any Infestors


The game was definitely better but nestea had already won the game with econ cheese in the early game.
I am Terranfying.
NEEDZMOAR
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
Sweden1277 Posts
December 10 2012 10:48 GMT
#1486
To me this is nothing but a trollthread... sure youve put a lot of effort into it, but after all thats what make trollthreads great.


Why isnt this a blog?

Kudos on getting 75 pages+, was a fun read :D
Pursuit_
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States1330 Posts
December 10 2012 10:49 GMT
#1487
On December 10 2012 02:09 Ziggitz wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 10 2012 01:48 Drowsy wrote:
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.


If the 10 most popular SC2 threads on TL for the last month have taught us anything, anti-Zerg circlejerks bring on the pageviews.


Or any controversial topic, which at the moment just happens to be the apparent Zerg domination.
In Somnis Veritas
Kabras
Profile Joined June 2011
Romania3508 Posts
December 10 2012 13:19 GMT
#1488
Patchzerg.I like that word, seems appropiate. Blizzard still hating on terran tho => DOTA 2 FTW
"So playing SF in pubs, everyone remember that a very important point is that when using a carry hero like this you must be very selfish. Because working with team mates is a very dangerous thing" - 2009
bigbadgreen
Profile Joined October 2010
United States142 Posts
December 10 2012 13:22 GMT
#1489
I don't think blizzard has set up the game to let white people win. suggesting so shows either a lack of knowledge of the game or a skewed view of the game and belittles the hard work put in by a lot of top zerg players. I'm not saying the infestor isn't overused or fungal/IT don't need to be adjusted, but an arguement like this just cheapens the good points of the OP. second as a crappy (gold) player I hate the term "patch zerg". It's giving people something to cling to when all they want to do is balance whine or make themselves feel better. I've been harassed after games with long winded "patch zerg" rants. some of those games were even won by muta ling. thank god for the ability to block communication. I used to chat with people after some ladder games, now I just set it to block all messages because I'm tired of being harrassed if I win. This sort of mentality is bad for the game. people complain all the time about battlenet isolating people. well getting trolled after every game isolates people as well. Remember that next time you try to message a "patch zerg" after you lose.
DeadByDawn
Profile Joined October 2012
United Kingdom476 Posts
December 10 2012 14:15 GMT
#1490
The OP makes a good point about spectator value regardless of the rest of the post. I used to watch GSL all the time and although I still have a subscription, I watched less than 5 games last season. SC2 of late has been a lot of early Terran cheese, late game maxed armies with little micro, and ZvZzzzzzzzz. Medivac drops seem to be so rare nowadays too. The metagame is stale and uninteresting.
Sejanus
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Lithuania550 Posts
December 10 2012 17:39 GMT
#1491
The fact that Blizzard rigging the game on purpose is pulled out of where Sun doesn't shine doesn't change the fact the article described current state of the game very spot on. It only added additional entertainment value so it wasn't boring to read.

10/10
Friends don't let friends massacre civilians
jinorazi
Profile Joined October 2004
Korea (South)4948 Posts
December 10 2012 19:34 GMT
#1492
i fucking knew something was a foot when white people started beating koreans more often, when it should be the other way around. i'm glad the culprit, or the reason was caught.

newton's law states white people are less than and occasionally equal to koreans, but never ever greater.

even the great sun tzu said his art of war does not apply to white people since strategical importance do not matter warring against white people.
age: 84 | location: california | sex: 잘함
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
December 10 2012 19:48 GMT
#1493
On December 10 2012 19:23 Alastor wrote:
Interesting to see Nestea ZvT without any Infestors


That's nothing new, he rarely ever played Infestors. It's really frustrating to see such a great player waste his talent with outdated playstyles...
alhazrel
Profile Joined November 2011
98 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-10 19:52:37
December 10 2012 19:50 GMT
#1494
+ Show Spoiler +
On December 10 2012 11:24 plogamer wrote:
On December 10 2012 03:42 alhazrel wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2012 16:29 Wombat_NI wrote:
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.

That was one of the things I felt had the least substance to it. I think viewer numbers have been dropping for a really long time, it isn't as if that started with the infestor patch. There are a lot of reasons people don't watch as much now with the biggest being how long SC2 has been out. The idea that the play-style of 1 of 3 races could have the impact on viewers that this suggests is staggeringly exaggerated.

The sad truth is that if people aren't playing a game then they're generally less interested in the pro scene and, like many others, me and my friends cut down playing it when we realised our dreams of going pro were standing behind a wall of time and effort.


Do you seriously argue that a lower viewership is due to lower interest in pro scene? You don't say....

My dad watches NBA; has no dreams of going pro. There, my anecdote to your anecdote.

Show nested quote +

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!

Old Z micro pretty much started and ended with the surround. Click past enemy army, then attack, rather than just a-moving. Then mutas became popular and it was magic-boxing and swinging the mutas around and that was all. Positional awareness has never been as important as it is at the moment and the standard of today's games makes old ones look clumsy. Even terran micro has improved by an incredible amount and although I kind of miss the days when mvp could make 3 tanks and then march a route 1 into any zergs base and take them out I think it's improved the quality of games now that isn't viable.


How is positional awareness less important for Zergs when they have to set up flanks and counterattacks to secure good engagements? You make hollow arguments that have no substance whatsoever. Currently, Zergs don't need to do any of that to win games.

Show nested quote +

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.'

This used to be the exception but now in every TvZ Zerg players are splitting their army and swarming spread out, well-positioned armies from all directions. The reason these games are even getting as far as lategame is because that terran timing push is no longer ending the game.


You must be dreaming up games here. The consensus is that Zergs turtle to hive tech and then roll over Terran army. There is a very very brief window between hive tech and greater spire that Terran timing push would aim for. And even that no longer works against a competent Zerg.


Show nested quote +

'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! '

Again, this kind of simple tactical interplay is still a regular occurrence. Terrans are always attacking in multiple locations to take advantage of the immobility of a Z army relying on infestors. Z keeps pools of lings to act as a sweeping defensive force to chase away drops while T tries to sneak in and pick off bases and drone lines and escape before the infestor can appear. Those kind of cat and mouse games used to be unheard of, if a terran used drop play it was some kind of bombshell. 'MMA is going for drop play', it was like and endgame strategy, now you use drop plays to support a more complex strategy.


Simply untrue. Blue flame drops were so broken that Blizzard nerfed them. The recipe for BFH drops? Blueflame Hellions + Medivac drops.

Drops.

Show nested quote +

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.'

This is silly, because of course you could. Life didn't coincidentally win GSL and then MLG, his so-called 'standard' play was the combination of quickly expanding, protecting your economic spine, maintaining map control and managing the opposition army while also using ling run-bys to inflict damage that has only recently come into existence. Especially in his ZvZ you could really see Life's strength, the same way Leenock and Stephano have both shown their ability while they were at the top.


Quickly expanding came as a result of Queen buff. "Protecting ... economic spine" is just your fancy way of saying making more queens. Map control has never been an issue for a competent Zerg. Run-bys only recently come into existence? You must be kidding.

Show nested quote +

'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.

lol, while Terran could choose to either go banshee and do massive damage, or go blue flame hellion and do massive damage. Terran used to have huge unit advantages over zerg at a time when top level zergs were struggling to keep on top of their injects and weren't using creep spread. The fact that you can't get away with that now isn't because zerg has become easier to play it's because Z players have realised the importance of increasing production early and maintaining map vision at all times.


I agree. The queen buff really opened up creep spread as an important way of maintaining map vision. Not sure what you're going on about banshee and blue flame hellion. Queens always were very effective vs banshees, more queens as a result of the buff made banshees harder to play.

BFH got nerfed some hardcore that early-mid game, 3 hellions have to kill 6+ drones to be worth trading. That's just to come up even. Needs to kill about twice that amount to really hurt Zerg econ since they can as easily make 6 drones after hellions are dead and Terran cannot take advantage of the larvae loss since queens don't need larvae and hold everything early game.

Show nested quote +

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).

With the benefit of hindsight I can see what he means, I too think fungal is an ill-conceived and boring spell. It's worth mentioning in response to his ideas, that his beloved combination of ling/bling/muta is nowhere near as effective if you split it up, so offering tools to split the zerg army around the map might be a bit like buffing something that has too many other drawbacks to make it worthwhile (*cough* seeker missile*cough). If you're talking about boring 1a vs 1a battle it's strange that you'd choose a composition that relies so much on splash damage that running it into a massive army is just about the best possible use for it.


This thread is all about hindsight.

I disagree with the idea that splitting up units is bad for Zergs. Compositions with lots of ranged units benefit from clumping up and are less effective when split up.

Show nested quote +

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''

The only thing that made it interesting was that things were moving and dying instead of standing still and dying. That was for like 10 seconds until one player had a bit more left than the other and marched up their ramp to win. There's a lot more tactical depth now. That didn't make games more watchable for the other 15mins where nothing was happening.


Again, you make a statement like, "There's a lot more tactical depth now", without any support. You easily dismiss engaging gameplay as "moving and dying".

Show nested quote +

'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,'

Wow! This sounds very exciting; however, with the redeeming factor of a few well-chosen examples, this is rubbish. Zerg only ever picked off units like that with mutas and watching a Z tech up to mutas, make 30 and then fly them around while a Terran or Protoss player did nothing was quite frustrating and only lasted until mvp realised while they were doing that you could march into their base and force a big engagement. I don't get why this guy loves watching a hundred supply of ling bling crash into a hundred supply of marine tank, or stalker colossus so much.


You don't even have well-chosen examples in your counter argument. The point is that there was much more than hundred supply of units crashing into eachother. And even then, it was better than BL/infestor melting everything.

Show nested quote +

'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'


It wasn't 'too many' lategames, it was just one. Nestea vs mvp at blizzcon. Right in front of the dev teams eyes, mvp pulled back an insurmountable disadvantage with an army made entirely of ghosts. It was ridiculous and I can see why it made them nerf ghost snipe. Funnily enough that was in the early days of infestor/brood-lord and it was one of the most puzzling games ever. Nestea sacrificed his ling bling army by sending them one-by-one into mvps tanks and then caught an unlucky emp on his infestors when he switched to inf/bl that allowed mvp to snipe all the brood lords.

In that case location is the most important thing and suggesting that the reason terran took a faster and harder nerf than zerg has is because of Z bias is short-sighted to say the least. That was 'see-it-with-your-own-eyes' evidence of the two best players in the world at a place staged to show off the RTS jewel in Blizzard's crown and it was laughable, it demanded a reaction. Of course, really it was just nestea having a bad day, or maybe taking one for the Zerg team.

I think all of this stuff is way off the mark tinged with nostalgic 'I used to really enjoy watching, so there must be a reason'. That's why I thought he had to be sending up Terran whiners. I couldn't take any of his criticism seriously because I hardly agree with any of the things he says.


The point was that Ghosts were nerfed due to their ability to kill everything and make a poor gameplay. And yet the same has not been done for Infestors.

No, instead you go on and on "see-it-with-your-own-eyes" when really, Blizzard should be keeping a closer eye on games.

lol, you've completely missed the point of almost everything that I said. You keep banging on about the queen patch when everyone else is talking about the infestor and the fungal growth buff. Should I take it that you think the queen range buff is the reason infestors are too strong now? I started to reply point by point but I gave up after I came back to your first argument. The fact that sc2 has been out a long time can't be the reason audience numbers have fallen because your dad likes nba. Thanks buddy,

I was responding to specific points that you've totally missed. You seem to think I'm fine with Zerg at the moment, when what I was actually saying is that the OP was missing the point. Because you were arguing with what you think I think, instead of what I actually wrote and what I was responding to, there is literally no point my even writing this response and if you would like to, you can continue to argue with yourself.

I'm actually left with the impression you haven't watched any games recently. You should pay more attention to that whole bit of the game where Zerg is playing defensively to get to brood lords, since the roach ling/bling engagements are usually very positionally aware. The fact that you think blizzard should be paying attention to all tourneys equally is lovely and idealistic and also totally ridiculous. 'This post is all about hindsight', no it isn't, OP was joking (I hope) about blizzard having a plan to lower the difficulty of the foreigner heavy race.

The skill level hasn't gone down, the reason viewer numbers have fallen isn't because of infestor/brood lord, Blizzard is not giving zerg special treatment or favouring it over terran. Maybe I should pull up 10 random games that terran have won and then claim that shows a trend of terran OP, and you'd consider that suitable evidence. lol. What a waste of time.
blade55555
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States17423 Posts
December 10 2012 19:56 GMT
#1495
On December 10 2012 17:07 mongmong wrote:
I want to give my full list of patchzergs in this thread

but since I dont want banhammer ill just keep it to myself


That's a good idea I have a feeling your list would have been extremely silly.
When I think of something else, something will go here
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25771 Posts
December 10 2012 20:32 GMT
#1496
On December 11 2012 04:50 alhazrel wrote:
Show nested quote +
+ Show Spoiler +
On December 10 2012 11:24 plogamer wrote:
On December 10 2012 03:42 alhazrel wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2012 16:29 Wombat_NI wrote:
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.

That was one of the things I felt had the least substance to it. I think viewer numbers have been dropping for a really long time, it isn't as if that started with the infestor patch. There are a lot of reasons people don't watch as much now with the biggest being how long SC2 has been out. The idea that the play-style of 1 of 3 races could have the impact on viewers that this suggests is staggeringly exaggerated.

The sad truth is that if people aren't playing a game then they're generally less interested in the pro scene and, like many others, me and my friends cut down playing it when we realised our dreams of going pro were standing behind a wall of time and effort.


Do you seriously argue that a lower viewership is due to lower interest in pro scene? You don't say....

My dad watches NBA; has no dreams of going pro. There, my anecdote to your anecdote.

Show nested quote +

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!

Old Z micro pretty much started and ended with the surround. Click past enemy army, then attack, rather than just a-moving. Then mutas became popular and it was magic-boxing and swinging the mutas around and that was all. Positional awareness has never been as important as it is at the moment and the standard of today's games makes old ones look clumsy. Even terran micro has improved by an incredible amount and although I kind of miss the days when mvp could make 3 tanks and then march a route 1 into any zergs base and take them out I think it's improved the quality of games now that isn't viable.


How is positional awareness less important for Zergs when they have to set up flanks and counterattacks to secure good engagements? You make hollow arguments that have no substance whatsoever. Currently, Zergs don't need to do any of that to win games.

Show nested quote +

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.'

This used to be the exception but now in every TvZ Zerg players are splitting their army and swarming spread out, well-positioned armies from all directions. The reason these games are even getting as far as lategame is because that terran timing push is no longer ending the game.


You must be dreaming up games here. The consensus is that Zergs turtle to hive tech and then roll over Terran army. There is a very very brief window between hive tech and greater spire that Terran timing push would aim for. And even that no longer works against a competent Zerg.


Show nested quote +

'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! '

Again, this kind of simple tactical interplay is still a regular occurrence. Terrans are always attacking in multiple locations to take advantage of the immobility of a Z army relying on infestors. Z keeps pools of lings to act as a sweeping defensive force to chase away drops while T tries to sneak in and pick off bases and drone lines and escape before the infestor can appear. Those kind of cat and mouse games used to be unheard of, if a terran used drop play it was some kind of bombshell. 'MMA is going for drop play', it was like and endgame strategy, now you use drop plays to support a more complex strategy.


Simply untrue. Blue flame drops were so broken that Blizzard nerfed them. The recipe for BFH drops? Blueflame Hellions + Medivac drops.

Drops.

Show nested quote +

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.'

This is silly, because of course you could. Life didn't coincidentally win GSL and then MLG, his so-called 'standard' play was the combination of quickly expanding, protecting your economic spine, maintaining map control and managing the opposition army while also using ling run-bys to inflict damage that has only recently come into existence. Especially in his ZvZ you could really see Life's strength, the same way Leenock and Stephano have both shown their ability while they were at the top.


Quickly expanding came as a result of Queen buff. "Protecting ... economic spine" is just your fancy way of saying making more queens. Map control has never been an issue for a competent Zerg. Run-bys only recently come into existence? You must be kidding.

Show nested quote +

'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.

lol, while Terran could choose to either go banshee and do massive damage, or go blue flame hellion and do massive damage. Terran used to have huge unit advantages over zerg at a time when top level zergs were struggling to keep on top of their injects and weren't using creep spread. The fact that you can't get away with that now isn't because zerg has become easier to play it's because Z players have realised the importance of increasing production early and maintaining map vision at all times.


I agree. The queen buff really opened up creep spread as an important way of maintaining map vision. Not sure what you're going on about banshee and blue flame hellion. Queens always were very effective vs banshees, more queens as a result of the buff made banshees harder to play.

BFH got nerfed some hardcore that early-mid game, 3 hellions have to kill 6+ drones to be worth trading. That's just to come up even. Needs to kill about twice that amount to really hurt Zerg econ since they can as easily make 6 drones after hellions are dead and Terran cannot take advantage of the larvae loss since queens don't need larvae and hold everything early game.

Show nested quote +

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).

With the benefit of hindsight I can see what he means, I too think fungal is an ill-conceived and boring spell. It's worth mentioning in response to his ideas, that his beloved combination of ling/bling/muta is nowhere near as effective if you split it up, so offering tools to split the zerg army around the map might be a bit like buffing something that has too many other drawbacks to make it worthwhile (*cough* seeker missile*cough). If you're talking about boring 1a vs 1a battle it's strange that you'd choose a composition that relies so much on splash damage that running it into a massive army is just about the best possible use for it.


This thread is all about hindsight.

I disagree with the idea that splitting up units is bad for Zergs. Compositions with lots of ranged units benefit from clumping up and are less effective when split up.

Show nested quote +

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''

The only thing that made it interesting was that things were moving and dying instead of standing still and dying. That was for like 10 seconds until one player had a bit more left than the other and marched up their ramp to win. There's a lot more tactical depth now. That didn't make games more watchable for the other 15mins where nothing was happening.


Again, you make a statement like, "There's a lot more tactical depth now", without any support. You easily dismiss engaging gameplay as "moving and dying".

Show nested quote +

'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,'

Wow! This sounds very exciting; however, with the redeeming factor of a few well-chosen examples, this is rubbish. Zerg only ever picked off units like that with mutas and watching a Z tech up to mutas, make 30 and then fly them around while a Terran or Protoss player did nothing was quite frustrating and only lasted until mvp realised while they were doing that you could march into their base and force a big engagement. I don't get why this guy loves watching a hundred supply of ling bling crash into a hundred supply of marine tank, or stalker colossus so much.


You don't even have well-chosen examples in your counter argument. The point is that there was much more than hundred supply of units crashing into eachother. And even then, it was better than BL/infestor melting everything.

Show nested quote +

'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'


It wasn't 'too many' lategames, it was just one. Nestea vs mvp at blizzcon. Right in front of the dev teams eyes, mvp pulled back an insurmountable disadvantage with an army made entirely of ghosts. It was ridiculous and I can see why it made them nerf ghost snipe. Funnily enough that was in the early days of infestor/brood-lord and it was one of the most puzzling games ever. Nestea sacrificed his ling bling army by sending them one-by-one into mvps tanks and then caught an unlucky emp on his infestors when he switched to inf/bl that allowed mvp to snipe all the brood lords.

In that case location is the most important thing and suggesting that the reason terran took a faster and harder nerf than zerg has is because of Z bias is short-sighted to say the least. That was 'see-it-with-your-own-eyes' evidence of the two best players in the world at a place staged to show off the RTS jewel in Blizzard's crown and it was laughable, it demanded a reaction. Of course, really it was just nestea having a bad day, or maybe taking one for the Zerg team.

I think all of this stuff is way off the mark tinged with nostalgic 'I used to really enjoy watching, so there must be a reason'. That's why I thought he had to be sending up Terran whiners. I couldn't take any of his criticism seriously because I hardly agree with any of the things he says.


The point was that Ghosts were nerfed due to their ability to kill everything and make a poor gameplay. And yet the same has not been done for Infestors.

No, instead you go on and on "see-it-with-your-own-eyes" when really, Blizzard should be keeping a closer eye on games.

lol, you've completely missed the point of almost everything that I said. You keep banging on about the queen patch when everyone else is talking about the infestor and the fungal growth buff. Should I take it that you think the queen range buff is the reason infestors are too strong now? I started to reply point by point but I gave up after I came back to your first argument. The fact that sc2 has been out a long time can't be the reason audience numbers have fallen because your dad likes nba. Thanks buddy,

I was responding to specific points that you've totally missed. You seem to think I'm fine with Zerg at the moment, when what I was actually saying is that the OP was missing the point. Because you were arguing with what you think I think, instead of what I actually wrote and what I was responding to, there is literally no point my even writing this response and if you would like to, you can continue to argue with yourself.

I'm actually left with the impression you haven't watched any games recently. You should pay more attention to that whole bit of the game where Zerg is playing defensively to get to brood lords, since the roach ling/bling engagements are usually very positionally aware. The fact that you think blizzard should be paying attention to all tourneys equally is lovely and idealistic and also totally ridiculous. 'This post is all about hindsight', no it isn't, OP was joking (I hope) about blizzard having a plan to lower the difficulty of the foreigner heavy race.

The skill level hasn't gone down, the reason viewer numbers have fallen isn't because of infestor/brood lord, Blizzard is not giving zerg special treatment or favouring it over terran. Maybe I should pull up 10 random games that terran have won and then claim that shows a trend of terran OP, and you'd consider that suitable evidence. lol. What a waste of time.

Cheers for the replies guys.

I made posts, many of them saying the hate that Zerg players and the race get is unfair. However, the current metagame makes for terrible games, I don't see how people can dispute that. Consider a poll I made in a thread. While it was a small sample size, and during a PvT (where you'd expect more of those races' players to be active) it was still rather a stark illustration.

Which do you prefer to watch:
TvP- 92%
TvZ- 8%

Considering TvZ used to be the absolute favourite interracial matchup for many of us and it's getting crushed by PvT, which has a lot more back-and-forth skirmishing and intensity these days.

Nobody had an issue with the Infestor/BL armies when it was extremely difficult to rush to them, it was a respectable trade between a strong lategame army and a difficult process in obtaining said army.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Kleen-X
Profile Joined May 2011
Denmark48 Posts
December 10 2012 21:59 GMT
#1497
Wow this was amazing to read, as he addresses this huge infestor issue with great sarcasm. I was very surprised in seeing how many people who did not get it at all. Calling the thread stupid because they take it seriously or people being so happy for blizzard that they cannot see this joke of blizzard earning money from foreigners beating Koreans as funny.

It might be a question of humor, but it do not degrade the really good points of the infestor. Especially in comparison to the ghost nerf. That is just so stupid they nerfed ghost to death but have kept the infestor so good for such a long time. I have seen too many chunks of units go down to fungal, because it was a matter of half a second to dodge it.
chilledjuice
Profile Joined December 2012
3 Posts
December 11 2012 01:50 GMT
#1498
this thread works well with previous threads about the general complaint about there being too many damn spellcasters in sc2. People forget how fucking cool baneling/ marine splitting is; thats something that is unique to sc2, something that requires freaking insane micro, and was hugely entertaining to watch. *sigh* Instead of this sick balance between terran splitting and seigeshot micro/ vs zerg ling/bling/muta micro, we have infestors vs ravens/ghosts; who can snipe? who can fungal? who can seeker missle? not neraly as much fun to watch. I am not interested at all in the seeker missle buff; I am much more interested in infestors being nerfed to all hell.
Share_The_Land
Profile Joined November 2011
Canada152 Posts
December 11 2012 19:56 GMT
#1499
I love when awesome joke threads actually make me think for a second ^_^ seriously though when you were listing a lot of examples, although obviously not being convinced of the joke point you were making, I really started to think back on the history of the game! The mentioning about Ghost nerf was a brilliant point, I mean I literally saw MVP beat Nestea in that one particular series and it was like the next week "AHH GHOSTS DO SHIT DMG NOW NERF NERF NERF" yet as you pointed ot Infestors have been so godly for so much longer and no attempts that I can see have been made. I mean I literally fucking laughed at the "egg health" nerf recently, even the range nerf is a joke altho at least it does SOMETHING.

Keep in mind also, been playing pure Zerg since BW and same thing since start of SC2 so I am a Zerg through and through. I just hate the idea of my race being viewed as the "easy" race, especially when from most perspectives it is blatantly true!

Thanks again for this post, you helped me understand why I have barely been watching SC2 lately and have just been getting my brother to fill me in on most matches.
"Turns out he's a former Counterstrike pro and grabs his ak!" - Tasteless
Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9404 Posts
December 11 2012 20:01 GMT
#1500
On December 12 2012 04:56 Share_The_Land wrote:
I love when awesome joke threads actually make me think for a second ^_^ seriously though when you were listing a lot of examples, although obviously not being convinced of the joke point you were making, I really started to think back on the history of the game! The mentioning about Ghost nerf was a brilliant point, I mean I literally saw MVP beat Nestea in that one particular series and it was like the next week "AHH GHOSTS DO SHIT DMG NOW NERF NERF NERF" yet as you pointed ot Infestors have been so godly for so much longer and no attempts that I can see have been made. I mean I literally fucking laughed at the "egg health" nerf recently, even the range nerf is a joke altho at least it does SOMETHING.

Keep in mind also, been playing pure Zerg since BW and same thing since start of SC2 so I am a Zerg through and through. I just hate the idea of my race being viewed as the "easy" race, especially when from most perspectives it is blatantly true!

Thanks again for this post, you helped me understand why I have barely been watching SC2 lately and have just been getting my brother to fill me in on most matches.


The "interesting" is that when Blizzard nerfed snipe damage, they litterally had no solution (them selves) to how terran would deal with broodlod infestor late game. I guess they probably thought that korean terrans would figure something out as they always did. But when it comes to a a serious nerf of the infestor, they were (for some reason) to scared to do anything signifcant (like they did with HOTS).They really didn't have a lot in faith in the ability of zerg innovating something or coming up with solutions.
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