EPTI've dragged 2 ppl into sc2, they both picked zerg, not because it's imba but because they found it to be the "coolest" race.
i play toss for the same reason.
Is Terran to remain the lowest played race? - Page 15
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NumberFive
Belgium36 Posts
I've dragged 2 ppl into sc2, they both picked zerg, not because it's imba but because they found it to be the "coolest" race. i play toss for the same reason. | ||
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LuNa.
United States20 Posts
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BurningRanger
Germany303 Posts
At least for TvP I've also been argueing like forever that the Protoss deathball is too mobile for it's damage and durability compared to the mobile Terran ball aka Bioball. Noone ever listened to me either. Anyways, the problem is still that Blizzard does only balance on highest Pro Level (which is quite much Korea only), where Players are so skilled that they can get enough out of the Terran race to be competitive. Unfortunately I don't see it changing with HotS yet. Terrans will stay the most multitasking and micro intensive race. Mech hasn't got much better (especially in TvP). The Widow Mine just adds to the immobility of Mech and tbh it's a rather gimmicky thing, depending too much on luck or the opponent's stupidity. The biggest problem with Siegetanks still is the splash to your own units, if Marines or Hellbats is quite unimportant. Also the inability to hold ground with them, like you could in BW, makes them very unstable. At a certain point you would just need too many Tanks to cover all your stuff and still be safe against the counters (mainly air units). So you can only use them like running up to the opposing army, hitting the siege button and crossing fingers that they are sieged before the opponents units are too close. Hellbats... honestly... they're Bio units... not Mech. So actually Bio got the biggest buff imo (Hellbats being Bio, Medivac buff, Reaper buffs). The casual Terran players, who can't move and/or think fast enough for Bio are left at a disadvantage still. To conclude... I think Terran player numbers will shrink further until Blizzard realizes that there are ways to give a race several playstyles. | ||
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Coffeeling
Finland250 Posts
The problem is elsewhere. Namely, the economy, and the nerfs having turned Terran units from threats into narrow anti-one-unit counters. Think about it. You fear Broodlords. You, to an extent, fear Corruptors because they turn into Broodlords. You laugh at Vikings unless you're heavy air. The onus is always on the Terran to counter the opposing composition. To quote myself from the "TvZ: What is (still) Broken" thread: On December 26 2012 09:36 Coffee Zombie wrote: Apart from Infestors, the whole thing boils down to larvae. In the past, you needed larvae to defend early pushes and to shoo off the contain from Reactor Hellion Expand quickly. Zerg players didn't like it. I vividly remember the endless inanity of "making Roaches is unacceptable because it means we can't drone/tech optimally". I am serious. The damage IdrA and Artosis have done to Zerg players' mindset cannot be underestimated. The issue is that, as we all have (to our boredom) noticed over the last half a year, the Zerg economy, if unhindered, is broken. The ability to use all your production slots on nothing but economy is way too good to exist, except for the fact that in the past you could force Zerg to use larvae for defense. This meant both sides made army, econ and teched a bit. It was fair (though understandably felt bad for Z because they were literally being damaged). Also, the only really boring part about Reactor Hellion was that T went for it almost always. The opener itself played out entertainingly enough: both sides had high stakes (immediate, long-lasting loss of map control for Terran, severe economic damage or outright game loss for Zerg) and there was lots of action happening. Terrans were busy trying to snipe tumors, Z was busy trying to sneak them past the Hellions, players had to watch their Queens/Hellions constantly to prevent a Hellion/Speedling snipe, respectively, and so forth. The most important thing of all, though, was that it led to an actual midgame. And from here we get to the cascade effect the Queendralisk buff had. The early game implications are clear for all to see. But the ripple effects? Dear god. First, creep spread easily goes out of control, where spreading it was an effort before. The better economy allows for a very early swell of Infestors, which helps make Zerg safe and essentially kills the midgame, from which we get into quick, fast, Infestor/T3 comp with the accompanying tech switches. The sheer scale of the change is perhaps best realized when one stops to consider that in the past a 17 minute Hive was risky and greedy. Such a far cry from our current, absurdly safe 12 minute Hive timings, isn't it? That's all because Z had to invest into a midgame to fight off the Terran midgame (which they could get to due to less creep and slower Zerg development). And damn, was that midgame ever good. The slower Hive timings also made the late game more bearable - Terran had more time to get their infrastructure up to contend with Zerg's endgame composition. The fundamental character of it was then, and still is expensive, inflexible Terran infrastructure making very narrow anti-1-unit counters that have no other use vs. a flexible Zerg infrastructure making little but threats. The greatest casualty of the Queendralisk patch hasn't been balance, though - a certain amount of imbalance you can work around and it is even entertaining for some. The greatest casualties have been fun (the game has become dull), the idea that the game makes any kind of sense (the kind of imbalance and it's degree make the games feel just plain stupid). I also can't tell good and bad Zergs apart anymore. In the past, great creep spread was an achievement. There were brilliant holds, good game sense, great flanks. Mutas hadn't been eclipsed so badly and so were an actual (not just stubbornly stylistic) option. Now it's the same dull monotony where it feels like the sheer, absurd, dominant power of some key units does more work than the player. | ||
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govie
9334 Posts
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Coffeeling
Finland250 Posts
On January 19 2013 12:57 forsooth wrote: Anyway, I find Zerg macro to be by far the simplest in SC2. You basically just operate on a timer and do the same things over and over. All of those active decisions you have to make when playing Terran and to a lesser extent Protoss about where to place buildings, how to most efficiently use your space, which add-ons to use and when, simply don't exist. The only difficult part is knowing when you can drone. That used to be difficult. Nowadays you have Queens, so early game you just drone or, thanks to Blizztard's genius philosophy of set times of strength and weakness, make some units at the only times Terran has a prayer, and then proceed to make Infestors and crush. Such brilliance. On January 19 2013 14:23 Masq wrote: this has been discussed a million times. Nothing is likely to change because if they buff terran for the average master/gm player (foreigners), terran will become too strong in the hands of top koreans. You have two options, suck it up or switch races. There is a third one. You're a rat in a ship you know for a fact will sink (and no, HotS won't change any of it). No one will throw you into jail for hopping out. Thus: Abandon ship. I did. Turned out to be a great decision, too. Check out fighting games, or Go/Baduk/Weiqi - whatever you want to call it. Go play LoL/DotA. Hell, go back to BW. The UI and pathing may be horrible, but at least the game is fun. Anything is better than SC2 at this point. On January 21 2013 22:54 BurningRanger wrote: Very well written OP. At least for TvP I've also been argueing like forever that the Protoss deathball is too mobile for it's damage and durability compared to the mobile Terran ball aka Bioball. Noone ever listened to me either. Anyways, the problem is still that Blizzard does only balance on highest Pro Level (which is quite much Korea only), where Players are so skilled that they can get enough out of the Terran race to be competitive. Unfortunately I don't see it changing with HotS yet. Terrans will stay the most multitasking and micro intensive race. Mech hasn't got much better (especially in TvP). The Widow Mine just adds to the immobility of Mech and tbh it's a rather gimmicky thing, depending too much on luck or the opponent's stupidity. The biggest problem with Siegetanks still is the splash to your own units, if Marines or Hellbats is quite unimportant. Also the inability to hold ground with them, like you could in BW, makes them very unstable. At a certain point you would just need too many Tanks to cover all your stuff and still be safe against the counters (mainly air units). So you can only use them like running up to the opposing army, hitting the siege button and crossing fingers that they are sieged before the opponents units are too close. Hellbats... honestly... they're Bio units... not Mech. So actually Bio got the biggest buff imo (Hellbats being Bio, Medivac buff, Reaper buffs). The casual Terran players, who can't move and/or think fast enough for Bio are left at a disadvantage still. To conclude... I think Terran player numbers will shrink further until Blizzard realizes that there are ways to give a race several playstyles. The problem isn't even balancing at the top level. The problem is Blizzard balancing purely by spreadsheet instead of gut feeling. We're humans, we don't experience spreadsheets, we experience gut feelings - a spreadsheet-imba matchup that makes sense and that you feel is at least somewhat fair is, in fact, a lot better than some spreadsheet-even überturtly atrocity that's strictly scripted by Blizzard's idiotic philosophy of timing-asymmetric balance. Asymmetric balance should be a difference in method, not strength at a point in time. | ||
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FireMonkey
Australia105 Posts
In ZvT it pretty much goes, reactor hellion opening into cloaked banshee, no damage done to zerg terran will either realise he did no damage and GG or he will try to stay in the game and turtle MMM/mech off 2 bas and that's another thing, the units arent that cool like thor is just a big walking arnold Schwarzenegger...yeah...it's just not fun to play, it is fun to swarm your oponent with lings and then blowing him up with banelings when he pushes out. | ||
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BurningRanger
Germany303 Posts
On January 21 2013 23:39 FireMonkey wrote:+ Show Spoiler + I can't speak for the top level players, but maybe for ladder, I don't play terran because it lacks in variety or it has variety but it lacks in interesting/fun kind of play. I play both toss and zerg and majority of my vT (especially PvT) games consist of them going MMM and doing the typical drop play...I feel like I dont even have to scout when I play a PvT they just rely on timing pushes and drops. Really all I have to do to win a PvT is go standard gateway/collosus comp then when we engage in battle i swtich to chargelot archon with HT because they most predictably go vikings in response to collosi. The point I am trying to make is Terran just arent that interesting to play as or against for that matter, zerg have banelings we have ultras we can move while burrowed and do ambushes...what terran can do? deploy tanks, 1A press T...and drops...ghosts just aren't used as much as they should, same with ravens. In ZvT it pretty much goes, reactor hellion opening into cloaked banshee, no damage done to zerg terran will either realise he did no damage and GG or he will try to stay in the game and turtle MMM/mech off 2 bas and that's another thing, the units arent that cool like thor is just a big walking arnold Schwarzenegger...yeah...it's just not fun to play, it is fun to swarm your oponent with lings and then blowing him up with banelings when he pushes out. The problem is that T can't play differently or atleast not, if they want to win. Blizzard doesn't want T to play Mech or Sky against P. I'm not sure why... maybe they're too lazy to balance a different style, so they make anything else than MMM (near) unplayable in TvP. In TvZ it's ok. Here you can actually play Mech or Bio or a mix even. With Bio you don't even need Tanks, if you can split very well against Fungal and Banelings. In both matchups though you need to start with Marines to not die instantly and you eventually need Vikings against the standard T3 units of P and Z (Colossus and BL). You have NO chance to do anything else against those. Terran T3 though has several counters from both P and Z. Against Thors you have Immos, HTs and quite much the usual Gateway army for P and Infestors, Roaches and BLs for Z. Against BCs there are Stalkers, Voidrays and HTs for P and Corruptors, Hydras and Infestors (ITs) for Z. Even the not so standard T3 units of P and Z (Archon and Ultra) have just few counters from Terrans, a bit more, but that's probably the reason why they're "not so standard". Against Archons you can use Ghosts and Marauders. Against Ultras you need Marauders or Thors. Terrans don't have that many options. Blizzard has hardcoded how Terrans have to react to what Protoss and Zerg does. And then there's also the problem of Techswitches from P and Z. The counters that Terran has quite much only work against the thing they should counter. Vikings are only good against Colossi and BLs. If the P/Z does a Techswitch, they become worthless. Same with Marauders, when Z switches from Ultra to BL. On P and Z side the above mentioned counters to Terran T3 are still quite valuable, if a Terran would Techswitch (which is very unlikely anyways, because hard to pull off). Immos are useful against all Mech and also parts of Bio (Marauders). HTs, Voidrays and Stalker are useful against quite much anything. Hydras do OKish against anything. Corruptors can still be morphed to BLs, when no Terran air is left, and BLs are only useless, when there's nothing left on the ground. I don't have to talk about Infestors I think. It may be true that Terran is more boring to play, but that's because Blizzard refuses to give it more effective options to choose from. You can play a lot of funny things with Terran, like cloaked Banshees, Reapers, Battlecruisers with Ravens and so on... but not competitive. All of that is rather gimmicky, but if the opponent knows how to play, he just rolls over you, if you don't play "standard". | ||
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Scootaloo
655 Posts
For what it's worth, I say Terran being the least played race for a while could be good, better then them continuing the reign of terror they had for the majority of WoL, the constant TvT's where one of the reasons I lost interest in watching the game for a while. Also, if you really need to be shown how to win with TvP, go watch yesterday's IEM, any game from Dream apart from the Finals should suffice. | ||
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govie
9334 Posts
On January 22 2013 00:54 BurningRanger wrote: The problem is that T can't play differently or atleast not, if they want to win. Blizzard doesn't want T to play Mech or Sky against P. I'm not sure why... maybe they're too lazy to balance a different style, so they make anything else than MMM (near) unplayable in TvP. In TvZ it's ok. Here you can actually play Mech or Bio or a mix even. With Bio you don't even need Tanks, if you can split very well against Fungal and Banelings. In both matchups though you need to start with Marines to not die instantly and you eventually need Vikings against the standard T3 units of P and Z (Colossus and BL). You have NO chance to do anything else against those. Terran T3 though has several counters from both P and Z. Against Thors you have Immos, HTs and quite much the usual Gateway army for P and Infestors, Roaches and BLs for Z. Against BCs there are Stalkers, Voidrays and HTs for P and Corruptors, Hydras and Infestors (ITs) for Z. Even the not so standard T3 units of P and Z (Archon and Ultra) have just few counters from Terrans, a bit more, but that's probably the reason why they're "not so standard". Against Archons you can use Ghosts and Marauders. Against Ultras you need Marauders or Thors. Terrans don't have that many options. Blizzard has hardcoded how Terrans have to react to what Protoss and Zerg does. And then there's also the problem of Techswitches from P and Z. The counters that Terran has quite much only work against the thing they should counter. Vikings are only good against Colossi and BLs. If the P/Z does a Techswitch, they become worthless. Same with Marauders, when Z switches from Ultra to BL. On P and Z side the above mentioned counters to Terran T3 are still quite valuable, if a Terran would Techswitch (which is very unlikely anyways, because hard to pull off). Immos are useful against all Mech and also parts of Bio (Marauders). HTs, Voidrays and Stalker are useful against quite much anything. Hydras do OKish against anything. Corruptors can still be morphed to BLs, when no Terran air is left, and BLs are only useless, when there's nothing left on the ground. I don't have to talk about Infestors I think. It may be true that Terran is more boring to play, but that's because Blizzard refuses to give it more effective options to choose from. You can play a lot of funny things with Terran, like cloaked Banshees, Reapers, Battlecruisers with Ravens and so on... but not competitive. All of that is rather gimmicky, but if the opponent knows how to play, he just rolls over you, if you don't play "standard". I dont think ravens, ghost or thors are gimmicky. Im thinking like ghosts (with nukes) and ravens are not used enough at lower levels of play. I see thors as an usefull counterunit against zerg. It gives so much extra depth to play with the ravens and ghosts. They can decide matches and give extra strategy depth in your play, its just hard to execute at the right time | ||
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slwen
Australia37 Posts
On January 22 2013 01:13 Scootaloo wrote: Also, if you really need to be shown how to win with TvP, go watch yesterday's IEM, any game from Dream apart from the Finals should suffice. That is not helpful at all. Do you honestly think that Terran players don't watch pro games or understand how they're "supposed" to play? The whole point of this thread is that unless you are a top tier Korean Terran (such as Dream) then the level of skill required to win games in TvP and TvZ is lopsided against Terran. There's always something to improve, but it's hard to not let it get you. I want to play a game where the races are as balanced as possible and it feels like I'm facing an equal. It's better for both sides, as it makes your victories more deserved and defeats easier to swallow. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On January 22 2013 08:14 slwen wrote: That is not helpful at all. Do you honestly think that Terran players don't watch pro games or understand how they're "supposed" to play? The whole point of this thread is that unless you are a top tier Korean Terran (such as Dream) then the level of skill required to win games in TvP and TvZ is lopsided against Terran. There's always something to improve, but it's hard to not let it get you. I want to play a game where the races are as balanced as possible and it feels like I'm facing an equal. It's better for both sides, as it makes your victories more deserved and defeats easier to swallow. How difficult something is to do should not matter and should actually be seen as a skill-set moreso than a limitation. Are engagements harder with Terran? Sure--but macro is harder with Zerg (as in, the reason Zerg normally have more APM than other races is that they need to click a fuck tonne in order "macro mindlessly." The real discourse should be about entertainment value for the viewer. Turtle-fests are boring and hated. But late 2010 through most of 2011 was amazing and fun because of so much aggression and lots 1base play dispersed between the long macro games. Having a best of 7 have 25% all ins, 25% timing attacks, and 50% macro games is awesome! Because you'll never know what will happen. When a PvZ starts, we already know it will take 30-45 minutes. So when it does, we're bored. But 2011? We didn't know if we'd reach the 15 minute mark, when it hit 20 minutes we'd be glued to our seats and when the game lasted 30 we were going absolutely bonkers! but for those long macro games to be fun we need to have a sense that it's an accomplishment to reach there. That is done with aggression, that is done with timing attacks and all-ins. If half of PvZs were back and forth full on lair tech aggression and 50% broodfestor--people would love the matchup. The days of 2rax was incredible since any zerg that lived past the 15 minute mark were called gods. Now? Now we have macro games in all matchups in oversized maps that prevent aggression. We've wandered off so far from our desired goals that bringing back the old Blizz maps of Scrap Station and Steppes of War and Lost Temple would actually IMPROVE the metagame. Broodfestor does not work on Delta Quadrant I can promise you that. You know what does work on Delta Quadrant? Slugfest TvT matches with nukes. Just saying, I'm not a supporter of bringing back old maps, I'm saying that what we've forced Blizzard to do with constant whining is creating a gamestate that would actually be improved by bad maps. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9332 Posts
Once i had 6 bases to protoss' 2 and their storms won them the game. At lower levels, you still need awesome micro or storm can just melt your army so quickly. | ||
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govie
9334 Posts
On January 22 2013 09:42 Jockmcplop wrote: Yeah i can beat zerg using mech but my micro just isn't good enough to beat a protoss at my level. How many threads end up in the strategy section where a terran says "i took out a protoss' third and had better macro, but storms ended the game because i didn't have good enough micro to scan, pick off observers, cloak my ghost, and then emp/snipe templar before my entire army dies." It happens so often, the better player just doesn't usually win in these games. Once i had 6 bases to protoss' 2 and their storms won them the game. At lower levels, you still need awesome micro or storm can just melt your army so quickly. Im lower level, I also had problems with storm and i don't use ghosts yet (because i suck at it basically). But if u double upgrade early on and keep denying expansions and expand urself, you'll eventually will out macro them, it takes a while tho because storms hurt alot. TvP is my best matchup now, so u can win tvp on lower levels without ghosts. | ||
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JazzNL
182 Posts
On January 21 2013 23:39 FireMonkey wrote: I can't speak for the top level players, but maybe for ladder, I don't play terran because it lacks in variety or it has variety but it lacks in interesting/fun kind of play. I play both toss and zerg and majority of my vT (especially PvT) games consist of them going MMM and doing the typical drop play...I feel like I dont even have to scout when I play a PvT they just rely on timing pushes and drops. Really all I have to do to win a PvT is go standard gateway/collosus comp then when we engage in battle i swtich to chargelot archon with HT because they most predictably go vikings in response to collosi. The point I am trying to make is Terran just arent that interesting to play as or against for that matter, zerg have banelings we have ultras we can move while burrowed and do ambushes...what terran can do? deploy tanks, 1A press T...and drops...ghosts just aren't used as much as they should, same with ravens. In ZvT it pretty much goes, reactor hellion opening into cloaked banshee, no damage done to zerg terran will either realise he did no damage and GG or he will try to stay in the game and turtle MMM/mech off 2 bas and that's another thing, the units arent that cool like thor is just a big walking arnold Schwarzenegger...yeah...it's just not fun to play, it is fun to swarm your oponent with lings and then blowing him up with banelings when he pushes out. I agree. Starcraft 2 is a very boring game. With the Starcraft 1 tournament around I'm really excited about what even the hasu players do, let alone if it were Flash and Yellow. Starcraft 2 never has that excitement, every game looks somewhat the same with the 1 in 40 game being an exciting cheese. Booooooooring. | ||
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llIH
Norway2142 Posts
On January 22 2013 01:13 Scootaloo wrote: A balance thread with a (temp)banned OP, I'm amazed this is still open. For what it's worth, I say Terran being the least played race for a while could be good, better then them continuing the reign of terror they had for the majority of WoL, the constant TvT's where one of the reasons I lost interest in watching the game for a while. Also, if you really need to be shown how to win with TvP, go watch yesterday's IEM, any game from Dream apart from the Finals should suffice. Yeah I am happy we don't have Ts all over the place anymore. Those TvT days were so boring. Static Siege tank line and some few drops. 50+ min games every time. | ||
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Derez
Netherlands6068 Posts
I play terran because I like the race and even if we assume that its harder to play, I'll still win half my matches on the ladder and just be ranked a little lower than the people playing other races of 'equal' skill. For my own games, 'pro' balance has absolutely no relevance at all. I don't get why people that don't play at the highest level (being GSL, excluding everyone on this forum pretty much) get upset over things like this. Sure, you can switch races to obtain a slightly higher ladder ranking, but is that really why you play the game? I play the race I find the most fun to play, and smashing all the race switching flavor of the month all-ins/endgame comps only makes it more fun. | ||
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ohampatu
United States1448 Posts
I dont think you can claim terran is the hardest race mechanical wise. Some of the purest/highest (non spam) apm is spread around all the races. In fact Id go so far as to say that KR Zergs require far more apm to play at a higher level than the others, and respectively Zergs have the highest apm in the game in the proscene. If every single zerg is having to play at 35+ apm more than the others, then the only conclusion is: a, they are just as mechanically demanding as terran, or b, every single zerg user spams shitloads. Im going to choose A. I just feel like trying to say 'this race is mechanically' the hardest is always an opinion, and it depends on what all you include in 'mechanics' (i generally wouldn't call unit control mechanics, for instance. I also disagree with your entire protoss paragraph, to a point where I dont think you played them near enough to even judge them. Protoss is the one race that can't engage without commiting. How do you justify saying protoss can do this? The entire design of the MSC is to promote playing without having to commit, because currently you can not engage either a Terran or Zerg without committing, haven't you ever heard of Concussive or Fungal? You also type out like Protoss can move out in the early game. Protoss is not good unless your all-in'ing, or going up to 3 bases and turtling. I just dont get the whole 'protoss dictates all engagements'. Its competely false. As for your main part. Yes, terran will possibly be the least played race, esp in HOTS. They were the highest for a very very long time and people eventually move to other races, with a new expansion focusing on zerg, its almost guaranteed that Terran/Protoss will be the 2 at the bottom, possibly trading places between patches. Blizzard is also working extremely hard to make mech work in the beta, a complaint you randomly through in there. Although I do find it extremely funny that Terran wants every tech option available in all races, yet you guys are perfectly fine with Protoss being Linear, forced into Robo, and having to open very specific openings just to survive. Terrans have the most versatiliy and you act like they have the least. You also dont act like Terran dictate the pace of most games, they may not in TvZ but in TvP the game generally is protoss trying to counter whatever they scout with their obs. We have to react to you generally, then you react to us, and it goes back and forth. Thats how rts's work lol. So, I agree with you. But there was such an easier time to post this, and alot of other things that could be said without resorting to some of your qq and imo straight up wrong accessments, especially of the Protoss race. Why QQ about some of those things when all you wanted to do was ask a simple question? | ||
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Jacopana
El Salvador210 Posts
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slwen
Australia37 Posts
On January 22 2013 09:34 Thieving Magpie wrote: How difficult something is to do should not matter and should actually be seen as a skill-set moreso than a limitation. I agree that it "shouldn't" matter but it does. No one wants to play a game where they are inherently at a disadvantage. On January 22 2013 09:34 Thieving Magpie wrote: The real discourse should be about entertainment value for the viewer. Turtle-fests are boring and hated. While I agree the game from a spectator point of view has gotten worse the glaring exception is TvT which has improved over time imo. | ||
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