Is Terran to remain the lowest played race? - Page 30

On February 09 2013 10:47 ElBlanco wrote:


I don't want to sound elitist or insulting but the level of play in gold league is laughable. Anyone blaming balance for their performance there is kidding themselves. I'm only high diamond/low masters as each race but i can easily win any TvZ in gold/plat without even bothering to split my marines.

Players at that level are making so many hilariously bad mistakes that blaming your loss on not splitting good enough really is missing the big problem. Frankly if you're in gold and you think that's why you're losing than i would argue the problem is you're not looking to the right areas to improve.

Edit: I'd like to see some of the people whining actually post a replay or 2. I'm willing to bet anything that your description of these engagements (making it sound like you're a pro) don't even nearly represent reality and you're probably losing for other reasons.

On February 09 2013 11:18 aksfjh wrote:

EVERY single Terran who has tried to improve has more than likely tried focusing on different tactics throughout a game and hit a wall of "WTF am I doing wrong here?" Bottom line, most of us don't have the APM or mental swiftness (at SC2) to both attempt to micro our army and make the right macro decisions. In any game up through GM level, you could easily point to some improper proportioning of attention between army control and micro at some point in the game. The kicker is that not being able to both control your army well AND keep up with macro punishes you just as badly as slipping up on just one of them.

On February 09 2013 12:34 Wafflelisk wrote:
I'm diamond Z and I've been offracing as Terran for a couple weeks. It's lots of fun (unlike Toss which I find boring to play) but I'd go insane if it were my main race.. I get smashed in like every engagement vs Z and sometimes I forget to scout for Colossus production and that usually kills me too..

I mean, I know I'm macroing terribly and my decisions aren't good either.. and you can't balance the game for gold/plat, but I wish the playstyle I find so fun (marine/medivac/tank) and MMM were a little bit less unforgiving.. mech is almost as boring as BL/Infestors ZvP

On February 09 2013 11:01 aksfjh wrote:

Mainly by "counting" mistakes. Supply blocks, bad engagements, poor strategy, etc. Somebody said it pretty well earlier, about knowing there are 1000 things you can fix and get better at, but getting crushed by a guy who has 1100 things he can fix.

Also, when you run around saying things like "lol u jus suk nub!" (exaggerating, but sentiment is there) you're just being a dick. You're not helping, you're not convincing anybody, you're just plain being an asshole.

On February 09 2013 23:17 Ph1losophy wrote:


You're in no position to count and compare your mistakes with your opponents, since you'll always be biased. I doubt anyone here can post a replay where he objectively played better than his opponent and still lost.

On February 09 2013 23:17 Ph1losophy wrote:


You're in no position to count and compare your mistakes with your opponents, since you'll always be biased. I doubt anyone here can post a replay where he objectively played better than his opponent and still lost.

On February 23 2013 07:35 GrokSC wrote:
So I found myself playing SC2 less and less about 5 months ago, and finally semi-retired about 3-4 months ago despite still enjoying the game, the community and the professional leagues as a spectator.

When I stopped playing I was a mid diamond level terran. I had issues with t v z, I felt the match up wasn't properly balanced and was tired of a somewhat lopsided loss rate, but mostly I felt that whatever problems in various match ups I had could be corrected with better mechanics and strategies. Over time however, I simply started to feel beat down. Terrans were almost continuously nerfed to the exclusion of other races (perhaps justifiably in some cases) and other races seemed to get the occasional buff but NEVER my race. When I saw the projected changes to the various races in HoTS and tried to play some of the beta, I felt like not only was balancing Terran against the other races not a priority of Blizzard's, but also the creativity and imagination in developing new units and strategies for Terran seemed to be lacking. Perhaps the day that they were proposing Terran changes for HoTS they dismissed the development team and brought in that focus group of Kindergartners from the AT&T commercials.

Anyway, I have tried to play sporadically at times, and my mechanics are no longer the least bit crisp, which is frustrating and in turn leads to losses which in turn leads to apathy....

The point of this post is not to simply whine about balance, balancing a game like WoL or HoTS is inherently a complicated process, and Blizzard does a fairly good job. I simply wanted to share the point of view of a Terran who loves SC2 but quit playing simply because he felt marginalized and ignored. I would have liked maybe one or two cool new toys to play with during my 2 year love affair with WoL, but instead I felt like I had been beaten with a nerfbat like that scene from "They Live" until my love for both the game and my race was completely sapped.

On February 23 2013 07:35 GrokSC wrote:
So I found myself playing SC2 less and less about 5 months ago, and finally semi-retired about 3-4 months ago despite still enjoying the game, the community and the professional leagues as a spectator.

When I stopped playing I was a mid diamond level terran. I had issues with t v z, I felt the match up wasn't properly balanced and was tired of a somewhat lopsided loss rate, but mostly I felt that whatever problems in various match ups I had could be corrected with better mechanics and strategies. Over time however, I simply started to feel beat down. Terrans were almost continuously nerfed to the exclusion of other races (perhaps justifiably in some cases) and other races seemed to get the occasional buff but NEVER my race. When I saw the projected changes to the various races in HoTS and tried to play some of the beta, I felt like not only was balancing Terran against the other races not a priority of Blizzard's, but also the creativity and imagination in developing new units and strategies for Terran seemed to be lacking. Perhaps the day that they were proposing Terran changes for HoTS they dismissed the development team and brought in that focus group of Kindergartners from the AT&T commercials.

Anyway, I have tried to play sporadically at times, and my mechanics are no longer the least bit crisp, which is frustrating and in turn leads to losses which in turn leads to apathy....

The point of this post is not to simply whine about balance, balancing a game like WoL or HoTS is inherently a complicated process, and Blizzard does a fairly good job. I simply wanted to share the point of view of a Terran who loves SC2 but quit playing simply because he felt marginalized and ignored. I would have liked maybe one or two cool new toys to play with during my 2 year love affair with WoL, but instead I felt like I had been beaten with a nerfbat like that scene from "They Live" until my love for both the game and my race was completely sapped.

On February 23 2013 08:05 aksfjh wrote:

This is almost the exact thing I experienced.

To add to it, my own bad experiences at my lowbie level of play seemed to be dismissed entirely from any discussion. There's even an interview where Browder posits, "there’s cultural differences between countries that makes Korean Terrans and foreigner Terrans different." I realize that balance happens at the top level of play, but this looks like a clear case of the race being designed only for top level play in mind.

On February 23 2013 08:27 CapnAmerica wrote:
GrokSC, I would be in the same shoes as you if not for one key difference. About three months ago, now, I sat down and started really, really playing. I practiced and I focused. I got really good, and got to the point where I was playing mid and high masters players and winning. I achieved my own personal goal of hitting masters with the race that I enjoyed the most.

It was hard as hell, and that made it all the more rewarding. But then I took a break, and dropped back down to Diamond level, where I sit at present. Every time I take a break I get way, way worse. That's not so bad, in and of itself, except for one thing. I can sit down and play a game as Zerg without having played any games in a week and absolutely destroy anybody I get matched up against at high diamond/low masters level. It's piss easy. If I queue up as Terran I have to struggle and fight to win a match, and it's really hard because I'm not playing as well as I was the last time I played. That feeling of the game being much easier from the other side of the table is very frustrating, and I tend to lose the majority of my TvZ games on ladder (unless I do focused practice, with careful execution of build orders and crisp micro). I can absolutely crush Protoss players at the same level and Terran ones too with multitasking and macro... but Zerg is a whole different animal for me.

To be clear, I don't think that Zerg is actually "imba"... it's just very, very easy to be good with until you hit higher echelons where your opponent's will make you work very hard to maintain that creep spread, that overlord spread, hit those injects, and make overlords on time. When focus isn't at a premium, it is very, very simple.

But, on the flip side, there are Zerg opening builds that will absolutely destroy a Terran player who prepares, has scouted in advance, and is focused and trying hard to survive. IMO there is not one single build order with that same level of threat in ZvT except for unscouted two port cloaked banshees, where the Zerg does not build an evolution chamber quickly. It's really frustrating to deal with as the Terran -- knowing that your lifeline can be cut short with minimal effort while you have to work to win.

[As an aside, I don't find proxy 11-11 to be at all an "insta-death" build order in ZvT. It can be held with intelligent control, and so long as you pull drones appropriately, and have practiced against it properly before, it can be reliably deflected unless you just don't bother scouting.]

I think that HotS does a good job of addressing this with Hellbats and Widow Mines, because they absolutely demolish any kind of lazy or uncareful play if used well. The Hellbat roasts lings (oh God, lings in WoL ZvT...) and drones if dropped, requiring focus from a Zerg, and Widow Mines make it so Zerg doesn't automatically have total map control the moment that Zergling speed finishes. It gives Terran punishing units before a massive number of siege tanks are on the field, enabling them to do actual fun tactics without investing their heart and soul into not dying to bullshit.