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On August 14 2013 05:18 ZeromuS wrote:
I'm just surprised they want to make mech viable while simultaneously making bio builds better and ignoring buffs on mech units like tanks.
The tanks that did too much damage in early wol did so on small maps. And tanks are rarely seen in TvZ now because mines are simply better. They tuned down the damage of tanks because they would one shot zerglings. Now mines do the same thing and are more mobile than tanks making them work great with bio.
If they really want mech to be more viable they should try to buff the tank because it won't have any impact on bio play. Though it might make bio obsolete in tvt, we don't know until we see it happen.
I don't mind marines being a bit weaker in tvt. One of the ways tanks were countered in BW was by dropships. That's not possible currently because marines can shoot down the dropships before they drop the tanks. Blizzard can come up with a happy medium where terran players would have to make a trade off between marines, which can shoot dropships, and pure anti-ground units. The pure anti-ground units should be stronger in a straight up engagement but leave the player vulnerable to having his siege tanks dropped. It could be the hellbat, hellion or even the marauder.
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Nerf the marine and bring back the GOliath just the BW goliath!
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On August 14 2013 04:32 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 04:08 renaissanceMAN wrote:On August 14 2013 03:47 Incognoto wrote:On August 14 2013 01:41 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 01:26 andrewlt wrote:On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:On August 13 2013 20:45 PopoChampion wrote:
Coming from a high masters player on KR, I feel like the overseer change is good but the main problems of ZvT are not the detection of the widow mines but rather how strong they are in the late game when the bio is strong enough to kill all the lings you send in as bait to set off the mines before the mines are set off. Due to this, the mines are always in the fight and with how many you can make off 4 base, they will do huge damage to your army. Splitting is helpful but the terran should win the fight if they're not in a terrible position against ling bane muta. If they're going ultras the widow mines do so much damage to them, making them easy targets for the bio. The only time you have a decent chance is when you have infestor ultra, which is where it comes down to control, but I truly feel like it's up to the terran to screw up and get a huge chunk of his army fungalled. I'll second this. One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords. The question is, how to change the viper so that it works against bioterran (and isn't broken against other races/playstyles). I'm not sure how these would help. The problem is, your supposed counters to bio counter siege tanks and mech harder than they counter bio. Ultralisks counter marines but marauders do a good job against them. Blinding cloud and abduct are more powerful against siege tanks than they are against bio. Let's go back to BW TvZ. The lurker is able to counter marines but is vulnerable to spider mines. It is outranged by siege tanks, even in tank mode. The defiler's dark swarm punishes ranged units but the siege tank's splash damage still works against units under the cloud. In order for a terran to counter lurkers and defilers, they have to wait until science vessels come out and irradiate to finish researching. What is missing in the zerg arsenal in SC2 is a counter to bio that forces the terran to tech up to counter it. By tech up, I don't mean switching some marines to marauders or going 3/3. Ravens come out earlier than science vessels but don't have anything as powerful as irradiate against zerg. Roaches and ultralisks can be countered just by switching some marines to marauders. Brood lords in sufficient quantities force the terran to supplement their bio force with vikings but ultimately does little to change the dynamic of the matchup. Ahh, the BW comparison. I love the BW comparison because 90% of the people here have no idea how awesome BW matches were. Let's give a little example of oldskool TvZ. Terran would defensively take his natural while Zerg went up to 3 base, there may or may not be a bunker rush involved, but these were easily held off with 1-3 sunken colonies (spine crawlers) so no biggie, just keeping Zerg honest really. Once Terran has 3 barracks, he begins pumping out marines and medics while Zerg has rushed for his spire. Turrets were very cheap, but not incredibly effective, this means that 2-3 SCVs were running all over the Terran base building a ring of turrets while the M&Ms pushed out on the map. With no banelings, Zerglings died instantly, but Mutas could abuse their range and speed much better in BW, so marines were constantly getting picked off while they moved across the map. If things work well for the Zerg, he pops out 2 Lurkers RIGHT as the Terran is approaching his 3rd, this holds off the push. The Terran would usually back up, make a few dropships, and go into 7marine, 1medic or just 8 marine drops around the map, dodging the muta swarm, and adding tanks and Science Vessels to his army. Meanwhile, Zerg put scourge in strategic locations to catch the drops, moves his lurkers around so Terran doesn't know where they're at, and tries to poke in to the Terrans base with his muta swarm. Irradiate (a science vessel ability) was a 1-shot kill to Lurkers, while 2 scourge would kill a science vessel, of course, marines can kill the scourge, and the lurkers kill marines, so you have these constant micro wars across the middle of the map while drop ships and mutas are flying all around the edges. This is about the time Zerg would hit hive. Meanwhile, the Terran is finishing up 3/3 and his marine/medic/tank/sci vessel army is hitting critical mass. Terran has 1 last major push to go before defilerss and ultralisks hit the field. This is where the majority of pro games would end, otherwise, Zerg gets their major T3 units and rampages across the map. While this may sound somewhat similar to SC2, it was completely different in the sense that the fight didn't start at the edge of Zergs base, it started as soon as Terrans marines left HIS base, micro wars were constant and both sides had tricks to decimate the other side, if terrans army ever got wiped out, the game was basically over, while Zerg couldn't really wipe the army out, but it was REALLY hard for terran to push forward. Even the OP defiler/ultra/ling combo was awesome to watch. Dark Swarms would puff up everywhere and ultras, lings, and whatever lurkers Z had left over would rush forward. Terran would usually start including Firebats at this point to try to hold off the ultras, and they were decent, but it was a losing fight over time. God, BW was so awesome to watch... That does sound beautiful actually. q_q So if Zerg could hold off that one late game doom push the game he had an advantage as very late game zerg is better than very late game terran in BW? It wasn't as simple as holding off one push. It wasn't even as he described. Zerg rarely went up to three base quick, this was only vs Protoss. Typical vs Terran was either 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta, with the 3rd hatch if the Zerg chose to go so being in the main. Zerg would have exactly 8 lings with speed and two sunken colonies when the Terran pushed out if it was going standard. Terran would push out with exactly two medics. Terran pushed out for the sole purpose of establishing a small amount of map presence and forcing the Zerg to build two sunken colonies, spending extra minerals. Zerg would sometimes build extra speedlings and try to flank from both sides the Marine/Medic squad that came out. However, some Terrans would build firebats instead of only marines, which would make this speedling play incredibly risky and result in having to build sunkens regardless, meaning less drones. Assuming things went standard, Zerg would have exactly 35 supply in a 3hatch scenario when the spire popped, in which Zerg would also have just had the third larvae pop from all 3 hatches, allowing exactly 9 mutas to be built. They'd eventually go up to 11 and force the Terran back into his base. Drops were not a constant threat like you mentioned at this point in the game. Terran would then build up a MM force and defend with turrets while Zerg was taking the third. Two hydras would be put on the ramp, morphed into lurkers of the third, with the eggs preventing the terran from moving up the ramp and bum rushing it. Then, the lurkers would finish and burrow at the top of the ramp, making it nigh impossible for Terran to push up. What made Flash so distinguished from other Terran players was that his control was impeccable, he would move out with only 2/3 of 3/4 of the standard bio force at the time, and rely purely on control/micro to not get picked off by the mutas. This allowed him to pressure the third sooner, making Zergs drone up less in response and have a worse off economy. Zerg would then attempt to contain Terran with lurkers. Terran could not push Zerg without a science vessel, and there was micro engagements (term used was leapfrogging) of tanks pushing forward to shoot lurkers, with the lurkers unburrowing and reburrowing just out of range. Constant micro engagements. Zerg could either stay on lurker/ling for a long time and try to go for a flank if Terran moved out too soon, Terran needed to actively scout the hive timing. Typically if Zerg did not go excessive lurker/ling, Terran would move out wiht 3 tanks 1 science vessel and a ton of MM. Sniping the vessel was a huge deal if Zerg could pull it off. If Terran could move across the map directly to Zerg, he would get stomped, so Zerg simply leapfrogged lurkers delaying as long as possible. Then, as he retreated to his base, Zerg would typically have 5+ sunken colonies which Terran sieged up as Zerg bought time. The timings were on such an insanely thin wire. Savior rose to prominence for being known at holding at THE LAST SECOND. As in, the approaching Terran army would kill all the sunkens, kill like 60% of the lurkers, and AS the Terran was stimming in for a killing blow, the defilers would pop with consume ready and get a Dark Swarm off. 10 seconds later and each time he would have been killed. At this point, Terran is taking a third and Zerg a fourth, Terran is retreating vs Zerg Dark swarms and building up a double starport fleet of mass vessels. Terran's priority is to irridiate all defilers that are available and take the Zerg on in a headon engagement. Zerg's priority is to consistently delay pushes, counter attack, etc. Zerg would have to clone scourge to kill vessels, try to get plagues off on the vessels, and now start drop play as Mutas were no longer a threat (usually dead by now). Micro engagements go on all across the map, with vessels wandering out in dangerous territory (remember there's plague, no fungal) to irridiate defilers/ultras/lurkers, while scourge try to pick off said vessels, with marines protecting the vessels. It was insane to watch the control on both sides, there's nothing comparable in SC2. Zerg would often build 1-2 mutas when a Sci Vessel cloud got plagued and use the bounce to three shot science vessels with a single attack. Terran would try to tech to mass amounts of tanks, as the splash still dealt damage, and shoot for a split map scenario which Terran would win almost every single time (Flash became also notorious for doing this ridiculously well, creating unbreakable situations). Zerg would attempt to mass expand and mine out the map and simply deny terran expansions. Cracklings vs supply depots were INSANE at how fast they took down buildings. In fact, if you haven't seen the insane damage output Zerglings wtih Adrenal had in BW, it was RIDICULOUS. There were so many other scenarios that could play out, but the thing was, each scenario was so perfected, so exact. SC2 is just so volatile and due to the macro mechanics will never be able to achieve the exactly level of precision BW had.
You're filling in a lot more of the details, I just tried to give a quick view into what it was like and how different the dynamics were. That's why I glazed past the early and late game portions. Other options included vulture runbys, fortifying a position and isolating the 3rd, and plenty of other different strategies depending on the map architecture (remember cloaked wraiths?), which had much more meaning in BW IMO, it seems the only differences in SC2 architecture are good map vs non-playable.
Still, your examples highlight even more how amazing it was to watch BW. The top tier pros were so good it was unreal. In SC2, I feel like I could clean up a little bit of control and play with the pros. In BW, I don't even understand how these guys managed playing with perfect control in 3 different battles, some of which spanned multiple screen lengths. They really were on a completely different level.
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On August 14 2013 05:07 shockaslim wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 04:29 renaissanceMAN wrote:On August 14 2013 04:28 fried_rice wrote:On August 14 2013 04:20 Acer.Scarlett` wrote:On August 14 2013 03:53 Incognoto wrote:On August 14 2013 03:49 11B wrote: Plat-Zergs already know how to clear them, also Overseer has already the upgrade. So no Zerg Buff for overseer. LoL  . This is crazy talk :D!! 2 things I'd like to mention to argue this. 1. About 70% of the post (including KoreanTerran High Masters) voice some kind of opinion that WM are in fact IMBA. Imo it's not even an opinion -> it's fact (my opinion!). 2. Did you happen to watch the WCS America T vs Z games? Very lopsided. Hell, take a look at the final where Polt 4-0 Jaedong. Yep, 4-0, AND Jaedong had almost a 40-70 supply lead in every single game at some point. I think if you truly want to argue that Widow Mines are imba, then you're doing it the wrong way. Instead of saying "wm imba" you should say: Look if you're going to argue that Widow Mines aren't imbalanced, tell me which tip top Zerg can play cost-efficiently against the bio/mine composition. Show VODs and write a somewhat detailed explanation of which tactics Zerg should use other than "just bait widowmines with lings lol learn to patrol micro" since that obviously doesn't cut it. If you send a few lings at a time to detonate mine the terran will simply pick them off with marines before the mines detonate. On August 14 2013 03:50 Lukeeze[zR] wrote:On August 14 2013 03:48 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:On August 14 2013 03:31 Lukeeze[zR] wrote:On August 14 2013 00:50 Plansix wrote:On August 14 2013 00:47 mothergoose729 wrote:
[quote]
30s of theory crafting on both of our parts and the meta already got more interesting. People complain to much. If blizzard wants to risk fucking up the game a little bit to make more strategies viable I think that is an appropriate risk. People complain the game doesn't have enough strategic depth but belly ache every time blizzard tries to widen the spectrum of viable possibilities. Yeah, I love how people complain about a stale metagame, yet also complain about making the game unstable. I think a more robust game requires more options and variety. People become to invested in a single build or play style and get really bent out of shape when some balance change comes along threatening to force them to change. The sc2 community is not a bunch of people having the same opinion, some want changes, some don't. And some want X to change rather than Y. Amazing, uh ? In my case, I'd love watching more mech but the idea of turtling with tanks while attempting a fairly quick skyterran transition doesn't excite me, it sounds fragile and sounds like the typical asymmetrical balance: break the terran before he gets his flying doom army. Zergs simply don't have an answer to a max'd 3/3 skyterran army with low scv's count. Well they do, but it's unbelievably boring. Goswser showed us that at ASUS ROG against Lucifron. What did he do ? I was in holydays, couldn't watch it. Chain fungal ? Split map, 60+ spores, swarm hosts, a lot of vipers and a lot of corrupters. camp your side of the map with swarm hosts, and begin pulling cattlebruisers into spores with vipers. you can use up to 3 abducts per cattlebruiser, it's worth it And hope the terran doesn't make ghosts You mean for nukes right? I don't see Ghosts doing anything else useful in that situation...and even then, can't you just abduct them? Snipe. It takes 3 snipes to kill a Viper.....thats quite a chunk of mana.
75. Exactly the amount it takes to abduct a unit once - which isn't enough to pull it into your army, if the units you pull are protected by tanks and vikings.
Really, I don't think TvZ endgame is a big problem for Mech/Skymech armies. But you simply won't get there. Mutas force Thors than Swarm Hosts force Tanks and extremly defensive play. Then Vipers come in and break that position. (of course it isn't as easy, but usually a Terran just dies during one of those 3steps if he doesn't play flaweless. And that often includes cutting corners against a lot of the other options zerg has against Mech, like roach/hydra, roach/hydra/viper, drops or roach/hydra into mass muta surprise)
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On August 14 2013 05:18 ZeromuS wrote:
I'm just surprised they want to make mech viable while simultaneously making bio builds better and ignoring buffs on mech units like tanks.
The tanks that did too much damage in early wol did so on small maps. And tanks are rarely seen in TvZ now because mines are simply better. They tuned down the damage of tanks because they would one shot zerglings. Now mines do the same thing and are more mobile than tanks making them work great with bio.
If they really want mech to be more viable they should try to buff the tank because it won't have any impact on bio play. Though it might make bio obsolete in tvt, we don't know until we see it happen.
I honestly think they should just scrap the terran HotS units, replace the hellion with the vulture + spider mines, buff the tank, and then put some serious work into the Raven. The Raven has the potential to be even better than the vessel, but they keep ignoring / butchering the unit for unknown reasons.
A WoL-speed, WoL-style, range 9 seeker missile would be really, really neat, and allow Terrans to use bio in the late-game...assuming they could keep their Ravens alive. It's pretty stupid that Terrans can't even do anything with more than 2 bases worth of gas once they have a good medivac count.
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widow mines still a balance problem against zerg imo. terran players learning how to protect them better with bio so they don't detonate early. add in half-decent splits and zerg has no answer.
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On August 14 2013 05:41 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 05:07 shockaslim wrote:On August 14 2013 04:29 renaissanceMAN wrote:On August 14 2013 04:28 fried_rice wrote:On August 14 2013 04:20 Acer.Scarlett` wrote:On August 14 2013 03:53 Incognoto wrote:On August 14 2013 03:49 11B wrote: Plat-Zergs already know how to clear them, also Overseer has already the upgrade. So no Zerg Buff for overseer. LoL . This is crazy talk :D!! 2 things I'd like to mention to argue this. 1. About 70% of the post (including KoreanTerran High Masters) voice some kind of opinion that WM are in fact IMBA. Imo it's not even an opinion -> it's fact (my opinion!). 2. Did you happen to watch the WCS America T vs Z games? Very lopsided. Hell, take a look at the final where Polt 4-0 Jaedong. Yep, 4-0, AND Jaedong had almost a 40-70 supply lead in every single game at some point. I think if you truly want to argue that Widow Mines are imba, then you're doing it the wrong way. Instead of saying "wm imba" you should say: Look if you're going to argue that Widow Mines aren't imbalanced, tell me which tip top Zerg can play cost-efficiently against the bio/mine composition. Show VODs and write a somewhat detailed explanation of which tactics Zerg should use other than "just bait widowmines with lings lol learn to patrol micro" since that obviously doesn't cut it. If you send a few lings at a time to detonate mine the terran will simply pick them off with marines before the mines detonate. On August 14 2013 03:50 Lukeeze[zR] wrote:On August 14 2013 03:48 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:On August 14 2013 03:31 Lukeeze[zR] wrote:On August 14 2013 00:50 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, I love how people complain about a stale metagame, yet also complain about making the game unstable. I think a more robust game requires more options and variety. People become to invested in a single build or play style and get really bent out of shape when some balance change comes along threatening to force them to change. The sc2 community is not a bunch of people having the same opinion, some want changes, some don't. And some want X to change rather than Y. Amazing, uh ? In my case, I'd love watching more mech but the idea of turtling with tanks while attempting a fairly quick skyterran transition doesn't excite me, it sounds fragile and sounds like the typical asymmetrical balance: break the terran before he gets his flying doom army. Zergs simply don't have an answer to a max'd 3/3 skyterran army with low scv's count. Well they do, but it's unbelievably boring. Goswser showed us that at ASUS ROG against Lucifron. What did he do ? I was in holydays, couldn't watch it. Chain fungal ? Split map, 60+ spores, swarm hosts, a lot of vipers and a lot of corrupters. camp your side of the map with swarm hosts, and begin pulling cattlebruisers into spores with vipers. you can use up to 3 abducts per cattlebruiser, it's worth it And hope the terran doesn't make ghosts You mean for nukes right? I don't see Ghosts doing anything else useful in that situation...and even then, can't you just abduct them? Snipe. It takes 3 snipes to kill a Viper.....thats quite a chunk of mana. 75. Exactly the amount it takes to abduct a unit once - which isn't enough to pull it into your army, if the units you pull are protected by tanks and vikings. Really, I don't think TvZ endgame is a big problem for Mech/Skymech armies. But you simply won't get there. Mutas force Thors than Swarm Hosts force Tanks and extremly defensive play. Then Vipers come in and break that position. (of course it isn't as easy, but usually a Terran just dies during one of those 3steps if he doesn't play flaweless. And that often includes cutting corners against a lot of the other options zerg has against Mech, like roach/hydra, roach/hydra/viper, drops or roach/hydra into mass muta surprise)
Its actually 4 snipes due to the regen thingy.
I guess having 10 cloaked ghosts ready to snipe any incoming vipers could be feasible at killing them off, but still a costly investment in both resources and energy. Vipers rarely fly in alone either, making sniping them all quite difficult. Nuke pushing seems like a much better way to utilize ghosts in this scenario.
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On August 14 2013 05:42 Ooshmagoosh wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 05:18 ZeromuS wrote:
I'm just surprised they want to make mech viable while simultaneously making bio builds better and ignoring buffs on mech units like tanks.
The tanks that did too much damage in early wol did so on small maps. And tanks are rarely seen in TvZ now because mines are simply better. They tuned down the damage of tanks because they would one shot zerglings. Now mines do the same thing and are more mobile than tanks making them work great with bio.
If they really want mech to be more viable they should try to buff the tank because it won't have any impact on bio play. Though it might make bio obsolete in tvt, we don't know until we see it happen. I honestly think they should just scrap the terran HotS units, replace the hellion with the vulture + spider mines, buff the tank, and then put some serious work into the Raven. The Raven has the potential to be even better than the vessel, but they keep ignoring / butchering the unit for unknown reasons. A WoL-speed, WoL-style, range 9 seeker missile would be really, really neat, and allow Terrans to use bio in the late-game...assuming they could keep their Ravens alive. It's pretty stupid that Terrans can't even do anything with more than 2 bases worth of gas once they have a good medivac count.
That's just not true. Terrans spend their gas very well in TvT.
In TvZ you can go for Ravens. The games just hardly ever go that long these days. If you go back to the MLG/DH/GSL tournaments before every Terran started to only ever play 3base paradepush which causes games to end with the push succeeding, or Zerg winning with the counter, there were quite a few games that included Raven or even Battlecruiser transitions. Even these days when the games go longer, you will see Ravens added in. avilo even made a guide in which he described bio/raven play as the future of TvZ. It's just very rare to see a TvZ that does not end with a bust, a paradepush/mass dropplay victory or a sudden ultraliskcounter attack.
In TvP I guess iyou have a point, because Tanks/Thors suck and, BCs get destroyed by Tempests (and weren't really great before Tempests were added) and Ravens get destroyed by Templar. And that doesn't even mention how all of those units (minus Ravens) would need extra upgrades.
Though again, if games go long enough and neither of the players dies to MMMVG or gateway/Colossus/Templar play, you will see Tempests and Ravens for PDDs as reaction. It's just again: very rare.
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On August 13 2013 04:26 Plansix wrote:
Blizzard's plans: Buff everything.
I endorse this plan.
yep, buff to balance>nerf to balance
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On August 14 2013 04:32 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 04:08 renaissanceMAN wrote:On August 14 2013 03:47 Incognoto wrote:On August 14 2013 01:41 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 01:26 andrewlt wrote:On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:On August 13 2013 20:45 PopoChampion wrote:
Coming from a high masters player on KR, I feel like the overseer change is good but the main problems of ZvT are not the detection of the widow mines but rather how strong they are in the late game when the bio is strong enough to kill all the lings you send in as bait to set off the mines before the mines are set off. Due to this, the mines are always in the fight and with how many you can make off 4 base, they will do huge damage to your army. Splitting is helpful but the terran should win the fight if they're not in a terrible position against ling bane muta. If they're going ultras the widow mines do so much damage to them, making them easy targets for the bio. The only time you have a decent chance is when you have infestor ultra, which is where it comes down to control, but I truly feel like it's up to the terran to screw up and get a huge chunk of his army fungalled. I'll second this. One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords. The question is, how to change the viper so that it works against bioterran (and isn't broken against other races/playstyles). I'm not sure how these would help. The problem is, your supposed counters to bio counter siege tanks and mech harder than they counter bio. Ultralisks counter marines but marauders do a good job against them. Blinding cloud and abduct are more powerful against siege tanks than they are against bio. Let's go back to BW TvZ. The lurker is able to counter marines but is vulnerable to spider mines. It is outranged by siege tanks, even in tank mode. The defiler's dark swarm punishes ranged units but the siege tank's splash damage still works against units under the cloud. In order for a terran to counter lurkers and defilers, they have to wait until science vessels come out and irradiate to finish researching. What is missing in the zerg arsenal in SC2 is a counter to bio that forces the terran to tech up to counter it. By tech up, I don't mean switching some marines to marauders or going 3/3. Ravens come out earlier than science vessels but don't have anything as powerful as irradiate against zerg. Roaches and ultralisks can be countered just by switching some marines to marauders. Brood lords in sufficient quantities force the terran to supplement their bio force with vikings but ultimately does little to change the dynamic of the matchup. Ahh, the BW comparison. I love the BW comparison because 90% of the people here have no idea how awesome BW matches were. Let's give a little example of oldskool TvZ. Terran would defensively take his natural while Zerg went up to 3 base, there may or may not be a bunker rush involved, but these were easily held off with 1-3 sunken colonies (spine crawlers) so no biggie, just keeping Zerg honest really. Once Terran has 3 barracks, he begins pumping out marines and medics while Zerg has rushed for his spire. Turrets were very cheap, but not incredibly effective, this means that 2-3 SCVs were running all over the Terran base building a ring of turrets while the M&Ms pushed out on the map. With no banelings, Zerglings died instantly, but Mutas could abuse their range and speed much better in BW, so marines were constantly getting picked off while they moved across the map. If things work well for the Zerg, he pops out 2 Lurkers RIGHT as the Terran is approaching his 3rd, this holds off the push. The Terran would usually back up, make a few dropships, and go into 7marine, 1medic or just 8 marine drops around the map, dodging the muta swarm, and adding tanks and Science Vessels to his army. Meanwhile, Zerg put scourge in strategic locations to catch the drops, moves his lurkers around so Terran doesn't know where they're at, and tries to poke in to the Terrans base with his muta swarm. Irradiate (a science vessel ability) was a 1-shot kill to Lurkers, while 2 scourge would kill a science vessel, of course, marines can kill the scourge, and the lurkers kill marines, so you have these constant micro wars across the middle of the map while drop ships and mutas are flying all around the edges. This is about the time Zerg would hit hive. Meanwhile, the Terran is finishing up 3/3 and his marine/medic/tank/sci vessel army is hitting critical mass. Terran has 1 last major push to go before defilerss and ultralisks hit the field. This is where the majority of pro games would end, otherwise, Zerg gets their major T3 units and rampages across the map. While this may sound somewhat similar to SC2, it was completely different in the sense that the fight didn't start at the edge of Zergs base, it started as soon as Terrans marines left HIS base, micro wars were constant and both sides had tricks to decimate the other side, if terrans army ever got wiped out, the game was basically over, while Zerg couldn't really wipe the army out, but it was REALLY hard for terran to push forward. Even the OP defiler/ultra/ling combo was awesome to watch. Dark Swarms would puff up everywhere and ultras, lings, and whatever lurkers Z had left over would rush forward. Terran would usually start including Firebats at this point to try to hold off the ultras, and they were decent, but it was a losing fight over time. God, BW was so awesome to watch... That does sound beautiful actually. q_q So if Zerg could hold off that one late game doom push the game he had an advantage as very late game zerg is better than very late game terran in BW? It wasn't as simple as holding off one push. It wasn't even as he described. Zerg rarely went up to three base quick, this was only vs Protoss. Typical vs Terran was either 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta, with the 3rd hatch if the Zerg chose to go so being in the main. Zerg would have exactly 8 lings with speed and two sunken colonies when the Terran pushed out if it was going standard. Terran would push out with exactly two medics. Terran pushed out for the sole purpose of establishing a small amount of map presence and forcing the Zerg to build two sunken colonies, spending extra minerals. Zerg would sometimes build extra speedlings and try to flank from both sides the Marine/Medic squad that came out. However, some Terrans would build firebats instead of only marines, which would make this speedling play incredibly risky and result in having to build sunkens regardless, meaning less drones. Assuming things went standard, Zerg would have exactly 35 supply in a 3hatch scenario when the spire popped, in which Zerg would also have just had the third larvae pop from all 3 hatches, allowing exactly 9 mutas to be built. They'd eventually go up to 11 and force the Terran back into his base. Drops were not a constant threat like you mentioned at this point in the game. Terran would then build up a MM force and defend with turrets while Zerg was taking the third. Two hydras would be put on the ramp, morphed into lurkers of the third, with the eggs preventing the terran from moving up the ramp and bum rushing it. Then, the lurkers would finish and burrow at the top of the ramp, making it nigh impossible for Terran to push up. What made Flash so distinguished from other Terran players was that his control was impeccable, he would move out with only 2/3 of 3/4 of the standard bio force at the time, and rely purely on control/micro to not get picked off by the mutas. This allowed him to pressure the third sooner, making Zergs drone up less in response and have a worse off economy. Zerg would then attempt to contain Terran with lurkers. Terran could not push Zerg without a science vessel, and there was micro engagements (term used was leapfrogging) of tanks pushing forward to shoot lurkers, with the lurkers unburrowing and reburrowing just out of range. Constant micro engagements. Zerg could either stay on lurker/ling for a long time and try to go for a flank if Terran moved out too soon, Terran needed to actively scout the hive timing. Typically if Zerg did not go excessive lurker/ling, Terran would move out wiht 3 tanks 1 science vessel and a ton of MM. Sniping the vessel was a huge deal if Zerg could pull it off. If Terran could move across the map directly to Zerg, he would get stomped, so Zerg simply leapfrogged lurkers delaying as long as possible. Then, as he retreated to his base, Zerg would typically have 5+ sunken colonies which Terran sieged up as Zerg bought time. The timings were on such an insanely thin wire. Savior rose to prominence for being known at holding at THE LAST SECOND. As in, the approaching Terran army would kill all the sunkens, kill like 60% of the lurkers, and AS the Terran was stimming in for a killing blow, the defilers would pop with consume ready and get a Dark Swarm off. 10 seconds later and each time he would have been killed. At this point, Terran is taking a third and Zerg a fourth, Terran is retreating vs Zerg Dark swarms and building up a double starport fleet of mass vessels. Terran's priority is to irridiate all defilers that are available and take the Zerg on in a headon engagement. Zerg's priority is to consistently delay pushes, counter attack, etc. Zerg would have to clone scourge to kill vessels, try to get plagues off on the vessels, and now start drop play as Mutas were no longer a threat (usually dead by now). Micro engagements go on all across the map, with vessels wandering out in dangerous territory (remember there's plague, no fungal) to irridiate defilers/ultras/lurkers, while scourge try to pick off said vessels, with marines protecting the vessels. It was insane to watch the control on both sides, there's nothing comparable in SC2. Zerg would often build 1-2 mutas when a Sci Vessel cloud got plagued and use the bounce to three shot science vessels with a single attack. Terran would try to tech to mass amounts of tanks, as the splash still dealt damage, and shoot for a split map scenario which Terran would win almost every single time (Flash became also notorious for doing this ridiculously well, creating unbreakable situations). Zerg would attempt to mass expand and mine out the map and simply deny terran expansions. Cracklings vs supply depots were INSANE at how fast they took down buildings. In fact, if you haven't seen the insane damage output Zerglings wtih Adrenal had in BW, it was RIDICULOUS. There were so many other scenarios that could play out, but the thing was, each scenario was so perfected, so exact. SC2 is just so volatile and due to the macro mechanics will never be able to achieve the exactly level of precision BW had.
You guys are making my mouth water. I should go check some brood war games ^^
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On August 14 2013 03:47 Meerel wrote:
how about changing protoss from the ground up mister david kim
Protoss is in by far the best shape its ever been, designwise. PvP is a good matchup now. And in the other matchups, the top Protoss are finally getting away from the "timing attack, all-in, or else turtle into deathball" style that dominated WoL. Rain, First, sOs, and basically every other top Protoss besides PartinG and Stardust have all begun playing a much more macro-oriented style that incorporates lots of harassment and multitask throughout the game. Its more fun to watch, and it promotes vastly more skill.
Anyone who looks at where Protoss is now, compared to where they were in WoL, and concludes that the race hasn't been massively improved doesn't know what they're talking about.
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On August 14 2013 06:33 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 03:47 Meerel wrote:
how about changing protoss from the ground up mister david kim Protoss is in by far the best shape its ever been, designwise. PvP is a good matchup now. And in the other matchups, the top Protoss are finally getting away from the "timing attack, all-in, or else turtle into deathball" style that dominated WoL. Rain, First, sOs, and basically every other top Protoss besides PartinG and Stardust have all begun playing a much more macro-oriented style that incorporates lots of harassment and multitask throughout the game. Its more fun to watch, and it promotes vastly more skill. Anyone who looks at where Protoss is now, compared to where they were in WoL, and concludes that the race hasn't been massively improved doesn't know what they're talking about.
Agreed. Protoss doesn't need any major changes for the time being.
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On August 14 2013 05:40 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 04:32 FabledIntegral wrote:On August 14 2013 04:08 renaissanceMAN wrote:On August 14 2013 03:47 Incognoto wrote:On August 14 2013 01:41 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 01:26 andrewlt wrote:On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:On August 13 2013 20:45 PopoChampion wrote:
Coming from a high masters player on KR, I feel like the overseer change is good but the main problems of ZvT are not the detection of the widow mines but rather how strong they are in the late game when the bio is strong enough to kill all the lings you send in as bait to set off the mines before the mines are set off. Due to this, the mines are always in the fight and with how many you can make off 4 base, they will do huge damage to your army. Splitting is helpful but the terran should win the fight if they're not in a terrible position against ling bane muta. If they're going ultras the widow mines do so much damage to them, making them easy targets for the bio. The only time you have a decent chance is when you have infestor ultra, which is where it comes down to control, but I truly feel like it's up to the terran to screw up and get a huge chunk of his army fungalled. I'll second this. One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords. The question is, how to change the viper so that it works against bioterran (and isn't broken against other races/playstyles). I'm not sure how these would help. The problem is, your supposed counters to bio counter siege tanks and mech harder than they counter bio. Ultralisks counter marines but marauders do a good job against them. Blinding cloud and abduct are more powerful against siege tanks than they are against bio. Let's go back to BW TvZ. The lurker is able to counter marines but is vulnerable to spider mines. It is outranged by siege tanks, even in tank mode. The defiler's dark swarm punishes ranged units but the siege tank's splash damage still works against units under the cloud. In order for a terran to counter lurkers and defilers, they have to wait until science vessels come out and irradiate to finish researching. What is missing in the zerg arsenal in SC2 is a counter to bio that forces the terran to tech up to counter it. By tech up, I don't mean switching some marines to marauders or going 3/3. Ravens come out earlier than science vessels but don't have anything as powerful as irradiate against zerg. Roaches and ultralisks can be countered just by switching some marines to marauders. Brood lords in sufficient quantities force the terran to supplement their bio force with vikings but ultimately does little to change the dynamic of the matchup. Ahh, the BW comparison. I love the BW comparison because 90% of the people here have no idea how awesome BW matches were. Let's give a little example of oldskool TvZ. Terran would defensively take his natural while Zerg went up to 3 base, there may or may not be a bunker rush involved, but these were easily held off with 1-3 sunken colonies (spine crawlers) so no biggie, just keeping Zerg honest really. Once Terran has 3 barracks, he begins pumping out marines and medics while Zerg has rushed for his spire. Turrets were very cheap, but not incredibly effective, this means that 2-3 SCVs were running all over the Terran base building a ring of turrets while the M&Ms pushed out on the map. With no banelings, Zerglings died instantly, but Mutas could abuse their range and speed much better in BW, so marines were constantly getting picked off while they moved across the map. If things work well for the Zerg, he pops out 2 Lurkers RIGHT as the Terran is approaching his 3rd, this holds off the push. The Terran would usually back up, make a few dropships, and go into 7marine, 1medic or just 8 marine drops around the map, dodging the muta swarm, and adding tanks and Science Vessels to his army. Meanwhile, Zerg put scourge in strategic locations to catch the drops, moves his lurkers around so Terran doesn't know where they're at, and tries to poke in to the Terrans base with his muta swarm. Irradiate (a science vessel ability) was a 1-shot kill to Lurkers, while 2 scourge would kill a science vessel, of course, marines can kill the scourge, and the lurkers kill marines, so you have these constant micro wars across the middle of the map while drop ships and mutas are flying all around the edges. This is about the time Zerg would hit hive. Meanwhile, the Terran is finishing up 3/3 and his marine/medic/tank/sci vessel army is hitting critical mass. Terran has 1 last major push to go before defilerss and ultralisks hit the field. This is where the majority of pro games would end, otherwise, Zerg gets their major T3 units and rampages across the map. While this may sound somewhat similar to SC2, it was completely different in the sense that the fight didn't start at the edge of Zergs base, it started as soon as Terrans marines left HIS base, micro wars were constant and both sides had tricks to decimate the other side, if terrans army ever got wiped out, the game was basically over, while Zerg couldn't really wipe the army out, but it was REALLY hard for terran to push forward. Even the OP defiler/ultra/ling combo was awesome to watch. Dark Swarms would puff up everywhere and ultras, lings, and whatever lurkers Z had left over would rush forward. Terran would usually start including Firebats at this point to try to hold off the ultras, and they were decent, but it was a losing fight over time. God, BW was so awesome to watch... That does sound beautiful actually. q_q So if Zerg could hold off that one late game doom push the game he had an advantage as very late game zerg is better than very late game terran in BW? It wasn't as simple as holding off one push. It wasn't even as he described. Zerg rarely went up to three base quick, this was only vs Protoss. Typical vs Terran was either 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta, with the 3rd hatch if the Zerg chose to go so being in the main. Zerg would have exactly 8 lings with speed and two sunken colonies when the Terran pushed out if it was going standard. Terran would push out with exactly two medics. Terran pushed out for the sole purpose of establishing a small amount of map presence and forcing the Zerg to build two sunken colonies, spending extra minerals. Zerg would sometimes build extra speedlings and try to flank from both sides the Marine/Medic squad that came out. However, some Terrans would build firebats instead of only marines, which would make this speedling play incredibly risky and result in having to build sunkens regardless, meaning less drones. Assuming things went standard, Zerg would have exactly 35 supply in a 3hatch scenario when the spire popped, in which Zerg would also have just had the third larvae pop from all 3 hatches, allowing exactly 9 mutas to be built. They'd eventually go up to 11 and force the Terran back into his base. Drops were not a constant threat like you mentioned at this point in the game. Terran would then build up a MM force and defend with turrets while Zerg was taking the third. Two hydras would be put on the ramp, morphed into lurkers of the third, with the eggs preventing the terran from moving up the ramp and bum rushing it. Then, the lurkers would finish and burrow at the top of the ramp, making it nigh impossible for Terran to push up. What made Flash so distinguished from other Terran players was that his control was impeccable, he would move out with only 2/3 of 3/4 of the standard bio force at the time, and rely purely on control/micro to not get picked off by the mutas. This allowed him to pressure the third sooner, making Zergs drone up less in response and have a worse off economy. Zerg would then attempt to contain Terran with lurkers. Terran could not push Zerg without a science vessel, and there was micro engagements (term used was leapfrogging) of tanks pushing forward to shoot lurkers, with the lurkers unburrowing and reburrowing just out of range. Constant micro engagements. Zerg could either stay on lurker/ling for a long time and try to go for a flank if Terran moved out too soon, Terran needed to actively scout the hive timing. Typically if Zerg did not go excessive lurker/ling, Terran would move out wiht 3 tanks 1 science vessel and a ton of MM. Sniping the vessel was a huge deal if Zerg could pull it off. If Terran could move across the map directly to Zerg, he would get stomped, so Zerg simply leapfrogged lurkers delaying as long as possible. Then, as he retreated to his base, Zerg would typically have 5+ sunken colonies which Terran sieged up as Zerg bought time. The timings were on such an insanely thin wire. Savior rose to prominence for being known at holding at THE LAST SECOND. As in, the approaching Terran army would kill all the sunkens, kill like 60% of the lurkers, and AS the Terran was stimming in for a killing blow, the defilers would pop with consume ready and get a Dark Swarm off. 10 seconds later and each time he would have been killed. At this point, Terran is taking a third and Zerg a fourth, Terran is retreating vs Zerg Dark swarms and building up a double starport fleet of mass vessels. Terran's priority is to irridiate all defilers that are available and take the Zerg on in a headon engagement. Zerg's priority is to consistently delay pushes, counter attack, etc. Zerg would have to clone scourge to kill vessels, try to get plagues off on the vessels, and now start drop play as Mutas were no longer a threat (usually dead by now). Micro engagements go on all across the map, with vessels wandering out in dangerous territory (remember there's plague, no fungal) to irridiate defilers/ultras/lurkers, while scourge try to pick off said vessels, with marines protecting the vessels. It was insane to watch the control on both sides, there's nothing comparable in SC2. Zerg would often build 1-2 mutas when a Sci Vessel cloud got plagued and use the bounce to three shot science vessels with a single attack. Terran would try to tech to mass amounts of tanks, as the splash still dealt damage, and shoot for a split map scenario which Terran would win almost every single time (Flash became also notorious for doing this ridiculously well, creating unbreakable situations). Zerg would attempt to mass expand and mine out the map and simply deny terran expansions. Cracklings vs supply depots were INSANE at how fast they took down buildings. In fact, if you haven't seen the insane damage output Zerglings wtih Adrenal had in BW, it was RIDICULOUS. There were so many other scenarios that could play out, but the thing was, each scenario was so perfected, so exact. SC2 is just so volatile and due to the macro mechanics will never be able to achieve the exactly level of precision BW had. You're filling in a lot more of the details, I just tried to give a quick view into what it was like and how different the dynamics were. That's why I glazed past the early and late game portions. Other options included vulture runbys, fortifying a position and isolating the 3rd, and plenty of other different strategies depending on the map architecture (remember cloaked wraiths?), which had much more meaning in BW IMO, it seems the only differences in SC2 architecture are good map vs non-playable. Still, your examples highlight even more how amazing it was to watch BW. The top tier pros were so good it was unreal. In SC2, I feel like I could clean up a little bit of control and play with the pros. In BW, I don't even understand how these guys managed playing with perfect control in 3 different battles, some of which spanned multiple screen lengths. They really were on a completely different level.
SC2 is still quite young compared to Brood War... doesn't it make sense that not everything is refined perfectly? Especially since HotS just came out... then LotV will come out... then give it 10 years to reach that level of precision.
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On August 14 2013 06:38 renaissanceMAN wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 06:33 awesomoecalypse wrote:On August 14 2013 03:47 Meerel wrote:
how about changing protoss from the ground up mister david kim Protoss is in by far the best shape its ever been, designwise. PvP is a good matchup now. And in the other matchups, the top Protoss are finally getting away from the "timing attack, all-in, or else turtle into deathball" style that dominated WoL. Rain, First, sOs, and basically every other top Protoss besides PartinG and Stardust have all begun playing a much more macro-oriented style that incorporates lots of harassment and multitask throughout the game. Its more fun to watch, and it promotes vastly more skill. Anyone who looks at where Protoss is now, compared to where they were in WoL, and concludes that the race hasn't been massively improved doesn't know what they're talking about. Agreed. Protoss doesn't need any major changes for the time being.
These two men know what they are talking about. Zerg however....
I can only watch Life and Soulkey lose so many times before I think there may be a problem with the race
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In the beginning, Sc2:WoL was kinda Rock/Paper/Scissors, every unit had it's hard counter. Then, infestors broke lose. Since then, patches did not meet the right nerve on making the game completely (I'm on purpose not saying equal or balanced) un-abusable. Next thing that broke lose was that 2base Soultrain Protoss build in ZvP, which (imo) killed the whole matchup for some time. I'm not saying that builds do not come and go, a seemingly imba build may get hardcountered by another build within weeks. But those two builds came to mrs. balance and kind of raped her ass (Soultrain not as hard as BL/Inf). Now, things have changed, the game was not completely established newly ofc, but all matchups have changed. The sickest impacts imo:
- MSC
- Hydra speed
- Fungal change
- Widow Mines
- Viper
Now, we are still at the beginning of HotS, I would compare this to end of 2010/beginning of 2011 WoL. Now why the fuck is Blizzard trying to patch, patch, patch the hell out of this game? Seriously! Hellbat nerf. Warpprism buff. Banshee buff. All three changes affected several matchups HUGELY! Now, Blizzard goes on on the road of change with the changes proposed now.
I have some questions to the Blizzard Game Developer Team:
Why weren't you able to think deeply about the new expansion? I mean, in Beta, you saw what the Warhound did. So you took it out, completely eradicated a unit. Were you EVER able to see the impact of Hellbats on a mineral line? You were able to bring widow mines in a way that they do not have to be nerfed instantly.
Why are you kind of randoming changes? Like, nerf hellbat, and "for the sake of buffing something c'mon we have to omg omg" (that's what I call it), buff banshee? Or like, buff warpprism? There was absolutely no need for it. Now, you're thinking about buffing vipers in a kind of sick way - please, tell me your thoughts on this! Why is that necessary?
What plan do you have with HotS? In what way do you want to push the game? Faster? To a higher skill ceiling? Slower? More open to the masses that do not want to ladder 50 games a day to stay good?
When will you fix the current bugs in bnet? I mean, you patched something, and pretty much screwed bnet. How did you do that? I don't get it! It's not like I'm getting tired of re-logging in after playing a 4on4 with friends. No, I enjoy it.
When will you listen to the community's pleading for a re-boot of the bnet in general? Some call it whine, some call it "reasonable thoughts" - but there are pretty many people discussing it, so you should at least give a look at it.
But hell no! You rather go ahead and throw some more game changes into the arena. "It will work out, I'm pretty sure."
You Blizzard guys have your statistics. From what I heard, game stats differ in like 0.1 to a max of 2 percent in winrates. Well, even on a billion games, I wouldn't call a 2 percent winrate difference as "OMG SO IMBALANCED". Neither on pro level nor on everything below level. So stop throwing in a new change each month or two. Please. Just give the game half a year to develop. Listen to the community's thoughts in that time. Check long-term winrates, watch some pro level starcraft and check who's winning. But stop, please, stop mashing and mixing and changing.
So for the TL;DR-guys:
Blizzard, please stop changing the game every one or two months. Please take a look at the current state of the battle.net and decide, if you do want to change it.
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On August 14 2013 06:40 Entirety wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 05:40 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 04:32 FabledIntegral wrote:On August 14 2013 04:08 renaissanceMAN wrote:On August 14 2013 03:47 Incognoto wrote:On August 14 2013 01:41 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 01:26 andrewlt wrote:On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 00:02 MasterDrone wrote:
[quote]
I'll second this.
One thing to add is: MMMM have range attack. That's why Terran splitting works. In contrast, lings & bane needs to stay together so they can reach enemy units to cause damage. Splitting them as a bait will get killed & failed immediately when Terran has 2-2 and a decent amount of army. Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines. Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ. It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game. I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords. The question is, how to change the viper so that it works against bioterran (and isn't broken against other races/playstyles). I'm not sure how these would help. The problem is, your supposed counters to bio counter siege tanks and mech harder than they counter bio. Ultralisks counter marines but marauders do a good job against them. Blinding cloud and abduct are more powerful against siege tanks than they are against bio. Let's go back to BW TvZ. The lurker is able to counter marines but is vulnerable to spider mines. It is outranged by siege tanks, even in tank mode. The defiler's dark swarm punishes ranged units but the siege tank's splash damage still works against units under the cloud. In order for a terran to counter lurkers and defilers, they have to wait until science vessels come out and irradiate to finish researching. What is missing in the zerg arsenal in SC2 is a counter to bio that forces the terran to tech up to counter it. By tech up, I don't mean switching some marines to marauders or going 3/3. Ravens come out earlier than science vessels but don't have anything as powerful as irradiate against zerg. Roaches and ultralisks can be countered just by switching some marines to marauders. Brood lords in sufficient quantities force the terran to supplement their bio force with vikings but ultimately does little to change the dynamic of the matchup. Ahh, the BW comparison. I love the BW comparison because 90% of the people here have no idea how awesome BW matches were. Let's give a little example of oldskool TvZ. Terran would defensively take his natural while Zerg went up to 3 base, there may or may not be a bunker rush involved, but these were easily held off with 1-3 sunken colonies (spine crawlers) so no biggie, just keeping Zerg honest really. Once Terran has 3 barracks, he begins pumping out marines and medics while Zerg has rushed for his spire. Turrets were very cheap, but not incredibly effective, this means that 2-3 SCVs were running all over the Terran base building a ring of turrets while the M&Ms pushed out on the map. With no banelings, Zerglings died instantly, but Mutas could abuse their range and speed much better in BW, so marines were constantly getting picked off while they moved across the map. If things work well for the Zerg, he pops out 2 Lurkers RIGHT as the Terran is approaching his 3rd, this holds off the push. The Terran would usually back up, make a few dropships, and go into 7marine, 1medic or just 8 marine drops around the map, dodging the muta swarm, and adding tanks and Science Vessels to his army. Meanwhile, Zerg put scourge in strategic locations to catch the drops, moves his lurkers around so Terran doesn't know where they're at, and tries to poke in to the Terrans base with his muta swarm. Irradiate (a science vessel ability) was a 1-shot kill to Lurkers, while 2 scourge would kill a science vessel, of course, marines can kill the scourge, and the lurkers kill marines, so you have these constant micro wars across the middle of the map while drop ships and mutas are flying all around the edges. This is about the time Zerg would hit hive. Meanwhile, the Terran is finishing up 3/3 and his marine/medic/tank/sci vessel army is hitting critical mass. Terran has 1 last major push to go before defilerss and ultralisks hit the field. This is where the majority of pro games would end, otherwise, Zerg gets their major T3 units and rampages across the map. While this may sound somewhat similar to SC2, it was completely different in the sense that the fight didn't start at the edge of Zergs base, it started as soon as Terrans marines left HIS base, micro wars were constant and both sides had tricks to decimate the other side, if terrans army ever got wiped out, the game was basically over, while Zerg couldn't really wipe the army out, but it was REALLY hard for terran to push forward. Even the OP defiler/ultra/ling combo was awesome to watch. Dark Swarms would puff up everywhere and ultras, lings, and whatever lurkers Z had left over would rush forward. Terran would usually start including Firebats at this point to try to hold off the ultras, and they were decent, but it was a losing fight over time. God, BW was so awesome to watch... That does sound beautiful actually. q_q So if Zerg could hold off that one late game doom push the game he had an advantage as very late game zerg is better than very late game terran in BW? It wasn't as simple as holding off one push. It wasn't even as he described. Zerg rarely went up to three base quick, this was only vs Protoss. Typical vs Terran was either 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta, with the 3rd hatch if the Zerg chose to go so being in the main. Zerg would have exactly 8 lings with speed and two sunken colonies when the Terran pushed out if it was going standard. Terran would push out with exactly two medics. Terran pushed out for the sole purpose of establishing a small amount of map presence and forcing the Zerg to build two sunken colonies, spending extra minerals. Zerg would sometimes build extra speedlings and try to flank from both sides the Marine/Medic squad that came out. However, some Terrans would build firebats instead of only marines, which would make this speedling play incredibly risky and result in having to build sunkens regardless, meaning less drones. Assuming things went standard, Zerg would have exactly 35 supply in a 3hatch scenario when the spire popped, in which Zerg would also have just had the third larvae pop from all 3 hatches, allowing exactly 9 mutas to be built. They'd eventually go up to 11 and force the Terran back into his base. Drops were not a constant threat like you mentioned at this point in the game. Terran would then build up a MM force and defend with turrets while Zerg was taking the third. Two hydras would be put on the ramp, morphed into lurkers of the third, with the eggs preventing the terran from moving up the ramp and bum rushing it. Then, the lurkers would finish and burrow at the top of the ramp, making it nigh impossible for Terran to push up. What made Flash so distinguished from other Terran players was that his control was impeccable, he would move out with only 2/3 of 3/4 of the standard bio force at the time, and rely purely on control/micro to not get picked off by the mutas. This allowed him to pressure the third sooner, making Zergs drone up less in response and have a worse off economy. Zerg would then attempt to contain Terran with lurkers. Terran could not push Zerg without a science vessel, and there was micro engagements (term used was leapfrogging) of tanks pushing forward to shoot lurkers, with the lurkers unburrowing and reburrowing just out of range. Constant micro engagements. Zerg could either stay on lurker/ling for a long time and try to go for a flank if Terran moved out too soon, Terran needed to actively scout the hive timing. Typically if Zerg did not go excessive lurker/ling, Terran would move out wiht 3 tanks 1 science vessel and a ton of MM. Sniping the vessel was a huge deal if Zerg could pull it off. If Terran could move across the map directly to Zerg, he would get stomped, so Zerg simply leapfrogged lurkers delaying as long as possible. Then, as he retreated to his base, Zerg would typically have 5+ sunken colonies which Terran sieged up as Zerg bought time. The timings were on such an insanely thin wire. Savior rose to prominence for being known at holding at THE LAST SECOND. As in, the approaching Terran army would kill all the sunkens, kill like 60% of the lurkers, and AS the Terran was stimming in for a killing blow, the defilers would pop with consume ready and get a Dark Swarm off. 10 seconds later and each time he would have been killed. At this point, Terran is taking a third and Zerg a fourth, Terran is retreating vs Zerg Dark swarms and building up a double starport fleet of mass vessels. Terran's priority is to irridiate all defilers that are available and take the Zerg on in a headon engagement. Zerg's priority is to consistently delay pushes, counter attack, etc. Zerg would have to clone scourge to kill vessels, try to get plagues off on the vessels, and now start drop play as Mutas were no longer a threat (usually dead by now). Micro engagements go on all across the map, with vessels wandering out in dangerous territory (remember there's plague, no fungal) to irridiate defilers/ultras/lurkers, while scourge try to pick off said vessels, with marines protecting the vessels. It was insane to watch the control on both sides, there's nothing comparable in SC2. Zerg would often build 1-2 mutas when a Sci Vessel cloud got plagued and use the bounce to three shot science vessels with a single attack. Terran would try to tech to mass amounts of tanks, as the splash still dealt damage, and shoot for a split map scenario which Terran would win almost every single time (Flash became also notorious for doing this ridiculously well, creating unbreakable situations). Zerg would attempt to mass expand and mine out the map and simply deny terran expansions. Cracklings vs supply depots were INSANE at how fast they took down buildings. In fact, if you haven't seen the insane damage output Zerglings wtih Adrenal had in BW, it was RIDICULOUS. There were so many other scenarios that could play out, but the thing was, each scenario was so perfected, so exact. SC2 is just so volatile and due to the macro mechanics will never be able to achieve the exactly level of precision BW had. You're filling in a lot more of the details, I just tried to give a quick view into what it was like and how different the dynamics were. That's why I glazed past the early and late game portions. Other options included vulture runbys, fortifying a position and isolating the 3rd, and plenty of other different strategies depending on the map architecture (remember cloaked wraiths?), which had much more meaning in BW IMO, it seems the only differences in SC2 architecture are good map vs non-playable. Still, your examples highlight even more how amazing it was to watch BW. The top tier pros were so good it was unreal. In SC2, I feel like I could clean up a little bit of control and play with the pros. In BW, I don't even understand how these guys managed playing with perfect control in 3 different battles, some of which spanned multiple screen lengths. They really were on a completely different level. SC2 is still quite young compared to Brood War... doesn't it make sense that not everything is refined perfectly? Especially since HotS just came out... then LotV will come out... then give it 10 years to reach that level of precision.
If you compare the amount of patches BW had versus SC2 has/will have, it is very difficult to defend SC2 regarding this. The fact that LotV is not yet out is the only thing that sort of makes it tolerable. Kind of, but not really.
I do not mind, though. My expectations for SC2 were/are pretty low (but I still enjoy it overall), so I can wait 10 years for it to even dream of coming close to BW.
Having said this, I actually would like it if Blizzard would change the attack speed of units. Lots of units attack way too fast to make micro truly worth it. On top of that, I miss the BW style of micro. The fact that BW units can not move immediately after shooting (unless particularly ordered to do so) made the battles that much more exciting, intense, and skillful. SC2 is groups of units versus groups of units that have no individuality. In BW, you can really tell what is being controlled and what truly makes a difference in a battle. There is a longer "build up", increasing both the time/places players can get further ahead via skill as well as viewing suspense. While positioning is important in both games, SC2 is full of passive posturing into a huge battle, because fights are often "all-in".
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On August 13 2013 04:54 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 04:41 Holdenintherye wrote:
What I don't understand is why they try to make mech a thing. Isn't bio/tank play good enough? Why do they HAVE to make a certain playstyle a part of the meta? Because it makes no sense to continue to make bio units tvp once the protoss composition is specifically designed to hard counter it. It's like continuing to spam mutas against mass phoenix. The fact that you can still win with it if you try really hard is a testament to how good bio is.
Dude you contradict yourself.
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On August 14 2013 06:48 purakushi wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 06:40 Entirety wrote:On August 14 2013 05:40 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 04:32 FabledIntegral wrote:On August 14 2013 04:08 renaissanceMAN wrote:On August 14 2013 03:47 Incognoto wrote:On August 14 2013 01:41 Jermstuddog wrote:On August 14 2013 01:26 andrewlt wrote:On August 14 2013 00:50 Big J wrote:On August 14 2013 00:24 Jermstuddog wrote:
[quote]
Both of you are completely ignoring the fact that 4 base T is not the issue, it's 3 base T. I don't really know why Blizzard is going with viper and overseer buffs, I don't see how it really helps, but the problem is that 3 base T can just rally endless MMMM to the most convenient Zerg base WHILE TAKING THEIR 4th, and Zerg can't do anything about it. Attacking into mines is guaranteed to cost you pretty much all your ground army, and while you're trying to rebuild your lings and blings, Terran ALREADY has 20+ marines walking toward the same base with 14+ spawning every 30 seconds, and that's not even counting mines.
Zerg has lacked a meaningful, cost-effective counter to the marine since the release of the game, and with the new cheap and effective mine, it makes the marine problem even worse.
That's the current problem I see in top-level TvZ.
It seems like they're trying to force Zerg into using Vipers to bridge the gap, but I don't see how. Considering that nothing in that whole army is worth abducting, how fast Marines move (out of blinding cloud), the fact that blinding cloud doesn't even affect mines, I don't know how that's supposed to help. Not to mention the huge gas cost, the resource that Zerg is constantly lacking at that point in the game.
I don't know WTF they're thinking. All I can say is I hope DK knows something we don't about the unit interactions involved... That's not true. If you count WoL beta, Zerg had roaches which were designed to counter marines and force marauders/tanks/air units instead. But they got nerfed because Protoss couldn't deal with them. (I wish they had stuck with 2armor roaches and had nerfed their HP instead, so that they would still be useful against marines) And then in early 2011, Fungal got changed a few times, and suddenly you could shut down pure marine play in the midgame without going melee upgrades+banelings everygame. And ultras have always been quite good against marines. So Zerg had options. Now in HotS, fungal got nerfed and the ultralisk buffed instead... which now means that zerg has one (really powerful: ultralisk) and a half (banelings; because they are a very wacky way to trade with marines) counters to marines - both on the melee upgrade path. Which has extinct all the midgame strategies (ling/infestor, roach into infestor, roach/hydra into infestors) that were blooming in WoL and that weren't ling/bling. It's sad because there was a good dynamic in TvZ: Terrans going marine/tank, or bio or mech in the midgame, zerg having a lot of styles against it. And when the marine numbers got high, Zerg could transition into infestors and Terrans into more tanks (2-3factory transitions) against them. It's just that then the game flipped, because Infestor/Broodlord was too good against tank/viking and any form of Terran airtransition basically unreachable (unless it was a shit map or Terran had a big advantage). Which meant Zergs had a 5min window to win or cripple a Terran that had to rely on tanks to keep infestors back. But from their comments, I'd say that blizzard has realized this "problem" (it's not a balance problem, but it means that zergs can only tech in one way if they want to play a macrogame). That's why they try to push the viper, as the viper is a unit that you can transition into from any composition as zerg. And a useful Viper against bioterran would give roach and roach/hydra based play a way to transition into a useful lategame, without falling behind because of transitioning into unupgraded units like Ultralisks or Broodlords. The question is, how to change the viper so that it works against bioterran (and isn't broken against other races/playstyles). I'm not sure how these would help. The problem is, your supposed counters to bio counter siege tanks and mech harder than they counter bio. Ultralisks counter marines but marauders do a good job against them. Blinding cloud and abduct are more powerful against siege tanks than they are against bio. Let's go back to BW TvZ. The lurker is able to counter marines but is vulnerable to spider mines. It is outranged by siege tanks, even in tank mode. The defiler's dark swarm punishes ranged units but the siege tank's splash damage still works against units under the cloud. In order for a terran to counter lurkers and defilers, they have to wait until science vessels come out and irradiate to finish researching. What is missing in the zerg arsenal in SC2 is a counter to bio that forces the terran to tech up to counter it. By tech up, I don't mean switching some marines to marauders or going 3/3. Ravens come out earlier than science vessels but don't have anything as powerful as irradiate against zerg. Roaches and ultralisks can be countered just by switching some marines to marauders. Brood lords in sufficient quantities force the terran to supplement their bio force with vikings but ultimately does little to change the dynamic of the matchup. Ahh, the BW comparison. I love the BW comparison because 90% of the people here have no idea how awesome BW matches were. Let's give a little example of oldskool TvZ. Terran would defensively take his natural while Zerg went up to 3 base, there may or may not be a bunker rush involved, but these were easily held off with 1-3 sunken colonies (spine crawlers) so no biggie, just keeping Zerg honest really. Once Terran has 3 barracks, he begins pumping out marines and medics while Zerg has rushed for his spire. Turrets were very cheap, but not incredibly effective, this means that 2-3 SCVs were running all over the Terran base building a ring of turrets while the M&Ms pushed out on the map. With no banelings, Zerglings died instantly, but Mutas could abuse their range and speed much better in BW, so marines were constantly getting picked off while they moved across the map. If things work well for the Zerg, he pops out 2 Lurkers RIGHT as the Terran is approaching his 3rd, this holds off the push. The Terran would usually back up, make a few dropships, and go into 7marine, 1medic or just 8 marine drops around the map, dodging the muta swarm, and adding tanks and Science Vessels to his army. Meanwhile, Zerg put scourge in strategic locations to catch the drops, moves his lurkers around so Terran doesn't know where they're at, and tries to poke in to the Terrans base with his muta swarm. Irradiate (a science vessel ability) was a 1-shot kill to Lurkers, while 2 scourge would kill a science vessel, of course, marines can kill the scourge, and the lurkers kill marines, so you have these constant micro wars across the middle of the map while drop ships and mutas are flying all around the edges. This is about the time Zerg would hit hive. Meanwhile, the Terran is finishing up 3/3 and his marine/medic/tank/sci vessel army is hitting critical mass. Terran has 1 last major push to go before defilerss and ultralisks hit the field. This is where the majority of pro games would end, otherwise, Zerg gets their major T3 units and rampages across the map. While this may sound somewhat similar to SC2, it was completely different in the sense that the fight didn't start at the edge of Zergs base, it started as soon as Terrans marines left HIS base, micro wars were constant and both sides had tricks to decimate the other side, if terrans army ever got wiped out, the game was basically over, while Zerg couldn't really wipe the army out, but it was REALLY hard for terran to push forward. Even the OP defiler/ultra/ling combo was awesome to watch. Dark Swarms would puff up everywhere and ultras, lings, and whatever lurkers Z had left over would rush forward. Terran would usually start including Firebats at this point to try to hold off the ultras, and they were decent, but it was a losing fight over time. God, BW was so awesome to watch... That does sound beautiful actually. q_q So if Zerg could hold off that one late game doom push the game he had an advantage as very late game zerg is better than very late game terran in BW? It wasn't as simple as holding off one push. It wasn't even as he described. Zerg rarely went up to three base quick, this was only vs Protoss. Typical vs Terran was either 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch muta, with the 3rd hatch if the Zerg chose to go so being in the main. Zerg would have exactly 8 lings with speed and two sunken colonies when the Terran pushed out if it was going standard. Terran would push out with exactly two medics. Terran pushed out for the sole purpose of establishing a small amount of map presence and forcing the Zerg to build two sunken colonies, spending extra minerals. Zerg would sometimes build extra speedlings and try to flank from both sides the Marine/Medic squad that came out. However, some Terrans would build firebats instead of only marines, which would make this speedling play incredibly risky and result in having to build sunkens regardless, meaning less drones. Assuming things went standard, Zerg would have exactly 35 supply in a 3hatch scenario when the spire popped, in which Zerg would also have just had the third larvae pop from all 3 hatches, allowing exactly 9 mutas to be built. They'd eventually go up to 11 and force the Terran back into his base. Drops were not a constant threat like you mentioned at this point in the game. Terran would then build up a MM force and defend with turrets while Zerg was taking the third. Two hydras would be put on the ramp, morphed into lurkers of the third, with the eggs preventing the terran from moving up the ramp and bum rushing it. Then, the lurkers would finish and burrow at the top of the ramp, making it nigh impossible for Terran to push up. What made Flash so distinguished from other Terran players was that his control was impeccable, he would move out with only 2/3 of 3/4 of the standard bio force at the time, and rely purely on control/micro to not get picked off by the mutas. This allowed him to pressure the third sooner, making Zergs drone up less in response and have a worse off economy. Zerg would then attempt to contain Terran with lurkers. Terran could not push Zerg without a science vessel, and there was micro engagements (term used was leapfrogging) of tanks pushing forward to shoot lurkers, with the lurkers unburrowing and reburrowing just out of range. Constant micro engagements. Zerg could either stay on lurker/ling for a long time and try to go for a flank if Terran moved out too soon, Terran needed to actively scout the hive timing. Typically if Zerg did not go excessive lurker/ling, Terran would move out wiht 3 tanks 1 science vessel and a ton of MM. Sniping the vessel was a huge deal if Zerg could pull it off. If Terran could move across the map directly to Zerg, he would get stomped, so Zerg simply leapfrogged lurkers delaying as long as possible. Then, as he retreated to his base, Zerg would typically have 5+ sunken colonies which Terran sieged up as Zerg bought time. The timings were on such an insanely thin wire. Savior rose to prominence for being known at holding at THE LAST SECOND. As in, the approaching Terran army would kill all the sunkens, kill like 60% of the lurkers, and AS the Terran was stimming in for a killing blow, the defilers would pop with consume ready and get a Dark Swarm off. 10 seconds later and each time he would have been killed. At this point, Terran is taking a third and Zerg a fourth, Terran is retreating vs Zerg Dark swarms and building up a double starport fleet of mass vessels. Terran's priority is to irridiate all defilers that are available and take the Zerg on in a headon engagement. Zerg's priority is to consistently delay pushes, counter attack, etc. Zerg would have to clone scourge to kill vessels, try to get plagues off on the vessels, and now start drop play as Mutas were no longer a threat (usually dead by now). Micro engagements go on all across the map, with vessels wandering out in dangerous territory (remember there's plague, no fungal) to irridiate defilers/ultras/lurkers, while scourge try to pick off said vessels, with marines protecting the vessels. It was insane to watch the control on both sides, there's nothing comparable in SC2. Zerg would often build 1-2 mutas when a Sci Vessel cloud got plagued and use the bounce to three shot science vessels with a single attack. Terran would try to tech to mass amounts of tanks, as the splash still dealt damage, and shoot for a split map scenario which Terran would win almost every single time (Flash became also notorious for doing this ridiculously well, creating unbreakable situations). Zerg would attempt to mass expand and mine out the map and simply deny terran expansions. Cracklings vs supply depots were INSANE at how fast they took down buildings. In fact, if you haven't seen the insane damage output Zerglings wtih Adrenal had in BW, it was RIDICULOUS. There were so many other scenarios that could play out, but the thing was, each scenario was so perfected, so exact. SC2 is just so volatile and due to the macro mechanics will never be able to achieve the exactly level of precision BW had. You're filling in a lot more of the details, I just tried to give a quick view into what it was like and how different the dynamics were. That's why I glazed past the early and late game portions. Other options included vulture runbys, fortifying a position and isolating the 3rd, and plenty of other different strategies depending on the map architecture (remember cloaked wraiths?), which had much more meaning in BW IMO, it seems the only differences in SC2 architecture are good map vs non-playable. Still, your examples highlight even more how amazing it was to watch BW. The top tier pros were so good it was unreal. In SC2, I feel like I could clean up a little bit of control and play with the pros. In BW, I don't even understand how these guys managed playing with perfect control in 3 different battles, some of which spanned multiple screen lengths. They really were on a completely different level. SC2 is still quite young compared to Brood War... doesn't it make sense that not everything is refined perfectly? Especially since HotS just came out... then LotV will come out... then give it 10 years to reach that level of precision. If you compare the amount of patches BW had versus SC2 has/will have, it is very difficult to defend SC2. The fact that LotV is not yet out is the only thing that sort of makes it tolerable. Kind of, but not really. I do not mind, though. My expectations for SC2 were/are pretty low (but I still enjoy it overall), so I can wait 10 years for it to even dream of coming close to BW.
I'm wondering what would happen if Blizzard would give Brood War a graphical re-design and leave everything else as it is. Would it be a hipster game(as it kind of is nowadays)?
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On August 14 2013 06:44 Homework wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2013 06:38 renaissanceMAN wrote:On August 14 2013 06:33 awesomoecalypse wrote:On August 14 2013 03:47 Meerel wrote:
how about changing protoss from the ground up mister david kim Protoss is in by far the best shape its ever been, designwise. PvP is a good matchup now. And in the other matchups, the top Protoss are finally getting away from the "timing attack, all-in, or else turtle into deathball" style that dominated WoL. Rain, First, sOs, and basically every other top Protoss besides PartinG and Stardust have all begun playing a much more macro-oriented style that incorporates lots of harassment and multitask throughout the game. Its more fun to watch, and it promotes vastly more skill. Anyone who looks at where Protoss is now, compared to where they were in WoL, and concludes that the race hasn't been massively improved doesn't know what they're talking about. Agreed. Protoss doesn't need any major changes for the time being. These two men know what they are talking about. Zerg however.... I can only watch Life and Soulkey lose so many times before I think there may be a problem with the race
I'll give you SK. Life, however, is on a BIG slump man.
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Or like, buff warpprism? There was absolutely no need for it.
The Warp Prism buff has helped make Protoss much more spectator friendly and skill intensive in all 3 matchups. They went from a niche/risky play that could easily backfire, to a core unit that players nearly always make, and which has therefore expanded gameplay considerably--the style that Rain and First currently play, for example, where they primarily focus on defense and macro, but use warp prisms to stay active on the map and put pressure on the opponent throughout the game, was made much, much more viable by the Warp Prism buff. That is a good thing.
HotS Protoss is just a much better race than WoL Protoss, both to watch and to play. The MSC has a fair bit to do with that, as does Tempests killing off Colossi wars in PvP and Infestor/Broodlord in PvZ...but the Warp Prism buff definitely has played a role in that as well.
IMO, its exactly the sort of change Blizzard should be looking to make wherever possible. One that promotes skill and multitask, that incentivizes players away from deathball play, and that ultimately pushes the race towards a playstyle where it is beneficial to be active on the map throughout the game, rather than just for one big push.
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