On October 01 2013 14:27 Spaylz wrote: I've been paying a lot of attention to the SC2 forums lately, and I have to wonder: is the game really in such a bad shape?
I'm a WC3 player, still loyal to the bone and although I bought SC2 I never liked it. It's just not fun to me in comparison to WC3. But Blizzard is investing a lot of money and effort into it, and there certainly is a decent amount of tournaments and media coverage.
However, when looking at the forums on TeamLiquid, the dwindling numbers in viewership and the lack of new tournaments in the scene, it really does seem like the game is beginning to strike out.
Is it really that bad?
Shamelessly quoting myself. I'd like someone to answer me, please
Short answer, no. This is a period where over-inflated expectations are finding it difficult to come to terms with reality.
The forums on TL are not indicative of the SC2 community as a whole. The vocal posters in SC2 General are not even indicative of the TL community as a whole. The viewer numbers are reasonably steady but tend to fluctuate due to the (over?) saturation of SC2 content. I certainly watch less than I used to in 2010 - 2011. I watch less streams and less tournaments. The streams I watch tend to be favourite Protoss like Nony. The tournaments I watch tend to be big name ones (such as DH) and some WCS. Even here, I may only watch the final day or final rounds or favourite players.
I still like to watch though, and I still enjoy watching. However, there is so much content that I am more choosy with what I watch. I also have more time constraints and have to be more particular. I am also trying to ladder more and watch less.
So no, it is not that bad. It may not be doing great either. But, it is doing alright and better than some make it seem.
This guy got it. I wonder if Sundance gets it? All jokes, aside I find myself in a similar boat. Watching much less than I used to and heck there is only so many games I can watch. The WCS format is tiresome. I only intend on going to the Finals if my agenda permits it.
On October 02 2013 03:36 ETisME wrote: yea, the chance of getting 100 supply army to 13 banelings is almost as slim as unmicro-ed marines just standing there without tanks or mines and just so happened to stand there clumped up. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=206136 if you can pass to level 5, you are already trading cost efficient.
honestly I am done arguing with you. I don't even understand how you can argue for banelings being the game ending units at]top level and still complaining mine does friendly damage when baiting mines only hits the frontline bio which are healed by medivacs. What are we now, WoL beta players where no one marine split anymore?
Nuff said (link) Not saying that banelings are OP, but you said something about ''heavily game ending'' .. Yeah try to deny that those banelings weren't silly. And even if you presplit. Flanking banelings will have big enough aoe to still get really solid connections unless you manage to split units into groups of 2 with enough room between them. 1 banelings hitting a clump of 4 marines is already extremely cost effective. And if 1 baneling kills 4 supply worth of marines, than that's supply efficient.
And again, mine targeting works by simple principles. And knowing those principles is the way that you can counter them. And fyi you can see the mines even before you run into the mine range. Even without detection. So the first clip just showed how bad the zerg player was.
Terran has always had to do huge splits to avoid huge baneling damage. Now the zergs can't bother splitting their armies up more and splitting their army up enough to either cause huge friendly fire with the mines or avoid the mines hitting the banelings.. Even though they can do that. Complaining that ''but some units are faster, so it's hard to control it'' is just an excuse.
If baneling is supply efficient because it kils 4 marines, then mines are super efficient because it kills lings and Banelings without even needing to lose the mine? when the game is about constant trading like marine mine ling and baneling, it's about resource trading. And you don't understand mines, do you? I used the clip to tell you that mine hits are often lucky because of overlapping shots. read You cant avoid mine hit when you are engaging. You can't split against mine when you engage. Stop bringing up stupid comment like zerg not bothering to split up, they can't do that. When you engage the mine will just fire off randomly to everything, zerg and Terran alike. It is not about hard to control, it is impossible to have a mine targeted on your unit and split against it and isolate it from the clump. The delay is only 1.5, per mine. This is why there is no widow mine split micro. Even using units that out ranges the mines can get hit sometimes. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lmiS1gM8B-M&desktop_uri=/watch?v=lmiS1gM8B-M Do you even play zvt at all?
On October 01 2013 13:59 Brian333 wrote: Oov has some good points, but I think he's just as biased as anyone and it really shows through in what he says.
Yea, progamers should endure, they should try their hardest to deal with the meta-game. They should innovate, look for new strategies and tactics that counter existing ones and push forward the game. But, at the end of the day, they have their motivations as does Oov and David Kim and it's hard to say anyone is right. Just look at Bisu's recent interview where he talks about how hard it is to see the fans disappear, how difficult it becomes to just focus on your practice when you have to question what the purpose is. And, how do you bring those fans back? Make the game harder? Get rid of MBS, auto-mining, and bring back BW unit pathing? As LoL proved, the technical difficulty of the game is not related to the popularity of the game in such a direct way. Are constant patches and changes a bad thing? Does it not happen in other incredibly popular games?
If someone knew how to turn a video-game into a national sport, they would be getting paid an unbelievable amount of money to do so. Nobody knows and I'd say that's because there is no tangible answer.
BW was closest to that answer til Blizzard pulled the plug. The idea at the time of pre-SC2 release was that SC2 was supposed to assume the mantle of BW because the latter had things that were lacking e.g. arcahic B.net UI, graphics etc It was a perfect opportunity to add and build upon what I saw as a strong foundation (a perfect opportunity to update the game). It was the game to carry the 10 years of starcraft and all its glory.
Yet they went ahead and destroyed the foundation where the game was basically living off the BW popularity. Same thing happened with D3. No chat channels? no PvP? Everything that made starcraft through the original game and its expansion so awesome was a shell of its former self from game play, single player, story development and even ghost.net 2.0.
Except BW was clearly on a decline before Blizzard pulled the plug and I don't think anyone thought it was going to last. Problems such as STX's withdrawal from SC2 didn't suddenly happen. It would've happened regardless of if they were playing SC2 or BW. The truth is LoL is anything but BW and yet it's more popular now than BW is. If you're trying to tell me that an updated UI and graphics are what was needed to make BW more popular than LoL, then it goes back to my earlier point. There is nothing to suggest a face-lifted BW is going to work.
Its decline was mainly due to the imminent release of SC2 around 2010. Then Blizzard just randomly shows up after all these years and starts a lawsuit over KeSPA and its illegal use of BW. There was far too much negativity surrounding Blizzard and its actions toward BW. They indirectly killed MBCgames and the fabled MSL. They ignored OGN and KeSPA while riding on the 10 years of popularity built by them. They gave GOM, an ametuer organisation (to the korean viewers - also refer to the GOM classics) when it came to starleagues (and rival I suppose to the big two) during that time the broadcasting rights. No SC2 from the major broadcasting stations especially the legendary OGN and constant threats of pulling the plug on BW by one and only Blizzard. It was literally doom and gloom across multiple korean starcraft forums. But the damage was done here and thats why HOTS is having so much trouble taking off while WoL never took off among the casuals and fans.
If SC2 did not exist, BW still do this day would be huge in Korea. It would still be the same with some fluctuation. I can see BW vs LoL being more of an even playing field in Korea. Thats the difference. SC2 brought in a huge foreign scene thanks to the game being easier, more updated in terms of graphics and what not.. however it is clearly deteriorating the korean starcraft scene from a progamer and fan perspective. It was saddening to see literally 5 people turn up to watch the proleague... Ive been there several times and it was ALWAYS packed with fan girls always cheering for their favorite team/players, starting the countdown for every match.
Of course LoL is more popular than BW. The BW scene is buried in peace now. But just wind back to 2010, the release year for SC2. This is when Korean Air OSL Finals between Flash vs Effort took place. Just look at the crowd. BW could have been on a decline.. but it was no way shape or form going to die out just like that. If Bisu made it to an OSL final, i cannot fathom how fast the seats would have filled up. I repeat, if Bisu made it to an OSL finals the world would have exploded. I would eat a hat if less people turned up for this final than the korean air osl finals. No LoL tournament would out match this in any way shape or form in terms of viewership, crowds, cheers w/e.
People need to realise that its the korean scene that is deteriorating fast, not the foreign scene. As for what would happen if the Korean scene collapses all together, I don't know. Maybe more determined players will go over to EU/US to play? Fact of the matter is that starcraft is in a really dire state in Korea. If BW rose from the grave in Korea, it would instantly overtake SC2 popularity over there (with alot of retired players coming back). There is not a single shred of a doubt about this..
All I see here are excuses. I'll make it simple for you. If BW was strong enough, Blizzard wouldn't have been able to kill it and SC2 wouldn't have had any influence on it. The problem is it was in a state of decline with no real future and that opened the door for those events to happen. So again, back to my original point, BW in the past was that answer but it was not the answer going forward. People change. Society changes. Trends change. BW was the right game at the right time. LoL, a game that is very different from BW, is apparently the right game for these times.
Maybe Im making too much sense here. It doesn't matter if the BW scene is strong or not, its Blizzards property and that's what they were enforcing at the time. To me, it was the wrong decision, to kill BW off and then force SC2 onto the Korean scene which is what happened.
You keep stating this "no real future" and state of decline, but like Ive shown you pre-2010, the game was not going to go anywhere fast. Prove to me otherwise because all evidence points to the fact that it would still do great for many years to come.
Why isn't it the answer? Yes people change, society changes but did soccer radically change? or did basketball radically change? The fundamentals relatively remained intact with those sports and have survived all these years of changes to trend/people/society. For me, BW wasn't just a game but a sport and thats what the end goal was for alot of BW pro veterans. Maybe its a weird concept for you to grasp but unlike hundreds of games out there, SC:BW was just different in the fact that it felt like a sport.
If Riot in 2 years time changed their stance (become stubborn like blizzard when it came to community feedback for instance), released LoL2 which fundamentally became different to its predecessor and decided to scuttle the established LoL scene so that LoL2 can set foot.. would also result in that game being buried.
This so called "trashtalk" towards David Kim is totally justified. The way the patching has been done is quite awkward and is making many people miss the old days of BroodWar.
"Let's compare the two games; In SC1, they only released bug patches and was relatively untouched for ten years. We would do starleagues where at times there would only be one or two protosses. Terrans would occupy more than half the pool. If David Kim were there at that time he would have buffed protoss. That would have meant that we would have been without the exciting and awe-inspiring play of Bisu's prime. Protoss was the minority race and difficult. Thus, its play was given birth to by players like Reach and Nal_Ra. To be frank, I think it is David Kim who creates the winner when it is the gamer who must create the game. It doesn't matter what I say though; the truth is David Kim will keep on tweaking the game. I don't know what his true motives are. Is it to create a 5:5:5 of balance? I truly do not know."
his true motives: to make himself look useful so he can keep his job.
Well.. the guy has a point, but it seems to me that Kim n co. have already reconsidered their approach and are now attempting to create diversity through patches rather than just pull out the wolstyle nerfhammer.
Hes basically half-right. While sometimes things work out through maps and such (some call bw such a game though I personally would say terran was favoured), sometimes things dont. Look at wc3 where undead remained shit throughout the game.
I personally really approve of creating more strategic depth through patches, given that its lacking (which it is atm). The upcoming patch is a step in the right direction for sure.
On October 02 2013 07:18 nurle wrote: This so called "trashtalk" towards David Kim is totally justified. The way the patching has been done is quite awkward and is making many people miss the old days of BroodWar.
Which patch? It doesn't benefit you to be vague any more than it does Oov when criticizing DK unless your motive was to shit on him regardless, which is pretty much what this "trashtalk" has amounted to.
Kind of sad and really amazingly interesting to read what oOv has to say about the difference in balancing SC1 and BW, how it made room for amazing storys like Nal_Ra and [OopS]Reach, amazing stories indeed. Thanks for this
On October 02 2013 01:38 Daswollvieh wrote: #1 Leave SC2 alone --> It´s so unbalanced, RAAWWWRRR!
#2 Patch SC2 --> Forever Beta, RAAWWWRRRR!
The problem is that the game play in sc2 is so shallow that it gets stuck in an imbalanced meta game and thus it needs to get fixed (ie zvt in the end of wol). In BW the meta game never got stale and all the percieved imbalances could be fixed by innovative play. BW was developping in a more rapid pace 10 years after release than hots is 7 months after release (if you don't count changes induced by balance tweaking).
On October 01 2013 05:40 disciple wrote: He is right about a lot of things but at the same time he dismisses the fact sc2 doesn't have 8 years of time for build innovations and map making. Blizzard went global with SC2 and foreigners just lose/move their interest whenever they see game commercials on the TV. There's just no time for SC2 to become scbw naturally.
It wouldn't become SC:BW naturally either way lmao. 8 years? Give me a break, we were stuck playing maps like Lost Temple for ages man (remember when everyone used to think that was the most balanced map! :V). We were playing that shit for several years before shit broke out and then you have maps that stuck around for several years as well like Luna, so give me a break. The patches for vanilla SC were short and sweet. They got a lot of things right in a fast amount of time and people losing interest in games is not new. It's been like that since my early NES/Super NES games where the really good ones were billed $120 a pop and people say games are so expensive these days, HA!
BW was settle for the fun from the start, instead sc2 aimed from the beginning at the competition
On October 02 2013 07:18 nurle wrote: This so called "trashtalk" towards David Kim is totally justified. The way the patching has been done is quite awkward and is making many people miss the old days of BroodWar.
He has to patch the game though to create better gameplay! The real problem is that Sc2 is build upon a flawed economic model, both in terms of income and macroeconomics, which really makes turtling way too rewarded. So to compensate for this, he has found it neccesary to make OP harass-oriented units.
On October 02 2013 01:38 Daswollvieh wrote: #1 Leave SC2 alone --> It´s so unbalanced, RAAWWWRRR!
#2 Patch SC2 --> Forever Beta, RAAWWWRRRR!
The problem is that the game play in sc2 is so shallow that it gets stuck in an imbalanced meta game and thus it needs to get fixed (ie zvt in the end of wol). In BW the meta game never got stale and all the percieved imbalances could be fixed by innovative play. BW was developping in a more rapid pace 10 years after release than hots is 7 months after release (if you don't count changes induced by balance tweaking).
People never changed their playstyle in WoL and knew that they could just whine to change the game instead.
On October 02 2013 01:38 Daswollvieh wrote: #1 Leave SC2 alone --> It´s so unbalanced, RAAWWWRRR!
#2 Patch SC2 --> Forever Beta, RAAWWWRRRR!
The problem is that the game play in sc2 is so shallow that it gets stuck in an imbalanced meta game and thus it needs to get fixed (ie zvt in the end of wol). In BW the meta game never got stale and all the percieved imbalances could be fixed by innovative play. BW was developping in a more rapid pace 10 years after release than hots is 7 months after release (if you don't count changes induced by balance tweaking).
Not only that but part of the reason the metagame in Broodwar developed was there was constantly new maps.
In SC2 I'm finding it every hard to actually pick out a map (outside of the proleague ones) that has any form of different possibly playstyles on it compared to every other god damn map.
Maps like Daybreak, Bel'shir Vestige, Ohana, Cloud Kingdom and other build'a block maps really helped stagnate SC2 in WoL and it's happening again.
Oh god oov is smart. I also think that the fact that 99% of the maps we use are playable with your standard build hurts a lot. I really wish blizzard would hire some ex pros/coaches to do david kims work. This is why I hate to see blizzard listen to reddit/tl, people will always scream "imba imba imba" at something before we give time to the players to fix it themselves, and then blizzard comes around and patches it to make the fans happy, while in reality making the game worse. I mean things like nerfing tank damage while playing on crap like steps of war, nerfing 4 gate like 5 times after it was no longer an issue on the pro level, nerfing blue flame super quickly after people started to realize it's power, nerfing hellbats because droping them broke 1 matchup etc. pp. are all changes that continue to make the game worse.
On October 02 2013 18:45 Lorch wrote: Oh god oov is smart. I also think that the fact that 99% of the maps we use are playable with your standard build hurts a lot. I really wish blizzard would hire some ex pros/coaches to do david kims work. This is why I hate to see blizzard listen to reddit/tl, people will always scream "imba imba imba" at something before we give time to the players to fix it themselves, and then blizzard comes around and patches it to make the fans happy, while in reality making the game worse. I mean things like nerfing tank damage while playing on crap like steps of war, nerfing 4 gate like 5 times after it was no longer an issue on the pro level, nerfing blue flame super quickly after people started to realize it's power, nerfing hellbats because droping them broke 1 matchup etc. pp. are all changes that continue to make the game worse.
Out of all nerfs you had to pick warp gates and hellbats. One that made PvP be all about the 4-gate and the other to make TvT be all about the hellbat drops. Seriously those changes had to happen. If they were still left then PvP would still be all about 4-gates and TvT would still be all about hellbats drops. Not neccesarily bad but it leads to a heavily stagnate gameplay.
"But Blizzard told us they are frequently talking with Progamers" /Irony off
Iloveoov hits the point here, they don't even listen to players like Boxer. We need an oracle buff, we need a roach buff, we need to nerf the widow mine and so on.
Some ppl create innovative builds, but hey the noobs say "Wow this is too strong NERF IT" and then Blizzard nerfs it or throws out a buff for the opposing race.
These statements from iloveoov are pretty laughable considering how favoured terran was in BW during his time. iNcontroL's comments about this post on Inside The Game yesterday echoed my thoughts exactly on the matter, and in hilarious fashion to boot (for reference, http://www.twitch.tv/onemoregametv/c/3020042?t=102m36s). God forbid Sc2 strive towards a balanced state in which the races are able to win equally. What will we ever do without one race getting shit on, only for a player to heroically overcome the odds and win one tournament one time. Just think of the harrowing stories that will never be realized!
Progamers in a lot of cases are not the people to talk to when it comes to balancing a game. All respect to Boxer and iloveoov, but most progamers are not only biased, but aren't all that bright either. Just imagine sc2 balanced on the recommendations of an Idra or an avilo. It would be an imbalanced zerg / terran favoured mess. But then.... at least..... the other inferior races could create a story by overcoming the odds and winning a tournament..... one time...........
The reason why the game needs these balance adjustments is because of careless balancing to begin with. There were a lot of sweeping changes in HOTS beta that basically went in a month before release, and were never so much as tweaked since. DK seems to like to go big or go home. Rather than adjust unit stats slightly here and there, he makes massive changes. There is often, inexplicably, never a middle ground. It's like he thinks minor changes won't have a big enough impact on the game, when in reality, the only way to balance this game is with many such minor tweaks. Huge changes are not only clumsy and careless, they are also very damaging to any hope of true balance.
On October 02 2013 04:57 ETisME wrote: If baneling is supply efficient because it kils 4 marines, then mines are super efficient because it kills lings and Banelings without even needing to lose the mine? when the game is about constant trading like marine mine ling and baneling, it's about resource trading. And you don't understand mines, do you? I used the clip to tell you that mine hits are often lucky because of overlapping shots. read You cant avoid mine hit when you are engaging. You can't split against mine when you engage. Stop bringing up stupid comment like zerg not bothering to split up, they can't do that. When you engage the mine will just fire off randomly to everything, zerg and Terran alike. It is not about hard to control, it is impossible to have a mine targeted on your unit and split against it and isolate it from the clump. The delay is only 1.5, per mine. This is why there is no widow mine split micro. Even using units that out ranges the mines can get hit sometimes. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lmiS1gM8B-M&desktop_uri=/watch?v=lmiS1gM8B-M Do you even play zvt at all?
Dude when have you seen a zerg go into a fight KNOWING that there are mines, without an overseer? Mines are at the front of the terrans army, with vision those mines DIE. It's ridiculous that you'd even think that ''Oh they don't die because of the explosion, OP'', and you're not the first zerg to say that. Mines WILL die after the first shot in an engagement. Unless of course the zerg disengages. Which means that the zerg didn't think things through. Do you see where I'm going with this? It's the zergs fault if the mines don't die. And again, banelings have an bigger AoE and more potential damage done. I wouldn't mind having my mine have like 30% bigger range and an actual targeting system, if it would die after each pop. Overlapping shot are usually stupidly bad. I've had many and I do mean many times where the mines shots overlapped because the zerg sent 10 zerglings in front of the army, and about 3 mines were useless because of that. Sure if you send your whole zerglings BALL over the mines, they will die. See again where I'm going? Zerg shouldn't send their whole army ball from the front against the mines. They should use flanks and split up the army to reduce the damage of the mines. You can split against the mine, even though it's hard for sure (As in make a pointy formation and the zerglings in the back that weren't at the front getting targeted by the mine should pull back a few cm's, than the mine effectiveness will be severly reduced.. And the delay is ONLY 1.5 seconds? Yeah.. 1.5 seconds is like a blink of an eye.. Totally.. The pros totally can't react to something in 1.5 seconds.. You're just being silly. The units that outrange the mines get hit because of poor micro fyi. You haven't seen times where the mutaballs corner mutas attack without the mines reacting, than because the pro player has all of the mutas on 1 hotkey or doesn't bother microing, there's some mutas from the mutaball that push the front mutas right into the mine range.. That's why the units that should outrange the mines get hit. Because of unit pathing and poor micro. If he'd send like 4 mutas to clean the mine up instead of the whole ball, than the mutas would quite easily kill off the mine without getting inside the range.
I've off-raced zerg a couple of times, and if I pay attention to the mines, I can actually flank, etc to make the mines significantly less useful. My macro mechanics with zerg are awful of course, but there's a good amount of times where I manage to win the games by actually being cost effective against the terran player thanks to baneling flanks, and baiting out mines. I main Terran ofc.
On October 02 2013 04:57 ETisME wrote: If baneling is supply efficient because it kils 4 marines, then mines are super efficient because it kills lings and Banelings without even needing to lose the mine? when the game is about constant trading like marine mine ling and baneling, it's about resource trading. And you don't understand mines, do you? I used the clip to tell you that mine hits are often lucky because of overlapping shots. read You cant avoid mine hit when you are engaging. You can't split against mine when you engage. Stop bringing up stupid comment like zerg not bothering to split up, they can't do that. When you engage the mine will just fire off randomly to everything, zerg and Terran alike. It is not about hard to control, it is impossible to have a mine targeted on your unit and split against it and isolate it from the clump. The delay is only 1.5, per mine. This is why there is no widow mine split micro. Even using units that out ranges the mines can get hit sometimes. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lmiS1gM8B-M&desktop_uri=/watch?v=lmiS1gM8B-M Do you even play zvt at all?
Dude when have you seen a zerg go into a fight KNOWING that there are mines, without an overseer? Mines are at the front of the terrans army, with vision those mines DIE. It's ridiculous that you'd even think that ''Oh they don't die because of the explosion, OP'', and you're not the first zerg to say that. Mines WILL die after the first shot in an engagement. Unless of course the zerg disengages. Which means that the zerg didn't think things through. Do you see where I'm going with this? It's the zergs fault if the mines don't die. And again, banelings have an bigger AoE and more potential damage done. I wouldn't mind having my mine have like 30% bigger range and an actual targeting system, if it would die after each pop. Overlapping shot are usually stupidly bad. I've had many and I do mean many times where the mines shots overlapped because the zerg sent 10 zerglings in front of the army, and about 3 mines were useless because of that. Sure if you send your whole zerglings BALL over the mines, they will die. See again where I'm going? Zerg shouldn't send their whole army ball from the front against the mines. They should use flanks and split up the army to reduce the damage of the mines. You can split against the mine, even though it's hard for sure (As in make a pointy formation and the zerglings in the back that weren't at the front getting targeted by the mine should pull back a few cm's, than the mine effectiveness will be severly reduced.. And the delay is ONLY 1.5 seconds? Yeah.. 1.5 seconds is like a blink of an eye.. Totally.. The pros totally can't react to something in 1.5 seconds.. You're just being silly. The units that outrange the mines get hit because of poor micro fyi. You haven't seen times where the mutaballs corner mutas attack without the mines reacting, than because the pro player has all of the mutas on 1 hotkey or doesn't bother microing, there's some mutas from the mutaball that push the front mutas right into the mine range.. That's why the units that should outrange the mines get hit. Because of unit pathing and poor micro. If he'd send like 4 mutas to clean the mine up instead of the whole ball, than the mutas would quite easily kill off the mine without getting inside the range.
I've off-raced zerg a couple of times, and if I pay attention to the mines, I can actually flank, etc to make the mines significantly less useful. My macro mechanics with zerg are awful of course, but there's a good amount of times where I manage to win the games by actually being cost effective against the terran player thanks to baneling flanks, and baiting out mines. I main Terran ofc.
Most maps don't allow "flanking", also, Terran now decides where the fight takes place, instead of the Zerg.
And let's say that Mines are the same after the patch. I HATE playing against them as Zerg, it is irritating, I actually stopped playing SC2 just because of that stupid Widow Mine (and I was an avid anti-Widow Mine poster on all forums). So, what's the next step? Maybe involve some tactics that makes the mines less efficient? I've tried Roach/Hydra, you either die to drops or Siege Tank count gets too high, and guess what? Mines are still GOOD against that. Let's take it one step further, maybe I can do something with my harassment units. Guess what? Mines are exceptionally good against them. What composition can Zerg choose to discard widow mines?
Whatever composition I choose as Zerg, I will always have to face the annoying Widow Mine. Now don't come bashing in with "lol, you face Marines every game as well", they are the core of the army. No one ever complained about stimmed Marine drop, or a Zergling run-by, because they can be prevented and if you take major damage from it, it's mostly because you made a huge mistake.
And what Terrans have their Widow Mines in front of the army? Unless they're already at your 3rd or 4th base. Every decent Terran I've faced kept Marines IN FRONT of the Widow Mines, my army comes rolling in, they run back to their Widow Mines. Job's done.