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On June 30 2014 03:20 -Celestial- wrote:
Yet again a case of "not unreasonable points, badly presented"; seems to happen a lot on these forums of late. People have been arguing about how Terran needs a buff for months now and I don't think many can disagree now, its finally pretty convincing. Whether you get your information from watching or from playing (personally I've found playing random and race switching around has been very helpful on this) its pretty clear there needs to be some tweaks.
However this editorial is unnecessarily confrontational and is, to be blunt, insulting in many places. People get on board extremely easily with the "them and us" mentality; which means you create an unbelievably toxic environment with sides and everyone screaming at each other and yelling abuse. Just look at the state this thread has devolved into.
Frankly I find this whole thing the exact opposite of constructive. You're never going to get anywhere when your strategy for garnering support for your position boils down to shouting "you're only doing well because your race is OP, my race is way harder so I'm a better player" at everyone else. Especially when you go on to lay the same accusations on their favourite pro players. Because like it or not, that's the ultimate outcome of these discussions. There is zero attempt to be constructive or to appeal for support; its merely creating sides by using language that people will instinctively react extremely badly to.
You can quote all of the stats and numbers that you like. But ultimately how they're presented DOES matter. And the way this is presented is not going to change anyone's mind; instead its merely going to incite more hatred.
Exactly this.
The community is already insanely toxic as it is right now, and this is just fanning the flames. I don't have much hope for this game's future when I saw the way a majority of people reacted to Scarlett beating DRG as Protoss, or Classic beating sOo in the GSL (granted, that's ZvP, but I'm just trying to show how easily people can be incited to make balance whine and my-race-is-harder-than-yours shitposts). I've never said this before, but it does appear that the game is dying, and I wouldn't be surprised if the toxicity of the community has a good deal to do with it.
Who wants to be part of a community where the majority of reactions to someone winning a tournament is balance whine instead of congratulation, where people eagerly latch onto any possible piece of evidence they can use to further their "my race is harder than yours/your race is easymode" agenda?
People already know that Terran needs a buff. You'd have to be insanely willfully ignorant to think that Terran is fine right now. But articles like these will do nothing but inspire more ladder BM and shitposting whenever a non-Terran wins a tournament, or a match against a Terran.
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Vatican City State35 Posts
I'm glad someone took the time to write something so thorough. It's easy to dismiss a small comment as being simple balance whining but when someone takes the time to gather a massive amount of resources like this it gives a lot more weight on the subject. Well done 
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Great read! Any article is going to have the author's subjective views/feelings more or less, but overall just look at the data/statistics as they speak for themselves.
I look forward to the day when Terran rise again!
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On June 30 2014 04:36 HolyArrow wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 03:20 -Celestial- wrote:
Yet again a case of "not unreasonable points, badly presented"; seems to happen a lot on these forums of late. People have been arguing about how Terran needs a buff for months now and I don't think many can disagree now, its finally pretty convincing. Whether you get your information from watching or from playing (personally I've found playing random and race switching around has been very helpful on this) its pretty clear there needs to be some tweaks.
However this editorial is unnecessarily confrontational and is, to be blunt, insulting in many places. People get on board extremely easily with the "them and us" mentality; which means you create an unbelievably toxic environment with sides and everyone screaming at each other and yelling abuse. Just look at the state this thread has devolved into.
Frankly I find this whole thing the exact opposite of constructive. You're never going to get anywhere when your strategy for garnering support for your position boils down to shouting "you're only doing well because your race is OP, my race is way harder so I'm a better player" at everyone else. Especially when you go on to lay the same accusations on their favourite pro players. Because like it or not, that's the ultimate outcome of these discussions. There is zero attempt to be constructive or to appeal for support; its merely creating sides by using language that people will instinctively react extremely badly to.
You can quote all of the stats and numbers that you like. But ultimately how they're presented DOES matter. And the way this is presented is not going to change anyone's mind; instead its merely going to incite more hatred. Exactly this. The community is already insanely toxic as it is right now, and this is just fanning the flames. I don't have much hope for this game's future when I saw the way a majority of people reacted to Scarlett beating DRG as Protoss, or Classic beating sOo in the GSL (granted, that's ZvP, but I'm just trying to show how easily people can be incited to make balance whine and my-race-is-harder-than-yours shitposts). I've never said this before, but it does appear that the game is dying, and I wouldn't be surprised if the toxicity of the community has a good deal to do with it. Who wants to be part of a community where the majority of reactions to someone winning a tournament is balance whine instead of congratulation, where people eagerly latch onto any possible piece of evidence they can use to further their "my race is harder than yours/your race is easymode" agenda? People already know that Terran needs a buff. You'd have to be insanely willfully ignorant to think that Terran is fine right now. But articles like these will do nothing but inspire more ladder BM and shitposting whenever a non-Terran wins a tournament, or a match against a Terran.
I kind of agree and I am not looking forward to this being the regurgitated arguments for LR idiots in the coming weeks. However, isn't this line of thinking sort of... shaky? It would mean that you couldn't say anything in an inflamed situation. Perhaps it's better that we get a few facts and a well-structured argument and that there can be some kind of change forthcoming that will actually fix a few of the issues with Terran? Even if it means that idiots will idiot a bit more.
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GSL doesn't offer map vetoes in group stage.
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Wow, read it all, very interesting. Lot of good points raised.
I probably agree around 100% with your point. Nothing seemed exagerated.
Thanks for the work on this too !
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I have to say, this article and the reactions made me want to start posting on TL.
I feel some people put to much importance to isolated facts presented in this article or to the tone, which makes it sound like a whine (especially coming from a player known to play Terran), when its actually backed up by an insane amount of work/data.
If an article written by a GM level (or at least who used to be GM, not sure of current situation) Terran putting that amount of effort isn't an acceptable way to speak about balance, what is ?
How can you think that this article is driven by pure anger directed at the current state of the game, or whatever provokes silly whine, when it is clear that theDwf has been thinking a LOT about it ? If it was the case, I think it would appear much more clearly, even though the authors bitterness can be felt.
Now if people would start to stop discrediting the article, consider it as legit, and actually discuss the ideas presented... because just citing a isolated paragraph that you didn't like doesn't prove anything. I wonder if somebody is going to respond to this with a consequent work of its own, would be highly interesting. I do agree however that the overall tone feels wrong.
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I think the stats at the beginning are all that's needed to show there's a problem.
But, when you get into actual in-game balance, like builds, mechanics, army compositions, is bound to spark controversy since they are all so complex, it's difficult to provide hard numbers. It's all anecdotal.
That said, even setting balance aside, Protoss is just bad. There's this:
Ultimately, the spectactors decide what's best. What do people generally prefer? Upon consulting the Best games thread, we find this:
Statistics per match-up
TvZ : 41
TvT: 19
ZvP: 18
TvP: 14
ZvZ: 5
PvP: 5
Appearances per race
Terran: 74
Zerg: 64
Protoss: 37
I also think redesigning Protoss would be a considerable challenge, even if Blizzard were interested.
It might sound insane, but what if Protoss were removed from competitive play? You might scream "Boo, there would be no diversity!!" But, how many more enjoyable games would we see in tournaments?
It would be easier to balance the game around two races. Maps could be more diverse...
Maybe I'm wrong. I'm interested in a show of hands of people who wouldn't watch a tournament because there were zero protosses....
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On June 30 2014 04:36 HolyArrow wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 03:20 -Celestial- wrote:
Yet again a case of "not unreasonable points, badly presented"; seems to happen a lot on these forums of late. People have been arguing about how Terran needs a buff for months now and I don't think many can disagree now, its finally pretty convincing. Whether you get your information from watching or from playing (personally I've found playing random and race switching around has been very helpful on this) its pretty clear there needs to be some tweaks.
However this editorial is unnecessarily confrontational and is, to be blunt, insulting in many places. People get on board extremely easily with the "them and us" mentality; which means you create an unbelievably toxic environment with sides and everyone screaming at each other and yelling abuse. Just look at the state this thread has devolved into.
Frankly I find this whole thing the exact opposite of constructive. You're never going to get anywhere when your strategy for garnering support for your position boils down to shouting "you're only doing well because your race is OP, my race is way harder so I'm a better player" at everyone else. Especially when you go on to lay the same accusations on their favourite pro players. Because like it or not, that's the ultimate outcome of these discussions. There is zero attempt to be constructive or to appeal for support; its merely creating sides by using language that people will instinctively react extremely badly to.
You can quote all of the stats and numbers that you like. But ultimately how they're presented DOES matter. And the way this is presented is not going to change anyone's mind; instead its merely going to incite more hatred. Exactly this. The community is already insanely toxic as it is right now, and this is just fanning the flames. I don't have much hope for this game's future when I saw the way a majority of people reacted to Scarlett beating DRG as Protoss, or Classic beating sOo in the GSL (granted, that's ZvP, but I'm just trying to show how easily people can be incited to make balance whine and my-race-is-harder-than-yours shitposts). I've never said this before, but it does appear that the game is dying, and I wouldn't be surprised if the toxicity of the community has a good deal to do with it. Who wants to be part of a community where the majority of reactions to someone winning a tournament is balance whine instead of congratulation, where people eagerly latch onto any possible piece of evidence they can use to further their "my race is harder than yours/your race is easymode" agenda? People already know that Terran needs a buff. You'd have to be insanely willfully ignorant to think that Terran is fine right now. But articles like these will do nothing but inspire more ladder BM and shitposting whenever a non-Terran wins a tournament, or a match against a Terran.
If the community itself can't handle a well detailed post, if people can't form their own constructive opinions with out conforming to a status-quo, then there's a problem with the community, no amount of content moderation is going to change that.
I hate the idea that we have to some how tolerate a state of imbalance when there are people's livelihoods on the line, surely the whole point of an esport is to be as fair as possible?
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Ok really this needs to stop.
I really appreciate the time you took to put this article together and all the work you put into it but building up charts and stating them as facts...really?
Now I didn't read the whole article (guess that already disqualifies me ;D) but adding up numbers and using them as basis for your charts is really only the bare minimum of statistics and if you really want to prove your point please don't do this but do a little more.
Now tell me how many terran players are there (overall) compared to z/p why don't you use that for your graphs i mean thats really something you have to take in account right?
How about the form the player was in at the given time or the matchup?
How about the maps and the win rates on them?
How about the strategies chosen?
Really none of this taken into account (as far as i did read (in my defense i really did not want to go further after that)).
Now i don't want to dismiss the article that easily because you have some points, terran really has problems that have to be dealt with but they are just not as big as always stated and the other races are just not that much stronger as always thought.
Now let me get on a point (maybe two) that you put out there that i really can't agree with, and thats the hellbat harass (or more the drop harass in general). I always see that terrans tell themselves how hard they have to micro and how good their multitasking has to be in order to execute a drop, however the skill required to defend the drop is almost never taken into account. I mean how a drop works is you load it in, rally it to your opponents base, unload and stim (required apm mb 10-20?) you might micro the drop itself but that depends. Now lets look at the other side of the table (we'll take p for this). The protoss has to pull his probes, warp in (if he can) and rally his army back. Somehow that is never considered to take any multitasking or distract you at all. Now eventough you take probably the same amount of micro you are the defender (deal little to no damage) and the t can still (almost) always just load up with little to no losses, while you might lose your warp ins and some probes if not a building. Now going even further a double medivac drop might throw you way behind if a crucial building is sniped. Now going even further you might lose the game right there if you split your army wrong. And can not defend the drop and have to rerally (the perfect time to attack the natural).
Now this does not seem like a big thing to a terran (just take some units and send them to defend) but the protoss has to put some thinking and micro into this while (as you stated) not ending up with 1.2k overmins.
Now on the microing in a battle (that is (of course) so hard while your opponent has little to nothing to do).
It seems to me that micro is always stated as something you do not want to be doing during battle (why else complain about it).
If you say you have to micro during battle while your opponent (p as its the most whined about) has to just a-click, that in return means it's your fight to lose but not his to win. I see that protoss most likely has less to micro but how is that an advantage? It's really is a disadvantage that has to be dealt with (with hopefully new units in lotv).
You as a protoss can therefor only go in a fight (after your prefight preparements) and hope for your opponent to f*ck up, as your possibilities to micro (or win by microing) are very limited and people go ahead and pretend that's something you would want. How? As a side note, people go ahead and whine about how easy sc2 has become compared to bw, while at the same time whining about how one race has to micro more in a fight, one could think that the micro in a fight is just ezpz for someone coming from bw, as it was that much harder and more micro intense  .
Now i'm sure there are people out there who see things different and i'm sure i didn't take everything into account (who could) but one thing that seriously has to stop is the whining against pros(i mean really?). I get that you want your race to win, but stating a player won because of his race is plain stupid. You are not only reducing his efforts, his time put into the game, his passion and his will to win, down to him playing an imbalanced race but you are also at the same time saying that of two people you know absolutely nothing about, one deserves to win and one doesn't (and i mean without any knowledge about their training schedule or the time they put into it and under what conditions they did it).
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The problem here is that Blizzard has focused more on making SC2 into a business than an e-sport. As a business, they naturally pay attention to their "customers," which has enabled this toxic mentality of entitled egotism where everyone thinks their ideas will be put into play in the next balance patch. Instead of letting the game balance itself, Blizzard caves to the pressure of the masses and sponsors potentially looking to invest in SC2, and makes quick-fixes and balance patches that ultimately do more harm than good.
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I actually enjoyed Hellbat vs Hellbat. I thought the games were intense and fun.
Am I alone in this?
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could this be the ultimate piece of balance-whining?
on a serious note, interesting read (at least the ~60% i read). don't agree with all of it, and some of it is obviously obscured by your bias, but impressive work. you'll probably have to put your hopes on LotV though.
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On June 30 2014 02:16 Faefae wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 02:08 cloneThorN wrote:
Also, on the point about patch terran not existing, i want to point out that the ladder on EU and NA was one-sidedy dominated by terrans doing nothing but hellbat drops(bunny, lucifron, happy and kas) I think saying that these players are "patch terran" show your lack of objecivity. Lucifron was one of the best foreigner - and the best foreign terran- by the end of wings of liberty, and i don't think anyone would say that terran was OP at the time. Kas and Happy have both been two of the best non-korean terran as well since the begining of SC2, and are - as Lucifron btw- w3 veteran. Bunny is imo the best foreign terran now, while terran is struggling lately.
¨
Bunny is the only terran of those thats worth talking about now.
Before hots, only happy and lucifron was inside the top 16 of eu gm. And that "lucifron best foreigner hueheuehue" thing is biased too. He won like 1 or two things worth a small notice, and nothing else. No high placements either.
The thing that makes me call them patch terrans, is that they all went from being near the top of eu ladder, to be the supreme rulers, when hellbats where introduced.
I'm sorry, but one of the reasons why terrans outside KR is doing so badly, is not because of a skill disparancy, it's because they refuse to abuse terrans lategame power, and instead hope to steamroll people with mmm, as if they where playing zerg.
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Very good article. Well done, and I very much agree. I want Terrans not named Taeja to start winning again.
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While a lot of this article focuses on balance, the point that Dwf touches on that is pretty simple is that Blizzard needs to back the fuck up with the patches, and especially Terran nerfs. I hate the fact that Blizzard always changes the game when there's been a trend for a month or two, but I'm also guilty for complaining about these trends and calling for patches. The problem being that it's the Terrans that Blizzard slams the hardest with their incompetent Knee-Jerk patching. They've changed the other races from time to time, but most of the time a knee-jerk patch comes down, it's inevitably aimed at Terran. Siege tank damage in the beta (a unnecessary change, the weight of which we still feel now), gotta get dem Thors (Thanks Thorzain), Fuck yo brue frame herrions (Good Job Slayers), You better not be using that goddamn EMP (Fuckin a Taeja, why you gotta try and win shit?), Mines? Eww.. Plus, a ton of these patches included buffs to P and Z in addition to the terran nerfs. One of the BIGGEST legitimate terran problems (which they took FOREVER to fix, oddly enough) was the 1/1/1. And unfortunately, that still serves as a rallying call to put down Terran balance complaints everywhere.
Meanwhile the only knee-jerks I can think of off the top of my head for the other two races were the Khaydarin Amulet nerf (Thank fucking God), and the nerf that killed neural parasite. But hey, remember how MC butchered everyone with FFs? I do. No patch, but things resolved themselves anyways. Remember that terran thing that they let the other races figure out and adapt to? Neither do I.
The thing I hate the most is that more complex problems like BL-Infestor and the Protoss Wok sit on the workbench forever, with Blizzard handing out small buffs when the community gets upset enough. Blizzard only seems to want to directly nerf Terran, and try to fix P/Z problems by buffing other races or waiting things out. I will never understand that.
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Absolutely fantastic and heartbreaking editorial. I loved this game but ended my love-affair with SC when patch 2.0.12 completely killed the game for me.
The most disappointing and saddening part with the current state of sc2 is the blatant disregard for Terran players.
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Very solid work I enjoy the read. A lot of respect to TheDwf for all the effort.
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There are still Terrans that can make it to finals. TaKe, Nathanias, Apollo... myself. -___-;
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On June 30 2014 04:58 NarutO wrote:
There are still Terrans that can make it to finals. TaKe, Nathanias, Apollo... myself. -___-;
And FunKa ! :D
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EPT
