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On June 30 2014 14:24 DinoMight wrote:
The front page of TL is no place for thedwf's balance whine. Let him write that crap in the balance discussion section as he has been doing forever.
Sure, he put a lot of work into the piece, and there are a lot of links to games and statistics etc. that "prove" his point. But at the end of the day, it's not written like a research paper. It's written like balance whine.
I'm disappointed TL would features such an article on its front page.
It wouldn't be a Balance topic without the great DinoMight chiming in with the most general blanket statements of why an argument is invalid.
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Great article, mad source referencing <3
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On June 30 2014 14:24 DinoMight wrote:
The front page of TL is no place for thedwf's balance whine. Let him write that crap in the balance discussion section as he has been doing forever.
Sure, he put a lot of work into the piece, and there are a lot of links to games and statistics etc. that "prove" his point. But at the end of the day, it's not written like a research paper. It's written like balance whine.
I'm disappointed TL would features such an article on its front page.
Sad Zealot... Terran deserves this. They are doing worse than when the sad zealot crap was at it's peak.
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great article, I miss watching terrans in Code S
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But Rain said Terran was even more OP than WoL Broodlord Infestor?
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Northern Ireland24946 Posts
Can't say I disagree with much there, now I have an exhaustive list of VoDs to lean on too.
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Very good article, well argued for and strong arguements.
The one disagreement I have is regarding the weakness of T vs Z if they lose one fight. I understand the article is meant to angle it in a way that strengthens the arguement that T needs a buff but T does have strong perks too. In my experience if T loses an engagement (which most times that happens is on creep) when Z gets to terran base he has army as long as he did his macro decent. He probably has less army but that hardly matters if he retreats behind his supplydepots and in worse scenario hides behind mineral lines or among the production. I've seen Terran players pull off miracles against Z muta, ling, bane when protected by the infrastructure of their own bases.
Against Z the layout of the Terran base and how you can abuse that versus mostly melee units is a strong advantage for terran when fighting at home.
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On June 30 2014 15:40 JJH777 wrote:
Sad Zealot... Terran deserves this. They are doing worse than when the sad zealot crap was at it's peak.
Morose Marine perhaps?
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Yet another important work ruined by the uncontained bile of the author. That´s what an editor is (also) for. 
While it raises great points, how is a constructive discussion supposed to arise from such antagonising arguments? It´s frustrating to see an opportunity and so much effort thrown away so carelessly. I mean, seriously, wtf man...
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On June 30 2014 16:21 ROOTiaguz wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 15:40 JJH777 wrote:
Sad Zealot... Terran deserves this. They are doing worse than when the sad zealot crap was at it's peak. Morose Marine perhaps?
There was the "Mad Marine" thing a few weeks back (during the Blink era).
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On June 30 2014 16:23 Daswollvieh wrote:Yet another important work ruined by the uncontained bile of the author. That´s what an editor is (also) for. While it raises great points, how is a constructive discussion supposed to arise from such antagonising arguments? It´s frustrating to see an opportunity and so much effort thrown away so carelessly. I mean, seriously, wtf man...
Please don't try to invalidate the whole article with all its points inside by randomly calling it antagonising and full of bile. Even if he is probably a little biased, he still argues in a very civilized manner (unlike some other people who scream "OP" and bitch about how players of a race are brainless faggots carried by their race).
The state of major tournaments in the last year shows that there's something ultimately wrong. If only people finally admitted it, maybe also Blizzard would eventually.
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On June 30 2014 14:39 BoBiNoU wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 14:23 binski wrote:On June 30 2014 14:15 BoBiNoU wrote:On June 30 2014 13:54 Shaella wrote:On June 30 2014 13:48 BoBiNoU wrote:On June 30 2014 11:59 Deonto wrote:Same goes for statements without any proof :
Terran has less options, leading to a more predictable (and thus more easily "countered") play
Terran has a much higher vulnerability to all-ins (partially fueled by scouting issues)
Terran is way more unforgiving: mistakes and sloppiness are punished harder, and once the race falls behind there is almost no comeback potential (in particular due to the weaker reproducibility)
Terran has an inferior lategame. I'd like to know why you think there is no "proof" or "weight" to these statements. All of them ring pretty true to me. 1) Terran doesn't have a lot options. They have very few early game/harassment options, and they have even fewer viable mid/late game options. The only exception is TvT. 2) I mean, it's pretty true. If you watch SC2 games, you can see this is pretty evident. 3) Terran has the slowest production capabilities in the game. Period. And that is fact. Have you seen what happens when Z/P/T reaches the Terrans production buildings? As well, Terran is the micro/control race of this game(not saying other races don't require it, just that it's really Terrans thing). 4) Terrans late game, is well, not the best.. I'd like to put it some other way, but that's the truth. Main issue being that Terran has such few options to transition into in the late game. QFT. this is pure whine based on personal experience, 1/ that is always been the case : bio or mech and that's pretty much it , no big news here. I'm no BW expert but i think it was pretty much the same back then in terms of choices. 2/ reaper + scans. The only issue is with unscoutable P proxy allins. 3/ have you seen what happened when a terran snipes pylons in a Protoss base or snipes hatcheries/queens ? Same story there. You can argue about the traveling time for units if you want 4/ No latter than last week we witnessed a terran coming back from nowhere on frost ( cant remember the players names though ) See how easy it is to write something like that ? Of course I had time to waste I would go replay fishing and look at pro terrans doing all the above and can conclude that everything is fine. There is definitely something to argue about Terran performances but rathen than whining with the help of selected replays. I would rather try to get interviews from top Terrans to try to understand why they dont play marine/tank anymore in TvZ ( which was pretty popular until the end of WoL ) since almost nothing changed there : tank got a small buff and muta got a regen buff. Is it this that triggered it ? or the cheap very easy to produce / effective mine ? I would also try to understand the change of plays and things like this rather than projecting my probably personal frustration on such a big article gee let me think of the reason marine/tank doesn't work anymore The fact that its hilariously immobile and gets torn apart by P and Z? this is why it was not used AT ALL in Wol right ? Once again invalid argument What are you talking about, this is a completely different game...zergs now have Mutas that regen faster/move faster and have vipers+swarm hosts lol. Good luck tank pushin' outside of super strict timing windows yo your argument is invalid You're seriously talking about tier 3 zerg now ? Ah well wont waste my time -_- It's better to whine. I'll leave you to that 
Binski is a thousand times the player you are. I wouldn't be so fast to rudely disregard his opinion, especially when he's pretty much right. Mutalisks make tank pushing extremely difficult, so most terrans opt for something that has a stronger mixture of power and mobility, typically widow mines. Plus most maps are wider and longer then they used to be in Wings so there's more room for Zerg counter attacks. Bio based pushes generally lack the lasting power to outright kill a Zerg, they usually rely on trying to snipe a 4th (or 5th or w/e) and then finish the Zerg off a few waves later. Tanks are expensive and do not build quickly and are a bit weak in lower numbers, so there's another reason tanks aren't quite what we want vs muta/ling/bane.
I think the only Terran who goes marine tank these days is Bomber and he's surprisingly good at it but I don't think it's strong enough to kick off the great Marine Tank revolution of 2014
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Generally accurate IMO about the steady decline that's Terran in HotS. However, very deeply biased in quite a few places.
And doesn't offer much of a solution, with the ones that did get offered not exactly viable.
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This thread really points to the bigger problem in sc2. There is too much emphasis on individual players. The community really needs to change the way that they view the game. It must be a team game. Otherwise to many good players have to leave the game over balance issues.
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Blizzard are going to nerf tanks so they can move while they're sieged, don't worry guys that will fix everything.
Am I the only one that finds it somewhat scary that DK doesn't seem to have the level of comprehension of the game that people like thedwf or the professional players do? Obviously pros are biased towards their race, but it's that DK doesn't have a proper understanding of starcraft 2.
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Amazing post. Good read. Hopefully Blizzard will help out Terrans. I for one miss seeing Terrans do well in Korea. Its kinda hard to argue with alot of the points brought up in this article and while some people see this as "balance whine" it is clearly not just balance whine. Some points are a little overboard but I think that really helps drive home what the OP was trying to get across. And lets be serious, does anyone think nothing needs to be done about the current state of the game??? Thanks for all the time and effort put into this post, it sums up what I think alot of us have been wanting to say. (I play zerg btw)
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On June 30 2014 16:34 BurningRanger wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 16:23 Daswollvieh wrote:Yet another important work ruined by the uncontained bile of the author. That´s what an editor is (also) for. While it raises great points, how is a constructive discussion supposed to arise from such antagonising arguments? It´s frustrating to see an opportunity and so much effort thrown away so carelessly. I mean, seriously, wtf man... Please don't try to invalidate the whole article with all its points inside by randomly calling it antagonising and full of bile. Even if he is probably a little biased, he still argues in a very civilized manner (unlike some other people who scream "OP" and bitch about how players of a race are brainless faggots carried by their race). The state of major tournaments in the last year shows that there's something ultimately wrong. If only people finally admitted it, maybe also Blizzard would eventually.
I don´t disagree with you that it raises valid and important points. But when you want to have a constructive discussion, you have to abide by higher standards than the whiners and higher standards than this. That´s why I find it frustrating, like an excellent essay that fails because of too many spelling errors. It could´ve been completely avoided with a little more care.
It´s a sidetopic, anyway, so we may very well disagree.
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Well, I read the full article and, for the most part, I like it. As some have previously commented, the first part is stronger than the second, but I can't quibble with a strong opinion in an editorial. Moreover, given some of your posts in the past, it was not nearly as whiny as I expected. I won't comment on the second part of the article. Some of the examples, again as others have pointed out, are cherry picked; and merely looking at engagements without context is disingenuous, as is sidestepping the infuriating and intoxicating part of SC2 that the three races are different and "fair" and "unfair" at stages of the game.
There is some irony in the OP saying that Blizzard went patch-happy early in HOTS. I've often argued around here that Blizzard needs to stay out of the game as far as possible after release. The irony lies, IMO, in Blizzard actually responding to the community (or that subset that cries the most at a particular moment in time). Both the Hellbat nerf (the only HOTS patch I think was reasonable, btw) and the WM nerf were preceded by smaller steps from Blizzard (the stupid 2 Hellbat in Medivac rule and the Overseer speed buff respectively). To me, these show that Blizzard was hesitant to actually touch core units until they had to, either because their in-house statistics showed a problem and/or concerns that a specific strategy had become too much the norm for too long. As an aside, I don't think it aids you to imagine some sort of Blizzard conspiracy against Terran. If the reason given for the Hellbat nerf was TvT, then it was very likely the actual reason as David Kim says in his patch notes. Remember, we were just coming out of WOL where TvT was the best mirror. And that had just been replaced by drop happy madness that really was often just downright silly.
The WM nerf went ahead in November, 2013. However, the original thinking behind the patch had crystallised in September as the initial test map patch notes show. In other words, David Kim was responding to QQ (be it balance or stale game related) from before that time. By the time the patch actually hit, it was unfortunately misplaced. This time lag between patch and metagame will never go away. As Blizzard is a large company with a process around balance, and no doubt sign-offs, there will always be a discrepancy between the speed at which data flows into Blizzard. Decisions are thought through, discussed, made, units tested (often in-house as, let's face it, no-one really plays on the test map), decisions reviewed and a patch released to address a problem that may often by then be actually solved by the player base.
I see no way around this knowledge problem, nor do I think there should be.
Two last points in response. The MSC is the best addition to Protoss in SC2 and a good addition to SC2. There is a problem in making a comparison to WOL Protoss as WOL Protoss was, towards the end of WOL, largely a straight-jacket race. I don't think I exaggerate in saying that PvT was largely cower in the main until Colossus for a good part of the Protoss player base, while PvZ was all-in or turtle to late game and hope for a good vortex. The MSC with its mobility and PO and Recall mean that good Protoss players can engage in general play and pressure and fake etc and really stretch their racial sinews. IMO, a good part of the success of Protoss in recent months has been due to good Protoss (largely Kespa Protoss) actively exploring the possibilities of the race in a way largely denied Protoss in WOL. I think this specific development has been good for Protoss and good for SC2 as it deepens the overall pool of gameplay. Hence, the comparison to WOL Protoss as the baseline is incorrect. I think some Terran are yet to wise up to this fact.
But, this is not to deny, as you point out that the MSC may be too much of a good thing. I've argued elsewhere that I think the PO should be tweaked (ideally, IMO, by drastically reducing the duration) and that Time Warp should be an upgrade. But, I think it absolutely essential to Protoss that the MSC and a good version of both PO and Recall remain in the game. Without these, Protoss would essentially reset to zero in HOTS.
My last point relates to the perception that my race is harder than yours. This may be true - certainly, Terran is generally more mechanically demanding. But, mechanics is not what the game is all about. However, SC2 is a game with three different and unique races which is asymmetrically designed. This, almost by definition, is difficult to perfect in some form that can be subjectively seen as fair at all stages of the game. (If I recall right, Protoss was generally mechanically easiest even in BW while Terran was mechanically hardest.) But, I have no interest in the struggles of foreign Terrans who don't put in the hours Korean Terrans do to perfect their mechanics so as to best play their chosen race. Nor do I see it as some cause that Blizzard should fix. If there are 20% Terrans in GM season after season, I don't see that as a problem or a balance issue if they are not mechanically good enough with their chosen race to play at GM level. They need to get better. However, I do see it as a problem that there are less Terrans in Code S and I hope to see that slowly rectified next season.
Given that, I'd have no trouble with a nerf to the PO and TW and a buff to stim as I believe you have suggested. A countervailing nerf to Muta regen (and a nerf to the Phoenix range upgrade) may also be indicated, depending on how the next season goes. You have more game knowledge than I do. But, I prefer to wait for the next season to really gauge the effects of the Hellbat patch. This is because SC2 is full of people making claims about the future of a strategy or a unit and being proved wrong. It's rare for a person to make an accurate prediction about a complex a game as SC2 and even if they do it once, there is no reason to believe they could do it again. So, in the spirit of the original premise of your OP, I'd rather wait and see how Terran goes over the next season because we have had many patches in the last few months and it is time to let things settle, and to let the game develop at its own pace and in its own way and in response to the new maps.
I said earlier in this thread that I thought TL publishing this editorial was a mistake. It still might be given many of the responses in this thread and on reddit (I can only imagine the bnet cesspool). But, I am not so sure anymore. Perhaps your point of view and your obvious anger (together with that of your Terran brothers) needed to be expressed (even if it encourages yet more mindless QQ in the SC2 community). So, maybe publishing it was not such a bad idea after all.
My own apologies, however, for the wall of text. I had intended a short-ish reply but once I started it was difficult to stop.
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Russian Federation823 Posts
This is a great post. I myself have lost deep interest in SC2 for a while now, so it's great to read such a review of what is going on in the scene in terms of race play styles. I appreciate the methodical approach towards this rather delicate issue which seems to persist for a while now already.
Great job and probably a nightmare to edit!
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This looks like it took an enormous amount of time to create but how is this featured?
I've been lurking this site for years and can't recall a time when some race whine was put on the front page.
Where was the novel when 20 something of the 32 places in GSL were Terran?
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EPT
