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On December 04 2014 21:48 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 21:16 Nebuchad wrote:On December 04 2014 11:35 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 10:34 ejozl wrote:On December 04 2014 08:42 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 07:35 Fecalfeast wrote:On December 04 2014 07:28 avilo wrote:
More Terran nerfs, not good. But i don't expect much from blizzard anymore tbh when it comes to patching or knowing what they are doing.
They still need to address early game TvP issues like proxied oracles/proxy twilight and all the other early game all-ins that make the early game a guessing game for Terran.
I do not think any SC2 fan will be happy with another Terran nerf. Only reason Terrans are doing so well in tourneys are because most of the top level Protosses are cheesey and maps that favored random bullshit were removed like yeonsu.
Forgg was a previous MSL champion, MKP champion material, same with every other big name Terran you can name. Then go through the list of Protosses and it's a lot of players that usually all-in like 50% of their games -_-
TBH tho, wish blizzard would look at siege tank damage in TvP - they do not trade whatsoever for their current cost. Why do people have to win in a certain way? What makes an all-in a non-valid strategy? Are there tournament rules I am unaware of that don't allow certain build orders? Some people feel that raw mechanics and multitasking ability are some of the more important skills, and as such deserve to be rewarded more. Why? Because they are the tangible skills that we can see on the screen. Strategy is too often intangible -- did a pro cannon rush because he knows that his opponent never ever Drone scouts on the third map of his fourth set of a Ro8, or did he cannon rush because "Hey why not? Worked all the way up to GM." Mechanics on the other hand are tangible and undeniable. When someone can Blink like PartinG, it's not by accident -- it's because he's spent years honing this skill. Practice should be rewarded. Skills that take years to perfect should be rewarded. That's not to say there aren't exceptions. Classic's games against Polt at Blizzcon are a triumph of preparation over predictability, Classic exploiting Polt's typically low Viking count. ForGG's games against Life were simply ruthless, he went 5 games of pure mech into sudden pure bio, 1 base bio all in, 3 pure mech, and a mech>bio build for his last game. That's brainy play and it deserves to win, but not without impressive mechanics and multitasking backing it up. Has beat Jaedong, one of the greatest StarCraft players of all time, and he didn't deserve to. He certainly hasn't spent as much time practicing the game, and I'd bet my cat (of whom I am very fond that he's not naturally, innately more talented than Jaedong is, either. All he did was decide "I'm going to cannon rush because it sometimes works" and then he didn't fuck it up badly enough. I don't want winners of SC2 tournaments to be people who didn't fuck up hard enough. That's not what a great competition is to me. He has spent more time preparing the Cannon rush than Jaedong has had fending it off. There's also room for innovation in Starcraft and innovative players deserve to get an edge once in awhile. Instead of only the cookie cutters who execute the build a little better. Do you think this would fly in any other sport? Imagine two soccer teams playing, one of them has a very strong, balanced lineup of players (so... Germany) and the other one has Robben! Neymar!! Ronaldo!!! Messi!!!! but to balance this out they have no other players on the field. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They goal's empty. But... obviously they've practiced this supremely aggressive formation a lot more than any other team has practiced defending against this kind of lineup... shouldn't our aggressive all-stars have a chance?! Won't somebody give them a chance?!Of course not. First of all, it's not even allowed, because it makes a farce of the competition. Second, although their team can theoretically put on pressure, it can theoretically score - they might even manage to score in practice once or twice - but they can't play a match over the course of 90 minutes. The players will get tired and they can't defend for shit. The team took too many shortcuts by sacrificing everything for an incredible offense. But in SC2 this is legit play. You don't have to play 90 minutes. Just score twice early on and that's it, the game magically ends, and it doesn't matter that your opponent is better than you at EVERYTHING IN THE GAME EXCEPT THIS ONE THING that you chose to do. (This isn't even getting into the fact that those football stars are remarkably talented individuals who have practiced very, very hard all their lives, and of the few in SC who have displayed comparable dedication, Has, San, and their ilk are nowhere in sight.) I don't want to eliminate aggressive openings. And inevitably sometimes the aggressive opening will just win. That's perfectly fine. What I'm not fine with is how easy many of these aggressive openings are to execute. And how easy some units in this game are to use. Certain spells, mechanics... Soccer... Isn't that the sport where Greece won an european cup by turtling in defense the whole game and scoring one goal in counter attack in all of their matches against better opponents? So when you say 'any other sport', you mean, 'except the one I'm using as an example'? Did they, or did they not have to play the whole 90mins or even longer? Was there any form of shortcut invovled how Greece won those games?
There's no shortcut involved in how a cheeser wins his games either. SC2's goal is either to destroy all of your opponents buildings, or have your opponent leave the game before that happens because he doesn't believe he can prevent that from happening.
What pure.wasted is saying is that the way a cheeser achieves the goal of the game is criticizable, and that no other sport allows that.
That's not true. And that's not true either.
That's not true because it makes no sense on a rational stand point. What it's saying is basically that you shouldn't use your brain in competition. If your body isn't good enough to win the game, then you should just lose. That definition works only for sports that are purely based on performance, mainly athletism. Competition isn't the same thing as athletism. The moment you introduce the notion of playing against someone else, then you introduce the possibility to outplay and use mindgames, and your brain should be acknowledged as a part of what can make you better than your opponent, just like your body.
Either your definition of 'better' has to entail everything that comes into play into the confrontation, or it's a bad one. More than that, it's a biased one.
In soccer, if the opponent team has better offensive capabilities, you don't just go: woops, they are better, GUESS WE LOSE. You can use a defensive strategy to shut them down and play for either a counter-attack, a draw or penalties. In tennis, if you feel like your stamina is coming to an end, you can choose to play shorter exchanges. People who serve a lot of aces will heavily benefit from that in those circumstances. In most sports you can even use strategies to make your opponent lose stamina faster and benefit from that.
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On December 04 2014 22:40 Nebuchad wrote:
In soccer, if the opponent team has better offensive capabilities, you don't just go: woops, they are better, GUESS WE LOSE.
You can instead roll in the grass and whine that you were pushed 
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On December 04 2014 21:47 weiliem wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 17:52 -NegativeZero- wrote:On December 04 2014 17:37 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:On December 04 2014 07:11 starslayer wrote:On December 04 2014 06:05 Musicus wrote:
this should really be in the OP as well seen enough angry zergs lol. ah shit quoted it wrong oh well its only a few comments up. maps will help zerg too Yeah it's just really frustrating that Terran got buff after buff when they were a bit 'weaker'(It was not like zerg was doing any better but ok) And when we clearly need some love we just hear, oh sorry guys we will change the maps for you.. It's a pretty bad way to balance a game by making the whole mappool favored for one race. Zerg just has been doing the worst overall in the HoTS Zerg expansion so far, yet blizzard just only seems to care about PvT. After the early-mid 2000s professional BW was balanced entirely via maps. It's really not a bad way to go about it. Then y nerf widow mines in pvt? In my opinion, blizzard should not issue any patch anymore and just let the game evolve itself. Or else, address the biggest issue now, they admit zerg being the weakest now, then they adjust tvp, how does that make sense?
I'm also wondering about that. Zerg has the most trouble at the highest level - let's change PvT. Before the last patch, why didn't terrans say "let the game evolve before we buff terran" or "let's solve the problem via map pool"? It shouldn't come down to the maps in the end. That last buff was totally unnecessary. Reverse it. All done.
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On December 04 2014 22:54 inken wrote:
Before the last patch, why didn't terrans say "let the game evolve before we buff terran" or "let's solve the problem via map pool"?
They were too busy complaining about how they were getting removed from the game, under the weight of all the nerfs they've been getting with *nearly* every patch. It's not the same world.
So now Blizzard think they can 'fix' the situation with maps, ok, I'm curious to see that. Not because I believe it will be enough (though one can always hope), but because I'm wondering what, in Blizzard's mind, are map characteristics that favor zergs over the other two races.
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On December 04 2014 22:23 LoneYoShi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 21:55 ejozl wrote:On December 04 2014 21:47 weiliem wrote:On December 04 2014 17:52 -NegativeZero- wrote:On December 04 2014 17:37 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:On December 04 2014 07:11 starslayer wrote:this should really be in the OP as well seen enough angry zergs lol. ah shit quoted it wrong oh well its only a few comments up. maps will help zerg too Yeah it's just really frustrating that Terran got buff after buff when they were a bit 'weaker'(It was not like zerg was doing any better but ok) And when we clearly need some love we just hear, oh sorry guys we will change the maps for you.. It's a pretty bad way to balance a game by making the whole mappool favored for one race. Zerg just has been doing the worst overall in the HoTS Zerg expansion so far, yet blizzard just only seems to care about PvT. After the early-mid 2000s professional BW was balanced entirely via maps. It's really not a bad way to go about it. Then y nerf widow mines in pvt? In my opinion, blizzard should not issue any patch anymore and just let the game evolve itself. Or else, address the biggest issue now, they admit zerg being the weakest now, then they adjust tvp, how does that make sense? I don't think u always have to look at statistics, if something feels very wrong. A Widow Mine blowing up 8 HT's is one of those feels. Then balance with maps to get the good statistics. If you manage to get your 8 templars killed by a mine, you've got a problem indeed, but it ain't the mine...
Yeah, haha I don't even know how that could reasonably happen. A mine flank? Hmm I don't think so as much as I'd like to do that. Probably just sending a clump of 8 templars ahead of your army without observers in the faint hope of catching the terran army? That doesn't seem like it should work, it, how do you say that....feels very wrong? :D
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Templeropenings felt allways wrong, either playing T or P:
As a P, you sit there, Gate FE and drop the T.C., a Forge and the T.A. after Nexus and then the Gate Explosion. With Charge. +1 armor and storm finish on 2 base and you can move out to take the third and you are still very save against the beginning of drop play due to the fact, that templers melt the medivacs (if you react fast enough). While you get your tech, you only get 3 stalkers and a sentry and have your 2 bases save, the terran can do nuts.
When the action starts, you a move the charglots and take you time and apm to hit the 2 storms of doom, while the terran has to kite till his fingers bleed and focus alot more.
I know why these game are so good to watch, not only do storms and chargelots look way better then a coloball, the fights become longer due to the mass kiting but as a viewer you could also shout "SIIIICK STORMS!" when a storm hit or "SICK SPLITS!!!" when a terran dodges everything. But the fact, that the terran had to do tons of actions to dodge at this lvl and the protoss just had to drop 2 storms is still a fact, that made these fights feeling wrong.
But i think the it will be just time to mech it happen.
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On December 04 2014 22:40 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 21:48 Big J wrote:On December 04 2014 21:16 Nebuchad wrote:On December 04 2014 11:35 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 10:34 ejozl wrote:On December 04 2014 08:42 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 07:35 Fecalfeast wrote:On December 04 2014 07:28 avilo wrote:
More Terran nerfs, not good. But i don't expect much from blizzard anymore tbh when it comes to patching or knowing what they are doing.
They still need to address early game TvP issues like proxied oracles/proxy twilight and all the other early game all-ins that make the early game a guessing game for Terran.
I do not think any SC2 fan will be happy with another Terran nerf. Only reason Terrans are doing so well in tourneys are because most of the top level Protosses are cheesey and maps that favored random bullshit were removed like yeonsu.
Forgg was a previous MSL champion, MKP champion material, same with every other big name Terran you can name. Then go through the list of Protosses and it's a lot of players that usually all-in like 50% of their games -_-
TBH tho, wish blizzard would look at siege tank damage in TvP - they do not trade whatsoever for their current cost. Why do people have to win in a certain way? What makes an all-in a non-valid strategy? Are there tournament rules I am unaware of that don't allow certain build orders? Some people feel that raw mechanics and multitasking ability are some of the more important skills, and as such deserve to be rewarded more. Why? Because they are the tangible skills that we can see on the screen. Strategy is too often intangible -- did a pro cannon rush because he knows that his opponent never ever Drone scouts on the third map of his fourth set of a Ro8, or did he cannon rush because "Hey why not? Worked all the way up to GM." Mechanics on the other hand are tangible and undeniable. When someone can Blink like PartinG, it's not by accident -- it's because he's spent years honing this skill. Practice should be rewarded. Skills that take years to perfect should be rewarded. That's not to say there aren't exceptions. Classic's games against Polt at Blizzcon are a triumph of preparation over predictability, Classic exploiting Polt's typically low Viking count. ForGG's games against Life were simply ruthless, he went 5 games of pure mech into sudden pure bio, 1 base bio all in, 3 pure mech, and a mech>bio build for his last game. That's brainy play and it deserves to win, but not without impressive mechanics and multitasking backing it up. Has beat Jaedong, one of the greatest StarCraft players of all time, and he didn't deserve to. He certainly hasn't spent as much time practicing the game, and I'd bet my cat (of whom I am very fond that he's not naturally, innately more talented than Jaedong is, either. All he did was decide "I'm going to cannon rush because it sometimes works" and then he didn't fuck it up badly enough. I don't want winners of SC2 tournaments to be people who didn't fuck up hard enough. That's not what a great competition is to me. He has spent more time preparing the Cannon rush than Jaedong has had fending it off. There's also room for innovation in Starcraft and innovative players deserve to get an edge once in awhile. Instead of only the cookie cutters who execute the build a little better. Do you think this would fly in any other sport? Imagine two soccer teams playing, one of them has a very strong, balanced lineup of players (so... Germany) and the other one has Robben! Neymar!! Ronaldo!!! Messi!!!! but to balance this out they have no other players on the field. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They goal's empty. But... obviously they've practiced this supremely aggressive formation a lot more than any other team has practiced defending against this kind of lineup... shouldn't our aggressive all-stars have a chance?! Won't somebody give them a chance?!Of course not. First of all, it's not even allowed, because it makes a farce of the competition. Second, although their team can theoretically put on pressure, it can theoretically score - they might even manage to score in practice once or twice - but they can't play a match over the course of 90 minutes. The players will get tired and they can't defend for shit. The team took too many shortcuts by sacrificing everything for an incredible offense. But in SC2 this is legit play. You don't have to play 90 minutes. Just score twice early on and that's it, the game magically ends, and it doesn't matter that your opponent is better than you at EVERYTHING IN THE GAME EXCEPT THIS ONE THING that you chose to do. (This isn't even getting into the fact that those football stars are remarkably talented individuals who have practiced very, very hard all their lives, and of the few in SC who have displayed comparable dedication, Has, San, and their ilk are nowhere in sight.) I don't want to eliminate aggressive openings. And inevitably sometimes the aggressive opening will just win. That's perfectly fine. What I'm not fine with is how easy many of these aggressive openings are to execute. And how easy some units in this game are to use. Certain spells, mechanics... Soccer... Isn't that the sport where Greece won an european cup by turtling in defense the whole game and scoring one goal in counter attack in all of their matches against better opponents? So when you say 'any other sport', you mean, 'except the one I'm using as an example'? Did they, or did they not have to play the whole 90mins or even longer? Was there any form of shortcut invovled how Greece won those games? There's no shortcut involved in how a cheeser wins his games either. SC2's goal is either to destroy all of your opponents buildings, or have your opponent leave the game before that happens because he doesn't believe he can prevent that from happening. What pure.wasted is saying is that the way a cheeser achieves the goal of the game is criticizable, and that no other sport allows that. That's not true. And that's not true either. That's not true because it makes no sense on a rational stand point. What it's saying is basically that you shouldn't use your brain in competition. If your body isn't good enough to win the game, then you should just lose. That definition works only for sports that are purely based on performance, mainly athletism. Competition isn't the same thing as athletism. The moment you introduce the notion of playing against someone else, then you introduce the possibility to outplay and use mindgames, and your brain should be acknowledged as a part of what can make you better than your opponent, just like your body. Either your definition of 'better' has to entail everything that comes into play into the confrontation, or it's a bad one. More than that, it's a biased one. In soccer, if the opponent team has better offensive capabilities, you don't just go: woops, they are better, GUESS WE LOSE. You can use a defensive strategy to shut them down and play for either a counter-attack, a draw or penalties. In tennis, if you feel like your stamina is coming to an end, you can choose to play shorter exchanges. People who serve a lot of aces will heavily benefit from that in those circumstances. In most sports you can even use strategies to make your opponent lose stamina faster and benefit from that.
For me, what you say in the end comes down to a discussion about
"There are rules and aims, as long as you follow the rules to achieve the aims you are the better player". I don't think anybody would be denying that on such a fundamental level.
But when you go a few levels higher you will find that many people do critizise football teams for playing overly defensive or even destructive. And Starcraft takes this to even another level, allowing people to not only win in quite destructive ways (such as Swarm Host playstyles and similar turtle strategies) but also very luckbased strategies and strategies that just happen before there are meaningful ways to showcase skill. And all of that without a stamina element.
When you score in football with 10forwards in your formation giving everything they have for 15mins, they are exhausted afterwards and you are stuck with a bad formation. You'll probably receive a ton of goals and lose the game.
If you score with a 7gate allin, you are back to full power in the next game and you can play a completely different strategy. At worst you will receive a single loss in a series of games.
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On December 04 2014 22:51 Maniak_ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 22:40 Nebuchad wrote:
In soccer, if the opponent team has better offensive capabilities, you don't just go: woops, they are better, GUESS WE LOSE. You can instead roll in the grass and whine that you were pushed
If the opponent is better, you cant simple go all-in or cheese to a win. What you have to do is something of the following:
-Set up traps. Traps exist in chess, football(offside) and rts games.
-Outsmart the opponent.
-Outmicro the opponent.
Even if a player is better than the other player, its still possible to win engagements by tactics. Its also possible to win the strategy war.
Lots of things to do.
All-in and cheese is pure shit imo. The allins in sc2 is very pathetic.
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cheese/mindgames is one of my favourite things, ideally though it should only grant you a small edge or disadvantage rather than outright win or lose you the game.
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On December 04 2014 23:26 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 22:40 Nebuchad wrote:On December 04 2014 21:48 Big J wrote:On December 04 2014 21:16 Nebuchad wrote:On December 04 2014 11:35 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 10:34 ejozl wrote:On December 04 2014 08:42 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 07:35 Fecalfeast wrote:On December 04 2014 07:28 avilo wrote:
More Terran nerfs, not good. But i don't expect much from blizzard anymore tbh when it comes to patching or knowing what they are doing.
They still need to address early game TvP issues like proxied oracles/proxy twilight and all the other early game all-ins that make the early game a guessing game for Terran.
I do not think any SC2 fan will be happy with another Terran nerf. Only reason Terrans are doing so well in tourneys are because most of the top level Protosses are cheesey and maps that favored random bullshit were removed like yeonsu.
Forgg was a previous MSL champion, MKP champion material, same with every other big name Terran you can name. Then go through the list of Protosses and it's a lot of players that usually all-in like 50% of their games -_-
TBH tho, wish blizzard would look at siege tank damage in TvP - they do not trade whatsoever for their current cost. Why do people have to win in a certain way? What makes an all-in a non-valid strategy? Are there tournament rules I am unaware of that don't allow certain build orders? Some people feel that raw mechanics and multitasking ability are some of the more important skills, and as such deserve to be rewarded more. Why? Because they are the tangible skills that we can see on the screen. Strategy is too often intangible -- did a pro cannon rush because he knows that his opponent never ever Drone scouts on the third map of his fourth set of a Ro8, or did he cannon rush because "Hey why not? Worked all the way up to GM." Mechanics on the other hand are tangible and undeniable. When someone can Blink like PartinG, it's not by accident -- it's because he's spent years honing this skill. Practice should be rewarded. Skills that take years to perfect should be rewarded. That's not to say there aren't exceptions. Classic's games against Polt at Blizzcon are a triumph of preparation over predictability, Classic exploiting Polt's typically low Viking count. ForGG's games against Life were simply ruthless, he went 5 games of pure mech into sudden pure bio, 1 base bio all in, 3 pure mech, and a mech>bio build for his last game. That's brainy play and it deserves to win, but not without impressive mechanics and multitasking backing it up. Has beat Jaedong, one of the greatest StarCraft players of all time, and he didn't deserve to. He certainly hasn't spent as much time practicing the game, and I'd bet my cat (of whom I am very fond that he's not naturally, innately more talented than Jaedong is, either. All he did was decide "I'm going to cannon rush because it sometimes works" and then he didn't fuck it up badly enough. I don't want winners of SC2 tournaments to be people who didn't fuck up hard enough. That's not what a great competition is to me. He has spent more time preparing the Cannon rush than Jaedong has had fending it off. There's also room for innovation in Starcraft and innovative players deserve to get an edge once in awhile. Instead of only the cookie cutters who execute the build a little better. Do you think this would fly in any other sport? Imagine two soccer teams playing, one of them has a very strong, balanced lineup of players (so... Germany) and the other one has Robben! Neymar!! Ronaldo!!! Messi!!!! but to balance this out they have no other players on the field. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They goal's empty. But... obviously they've practiced this supremely aggressive formation a lot more than any other team has practiced defending against this kind of lineup... shouldn't our aggressive all-stars have a chance?! Won't somebody give them a chance?!Of course not. First of all, it's not even allowed, because it makes a farce of the competition. Second, although their team can theoretically put on pressure, it can theoretically score - they might even manage to score in practice once or twice - but they can't play a match over the course of 90 minutes. The players will get tired and they can't defend for shit. The team took too many shortcuts by sacrificing everything for an incredible offense. But in SC2 this is legit play. You don't have to play 90 minutes. Just score twice early on and that's it, the game magically ends, and it doesn't matter that your opponent is better than you at EVERYTHING IN THE GAME EXCEPT THIS ONE THING that you chose to do. (This isn't even getting into the fact that those football stars are remarkably talented individuals who have practiced very, very hard all their lives, and of the few in SC who have displayed comparable dedication, Has, San, and their ilk are nowhere in sight.) I don't want to eliminate aggressive openings. And inevitably sometimes the aggressive opening will just win. That's perfectly fine. What I'm not fine with is how easy many of these aggressive openings are to execute. And how easy some units in this game are to use. Certain spells, mechanics... Soccer... Isn't that the sport where Greece won an european cup by turtling in defense the whole game and scoring one goal in counter attack in all of their matches against better opponents? So when you say 'any other sport', you mean, 'except the one I'm using as an example'? Did they, or did they not have to play the whole 90mins or even longer? Was there any form of shortcut invovled how Greece won those games? There's no shortcut involved in how a cheeser wins his games either. SC2's goal is either to destroy all of your opponents buildings, or have your opponent leave the game before that happens because he doesn't believe he can prevent that from happening. What pure.wasted is saying is that the way a cheeser achieves the goal of the game is criticizable, and that no other sport allows that. That's not true. And that's not true either. That's not true because it makes no sense on a rational stand point. What it's saying is basically that you shouldn't use your brain in competition. If your body isn't good enough to win the game, then you should just lose. That definition works only for sports that are purely based on performance, mainly athletism. Competition isn't the same thing as athletism. The moment you introduce the notion of playing against someone else, then you introduce the possibility to outplay and use mindgames, and your brain should be acknowledged as a part of what can make you better than your opponent, just like your body. Either your definition of 'better' has to entail everything that comes into play into the confrontation, or it's a bad one. More than that, it's a biased one. In soccer, if the opponent team has better offensive capabilities, you don't just go: woops, they are better, GUESS WE LOSE. You can use a defensive strategy to shut them down and play for either a counter-attack, a draw or penalties. In tennis, if you feel like your stamina is coming to an end, you can choose to play shorter exchanges. People who serve a lot of aces will heavily benefit from that in those circumstances. In most sports you can even use strategies to make your opponent lose stamina faster and benefit from that. But when you go a few levels higher you will find that many people do critizise football teams for playing overly defensive or even destructive.
Yes they do, and I've seen criticism of penalties at the end of playoff games because they're not a good representation of who the better team is. That displays to me that the mechanism is the same: when you're not satisfied with the result, you can always resort to criticizing the rules (or the referee, in the case of football). Most people recognize that claim as not being a serious one when it comes to football. I hope the same is true for Starcraft.
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On December 04 2014 17:37 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:
Yeah it's just really frustrating that Terran got buff after buff when they were a bit 'weaker'(It was not like zerg was doing any better but ok)
That really isn't true at all. Terran went more than seven months without winning a single premier tournament. They matched the all time low of 3 Code S players, and then beat it by going down to 2 in the next season.
If we jump to present day, it has been less than a month since the last Protoss and Zerg tournament wins. Their code S representations are really quite healthy. Anyone who thinks the situations are at all comparable is just wrong. There is no metric that will support their claims.
In July 2014 Terran had won less than a third of the prize money YTD that Protoss players did. People are really forgetting how bad things got.
Past imbalance does not justify current or future imbalance, but don't pretend that Blizzard started patching after our winrates went down for two weeks.
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On December 04 2014 23:54 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 23:26 Big J wrote:On December 04 2014 22:40 Nebuchad wrote:On December 04 2014 21:48 Big J wrote:On December 04 2014 21:16 Nebuchad wrote:On December 04 2014 11:35 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 10:34 ejozl wrote:On December 04 2014 08:42 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 07:35 Fecalfeast wrote:On December 04 2014 07:28 avilo wrote:
More Terran nerfs, not good. But i don't expect much from blizzard anymore tbh when it comes to patching or knowing what they are doing.
They still need to address early game TvP issues like proxied oracles/proxy twilight and all the other early game all-ins that make the early game a guessing game for Terran.
I do not think any SC2 fan will be happy with another Terran nerf. Only reason Terrans are doing so well in tourneys are because most of the top level Protosses are cheesey and maps that favored random bullshit were removed like yeonsu.
Forgg was a previous MSL champion, MKP champion material, same with every other big name Terran you can name. Then go through the list of Protosses and it's a lot of players that usually all-in like 50% of their games -_-
TBH tho, wish blizzard would look at siege tank damage in TvP - they do not trade whatsoever for their current cost. Why do people have to win in a certain way? What makes an all-in a non-valid strategy? Are there tournament rules I am unaware of that don't allow certain build orders? Some people feel that raw mechanics and multitasking ability are some of the more important skills, and as such deserve to be rewarded more. Why? Because they are the tangible skills that we can see on the screen. Strategy is too often intangible -- did a pro cannon rush because he knows that his opponent never ever Drone scouts on the third map of his fourth set of a Ro8, or did he cannon rush because "Hey why not? Worked all the way up to GM." Mechanics on the other hand are tangible and undeniable. When someone can Blink like PartinG, it's not by accident -- it's because he's spent years honing this skill. Practice should be rewarded. Skills that take years to perfect should be rewarded. That's not to say there aren't exceptions. Classic's games against Polt at Blizzcon are a triumph of preparation over predictability, Classic exploiting Polt's typically low Viking count. ForGG's games against Life were simply ruthless, he went 5 games of pure mech into sudden pure bio, 1 base bio all in, 3 pure mech, and a mech>bio build for his last game. That's brainy play and it deserves to win, but not without impressive mechanics and multitasking backing it up. Has beat Jaedong, one of the greatest StarCraft players of all time, and he didn't deserve to. He certainly hasn't spent as much time practicing the game, and I'd bet my cat (of whom I am very fond that he's not naturally, innately more talented than Jaedong is, either. All he did was decide "I'm going to cannon rush because it sometimes works" and then he didn't fuck it up badly enough. I don't want winners of SC2 tournaments to be people who didn't fuck up hard enough. That's not what a great competition is to me. He has spent more time preparing the Cannon rush than Jaedong has had fending it off. There's also room for innovation in Starcraft and innovative players deserve to get an edge once in awhile. Instead of only the cookie cutters who execute the build a little better. Do you think this would fly in any other sport? Imagine two soccer teams playing, one of them has a very strong, balanced lineup of players (so... Germany) and the other one has Robben! Neymar!! Ronaldo!!! Messi!!!! but to balance this out they have no other players on the field. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They goal's empty. But... obviously they've practiced this supremely aggressive formation a lot more than any other team has practiced defending against this kind of lineup... shouldn't our aggressive all-stars have a chance?! Won't somebody give them a chance?!Of course not. First of all, it's not even allowed, because it makes a farce of the competition. Second, although their team can theoretically put on pressure, it can theoretically score - they might even manage to score in practice once or twice - but they can't play a match over the course of 90 minutes. The players will get tired and they can't defend for shit. The team took too many shortcuts by sacrificing everything for an incredible offense. But in SC2 this is legit play. You don't have to play 90 minutes. Just score twice early on and that's it, the game magically ends, and it doesn't matter that your opponent is better than you at EVERYTHING IN THE GAME EXCEPT THIS ONE THING that you chose to do. (This isn't even getting into the fact that those football stars are remarkably talented individuals who have practiced very, very hard all their lives, and of the few in SC who have displayed comparable dedication, Has, San, and their ilk are nowhere in sight.) I don't want to eliminate aggressive openings. And inevitably sometimes the aggressive opening will just win. That's perfectly fine. What I'm not fine with is how easy many of these aggressive openings are to execute. And how easy some units in this game are to use. Certain spells, mechanics... Soccer... Isn't that the sport where Greece won an european cup by turtling in defense the whole game and scoring one goal in counter attack in all of their matches against better opponents? So when you say 'any other sport', you mean, 'except the one I'm using as an example'? Did they, or did they not have to play the whole 90mins or even longer? Was there any form of shortcut invovled how Greece won those games? There's no shortcut involved in how a cheeser wins his games either. SC2's goal is either to destroy all of your opponents buildings, or have your opponent leave the game before that happens because he doesn't believe he can prevent that from happening. What pure.wasted is saying is that the way a cheeser achieves the goal of the game is criticizable, and that no other sport allows that. That's not true. And that's not true either. That's not true because it makes no sense on a rational stand point. What it's saying is basically that you shouldn't use your brain in competition. If your body isn't good enough to win the game, then you should just lose. That definition works only for sports that are purely based on performance, mainly athletism. Competition isn't the same thing as athletism. The moment you introduce the notion of playing against someone else, then you introduce the possibility to outplay and use mindgames, and your brain should be acknowledged as a part of what can make you better than your opponent, just like your body. Either your definition of 'better' has to entail everything that comes into play into the confrontation, or it's a bad one. More than that, it's a biased one. In soccer, if the opponent team has better offensive capabilities, you don't just go: woops, they are better, GUESS WE LOSE. You can use a defensive strategy to shut them down and play for either a counter-attack, a draw or penalties. In tennis, if you feel like your stamina is coming to an end, you can choose to play shorter exchanges. People who serve a lot of aces will heavily benefit from that in those circumstances. In most sports you can even use strategies to make your opponent lose stamina faster and benefit from that. But when you go a few levels higher you will find that many people do critizise football teams for playing overly defensive or even destructive. Yes they do, and I've seen criticism of penalties at the end of playoff games because they're not a good representation of who the better team is. That displays to me that the mechanism is the same: when you're not satisfied with the result, you can always resort to criticizing the rules (or the referee, in the case of football). Most people recognize that claim as not being a serious one when it comes to football. I hope the same is true for Starcraft.
Which is the part I can agree with, but not the point I was saying that. It was just a perspective to characterize why I think that Starcraft is much worse in that department.
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Finally. Once TvP becomes more balanced, I can finally go back to hatin' on Protoss.
But for TvZ, I think they should nerf WMs somewhere between where they are currently and where they were before last patch. And / or return Transformation Servos, just make it 50/50 or something.
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On December 05 2014 00:21 r691175002 wrote:
Past imbalance does not justify current or future imbalance, but don't pretend that Blizzard started patching after our winrates went down for two weeks.
You're right, it wasn't two weeks. It was more like eight or nine weeks after the last Terran Premier Tournament win (which you seem to be using as your metric) before they started buffing Terran. Roughly two months. Patch 2.1 balance update of the 3rd of February to be exact. And over the approximately seven month period of "Terran weakness" they put out three or four balance updates (depends if you include the July patch in the "transition period"), all of which included direct Terran buffs.
Incidentally the only balance update between Trap's MLG Anaheim win in June and Zest breaking the Protoss dry spell in September (a period of about thirteen weeks or roughly three months) was a Protoss nerf/Terran buff patch. Patch 2.1.3 balance update of 25th July (and that was a massive mine buff patch that killed Templar play). Incidentally, that's been the ONLY balance patch since Terran started wrecking everyone around June. So in approaching six months of Terran taking 12 of 21 premier tournaments the only patch has been a buff to Terran.
To turn your own words around: don't pretend that Blizzard hasn't done more for Terran when Terran was having a hard time than they've done for the other races when Terran wrecking everyone; arguably because its not quite as bad, even though it is pretty bad. The facts don't support it. I know its trendy to have this "Blizzard does NOTHING for my race" thing going, but the patches don't support that story. They were trying throughout that period to help Terran, and evidently some of it worked; so reviling Blizzard for it is completely unfair.
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On December 04 2014 23:01 ZenithM wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 22:23 LoneYoShi wrote:On December 04 2014 21:55 ejozl wrote:On December 04 2014 21:47 weiliem wrote:On December 04 2014 17:52 -NegativeZero- wrote:On December 04 2014 17:37 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:On December 04 2014 07:11 starslayer wrote:this should really be in the OP as well seen enough angry zergs lol. ah shit quoted it wrong oh well its only a few comments up. maps will help zerg too Yeah it's just really frustrating that Terran got buff after buff when they were a bit 'weaker'(It was not like zerg was doing any better but ok) And when we clearly need some love we just hear, oh sorry guys we will change the maps for you.. It's a pretty bad way to balance a game by making the whole mappool favored for one race. Zerg just has been doing the worst overall in the HoTS Zerg expansion so far, yet blizzard just only seems to care about PvT. After the early-mid 2000s professional BW was balanced entirely via maps. It's really not a bad way to go about it. Then y nerf widow mines in pvt? In my opinion, blizzard should not issue any patch anymore and just let the game evolve itself. Or else, address the biggest issue now, they admit zerg being the weakest now, then they adjust tvp, how does that make sense? I don't think u always have to look at statistics, if something feels very wrong. A Widow Mine blowing up 8 HT's is one of those feels. Then balance with maps to get the good statistics. If you manage to get your 8 templars killed by a mine, you've got a problem indeed, but it ain't the mine... Yeah, haha I don't even know how that could reasonably happen. A mine flank? Hmm I don't think so as much as I'd like to do that. Probably just sending a clump of 8 templars ahead of your army without observers in the faint hope of catching the terran army? That doesn't seem like it should work, it, how do you say that....feels very wrong? :D
"Yeah, haha I don't even know how that could reasonably happen. A mine flank? Hmm I don't think so as much as I'd like to do that. Probably just sending a clump of 8 GHOSTS ahead of your army without CLOAK in the faint hope of catching the PROTOSS army? That doesn't seem like it should work, it, how do you say that....feels very wrong? :D"
There Tried to fix it for you, but it's still possible to get sniped/emp'ed if you cloak then 
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In order to understand a dynamic system we are advised to change one parameter at a time and observe the effects. Blizzard does not follow this method: ergo Blizzard does not know what they are doing.
Question for the swarm: Should we wrestle balance issues out of their hands?
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On December 05 2014 03:27 Spinoza wrote:
In order to understand a dynamic system we are advised to change one parameter at a time and observe the effects. Blizzard does not follow this method: ergo Blizzard does not know what they are doing.
Question for the swarm: Should we wrestle balance issues out of their hands?
If you give Balance in the hand of the swarm ( the people ), you will get a situation, where 2 races will play okay and one will be waaaay behind.
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On December 05 2014 03:41 Clonester wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2014 03:27 Spinoza wrote:
In order to understand a dynamic system we are advised to change one parameter at a time and observe the effects. Blizzard does not follow this method: ergo Blizzard does not know what they are doing.
Question for the swarm: Should we wrestle balance issues out of their hands? If you give Balance in the hand of the swarm ( the people ), you will get a situation, where 2 races will play okay and one will be waaaay behind.
Thank you sir, this is a valid objection. I want Blizzard to still have a vote and be a discussion partner but it will happen in an open forum where any and all can give input. Objective is transparency.
The 2 races disparity is already a problem (balance a three legged chair comes to mind) but I have seen no evidence from Blizzard that opaque decisions are better than openly discussed ones. There are also empirical evidence that "the wisdom of the crowds" is more accurate than the wisdom of "experts". (see here for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd)
Thoughts?
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On December 05 2014 03:41 Clonester wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2014 03:27 Spinoza wrote:
In order to understand a dynamic system we are advised to change one parameter at a time and observe the effects. Blizzard does not follow this method: ergo Blizzard does not know what they are doing.
Question for the swarm: Should we wrestle balance issues out of their hands? If you give Balance in the hand of the swarm ( the people ), you will get a situation, where 2 races will play okay and one will be waaaay behind.
No, nothing will happen because people like to complain a lot, but never come up with solutions. Especially with the professional statistic reinterpreters in the balance thread...
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On December 04 2014 21:16 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2014 11:35 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 10:34 ejozl wrote:On December 04 2014 08:42 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 04 2014 07:35 Fecalfeast wrote:On December 04 2014 07:28 avilo wrote:
More Terran nerfs, not good. But i don't expect much from blizzard anymore tbh when it comes to patching or knowing what they are doing.
They still need to address early game TvP issues like proxied oracles/proxy twilight and all the other early game all-ins that make the early game a guessing game for Terran.
I do not think any SC2 fan will be happy with another Terran nerf. Only reason Terrans are doing so well in tourneys are because most of the top level Protosses are cheesey and maps that favored random bullshit were removed like yeonsu.
Forgg was a previous MSL champion, MKP champion material, same with every other big name Terran you can name. Then go through the list of Protosses and it's a lot of players that usually all-in like 50% of their games -_-
TBH tho, wish blizzard would look at siege tank damage in TvP - they do not trade whatsoever for their current cost. Why do people have to win in a certain way? What makes an all-in a non-valid strategy? Are there tournament rules I am unaware of that don't allow certain build orders? Some people feel that raw mechanics and multitasking ability are some of the more important skills, and as such deserve to be rewarded more. Why? Because they are the tangible skills that we can see on the screen. Strategy is too often intangible -- did a pro cannon rush because he knows that his opponent never ever Drone scouts on the third map of his fourth set of a Ro8, or did he cannon rush because "Hey why not? Worked all the way up to GM." Mechanics on the other hand are tangible and undeniable. When someone can Blink like PartinG, it's not by accident -- it's because he's spent years honing this skill. Practice should be rewarded. Skills that take years to perfect should be rewarded. That's not to say there aren't exceptions. Classic's games against Polt at Blizzcon are a triumph of preparation over predictability, Classic exploiting Polt's typically low Viking count. ForGG's games against Life were simply ruthless, he went 5 games of pure mech into sudden pure bio, 1 base bio all in, 3 pure mech, and a mech>bio build for his last game. That's brainy play and it deserves to win, but not without impressive mechanics and multitasking backing it up. Has beat Jaedong, one of the greatest StarCraft players of all time, and he didn't deserve to. He certainly hasn't spent as much time practicing the game, and I'd bet my cat (of whom I am very fond that he's not naturally, innately more talented than Jaedong is, either. All he did was decide "I'm going to cannon rush because it sometimes works" and then he didn't fuck it up badly enough. I don't want winners of SC2 tournaments to be people who didn't fuck up hard enough. That's not what a great competition is to me. He has spent more time preparing the Cannon rush than Jaedong has had fending it off. There's also room for innovation in Starcraft and innovative players deserve to get an edge once in awhile. Instead of only the cookie cutters who execute the build a little better. Do you think this would fly in any other sport? Imagine two soccer teams playing, one of them has a very strong, balanced lineup of players (so... Germany) and the other one has Robben! Neymar!! Ronaldo!!! Messi!!!! but to balance this out they have no other players on the field. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They goal's empty. But... obviously they've practiced this supremely aggressive formation a lot more than any other team has practiced defending against this kind of lineup... shouldn't our aggressive all-stars have a chance?! Won't somebody give them a chance?!Of course not. First of all, it's not even allowed, because it makes a farce of the competition. Second, although their team can theoretically put on pressure, it can theoretically score - they might even manage to score in practice once or twice - but they can't play a match over the course of 90 minutes. The players will get tired and they can't defend for shit. The team took too many shortcuts by sacrificing everything for an incredible offense. But in SC2 this is legit play. You don't have to play 90 minutes. Just score twice early on and that's it, the game magically ends, and it doesn't matter that your opponent is better than you at EVERYTHING IN THE GAME EXCEPT THIS ONE THING that you chose to do. (This isn't even getting into the fact that those football stars are remarkably talented individuals who have practiced very, very hard all their lives, and of the few in SC who have displayed comparable dedication, Has, San, and their ilk are nowhere in sight.) I don't want to eliminate aggressive openings. And inevitably sometimes the aggressive opening will just win. That's perfectly fine. What I'm not fine with is how easy many of these aggressive openings are to execute. And how easy some units in this game are to use. Certain spells, mechanics... Soccer... Isn't that the sport where Greece won an european cup by turtling in defense the whole game and scoring one goal in counter attack in all of their matches against better opponents? So when you say 'any other sport', you mean, 'except the one I'm using as an example'?
This is a great point and you're completely right except for one thing... even a relatively shitty team like Greece, playing a shitty strategy that equalizes the skill playing field and is shitty to watch... still has world-class players on it that teams like Arsenal and Sheffield are happy to pick up, who have been playing soccer at a competitive level for decades.
For comparison, Jaedong has been playing for eight years. Flash, seven. Has... has been playing at a pseudo-competitive level for less than two years. To successfully suck at international-level soccer, you still have to be really, really good. To successfully suck at SC2 and get ro32/ro16 placements, you have to know how to Baneling bust and proxy Oracles. Not exactly the same thing, is it?
On December 04 2014 22:40 Nebuchad wrote:
That's not true because it makes no sense on a rational stand point. What it's saying is basically that you shouldn't use your brain in competition. If your body isn't good enough to win the game, then you should just lose. That definition works only for sports that are purely based on performance, mainly athletism. Competition isn't the same thing as athletism. The moment you introduce the notion of playing against someone else, then you introduce the possibility to outplay and use mindgames, and your brain should be acknowledged as a part of what can make you better than your opponent, just like your body.
Either your definition of 'better' has to entail everything that comes into play into the confrontation, or it's a bad one. More than that, it's a biased one.
In soccer, if the opponent team has better offensive capabilities, you don't just go: woops, they are better, GUESS WE LOSE. You can use a defensive strategy to shut them down and play for either a counter-attack, a draw or penalties. In tennis, if you feel like your stamina is coming to an end, you can choose to play shorter exchanges. People who serve a lot of aces will heavily benefit from that in those circumstances. In most sports you can even use strategies to make your opponent lose stamina faster and benefit from that.
Why must things be so binary? Either every mindgame is possible, no matter how easy to execute, or no mindgames are possible and the sport becomes mere, rote athleticism? There are other markers to strive for, like, again, the series between ForGG and Life, where ForGG was able to out-wile his opponent but still had to prove he could go toe-to-toe with him. His mindgames bought him an advantage, not victory, and that's the way it should be. If we replace ForGG with a random GM Terran at the exact moment ForGG decided to transition out of mech and into bio, the GM Terran doesn't just magically beat Life. In fact, he doesn't stand a chance. The question is... would you, with your hand over your heart, say that there's no way Innovation ever loses to a Baneling bust from a GM Zerg? I wonder.
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EPT
