EPTA closer look at TvZ balance - Page 2
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PinoKotsBeer
Netherlands1385 Posts
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evolsiefil
143 Posts
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
On June 12 2016 18:50 redloser wrote: Well, I don't agree with your statement on the imbalance of ZvT in the Korean pro scene being a player issue. I mean, you can't just blame the zerg pros for losing. As a group, they practice about the same amount as their terran colleagues, they possess about the same talent as well. foreign terrans also practice the same amount as foreign zergs and possess the same talent and don't have nearly as much success. That said I really don't understand why korean zergs are struggling that hard but foreign zergs are doing fine, "zerg is just easier to play" seems like a to simple explanation. It's really strange and such a situation has never happened before but I think blizzard should wait with patching to see if it's just a playr issue. And I agree that tvz is a very unfun matchup atm for both sides. | ||
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egrimm
Poland1199 Posts
Both T and Z have similar "power level" in early game. Then in midgame T has an advantage and in lategame Z has and advantage. On paper it seems ok and the differences should equalize through out the game. However the better the players playing are the more they can do with the advantage they have. Worse T player would not be able to capitalise on his advantage and deal that much damage as better one. I believe that this is exactly what happens in TvZ between different regions. The Best Terran players are able to use their midgame advantage to fullest potential and bacause of that Zerg players get to lategame in worse shape than if playing against slightly worse Terran. In other words Zergs in Korea are dying against Terrans in midgame a lot more commonly than in other regions and because of that they cannot get to lategame where they are favoured. It is similar to WoL PvZ and immortal all-ins vs broodlord/infestor. The difference between mid and late game "power level" probably should be just lowered. Step1: Nerf Ultras against bio and liberators against mutmuts are the most obvious changes. Terran less inclined to end game before lategame. Zergs more encouraged to get mutas for both harrass and defend from drops or lib/tank harrass. Step 2: If changes not enough then maybe tinker with larva numbers if ling/bling/muta is still too weak and/or nerf Terran harrass (lib/tank) slightly . | ||
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PPN
France248 Posts
On June 12 2016 18:19 MiCroLiFe wrote: zerg and protoss are easyer to play. everyone knows it No. It's far from being that simple. Because if what you say is true, pros -who earn their living from playing and winning- would all play them. Nobody in their right mind would choose the hard way. Either that or you are implying 1/3 of pros are idiots. I don't know how you can say that with a straight face. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
On June 12 2016 21:05 PPN wrote: No. It's far from being that simple. Because if what you say is true, pros -who earn their living from playing and winning- would all play them. Nobody in their right mind would choose the hard way. Either that or you are implying 1/3 of pros are idiots. I don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I don't agree with him but when you are only playing one race you don't know how hard the other races are. Unless you play all races on a similar skill level you really can't make statements about the difficulty of playing the races and even then it might just be that one race fits you better than the others. | ||
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Deleted User 132135
702 Posts
Now it is entirely possible that korean Terrans are able to execute on a level that invalidates some of the strategies that foreign Zergs are using but it´s not something we can be sure about until we have more source material of korean Zergs trying to do it. You can be very sure that the higher level of play on the korean server invalidates certain strategies that work for players on other servers. If the entity of the top zergs on the korean server don't use what you call an advantageous strategy against terran it is pretty much evident that it would not work against the higher caliber terrans in korea. Assuming that korean zergs are opting for inferior builds compared to foreigners is plain wrong. Some points for a strong midgame play of zerg: - the matchup seems very fragile to me, a strong midgame unit zerg play has the potential to punish terran for overextending - going straight for ultralisks without being able to support them (as you have mentioned) in the long term seems to be the wrong choice to me. You certainly can reduce the number of mining bases of terran for a some time but you hardly kill the terran with that. You spend all your ressources on them, have them not fully upgraded, terran can lift off orbitals, lift of units instead of letting them fight and die against ultras. It barely leaves enough ressources to complete ultralisk upgrades, deal with liberators, and be able to expand economy/expansions further at the same time. I even claim to say if you go straight for ultralisks you gonna lose 1-2 expansions in the process that you could otherwise acquire or hold against top level terrans (which are all only located at korea as you have said yourself). I am pretty sure it is safe to say that korean zergs play as they play as it is overall the most beneficial style of play for them in their environment, simpe logics support this and do not allow any other fair conclusions. Non korean terrans are just not capable to deliver the amount of precision and force that korean terrans do so that these things work better on EU/NA. Hence it is cherrypicking what you do when saying on the one hand the game should be balanced mainly for the highest 300 players in the world and then more or less say these top players of one race pick a wrong and inferior playstyle. And there are probably no single EU/NA terrans in the top 300 players of the world (as you have mentioned yourself). At the end of the day people will ask "Is TvZ balanced?". If I had to make an educated guess I would lean towards yes. The player representation and winrates for the most important tournament system in SC2 appears to support this. An educated guess would be that a game with the complexity of SC2 and all its variables never can be fully balanced. So the question is always which race is favoured. Even from just using your arguments in the text it seems like the matchup is slightly terran favoured to me rather than claiming it is 100% balanced. The points you make in your text do not allow to pull the assumption you did: - EU/NA zergs are better and escpecially alot more numerous than their EU/NA terran counterparts - it is a matter of players: yes but a matter of players in EU/NA not so much in korea which seems to have a much more even distribution of players of each race and as well the skill that is subject to them for sure is more evenly distributed on races than in EU/NA The image below shows the aligulac ELO standings and while I perfectly understand something like this is only partial information it´s still a part of the bigger picture and thus interesting to include because it shows that the top of the foreigner scene is still a competitive entity. Here it seems like you want to make up why the overrepresentation of zerg outside of korea should be more of a factor. I agree with you fully that not only korea should be considered, but cannot agree with it when you initially state that balance should only matter for the highest level of play: "300". You actually have to decide if you wanna have a more broad discussion about balance or if you want only the ~ top 300 which probably only include 10-20 non korean players (?). In this environment EU/NA must be neglected especially when almost all those 10-20 non koreans which might belong there are not playing terran but zerg or protoss. . So why isn´t muta ling bling that good anymore if it´s not about the larva? I agree that buffing larva inject to 4 would be the wrong way to go as TvZ is a very fragile matchup. The whole section about this is a very precise analysis that I would put the most value on of your post. So in the end I will conclude this post with the statement that I believe TvZ is pretty balanced but it sure as hell is not a very fun matchup as it currently stands. Pretty balanced is a rough statement. Sure the whole game is and always was pretty balanced depending on how you want to use this term. I wanna summarize the topic myself here: The question of balance imho must be taken to a level away from winrates and player representation. In a new level of discussion I would rather consider the following things important and decisive: 1. How good can races deal with behind situations? 2. How is the risk/reward ratio of strategies balanced that can lead to an early/midgame advantage/disadvantage? Zerg always has to commit on harrassment and damage itself through initiating the pressure with units that otherwise could be drones beforehand while terran basically never has to aside of a very few and rare styles with banshees or hellbats, which for this reason are not very efficient and barely used. This not only plays a role for inter-race balance but very much for inner race balance: If liberators and bio or mine drops harrass that well and you can make good use of these units as main army component afterwards why would you go for those which do not and are only good for harrassment or an early timing? 3. Balance of offensive vs. defensive play: why offensive play is always advantageous: this can be connected to why korean zergs play a strong midgame unit style rather than passively play up to ultralisk. As a side note: One can very well see that you are a terran player here, for you it doesn't seem to be an issue. After playing ZvT for 5 years I can tell you that it pisses me pretty much off to always be the defensive part in ZvT and whenever you prepare a little offense you always take the risk that just in the very moment your units start to get out of position two medivacs boost in and deal fatal damage to you load in again and fly away without losses while you commit major parts of your army to attack a certain position of terran and lose most of them in the process while dealing at best the same economical damage as the drop did but more likely less and afterwards can leave the game. Hence the all-in play which enables you to kill the terran or min investment harrassment like moving a few lings in and out somewhere. This is quite imbalanced but you never see it in winrates and player distribution as zerg makes up for this with a strong late midgame or lategame composition if you stick to the narrow set of rules and never take bigger risks. Is this what the balance and metagame should be like? Leading to my next point: Several korean TvZs that I watched recently were going like this: noone takes any risks but expanding on their part of the map, build 50+ spores and turtle to perfect endgame unit composition. I am pretty sure this is not what blizzard and players wants the game to be like. I again must bring up the question if it woulnd't be much more organic and healthy if the roles where the other way round: - Terran clearly the stronger but slow lategame army due to unit efficiency - Zerg in the role of harrassing terran while getting an economic lead but the minor efficiency of his units forces him to trade with terran again and again to not let him get up to the 200/200 army. - Terran can use its perfect defensive mechanics like bunkers, mines, PF, tanks, liberators and what ever else! - Terran can still harrass with invisible banshees, drops etc. while doing so but with less emphasize on it and more emphasize on survival and getting this 200/200 army and preparing strong pushes based on at least 50% ground mech. - Zerg can utilize the ability to tech switch quickly and throw different stuff at terran to try and test his defenses. Now before this is getting too long let me sum it up. Sure you can always argument with winrates but this is like saying only the the goal matters and not the journey is the reward. I think the opposite is true. ...but it sure as hell is not a very fun matchup as it currently stands I 100% agree to this. As a casual master player who values fun the most I am at a point where I deny playing ZvT at all and either all-in or leave the game after start. I cannot even try to give my best in something that is so few fun and feels like working through the same checklist each game and every risk-taking is mostly being punished and creative play hardly will result in any reward. 4. Balance of fun should be examined more in conjunction with gameplay and unit mechanics. - why do so many players leave to mobas? - why do so many korean pros quit SC2 in order to stream BW? - why does SC2 feel more punishing than BW although BW was harder to play? I think to figure out these last named things can help to figure out balance and are more important than looking at actual winrates and say everything is fine. In this sense: The journey is the reward, not the goal of a 50/50 distribution of numbers! I am sure if everyone was having fun playing the game the issue of balance would be of lesser importance. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
I wouldn't be surprised if the top foreign zergs are almost on the level of top korean zergs and add to that foreign terrans of course being weaker than korean terrans and you get a heavily zerg populated foreign scene. | ||
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Deleted User 132135
702 Posts
I also have theories why zerg is played so much outside of korea. It is just cool to be the evil part. I never played WoW but a guy I know who did told me once that all the cool guys played orcs in his view. Protoss is the honorable stuff, not dirty enough, Terran represents mankind which in western civilisations is connected to white males who dominate the world and noone who is PC wants to be part of -_- (http://socio.ch/general/t_hgeserpc.htm). No, forget this, lol. I myself play zerg cause I was Protoss in the first half of broodwar and later on terran got my second best race. So at start of SC2 I decided to do something new and still stuck on it. | ||
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Tuczniak
1561 Posts
On June 12 2016 21:26 LSN wrote: That is not evident. There were times where korean meta was behind and all of them were doing inferior strategies. Even if I don't think it's the case here.If the entity of the top zergs on the korean server don't use what you call an advantageous strategy against terran it is pretty much evident that it would not work against the higher caliber terrans in korea. Assuming that korean zergs are opting for inferior builds compared to foreigners is plain wrong. An educated guess would be that a game with the complexity of SC2 and all its variables never can be fully balanced. Obviously. But any reasonable person will understand "balanced" as very close to balanced. Saying everything is imbalanced, even mirrors because of maps, is useless.The rest I mostly agree with TheKhyira and LSN. Personally I think Blizzard should focus less on winrates and more about making the game good. Tuning down ultralisk significance in TvZ, steps to bring back MMM vs MLB, at least try to balance lategame in all matchups. | ||
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ihatevideogames
570 Posts
And sure, I might be a scrub, but I wonder how many other scrubs quit the game for the same reason. When you design a game only for the top 5% of players, don't blame MOBAS when everyone else leaves. | ||
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Penev
28524 Posts
On June 12 2016 09:09 RCCar wrote: If you get into a game and start counting how many drops and pressure there are in TvZ, Korean Terrans always seem to harass and be on the offensive, while foreigner Terrans don't really seem to do as much harass and prefer to stay back and build up an army. This might be the reason Korean Zergs still invest in mutalisks while it is safer for foreigner Zergs to be able to get fast hive. If you try to tech fast hive in Korean TvZ, you die, (although if you actually manage to pull it off, you win), while fast hive, then big fight seems to be the norm in foreign TvZ. This is a very good post | ||
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Deleted User 132135
702 Posts
On June 12 2016 22:03 Tuczniak wrote: That is not evident. There were times where korean meta was behind and all of them were doing inferior strategies. Even if I don't think it's the case here. Obviously. But any reasonable person will understand "balanced" as very close to balanced. Saying everything is imbalanced, even mirrors because of maps, is useless. The rest I mostly agree with TheKhyira and LSN. Personally I think Blizzard should focus less on winrates and more about making the game good. Tuning down ultralisk significance in TvZ, steps to bring back MMM vs MLB, at least try to balance lategame in all matchups. I agree to that but saying the game is balanced implies that nothing has to be done. And hence it is useless to talk about winrates and say the game is balanced as there is obviously need for several changes. In fact the game is imbalanced all through and thats what I want to point out with that. Situations are imbalanced, mechanics are imbalanced etc. The guy said the game is balanced. I say the game is unbalanced and alot of changes are needed, no matter which winrates. Therefore I find the analysis that the game is balanced wrong. Balance only through winrates should be a thing from the past in 2016. Balance should be acknowledged as a wider thing and importance. Who would care if all winrates are perfectly 50/50 but noone plays the game anymore as e.g. protoss has to all-in every match in order to reach 50/50 winrate while terran has to scv rush and zerg only defend (just as an example). | ||
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Penev
28524 Posts
On June 12 2016 20:09 Charoisaur wrote: foreign terrans also practice the same amount as foreign zergs and possess the same talent and don't have nearly as much success. That said I really don't understand why korean zergs are struggling that hard but foreign zergs are doing fine, "zerg is just easier to play" seems like a to simple explanation. It's really strange and such a situation has never happened before but I think blizzard should wait with patching to see if it's just a playr issue. And I agree that tvz is a very unfun matchup atm for both sides. You have to be fast to play Terran as aggressive as top Koreans can. When you're able to pull it of Terran becomes much stronger. If bio would get nerfed and mech made viable you'd see foreigner T winrates vs Z go up. We have already seen this in HotS. No Korean Zerg players are not suddenly significantly worse than their Terran and Protoss counterparts. Yes Terran bio play is hard for foreigners to pull of to get the most out of it. | ||
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Liox
Germany47 Posts
The question I am thinking about is: Is this a problem of speed or is it a problem of knowledge / understanding of how and where harassment is most effective? | ||
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Gwavajuice
France1810 Posts
On June 12 2016 08:48 TheKhyira wrote: The ultralisk moment It really is no secret at this point that the appearance of ultralisk on the field has abruptly ended it´s fair share of games. The changes LoTV brought about turned ultralisks into ULTRALISKS and it´s kinda hilarious that the giant hybrids in the campaign die faster than ultras do in 1v1. The core issue with them when talking balance is that they sway the scale of power in the middle of a game by such tremendous amounts so fast that it´s very difficult to deal with. Every single unit in the core of the early and midgame Terran army is downright garbage against ultralisk. But at the same time the units that deals well with ultralisk (ghosts and liberators) are next to useless against the early and midgame armies that Zergs field. Liberators have minor applications as harassment units but they take away from medivac production which is a significant trade off. It puts Terran players in a bind because they have to choose whether they want to attempt to kill the Zerg before ultras and be very screwed if they ever show up, or be able to fight the ultras when they arrive but have very slim to no chances to end the game early and thus end up playing an unfavorable lategame. Most players choose to try and end the game before ultras and that is where we are today.The pictures posted below are more funny than actual material for balance arguments since there certainly were mistakes on both sides. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5zvfUG5.jpg) Just when you think you have them cornered. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JDYRBJZ.jpg) Nope. This is a cliche and is unacurate. Sorry but I'm gonna take your image example cause, at least for me, it's the root of what's wrong in the debate : What the image shows is that ultra corruptors just wreck a crappy army composition, and it's alright. There is ZERO marauders, ZERO anti-air to deal with the corruptors (cause marine kinda suck at anti air when they're being chewed alive by ultralisks). And even if I don't have the figures, I can guess the Zergs army costs at least 1.5x as much as the terran's one. So no, ultralisk are not cornered and it's totally logical that the terran army just dies. And no, ultralisk are not invicible and they are not scarry, far from this, take this ultra corruptor comp, send it into thors, lib, marauders medivacs and a few ghots, and zerg is dead. And unlike what you're saying a good terran army in mid game totally has the units ready : the marauders should be there with good upgrades, the thors can be anticipated (esp if you went tanks) and libs are already there, you just miss the range but the range is only useful against hydras. Really, use a unit tester and see all the possibilities for a terran of even army size and cost to deal with this. The late game is not unfavorable. period. What is true is the Zergs needs so much resources to get to this late game army that he has a big weakness while doing it and a good terran can find an opening. So what you describe is not accurate, this screenshot just shows an unprepared terran a moving to his death.. Watch Polt's stream or Cure and TY's game (I won't speak about Maru cause he's just unreal) and see how you can deal with ultra corruptors cracklings. On June 12 2016 08:48 TheKhyira wrote: Final thoughts At the end of the day people will ask "Is TvZ balanced?". If I had to make an educated guess I would lean towards yes. The player representation and winrates for the most important tournament system in SC2 appears to support this. And while Zergs are slightly underperforming in korea I think in this particular case it´s more of a player issue rather than a balance one. Zergs from other regions are performing quite well in contrast to korea and as I wrote earlier I believe the top of the scene is driven by individual players rather than their race. The korean Zergs are certainly not weaker than the foreigners in terms of mechanics, micro or ingame decision making but perhaps this time around their choices of strategy are not always what they could have been. Now it is entirely possible that korean Terrans are able to execute on a level that invalidates some of the strategies that foreign Zergs are using but it´s not something we can be sure about until we have more source material of korean Zergs trying to do it. To close out the discussion I will also echo my previous sentiment by saying that I believe the balancing of the game should encompass every region involved in WCS and breaking the balance of some regions should be considered a reasonable no-go. The binary nature of TvZ means that you have to be careful when discussing balance that targets either the strength of the Terran ability to close out the game or the power of Zerg once hive units are deployed. If you address these concerns in isolation from one another you´re probably going to be very hard pressed to find the right solution. Balance changes should address both of these areas in tandem and hopefully lead to a better experience for everyone involved. So in the end I will conclude this post with the statement that I believe TvZ is pretty balanced but it sure as hell is not a very fun matchup as it currently stands. No, it's not a player issue. I don't want to know why foreign terran are so few atm, but there is no level were Zerg dominate Terran outrageously, not in pro Korean scene, not in pro foreign scene, not even in diamond NA. Terrans have plenty of strong builds to deal with zergs and they don't necessarly require insane multitask to be pulled up. They have all the tools to deal with Zergs at any stage of the game, late game included. I don't know if Zerg needs an extra larva, but saying it's just Korean pros that are not good enough is a huge overextension. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16062 Posts
Transitioning to ghost liberator thor takes a lot of time and because those units are useless against a midgame army you only start transitioning to them once zerg has ultras. And by the time you have transitioned the zerg has suCcesfully transitioned to BL infestor viper corruptor and has huge creep spread and could freely expand in the period the terran was transitioning. And at that point you can't win anymore since this army of zerg is not beatable unless you somehow emp/snipe all the vipers before the engagement starts which only happens if the zerg screws up. | ||
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MMA1
1 Post
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Alluton
Finland113 Posts
On June 12 2016 23:06 Gwavajuice wrote: This is a cliche and is unacurate. Sorry but I'm gonna take your image example cause, at least for me, it's the root of what's wrong in the debate : What the image shows is that ultra corruptors just wreck a crappy army composition, and it's alright. There is ZERO marauders, ZERO anti-air to deal with the corruptors (cause marine kinda suck at anti air when they're being chewed alive by ultralisks). And even if I don't have the figures, I can guess the Zergs army costs at least 1.5x as much as the terran's one. Look at what the op wrote. Those pictures were not meant to be balance arguments. | ||
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Gwavajuice
France1810 Posts
On June 13 2016 00:00 Charoisaur wrote: @gwajajuice Transitioning to ghost liberator thor takes a lot of time and because those units are useless against a midgame army you only start transitioning to them once zerg has ultras. And by the time you have transitioned the zerg has suCcesfully transitioned to BL infestor viper corruptor and has huge creep spread and could freely expand in the period the terran was transitioning. And at that point you can't win anymore since this army of zerg is not beatable unless you somehow emp/snipe all the vipers before the engagement starts which only happens if the zerg screws up. I'm not convinved. Ghost aside, everything you need to counter the ultra corruptors is already there in mid game : you already have 3+ baracks with tech labs, you already have libs, you can have the thors fast enough : if he went roach ravager, you have 2 facto with tech labs, if he massed muta, you're already thinking about a counter for air, etc... between the time the zerg gets his infestation pit and the time ultra's armor is done, you really have time to adapt. Also, creep spread is not so big unless terran has been very passive (or dominated) in mid game, and switching from ultras to BL vipers costs an arm too... you surely have the time to build the 3 extra starport to totally shutdown this army. In short, when you say this, all I can see is the fate of Leenock vs Bravo. | ||
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