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Introduction
Blizzard recently posted a community feedback which can be found here
In it they state that they have been receiving feedback from specific korean players that Zerg stands no chance against Terran. They also mention that they are currently trying to get more feedback from a larger pool of players which I think is a reasonable approach. I´ll skip past the discussion of being critical when evaluating sources and credentials this time around. Instead I will focus this article on how TvZ plays out these days and some of the issues there might be for both sides. There have been many heated discussions brought up in the wake of this piece of feedback and it is my honest opinion that a fairly large percentage of the debaters are focusing on the wrong aspects of the game. So I hope this article can help shed some light on some of the underlying issues in the matchup.
Balancing aimed at the correct level of players.
Before having a closer look at the ingame nitty gritty stuff I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the fact that balance can be very different dependent on what level of player you are dealing with. Now there have been many discussions about which level of players blizzard should aim for and it certainly is a tricky issue. There is a huge chasm in skill between world beating all time great players like Maru and the currently highest WCS point ranking non korean terran, Masa. (And I certainly hope Masa takes no offence from this statement as it was obviously not the intention).
So what should the target group be?
It is my personal opinion that since they have developed a large globalized tournament structure in WCS their goal should be to have a balanced game for the players in the highest tier of this system leading up to blizzcon. This includes the premiere circuit events along the with korean leagues. So what that ultimately means is that balance should not be solely restricted to the best 30 players in the world but rather something in the realm of the top 300. We are still talking professional or extremely skilled semi professional level players in all regions but it does put some requirements on the balancing process of the game since you have to be mindful of a reasonably broad spectrum of players.
Assessing the level of meta games across regions.
This is a very delicate topic and I will attempt to tread as lightly as possible on the matter. We have multiple separate regions in Starcraft II with relatively low interaction right now and these regions all have their own meta in which ideas are nurtured, trialed and tested. Korea has always been the best, I mean its a country that is considered a region on the same premises as Europe and North America. If you were to make a list of the top 10 players of all time they would all be korean and they would all be better than any foreigner by many orders of magnitude. But with all that said there have been times when foreign players have been on the same level as koreans, and most notably the Zergs. It is my personal opinion that even right now if we exclude the category of the tier 1.0 koreans with players such as Maru, Zest and Dark, the elite of the foreigner player base is able to play ball in the same league as the koreans. 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.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Bedp16H.png)
A few foreigners sneaking their way into the statistics.
Even if you don´t quite share this sentiment it´s still worth remembering that in Starcraft II you can win with a multitude of skill sets. We have had many champions over the years who won with different strengths. MvP was a king of all trades and planning series. MC was a boss of controlling finely tuned aggression. Life was the epitome of small unit skirmishing and counter attacks. Taeja was the sage of brilliant decision making in all stages of the game. Squirtle and his execution bot Parting showed what the beautiful combination of extremely clever builds and real top3 control looked like and innovation was basically AI level APM mechanics put into a human. So with the understanding that there are different ways to be a successful player we can take a closer look at the foreign Zergs in the middle of 2016. Their primary strength is their understanding of strategy and their knowledge of what exactly Zerg is extremely good at and how to abuse it to the maximum level. Even historically it´s no secret that foreign Zergs developed a much stronger grasp on how to play the lategame situations even if their mechanics, micro and crisis management sometimes fell short of their korean counterparts. Koreans might come out on top in the end, but Starcraft II is a game where you can win doing the wrong thing if you´re just a better player overall. So I do believe that you certainly should not discredit the lessons that come out of the metas from other regions than korea and particuarly the Zerg ones as they certainly have the performances, achievements and history to support their legitimacy.
Seperating player skill from balance
A minor point in the discussion of balance is what the current roster of players for each race looks like compared to how they perform. Is a race over- or under- performing due to player or balance reasons? My general philosophy on this topic has always been that racial balance is best reflected at the preliminary and early stages of tournaments. That would mean something like the old Code B, Code A except for finals, Code S ro32, Dreamhack and IEM group stages. During this time many players of somewhat even skill are competing across a reasonably large sample size of games and should provide a decent base of statistics to determine how the balance looks fairly disconnected from which players are playing. The images below shows the racial distribution from the initial stages the offline premiere tournaments over the last few months.
SSL S2 Challenge
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QU63Vx6.png)
GSL S2 Code A
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yCokvlN.png)
Dreamhack Tours (WCS Spring Circuit Championship)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qVG4vz2.png)
Dreamhack Austin
I think it´s evenly enough distributed that it´s not a serious cause of concern. Zerg is slightly underrepresented in SSL but on par in GSL and fairly overrepresented at dreamhacks while Terran is slightly underrepresented at dreamhacks and protoss on par across the board. It is a small sample size and you could easily include things like pro league and online cups in your statistics to get a more complete picture but doing so brings in other variables such as map selection systems, match formats, player ping and so on which adds other uncertainty factors to the equation. Cherry picking or nitpicking in statistics is a dangerous act and these images are not meant to support the claim that "everything is fine guys" nor are they meant to incite the opposite. The point I want to make with them is that if there are claims that a significant imbalance exists one would need a much more comprehensive analysis and statistical work than what is most often presented.
The players matter
Now in the later stages of tournaments it´s much more about the individual players and we have continuously seen a very small number of players massively skew statistics throughout the games history. Take MVP out of your stats for the later half of WoL and the championship record for terran is abysmal. Discount MC and protoss championships in the first 14 seasons of GSL doesn´t even exist. Look at zergs premeire wins without life during the middle and later parts of HoTS and that also becomes quite the lackluster record. Champions are exactly that, champions. And they will always fuck with statistics. So whenever balance discussions are based off of the top 8 of Code S or SSL it is a ridiculous enterprise from the very beginning. You are trying to gauge which races performs the best but you are dealing with literally 8 of the best players on planet earth and it just so happens that one or two more of them happens to play one particular race rather than the others. As an illustration of such a scenario the picture below is the previous code S top 8. The better player won in pretty much every match regardless of race with the only debatable one being herO vs Cure.
The previous Code S top 8.
So understanding the fact that individual players can dominate results we can now make a rough guess at how each region look in terms of it´s players isolated from the wrong types of statistics. I will preface this segment with the statement that I´m mentioning players by name to give credit and certainly not to take away credit from anyone not mentioned and I´m very much open to the fact that I could be mistaken on some accounts.
Korea
Starting from the top my impression is that korea is primarily driven by Terran and Protoss at the very top right now. You can easily ramble off a few names like Maru, TY, Zest, Classic, $o$ and Stats for the two races while Zerg really only has one household name in the Tier 1.0 fraternity and that would be Dark. From there it´s downhill pretty fast. As it turns out having your best player for the race lose his way in life has a fairly detrimental effect on the statistics.
Europe
In EU it´s a little different. Zerg is the clear forerunner in terms of its players with Protoss somewhere in the middle and Terran a remote pipe dream. Nerchio has a pretty legit claim to being the best foreigner right now with other players like Snute, Elazer and perhaps Bly closing up the ranks. Showtime has been the best EU Protoss for what seems to be ages and I think there is a small gap down to the rest. Terran is limbing far behind and I´m actually fairly unsure about who I would rank first. I don´t think there is any player on the same level as players like Nerchio or Showtime but I think if someone put a gun to my head I would say uThermal, but hes just a streamer right. I will say that some of the other Millenium players would certainly be on my short list normally but they have been a little MIA recently so it´s hard to tell where they are at.
North America
For NA Neeb is kinda driving the bus and everyone else is just along for the ride. I don´t think there is any other player on the level of Neeb right now, despite there being a pretty good selection of players in the tier below. Now I will say Neeb looks extremely good even in an international context and he is certainly someone I would recommend to study.
I didn´t include the Chinese region simply because I am fairly uninformed and I don´t want to write about something I really don´t know much about.
The overall picture
The general representation between the 3 races seems to be fairly even at the initial stages of premiere tournaments and we haven´t seen a massive skew in one direction or the other for a prolonged period of time. Ultimately it comes down to which players are currently in hot form when deciding how the top of each region looks. Any non-revolutionary patch is unlikely to change this and I strongly believe being critical of statistics in this particular instance is important when deciding on applying balance patches to the game. Next we´ll have a look at what TvZ looks like and keep in mind that the metas are different between the regions and this time around foreigners might have it better figured out.
TvZ, The Matchup
So let´s dive into having a look at TvZ. A very small and simple topic that is easily covered in a few written words without any inaccuracies by one person. I think the easiest way to start out when trying to understand a matchup is to look at what the common perception is and then put it into words. I have tried to phrase my understanding of TvZ as the following:
"TvZ is a matchup in which Zerg has the faster growing economy if left unchecked but Terran has a wide variety of harassment options. Both races have a good array of variations for their strategies and army compositions but the Terran early and midgame armies tend to scale better than the Zerg ones. However Zerg holds a significant advantage in the lategame with the exception of large straight up army battles fought in small controlled spaces."
So here is when it gets difficult. A game of Starcraft II is a web of cause and effect and discussing any one point in isolation is extremely difficult and I urge readers to keep the phrase above in mind because whenever a point is brought up you have to look at how it fits into the overarching way the matchup functions in its current form. I wrote and rewrote this segment a couple of times because the ordering of things was difficult and in the end I realized I might as well start with the most defining factor in the matchup right now rather than following my definition of balance in the matchup chronologically as I had intended originally.
The lategame
Zerg lategame holds the advantage because its core units in cracklings and ultralisk combined with high map vision from creep and overlords is extremly mobile, easy to split on multiple fronts, easy to control and suffers minimal negative effects if the player is caught off guard. That core is backed up by a good array of siege units in brood lords and supporting spellcasters in vipers and infestors to make a very strong deathball if required to do so. On top of that the production system that supports it also has the ability to remax at a rate way beyond the Terran capabilities. So how does it compare to Terran and why is it so favoured? The major advantage Terran has in the lategame is that if you can get into a fight with a supermaxed lategame army in a single position facing a limited number of approaching angles, it will beat pretty much anything Zerg has in the first wave. Something along the lines of 20 ghost, 12 libs, 6 vikings, 2 ravens, 6 medviacs and decent ball of supporting bio with a few mines or tanks. The fact that Terran can operate on a lower number of workers with mules certainly help but with the pace of LoTV having a large number of orbitals isn´t nearly as commonplace as in the previous expansions. The problem with this strength of Terran is that the army is a composition based deathball and it splits Extremely poorly to fight on multiple fronts both in terms of the actual units as well as player ability and attention. Cracklings and ultralisk have reasonably low attention requirements relative to bio ghost and if no attention or micro is involved it is often better for the Zerg than the Terran. This is a large contribution factor as to why fighting on multiple fronts is not a very prosperous enterprise for Terran at this stage in the game. As a Terran player you can get into scenarios where a nydus starts in the main, there is a ling runby into the third while a decent group of ultralisk and corruptors are waiting outside the 4th but can go to the 5th base in a fairly short amount of time as well. If you were defending with the previous mentioned army, what do you do? I want you to imagine having to unsiege half your liberators, unsiege half your tanks or mines, split your bio and ghost control groups in two maybe even three, send everything to different locations, deploy both libs mines and tanks while making sure your ghost are not exposed anywhere. All this in time spans often limited to seconds and what you really end up with is an impossible scenario. On top of that the Zerg core units in the lategame in ultras cracklings and corruptors are all really good at killing command centers so the Terran bases will die very fast if attacked and sometimes even with a considerable amount of defense present.
"Liberators are a bit like trenches in World War II while Ultralisk are the Panzers. If they break through anywhere all your stuff in the rear is gone."
The way Zerg production works ensures that if the Zerg had the necessary money banked they can rebuild their army to almost full strength in the time that it takes the Terran to regroup the army after mopping up the attack and then push across the map presumably with a significantly weakened economy. Terran does have some options to do similar moves on a smaller scale with drops and liberator harass but a very important thing to understand about the Terran army at this point is that it is a deathball and it needs all its components present to function. Terran can´t just send away large portions of bio forces to drop or liberators to harass because then the main army wont have the right mix to fight the Zerg. So to sum it up. If a Terran can get into a scenario where they can grind huge lategame army battles with a healthy economy they are probably going to win. On maps like dusk towers where you can hold a ridiculous amount of bases from one or two locations I believe Terran is favoured in the lategame, but on any map where you have to extend much further out to defend your later bases it is almost impossible to win against any competent Zerg. Yes Terran can make a very strong army but the army they are building can´t realistically defend the high number of bases that is required to support it.
A final note on this topic is the strength of mass liberators. They were potentially broken before they got hit hard with the nerf bat but these days I have not seen a single game where it looked remotely too strong. I have seen games of people trying to mass liberators rather than adding ghost to support the bio army and most notably from korean Terrans. But honestly I have yet to see it work out favorably with credit to the liberators. Ravagers and corruptors with potential vipers do a tremendous job at thinning out the liberator ranks and if they are your only answer to ultralisk it won´t end too well for you. As a funny reference I encourage you to watch game 5 of INnoVation vs Dark from the GSL Code A Season 2 2016 where INoVation dies while maxed with a very high number of liberators through the tiniest choke imaginable to really support the notion that liberators alone are not the solution.
This isn´t going to end well.
The game plans
So with this understanding of why Terran wants to avoid playing the lategame on most maps we can easily see why the Terran game plan in the current state of the game is to try and win before the late game and why Zergs are trying to get there. The major strategies for both sides can probably be simplified into a few major branches. I´ll talk about them briefly but keep in mind we are examining the unit compositions used to carry out the mentioned game plans and not what kind of army we´re going to deploy in the lategame.
Zerg
For Zerg they have the option to either play a minimal midgame army into fast hive strategy or large midgame army into slow hive strategy. It´s entirely possible to tweak the supporting economy that goes along with these strategies but an important factor to keep in mind is that once hive is unlocked it is very likely that Zerg can rebuild their economy to a decent state if they didn´t take critical damage. The reason for this is that the Terran army needs a long time to transition into something that can deal with hive and during this time is not a composition that can attack onto creep. When it comes to unit compositions Zergs can play with either ling bling muta or roach ravager. I´ll add that there are some styles which plays both ling bling and roach ravager combined but it leans heavily towards the heavy unit slow hive type of strategy. I´ll address the unit compositions a little later on in the post and especially ling bling muta since there have been a lot of discussions about it in relation to the talk about buffing larva injection.
Terran
On the Terran side of things the two main branches of strategies are heavy 3 base all ins and 4 base macro with perhaps some honorable mention to the experiments with sky Terran. However due to the recent nerf to liberator anti-air-armor capabilities I consider this a dead end. The terran army compositions can be categorized as bio mine and bio tank. None of the terran midgame armies should include liberators for anything other than harrasment.
The circular balance of compositions
The different game plans and composition for each race matches up differently against each other and I have tried to write them in a list form with the understanding that there are many factors subject to change during a game and these are only overall guidelines.
- Bio mine 3 base is good against both slow and fast hive ling bling muta.
- Bio mine is bad against both versions of roach ravager.
- Bio tank is good against slow hive roach ravager.
- Bio tank is bad against fast hive roach ravager and both versions of ling bling muta.
There is some consideration for 3 base pure bio being able to out muscle roach ravager but I consider it a little more of a fringe scenario so we´ll just leave it here as an after thought. So what a clever reader might notice is that I didn´t list any good Terran compositions against a fast hive roach ravager and that is precisely what a lot of Zergs are trying to exploit. Now often mistakes happens and people lose but it certainly has been one of the better strategies as of late. Understanding that each unit composition has it´s good and bad matchups is a large part about playing TvZ at the moment. The hard part then becomes figuring out which set of units your opponent is building and designing builds that can adjust in time accordingly to give you the upper hand. What your opponent is doing matters and I hope readers will keep this in mind when they next discuss which unit composition to go for. In the scenario that the Terran has chosen a favorable unit composition it will almost universally outperform the Zerg army over time. The map being played often has a huge influence on this relation of power and on some maps Terran aggression is certainly very powerful and perhaps too good while on other maps Zerg sometimes defends without too much trouble.
The muta ling bling issue
The viability of this unit compositions seems to have been a hot topic on the forums recently and it mostly came about when blizzard talked about buffing the larva inject from 3 to 4 larva per cycle. I want to talk a little about why muta ling bling isn´t as powerful as it once was because I think people either forgot or simply don´t understand. I was asked earlier today. "Do you think Dark is making roaches because of the larva issue to go with his ling bling?". If you consider the fact that the price of a roach warren and speed upgrade is very similar to simply getting another hatch and a queen to put you on parity with previous versions of Zerg larva it suddenly seems very hard to argue that larva was his concern. It´s not about the larva in LoTV when it comes to ling bling muta. Now buffing larva might change all sorts of timings and the overall strength of Zerg that much is true, but it is not the driving factor in bringing back muta ling bling. So why isn´t muta ling bling that good anymore if it´s not about the larva? There are two main reasons which both deals with what the primary win condition in HoTS was for Zerg using that composition. The two primary ways to win was:
- Overwhelming creep spread.
- 25-30+ mutas with upgrades.
The LoTV creep was massively nerfed compared to it´s HoTS counterpart and it´s extremely rare you ever see it go out of control the way it could in HoTS. It gave the Zerg a tremendous amount of map control, time to react to attack and the ability to take favorable engagements. The LoTV version of creep means that Zerg often has to fight sooner in worse positions and that they lose their iron grasp on the game much easier than before. On top of that Terran now has the option to build liberators to demolish the muta cloud. I had someone ask me if thors didn´t already fulfill the counter role that liberators do and they partially did except liberators are much more mobile and can act as a chasing entity rather than a static deterrent like the thor. If you combine these two factors it´s really not that hard to imagine why muta ling bling struggles as a stand alone strategy It is now merely a stepping stone towards hive tech in a very different way from how it was previously. Obviously having more larva and thus more units would make it stronger but inherently the fundamental win conditions of the strategy are no longer there and that is why it will never fully return to glory unless there is a major overhaul of the game.
Fucking Namshar in HoTS, I never won.
Economy and harrasment
I wrote in my phrase to define the balance for the matchup that the growth rate of an unchallenged Zerg economy was better than the Terran one. Changing the properties of either the Zerg economy or the harassment tools to keep it honest is a very dangerous way to balance the current TvZ. The reason for this is that TvZ is dangerously close to a binary matchup where you either get to ultralisk or you don´t. Tweaking the relative power of the early game or midgame for either race can easily sway the scales in the favor of one of the sides. If you buff Zerg during these stages of the game it might remove the timing windows Terran has to close out the game and lead to a very lopsided affair but on the other hand if Zerg is truly too weak early on and not enough players can survive long enough perhaps something does have to change. I will say from a personal point of view I find the "Don´t let them get there" situations to be poor game design when we aren´t talking about supermaxed capital fleets and things like that. I wish we didn´t have those situations since it´s never particularly fun for either side.
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.
The Zerg approach
From the Zerg side of things the challenge then becomes learning how to survive the different types of Terran aggression while getting ultras out in a timely fashion. However if we generalize a fair amount there seems to be a strategical difference in how koreans approach the matter compared to foreigners. The gameplan for koreans could be formulated as:
"Create and maintain a large midgame focussed army and transition into hive and supporting ultralisk when it is relatively safe to do so".
It is very much the way Zerg was played during most of HoTS. Hive was the closer, the deathblow but never the main swing of the hammer. The balance in this scenario is focused on how the midgame armies compare and has little concern about how hive units play since the Zerg should already be in a winning position by that point. It is a strategy that puts emphasis on mechanics and is willing to try and go muscle to muscle with the Terran forces. For foreigners the gameplan is very different and I would phrase it as:
"Invest the minimal amount possible in the early and midgame army and instead put the resources into attempting to get to hive before the main Terran offense deals critical damage."
Fundamentally it is a different way of playing because the hive units suddenly becomes the core of the army with support from the early and midgame units. The question of balance in this scenario revolves around whether or not it´s possible to get out ultralisk before the Terran can kill you in a reliable and consistent fashion. Which gameplan is better is hard to tell and is still being explored. I´m of the personal opinion that trying to get out ultralisk before the Terran can kill you is the better approach. It attempts to circumvent a clear weakness of Zerg which is the efficiency of the lower tier armies relative to the Terran and instead aims to exploit the areas in which Zerg holds the advantage. An interesting thought is whether or not the korean gameplan was developed and refined as a result of not being able to successfully get out ultralisk before dying against very top tier Terran execution. There are examples of fast hive being pulled off in korea but not as often as in the foreign scene.
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.
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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.
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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.
In Taeja's retirement article, the author did state that Terran has almost always been played offensively in a harassing type of way. Very few players play defensively and can still win like that.
I think the problem with the Korean Zergs is that they haven't been exposed to the foreigner Zerg play style. From what I recall off the top of my head, we didn't have a lot of KeSPA players playing in foreign tournaments this year.
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OK I didn´t read the whole article only the first 3 paragraphs were you talk about who should give feedback etc. So I will only comment about this. I think expanding the amount of players that are "allowed" to give feedback (or is taken into consideration) is a great idea. The last feedback has shown pretty clearly that listening only to 4% of the Korean Pro´s is a bad thing.
But if they consider your idea they also need to take a close look that the game is balanced for all levels of play. Not only High level GM Code S players. There are still strategies/tactics in the game that are really powerful but they are also hard to fight against but easy to execute (too easy sometimes). This can make you feel really helpless and can even be unfair. Sure practicing is a good way to improve but some actions just can´t be done by low level players. But they have to and that is bad in my eyes.
I would be very happy if the Pro´s or even the devs themselves would give players a helping hand by adding some sort of Starcraft School or anything else that helps new or bad players or even andvanced players. EA did this with "Command School" during the C&C 3 and RA 3 era. The devs recorded small videos where the designers gave basic tips, build orders, unit compositions etc. They made a really nice job doing this. I would really welcome something like this coming from Blizzard´s SC II Team.
Sorry for not reading the whole article. I can´t play SC II right now because of my crappy PC so Im not following the Meta or the balance lately. That´s why I don´t want to go into detail about balance here. but from I read this seems to be a nice write.
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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.
I agree with this.. in Inno vs. Dark on Dusk Towers for instance, Inno had 2 sets of medievacs on the edge of Dark's creep and Dark didn't seem confident in going fast hive, however the last game on Lerilak, Dark skipped banelings and spire to go fast hive. That said, the importance of drop pressure can't be understated. I watched Nerchio play Kelazhar today, and Kela didn't have any sort of pressure other than mass army... Nerchio easily traded or went fast hive... gg for T. Like P its not a matter of balance but a matter of control and control potential. If Kelazhar had Korean-type control maybe he wins, but in those games Nerchio looked very comfortable.
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Wow very nice piece, I agree wholly.
To be honest balance should also be attempted somewhat on the ladder, say if the entire European ladder is 2hour Swarm Host PvZ's.
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Wow great read, great article, thanks !
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I think the main reason of TvZ differences between regions is Terran players.
In general, korean players are better than european players in multitasking and micro. And Terran is the race where a player with this skill can do better. Zerg and Protoss aren't more easy, they just require different abilities.
I think that there is a HUGE gap in terms of skill between korean terrans and europeans terran, and that's why TvZ seems that much different. Korean zergs are not able to adapt to korean terrans strategies, european terrans are not able to adapt to european zerg strategies.
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On June 12 2016 09:30 geokilla wrote:Show nested quote +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. In Taeja's retirement article, the author did state that Terran has almost always been played offensively in a harassing type of way. Very few players play defensively and can still win like that. I think the problem with the Korean Zergs is that they haven't been exposed to the foreigner Zerg play style. From what I recall off the top of my head, we didn't have a lot of KeSPA players playing in foreign tournaments this year.
The point is, if Korean Zergs play the EU style of skip everything and rush to hive, they die. There has been many instances in early LOTV of KR Zergs experimenting with the fast ultras since the heavy buff. It just simply didn't work out.
Look at the JinAir style fast 2 medivac drop timing. If you decide to rush for hive, you just outright die to 16 stimmed marines. I have played NA server and this got me to diamond with a 70%+winrate vs Zerg, with all my losses resulting when Zerg was going for a strong midgame Roach Ravager push.
Korean Zerg meta might be bad against EU Terran meta however, because there is no real pressure until the late game. They will build an army for nothing.
I think this big gap in meta might be because the regions are all segregated for each other.
To compare the meta to units of measurement, one is using the meters while the other calculates in yards.
However, David Kim has to invent a length where it is easy to measure in both systems.
This will be hard to do so until players from each region actually get to fight each other.
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On June 12 2016 10:29 SuperHofmann wrote:
I think the main reason of TvZ differences between regions is Terran players.
In general, korean players are better than european players in multitasking and micro. And Terran is the race where a player with this skill can do better. Zerg and Protoss aren't more easy, they just require different abilities.
I think that there is a HUGE gap in terms of skill between korean terrans and europeans terran, and that's why TvZ seems that much different. Korean zergs are not able to adapt to korean terrans strategies, european terrans are not able to adapt to european zerg strategies.
Can you elaborate on how Zerg and Protoss require different abilities?
The competitive skill floor (the minimum required to be professional level) is a bit higher for Terran than for the other races - and it has been this almost always been this way. Terran is harder at lower skill levels. But at the highest skill level, Terrans (almost always Koreans) can shine. And the general consensus in TeamLiquid forums is that balance only matters at the highest skill level. + Show Spoiler + Which I disagree with, because playership and viewership are both related. See Dota2 in e-sports with approximately 150k peak viewers on English twitch stream for the Majors, (didn't take note of other streams, including non-twitch); also, soccer/football being one of the most played sports in the world, and consequently most watched.
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i think the right direction for balance would be:
- strengthen T late game or nerf Z late game
- nerf T harass options or strengthen Z defense options
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Nice effort, but I think you could have made this post a lot shorter without missing any important information.
Claiming ling bling muta is actually good against anything atm is laughable anyway.
Anyway in the end I just can't agree, there is no korean Zerg with anything close to a good ZvT, even Dark has a lot of trouble with just above average Terrans.
Anyway I trust the word of Kespa, this season will be almost without any Zergs in SSL, only Dark and Solar based on last season.
GSL is not looking to hot either, I'm not expect more then 2 or so Zergs get past the first round.
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As a Terran I feel like it's slightly T favored. Late game can be quite difficult to win but it's hard for Zerg to safely get there if you keep up good pressure and/or hit strong timings. Even if they do get there it's usually on a weaker economy. Maybe given enough time Zerg will figure out how to deal with all of the pressure and get to the unbeatable lategame Ultra / Infestor / Corruptor army, but atm I don't see any Z playing a style Terran can't break.
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Very nice write up , but i have to say when SC2 was at its peak during WoL it was TvZ that carried it to the top with is beautiful play. The introduction of the the widow mine , warpivacs and instant regen mutas to counter those two units has destroyed it.
TvZ was exciting then , fast and fluid, now is just shit. This plus the rise of a race over the last two expansions called Protoss has destroyed the viewership base and a lot of the players interest in the game.
The changes are irreversible and the damage has been done.
Stop fucking about with the game, stop moaning about balance
Let the Koreans work it out
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Very, very, very well written. I agree 100% and do hope that Blizzard will make smart balance changes to the game that evens out the mid-game playing field for both races and lowers the power spike that Zergs get as soon as carapace ultras pop.
It may be that Korean Zergs are simply unable to get away with fast hive against their Terran opponents, but I do believe that the way they strive to play the game is closer to the ideal form of ZvT. That is, a match up that revolves around the mid game with both players pushing their mechanics to the limit.
A balance patch which combines this ideal with "even playing field" hive tech and slightly weakened Terran harass options would be wonderful for both races.
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very good read, I would like to add that I think it's the Korean T players that are doing much better ever since compared to foreigner T players. I think thats why it looks like foreign Z perform better than Korean Z in TvZ.
Unless we see enough TvZ and ZvT korean vs. foreigners, we are not able to justify who is performing better with Z.
In other words, its not the foreign Z that are peforming better, its the korean T that are playing better compared to foreign T.
That why it looks like foreign Z has better sense of TvZ compared to korea.
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I feal at my mere mortal level the matchup is prity fair. I think though that for non-pro (I'm in masters and fairly hardcore so I don't want to use the word casual.) a larva buff would realy break the game. For Terran players who can't exicute on the level of Maru where Zerg before had vulnerabilities they wont any more. I think I will try to race switch if the change goes through because I know I'm not good enough to get enough from my units to deal with the extra economy and units Zerg would have. I will try protoss unless that mu is busted in masters to in which case I wil get over my problems with zvz and play Zerg. And I'm guessing that this will become the norm for Terran below pro level. Race switch, or leave for other games. Mabey if it turns out Zerg is realy week at the pro level in Korea bliz can do a change that will make Zerg stronger but only if you play with realy strong mechanics what that change wod be in not sure. Mabey you could buff banes so that they are stronger if Manuely detonated or something.
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On June 12 2016 10:29 SuperHofmann wrote:
I think the main reason of TvZ differences between regions is Terran players.
In general, korean players are better than european players in multitasking and micro. And Terran is the race where a player with this skill can do better. Zerg and Protoss aren't more easy, they just require different abilities.
I think that there is a HUGE gap in terms of skill between korean terrans and europeans terran, and that's why TvZ seems that much different. Korean zergs are not able to adapt to korean terrans strategies, european terrans are not able to adapt to european zerg strategies. zerg and protoss are easyer to play. everyone knows it
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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.
I don't think that matchup is broken, at least on my ladders (Top 100 GM KR) or in usual pro games, but the top zergs are under-favored against the top terrans. The Dark vs Alive game in Frost for an example. You can certainly point Dark's mistakes out, but I can always list some more mistakes from Alive than from Dark. Or the Dark vs Innovation in Frozen Temple. In both games, Dark deflected the early harassment nearly perfectly in both games, but he still ended up much behind in supply even he played the roach-ravager style, which just costed him the game. The lategame advantage zerg has means null in the top level, since they have the multitask and micro to rip zerg apart before even teching to hive.
Maybe it could be a map issue, but I don't really think we should just ignore the 15-6 score in TvZ since the liberator 'nerf' as a player issue.
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Another comparison between the interaction of Ultralisk and ghost is the viper and flying units. Its easy to use (cant dodge parasitic bomb) but the opponent needs to split etc, gl with multiple clouds and they stack.
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the correct direction for balance would be to buff zerg static d severely, but exponentially increase their cost the more you build. eg first spine 100, second spine 110, third 125, fourth 145, fifth 170 and so on. this would help zerg defend early and mid game but at the same time prevent massing static d.
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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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It seems like current TvZ is perfect example to show what happens if there is significant difference in power between game stages for each race.
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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On June 12 2016 18:19 MiCroLiFe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2016 10:29 SuperHofmann wrote:
I think the main reason of TvZ differences between regions is Terran players.
In general, korean players are better than european players in multitasking and micro. And Terran is the race where a player with this skill can do better. Zerg and Protoss aren't more easy, they just require different abilities.
I think that there is a HUGE gap in terms of skill between korean terrans and europeans terran, and that's why TvZ seems that much different. Korean zergs are not able to adapt to korean terrans strategies, european terrans are not able to adapt to european zerg strategies. 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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On June 12 2016 21:05 PPN wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2016 18:19 MiCroLiFe wrote:On June 12 2016 10:29 SuperHofmann wrote:
I think the main reason of TvZ differences between regions is Terran players.
In general, korean players are better than european players in multitasking and micro. And Terran is the race where a player with this skill can do better. Zerg and Protoss aren't more easy, they just require different abilities.
I think that there is a HUGE gap in terms of skill between korean terrans and europeans terran, and that's why TvZ seems that much different. Korean zergs are not able to adapt to korean terrans strategies, european terrans are not able to adapt to european zerg strategies. 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.
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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Alot of right things have been said so I will focus on what I consider wrong or wrong in parts:
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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Another reason why foreign zergs are doing well could just be that they are really good at those defensive strategies. Historically foreign zergs have always shined when they could play a really defensive style. in the BL/infestor era foreign zergs weren't much worse than korean zergs and Snute was arguably the best SH player in the world.
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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I would even go as far and admit that terran is more unpleasant to play than zerg and toss. Mechanically probably a bit more difficult overall. The other races have other difficulties tho.
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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On June 12 2016 21:26 LSN wrote:
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.
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.
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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The 'Don't let them get there' factor of both TvZ and TvP is what made me quit the game tbh.
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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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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On June 12 2016 22:03 Tuczniak wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2016 21:26 LSN wrote:
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.
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. Show nested quote +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.
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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On June 12 2016 20:09 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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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I think this is an interesting part here. Has anyone made some kind of study what divides korean vs non-korean terrans. I actually think that a lot of non-korean terrans do not harass as much because they are afraid to overextend and die because they loose too much units. However, korean terrans seems to be very self-confident on what they can pull off with few units.
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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On June 12 2016 08:48 TheKhyira wrote:The ultralisk momentIt 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. Just when you think you have them cornered. 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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@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.
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On June 12 2016 23:06 Gwavajuice wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2016 08:48 TheKhyira wrote:
The ultralisk moment
The pictures posted below are more funny than actual material for balance arguments since there certainly were mistakes on both sides.
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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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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On June 13 2016 02:31 Gwavajuice wrote:Show nested quote +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.
So what you're saying is terran can go toe to toe with zerg in lategame and can also easily transition to their lategame army?
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this is a really poor example if anything, because Leenock thought he was playing vs mech and then got sucker punched by the bio push
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
well written article, well done
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U totally ignore the main issue with nerfed larva which is economy and base saturation. Larvae are not only important in straight production of units. With 3 larvae we have here something called snowball effect. Less larva means slower saturation on your bases, and slows all your timings. In the same time, LOTV economy and mules are in perfect synergy especially that Terran needs mainly minerals to pump BIO. The effect is that when Terran BIO push comes, Zerg has no recources and production to compete with it. For example: LOTV economy is like- more workers, that means faster orbital and first mule. That means faster second orbital and second mules and even more minerals, which Terran can put into his production and pump BIO much earlier. In the same time Zerg has nerfed larva which means slower base saturation- less economy. And in the same time to stop bio Zerg needs gas- which mining didn't change in LOTV. That's why u cannot fight with Terran in midgame. He just comes too fast to stop it. Zerg hardly can ever take his 4th base, because in that time Terran is pushing on his 3 orbitals. Since the beginning of sc2 they said that Zerg must have one base more than T or P to be even. Now, Terran can take his third faster than Zerg.
The problem is that Zerg's whole macro was nerfed to the bone with 3 larva and in the same time Terran Harras was buffed as hell. Yeah u can whine about Zerg lategame, but surviving to that lategame vs good Terran is nearly impossible.
I watch a lot of ZvT's and it's almost always the same- Zerg has 3 bases and Terran too. I agree with KesPa that Zerg needs 4 larva back to be even with Terran. The only issue i can see with that change will be in PvZ, where it can be hard for Protoss to stop mass speedlings.
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in other words the OP is more a terran than zerg fan and doesn't want tvz balance to be touched.
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I feel like we need two words for balance.
There's winrate balance, where we only thing we look at is winrates If the winrates are 50 % then the game is balanced in that regard.
But the other important part of balance, which I think we need a new word for is balance of power.
TvZ is not balanced in that regard, as terran reks zerg midgame and zerg reks terran lategame.
I personally think the last part of balance is the most important. It doesn't matter if the game is winrate balanced to 50 % if the game doesn't feel like it's balanced to the people playing it. When a zerg player dies to a hellbat push for the fifth time in row, the game sure as hell doesn't FEEL balanced to him. When a terran player gets stomped by ultras for the fifth time in a row, it sure as hell doesn't FEEL balanced to him either.
I care much more about the latter, than the first kind of balance, as it is the balance that will matter to 99 % of the players actually playing the game.
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On June 14 2016 15:32 MperorM1 wrote:
I feel like we need two words for balance.
There's winrate balance, where we only thing we look at is winrates If the winrates are 50 % then the game is balanced in that regard.
But the other important part of balance, which I think we need a new word for is balance of power.
TvZ is not balanced in that regard, as terran reks zerg midgame and zerg reks terran lategame.
I personally think the last part of balance is the most important. It doesn't matter if the game is winrate balanced to 50 % if the game doesn't feel like it's balanced to the people playing it. When a zerg player dies to a hellbat push for the fifth time in row, the game sure as hell doesn't FEEL balanced to him. When a terran player gets stomped by ultras for the fifth time in a row, it sure as hell doesn't FEEL balanced to him either.
I care much more about the latter, than the first kind of balance, as it is the balance that will matter to 99 % of the players actually playing the game.
I understand where you are coming from but it is dealing with this kind of situations that actually gives the flavor to SC2. There is a need for strength and weaknesses, for dynamics, for different economical elements and so on because otherwise you would just basically play mirror matches all day long.
It works like a puzzle: At the start you basically have no clue which piece belongs were. You might know how the picture is supposed to look like and probably you have an idea how to start (e.g. start with the border pieces). Then you will focus on individual parts of the puzzle looking for pieces which might fit and try them out. Sometimes you just cannot find the right piece which fits at the place you are working on so you either pause or work at a different part.
StarCraft2, and any other complex activity, is no different here.
Now imagine that someone would have sorted the pieces of the puzzle into different parts so that it would be very easy to find the right pieces for a specific part of the puzzle. Would you have as much fun doing the puzzle?
Because this is what happens if you go down the way of "There should be no stomping by X" you'll arrive at "We have to make X and Y more equal" which leads to dull gameplay from my point of view.
In terms of video games this is what happened to World of WarCraft for example.
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Great literature and reasoning only to support a bias. This is heavily Terran favored because it doesn't consider the issue of macro gaming, it only show how the encounter goes.
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It was a very good read with lots of insight. I share your opinion that the game should not be balanced around the top 5 korean players. But at the moment you see mid-tier Korean terrans slaughter mid-tier Korean zergs. IMO a meta-shift won't happen because Terran can preasure so early and forces zerg to build lategame inefficient units like rouges. If you look at Europe Snute and Nerchio don't seem to have lots of problems with terran but I think it's because they are just better players than their competition.
BTW I play(ed) Terran and Protoss but at the moment I feel just sorry for all the Korean Zergs.
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Dark barelywon vs Innovation, but man that was an uphill battle. Btw he went roach ling bane into fast hive all five games and I thing this guy is probably playing what should be the most optimal Zerg comp identified, so I'm pretty sure the OP must be updated about that (Korean preferring MLB hence suspecting this could be the best comp, which is probably not; at the end of the day, Snute might have been right from the start).
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Not a single Zerg will be qualified for SSL out of the 4 challenge groups. That is saying a lot. Without Dark and Solar qualified through the previous season, there would be only Terrans and Protosses. The SSL challenge matches are giving quite a good overview about the current meta balance ...
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On June 16 2016 16:40 DjayEl wrote:
Dark barelywon vs Innovation, but man that was an uphill battle. Btw he went roach ling bane into fast hive all five games and I thing this guy is probably playing what should be the most optimal Zerg comp identified, so I'm pretty sure the OP must be updated about that (Korean preferring MLB hence suspecting this could be the best comp, which is probably not; at the end of the day, Snute might have been right from the start).
Not all KR ZvT games featured ling/bane/muta(or corruptor) style. There are quite many games from SSL in which zerg players used roach/ravager/infestor into fast ultra but failed, because they couldn't keep up with the terran macro. I also don't think MLB is the best lotv style, but I also don't believe roach/ravager/infestor would magically balance it up in KR.
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maps always favor protoss and terran mechanics "drops , warp ins", and the swarmhost gap was never fixed... ,
mothership core destroyed any posibility of doing damage to protoss , they are the best at defending and attacking , because the warpprism + coreship perfect synergy to win
maybe david kim can illuminate us how is zerg suppose to be played , it seems like they really want zerg to be the 1 timing all in race
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SC2 cannot be fixed ever without identifying and fixing the root of the issues which is op units against op units of every race and matchup. Blizzards mindset of buffing the counterpart instead of nerfing what is or has become op was sharpening the problem over the years and the point of return was unfortunately trespassed long time ago and we are stuck on fragile balances and metagames that react with big leverage on every little change. Without going back the game wont be able to become satisfactory imo.
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personally, i think the way zvt is balanced the zerg goes through times of turmoil. in zvt you constantly scout your opponents production and army size in order to get an accurate representation of what their army will be like/when the next push is coming. it seems to be a recurring trend for zerg players to have a very hard time for a while against terran, and then there is a large metagame shift as the players figure more of the game out and zergs are able to win again (and if the shift is strong enough they can start to seem OP).
either way i really hope the korean zergs can come up with something to deal with the incredibly powerful midgame terran aggression.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/u8wZZq6.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FA1YrfU.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/g1wSOh1.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kVhB6if.png)
