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On December 31 2021 03:35 Beelzebub1 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 31 2021 00:45 SC-Shield wrote:On December 26 2021 05:24 Beelzebub1 wrote:On December 26 2021 04:39 Athenau wrote:
If anything, this thread has convinced me that the main problem isn't protoss, it's zerg. Looks like the future of SC2 is going to be the top zergs trading wins amongst each other until the game dies, exciting! Pretty much this, but any nerfs to Zerg would have to be specifically targeted for the match up, it can't hobble TvZ which is still as far as I know pretty balanced. I think a poster somewhere a few pages back had the idea to make Storm do bonus damage against burrowed units to let Protoss ground armies push out/break out of Lurker contains. Honestly I think it's a really good idea, it's not elegant but I think it would be effective. The real solution would be to buff Gateway units to allow them to pressure Zerg more in the early/mid game, but if Blizzard won't even put in band-aid fixes like the + burrowed damage, there is no way in hell they would ever do an in depth change like that. Why will Blizzard not hear our cries? How does Heroes of the Storm get routine balance patches and hero reworks while having no competitive scene to speak of while Starcraft 2 and Brood War still have thriving (relatively) pro scenes and active player bases? I don't think Blizzard will actively patch sc2 anymore. Their last patch was in April and it was just cosmetics. Which is utter horse shit, like I said in the post, how the hell are you going to not even apply very small balance tweaks (imo all SC2 even needs) to a game with a still living competitive scene when HOTS has their dev team that.. Sits down and takes data... Watches their extremely limited pro scene along with compiling ladder statistics... Not only makes the changes, but also usually has 1 - 2 paragraphs on why they made the changes in the first place, usually all of them that I read are in the interest of buffing older heroes that have suffered due to power creep. Seriously it just makes no sense, why couldn't the same team that does HOTS do SC2 as well? The complete lack of blue posts even regarding SC2 is an insult to the community.
I understand how you feel. I'm sort of in the same shoes as well. Blizzard killed sc2 for me when they silently increased 1vs1 masters 3 mmr in EU from ~4400 to 4650 which used to be masters 2 as far as I remember. That was a year ago. I've been experiencing random disconnects since last December, and Blizzard support always brushes it off by saying that it's my ISP when my ISP actually denies that. In fact, I don't experience any disconnect from any other service at time of sc2 disconnect. It's never happened in other games so far unless the whole internet service was gone.
Having said that, I'm not a financial expert by any means but judging by these:
Twitch viewers (SC + SC2 = 3k viewers during holiday season...)
+ Show Spoiler +
Activision Blizzard stocks:
+ Show Spoiler +
I'm not really optimistic that Blizzard will suddenly decide to focus on StarCraft since it's not where viewership is. If we compare like for like (Blizzard only games), it makes more sense if they focus more on WoW which they probably do...
On topic:
I don't feel any significant change/issues as a protoss at lower levels than pros. However, watching ShoWTimE's stream today, disruptor shots really feel gimmicky. Terrans have learnt how to snipe disruptors just in time in some situations... In my opinion, as someone who has played StarCraft since 2006 and SC2 since beta, problem with Protoss in sc2 is it has too many spellcasters. It's so easy to mess up and lose the game if casters aren't played right. If Protoss is changed in such a way to rely slightly less on cast abilities, then it may be all we need for Protoss.
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The MMR boundaries are adjusted automatically IIRC. That's why they always freak out at the start of the season - not enough players playing, so they go out of wack for a week. They eventually even out, but never the same as the season before.
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Twitch viewers (SC + SC2 = 3k viewers during holiday season...)
The fuck does this have to do with anything? There are no EVENTS happening right now. SC2 hasn't been a major player in day to day casual viewership in years. Tournaments drive viewers in this game. It's been that way for 10 years. December-January leading up to Katowice has been the SLOW period of SC2 ever since Blizzcon ending in November was a thing.
I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, but I HATE when people plug random out of context twitch numbers as if they matter for anything. The most asinine metric possible.
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There's this dumb rhetoric the past few years that a game is only worth playing if people watch it on twitch.
Never really followed why
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On December 31 2021 05:44 SC-Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On December 31 2021 03:35 Beelzebub1 wrote:On December 31 2021 00:45 SC-Shield wrote:On December 26 2021 05:24 Beelzebub1 wrote:On December 26 2021 04:39 Athenau wrote:
If anything, this thread has convinced me that the main problem isn't protoss, it's zerg. Looks like the future of SC2 is going to be the top zergs trading wins amongst each other until the game dies, exciting! Pretty much this, but any nerfs to Zerg would have to be specifically targeted for the match up, it can't hobble TvZ which is still as far as I know pretty balanced. I think a poster somewhere a few pages back had the idea to make Storm do bonus damage against burrowed units to let Protoss ground armies push out/break out of Lurker contains. Honestly I think it's a really good idea, it's not elegant but I think it would be effective. The real solution would be to buff Gateway units to allow them to pressure Zerg more in the early/mid game, but if Blizzard won't even put in band-aid fixes like the + burrowed damage, there is no way in hell they would ever do an in depth change like that. Why will Blizzard not hear our cries? How does Heroes of the Storm get routine balance patches and hero reworks while having no competitive scene to speak of while Starcraft 2 and Brood War still have thriving (relatively) pro scenes and active player bases? I don't think Blizzard will actively patch sc2 anymore. Their last patch was in April and it was just cosmetics. Which is utter horse shit, like I said in the post, how the hell are you going to not even apply very small balance tweaks (imo all SC2 even needs) to a game with a still living competitive scene when HOTS has their dev team that.. Sits down and takes data... Watches their extremely limited pro scene along with compiling ladder statistics... Not only makes the changes, but also usually has 1 - 2 paragraphs on why they made the changes in the first place, usually all of them that I read are in the interest of buffing older heroes that have suffered due to power creep. Seriously it just makes no sense, why couldn't the same team that does HOTS do SC2 as well? The complete lack of blue posts even regarding SC2 is an insult to the community. I understand how you feel. I'm sort of in the same shoes as well. Blizzard killed sc2 for me when they silently increased 1vs1 masters 3 mmr in EU from ~4400 to 4650 which used to be masters 2 as far as I remember. That was a year ago. I've been experiencing random disconnects since last December, and Blizzard support always brushes it off by saying that it's my ISP when my ISP actually denies that. In fact, I don't experience any disconnect from any other service at time of sc2 disconnect. It's never happened in other games so far unless the whole internet service was gone. Having said that, I'm not a financial expert by any means but judging by these: Twitch viewers (SC + SC2 = 3k viewers during holiday season...) + Show Spoiler +Activision Blizzard stocks: + Show Spoiler +I'm not really optimistic that Blizzard will suddenly decide to focus on StarCraft since it's not where viewership is. If we compare like for like (Blizzard only games), it makes more sense if they focus more on WoW which they probably do... On topic: I don't feel any significant change/issues as a protoss at lower levels than pros. However, watching ShoWTimE's stream today, disruptor shots really feel gimmicky. Terrans have learnt how to snipe disruptors just in time in some situations... In my opinion, as someone who has played StarCraft since 2006 and SC2 since beta, problem with Protoss in sc2 is it has too many spellcasters. It's so easy to mess up and lose the game if casters aren't played right. If Protoss is changed in such a way to rely slightly less on cast abilities, then it may be all we need for Protoss.
Not sure why you're lumping in SC with SC2. SC is getting 300k viewers on really good days and avg of 30k~80k on afreeca
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On December 31 2021 08:58 Vindicare605 wrote:The fuck does this have to do with anything? There are no EVENTS happening right now. SC2 hasn't been a major player in day to day casual viewership in years. Tournaments drive viewers in this game. It's been that way for 10 years. December-January leading up to Katowice has been the SLOW period of SC2 ever since Blizzcon ending in November was a thing. I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, but I HATE when people plug random out of context twitch numbers as if they matter for anything. The most asinine metric possible.
Of course Twitch viewership matters. How else do streamers earn a living apart from tournaments or when there is no active one yet? Otherwise, why stream..? For fun and for pros to expose their strategies publicly? In addition, Twitch views = game is exposed to wider audience to attract new players. I said at no point that this is typical sc2, but I'd lie if I say that I didn't expect MORE activity during a holiday period when people get free time to play. Remember, the game is not just played by 14-16 years old kids. 
Let's not make up excuses please. A few years ago, sc2 tournament had 40k viewers online and I heard no complaints back then.
Edit: Here is an example: Forgg relies on Twitch views and subscribers:
+ Show Spoiler +
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The Holiday season is the slow season for SC2. Has been forever. The fact you're choosing to highlight IT as some kind of ridiculous metric just weakens the hell out of your argument to anyone that actually watches Starcraft 2.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On December 31 2021 11:32 SC-Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On December 31 2021 08:58 Vindicare605 wrote: Twitch viewers (SC + SC2 = 3k viewers during holiday season...) The fuck does this have to do with anything? There are no EVENTS happening right now. SC2 hasn't been a major player in day to day casual viewership in years. Tournaments drive viewers in this game. It's been that way for 10 years. December-January leading up to Katowice has been the SLOW period of SC2 ever since Blizzcon ending in November was a thing. I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, but I HATE when people plug random out of context twitch numbers as if they matter for anything. The most asinine metric possible. Of course Twitch viewership matters. How else do streamers earn a living apart from tournaments or when there is no active one yet? Otherwise, why stream..? For fun and for pros to expose their strategies publicly? In addition, Twitch views = game is exposed to wider audience to attract new players. I said at no point that this is typical sc2, but I'd lie if I say that I didn't expect MORE activity during a holiday period when people get free time to play. Remember, the game is not just played by 14-16 years old kids. Let's not make up excuses please. A few years ago, sc2 tournament had 40k viewers online and I heard no complaints back then. Edit: Here is an example: Forgg relies on Twitch views and subscribers: + Show Spoiler +
Blizzard stopped patching SC2 because simply at some point you have to end supporting your product. The issue is that Blizzard left us with one of the worst viewership states possible.
To be fair Blizzard poured pretty big money into the game even while not touching it so you can't just say "it just requires a small team" when Blizzard is literally keeping the game relevant by spending their money on the tournaments.
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The main problem in SC2 remains the same that his brother,... you haven t to travel for gather ressources, in other words you can gather ressources near your bases, that s why strategy doesn t evolved so much since SC:WoL
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On December 31 2021 16:48 Vindicare605 wrote:
The Holiday season is the slow season for SC2. Has been forever. The fact you're choosing to highlight IT as some kind of ridiculous metric just weakens the hell out of your argument to anyone that actually watches Starcraft 2.
I don't disagree with you that Twitch viewership is significantly driven by whether there is a major tournament or not. For instance, a few years ago I noticed on Twitch that CS had 1 million viewers and here is the article to back this up: https://dotesports.com/counter-strike/news/pgl-stockholm-major-peaks-at-1-million-viewers-during-heroic-vs-virtus-pro
I don't think you're entirely correct to support the idea that sc2 is just what it is December-January for X amount of years. That's not healthy for the scene. As a spectator you may not care, but these people (pros) pay bills, rents, etc. Only so few earn enough from a tournament to pay costs for >1 month imho. In other words, won amount of money entirely depends on how far they go into the tournament as I'm sure we all know. In the meantime, they need another income and what is better than stream? So I'll reiterate with my thoughts.
Twitch viewership:
- additional money into the scene to keep pros motivated
- "free" ad for a game to be picked up by someone casually browsing Twitch
- keeps viewers engaged in discussions / game itself
Let's just agree to disagree. This discussion is already offtopic...
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On December 31 2021 11:32 SC-Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On December 31 2021 08:58 Vindicare605 wrote: Twitch viewers (SC + SC2 = 3k viewers during holiday season...) The fuck does this have to do with anything? There are no EVENTS happening right now. SC2 hasn't been a major player in day to day casual viewership in years. Tournaments drive viewers in this game. It's been that way for 10 years. December-January leading up to Katowice has been the SLOW period of SC2 ever since Blizzcon ending in November was a thing. I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, but I HATE when people plug random out of context twitch numbers as if they matter for anything. The most asinine metric possible. Of course Twitch viewership matters. How else do streamers earn a living apart from tournaments or when there is no active one yet? Otherwise, why stream..? For fun and for pros to expose their strategies publicly? In addition, Twitch views = game is exposed to wider audience to attract new players. I said at no point that this is typical sc2, but I'd lie if I say that I didn't expect MORE activity during a holiday period when people get free time to play. Remember, the game is not just played by 14-16 years old kids. Let's not make up excuses please. A few years ago, sc2 tournament had 40k viewers online and I heard no complaints back then. Edit: Here is an example: Forgg relies on Twitch views and subscribers: + Show Spoiler +
40k viewers a few years ago? is that aggregate?
the first sc2 TSL had ~55k tops
after the bl-infestor disaster in Wings, viewership never recovered
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On January 02 2022 03:21 necrosexy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 31 2021 11:32 SC-Shield wrote:On December 31 2021 08:58 Vindicare605 wrote: Twitch viewers (SC + SC2 = 3k viewers during holiday season...) The fuck does this have to do with anything? There are no EVENTS happening right now. SC2 hasn't been a major player in day to day casual viewership in years. Tournaments drive viewers in this game. It's been that way for 10 years. December-January leading up to Katowice has been the SLOW period of SC2 ever since Blizzcon ending in November was a thing. I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, but I HATE when people plug random out of context twitch numbers as if they matter for anything. The most asinine metric possible. Of course Twitch viewership matters. How else do streamers earn a living apart from tournaments or when there is no active one yet? Otherwise, why stream..? For fun and for pros to expose their strategies publicly? In addition, Twitch views = game is exposed to wider audience to attract new players. I said at no point that this is typical sc2, but I'd lie if I say that I didn't expect MORE activity during a holiday period when people get free time to play. Remember, the game is not just played by 14-16 years old kids. Let's not make up excuses please. A few years ago, sc2 tournament had 40k viewers online and I heard no complaints back then. Edit: Here is an example: Forgg relies on Twitch views and subscribers: + Show Spoiler + 40k viewers a few years ago? is that aggregate? the first sc2 TSL had ~55k tops after the bl-infestor disaster in Wings, viewership never recovered
Viewership never reached the best numbers of WoL again, yes, but it's far from true that it never recovered.
It went better after the game became free to play in LoTV and it kept growing at least until BlizzCon 2018, which had a massive peak.
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If I am agreeing with Xainon you know something is going on. Just sayin.
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Northern Ireland26094 Posts
On January 02 2022 21:06 Vindicare605 wrote:
If I am agreeing with Xainon you know something is going on. Just sayin.
Currently keeping my eyes peeled for the other harbingers of the apocalypse.
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Although performances and numbers of protoss have been weak, I don't think there's no chance. I honestly feel like PartinG leaving for military service hurts, but Trap is the man. I think Trap has a chance of winning a GSL in the current state of the game.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On January 03 2022 01:57 reps)squishy wrote:
Although performances and numbers of protoss have been weak, I don't think there's no chance. I honestly feel like PartinG leaving for military service hurts, but Trap is the man. I think Trap has a chance of winning a GSL in the current state of the game.
Trap won't win a GSL title unless he gets like 10 tries. The only chance is that he will be there against even worse choker. There's a reason why Trap has so many of the top tier titles. FFS how long it took to Cure to win a GSL title and for the last 4 years every GSL started with Cure demolishing everybody in the lesser tournaments and everybody calling Cure to be a serious contender. And then what? Then nothing. (also known as the online Cure)
Edit> TBH it may have been longer than 4 years.
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Northern Ireland26094 Posts
On January 03 2022 03:32 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2022 01:57 reps)squishy wrote:
Although performances and numbers of protoss have been weak, I don't think there's no chance. I honestly feel like PartinG leaving for military service hurts, but Trap is the man. I think Trap has a chance of winning a GSL in the current state of the game. Trap won't win a GSL title unless he gets like 10 tries. The only chance is that he will be there against even worse choker. There's a reason why Trap has so many of the top tier titles. FFS how long it took to Cure to win a GSL title and for the last 4 years every GSL started with Cure demolishing everybody in the lesser tournaments and everybody calling Cure to be a serious contender. And then what? Then nothing. (also known as the online Cure) Edit> TBH it may have been longer than 4 years.
Worse players than Trap have won GSLs, better players than him arguably have not, soO for example.
As underwhelming as Trap’s efforts in finals have been, he’s made three in a relatively short span of time, and won or finished high in a ton of Premier tournaments.
Cure’s a very good player and pulled it off, he doesn’t have close to Trap’s general body of accomplishments and if Trap is flakey Cure is many times so. Even with Covid reshaping the scene the fabled power of online Cure hasn’t measured up to what Trap’s pulled off. Indeed, a GSL silver and gold are big prestige placings that Cure pulled off offline.
If there’s a huge obstacle in Trap’s path, I just don’t see him beating Dark or Rogue in a GSL finals, he dodged that last season, beat Maru only to perform badly against Cure, a real missed opportunity. One of his worst showings in quite some time.
Even if we have a mere 3 GSLs left, Trap has been a lock for Ro8 forever, if he can show up all he needs is a good bracket for a mere 2 matches following and could quite conceivably take one home.
If his level drops, or he gets tough brackets each time then, maybe he doesn’t get to add the GSL cap to his collection.
Zest will be gone, Classic and herO while improving aren’t quite on that level again yet. Maru is Maru but they trade about 50/50 and Rogue and Dark are there. Cure has joined the champions’s club, but isn’t exactly Mr Consistent, and I’d favour Trap’s best PvT form against Cure’s best Tvp
Easier said than done but if you can negotiate the group phase safely, which Trap routinely does, there aren’t a massive amount of real threats left these days.
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On January 03 2022 04:46 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2022 03:32 deacon.frost wrote:On January 03 2022 01:57 reps)squishy wrote:
Although performances and numbers of protoss have been weak, I don't think there's no chance. I honestly feel like PartinG leaving for military service hurts, but Trap is the man. I think Trap has a chance of winning a GSL in the current state of the game. Trap won't win a GSL title unless he gets like 10 tries. The only chance is that he will be there against even worse choker. There's a reason why Trap has so many of the top tier titles. FFS how long it took to Cure to win a GSL title and for the last 4 years every GSL started with Cure demolishing everybody in the lesser tournaments and everybody calling Cure to be a serious contender. And then what? Then nothing. (also known as the online Cure) Edit> TBH it may have been longer than 4 years. Worse players than Trap have won GSLs, better players than him arguably have not, soO for example. As underwhelming as Trap’s efforts in finals have been, he’s made three in a relatively short span of time, and won or finished high in a ton of Premier tournaments. Cure’s a very good player and pulled it off, he doesn’t have close to Trap’s general body of accomplishments and if Trap is flakey Cure is many times so. Even with Covid reshaping the scene the fabled power of online Cure hasn’t measured up to what Trap’s pulled off. Indeed, a GSL silver and gold are big prestige placings that Cure pulled off offline. If there’s a huge obstacle in Trap’s path, I just don’t see him beating Dark or Rogue in a GSL finals, he dodged that last season, beat Maru only to perform badly against Cure, a real missed opportunity. One of his worst showings in quite some time. Even if we have a mere 3 GSLs left, Trap has been a lock for Ro8 forever, if he can show up all he needs is a good bracket for a mere 2 matches following and could quite conceivably take one home. If his level drops, or he gets tough brackets each time then, maybe he doesn’t get to add the GSL cap to his collection. Zest will be gone, Classic and herO while improving aren’t quite on that level again yet. Maru is Maru but they trade about 50/50 and Rogue and Dark are there. Cure has joined the champions’s club, but isn’t exactly Mr Consistent, and I’d favour Trap’s best PvT form against Cure’s best Tvp Easier said than done but if you can negotiate the group phase safely, which Trap routinely does, there aren’t a massive amount of real threats left these days.
Trap doesn't choke, Trap plays Protoss, and like most other Protoss players when faced with the top of the food chain of the two other races lose in finals. Trap has some of the most insane comebacks he is stonecold. Just s omething people need to start to understand, if a top tier Zerg or Terran knows whats coming you in big trouble as protoss and at the highest tier of SC2 people know how to read Protoss and they make Protosses look silly. Because Protoss is weakest race by far
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Trap doesn't choke
I'm not entirely disagreeing with what you're saying, but this is just plain wrong. Don't get me wrong nothing but respect for Trap he's top tier no doubt, but I've seen his level of competitive form fluctuate alot over the years so to say he doesn't choke is a total fallacy.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/IPOzO13.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/5F3Rg67.png)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/zZf2cAw.jpg)
