Situation Report: August 31, 2012 by David Kim - Page 44

On September 03 2012 06:39 Adonminus wrote:

I guess I'm in the minority, I voted: I'm protoss and I would play terran as offrace.

On September 03 2012 04:02 NewbieOne wrote:


That's true. Another example: the snipe nerf was justified with a minor problem in TvZ late-game. Not a word about the effect on TvP, where it was, at the time, the core part of dealing with zealot/archon compositions, which are simplistic and extremely potent even when simply a-moved as one big ball. This is not to say that Blizzard hadn't tested the nerf out in TvP but it certainly didn't say a word about that match-up.



That might be a way for tournaments that aren't affiliated with Blizzard. Doing so would also make a massive statement that Blizzard would be unable to ignore without taking a PR hit.

If it were to prove that maps dictate a lot, that would beg questions of race design. I have no doubt that balancing three sufficiently non-repetitive races is hard work, also on the conceptual side, not only the analytical number crunching. But part of the problem is the community pressure to act like everything is balanced (which competes with a currently strong trend to speak out and the simple "whining/QQ" has never died).

I'm not sure but part of the problem may be how the game is formulaic, prone to fixed sequential stages, with huge emphasis on counters and responses (he drones hard, I get hellions, he gets roaches, I get tanks, he gets broodlords, I get vikings, he goes ultras). That kind of thing can be difficult to balance properly when the races are so different from each other and the balance isn't symmetrical.



I worry that the metagame may lead to formulaic prescribed builds and sometimes mathematical analyses. Number crunching to detect imbalance and use it to one's favour, then response from the balance team. After that response imba is removed but the balance of other things is upset, leading to the need for more interventions etc. But I am sounding a little too defeatist at this point. Maybe we should all really smile and keep playing.



I'm a fairly low level player but I use a custom mech build that I adapt a lot. TvZ is my best matchup, I think. Not so when I play marine-tank.



Thank you for the perspective. It's always a good thing to be reminded that one's own race also has strengths that are hard to deal with for the other races and may appear imbalanced from that perspective. But how about using something else than zerglings for some of the tasks you mentioned?

On September 03 2012 06:06 executorx wrote:



Well, 75% of the Terrans would choose Zerg... I knew that before the poll.


And yeah David Kim must be blind or something when he says there something balanced in IEM... there where Bomber and MVP, 2 top tier terrans vs. some foreign Zerg... MVP won this because he is a way better player than Nerchio, slivko or vortix.

Blizzard should really think about if David Kim is the right person für this job.

On September 03 2012 04:02 NewbieOne wrote:
That might be a way for tournaments that aren't affiliated with Blizzard. Doing so would also make a massive statement that Blizzard would be unable to ignore without taking a PR hit.

If it were to prove that maps dictate a lot, that would beg questions of race design.

On September 03 2012 07:06 TheDwf wrote:

I'd say maps dictating a lot is already proven, especially for Protoss (in particular because of the interaction between Sentries and chokes).

Want to basically force Protoss into 2-bases all-ins 9 times out of 10 in PvZ? Meet Dual Sight and other maps with wide open thirds.
Want to prevent Protoss from going FFE? Meet XNC and other maps with wide open naturals.
Want to make it difficult for Protoss to defend 3 bases successfully? Increase the distance between main and third. (In TvX match-ups this would also lead to the third being a PF.)
Want to make it easier for Protoss to defend 3 bases successfully? Meet Cloud Kingdom or Entombed Valley.
Want to make early agressive play standard for Terran? Make maps with short distance so that 2 rax becomes stronger.
Want to promote 3-bases turtle play? Meet Calm before the Storm.
Etc., etc.

Map design and spawns allow/prevent some kinds of play on their own. Even neutral Supply Depot at the bottom of the ramp leading to the natural in tournament maps is a map feature preventing some strategies. Tons and tons of things in the game come down to maps. The problem with the current map pool is that for instance lategame TvZ on Antiga and lategame TvZ on Metropolis basically have nothing in common, yet units still have the same values. Basically you have the same tools on paper but maps allow or prevent you from reaching and using them.

On September 01 2012 01:15 c0ldfusion wrote:


Yup, this is exactly how Blizzard balances this game. They just look at tournament results see which race is winning and stop them from winning.

-_-

On September 03 2012 07:36 EZHaunteR wrote:



Then you don't understand balance.

If Zerg was OP, then those inferior Zergs would smash MvP or be on even footing. Except they were dominated, stop crying.

On September 03 2012 07:36 EZHaunteR wrote:



Then you don't understand balance.

If Zerg was OP, then those inferior Zergs would smash MvP or be on even footing. Except they were dominated, stop crying.

On September 03 2012 07:55 Snowbear wrote:
I know that the game should be balanced at the highest levels, but for top 200 masters and even some grandmasters terran feels so damn weak. I don't have the time to practice 10 hours a day..

On September 03 2012 07:59 Shade_CsT wrote:

Good news, the Zergs you are facing are less skilled than Taeja's or Mvp's opponents. Don't assume you need to play as good as best terran players.

On September 03 2012 08:03 Snowbear wrote:


If the zerg players has the same amount of talent then me, and puts the same amount of hours into the game, then the zerg will win, because he has an easier time, and that's what bothers me.

On September 03 2012 06:42 Reborn8u wrote:
They still haven't addressed the lag spikes that come from the last patch. Ever since the new bnet makeover patch, I get lag spikes when battles start. It makes FF's absolutely useless. All the protoss matchups DEPEND on FF in the early game. When I get a lag spike just as a battle starts, the game basically freezes, 2 seconds go by in game, and when it unfreezes their army is on top of mine. I have completely stopped laddering because of it. It's been way too long, this patch should never have been released in it's current state, and this should have been fixed or reverted weeks ago. This is absolutely pathetic and I have no intention of buying HOTS if this is the kind of shit they are releasing.

To be clear, this NEVER happened until last patch.

Important Information:
UPDATE • We have seen several reports regarding stuttering and other performance issues.
We identified several performance issues with the release of 1.5 but have not been able to identify the exact cause. With 1.5.2 we added more performance tracking to the game to hopefully find a solution.

On September 03 2012 06:39 Adonminus wrote:

I guess I'm in the minority, I voted: I'm protoss and I would play terran as offrace.

On September 03 2012 08:04 Tao367 wrote:
I know this is mostly about tvz, but does anyone else besides me think although the pvz matchup results are balacned, most of the protoss wins are from p 2 base all ins. I haven't watched any Korean games lately, so I'm going mostly off foreign tournaments and it's been rare for a protoss to win in the late game. Is it evidence that the zerg late game army is too strong? Or is it okay for a matchup to be governed by 2 base all ins?