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I think this is a problem that I'm not alone with, but I don't think it's really been discussed specifically on larger maps.
A notorious Zerg complaint has been lack of viable scouting options and being reduced to guessing what the opponent is doing. More so than Protoss and Terran, Zerg has very limited options and specific responses to many Protoss and Terran builds which will kill the Zerg player outright if the Zerg doesn't have ample preparation time.
The problem with that is that those builds which will kill the Zerg player all hit before Zerg has access to better scouting methods. While it's true that Protoss also suffers from poor scouting before hallucination or robotics tech, Protoss walks less of a razor's edge leading into the mid-game and has more "catch all" builds that leave the Protoss player capable of responding to most threats.
As far as Zerg goes, the biggest "I need to scout" threats are 4gate, void rays, banshees, and marine/scv all-ins. Less common rushes such as Dark Templar are also possible. In addition, many "normal" Terran builds can kill the Zerg player that isn't properly prepared, even the somewhat silly mass-hellion. Failing to scout one of the above builds with plenty of time to prepare is GG for the Zerg player.
Zerg has 2 methods for scouting in the early game: Overlords and checking the front. In the past, this has been effective on most maps and in most circumstances. However, it has still been possible for a player to deny both methods of scouting by means of hiding tech and revealing units from the front and keeping marines or stalkers patrolling around the base to shoot down overlords. This problem is exaggerated on large maps.
On many large maps such as Typhon Peaks it is impossible to guarantee yourself a chance at scouting with an overlord. With 3 possible bases to scout there is no way to know where you will need an overlord to be, since the distance is too far to have an overlord at all three (or even 2). Cross spots in particular are a problem, since even your first overlord can't cross the entire map before a marine could be out to shoot it down.
![[image loading]](http://www.observer-sc2.cz/wp-content/uploads/Typhon_peaks.jpg)
Good luck getting an overlord in my base!
Zerg is left with scouting the front of the base. Unfortunately, the game is such that it is not difficult to hide information from the Zerg player, and it is just as easy to outright deceive them.
Cross position on Typhon Peaks, ZvP. Your zergling has scouted a zealot and stalker at the front, and warpgate tech is being chronoboosted at the cybernetics core. It looks like a 4gate or otherwise early pressure, and you switch into heavy ling/roach production. A few minutes later, after realizing it's too late for the 4gate, the void rays fly into your base and it's GG.
With builds that kill outright, there is the luxury that "smoothness" and refinement of the build can be sacrificed in the name of deception. Although the Protoss player has used his chronoboost and 50 gas on tech that he has no intention of using, it is a meaningless sacrifice given the decisiveness of void rays that have not been prepared against.
In the above example, the Zerg player will die to the 4gate if he chooses to drone much higher than 21 or 22 drones. It is a guessing game. If he loses to the 4gate, he is a fool for having not prepared. If he loses to the void rays, he is justified, but no better off in the end.
Terran, with faster anti-air, can be even harder to scout given the ease of hiding their buildings. Should a Terran player wall off, keep a couple marines patrolling his base, and hide an additional 2 barracks and marines in the furthest corner of their base, there is no way to be sure you can scout it. Even if you have an overlord at their base, there is a strong likelyhood that it will be shot down before it sees what it needs to see.
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Basically, I feel like without viable scouting in the early game, Zerg is doomed to a complete guessing game on 4 player maps with large rush distances a significant percentage of the time. What could fix it? Perhaps having overlord speed moved to Spawning Pool tech.
In the immortal words of Idra, "No amount of creativity will get a zergling past a wall or an overlord past a marine."
Do other Zergs feel blind on large maps?
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I have been sending my first overlord to the middle of the map and 9 drone scouting in order to find which direction I should then send it before it actually gets to the middle of the map.
I'm not sure if it's actually doing me any good >_>
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I feel the exact same way. This is true on Taldarim too, if you dont get to your opponent with your first overlord even a light pressure can kill you outright if you guess wrong.
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I seen creative scouts (using ling+drone) by zergs as ling take hits(since its higher attack target) drone can go in base and scout.
Scouting goes both ways, as soon as soon as the first 4 lings comes out. I get pretty much no scouting down until my obs or hallucination is finished. Playing partially blind and reacting to game is part of the game.
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What Idra says is true, but you can get two overlords past several marines if they're coming from different directions (not exactly true but i hope you know what i mean)
for example, against P u should almost always scout with 2 overlords (if u dont know what he's doing, aka almost all the time cus he might be tricking u) from 2 directions at the 7:00 min mark
and yes it's a guessing game but if there's 100% chance a zerg can find out then zerg would win every game right? unless you want the game to become whether or not you spent too much into scouting instead of defending a push, or if you want every game to come down to micro'ing against the push
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On April 04 2011 16:16 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
What Idra says is true, but you can get two overlords past several marines if they're coming from different directions (not exactly true but i hope you know what i mean)
for example, against P u should almost always scout with 2 overlords (if u dont know what he's doing, aka almost all the time cus he might be tricking u) from 2 directions at the 7:00 min mark
and yes it's a guessing game but if there's 100% chance a zerg can find out then zerg would win every game right? unless you want the game to become whether or not you spent too much into scouting instead of defending a push, or if you want every game to come down to micro'ing against the push
I don't believe you know what you're talking about at all, mate.
Not only is 2 overlords way too much to sacrifice, the 7-minute mark is long past when marine/scv, 4gate, etc. hits, and longer past how early you need to scout to prepare against everything else.
And in what world does Zerg win 100% of games if they scout?
EDIT: Found another thing wrong with your post, what maps are you playing on that have 2 different locations to hide an overlord?
On April 04 2011 16:15 xbankx wrote:
I seen creative scouts (using ling+drone) by zergs as ling take hits(since its higher attack target) drone can go in base and scout.
Scouting goes both ways, as soon as soon as the first 4 lings comes out. I get pretty much no scouting down until my obs or hallucination is finished. Playing partially blind and reacting to game is part of the game.
I like that idea. Obviously it's not foolproof, but it should help a lot of the time.
Other than that, as I said in the original post, I recognize that Protoss doesn't have many scouting options early as well, but it is also far less vulnerable to simply dying without a fight.
As far as playing partially blind, it doesn't really exist. Zerg simply loses to the aforementioned builds if they don't have full and accurate information in a timely manner. That is the way the game is.
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Well
This is the eternal problem... Zergs need bigger map for better macro/expo play and still they are not capable of scouting at biggest maps 
Personaly I think that if they move Overlord speed upgrade to Tier1 It would solve the scouting problem so much! You would still need to choice which upgrade use so its not that much gamebreaking, still need to sac ovie ( but with more scouting info ) so its not like you have instavision...
But to you question - Yes I feel very blind at large maps, but I still feel very vulnerable at smaller ones 
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On a large map you can probably throw down an evo chamber and spore colonies before the void rays get to your base. Why can't you simply ring a few zerglings around his base to spot one leaving? Same goes for hunting proxy pylons.
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On April 04 2011 16:23 TheLink wrote:
On a large map you can probably throw down an evo chamber and spore colonies before the void rays get to your base. Why can't you simply ring a few zerglings around his base to spot one leaving? Same goes for hunting proxy pylons.
The problem is not voidrays, its scouting the voidrays. If you pre-emptively throw dore a spore colony and the protoss is actually 6gating you then your in a lot of trouble.
I have also found this to be a major problem for me, especially on Taldarim. I mean by the time i get a lair and overlord speed or an overseer its too late. I saw a game on husky's stream where a zerg player drilled past a zealot which seemed quite effective and want to incorporate into my play, but havent been able to test yet.
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On April 04 2011 16:23 TheLink wrote:
On a large map you can probably throw down an evo chamber and spore colonies before the void rays get to your base. Why can't you simply ring a few zerglings around his base to spot one leaving? Same goes for hunting proxy pylons.
You cannot build an evo chamber and spores before void rays get to your base, even if you see them. If you invest them needlessly, you die to 4gate.
Hunting proxy pylons * DOES* help against 4gate, but exhausting every corner of the map routinely is supremely difficult unless you make lots of zerglings blind. Even so, a 4 gate can kill an unprepared zerg even without an initial proxy as a starting point.
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You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat.
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On April 04 2011 16:28 Jumbled wrote:
You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat.
You cannot prepare for 4gate and voidrays at the same time. Even if you invest heavily in defenses and could, hypothetically hold off both a 4gate and voidrays, it means you have an abysmal drone count and will lose to any normal build in the game.
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On April 04 2011 16:10 Zerokaiser wrote:
Basically, I feel like without viable scouting in the early game, Zerg is doomed to a complete guessing game on 4 player maps with large rush distances a significant percentage of the time. What could fix it? Perhaps having overlord speed moved to Spawning Pool tech.
I think the idea of moving Ovie speed down the tech tree was touched upon by Idra in one of his rare TL posts (I forgot in which thread, though. He basically did an informal Q&A in the thread).
On one hand, it is quite difficult to scout on larger maps. On the other hand, the larger the map is, the more difficult early pressure/attack builds become to execute. I think the idea of early Zerg map control with Lings is not to be underestimated, especially on larger maps where there could still be a bit more time to prepare for surprise openings (such as on Tal'Darim).
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There are plenty of players who don't scout until very late.
Perhaps you're going about this the wrong way.
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There are other topics very similar to this one, so I suggest trying out the search feature. One similar thread I found:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195837
That said, yours has a nice picture and is laid out more nicely, so well done in that respect.
Anyways, with regards to scouting Protoss:
It is always possible to get a drone into their base, assuming they haven't done anything crazy like a full wall-off. Even if you are scouting late and they have their zealot up, you can phase through it to get inside. This will give you some pretty important information:
a) do they have both of their gases? If you early scout, you can steal their 2nd gas to slow down any tech heavy builds. Moreover, if you keep up with your extractor cancel micro, after 3-4 cancels you can try to run the drone around their base for more info. If you are late, and they have both gases, how much have they mined? If you are late, and they only have 1 gas, then they are either gonna 4-gate you or do some kind of early expo without a ton of sentries.
b) how much energy do they have on their nexus? A lot of saved up chrono boost generally points towards a 4-gate. If they aren't chronoboosting their cybercore AND have energy, then they might be saving it up for chronoboosting out of a stargate or chronoboosting blink research. If they have no saved up chrono boost or are still chronoing probes, you don't have to worry about a hardcore 4-gate.
c) how many pylons do they have in their base? If your drone is going around in their base and they only have 2 pylons in their main when your drone dies to their first sentry/stalker, then you should probably check for proxy pylons.
d) what is their first unit after their zealot? If it is a stalker and they have both gases, their gas has to be going somewhere. If it's a sentry, you don't have to worry about the zealot/stalker poke.
Once your drone is dead and you get lings out, you can continue poking the front, searching for proxies, etc. You should at the very least be able to narrow down what your opponent is doing. Making a couple extra queens if there is a chance of a stargate, building an evo chamber to be able to make spores in case of DT or stargate, having a spine at the front in case of the zealot/stalker poke, are all ways of just playing safe in general. Extra queens are always good b/c they can also get your creep spread going and save up energy for transfuse in case of an attack.
Against a good Terran, scouting is not quite as easy as against Protoss, but the good news is that any early Terran push will have to move out the front of his base, and you can scout it with a forward ling or two. Also, assuming you have decent control, queens + spines + ling/bling/roach can hold off pretty much any early Terran aggression. Assuming you have the roach warren and bling nest + a 3rd queen + a spine, you should be able to create the units you need before he reaches your base. Good creep spread also really helps.
TL;DR No, I don't feel blind on large maps. I will hardly ever know for certain EXACTLY what they are doing, but I always feel like I know what their options are and I am prepared for any of them.
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On April 04 2011 16:28 Jumbled wrote:
You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat.
I agree with this. I think while it's unfortunate that a large part of this game is based on strategy as opposed to mechanic, which creates an element of luck, it is a random element that you can't really eliminate. Perfect scouting without significantly sacrifices in other areas is impossible, even for the best players. This is true in broodwar, especially in ZvT and PvZ (See Jaedong vs Flash at Hana Datoo msl finals set 1, in which Flash hid his goliath timing perfectly from Jaedong, who tried every reasonable method to scout, but could not do so). Zerg race is also inherently vulnerable to early game pressure, and by itself this isn't a problem, but just how the game is designed. Protoss and to a smaller extent terran is also has trouble scouting zerg, and even the best toss player will lose to a random 3 roach rush if unlucky.
However, it's true that zerg rushes are much more allin than that of terran and protoss, and are generally weaker. I think the right approach regarding the problem of zerg scouting for blizzard is not actually to give zerg better ways to scout, but to make stuff like 4 gates and 2 star voidrays even more riskier than what it currently is, thus forcing the toss and terran to have to make a difficult decision before choosing an "allin" strategy. I.e. They need to make it so that if you can win quickly with a 4 gate, you should lose as surely as a zerg who failed a 6 pool.
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Why do you emphasis early game? You even say you 'can't get an overlord to the terrans base before a marine is out to shoot it down'. But how is that unique to Zerg? Toss can't scout till we get hallucination or an observer. And you could maybe say that toss has less effective means of denying scout early game, since they can't chase off probes till a stalker is out, but I guess that is somewhat of a different issue.
Anyway my point being that until hallu/obs, toss has the same capacity to scout early game as Zerg does. Terran has it a bit easier cause they can scan/float a building, but that still comes at a cost.
Mid game is a bit of a different story though.
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i agree on you that base scouting for zerg has become harder on these big maps.
But i am really really happy about it.
Maps like these are so mega big for me as a terran player. That the moment i move out my base to attack i have a really high chance to get spotted by a 25 minerals worth ling i just missed by my 2 or 4 marines in the front, or an odd placed overlord. And because of the big distance a zerg has so much time to prepare for me... that it feels for me that he even can make an other round of drones (not true i know) and is safe.
If zerg already scouted my base at those big distance i sure would have a chance to make a one base built do enough damage to be even with the zerg player.
against p i think it is very hard for z... but against t you got the time.
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Played on Typhon Peaks against a Terran as Zerg.
I spawned on the 11 O'clock position and he spawned on the 7 O'clock position - meaning that when I eventually scouted his base, I had to get my overlord all around the map in order to make sure that it arrived (as the ramp is placed along the edge that I would normally pass by - and the base layout means I would need a hero Ovie to have it survive long enough to scout anything placed in-base)... Meanwhile I kept Zerglings at his wall, constantly checking what he was doing.
I could see a single rax from the front, of which he produced some marines.
He moved out with about 4 marines and positioned them as if he was about to lift his CC down to expand, so I kept scouting and droned a little while retaining a few larvas for lings or roaches.
Then I sacrificed 2 Zerglings to run past his marines and into his base, scouting 3 rax MM, and in that same instant he moved out...
I don't know if you have tried that but it takes approximately 2 seconds for the Terran to arrive at your natural, horribly horribly destroying my defences with his MM force - I didn't really stand a chance - didn't even have enough time to get my first batch of roaches out, and at that time my spines were already gone. (I build x2 for defences when I early expo)
Meanwhile, my Overlord wasn't even ready to move into his base to scout. (which would die to his marines anyway)
That made me kind of frustrated.
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On April 04 2011 16:33 Zerokaiser wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 16:28 Jumbled wrote:
You shouldn't ever be assuming you can scout perfectly in any case. There's always a slight possibility your opponent has managed to hide something tricky from you. You point out that protoss has even more scouting limitations early on, and that suggests that one approach is to try a similar solution to that used by protoss. Look for a safe early build that can handle most things that might be thrown at it.
There are a lot of techiques currently used that can make the early game a lot safer, such as a spine at your expansion covering your ramp when FEing, extra queens for general defence, AA and creep spread, and making sure you have detection available by the time banshees and DTs become a serious threat. You cannot prepare for 4gate and voidrays at the same time. Even if you invest heavily in defenses and could, hypothetically hold off both a 4gate and voidrays, it means you have an abysmal drone count and will lose to any normal build in the game. Check out Spanishiwa's 16h/15p opening. Queens + spines + good creep spread is safe against 4-gate and VRs, and has an enormous drone count.
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EPT
