Where did all of the terrans go?

Yosho:
The majority of most people get offended when something they feel they are working hard for is true has the possibility of being shut down. On any race or real life issue really. However in this scenario there is clear evidence showing the favor for protoss in the late game unless Terran has a significant lead in the mid game. This strikes most protoss as "Are you saying that I am not earning my wins? That my opponents COULD be superior even though I won?"

They don't want that feeling of I played hard and I won taken away from them when the terran may have deserved the win more due to superior micro and multi tasking over well not to sound insulting but A move + storm.

And for those who don't read all posts and just read the last ones then respond, I am a high masters random player. I see all sides.

On March 14 2012 06:49 Type|NarutO wrote:
For most of 'us' Terran vs Protoss is so insanely hard because we are not playing it right. We are neither multitasking or playing like we should, not are we hitting the timings or weaknesses Protoss has. To be able to actually play decent you would go away from 'Wow, Protoss is so easy and can just 1a over everything I have - what an overpowered race' to 'what did I do wrong, where did I miss my chances to be agressive'.

If you are a competent Terran you will be ahead in supply usually or ahead in economy. In case of a two base allin you will probably lack army, but have superior economy. Protoss chrono boost can be a very strong in the combination with an all in so defending is very hard, but its possible if you read the game well.

But about actually playing Terran vs Protoss you have to understand how Protoss works. Most Protoss players want to spend chronoboost on their economy or their tech rather than spending it on warpgates. It is their macro ability. If you can force them to chronoboost units instead of economy or upgrades, you will be in good shape as your macro ability the mule will always be on the field.

'Protoss has to do nothing, they just sit and then win' . Yes obviously. Protoss can sit back, build and army and crush you, because YOU(!) allowed him do to so. Make him split is units, make him spend his chronoboost early on stuff he doesn't want to chrono while you pressure. Do not lose your drops or harass, if you cannot pick off the robo but save the medivac, SAVE THE GODDAMN THING! I get very mad at ladder and I'm probably no the most mannered person, yet I get angry because I understand its my lack of ability to win.

The Koreans can do it, and they don't win because they are Korean, they win because they put time and thought into the match up and probably even try to analyze how the Protoss is thinking. If Terran is too hard for you or feels to demanding in micro, macro and multitasking play another race and you will find yourself with problems that might be different, but no way less concerning.

glhf improving.

On March 22 2012 14:40 dignitas.merz wrote:


I feel I should shed som light on at least my own opinion here. I do whine a lot recently, guilty as charged. I did not use to whine, for a very long time, I kept imbalance issues out of it for the most part. Why I'm whining at this day is because I look around and I see the only terrans being successful are koreans. I look at the koreans play and try to figure out why they still maintain such a high success with this race, and the conclusions I draw is that they're really just abusing the strong terran early game. I do very much so believe Protoss is stronger than Terran in the lategame, Zerg is too since the ghost nerf. However I'll be the first one to admit right here that the early game is imbalanced in favour of Terrans. Terran has a variety of 1 base openings that are sick strong, hard to identify, and all the units (hellions, marauders, marines) benefit a great deal from good control, which can make them ridiculously cost efficient.

People will argue "Then just resort to using the strenghts of your race" or "If Terran is so strong early but weak late, why do you even play for the lategame?" It's simple. All races should be equally capable in each stage of the game, they should have racial strenghts and weaknesses of course, but having a race who CLEARLY excells in the early game and slowly crumbles in the lategame is problematic for many reasons. Terrans early game strenght comes much from our ability to wall off early, which denies the opponent important intel early on. It also comes from us having a ranged tier 1 unit (the marine) so denying scouting probes/drones are a lot easier compared to zealots or zerglings . It's also due to our racial mechanic which is the mule, basically giving us a sick income boost of minerals on which we can spend towards powerful units early game such as hellions or marines. It also allows us to incorporate workers into our all-ins because mules compensate for the mining time lost if we bring scvs.

Now why this is problematic is because if one race clearly excells at the early game, the other races main objective will always be to just survive and take it til the lategame where they are stronger, while our objective is kill them as soon as possible. This basically results in P and Z tailoring their builds towards all-in play blindly, they even play overly safe sometimes (i.e. protoss going 3 gate before expand just because they scouted gas). This creates some really random scenarios at times which I don't think belongs in game where skill should excell above all else.

Take TvP for example, lets break down 3 scenarios that are all very likely, we're going to assume P scouts gas here

A) P scouts gas, knows theres a possibility of one base play such as 2 rax or the infamous 1/1/1. Plays REALLY safe because the protoss is expecting a one base

B) P scouts gas, goes for the 1 gate nexus anyways and is determined to hold even if it is a 1/1/1 or 2 rax.

C) P scouts gas and goes for a direct blind counter to specific BO, lets say phoenix play because they are expecting a banshee and then the 1/1/1 build as a follow up (which directly counters any 1/1/1 opening).

Scenario A)

P is playing safe, expecting a one base. Several things can happen here. Either Terran mindgames, pulls scvs off gas and goes for a 1 rax FE with reactor, as soon as the probe leaves or is dead. P is now automtically behind in economy because he played overly safe expecting a 1 base play.

Terran can also decide to go for a 1 base play, Protoss holds, proceeds to win game. Here it's already quite random because P can't really know if its a fake or not.

B) Again randomness, if The terran is faking 1 base aggression and actually went for 1 rax CC, the mindgame didn't really do anything and at best the Terran and Protoss is at equal grounds. This, being problematic seeing how Terran wants that early edge and to finish off protoss quick

Or.. Terran went for 1 base play and just so happened to pick the right 1 base strategy to hard counter your 1 gate nexus, Protoss loses the game.

C) Protoss goes for a blind counter, lets use phoenix opening as an example. If terran opens up banshee hes basically dead, if he opened up 2 rax, protoss is all of a sudden pretty dead. If Terran faked P out and went for a 1 rax FE, he's massively ahead in economy, because Phoenix openings aren't very good vs Bio FEs (lots of marines, early ebay etc).

A + B + C and all the different scenarios = RANDOMNESS

Now a Terran always playing it straight up, going for the macro game, is the only time P can ever know exactly what's going on. So here it's already like you're giving up some of your strenght. Worse is, once you reach the lategame where you both have 200/200 armies, Protoss reinforcement capabilites are so much better than Terrans (proxy pylons everywhere, can practically warp in 15-20 chargelots in the MIDDLE of a fight) while Terran can't macro and fight at the same time. Fighting in a 200/200 vs 200/200 in TvP requires 100% focus on the screen where the battle is happening which benefits a protoss with proxy pylons just behind his army. Terrans also has to utilize EMP, stim, kiting, and their vikings. All of these "lock up" important hotkeys during a fight which makes it extremely hard, if not close to impossible, to get a macro round in while you're actually fighting.

I think a perfect example of this is IMMvp. IMMvp is known for his incredible straight up play. He cheeses from time to time, sure, but the majority of his games are straight up solid play. Yet, which one of MVPs matchups is his worst? TvP. Also, if you hadn't noticed by now, IMMvp is posting worse and worse results for every tournament. Which Terran actually excells in Korea right now? MarineKing. Now if you compare the two, MarineKing always has a new one base strategy to pull out of his sleeve, while IMMvp relies more on solid play. MKP does however lack in consistency which I believe is because he sometimes just botches games completlty due to "picking the wrong build".

Whenever I felt playing for the lategame and playing the macrogame didn't work, I'd look at IMMvp and be convinced that it does work, but these past two or three months, I look at IMMvps games and im not convinced anymore. I feel it's a flaw in the design because each race should have equal capabilites in the long game, but that's just not the case. Terran is too strong in the early game and rewards mindgames, using a different strategy each time, and cheap all-ins more than solid straight up play. Obviously each race should be of equal capability in the early game too.

I could go on about this forever but I guess that's it for now. Also to be honest, you look at how Blizzard patch this game and you realize if people cry hard enough about something, it's eventually getting patched. I figured I'd give it a try too.