State of the Game: IdrA vs. Day[9]

[JackhammerIV]

Zerg, their scouting problems, why i think it shouldn't be addressed in balance patches:

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Like i stated before all the races share the same problem of scouting early game. Problem with zerg is that it is a reactionary race. Scouting becomes really important then.

But really they should try less reactionary styles if they feel the scouting early game is lacking for zerg. Spanishiwa's build (or perhaps some other variant someone will develop in the future) is a safe build where zergs can feel more safe and not really need scouting information that much. Or perhaps trying a more aggressive build that isn't waiting for the opponent to do something first.

Or even doing something really crazy and weird like proxy eco chamber in the opponent's base on the opposite side from where overlord comes in. That way they can pretty much have whole vision of the base. And broodlings will do some damage.

I am sure the zerg response is the typical greediness of "I want to spend as much of my minerals on drones. I don't want to sacrifice anything to gain vision of my opponent. I want overlords that can fly into their base, see everything and leave alive."

Zergs are just constantly trying the same reactionary "on a knife's edge" over and over again. The other races have slowly learned and found places to nudge zerg into their doom by exploiting the lack of scouting options early game for zerg. Places like "If you thought i was expoing and made 5 drones instead of 5 units you die here."

And now basically those reactionary styles are finding less and less success. The other races are punishing it easier and easier. Basically zergs getting too greedy. So why not do what Day9 keeps saying about drone production "I made 90 drones and just got completely smashed. Next time I'll cut back a bit and not go too overboard."

Zergs should cut back on those reactionary styles. Pay some costs in early game to improve their scouting or boost their safety. It won't be as beneficial for their economy as a greedy style but it will be safer. Instead the zerg "concensus" if you will is that they want Blizzard to patch it so that they can always play greedy styles by improving their scouting early game. SC2 is a game of hard counters. I don't see why they think it's wrong that they get killed easily if they didn't invest into more scouting and/or safety. That's just how the game was designed.

If there is still no way with any type of build to compensate for the lack of scouting early game for zerg then maybe:

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If they want a slight buff to early scouting then it might be reasonable. Moving overlord speed to hatch tech is probably not a good solution. It's just make queen/spine crawler rushes more powerful. Or even a hydra rush. How much extra time do zergs want their overlords to spend in an opponent's base??

If they want a buff i'd rather something really minor. Geno you mentioned about 3 marines and an overlord. They kill an overlord in 9.5 secs. The following paragraphs assume the three marines attack the overlord at once and try to increase the amount of things the overlord can see before dying. Assuming overlord travelling in a straight line.

If you just add 1 armour to the overlord those 3 marines will take 11.1 secs to kill that overlord. 1.6 extra seconds allowing the overlord to cover 0.74992 more distance in addition to the normal 4.45265. So adding on 1 armour overlords will be able to travel 16.84% further before dying.

Adding on 50 health to the overlord lets it live 2.38 secs longer. Can travel an extra distance of 1.116 which is an increase of 25%.

Even like extending the sight radius to 12. That basically adds on a distance of 1 to what the overlord can see which is a 22.45% improvement.

Professional players and some stuff from SC2stats:

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Yes it is their livelihood. Yes pro-gamer zergs are having a hard time. And really the world is not so fair that the person who works the hardest is the best. There are always certain people who have some form of natural talent. I guess in SC2 that would be APM, monitor awareness, etc.

Another problem is we're not sure how much race affects SC2 games currently. Player skill introduces a new variable. Did that player win because of his race or because he was more skilled? Then mistakes. Did that player lose because he made lots of minor mistakes that accumulated or a few major mistakes that set him way behind? Can't say race imbalance without being able to take these into account.

The only true way to test for race imbalance is with a perfect AI. An AI like those used to challenge chess pros. It knows a large amount of strategies and can think. It can almost be said to not make any mistakes at all.

For right now there is probably an issue with zerg but is it as bad as we think it is? Someone on TL made a thread with the graph of each races winrates in non-mirror matchups for pro-gamers.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=218558


Obviously there arise issues of the number of games played in each month, relative player skill, number of players playing in each month, etc. (Important to note you can't take these graphs at face value) The more time and games we have probably the better the data will be. Won't be 100% accurate but will show some general trend. Also important to note that there can be race/player peaks and troughs. Here's the broodwar graph the same person made...


Conclusion being...player skill has a lot of impact in this game. Even in BW which is considered to be balanced there are race peaks and troughs. Possibly it's just how it goes. Similarly to how economies go up and down over time.

There is no real way to test the imbalance objectively. Perhaps zerg's lack of scouting early game is compensated for by their strength in map control and map vision. The game is too dynamic and fluid to allow for a case where every race is equal in every single aspect. That would be chess where all the units and moves available are the same. The only difference is the colour of the pieces. So I still side with Day9. The game and players need more time to improve and figure things out.

[Genopath]

There is no real way to test the imbalance objectively. Perhaps zerg's lack of scouting early game is compensated for by their strength in map control and map vision. The game is too dynamic and fluid to allow for a case where every race is equal in every single aspect. That would be chess where all the units and moves available are the same. The only difference is the colour of the pieces. So I still side with Day9. The game and players need more time to improve and figure things out.[/hide]

Objectively? Yes there is, here's one way: I agree you must use AI, then you would need both AI to have a set of optimal strategies (2rax, hellion/banshee, bio all-in etc). Then each strategy should have the same likelihood to be picked by the AI. Have the AIs play 1000 games. In a balanced world pWin(Race)=.50 Therefore, each race should have something close to 500 wins. That's how you check for strategic imbalance. Check results, identify powerful strategies and tweak them accordingly. If unsure one can always redo this exercise with only the problematic strategies.

The game and players need more time to improve and figure things out but this can take years and in the process and you will have some of the negative effects I listed above.

[JackhammerIV]

Objectively? Yes there is, here's one way: I agree you must use AI, then you would need both AI to have a set of optimal strategies (2rax, hellion/banshee, bio all-in etc). Then each strategy should have the same likelihood to be picked by the AI. Have the AIs play 1000 games. In a balanced world pWin(Race)=.50 Therefore, each race should have something close to 500 wins. That's how you check for strategic imbalance. Check results, identify powerful strategies and tweak them accordingly. If unsure one can always redo this exercise with only the problematic strategies.

The game and players need more time to improve and figure things out but this can take years and in the process and you will have some of the negative effects I listed above.

I believe i mentioned something like that. The problem is that in SC2 hard counters are very prevalent. It can pick randomly to open but the AI must be smart enough to be able to adapt if given information that the opponent is doing something else. That's why i said it had to be like chess AI. It not only knows all the strategies but it has to think and make minimal mistakes.

Given a set of scouting information it would obviously face a number of possible strategies that the opponent may be making and thus have to make a choice between strategies in order to "counter" the opponent. Overall it seems too complicated to make an AI that good just to test for imbalance.

[Rake]

Something small that I would like to add:

I feel like the zerg is very fragile throughout the game. What I mean by this is that Zerg has to stay ahead for the whole game in order to win and a single slip-up can mean instant death.

It seems like for other races and other matchups if one player gets behind he can defend and have a chance of making a drop or winning a key battle and coming back. Whereas a zerg can be far ahead and slightly over commit his army, which is then vaporised, and then the zerg gets steamrolled with no chance of defending.

I would like to note that this is just a feeling that I get from watching a lot of games and is not something that I can really quantify. I would be interested to see if other people feel the same way.

[JackhammerIV]

Something small that I would like to add:

I feel like the zerg is very fragile throughout the game. What I mean by this is that Zerg has to stay ahead for the whole game in order to win and a single slip-up can mean instant death.

It seems like for other races and other matchups if one player gets behind he can defend and have a chance of making a drop or winning a key battle and coming back. Whereas a zerg can be far ahead and slightly over commit his army, which is then vaporised, and then the zerg gets steamrolled with no chance of defending.

I would like to note that this is just a feeling that I get from watching a lot of games and is not something that I can really quantify. I would be interested to see if other people feel the same way.

Very true. It was something they hoped larger maps would address. Since on a larger map the zerg can engage closer to their opponent's base and so there's more time to replenish their army.

Zerg is heavily position based. Perhaps zergs need to be more careful where and how they decide to engage. Like i remember at dreamhack invitational Idra lost to MC mostly because of one mistake of attacking into a narrow passageway with his army.

[Wankey]

I agree very much with Idra's position. Zerg and early scouting. Many times I've gotten beat with early pushes and early voidray or what not. Basically Zerg is at a very heavy disadvantage early game and is prone to quick attack basically because their units cannot reslistically block off a ramp and they cannot scout.

Protoss has this issue only until till the map hacking observer. But the problem is that Protoss and Terran have defensive options against everything. Build stalkers and marines and you can pretty much defend yourself against any threat early game. However for Zerg, you don't have any realistic anti-air until late mid game. You have to rely on queens which can easily be picked off since they're so immobile.

So what really needs to be done is some massive tweaks to the zerg race.

Either make them different / ie more aggressive, or give them much easier ways to scout / defend against various tactics.

I've been playing Toss / Terran lately and there are just simply so many options for them and so many different and unique strategies I can do. For Zerg, you realistically cannot do anything, there are 2 opening strats that you can do. You can't fast tech to lurker and drop them, because there just aren't lurkers.

I feel Zerg just was misdesigned or they ran out of ideas. None of the zerg units realistically use the various game mechanics well like burrow / cloak / cliff walking etc.

The original Roach may have been overpwoered but it was hell of a lot of fun with its fast moving burrow attack.

[JackhammerIV]

I agree very much with Idra's position. Zerg and early scouting. Many times I've gotten beat with early pushes and early voidray or what not. Basically Zerg is at a very heavy disadvantage early game and is prone to quick attack basically because their units cannot reslistically block off a ramp and they cannot scout.

Protoss has this issue only until till the map hacking observer. But the problem is that Protoss and Terran have defensive options against everything. Build stalkers and marines and you can pretty much defend yourself against any threat early game. However for Zerg, you don't have any realistic anti-air until late mid game. You have to rely on queens which can easily be picked off since they're so immobile.

So what really needs to be done is some massive tweaks to the zerg race.

Either make them different / ie more aggressive, or give them much easier ways to scout / defend against various tactics.

I've been playing Toss / Terran lately and there are just simply so many options for them and so many different and unique strategies I can do. For Zerg, you realistically cannot do anything, there are 2 opening strats that you can do. You can't fast tech to lurker and drop them, because there just aren't lurkers.

I feel Zerg just was misdesigned or they ran out of ideas. None of the zerg units realistically use the various game mechanics well like burrow / cloak / cliff walking etc.

The original Roach may have been overpwoered but it was hell of a lot of fun with its fast moving burrow attack.

Well....I think you mean for terran make bunkers and for protoss make sentries. Stalkers and marines aren't the ultimate defensive units. And you say maphacking observer as if many protosses get many observers and they move really quickly.

What 2 opening strats can zerg do then?? Speedling opener. Hatch first. Spanishiwa style. Roach opening. There's a bit more variety than you propose. Obviously roach openers don't work so well cross map on a large map.

Zerg can be quite aggressive in the early-mid game. That's why the other races walloff ramps against zerg. Zerg does lack the sort of unit design polish and thought compared to the other races. Hopefully Blizzard addresses that in the expansion.

[Wankey]

You really only have Speedling / roach / hatch first. That's it. And most of the time you *must* go hatch first otherwise you're behind. And if he has a hellion / marauder / marine army against your speedling / roach army, it's GG for you instantly.

There's no combo where you can say I out matched him, since most of his units are *geared* to kill yours. Banelings are almost a requirement in every match up now, I sometimes even get banelings before speedlings. They're just that effective against everything. Bane/roach push is incredibly deadly early mid game.

However, other than out macroing and going 200/200 games or doing specific unit combo pushes, there aren't many "surprise" opportunities for Zerg and I think that is the biggest problem.

Roach burrow movement is far too slow and the whole color indictor of burrowed movement makes them terrible. I almost don't want the enemy to be able to see, it takes surprise completely out of the equation. The second he sees tunnelling claws he'll get some kind of detector.

I think in the end the real problem with Zerg is

a) forgivability: None of the zerg macro abilities help you with mistakes. Missing a supply? Drop supply, need more minerals? drop mule Need faster research? drop chrono boost want to 4gate? save up chrono boost. Those are all cool usages of macro mechanics. However, the whole larva situation is annoying. You HAVE to keep up with it otherwise you're disadvantaged far more than you would be with toss or terran. Making a mistake with Zerg costs you much more than Terran or Toss.

b) early scoutability: Overlord move so slow, and supply blocking a race that requires fast reaction is far worse than doing otherwise. Most of the time you have to be making drones to boost your economy because your units are so weak.

c) No anti-air as a side effect: Building stalkers or marines will automatically mean you have a solution for mutas or other anti-air harass. You have to wait till tier 2 or invest heavily in a non-mobile unit.

I think that's all Zerg really needs to be fixed. a and b are critical for HotS to fix.

My suggestion: Zerg should've been the one with the radar tower. I don't see why Terran should have a radar tower since they already have scan. Zerg just needs a few more options

Terran had reapers (which need to be buffed back into play, they were awesome) cloaked banshees

Toss has dark templars, sentries, blink stalkers

Zerg really doesn't have much in terms of effective harass or game changing units. Mutas are now hard countered by so many units they're pretty much a joke unless used in a specific counter to certain builds (marine siege tank, but once mass thors come into play, you better pray)


I think at the end of the day, the Zerg was designed on the original small maps that Blizzard played a lot. The 1v1 rush maps and zerg was a great, you could 6 pool or even 10 pool to victory. Now that it's all about macro, and zerg's weaknessest are starting to show.

I can't wait for HotS, finally Zerg will either be more complete and way more fun to play or they will screw us over so bad by adding so many useful units to terran / toss and nothing really useful for us.

[JackhammerIV]

You really only have Speedling / roach / hatch first. That's it. And most of the time you *must* go hatch first otherwise you're behind. And if he has a hellion / marauder / marine army against your speedling / roach army, it's GG for you instantly.

There's no combo where you can say I out matched him, since most of his units are *geared* to kill yours. Banelings are almost a requirement in every match up now, I sometimes even get banelings before speedlings. They're just that effective against everything. Bane/roach push is incredibly deadly early mid game.

However, other than out macroing and going 200/200 games or doing specific unit combo pushes, there aren't many "surprise" opportunities for Zerg and I think that is the biggest problem.

Roach burrow movement is far too slow and the whole color indictor of burrowed movement makes them terrible. I almost don't want the enemy to be able to see, it takes surprise completely out of the equation. The second he sees tunnelling claws he'll get some kind of detector.

I think in the end the real problem with Zerg is

a) forgivability: None of the zerg macro abilities help you with mistakes. Missing a supply? Drop supply, need more minerals? drop mule Need faster research? drop chrono boost want to 4gate? save up chrono boost. Those are all cool usages of macro mechanics. However, the whole larva situation is annoying. You HAVE to keep up with it otherwise you're disadvantaged far more than you would be with toss or terran. Making a mistake with Zerg costs you much more than Terran or Toss.

b) early scoutability: Overlord move so slow, and supply blocking a race that requires fast reaction is far worse than doing otherwise. Most of the time you have to be making drones to boost your economy because your units are so weak.

c) No anti-air as a side effect: Building stalkers or marines will automatically mean you have a solution for mutas or other anti-air harass. You have to wait till tier 2 or invest heavily in a non-mobile unit.

I think that's all Zerg really needs to be fixed. a and b are critical for HotS to fix.

My suggestion: Zerg should've been the one with the radar tower. I don't see why Terran should have a radar tower since they already have scan. Zerg just needs a few more options

Terran had reapers (which need to be buffed back into play, they were awesome) cloaked banshees

Toss has dark templars, sentries, blink stalkers

Zerg really doesn't have much in terms of effective harass or game changing units. Mutas are now hard countered by so many units they're pretty much a joke unless used in a specific counter to certain builds (marine siege tank, but once mass thors come into play, you better pray)


I think at the end of the day, the Zerg was designed on the original small maps that Blizzard played a lot. The 1v1 rush maps and zerg was a great, you could 6 pool or even 10 pool to victory. Now that it's all about macro, and zerg's weaknessest are starting to show.

I can't wait for HotS, finally Zerg will either be more complete and way more fun to play or they will screw us over so bad by adding so many useful units to terran / toss and nothing really useful for us.

Well I hope that means you recognise there's more than 2 openings for zerg. If hellion/marine/maruader is so effective...how do pro-gamer zergs stay alive to reach late game?? In a lot of games they rely on speedlings alone to survive.

SC2 all units are geared to kill other units. Surprise opportunities are not how you want zerg to win. It's basically saying things like "Herp derp you didn't manage to scout it and weren't prepared. Insta win." Surprise opportunities are basically then just build order losses. Zergs still have some of that where they go for aggression while the opponent goes for a long game. Then the opponent can lose. That's the idea of the whole revival of heavy ling/roach pressure vs 3gate sentry expo.

For a) True that zerg gets punished more for messing up their macro mechanic. But i would say that's on purpose to give zerg a different feel. It makes zerg different. It opens up a lot of instant mass production that the other races can't easily match. It certainly helps zerg reach max much quicker than the other races.

For b) Well they do have an overlord speed upgrade. You gain additional utility from overlords. They can move. Terran supply depots can be used for walloffs. Protoss pylons can be used for warpins. Overlords in SC2 give you map vision, scouting and creep spread. If overlords moved too fast in the early game it would greatly change the whole scouting situation. It might even be the case that zerg has to be nerfed if overlords move quicker in early game. SC2 is a game of hard counters. Being able to see exactly what the opponent is doing makes hard countering easier. Thus, why i say if zergs can scout easier it might mean zergs would have to take a nerf on some units.

For c) Well you have at least 2 queens. Best case you have 3 queens because you realise the importance of creep spread. In that case you already have an anti-air defense for the early game until you get hydras/spire tech. That early in the game there is not much air wise that 3 queens can't handle. The only exception is like a crazy all-in like 2port banshee or 2 stargate.

Zerg don't need the sensor tower. Zerg has overlords that can provide greater map vision than a sensor tower. Terran needs the sensor tower because their strongest units which is mech are slow and immobile. The sensor tower enables them to effectively position their mech better.

Mutas aren't meant to counter anything. They're a pure harass unit. Run in, kill things and run with every muta alive. Additionally zerg has infestors and burrowed roaches for harass. Fungal on mineral lines is pretty sick to watch. And neural parasite can completely turn battles if done well.

Funny how the larger maps actually seem to be bad for zerg which is considered the macro race and more reliant on having time to prepare defenses. On a small map like Steppes making a set of drones instead of units and zerg can end up instantly dead. On a larger map you can try to delay the opponent until you are ready.

I don't think you should wait for HotS for "Zerg to be fun to play". At this point you can say that it's very possible all the races aren't being played properly. Especially true for zerg you might say. For months people have been saying zerg shouldn't try to engage 200 vs 200 and instead make many small attacks. And that small attack style is only recently becoming more common with double pronged attacks and drops. And the recent Spanishiwa build sort of completely changes how you think about zerg openings being very fixed. I still believe zerg needs a lot more experimentation. The game isn't completely figured out.

[RamiZ]

You really only have Speedling / roach / hatch first. That's it. And most of the time you *must* go hatch first otherwise you're behind. And if he has a hellion / marauder / marine army against your speedling / roach army, it's GG for you instantly.

You totally ignored that it is not just about opening and unit composition but also about unit positioning and micro. Mutas/Lings/Banelings don't counter Tanks/Marines, it is vica versa, Tanks shoot the Banelings and then stimed Marines wipe the floor with other Zerg units, but you still see so many Pros going for this unit composition and still win with it. Why? Because they know when to engage and how to micro them, you won't be able to beat Terran with pure A-Click. So, Roaches/Lings/Banelings can kill Marauders/Marines/Hellions, you just need to engage in right time, or you can add few Spine Crawlers and turtle.

a) forgivability: None of the zerg macro abilities help you with mistakes. Missing a supply? Drop supply, need more minerals? drop mule Need faster research? drop chrono boost want to 4gate? save up chrono boost. Those are all cool usages of macro mechanics. However, the whole larva situation is annoying. You HAVE to keep up with it otherwise you're disadvantaged far more than you would be with toss or terran. Making a mistake with Zerg costs you much more than Terran or Toss.

This is true, but I would rather punish the Terran and the Protoss for making mistakes than making Zerg more forgiving.
There are plenty of ways to do that, giving Mules cooldown, it doesn't have to be long cooldown, let it be 20 sec, but they won't wait till they reach 200 energy and just Drop 4 Mules, they will have to come to base every 20 sec or so, if they have energy of course to drop them.

b) early scoutability: Overlord move so slow, and supply blocking a race that requires fast reaction is far worse than doing otherwise. Most of the time you have to be making drones to boost your economy because your units are so weak.

I agree with this one.

c) No anti-air as a side effect: Building stalkers or marines will automatically mean you have a solution for mutas or other anti-air harass. You have to wait till tier 2 or invest heavily in a non-mobile unit.

This is false. The sooner you start to look at the Queens as units and not as mobile Hatcheries, the sooner you will understand that Zerg has pretty good anti-air.

My suggestion: Zerg should've been the one with the radar tower. I don't see why Terran should have a radar tower since they already have scan. Zerg just needs a few more options

In my opinion, none of the Races should have Radar Tower... Pro Terran players don't use it much and I don't know why, when it basically is Map Hack, you see half of the map with it, and how should I harass you when you know exactly from where I will attack?
@JackHammer Yes, but Terran also has Bio Army, which is a little weaker but more mobile than Mech army, so they don't really need Radar Tower. As I said, a lot of Terran players don't even make these, and they are doing just fine.

Terran had reapers (which need to be buffed back into play, they were awesome) cloaked banshees

Toss has dark templars, sentries, blink stalkers

Zerg really doesn't have much in terms of effective harass or game changing units. Mutas are now hard countered by so many units they're pretty much a joke unless used in a specific counter to certain builds (marine siege tank, but once mass thors come into play, you better pray)

I disagree completely, did you try Baneling bombs? Burrowed Infestors/Drops? Burrowed Roaches rush? Nydus? There are plenty of ways with what Zerg can harass, people just aren't using them for god knows what reason. Baneling Drops and Infestors are, I would say, one of the Strongest harasses in the game. If you don't see Hellion Drops, they will burn you 5-8 Drones, you will notice them then and you will do something about it. You can do absolutely nothing about Banelings or Infestors, they will kill you 20+ workers in few seconds, and you won't even notice.

And Mutas are far far from useless, maybe vs. Terran they are less useful, but they aren't useless at all, you see many Pros still goes for Mutas instead of Infestors. And vs. Protoss, Mutas are just too strong, especially with HTs nerf, you can snipe HTs before they get the energy for Storm. Archons are buffed now, but they are slow units, they are basically Thors with 3 range. Take a look at the Dimaga vs. Incontrol, and how Mutas rape Protoss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sObsO...layer_embedded

I can't wait for HotS, finally Zerg will either be more complete and way more fun to play or they will screw us over so bad by adding so many useful units to terran / toss and nothing really useful for us.

They will come up with something interesting and fun that is for sure. And now Sen is going to the Blizzard headquarters so he can actually help them about race balance. We will see, but the game is going to be just more balanced than before.