Zerg officially suck

[alexamasan]

Hmm, when you look at the statistics, it seems that the percentages of zerg in the top of each league is higher than the overall percentage of people who play zerg. It seems like we're doing pretty well.

[Wankey]

WTF graphs are you looking at?

P, T, Z:
Diamond top100:
28.71% (29) 48.51% (49) 19.80% (20)
Diamond top200:
28.40% (71) 47.20% (118) 22.80% (57)
Platinum top100:
29.70% (30) 39.60% (40) 21.78% (22)

Still less people. But that doesn't really say much. I think Zerg are just designed stupidly with absolutely no synergy and little thought (I'm guessing they designed zerg pretty much as an afterthought after finishing terran and toss)


Look at the idiotic design decisions with Zerg:

Units move slower off creep: Enforces a defensive play style for a race that is supposedly incredibly mobile. This is probably the biggest reason why Zerg simply suck at the moment. Creep doesn't add to gameplay, rather it detracts from it since zerg players would rather want to fight over its own creep.

Creep should be a beneficial part of the zerg armory rather than a detrimental part. Instead of slowing (which is incredibly bad idea, Dustin Browder himself said they'd never add in slowing areas into the map because they detract from gameplay and yet Zerg has slowing areas EVERYWHERE where there isn't creep)


Spawn Larva: Enforces a repetitive and none beneficial nature of gameplay, forgetting a chrono boost or mule won't debilitate your army, but forgetting spawn larva means you build 60% less (not even slower, 60% LESS)
Not only that, you cannot store your spawn larvas as much as you can store chrono boosts or mules for that specific time. Spawn larva is a one time thing, if you miss it, you miss it and you're at a disadvantage. How many times have I spawned 5 mules because my macro went to hell or chrono boosted every research in my base or added 3 supply depots because I was out of supply? Food blockage? Insta fix! Spawn larva is worse than food blockage.

Inject health: Enforces only extreme micro play and perfect timing. Since spawn larva usually should be taking up all your mana, and spawn creep tumor is used whenever you have extra, inject health is very seldom used or even available. Because of the fact that spawn larva + creep tumor is 25 energy, this works against the way this spell can be used. At least with terran, all the spells cost 50 mana, so if you're on the 50 mana cycle and need to scan, most often than not you'll just ignore the mule and scan instead. With spawn larva taking half your energy most of the time, you'll never realistically have a reactionary way to use inject health ever unless you plan to use it.

The lack of a multirole in tier 1: Every race has a multirole unit in tier 1 or tier 1.5. Whether it's marines or stalkers, you always have a way to deal with air. Not with Zerg, Zerg is all in ground or have a weak ground and wait to tech to tier 2. This I think is the biggest problem with Zerg. I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish with this decision because it increases the slipperly slope in balancing. Without a multi role unit in tier 1.5, there is no middle ground and therefore no forgiving tactics.

Lack of massing units with Zerg: Zerg was all about massing units and replenishing them at your base immediately. They've successfully made the latter part true but the former has been pretty much wiped from the game. I think I hear NEED MORE OVERLORDS more than I do playing Protoss and that's just wrong.

[Nicol Bolas]

I'm guessing they designed zerg pretty much as an afterthought after finishing terran and toss

Which only shows how little time you spent actually watching the development of SC2.

All three races got lots of interesting, unique ideas during development. As expected, some of these ideas simply didn't work and were removed.

The main difference is the proportion of them removed. The Zerg had plenty of interesting mechanics, but almost all of them were slowly but surely whittled away. The other two races lost things too, but not nearly as much as the Zerg.

The Queen went from being a Unique master-of-all-Zerg-defense to being a larva-making machine. The Roach went from being neigh-unkillable to being just high Hp. And not even that high per-supply cost. Crawlers went from being tactically mobile defense to only strategically mobile defense (if they weren't in position when a battle starts, they won't be anytime soon).

The thing is this: I understand why the Roach regen was effectively taken away. And I agree with it. However, once the regen was taken away, the unit should have been replaced wholesale with something else. But by the time they had decided to do this, it was too late for them to create whole new units.

The Zerg were not an afterthought. They were poorly designed, but not because they were an afterthought.

What was it that I always said about Zerg units? That there were 3 generalists, and all other units existed to support them in some way. Blizzard broke that rule in SC2, and the Zerg are paying the price.

Zerglings ought to be anti-ground. But they were nerfed to the point where their only powerful attribute is speed. Hydralisks should be the ultimate generalists, but they were nerfed into a lower Hp, higher tech Dragoon; useful for GtA but otherwise without purpose. Mutalisks are as they were before, but that's about it. Roaches tried to be anti-ground, right up until they were nerfed into extinction.

Every Zerg unit is now a specialist, which makes Zerg over-reliant on being reactionary. There is no safety net with the Zerg, nothing that you can build that will let you survive until you get the proper counter.

[Wankey]

Sorry I followed this game as closely as you followed it (if not closer) so please don't use this online e-peen crap. I've critiqued every screenshot that was released and read everything you read. They are definitely designed as an afterthought since blizzard didn't realistically start designing them until they were finished with Terran and Toss.

Models weren't even in the game until Terran were all but finished. Samwise said himself zerg is finally "playable" around when the Terran announcement was released. So it was all theorycraft until they actually got down to designing the game.

To me, poorly designed and afterthought come hand in hand. Design takes time and iteration after iteration.

The points you make, I agree whole heartedly but cut the crap sometimes.

You make the point yourself "The thing is this: I understand why the Roach regen was effectively taken away. And I agree with it. However, once the regen was taken away, the unit should have been replaced wholesale with something else. But by the time they had decided to do this, it was too late for them to create whole new units."

An afterthought. They removed regen, and didn't have time to design something to replace it. That is the definition of design afterthought, oh lets do something to hack it to make it work. But lets not actually spend 3 years designing the race.

I hope they completely redo the zerg when the first expansion comes along, rather than make a few dumb changes to "balance out" the game.

Also, it's pretty clear that zerg were designed last. When ideas don't work, you remove them and think of other ideas. This takes time, and eventually I think they ran out of time and just tried to make it work through balance. Turned out to be a terrible race with absolutely no improvement over the original.

[GRUNT]

I don't get the comments that Zerg are poorly designed - I think that they and Protoss feel the most 'right'.

Taking away the Roach regen doesn't change its intended role as a relatively meaty assault unit.

However Zerg may have originally been envisaged, it's clear that Blizzard ended up designing them as a heavily mechanic-focused race. That's part of the reason why they feel good to me - if you maintain your larvae spawning, your creep spreading, identify and parry your opponent's harass so you don't lose too many drones, then you will outmacro your opponent and win through sheer brute force.

It doesn't bother me in SC2 that Zerg lack the 'creative' options of Terran and Protoss, because when Zerg get the chance to be played successfully, they win the way they were intended to win - by raw mechanical power. To me, that feels really Zergy - no trickety tricks, just sheer strength.

Of course, none of this is to say that Zerg are too weak at the moment. I do think that while Zerg are a well-designed race, they aren't as well balanced as Blizzard would hope, and there is a distinction between the two.

Zerg are a reactive race. There's nothing wrong with that. It's only a problem if it's unrealistically hard to tell what your opponent's up to, and that is what I feel the current problem is. Mainly against Terran . Dustin Browder said that one of his concerns with the expansion packs is adding too many units and options to the races so as to render scouting information much less useful. Well, one of my gripes about Terrans is that that problem already exists.

I'm not saying it's impossible to tell what Terran's up to (Idra's gamesense is pretty ridiculous), but it is very, VERY hard to tell what Terran is capable of at any given point in time.

Even Morrow, who tried to use a fast expand build against Tarson in the IEM tourney was surprised that Tarson could get fast Hellions AND still get Banshees quite quickly. If Morrow isn't totally aware of what his own race is capable of, you can just imagine what it's like for a Zerg player who needs to be aware of not only all of the possible build 'archetypes' (ie - 4warpgate rush), but also all of that archetypes's myriad permutations.

I think Blizzard figured that top-level Zerg would see pro players playing enough games to have really good gamesense, and can thereby succeed with Zerg even with fairly limited scouting information. However, at the moment, even the best Zergs are still really struggling. That's why Zerg vs Terran can feel like wins just come down to chance - if Zerg successfully scouts exactly what Terran's up to, then Zerg can perfectly react, outmacro, and win; but if Zerg can't successfully scout, then they can only make an educated guess, giving Terran the opportunity to pull off a devastating harass which cascades into a win.

It's a really tight rope to balance because Blizzard doesn't want to make it TOO easy for Zerg to tell what Terran's up to, but at the same time, Blizzard has to ensure that Terran has enough options to actually be a threat to a good Zerg.




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[Blazur]

Personally, I think the Zerg are the least diverse in terms of strategies and unit composition. Plus they've evolved the least from SC1. So many units were brought back unchanged or in a rehashed role, and there's not much new. As a random player I enjoy them the least.

[HydraHydra]

I can win with Z if I have enough time to mass hydras and get nydus worms.

Because worms are not just surprise attack, but also instant escape. x3

[Andromines]

You can complain all you want about learning curve and skill ceilings, but when stuff like this happens:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=155310

You know there's a problem.
The ONLY Zerg left in the GSL is raging about how Zerg suck. DIMAGA already wants to switch to terran because of how terrible it is.
The truth is the Zerg are inferior to the other two races. Skill can compensate for it to an extent, but at the top level of competition (i.e. the GSL), Zerg just can't handle Terran and Protoss.

[Corgon]

I think Zerg kinda suck mid-game, and the fact that you have to waste a worker to build a building sucks.

But you do get to build units faster, so im not complaining.

[13thLegion]

The problem with balancing is that it doesn't happen overnight and what appears to be a small change can turn into a huge issue. Remember, the original wasn't balanced for a couple years and it may be true that Zerg need a little loving. You only have to give Blizzard time which appears to be too much for some people...