It's interesting that you mention that for 6 years, people came to think the Zerg players were just better. As someone who doesn't regularly watch competitive SC2 but popped my head in from time to time over those years, my first thought when seeing Zergs dominate consistently was "Huh, Zerg looks a lot stronger than the other races." The only exception was when Maru was just strangling every late game. Curious how being inside the scene vs. outside the scene can really change what seems "obvious."
I still love the idea of a mobile Planetary Fortress. has to transform, moves very slowly, can't shoot while moving but causes splash damage in front of it while moving, has to transform again to stationary to shoot again.
Great point about letting units be themselves and not be all balanced towards the average. If Tempest is long range let it be long range AND super weak like a paper airplane carrying a laser. Going mediocre is a lazy way to kill a great game. Oh and give Marines a collective bonus to encourage swarming marines!! Yoohoo!!!
Regarding the balance and unit identity issues you were discussing at the start of the game: I often think that games played as professional esports should have two different balance states, one for casual play and one for professional/tournament play. That way, Protoss could be buffed for professional play to make it relevant at the high end and could still be nerfed for casual A-move gameplay. Professional players would also benefit more from specific unit expression, since they are more likely to identify and exploit the diverse cases where Unit A or Unit B is relevant. Casual players tend to tunnel on a handful of successful strategies to the exclusion of everything else, so unit identity isn't as important to them. There are two obvious problems with this: twice the balance means twice as many work-hours for balance teams; and practicing on professional/tournament game state would be harder because of the smaller player pool.
Exactly. I always felt that Serral was good, but there is no way TvZ is fair when Serral can just go full heads-down macro and not worry about a thing in the world, while still having aggressive options. Terran must know what the Zerg is doing and deal damage somehow, while Serral can just sit there and macro. Of course he's going to win most of the time. Never felt fair.
your balance change suggestions would be way better for the game i believe than what they are doing now. but no, they gotta listen to the boring meta pros
Hey Marc! Cheers for another nice episode! :) I asked in the past, would you consider to put back the original death animation with blood & drag doll physic? Instead the black magical death smoke? As it´s one of the best part for years, when watching your play & all the action that is happening! :) I dunno, it feels so empty & dull with out it & missing out sometimes, onto what disappears & what does not, sometimes? :/ A little bet less entertaining as well, as if some music or sound was missing out? Saying it out in a polite way! :)
📌 How about the Battery Overcharge still be available, but only once each battery. It's like you have to think twice before using it or waste resources for more batteries. Mothership could land and collect minerals with 4 beams 2-3 minerals a sec each. No attack or spell ability after landing.
Even as just a viewer of sc2, I could tell Zerg was imbalanced. A lot of Zerg players kept saying Dark, Reynor, Serral were just super OP players, it had nothing to do with the race. After Clem became WC, they have been whining a river, saying Terran is OP. But not a glimpse of the thought: "Maybe it is Clem". Hypocrites.
B-b-but the ghost!!! Has... been a unit for a while, I know you dont nerf sth people don't use, as in before it becomes a problem, but sheesh the harassing race feels a little defensive and shit hits the fan. I guess thor drops it is muahaha
Aren't you the hypocrite one? Do you pay attention to the Terran Balance Council Patch just last week? The upgrades for Thors in particular are very strong with ghosts and libs. Zergs have no strong anti-air units in early games as +25 resources to build a queen, so you can't make a mass queen anymore to defend from Terran air units.
@@Cuticatie >have to research way more tech trees and cut production. obviously the past 6 years of roach allins before any turtling can happen didn't happen at all because we live one year at a time in this post truth society :D cope zerg cabal
If Zerg was OP for multiple years, why didn’t all the pro gamers switch to Zerg? Never understood why people would play on the underpowered team. Especially when their income depends on it.
@@manu-phatak they can’t switch. It takes years to develop race-specific mechanics and matchup-specific intuitions. Some people have switched races once, but those cases are rare. Certainly you wouldn’t see anyone switch because of meta, meta could change tomorrow. There’s a reason there are no random players in GSL.
Blizzard has had a long record of removing fun stuff. Started somewhere after brood war 😉 It must work on some level... I suppose. Feels like politics.
Just a comment with respect to Zerg being broken for so long. Wouldn't pros be incentivised to switch to the broken race for a competitive advantage? Isn't assessing the game state and making use of the available tools part of the skill in playing a computer game? Are pros stubborn and refuse to switch races on principle? Wouldn't the best measure of imbalance be how many pros play a certain race for a competition vs who wins with what race? Perhaps most pros did play Zerg during this time, I guess what I don't understand is if Zerg had such a significant competitive advantage why didn't everyone play Zerg? There was money involved, yes? If it's too hard to switch to that race and exploit the advantage, that would indicate to me the advantage isn't substantial, it's small enough that familiarity with a sub optimal race is a greater advantage.
@@worshaka it’s impossible to switch at that level, takes years to develop that level of mechanics and knowledge. Meta could change tomorrow, then what?.. Few have switched, and we only remember the ones that succeeded, but I don’t know a single player who was good with two races, ever.
@ it’s very big. It’s just that re-learning the game with a new race at 6.5k+ MME level is almost impossible, plus the meta could change the next day, so it’s not worth it.
@@alk672 I dont agree with that nonsense. Look at all the elite sports when competitve advantage is found. Just to use 1 sporting example in 100s. In basketball, players who could never shoot become extremely good at it, why? Because it adds competitive advantage. Al Horford made 21 three point shots in his first 8 years, he now has nearly 900 makes. There are countless examples of sportsmen changing their techniques or adding skills they never possessed. This is part of being an elite competitor and if it were possible to do, people do it. The gap isn't large enough for that effort then the gap isnt that large.
@ not a good example. A better example would be to transition from basketball to baseball. It’s that hard. Think about it this way: in pro StarCraft playing random is a tremendous advantage. Your opponent simply cannot play a vast array of builds against you just because you are random. Yet there are no elite StarCraft players playing random. None. It’s that difficult to play a different race. Another aspect where your analogy is lacking is this: learning to shoot is an incremental skill. The dude didn’t go from not shooting to shooting 30 times a game in a span of a single season. If you were to switch races though - you’d need to switch once and for all, immediately losing any potential for results for a long time. No-one will do it.
mom, uthermal is trolling the ladder again
*grabs popcorn*
At 14:50 you can hear ´´ its a trap'´ while the spore borrow and kill the bc 😂
It's interesting that you mention that for 6 years, people came to think the Zerg players were just better. As someone who doesn't regularly watch competitive SC2 but popped my head in from time to time over those years, my first thought when seeing Zergs dominate consistently was "Huh, Zerg looks a lot stronger than the other races." The only exception was when Maru was just strangling every late game. Curious how being inside the scene vs. outside the scene can really change what seems "obvious."
I still love the idea of a mobile Planetary Fortress. has to transform, moves very slowly, can't shoot while moving but causes splash damage in front of it while moving, has to transform again to stationary to shoot again.
Bulldozes creep
has legs like an actual turtle
I liked the using Yamato on the spawning pool at 16:50
Great point about letting units be themselves and not be all balanced towards the average. If Tempest is long range let it be long range AND super weak like a paper airplane carrying a laser. Going mediocre is a lazy way to kill a great game. Oh and give Marines a collective bonus to encourage swarming marines!! Yoohoo!!!
marc sounds so relaxed in this video
Regarding the balance and unit identity issues you were discussing at the start of the game: I often think that games played as professional esports should have two different balance states, one for casual play and one for professional/tournament play. That way, Protoss could be buffed for professional play to make it relevant at the high end and could still be nerfed for casual A-move gameplay. Professional players would also benefit more from specific unit expression, since they are more likely to identify and exploit the diverse cases where Unit A or Unit B is relevant. Casual players tend to tunnel on a handful of successful strategies to the exclusion of everything else, so unit identity isn't as important to them. There are two obvious problems with this: twice the balance means twice as many work-hours for balance teams; and practicing on professional/tournament game state would be harder because of the smaller player pool.
Exactly. I always felt that Serral was good, but there is no way TvZ is fair when Serral can just go full heads-down macro and not worry about a thing in the world, while still having aggressive options. Terran must know what the Zerg is doing and deal damage somehow, while Serral can just sit there and macro. Of course he's going to win most of the time. Never felt fair.
Terran could kill 20 drones in the 2 to 3 base timing and still easily lose.
Seen the new patch notes Marc? you're getting the old cyclones back
your balance change suggestions would be way better for the game i believe than what they are doing now. but no, they gotta listen to the boring meta pros
The void ray meta was so boring to play and watch and was awful to go against. I'm glad that got fixed.
Hey Marc! Cheers for another nice episode! :)
I asked in the past, would you consider to put back the original death animation with blood & drag doll physic? Instead the black magical death smoke?
As it´s one of the best part for years, when watching your play & all the action that is happening! :)
I dunno, it feels so empty & dull with out it & missing out sometimes, onto what disappears & what does not, sometimes? :/
A little bet less entertaining as well, as if some music or sound was missing out? Saying it out in a polite way! :)
But after the spore damage buff, all these BC builds will not be viable sadly
Het is lang geleden dat je weer in het rood speelt😜
Which patches made Zerg more balanced again?
Ah good ol' fashioned BCs my favourite unit
📌 How about the Battery Overcharge still be available, but only once each battery. It's like you have to think twice before using it or waste resources for more batteries.
Mothership could land and collect minerals with 4 beams 2-3 minerals a sec each. No attack or spell ability after landing.
Even as just a viewer of sc2, I could tell Zerg was imbalanced. A lot of Zerg players kept saying Dark, Reynor, Serral were just super OP players, it had nothing to do with the race. After Clem became WC, they have been whining a river, saying Terran is OP. But not a glimpse of the thought: "Maybe it is Clem". Hypocrites.
B-b-but the ghost!!! Has... been a unit for a while, I know you dont nerf sth people don't use, as in before it becomes a problem, but sheesh the harassing race feels a little defensive and shit hits the fan. I guess thor drops it is muahaha
Aren't you the hypocrite one? Do you pay attention to the Terran Balance Council Patch just last week? The upgrades for Thors in particular are very strong with ghosts and libs. Zergs have no strong anti-air units in early games as +25 resources to build a queen, so you can't make a mass queen anymore to defend from Terran air units.
@@Cuticatie >have to research way more tech trees and cut production.
obviously the past 6 years of roach allins before any turtling can happen didn't happen at all because we live one year at a time in this post truth society :D cope zerg cabal
whining bb :(
If Zerg was OP for multiple years, why didn’t all the pro gamers switch to Zerg? Never understood why people would play on the underpowered team. Especially when their income depends on it.
@@manu-phatak they can’t switch. It takes years to develop race-specific mechanics and matchup-specific intuitions. Some people have switched races once, but those cases are rare. Certainly you wouldn’t see anyone switch because of meta, meta could change tomorrow. There’s a reason there are no random players in GSL.
forst
Love me some BC games
Loove it! But you know what I love more? The BEYOND ALL REASON road to rank 1 let's gooooo!
Also... 1v1 me!
Blizzard has had a long record of removing fun stuff. Started somewhere after brood war 😉
It must work on some level... I suppose. Feels like politics.
Just a comment with respect to Zerg being broken for so long. Wouldn't pros be incentivised to switch to the broken race for a competitive advantage? Isn't assessing the game state and making use of the available tools part of the skill in playing a computer game? Are pros stubborn and refuse to switch races on principle? Wouldn't the best measure of imbalance be how many pros play a certain race for a competition vs who wins with what race? Perhaps most pros did play Zerg during this time, I guess what I don't understand is if Zerg had such a significant competitive advantage why didn't everyone play Zerg? There was money involved, yes? If it's too hard to switch to that race and exploit the advantage, that would indicate to me the advantage isn't substantial, it's small enough that familiarity with a sub optimal race is a greater advantage.
@@worshaka it’s impossible to switch at that level, takes years to develop that level of mechanics and knowledge. Meta could change tomorrow, then what?.. Few have switched, and we only remember the ones that succeeded, but I don’t know a single player who was good with two races, ever.
@alk672 then my point is the competitive advantage isn't that big.
@ it’s very big. It’s just that re-learning the game with a new race at 6.5k+ MME level is almost impossible, plus the meta could change the next day, so it’s not worth it.
@@alk672 I dont agree with that nonsense. Look at all the elite sports when competitve advantage is found. Just to use 1 sporting example in 100s. In basketball, players who could never shoot become extremely good at it, why? Because it adds competitive advantage. Al Horford made 21 three point shots in his first 8 years, he now has nearly 900 makes.
There are countless examples of sportsmen changing their techniques or adding skills they never possessed. This is part of being an elite competitor and if it were possible to do, people do it. The gap isn't large enough for that effort then the gap isnt that large.
@ not a good example. A better example would be to transition from basketball to baseball. It’s that hard. Think about it this way: in pro StarCraft playing random is a tremendous advantage. Your opponent simply cannot play a vast array of builds against you just because you are random. Yet there are no elite StarCraft players playing random. None. It’s that difficult to play a different race. Another aspect where your analogy is lacking is this: learning to shoot is an incremental skill. The dude didn’t go from not shooting to shooting 30 times a game in a span of a single season. If you were to switch races though - you’d need to switch once and for all, immediately losing any potential for results for a long time. No-one will do it.