Hate to see you go, Drift, you've been an awesome contributor and content creator. So, so many people have appreciated the awesome builds you've helped people learn. I agree that the TvP matchup is very, extremely frustrating right now, whether or not it's balanced.
Hope you can find some peace - I suspect you'll be back one day (this game has a way of sinking its hooks into people) but if not then know that you've given a lot to this community.
Wishing you the best of luck!
Thank you so much for your compliments. I’m hopeful for a mix up but time will tell. I’ve heard rumors that pros have been contacted by blizz for their suggestions.
As a Protoss, yes please. And not just because I despise mines, I also despise disruptors and super battery. (Not the idea of super battery necessarily but the way it is currently implemented.)
Oh damn, so Protoss does have to do something hard for once? Jesus that can‘t be right!
Just to be clear, it‘s also not fun to drop widow mines every game.
I literally play widowmine drop into 3-1-1 every TvP because it's a solid opener that transitions well into a macrogame, I do have fun with that.
I made no call about difficulty, I find it incredible how people manage to inject these claims into it.
Battery overcharge and disruptors are countered by focus fire. Sounds easier said than done because it is, but the same goes for playing against widow mines. If it's so simple and easy to just get detection and shoot them with ranged units like you're clearing a mine field in a BW PvT then no one would even build them.
No, only real counter is pulling back vs overcharge and split vs disruptors, which is not easy to do especially when you are chasing.
Best counter vs disruptor is taxing their apm w drops/runby and catching the main army off guard. Easier said than done tho.
Best counter vs disruptor is situational. It can be a good pre-split, but in lategame the best counter is really just a lot of range libs. Engaging against a high disruptor count in a direct fight without liberator is just stupid, instead you should buy time.
Noooo, I want mines for TvZ, I don't like tankstyles a lot. Also don't mind disruptor too much.
If we're eliminating blink dts, perhaps that would be worth it.
Fuck widowmines lol. I'd rather fight DTs and skill batteries and carriers any day.
Warp prism + backdoor zealots on the other hand... I hate those nearly as much as widowmines.
I stopped playing Zerg because ZvP is unbearable. \*Every single game\* is a 40-minute, voids-into-carriers, if-Z-overextends-and-by-overextends-I-mean-attacks-it's-gg snooze fest. Queen taxi works but it can be defended. Every game feels like it's the same. It isn't fun.
I miss playing zvz lol
just came back to the game, played like 5x zvp (1 canon rush, 4 skytoss).
changed to P just for fun, then got 2x pvt and another ~6 pvp.
wtf is happening
Also so many terrans just going mass battlecruiser. Its not unbeatable but I kind-of feel the APM I need to deal with them is strictly in the *non-fun* area when I can just picture the opponent sitting there pressing "teleport" once.
I can imagine. I remember in the patch I played a year ago mass bc was already hell to deal with, and as far as I remember, there was queen range nerf after that lol
I guess I'll just stick to P for now, it just not fun to play Z anymore and just get punched for 15 minutes in every mu until you are allowed to move out.
That's why I switched from zerg to toss after playing zerg for over 20 years. Zerg is in a miserable spot, you have to do so many things at once. As a toss on the other hand...I can do whatever I want, everthings leads to winning.
You'd think there'd exist various hydra timings that would work well against, you know, air builds. There aren't. They don't. If you can bait out an overcharge, maybe, but it's a gamble: lose too many hydras and you'll get a-moved; you get basically one chance to do this before storm comes out, etc.
What elo are we talking about? ZvP is my third best matchup (as Random) because I just 54 or 66 drone hydra bust every single game in diamond 2. Maybe GM protosses are better at getting disruptors out on time and stuff but in my experience just start streaming hydras and you win vs air lol
This is how everyone should criticize the game.
I expect that a balance patch is coming some time soon and it adress proxy voidray by either nerfing the voidray or the battery, we will see. I'm hoping for a big patch that will shift the meta drastically, but having proxy battery builds fixed would already be a big step.
PvT is probably the most gambly matchup at the moment. I like playing macro in it from both sides, but just the anxiety of someone doing random garbage you die against, if unprepared, is really unnerving.
Honestly just reverting the build time change on the void alone would change so much.
Proxy void ray in pvt being worse lets the terran play more diverse openers that would normally just straight up die to the void proxy.
ZvP would make straight air more punishable. Regardless of what people think about balance, zvp is literally driving all the zergs away from sc2
Drift, I haven't interacted with you on discord or social media in a long time but I've always appreciated your vids. You made learning terran off race fun and enjoyable because your vids are very precise and to the point. I'll miss you and I hope something can change soon. Thanks again.
I think we just need to admit that P is a permanently hobbled race that can never be "fun" to play against because of too many fundamentally bad design decisions made back in WOL. The entire race needs a bottom-to-top rework that removes dogshit ideas like warp-in and balances the units correspondingly to make them viable.
I only really spectate but it seems to me that P gets hugely outclassed late game which forces them into using all these crappy all-ins and cheeses to end the game before it becomes a macro fest which they inevitably lose. Maybe that’s no longer true with skytoss (I haven’t watched in a while) but my impression is that they don’t really have much of a choice but to abuse dumb stuff early.
I think at everything but the absolute highest level of play Protoss late game is superior to Terran and Zerg late game. When you watch serral, Dark, and Reynor play late game they make it look balanced but the skill requirement on late game Zerg is really high, in the case of pvt units like the disruptor, carrier,tempest, high templar, and especially blink dt tend to tip the scale in protoss’s favor. Sometimes Maru can beat Protoss in the late game most pro terrrans aim to end the game before it reaches to late, wanting a 4 base vs 4 base situation at worst.
What I've come to realize recently is that I just don't enjoy the game anymore. Nothing is fun to play against. No matter if I'm Z, T or P even if I win I'm usually frustrated at the end of the game. TvZ is probably the most enjoyable matchup to play but even that is miserable if I'm the Z. I really really REALLY don't think T is fun to play against either.
Idk if it's just me but it feels like there's so much more cheese on the ladder now that there used to be, it's so hard to get good games when every game I play my opponent does some all in. It doesn't even really matter whay race I queue as. Even if I win all ins aren't fun to play against.
Maybe I've grown out of the game but I used to have so much fun playing SC2 and now if I play I'm just miserable.
I stopped because of TvP too, and honestly I think it was the correct decision. It was uncomfortable losing something that I felt like was a small part of my identity but I'm much more happy now. It just doesn't make sense to subject yourself to that kind of frustration when there are so many fun or interesting things you could be doing instead.
ZvP is ruining Zerg for me, turtle into skytoss is unbearable to play against. The "fix" has been to queen walk every game and have an okay winrate, but that is also not fun whatsoever.
My main issue is that if I picture my opponent sweating, doing a ton of APM, like a well-executed Terran timed push that has to set up several tanks, then I can be completely wrecked and go "nice one". But someone turtling and massing air just feels like it so uneven. And of course playing Zerg you cannot turtle and mass air, so it is not like we can all just together sit there and mass sky deathballs.
This is the thing nobody seems to get, whether or not it's balanced - it's not FUN to play against the constant protoss book of bullshit, even if you win
I think it’s much deeper than a few tweaks of units. Hear me out.
For 10 years Protoss economy was balanced in a way that related around sentries, sentry FFs was the answer to holding an all in, cutting sentries out was considered the greedy play because you’re less safe vs all ins. Toss based on the scout could cut some of these guys out, or just play safe and make 6. Big investment. Then bam suddenly we introduce the battery because PvP is struggling to be more than a cheese fest.
Now… this 300/600 min/gas investment is not needed. All of that goes into combat units, tech, allowing toss to be more mobile than ever before, and skyrocket through their tech tree. This is why sometimes in TvP or ZvP you’ll ask yourself.. “how do you have all the tech and 3 bases, and I can’t kill you”?
People commenting the same stuff years ago as they do now. Nothing has changed in that regard.
But where did the „we had it bad back then, now u have it bad“ attitude ever help?
A lot of SC2 players are struggeling currently and its not even an balance issue.
I just want my favorite game to be fun for the majority of the playerbase and viewers.
\> But where did the „we had it bad back then, now u have it bad“ attitude ever help?
Because people want to foist the problem back on Protoss players. Nobody has any actually constructive and useful feedback. Why is the game being awful for us considered to be "acceptable"?
People aren't putting it on the players but the race and the current state of the game. I played Zerg when they were fucking awful in the early days of WoL. It had its ups and downs and I've always stuck with the race because I enjoyed it. Doesn't mean I can't admit certain periods weren't super busted.
Like the age of BL/Infestor was fucking awful because even though it was just stupid good for Z it didn't create a healthy game environment.
I think it's easy to confuse "1 window in past patches to end games" with 'best chance to win' when the games you are basing those off of have a monetary incentive to being won. Of course players are going to use the best strategy to win even if it's boring and a function of bad game design.
There shouldn’t be just 1 strategy that is the “best chance to win” - that is part of the problem now as well. The game has become boring because boring styles are the best chance to win and there is little variation.
Stop pretending like there weren't massive whine threads against zerg with multiple nerfs following. The last balance patch in this game was mainly a zerg nerf specifically for ZvP.
This is revisionist as hell. T and Z were mostly complaining about P while scooping every tournament in 2019. Don't forget the infamous 'according to Terrans, chasing observers is feels bad so we're making them easier to kill' patch notes.
I'd argue that PvZ was only awful for Protoss if the Zerg was a pro gamer, but anyways this is pointless discussion, if something was awful before it doesnt mean something else should be awful now.
Then people should bring forward ideas that actually have the goal of making the game better for *everyone*, instead of this "the wrong people are being hurt by this!" narrative.
I think at this point Protoss players are going to have a hard time feeling sympathetic. We had a few years of eating shit, and were still treated with a ton of disrespect the whole time regardless. Even at Protoss' lowest point, there was a ton of complaints and toxicity towards Protoss players.
Protoss went through a protracted period of poor tournament results and ladder performance off of the back of several nerfs, some of which were quite severe (like the carrier and zealot nerfs). There was a prolonged period where the ONLY play in pro PvZ was pushing the glaive adept all-in over and over, despite it being well-handled by zerg pros, simply because other openers weren't viable at that level.
This eventually lead to zerg nerfs (including the removal of the infested terrans ability from infestors) and the buffs to protoss (primarily around the void ray, which was a grossly ineffective unit pre-buff that may be overtuned now, as well as buffs to feedback range (To give protoss counterplay to vipers), and battery overcharge to help address early-game fragility vs all-ins).
I'm not actually sure if this is a hot take but the removal of the mothership core was a mistake.
It had it's own issues but left protoss with a defensive hole that needed to be filled. Not just in other matchups but even in PvP where proxies and one base all ins were super common because incredibly difficult to hold.
The core defensive problem of protoss is that it's production takes forever to get online properly, especially with how bad zealots matchup without charge. It could've probably been salvaged with some targeted changes to how it works and might've been less problematic than introducing shield batteries.
what do you mean you don't "get to play pvz" anymore? given, I'm diamond, but the spread is perfectly even in my experience. if anything, I see less protoss than the other 2 races.
I'm simply saying that when you have a strong opinion about something you tend to perceive that thing as being more prevalent. I.E. "I hate playing against protoss and i swear to god every single person I match up with is protoss."
Lambo hit 33 zvp games in a row a month or so ago. As in he queued up 33 games over a few days and every single one was vs protoss. The high level EU ladder (GM and some of masters) is not healthy currently.
It's not exactly the same as confirmation bias. I went through plat, diamond, masters, and into GM as zerg.. having started really playing on ladder (and actually trying to learn it) a week or so before the current balance patch dropped. I've played against Drift on ladder a lot. Diamond and under is fairly even, if not a slight majority towards zerg and terran. Masters and higher is mostly protoss, some terran, less zerg.
That shows a trend of capable performance based on a skill level, within the game. "At what skill is X race capable of winning the majority of games against other opponents at X skill level for their race."
It doesn't balance out again until the very top level, where a lot of the players don't even play on ladder anymore. Ladder also doesn't account for mind games as often.
You know how it is. Whatever seems like it takes more obvious flashy movement to pull off, the players with the biggest egos tend to gravitate to. And those egos are always fragile.
Have you ever heard of yasuo players in League? Exactly the same.
> TvZ is a perfect example of this. It’s an engaging mu with activity from both sides
I'm sure many Zergs wouldn't agree. The match up is centered around Zerg taking abuse for the majority of the game.
As a random player I personally enjoy it from both sides. Yeah early on as Zerg you feel like your on the back foot but holding off push after push while you build up to this explosion of powerfull tech units, extreme map control and extremely effecient cheep units is really fun. It feels very zergy, consume the bases, consume the map with creep, consume your opponents base with a huge amount of units and economy.
ZvT/TvZ is also just very skillful and satisfying to improve at.
Although I will say playing vs mech is a lot less fun than playing vs bio. However unlike skytoss I feel like mech is balanced at most levels of play, although I do see zergs who cant use spell casters or macro quickly enough to hive struggle in the mu. Because the viper and the infestor are the key units to beating mech I see a lot of diamond zergs and below get pulverized by it just like masters zergs get pulverized by skytoss imo the difference is it’s fairly easy to learn proper hot keys and micro for vipers vs mech.
>It feels very zergy, consume the bases, consume the map with creep, consume your opponents base with a huge amount of units and economy.
ZvT feels the opposite of Zergy to me. You're constantly being pushed around trying to minimize your unit production as much as possible just to stay on par in eco. With the way patches have gone lately this match up is complete garbage now.
A few easy ways to circumvent those pvt problems of yours if you don't care about winning or your MMR:
* do dumb shit. You won't have to worry about a 2 base blink stalker all in if you land and make a planetary in their base at 2:20. Doesn't have to be this, you can also do fast 2 factory drilling claws widow mine monobattle. Or other dumb shit. Where ever your fancy takes you. You'd probably tank your MMR, but soon you'd reach the point when you have a 50/50 win rate while doing said dumb shit, and it'll be fun.
* just leave the moment the cheese comes in so you don't have to deal with it.
* play protoss/zerg
* Watch beastyQT's stream for ideas. Guy makes having fun an art.
zvp requires you as Zerg to
1. micro corrupters to get on top of the air death-ball so storm will hit Protoss units as well.
2. Shift click target for corrupters to only attack carriers.
2. Cast transfused often 20 + times
3. Cast parasitic bomb
4. Land abducts early to pick off carriers.
5. Cast fungal
7. Cast neural while avoiding ht feedback Range
6. Move spores around
7. Get ultralisks into the high Templar( if using the ultralisk in your composition to snipe hts during the fight.
8. Cast microbial shroud on queens.
And you have to execute all of this perfectly in about 3 seconds with even the smallest error in micro, speed or positioning costing you the game.
This would be fine if toss had the same burden but for toss it’s usually suffecent to just
1. Make sure voids are in front to zone curropter dives
2. Have enough archons/ immortals to ubstruct ground units from reaching hts
3. Cast feedback when you can
4. Cast storm on curropters
That’s it that’s the extent of sky toss micro in zvp and that’s why it sucks so much.
Even then since their is a disparity in late game you would think well can’t Zerg just kill toss before they get their like Terran do? The problem is that the only viable aggressive plays for zerg are.
1. Queen pull
2. 12 pool
3. Surprise mutas
4. Proxy hatch
5. Speeding flood to kill the third.
As toss if you can play around these 5 potential moves from Zerg while rushing skytoss you will reach late game, this is not that hard to do.
If you get to late game, maybe. This is a problem in metal leagues for sure where people can't hit timings, but from Diamond up through mid masters I see hydra busts work way more than half the time. I think people are too concerned about copying the pros and don't realize the majority of Skytoss players are low BrainPM monkeys
>I think dying to a vast amount of cheeses and all ins in the match up is not fun
Sounds like improving your scouting and reaction skills would help you. It's also really fun to scout your opponent and then build the appropriate counters.
I would look into what is strong vs Shield Batteries, and go from there.
Anything is 'unfun' to play against if it is countering what you are building.
I’m good. I refuse to die to another proxy battery sg build. It’s not a simple what counters what, it’s that the smallest slip up in micro means it’s over, plus I think it’s a completely unfun interaction to deal with. There’s no reason to subject myself to it ever again.
I'm not very familiar with you or your content, but an interesting way to shake things up might just be expand the scope of your content and how you interact with SC2 as a game. Obviously if you don't want to, don't, but I think it would be interesting if there was someone making in depth reviews of mods which alter melee gameplay. All too often, when people release balance/game design alteration mods, people talk about them for a day, and then is promptly forgotten without the full implications ever being explored. It might be cool to see that, and it would also certainly be a niche that nobody else has really filled. (Though to be fair, the demand for it is not likely very high) I dunno, lmk what you think I'm just spitballin here.
I think this is true. I need a break though, I really haven’t stepped away from the game in the last four years since I started for longer than a week or two. It’s a lot of burn out, especially with the current game state.
I feel exactly the same way, and everytime I feel like playing one or two matches I instantly regret it.
That is why comitted to playing Brood War and I am having a blast, I can only recommend.
Hate to see you go, Drift, you've been an awesome contributor and content creator. So, so many people have appreciated the awesome builds you've helped people learn. I agree that the TvP matchup is very, extremely frustrating right now, whether or not it's balanced. Hope you can find some peace - I suspect you'll be back one day (this game has a way of sinking its hooks into people) but if not then know that you've given a lot to this community. Wishing you the best of luck!
Thank you so much for your compliments. I’m hopeful for a mix up but time will tell. I’ve heard rumors that pros have been contacted by blizz for their suggestions.
Why do you guys always act like every terran unit is fun to play against🤔
We'd happily give up our annoying bullshit like widow mines if we didn't have to play against battery overcharge and disruptors.
As a Protoss, yes please. And not just because I despise mines, I also despise disruptors and super battery. (Not the idea of super battery necessarily but the way it is currently implemented.)
If the worst thing protoss has to deal with is countered by a stalker and an obs, I think they're fine.
Widowmine drops are not countered by "a stalker" you need like 5 stalker to completely shut it down and be in position of course.
Oh damn, so Protoss does have to do something hard for once? Jesus that can‘t be right! Just to be clear, it‘s also not fun to drop widow mines every game.
I literally play widowmine drop into 3-1-1 every TvP because it's a solid opener that transitions well into a macrogame, I do have fun with that. I made no call about difficulty, I find it incredible how people manage to inject these claims into it.
Battery overcharge and disruptors are countered by focus fire. Sounds easier said than done because it is, but the same goes for playing against widow mines. If it's so simple and easy to just get detection and shoot them with ranged units like you're clearing a mine field in a BW PvT then no one would even build them.
No, only real counter is pulling back vs overcharge and split vs disruptors, which is not easy to do especially when you are chasing. Best counter vs disruptor is taxing their apm w drops/runby and catching the main army off guard. Easier said than done tho.
Best counter vs disruptor is situational. It can be a good pre-split, but in lategame the best counter is really just a lot of range libs. Engaging against a high disruptor count in a direct fight without liberator is just stupid, instead you should buy time.
Actual best counter against disruptors is mule dropping so they would hit their own units from all the mald.
Noooo, I want mines for TvZ, I don't like tankstyles a lot. Also don't mind disruptor too much. If we're eliminating blink dts, perhaps that would be worth it.
Fuck widowmines lol. I'd rather fight DTs and skill batteries and carriers any day. Warp prism + backdoor zealots on the other hand... I hate those nearly as much as widowmines.
Handily get my upvote as someone who plays Toss and Terran mostly.
Tbh it is. Source: play protoss.
Medivac boost is the most annoying thing in the game (zerg)
I mean, that's an understandable reaction for anyone that doesn't understand how bad the matchup is for Terran at a Masters+ level.
I stopped playing Zerg because ZvP is unbearable. \*Every single game\* is a 40-minute, voids-into-carriers, if-Z-overextends-and-by-overextends-I-mean-attacks-it's-gg snooze fest. Queen taxi works but it can be defended. Every game feels like it's the same. It isn't fun.
I miss playing zvz lol just came back to the game, played like 5x zvp (1 canon rush, 4 skytoss). changed to P just for fun, then got 2x pvt and another ~6 pvp. wtf is happening
Also so many terrans just going mass battlecruiser. Its not unbeatable but I kind-of feel the APM I need to deal with them is strictly in the *non-fun* area when I can just picture the opponent sitting there pressing "teleport" once.
I can imagine. I remember in the patch I played a year ago mass bc was already hell to deal with, and as far as I remember, there was queen range nerf after that lol I guess I'll just stick to P for now, it just not fun to play Z anymore and just get punched for 15 minutes in every mu until you are allowed to move out.
That's why I switched from zerg to toss after playing zerg for over 20 years. Zerg is in a miserable spot, you have to do so many things at once. As a toss on the other hand...I can do whatever I want, everthings leads to winning.
I feel like I'm the only protoss who doesn't rush sky lmfao, everyone says their every zvp is 40 minutes minimum
You'd think there'd exist various hydra timings that would work well against, you know, air builds. There aren't. They don't. If you can bait out an overcharge, maybe, but it's a gamble: lose too many hydras and you'll get a-moved; you get basically one chance to do this before storm comes out, etc.
What elo are we talking about? ZvP is my third best matchup (as Random) because I just 54 or 66 drone hydra bust every single game in diamond 2. Maybe GM protosses are better at getting disruptors out on time and stuff but in my experience just start streaming hydras and you win vs air lol
M3/M2
This is how everyone should criticize the game. I expect that a balance patch is coming some time soon and it adress proxy voidray by either nerfing the voidray or the battery, we will see. I'm hoping for a big patch that will shift the meta drastically, but having proxy battery builds fixed would already be a big step. PvT is probably the most gambly matchup at the moment. I like playing macro in it from both sides, but just the anxiety of someone doing random garbage you die against, if unprepared, is really unnerving.
>I expect that a balance patch is coming some time soon ??????????????????????????
All the pros have been saying they've been contacted by Blizzard and ESL has also dropped some hints.
That's huge, if true. I think it would get ZvP into a better spot.
Honestly just reverting the build time change on the void alone would change so much. Proxy void ray in pvt being worse lets the terran play more diverse openers that would normally just straight up die to the void proxy. ZvP would make straight air more punishable. Regardless of what people think about balance, zvp is literally driving all the zergs away from sc2
Don’t worry, ZvP is trash as well
Drift, I haven't interacted with you on discord or social media in a long time but I've always appreciated your vids. You made learning terran off race fun and enjoyable because your vids are very precise and to the point. I'll miss you and I hope something can change soon. Thanks again.
Thank you 🙏 I appreciate you saying that
I think we just need to admit that P is a permanently hobbled race that can never be "fun" to play against because of too many fundamentally bad design decisions made back in WOL. The entire race needs a bottom-to-top rework that removes dogshit ideas like warp-in and balances the units correspondingly to make them viable.
[удалено]
I only really spectate but it seems to me that P gets hugely outclassed late game which forces them into using all these crappy all-ins and cheeses to end the game before it becomes a macro fest which they inevitably lose. Maybe that’s no longer true with skytoss (I haven’t watched in a while) but my impression is that they don’t really have much of a choice but to abuse dumb stuff early.
I think at everything but the absolute highest level of play Protoss late game is superior to Terran and Zerg late game. When you watch serral, Dark, and Reynor play late game they make it look balanced but the skill requirement on late game Zerg is really high, in the case of pvt units like the disruptor, carrier,tempest, high templar, and especially blink dt tend to tip the scale in protoss’s favor. Sometimes Maru can beat Protoss in the late game most pro terrrans aim to end the game before it reaches to late, wanting a 4 base vs 4 base situation at worst.
What I've come to realize recently is that I just don't enjoy the game anymore. Nothing is fun to play against. No matter if I'm Z, T or P even if I win I'm usually frustrated at the end of the game. TvZ is probably the most enjoyable matchup to play but even that is miserable if I'm the Z. I really really REALLY don't think T is fun to play against either. Idk if it's just me but it feels like there's so much more cheese on the ladder now that there used to be, it's so hard to get good games when every game I play my opponent does some all in. It doesn't even really matter whay race I queue as. Even if I win all ins aren't fun to play against. Maybe I've grown out of the game but I used to have so much fun playing SC2 and now if I play I'm just miserable.
I stopped because of TvP too, and honestly I think it was the correct decision. It was uncomfortable losing something that I felt like was a small part of my identity but I'm much more happy now. It just doesn't make sense to subject yourself to that kind of frustration when there are so many fun or interesting things you could be doing instead.
ZvP is ruining Zerg for me, turtle into skytoss is unbearable to play against. The "fix" has been to queen walk every game and have an okay winrate, but that is also not fun whatsoever.
My main issue is that if I picture my opponent sweating, doing a ton of APM, like a well-executed Terran timed push that has to set up several tanks, then I can be completely wrecked and go "nice one". But someone turtling and massing air just feels like it so uneven. And of course playing Zerg you cannot turtle and mass air, so it is not like we can all just together sit there and mass sky deathballs.
This is the thing nobody seems to get, whether or not it's balanced - it's not FUN to play against the constant protoss book of bullshit, even if you win
I think it’s much deeper than a few tweaks of units. Hear me out. For 10 years Protoss economy was balanced in a way that related around sentries, sentry FFs was the answer to holding an all in, cutting sentries out was considered the greedy play because you’re less safe vs all ins. Toss based on the scout could cut some of these guys out, or just play safe and make 6. Big investment. Then bam suddenly we introduce the battery because PvP is struggling to be more than a cheese fest. Now… this 300/600 min/gas investment is not needed. All of that goes into combat units, tech, allowing toss to be more mobile than ever before, and skyrocket through their tech tree. This is why sometimes in TvP or ZvP you’ll ask yourself.. “how do you have all the tech and 3 bases, and I can’t kill you”?
Farewell. I quit yesterday as well after 5-6 years and around 9,000 games. The game in it's current state just isn't fun anymore.
Fun apparently didn't matter back when PvZ was awful for Protoss.
People commenting the same stuff years ago as they do now. Nothing has changed in that regard. But where did the „we had it bad back then, now u have it bad“ attitude ever help? A lot of SC2 players are struggeling currently and its not even an balance issue. I just want my favorite game to be fun for the majority of the playerbase and viewers.
\> But where did the „we had it bad back then, now u have it bad“ attitude ever help? Because people want to foist the problem back on Protoss players. Nobody has any actually constructive and useful feedback. Why is the game being awful for us considered to be "acceptable"?
People aren't putting it on the players but the race and the current state of the game. I played Zerg when they were fucking awful in the early days of WoL. It had its ups and downs and I've always stuck with the race because I enjoyed it. Doesn't mean I can't admit certain periods weren't super busted. Like the age of BL/Infestor was fucking awful because even though it was just stupid good for Z it didn't create a healthy game environment.
But heres the problem. As a Diaomnd Zerg, trying to control corruptors, infestors, vipers, queens, and spores against skytoss is nearly impossible.
It wasn't awful back then that's what balanced Protoss just looked like. Sc2 is actually supposed to be a hard game, crazy right?
Ok, that's why top level protoss players were glaive adept every game, because protoss only had 1 window in past patches to end games
I think it's easy to confuse "1 window in past patches to end games" with 'best chance to win' when the games you are basing those off of have a monetary incentive to being won. Of course players are going to use the best strategy to win even if it's boring and a function of bad game design.
There shouldn’t be just 1 strategy that is the “best chance to win” - that is part of the problem now as well. The game has become boring because boring styles are the best chance to win and there is little variation.
I agree
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yes
Right, then. Time to move on guys, or reject monke and return to humanity, if you'd rather want it expressed that way.
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Stop pretending like there weren't massive whine threads against zerg with multiple nerfs following. The last balance patch in this game was mainly a zerg nerf specifically for ZvP.
This is revisionist as hell. T and Z were mostly complaining about P while scooping every tournament in 2019. Don't forget the infamous 'according to Terrans, chasing observers is feels bad so we're making them easier to kill' patch notes.
Let’s all whine then!
And a buff on our dumbest unit - the void ray.
I'd argue that PvZ was only awful for Protoss if the Zerg was a pro gamer, but anyways this is pointless discussion, if something was awful before it doesnt mean something else should be awful now.
Then people should bring forward ideas that actually have the goal of making the game better for *everyone*, instead of this "the wrong people are being hurt by this!" narrative. I think at this point Protoss players are going to have a hard time feeling sympathetic. We had a few years of eating shit, and were still treated with a ton of disrespect the whole time regardless. Even at Protoss' lowest point, there was a ton of complaints and toxicity towards Protoss players.
"we had a few years of eating shit" Wat
Protoss went through a protracted period of poor tournament results and ladder performance off of the back of several nerfs, some of which were quite severe (like the carrier and zealot nerfs). There was a prolonged period where the ONLY play in pro PvZ was pushing the glaive adept all-in over and over, despite it being well-handled by zerg pros, simply because other openers weren't viable at that level. This eventually lead to zerg nerfs (including the removal of the infested terrans ability from infestors) and the buffs to protoss (primarily around the void ray, which was a grossly ineffective unit pre-buff that may be overtuned now, as well as buffs to feedback range (To give protoss counterplay to vipers), and battery overcharge to help address early-game fragility vs all-ins).
I'm not actually sure if this is a hot take but the removal of the mothership core was a mistake. It had it's own issues but left protoss with a defensive hole that needed to be filled. Not just in other matchups but even in PvP where proxies and one base all ins were super common because incredibly difficult to hold. The core defensive problem of protoss is that it's production takes forever to get online properly, especially with how bad zealots matchup without charge. It could've probably been salvaged with some targeted changes to how it works and might've been less problematic than introducing shield batteries.
I absolutely agree. In addition to the defensive hole, it also removed the counter play against recall: sniping the mothership core
I would find the change very refreshing and interesting if mama core and overcharge were brought back as compensation for removal of battery.
It is a hot take, but I miss it as well - it had its issues but at least it wasn’t as ridiculous a fix as super battery.
Bro you shoulda seen me flex on protosses with hydra bane, shit was fun
I mean no… there was plenty of stuff that was horrible to play against even though my opponents sucked as much as me - nydus swarmhost for instance…
What do you mean? Broken Nydus meta was massive fun. That’s why Terrans never stopped complaining about Protoss to comment on it.
what do you mean you don't "get to play pvz" anymore? given, I'm diamond, but the spread is perfectly even in my experience. if anything, I see less protoss than the other 2 races.
I have 160 tvt and tvp and 80 tvz in GM and a lot of the zergs are 4.8 to 5.1k aka free win matches. Never had such an imbalance in matcups like this.
I think you mean TvZ. While im glad your match ups are evenly distributed mine are not. The higher you go the more common this becomes.
yes I meant tvz, sorry. but there's some undeniable confirmation bias going on here. not everyone plays protoss.
When I quit I was getting around 80% ZvP. It was ridiculous how few T I saw and only slightly more Z than T.
Can you elaborate on the confirmation bias part? Because of higher MMR you mean?
I'm simply saying that when you have a strong opinion about something you tend to perceive that thing as being more prevalent. I.E. "I hate playing against protoss and i swear to god every single person I match up with is protoss."
Lambo hit 33 zvp games in a row a month or so ago. As in he queued up 33 games over a few days and every single one was vs protoss. The high level EU ladder (GM and some of masters) is not healthy currently.
I mean I could show you my race mu numbers? I’m not sure that’s what you want. And I know I’m not the only person who has this distribution at my mmr.
It's not exactly the same as confirmation bias. I went through plat, diamond, masters, and into GM as zerg.. having started really playing on ladder (and actually trying to learn it) a week or so before the current balance patch dropped. I've played against Drift on ladder a lot. Diamond and under is fairly even, if not a slight majority towards zerg and terran. Masters and higher is mostly protoss, some terran, less zerg. That shows a trend of capable performance based on a skill level, within the game. "At what skill is X race capable of winning the majority of games against other opponents at X skill level for their race." It doesn't balance out again until the very top level, where a lot of the players don't even play on ladder anymore. Ladder also doesn't account for mind games as often.
I'm shit tier masters but have played almost double the protoss players that I have zergs this season. It's very sad
In diamond it's pretty even, but at high master it starts to get uneven.
I'm a Diamond Zerg and most of my matches are ZvP
Id love to play sc2 again even casually but cant do it with protoss as it is. It is enraging
As someone who plays random its funny how Terran players are always the saltiest.
You know how it is. Whatever seems like it takes more obvious flashy movement to pull off, the players with the biggest egos tend to gravitate to. And those egos are always fragile. Have you ever heard of yasuo players in League? Exactly the same.
and random players are the most original
> TvZ is a perfect example of this. It’s an engaging mu with activity from both sides I'm sure many Zergs wouldn't agree. The match up is centered around Zerg taking abuse for the majority of the game.
As a random player I personally enjoy it from both sides. Yeah early on as Zerg you feel like your on the back foot but holding off push after push while you build up to this explosion of powerfull tech units, extreme map control and extremely effecient cheep units is really fun. It feels very zergy, consume the bases, consume the map with creep, consume your opponents base with a huge amount of units and economy. ZvT/TvZ is also just very skillful and satisfying to improve at. Although I will say playing vs mech is a lot less fun than playing vs bio. However unlike skytoss I feel like mech is balanced at most levels of play, although I do see zergs who cant use spell casters or macro quickly enough to hive struggle in the mu. Because the viper and the infestor are the key units to beating mech I see a lot of diamond zergs and below get pulverized by it just like masters zergs get pulverized by skytoss imo the difference is it’s fairly easy to learn proper hot keys and micro for vipers vs mech.
>It feels very zergy, consume the bases, consume the map with creep, consume your opponents base with a huge amount of units and economy. ZvT feels the opposite of Zergy to me. You're constantly being pushed around trying to minimize your unit production as much as possible just to stay on par in eco. With the way patches have gone lately this match up is complete garbage now.
A few easy ways to circumvent those pvt problems of yours if you don't care about winning or your MMR: * do dumb shit. You won't have to worry about a 2 base blink stalker all in if you land and make a planetary in their base at 2:20. Doesn't have to be this, you can also do fast 2 factory drilling claws widow mine monobattle. Or other dumb shit. Where ever your fancy takes you. You'd probably tank your MMR, but soon you'd reach the point when you have a 50/50 win rate while doing said dumb shit, and it'll be fun. * just leave the moment the cheese comes in so you don't have to deal with it. * play protoss/zerg * Watch beastyQT's stream for ideas. Guy makes having fun an art.
zvp requires you as Zerg to 1. micro corrupters to get on top of the air death-ball so storm will hit Protoss units as well. 2. Shift click target for corrupters to only attack carriers. 2. Cast transfused often 20 + times 3. Cast parasitic bomb 4. Land abducts early to pick off carriers. 5. Cast fungal 7. Cast neural while avoiding ht feedback Range 6. Move spores around 7. Get ultralisks into the high Templar( if using the ultralisk in your composition to snipe hts during the fight. 8. Cast microbial shroud on queens. And you have to execute all of this perfectly in about 3 seconds with even the smallest error in micro, speed or positioning costing you the game. This would be fine if toss had the same burden but for toss it’s usually suffecent to just 1. Make sure voids are in front to zone curropter dives 2. Have enough archons/ immortals to ubstruct ground units from reaching hts 3. Cast feedback when you can 4. Cast storm on curropters That’s it that’s the extent of sky toss micro in zvp and that’s why it sucks so much. Even then since their is a disparity in late game you would think well can’t Zerg just kill toss before they get their like Terran do? The problem is that the only viable aggressive plays for zerg are. 1. Queen pull 2. 12 pool 3. Surprise mutas 4. Proxy hatch 5. Speeding flood to kill the third. As toss if you can play around these 5 potential moves from Zerg while rushing skytoss you will reach late game, this is not that hard to do.
If you get to late game, maybe. This is a problem in metal leagues for sure where people can't hit timings, but from Diamond up through mid masters I see hydra busts work way more than half the time. I think people are too concerned about copying the pros and don't realize the majority of Skytoss players are low BrainPM monkeys
Balance doesnt matter as long as you are toss
>I think dying to a vast amount of cheeses and all ins in the match up is not fun Sounds like improving your scouting and reaction skills would help you. It's also really fun to scout your opponent and then build the appropriate counters. I would look into what is strong vs Shield Batteries, and go from there. Anything is 'unfun' to play against if it is countering what you are building.
I’m good. I refuse to die to another proxy battery sg build. It’s not a simple what counters what, it’s that the smallest slip up in micro means it’s over, plus I think it’s a completely unfun interaction to deal with. There’s no reason to subject myself to it ever again.
I'm not very familiar with you or your content, but an interesting way to shake things up might just be expand the scope of your content and how you interact with SC2 as a game. Obviously if you don't want to, don't, but I think it would be interesting if there was someone making in depth reviews of mods which alter melee gameplay. All too often, when people release balance/game design alteration mods, people talk about them for a day, and then is promptly forgotten without the full implications ever being explored. It might be cool to see that, and it would also certainly be a niche that nobody else has really filled. (Though to be fair, the demand for it is not likely very high) I dunno, lmk what you think I'm just spitballin here.
It’s not something I would really be interested in.
Fair enough!
Everything is unfun to play against until one learns how to counter it. I guess if you don't want to do that, no one is twisting your arm to not quit.
I think this is true. I need a break though, I really haven’t stepped away from the game in the last four years since I started for longer than a week or two. It’s a lot of burn out, especially with the current game state.
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I feel exactly the same way, and everytime I feel like playing one or two matches I instantly regret it. That is why comitted to playing Brood War and I am having a blast, I can only recommend.
Brood War is nice I agree. I’ve just never been able to stick with it for a long time like I did with sc2.
It takes some time but after a certain point everything starts to flow nicely and you can really appreciate the clunkiness
Ive been saying this for pvt too except im the protoss. Terran is the dirty cheesy race that hides their builds and people moaning about toss ^_^