Wow corruptors pwn collosi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krAe-iolMkA&feature=search
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"If we are the only mammals that cannot take care of ourselves out of the womb, how are we here?" - GoldHP

Like kith said its about options. Zerg has to expo, speedlings, to w/e, has the Terran can go mass reaper or bio or mech. But zerg late game is way better then terran late game. Its hard to say so many people complain about imba just because they can't play the game.
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Anti-Jabroni

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Originally posted by DrunkeN
Like kith said its about options. Zerg has to expo, speedlings, to w/e, has the Terran can go mass reaper or bio or mech. But zerg late game is way better then terran late game. Its hard to say so many people complain about imba just because they can't play the game.

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There is a huge thread on this topic over at the battle.net forums and a few at TL as well. Here was what a few of the pros said:

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Originally posted by idra
cool is playing almost 100% random on ladder, check is starting to play some protoss because "zerg cant win vs protoss" and every other korean zerg thinks its just as bull!@%% as the foreigners do.

korean zergs are barely any more represented in the highest ranks than foreigners, half the time the top 10 is 7 terrans 2 protosses and whichever 1 of 5 zergs happened to hit a win streak recently.
they need to start by bringing back the phase 2 build time changes, reaper barracks zealot +5 seconds and the bunker back to 40 or w/e it was. those should have pretty significant effects so while other stuff may be needed we have to see what happens when that is changed first, because zergs early game 100% needs help.

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Originally posted by Artosis
actually every top z is at the brink of insanity atm. they just dont say it publicly.

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Originally posted by TL Admin wrote
Mod Edit: There is a reason this thread remains opens while other "whine" threads have been closed - that's because this isn't a whine thread. This is a serious discussion detailing many of the issues that Zerg are currently facing. The OP is the 5th best Zerg in the USA, this isn't some Bronze newbie, he knows his !!%* - so listen to him."

MasterAsia wrote:
I know this thread may look similar to many of the others. But I did not see a ZvT comparison of SC2 and BW. I did not want to conclude that Z v T is totally worse than it was in BW, but I think this comparison will at least show why Z v T is so hard now in SC2. Sure of course I admit Zerg has some advantage from BW to SC2, so it is not totally worse.

The most serious problem is I have very little fun playing Z v T.

just checked the sc2ranks and I am now no.5 Zerg in the US server. The first 4 Zergs are SLush, ostojiy, IdrA and Sheth (who plays Terran now). They are totally beasts,

definitely a lot better than me. BTW they are the only Zergs in top 40. Here I just want to present what I observed and thought of. Sorry for my poor English writing.


First I want to state my opinion of the current situation of Z v T. It is totaly broken.



Some may argue two facts:



(1) Idra has a very decent win ratio;

(2) Koreans are doing fine with zerg.

Those two facts lead to total misunderstandings.

I have two points to mention. One, Idra is definitely playing in a pro scene, while the terran players around his points are all ameteurs.

Two, Idra got those win-ratio very early in the release, when Terrans are not so imba. Terrans are improving very fast, while Zergs improvement is very slow.

During the first week of release, I have no problem playing with the Terrans who now rank at top 50 US and won a decent amount of games. During the second week, my win ratio against Terran drops, still not so bad. Now in the third week, it becomes a nightmare to play against Terran (I don't even want to mention that 70% of my opponents are Terrans since I got my position in ladder now). They are almost the same players, but now they are definitely more aware of how to abuse the Terran advantages.

I did not say the race Terran has changed since the release. I just say when it was first released, Terran players were not so abusive. They were not so aware of what they can do.For the Korean scene, I noticed that the number of top Zergs rapidly droped as well, which confirms my statement about Terrans getting better.

To sum up the reasons why Terran has this huge advantage. I would compare it to BW, in 6 different aspects.



1, As Sheth mentioned, Zerg has no ability to defend against sieging or to siege.



http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=140800



Thanks to Sheth, quite well stated post.



2, The Terran is very flexible with strategies, but Zerg is not.



In Z v T, Terran has at least 10 openning strategies that are considered effective against good Zergs. I just list some here:

reapers,

hellions,

banshees,

fast expand,

mass bio/marines,

ghosts/nukes,

tank rush,

pure mech,

dropships,

vikings...



What do Zergs have? They have speedlings or roaches. Basically we have to choose one of this. (don't mention baneling bust please. It is not effective against good Terrans) Neither of those two method is a threat to Terran. They are only defensive (that means the Terran can open as whatever he likes). And roaches are badly countered by nearly every strategy of Terran even when those strategies are not designed to counter roaches. So speedlings becomes nearly the only solution. Too few choices of Zerg, versus too many choices of Terran. We only have 1 base or 2 base openings, usually as a reaction to the Terran strategy rather than a choice by ourselves.

While in BW, things are different. Lurker is possible, muta is possible, speedling is possible, hydra is possible as well. Also 1 hatch is possible, 2 hatch is possible, 3 hatch is possible, fast upgrade is possible... Those are nearlly all possible against most of the Terran strategies, and they all lead to different mid-games.

3, The Terran mobility is too good comparing to the Zerg ground army.

I did not say Terran has a better mobility, which is obviously false. But Zerg needs a much better mobility in SC2. In BW, the slowest unit of zerg army is the upgraded hydralisk, which can outrun any terran army very easily. That means, if you are in bad position, you can choose to retreat and hold a better position. In SC2, the hydras and roaches are relatively slow off creep, and you can not have creep everywhere to attack at your desired directions. That makes Zerg extremely difficult to surround the Terran army and attack from several directions (which is common in BW). This point is very critical. Now terran has reapers and helions as very fast units, and they counter the fast units of Zerg (Zerglings and Banelings), so the Terran army is usually guarrenteed a moderate position when the fight begins. It is very different from that in BW, where T is always surrounded by Zerg units.

4, Zerg army is hard-countered, and Terran army is slightly-countered.



For each unit or unit combination of Zerg, Terran can find a very effective unit or unit combo to counter it hard. Ex. Muta - Thors/Ghosts, Broodlords - Vikings, Roaches - Marauders/Tanks, Hydra - Bio/Tanks/Thors, lings - Helions... unit combo: Muta&lings - bio/Thors&Helions, Roaches&Hydras - Marader&Tanks/Mech, Zerg everything together - Mech...

The only unit that is not hard-countered is the ultralisks, but it comes too late, and you can't use it along. Ultra&lings is slightly countered by mech.



On the other side, if you see terran goes hard marauders/mech, you don't have anything really counter them. Zerglings might be good against Marauders, Banelings good against marine, but the combo is only slightly good (or even) against Marau & Marines with good control due to the fact that Marauders consume all the damage and marines are really good DPS.

That raises the problem, that even if the Zerg knows exactly what the terran is going to do, it can not find a good counter to the Terran army. Recall in BW, the mech consists of two major units: Goliaths and tanks. If the T goes heavy on Goliath, the zerg will make more hydras. If the T goes heavy tanks, the zerg can make all mutas. Switch between those two units is very effective in Z v mech games. The reason is Hydras totally own goliaths and Mutalisks kill tanks free. But in SC2, I can't see any switch that is so effective. Changing from Muta to Roaches or Hydras does not help so much with killing Thors...

6, The new AI helps Terran too much.

(1) In SC2 unit turn to get into a ball - good for tanks, ravens to kill zerg, also good for marauders to consume damage for marines, good for thors to block the tanks, etc.. Also good for Terran to reposition their reinforcement very quickly. It used to be a pain to let the newly-made Terran units to cooperate perfectly with the attacking army in BW.

(2) The auto-repair thing is terrible. Zerglings do not attack the repairing scv, so if a thor is being surrounded and auto-repaired, no zergling will do any damage to it unless you force them to attack scvs one by one. Not to mention that the scvs around a thor is very difficult to catch.

(3) Tanks do not waste DPS.. They are too smart to avoid self-damage now. If you spawn infested terran in the middle of a ball of Terran tanks, only one tank will fire, and it is not a big deal. In BW the tanks around the infested terran will all die instantly.

I do not enjoy playing Z v T now. Too few strategies, too long time of defending and reacting, getting destroyed so easily. It seems like I am a machine just sitting there defending all those reapers hellions banshees vikings dropships thors .... finally I have the freedom to choose to do something, then 2 minutes later I get owned. ............ It is not fun. Really not fun.

I will not switch race to terran like someone said, but I will keep complainting. We Zerg users choose Zerg for a reason, and all of us want Zerg to be playable again.

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there seems to be a lot of validity to zerg being weak vs terran but lol @ quoting idra and artosis, two of the whiniest bitches to ever log onto b.net
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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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I think zerg have been raping pretty hard in tournaments, people are starting to learn how to use them and the arguments are starting to lose steam. Lately I've been having a much harder time dealing with protoss as zerg than terran. I've actually been losing my tvz matchups and winning my zvt matchups on the ladder. But I find that when I'm playing toss, I can easily win by ling rushing because everybody and their mother does some weak ass 1 zealot choke while they 4 gate.. It's pretty cheap and I don't get much satisfaction out of the games but if I don't exploit them early I get run over by 4 gate pushes.

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Originally posted by turtleman@can
I think zerg have been raping pretty hard in tournaments, people are starting to learn how to use them and the arguments are starting to lose steam. Lately I've been having a much harder time dealing with protoss as zerg than terran. I've actually been losing my tvz matchups and winning my zvt matchups on the ladder. But I find that when I'm playing toss, I can easily win by ling rushing because everybody and their mother does some weak ass 1 zealot choke while they 4 gate.. It's pretty cheap and I don't get much satisfaction out of the games but if I don't exploit them early I get run over by 4 gate pushes.

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I'm playing top diamond ranks. I'm actually saving every replay of it happening because messiah doesn't believe that I'm winning that way. Since I started saving my replays a few days ago I've already got 3 of them against top ranked diamond players losing to my 10 OL/pool ling rush in that exact scenario. I honestly don't think I've ever lost a zvp using the strat. It's kind of cheesy but it's not like I'm 6 pooling.

I'm telling you, it is garbage. Unless you have major baneling plans it can't work. It is too easy for toss to get a good choke and just keep chronoing out zealots. If he starts to lose ground he can just seal further back.
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I have hacks in my brain and I use them.

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Originally posted by turtleman@can
I'm playing top diamond ranks. I'm actually saving every replay of it happening because messiah doesn't believe that I'm winning that way. Since I started saving my replays a few days ago I've already got 3 of them against top ranked diamond players losing to my 10 OL/pool ling rush in that exact scenario. I honestly don't think I've ever lost a zvp using the strat. It's kind of cheesy but it's not like I'm 6 pooling.

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You can't tell me it doesn't work when I just raped 3 more players with it, 2 of them terran and all of them experienced high level diamond players who scouted it beforehand. Your only chance to survive it as protoss is to go hard zealots, if you build a core I will rape you.

And it's not any more all in than a DT rush, VR rush, reaper rush, etc. The reason is because I am guaranteed to do damage that compensates for the risk. I am either going to kill you or set you back to the stone age where we're on a level playing field.

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Originally posted by turtleman@can
You can't tell me it doesn't work when I just raped 3 more players with it, 2 of them terran and all of them experienced high level diamond players who scouted it beforehand. Your only chance to survive it as protoss is to go hard zealots, if you build a core I will rape you.

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Originally posted by turtleman@can
all of them experienced high level diamond players...

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there are like 50 diamond divisions I mean shiit I'm rank 2nd diamond with 661 pts so beating a suppose "experienced high level diamond player" doesn't mean nothing. Playing in a tournament beating high level players means something.
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Anti-Jabroni

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Originally posted by BanMe

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Originally posted by turtleman@can
all of them experienced high level diamond players...

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Lot's of diamond players still blow, hell even Messiah is diamond along with pretty much everyone else here who plays a decent amount.

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Being in diamond on starcraft 2 is like being the equivalent of knowing what s9 is in wc2

being top 10 diamond doesnt mean shit. Its point based.

In my division, the top 6 spots are players with 1k points or more.
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"I tend to thougoughly enjoy my encounters significantly more with 120+ types, as I find them more stimulating. 100-110 people are okay too operating at full capacity." - Paper_Boy

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Originally posted by 7VlesSiah

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Originally posted by BanMe

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Originally posted by turtleman@can
all of them experienced high level diamond players...

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Lot's of diamond players still blow, hell even Messiah is diamond along with pretty much everyone else here who plays a decent amount.

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I'm top 10 diamond

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Originally posted by 7VlesSiah

I'm top 10 diamond

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I wouldn't say being diamond means nothing. I've got a friend who's not that bad, he's got like 200 games played on ladder and is still in the gold division.
http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all
shows roughly 50k diamond players and 400k players in other divisions

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Originally posted by turtleman@can
I wouldn't say being diamond means nothing. I've got a friend who's not that bad, he's got like 200 games played on ladder and is still in the gold division.
http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all
shows roughly 50k diamond players and 400k players in other divisions

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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Originally posted by BanMe

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Originally posted by 7VlesSiah

I'm top 10 diamond

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Yes 804 points after 235 games - we're in awe

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No need to hate on messiah just because he is taking the ladder seriously.

Yes the ladder isn't a 100% accurate indication of one's skill, but still doing well in diamond means you have at least a basic understanding of the game.

Focusing on ladder can be silly though, it's a lot different playing a game with the intention of mastering it in the spirit of competition, than it is trying to climb some ladder that blizzard doesn't even take seriously since they base their top 200 on mmr.

I don't think basing the top 200 on mmr is not taking the ladder seriously. It's just using the backend data to give a more accurate list. It basically shuffles the players that only play when they have bonus points down or the players that luckily play unskilled opponents over and over again. So all they're doing is taking your statement that it isn't 100% accurate on ladder points alone, and making it more accurate.

ladder points are a joke. They are using an inflationary system that is totally unstable. The current system rewards people who play a lot. If they were smart, they'd have an internal stable rating system like ELO. That is the stable system used in chess that gives a rating that accurately gauges skill.

From reading how they gathered the top 200 player list, I think they do have a stable internal rating system.
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I have hacks in my brain and I use them.

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Originally posted by 7VlesSiah
ladder points are a joke. They are using an inflationary system that is totally unstable. The current system rewards people who play a lot. If they were smart, they'd have an internal stable rating system like ELO. That is the stable system used in chess that gives a rating that accurately gauges skill.

From reading how they gathered the top 200 player list, I think they do have a stable internal rating system.

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Originally posted by from some guy commenting on gamasutra


I read this thread carefully and wish to throw in my two cents, mostly because I have experience with chess rating systems. I also played Warcraft III ladder (mostly 1v1) for several seasons and found the system used for that game quite satisfactory.

In short, I disagree with most of what the author of the original article / blog is saying. From reading through numerous threads, to me it is apparent Blizzard's system will well serve the bulk of its customer's in practice. Let's consider firstly what the goals are of a good rating system. From this standpoint, we can then evaluate Blizzard's design choices for Battle.net 2.0.

First, any good rating system will stratify players according to their approximate skill levels. Thus players will have a good chance (when selecting auto-match) of being paired against opponents of comparable skill. This gives players a challenging but not psychologically devastating experience: when the ratings settle over a large population of players, the vast majority of people will win 40-60% of their games. Why is this? Because a good rating system is based on probability. The computer therefore knows when it matches you up (assuming your rating is a good measure of your skill and likewise for your opponent) the most likely outcome of the game. It can therefore deliberately select opponents in your skill range; i.e., opponents who you will have a 25-75% chance of defeating.

Second, a good rating system will be able to evaluate a player's skill based on his or her performance with a relatively small number of games. It is unrealistic to expect this to be possible in just 10 multi-player games, though! If you haven't played 50 games, your rating in any system will be highly uncertain. This uncertainty will decrease with time as you play more games, allowing your rating to more precisely measure your skill level.

Third, a good rating system will allow rapid advancement of players who are demonstrating real improvement in their playing ability. This means allowing players who are winning games against higher rated players to be able to earn points rapidly, and thus reach a rating more representative of skill level. It is often the case in skill-based games that improvements don't occur linearly but in bursts (i.e., a step function). At some point, the brain clicks with a new way of thinking about the game, and improvement in performance can thus occur rapidly. A good rating system can track this effectively.

To counter-balance my third point, however, a good rating system is stable. It thereby provides a real benchmark of progress in learning the game. You know when your rating increases significantly that it is an indication of improved skill and not just luck because to advance up the ladder significantly, you have to demonstrate consistently the ability to compete with better players.

Now to the examples of Warcraft 3 and chess before returning to the original point of why I think the Battle.Net 2.0 system will work fine. First, I am an "A" player in chess with a rating from the US Chess Federation of 1837, which puts me in about the top 15% of rated US players. So, I'm nothing special but am somewhat above average.

The categories above me are "Expert" (2000 - 2199), "Master (2200 - 2399), and "Senior Master" (2400+). The best players in the US, nearly all pros (or were at one time), are in the 2600-2800 range. It is very rare for an amateur player to exceed 2400. Incidentally, 2200 strength is almost exactly the 99% point in the ratings distribution. Even though the exact rating precisely describes a player's performance to date, people in the chess world very frequently use the terms above to describe players' skill levels: E, D, C, B, A, Expert, Master, and Senior Master.

To continue the chess example, my rating has been stable for a long time but has recently started to increase (fairly rapidly). Why? Because I picked up a few chess books from Amazon.com and started reading them. I am not drastically better than I was, but my performances are a little improved. But my win ratio is very consistent---a sign of an excellent rating system.

In season 3 of Warcraft III, I reached my peak of level 25 on the solo (1v1) ladder. At that time, I was playing people well matched to my playing strength and winning about 50% of my games. I was "stuck" at WC3 Level 25 because I had not made the mental leap required to significantly improve my skill. I did not just get rewarded by rating increases for playing hundreds of games. To increase above 25, I would have had to show real progress in playing ability, which I never achieved. Hence, the ladder worked perfectly for my case.

So, let's look at the Starcraft 2 system by comparison. Blizzard is assigning people true skill ratings. But they're also assigning people to "leagues" of medals. This is pretty much the same as A-player, Expert, Master, etc., in chess. It's a courser way of describing someone's skill that has independent value to the rating itself. Why? In chess, the reason is clear. In the chess rating system, 200 points is the threshold of what one would consider a significant difference in playing ability. Mathematically, a player rated 200 points above me has a 75% chance of winning the game.

So, it seems to me the Starcraft 2 system presented in the Beta encapsulates the best features of the rating systems I've seen. People are consistently saying that after a significant number of games (25+), they start to get paired against players of comparable strength. Furthermore, as in chess, what league you're in is a rough estimate of your skill, though of course your rating backs it up.

Finally, I have read in Blizzard FAQs that the division rankings have nothing to do with who you play. They're just a way to let you know how close you are to the next league above you. The author also complains about not getting paired with people in his league. But why should the match-maker be restricted to this? How else would mobility through the ladder be possible? Leagues are just a rough indicator of your playing strength, just like the term "Expert" or "B-Class" in chess, nothing more.

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what is mmr
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lol @ tman quoting these giant sperg texts in order to prove he's a true pro for being on the "not a fucking idiot" ladder
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quote:

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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