Just made this video about the evolution of the ZvP metagame and why it makes me excited for the future of SC2 as a skilled based game. Thanks for checking it out ladies.
Ask yourself this then What if the way i "deliver" it is my way its still my opinion and my way of doing it just because you dont like it doesnt mean you have to get your pantys in a knot and complain that the way i said it isnt up to your standards
Actually I feel this sort of thing is harmful to ZvP.
The best kind of metagame is one that is relatively stable, is wide open without feeling chaotic and build ordery, constantly evolves at a decent pace and has clear and consistent winners due to them understanding it more then their opponents. ZvP feels like it has a bad metagame because it has some very clear game states and strategies that define it. Don't let zerg get to Brood/infestor or you're 90%+ to lose. Have extremely good sentry/immortal skills and you're 90%+ to win. The only units you can make are lings, roaches, infestors and broodlords, anything else sucks, etc.
Frustration argues that there's more to ZvP then 2 base sentry immortal timings and that Parting has a good variety of builds and that the concept of this matchup being defined by Soul Train is therefore foolish. What I think Frustration is ignoring is that there is a correct build out there that beats Soul Train a favourable amount of the time (above 50%). There has to be this build or style that does this, Starcraft is just built like that.
The problem is that if you are to execute this build and the Protoss doesn't Soul Train then you've put yourself at an extreme disadvantage against the majority of other styles. Parting is playing this ballsy as **** mindgame with Sniper, he is saying "I'm going to keep doing this until you catch on". Sniper knows there's a counter to the build in a vacuum, it's just that he doesn't want to play a skewed shitty style for when Parting switches out of Soul Train and then lose. That's when Parting would do one of his other PvZ builds.
This is a bad metagame.
A better metagame is TvP and TvZ to an extent. Both have a good array of builds and styles that you can do, each with their advantages and disadvantages. Both have rarely been dominated by a particular style or build for too long, terrans kinda figured out 6+ queen, zerg kinda figured out mech, Protoss kinda figured out how to get blizzard to help them beat 1/1/1. Both metagames have their issues, TvP is very limiting in unit selection for terran (marine/marauder/medivac/viking/ghost or die/be Ruined), Zerg lategame is heavily rigged vs Terran but for the most part they allow a good variety of playstyles and approaches. ZvP seems to be so restrictive with how you can go about it it seems very difficult for players to express skill in different ways.
I understand what fenner means about Soul Train being this exciting challenge to overcome by introducing a new Protoss crushing strategy (I like to call it "What Would Stephano Do?"), but I disagree with him that it means ZvP has a healthy metagame.
This is just as a casual observer mind, I'm much more knowledgable about Terran!
ON UHF AND BALANCE: The answer to your question is "when blizzard decides to do something". This is a shitty answer but it's right. It didn't take them very long to nerf blue flame centric builds after SlayerS vs MLG (thank god for that mech tvt is ******* dull compared to marine/tank). Ghosts did alright for a while but they went eventually. Thors energy bars went quick. Protoss had it tough for a good few months against 1/1/1 before observer and immortal buffs went through. Infestors got a slap on the wrist after something like 12-18 months of being infestors.
So yea. At Blizzards discretion. A shitty answer but it's the correct one.
ON GAME DESIGN/BALANCE AND INFESTOR/FORCEFIELD.
People ******* love to hate sentries and infestors. Being a terran, so do I! But there's nothing inherently wrong with these things and I get a bit upset when I read people saying FORCEFIELDS NEED TO BE DESTRUCTIBLE/NERFED SOMEHOW or FUNGAL GROWTH SHOULD BE A SLOW NOT A ROOT BECAUSE TERRANS GOTTA SPLIT or CASTERS ARE FUCKED UP BECAUSE... REASONS.
Any ability is never inherently bad for design, even ones that cut off what the opponent can do like fungal and forcefield do. It may be implemented poorly somehow, but it's never bad in and of itself. It only becomes bad when it becomes the largest and most significant decider of games, which infestors and forcefield do. Unfortunately to fix that is a tremendous bit of effort called Heart of the Swarm but oh well only 3 months right?
(if I may inject my own personal bias I'd argue that the problem with infestors at least for ZvT is that they aren't a particularly vulnerable path and they are extremely easy to mass which leads to zergs doing ******* disgusting as shit things. Regularly. Though I think Zerg's biggest issues is that they are extremely forgiving to play and less prone to the random chaos of the matchups openings then terran are but that is a whole differnet post called "shit that bothers me that might well become irrelevant once HotS comes out and is probably just me being whiny anyway, also **** you Tgun")
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