[Tom]

UPDATED WITH LATEST DATA FOR JULY/AUGUST - SEE PAGE 9




Introduction

The worm has turned. It began almost impercetibly. Protoss players such as myself started questioning whether the balance complaints of other races were really justified in light of the results we were seeing at high level play.

I have previously said it would be unwise to jump to conclusions based on the results of a couple of high profile games or one tournament. I am still of that view. What I would like to discuss is the emergence of an apparent trend in poor protoss results in high level play. I say "apparent" trend because I think it is still too early to conclude that what we are seeing is actually a "trend".

Conscious of not jumping to a premature conclusion, it seems to me that the emerging data raises a legitimate question: is protoss currently underpowered in high level play?

Disclaimer

As a protoss player I have an interest in this debate. I will try to keep this to a minimum, but I am conscious that the very fact that I am raising it as a topic of discussion demonstrates an inherent bias on my part. I hope you will forgive me!

Some definitions

First, my discussion is limited to high level play. By "high level play", I mean top tournaments such as GSL, and Grandmasters league, with particular emphasis on the leagues in Korea, NA and Europe, which I suggest are the most competitive.

Second, I have carefully and deliberately used the word underpowered. By underpowered, I do not mean "unplayable" or "uncompetitive". Strong players will continue to perform well because their inherent skill allows them to overcome possible shortcomings with their race. Underpowered also involves questions of degree - it may be very slight, such that the effect on lower level players is low or almost negligible, but enough to have a significant effect at higher levels.

Third, the expression underpowered in high level play is important. It may also be legitimate to ask "is protoss overpowered in low level play?", having regard to the race's arguably simpler mechanics (I'll leave this for others to decide).

Why it is important to look at data

In any non-mirror match up, it seems to me there are three key variables that affect the outcome of the game. The first, and probably most significant, is the player (or more correctly, players). The second variable is race. The third is map. In examining the relative "power" of a race, we are trying to eliminate the "noise" that is created as a result of differences in player skill and different maps.

For this reason, I suggest (although you may disagree) it is virtually useless to examine anecdotal experience - ie a player's personal experience of the race and their recent games. This is because the key variable here is the player, not the map or race. But, when we look at the results of hundreds (or thousands) of games, the significance of the "player" diminishes drastically, whereas the importance of "race" (and "map") dramatically increases.

I acknowledge that the following data does not attempt to isolate "map" as a factor, and that this is a significant limitation. I apologise in that the data is simply not available.

Recent tournament results [SPOILERS]

In early May, an author on TeamLiquid performed an analysis of global and Korean tournament results. The thread is here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=218558

In summary, what those results showed was that in global tournaments, the win rate for all match ups had begun to approach 50% (although I would be interested to see the current results more than one month (and 1 patch) later). However, the results showed Protoss was been getting absolutely murdered in recent Korean tournaments, with win rates of 33% of ZvT and 30% of ZvP. I said at the time I would be interested to see whether this was the start of an emerging trend (Korea tends to lead the field in all things Starcraft).

The results of the current GSL "Super Tournament" have been, if anything even more dramatic. 16 protoss players qualified for the round of 64. This represents 25% of the field, despite the fact that Protoss players make up approximately 35% of active 1v1 players in Korean. Of these, 6 advanced to the round of 32 (two of whom advanced in mirror match ups). Three Protoss players have so far played in the round of 32 (Genius, HongUn and Trickster) and all have been knocked out. I pray that at least one of the remaining three advances to the top 16, so that there is at least someone I can watch to pick up some tips on how to play the race at the moment. But I think there is a real risk at the moment that we will have a quarter final (or even round of 16) with not a single protoss player.

I note in passing that the number of Korean protoss players complaining about balance has (as of yesterday), overtaken zerg players for the first time in many months (see http://www.playxp.com/sc2/jingjing/ - red = zerg, green = terran, blue = protoss, purple = nothing). Of course, all this demonstrates is "sentiment" (what people think about balance) rather than an actual indicator of balance.

Grandmasters League statistics

The number of Protoss players in the Korean Grandmasters League has remained the same as when I last examined the data. 32% of Korean Grandmasters play protoss, compared to around 35% of all players. They remain slightly underrepresented amongst Grandmasters. (It should also be remembered that random is dramatically underrepresented in GMs League, and as a result (statistically at least) Zerg and Terran are both significantly overrepresented. Zerg is the most overrepresented. There is a similar trend in SEA: see my earlier thread at http://www.sc2sea.com/archive/index.php/t-1242.html).

There continues to be very few Protoss players in the top 10 of any of the regions. Based on my search this morning, of the top 10 players in each of the major regions, NA has 1 Protoss, EU has 0 Protoss, Korea has 2 Protoss and SEA has 1 Protoss. By contrast:

- 5 of the NA top 10 are Terran and 4 are Zerg;
- 6 of the EU top 10 are Terran and 4 are Zerg;
- 7 of the Korean top 10 are Terran and 1 is Zerg; and
- 3 of the SEA top 10 are Terran and 6 are Zerg.

Discussion

These results hardly provide a definitive answer to the question I have asked. But, I think, the data legitimately entitles me to ask the question: is Protoss currently underpowered in high level play?

I am very curious to see what Blizzard's overall data shows, and really wish they would release this (as they have done in the past). The most problematic scenario, I think, is one in which the data shows Protoss is overperforming in lower level play (whether that be overperformance in bronze, silver, gold, platinum, or overperformance all the way up to high Masters). At the moment I don't have any data and could only speculate on the position below Grandmasters. If this were the case, would raise the question, as many have already suggested, of who it is that Blizzard should be balancing the game for - professionals or the average player? Personally, I tend to think it should be balanced for high level play and everyone else should try and catch up by looking at what the professionals do. However, at the moment we do not have data to suggest any underperformance by Protoss below the parameters I have identified.

On a sad note, it will be difficult for me to pick up much to "imitate" from the GSL super tournament. Unfortunately, most of the Protoss games have been terribly one-sided and not really worth watching (for my part, it is starting to look brutal and somewhat bleak out there for the pros). However, I remain optimistic that one of the remaining Protoss players will show us something new and spectactular to stop the rot. My hopes are now pinned on SlayerS_Alicia (who, for those of you who don't know, more or less gave us the aggressive 3gate expand which revolutionised PvT a few months ago).

Tom please add at least one picture to your articles so it has a thumbnail!

Image Credit: http://sanggene.blogspot.com/

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:
	Apth:
	EveRorschach:
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	EveJeonSa:
	TAScarecrow:
	duanloves:
	Digby:

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by nGenLight

I'm sure there are much much more I need to learn about the matchup. But as of right now, I am not seeing from anything outside of SEA that is making me go "holy shit I wish knew what he was thinking when he is doing that!". I felt that way when I saw MC reign, Naniwa's emergence at TSL/MLG, but right now I'm getting nothing, and I sure hope someone shows me something soon because I am getting increasingly impatient T_T. Also, those figures/stats shown by http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=218558 (although small but statistically significant) is making me pretty demoralised.

I'm aware I'm sounding very QQ right now, so I'm going to opt out~

LOL!

I just saw it too. It super demoralised. Move on. It's a honest mistake.

[crAzerk]

To be unnecessarily nitpicky and anal,

Originally Posted by nGenLight

Also, those figures/stats shown by http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=218558 (although small but statistically significant)

How do you know they are statistically significant? What significance level are you using?

Ok do ignore that I'm just being annoying.

Anyway, every race (besides Terran) experiences such frustration at some point of time. Don't be too negative!

(subtle message)

[NvPinder]

Originally Posted by nirvAnA

this is really scary. imo both protoss and zerg are slightly weaker than terran atm but the results although a small sample seem to indicate protoss is the absolute worse. hmm!

I think it's pretty important to say protoss players in general are struggling, not that 'protoss is the worst race'. No one can make that call accurately, and especially so no set of statistics can make that claim.

Remembering that 3 months ago protoss players were sky high raping the tits off everyone, MC looked unstoppable and (personally) everyone i played with gave me shit for playing the strongest race, i find it hard to believe that 1 tiny balance patch later, it has changed enough that we are now 100% the worst race and cannot compete with terran and zerg.

Once again, not to get my argument confused, I'm not saying posts like this are bad and I'm not saying these statistics are completely meaningless, they obviously hold value in that terran and zerg players are doing a lot better than protoss players are doing right now in ladder. But it does NOT represent that protoss is the weakest race.

what is probably causing this, and what these statistics probably represent is a significant metagame shift since 3 months ago when i last played, or, that zerg and terran just got more and more efficient whilst protoss players were 'content' with their mechanics/builds and didnt work to tweak them up further, allowing the terran and zergs to catch up that way.

If you're wondering what makes me pretty confident this is the case, dispite not even building a probe/scv/drone in the last 3 months, this IS starcraft 2, so it's pretty important to look at the lessons that sc:bw taught us, a good example is PvZ in broodwar was pretty commonly thought of as broken in zergs favour for a LONG time, until around the 2006ish point of Bisu showing us forge FE into corsair DT in his MSL (think GSL) final against savior which, long story short, caused zergs a lot of trouble for a long time and practically shifted the balance of the matchup into protoss' favour, until around the point where july came up with 3 hat spire into 5 hat hydra and crushed BeSt in an important OSL final, once again shifting the sway of the matchup back into zerg's favour in general, until protoss started coming up with forge FE into earlier and earlier zealot pressures to punish the zerg for droning too hard early, to which zerg started responding by sim citying their ass off, again making it hard for protoss.

Those changes by NO MEANS came overnight, we're talking anywhere between 2months-a year of one particular race having a lower winrate in the matchup until a player came up with a 'solution' to the problem his race was having the matchup to overcome the bad winrate... To which every player of the race immediatly puts the new build into their arsenal, all the way down to the C ranks on iCCup, causing a HUGE shift across the board in winrates in the matchup. From what i remember the TvZ story of this sort of balance in BW is probably an even better example, but since I played protoss in BW I can't remember the dynamic shifts very well (iirc, there was actually an AWESOME teamliquid article about the shifts in winrates in TvZ that backs this point much better than i do, but unfortunately i cant find it, if anyone can post it ).

TL/DR:

+ Show +

One time when i was younger, i played super mario 64 and it took me like 20 hours of play time to finish, now people can do it in 6 minutes, not even kidding man, SIX MINUTES. its insane.

also - I get to reinstall sc2 in like 3 weeks, wooo.

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:	hahaha at the tldr
	TAavanar:	winning!

[Meatex]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

"the game is horridly imbalanced at lower levels"
Is a horridly invalid statement due to the fact that these strategies are not inherently uncounterable and just because lower players struggle with it doesn't reflect any imbalance at all.

To bring up a parallel example, Zerg is commonly said to have the most complicated macro mechanics, injecting and spreading creep, and choosing drone/army is complicated too. Therefore, lower level players will naturally struggle as Zerg.
Is it then valid to say that Zergs are 'imbalanced at the lower levels'?

Absolutely absurd and pointless statement.

You really have a spine up your butt about me don't you.
You are falling victim to the thought that imbalanced = unbeatable. It does not. If i'm carrying a bag with 3 2l bottles of water in one hand i will be imbalanced, doesn't mean i will fall over just walking the street but its going to be harder to stay upright if someone bumps me the wrong way.
Lets take a real game example or 2.
Shattered Temple - the zerg tries a 15 hatch as he unsure of what the terran is going. (depot and rax on low ground) he decides to take the chance that the terran is going 1 rax fe and is trying to keep the zerg defensive. (the coin toss mechanic) The scouting scv is checking out the main and the natural, nothing particularly suspicious, he is trying to make sure of your pool timing and gas timing etc. Then hang on theres another scv at your ramp. Instantly grab some drones to defend while you wait for your pool to finish. Lets say he doesn't do the annoying 2 bunker wall off trick. He can also use the terrain to position a bunker or 2 and hide his marines in a small gap between the walls and the bunker. Marines are inaccessible on 3 sides. The zerg needs absolutely perfect control to defend this and even then chances are the terran does too much damage. The zerg needs to micro individual weak workers to save as many as possible while microing queens and the zerglings, making sure the queen is hitting without blocking the lings and same for the drones. Also gotta be dropping spines all the while macroing as best you can.
If we look at the terran's perspective. Lets say my CC is ctrl+4 and my rax are ctrl+5 i grad 2 or 3 scv's and send them to the zerg's base. I hit 5 and rally to the same point. with my scv's selected I hit z, z (i use grid) then click on the ground. send my marines to behind the bunker. wait. profit.
Or lets say say you guess a 4 gate is coming from the 2nd unit being a stalker and you were right. you are preparing for the 4 gate trying to scout and macro at the same time. 5 seconds late on your inject means you don't have enough units quite on time so the protoss gets an overlord or 2 kills your units and has back up coming. Where as the protoss didn't even bother to chrono his gateways when attacking.
Lets say in a ZvT the terran loses his army in the first push and you have a decent number of lings left you send them to poke at his natural and notice he left his walling depot down, you run in and kill 3/4 of his workers. You go yay i'm ahead, but because the terran wasn't macroing well at all he drops 4+ mules at once and is able to keep plugging away. If the zerg doesn't make any major mistakes or the terran doesn't capitalize on the zerg's minor mistakes the zerg will win. But the terran despite making such a huge mistake still has a chance to come back if the zerg say forgets to morph more banelings think he won't attack for a while and he drones up. The terran then kills you with 15 marines and 10 workers.

At high levels if the terran isn't using mules in a timely fashion, or if the protoss ins't chronoing well then they fall a little behind. In lower levels bad macro kills the zerg whereas bad macro for T can pull them out of tough spots.

You said yourself that zerg's mechanics are more complicated and thus more difficult. How is that not major imbalance? When both players have excellent mechanics that disappears but i'm sure you have played terrans and protosses in diamond that make you think how they hell are they in diamond anyway? Simple. at lower levels T and P are incredibly easy to play and even have set builds that a player can follow where as the zerg player needs to develop killer game sense, top notch multi tasking, solid mechanics, good decision making all just to beat a timing push that the opponent read on TL or something. That is the definition of imbalanced. If something is unbeatable no matter what you do that isn''t imbalanced its broken

[Apth]

Meatex - quick suggestion, use headings/bulletpoints/more paragraphs if you're going to make a post that large. It was pretty hard to read.

Two points in response:

First,

Originally Posted by Meatex

Lets take a real game example or 2

Making specific examples isn't really going to further the discussion. For every example you have, one of our Brotoss buddies will have a counterexample. Best to stick to theoretical stuff IMO.

Second,

Originally Posted by Meatex

You said yourself that zerg's mechanics are more complicated and thus more difficult. How is that not major imbalance?

I agree that Zerg mechanics are harder to come to terms with. This is not a disadvantage. As far as I'm concerned, and I think many players will agree with me on this, Zerg has a higher skill ceiling than the other two races.
What I mean by this, is that although Zerg is harder to learn, you can go farther (mechanics-wise) with it. I don't think it constitutes an imbalance at all.

Ontopic,
I'm not a Protoss player, so I can't really speak to this, but perhaps differing skill ceilings are part of the issue? Maybe Protoss players are at a disadvantage because Zerg players are able to continue to improve mechanically, whereas their counterparts cannot? This is more of a question than a point, and is not my opinion.

[Roz]

I think it's meaningless to debate whether protoss is underpowered, failing to adapt to the metagame, or just "not having good enough players at the top level". None of these points can be proven at this point. Like pinder said, all we know is that protoss in general is struggling atm. Protoss definately has some flaws but so do other races. It could very well be that protoss is underpowered and we might not be able to flip the metagame back into our favor. I mean I wouldn't know and neither does anyone. All we can hope for is that's not the case and someone comes up with something new or some future patch fixes something for us.

As for the arguments of using warp prisms, carriers, motherships... well carriers are very strong vs zerg, especially if you get ur air attack upgrades early. But i mean simply by saying that we shouldn't be crying because we aren't using all the units at our disposal is really being ignorant. Protoss is struggling in pvt and pvz and yes protoss have been using warp prisms vs t. But do you really think going carriers is a good idea other than for some weird timing attack? Heavy marines will kill off interceptors like they weren't there, moving onto mid game vikings just lol at ur carriers. If you somehow hid ur tech and u suddenly walk out with 6 carriers, yea it would work but u're gambling on the fact that u didn't die beforehand or they didn't spot it early enough. Not really how people would want to play.

Also about zerg mechanics being harder, yes i also think that is true. Is it imbalanced? Well in some ways yes, but the whole point of having different races is to have them have different strengths and weaknesses. Even though the mechanics of a zerg is the hardest to master, at the same time if you do it well, it makes you really good at zerg in general. What i mean is that zerg is more rewarding in having better mechanics than a race like protoss.

In conclusion, i just think it's pointless to discuss whether the race is underpowered or not. There are times where you just can't prove whether people won because they are just a better player or whether it was their race that made them appear to be the better player. So rather than discussing about OP/UP, it's better to just try to use the time to try to think of ways of going around certain things.

Quick Comments

holyforker:

[Paroxysm]

From a zerg's perspective, it seems that protoss has become the weakest race. It looks as though zerg players are slowly understanding how to play the race properly and, just like the protoss were destroying us not months ago, we have the ability to destroy them. Basically, zerg and protoss have switched postions on the balance spectrum as the understanding of the zerg metagame has changed. Terran is still at the top of course

[pikk0n]

There once was a thread about zerg being UP and this is right before last patch which imo, doesn't really affect toss that much. Seriously, has the most recent patch with the spore crawlers and warp gate time increase really affected the matchup? Zergs complain about death balls and FF not 4gate pushes from tosses. In fact, the most recent patch with archons being massive and sentry decreased training time should make toss a little more powerful. What zerg players are doing now is using their infestors more and this is as a result of the patch right before this. Zerg players have finally discovered a method to counter FFs and death balls (banes were never changed) with a method using units that have always been available to them. In fact, I would say that the infestor's fungal growth decreased effect time should make the infestors less OP. Imagine having bane drops on your death ball which is stuck for 8 seconds. I agree completely with what JPMoney said about how ZvPs in BW evolved and I'm very sure that soon protoss players would find a way around that zerg death ball. I have always seen zerg as being capable of countering FFs and that toss deathball back when the zerg QQ thread was first made. These imba threads are always fun to read and I'm pretty sure that new strats come out from these threads. Zerg players are getting smarter. It's always good to see a change at the top level.

As for toss and terran being easier to play in the lower levels... Seriously? I play random and the hardest race to play is terran because macroing is easier than microing. Terran units require so much more microing than zerg units because one misclick and you lose your whole army and that's gg.... For me, zerg = sacrifice your army and remacro up instantly because you have so many saved larva. Low level = just macro and zerg's injecting larva micro isn't that hard. Creep spreading micro isn't that hard too... :S Do note that I am talking about low level plays. Gold and below. I am a gold random player and of all races, terran's micro is the hardest. Try Stim and A+Moving against lings and banes. That's the first thing I hope a terran does when playing against a zerg. Marine tank, I hate so much because I just find tank micro freaking annoying. If the zerg scouts your units moving out, he'll just macro up his lings, sac them to kill your tanks and send some banes to weaken your marines before remacroing up again while you try and establish a foothold in the middle of the map. Your push is interrupted right there. I try to get my third since i know the zerg is getting armies instead of drones and well, with bad micro, my army gets wiped out and my third is basically gone. LOL! I'm just disagreeing with an earlier comment that toss and terran are easy to play in lower levels. If you're up against zergs who one base and masses roaches against your marauder + marine army off 2 tech labs and 1 reactor (3 rax MM army which people complain is OP), then yeah. It's easy to play as terran but I do not see that many 'not so bright' zerg players around anymore. Not going to use protoss examples since I find terran the hardest race to use NOT an UP race. I can see how powerful they can be in the hands of someone good. In the lower levels, your focus is on macroing and no other race is easier to macro than zerg. Counter to 4gate = spines + lings and roaches and counter to 3 rax = more spines + lings and banes. Microing's a different thing all together.

[nGenLight]

Page of Phat Paragraphs

I agree with what Pinder and Roz are saying. I just hope this meta-game transition doesn't take too long. CBF Losing and not knowing what to do!!!

[Tom]

Effect of the recent patch

There seem to be a misconception that the under-performance (to use a neutral term) of Protoss players is a result of the recent patch. The patch probably had some effect, but note that some of the "apparent" trends referred to in my OP began 1 or 2 months before the patch.

Conversely, I personally have thought that the complaints about Protoss being overpowered have been unjustified for quite some time. But it became one of those things "everybody knows its true" and was hard to shake that from people's minds even when the data was screaming out that it was wrong (at least among top players).

Is there any point looking at the data?

There also seems to be a view to the effect that it is "meaningless" or "pointless" to look at data, or that the data doesn't tell us anything. In my view, data should always be treated with caution, but having said that it is always worthwhile looking at data. At the very least, the data tells us what is happening right now, which of course may change. That is why it is important to seek to identify trends over time. I will continue to follow the developments with great interest.

The "shifting metagame" argument is no doubt correct. Of course, an innovative Protoss player may come up with a style or strategy that blows everything else away. But it is at least as likely that there is also some (as yet unknown) awesome Zerg or Terran strategy that is yet to be discovered. Ultimately, I think if the data starts to consistently tell us something (ie a clear trend emerges over time), there comes a time when someone needs to step in. I acknowledge that it may be too early to say that point has been reached here. But Blizzard has been doing a lot of patching based on relatively short time periods of data.

[BordZ]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

I may have worded what I said wrongly.

Nonetheless,
"the game is horridly imbalanced at lower levels"
Is a horridly invalid statement due to the fact that these strategies are not inherently uncounterable and just because lower players struggle with it doesn't reflect any imbalance at all.

To bring up a parallel example, Zerg is commonly said to have the most complicated macro mechanics, injecting and spreading creep, and choosing drone/army is complicated too. Therefore, lower level players will naturally struggle as Zerg.
Is it then valid to say that Zergs are 'imbalanced at the lower levels'?

Absolutely absurd and pointless statement.

No it is not an absurd statement, the people who are stuck in the lower levels paid the same amount for the game as you did, they paid to have a reasonably balanced game and in most cases have paid for the multiplayer becuase of the brood war paradigm. The pro scene would not exist without these people.

I have said this on TL and i will say it here, Blizz has an obligation to balance the game at ALL levels

Quick Comments

NvPinder:

This argument is so bad i think it gave me cancer

[Makra]

Originally Posted by BordZ

I have said this on TL and i will say it here, Blizz has an obligation to balance the game at ALL levels

Ahh, isn't that what they would call 'dumbing down the game'?

[Apth]

Originally Posted by BordZ

I have said this on TL and i will say it here, Blizz has an obligation to balance the game at ALL levels

Only way to do this would be to mechanically adjust the game at different levels. Not going to happen.

Ontopic, do people think Protoss as a race is easier/harder to play at different skill levels? Is it reasonably consistent Bronze through GM, or is there a Zerg-like skill curve?

[iNFraction]

protoss is shit nuff said.

[NvJazBas]

God I wish Terran players were like Protoss players.

Protoss struggles = Protoss players don't whine about balance instead they are being patient and hope for a metagame shift

Terran struggles = WE ARE UNDRERPOWERED (when you are not)

Zerg struggles = As always..


Ok on the serious side, as a Zerg player, I'm loving PvZ atm..lol I really think Protoss need some kind of metagame shift for the match up and I really can't think of anything much. Maybe more stargate play? but it is very weak vs timing attacks with Hydra so yeah..I don't know I do think Protoss' are struggling alot atm.

[SnoWPanda]

PvZ is so hard right now, I have to either cut corners and tech super fast or take extra early risky thirds or do both! and rely on the zerg been greedy and not realising he can just kill you or just defend like a champ.

[SnoWPanda]

if i even feel slightly behind like losing a few sentries, i just proceed to a 2 base all in.

[BordZ]

Originally Posted by Makra

Ahh, isn't that what they would call 'dumbing down the game'?

Originally Posted by Apth

Only way to do this would be to mechanically adjust the game at different levels. Not going to happen.

Ontopic, do people think Protoss as a race is easier/harder to play at different skill levels? Is it reasonably consistent Bronze through GM, or is there a Zerg-like skill curve?

Ok this is a bit off topic but I feel a rebuttal is needed so here i go;

I understand why both of you replied with what you did however i never indicated that this would be "dumbing down the game" or be impossible. It just take reaching that fine line thats the hard point. If it is impossible to balance the game at the top and appoximately equal (a very tiny variation) at low to mid tiers as well as the upper tier Bliz has done a bad job in the games design end of story. And I will state it once again Bliz has an obligation to balance the game for low to mid tiers gamers because they paid money for a product.

Starcraft isn't even the most complex RTS out there, from experiance AOE3 had more unit types, more factions (macro mechanics varied a lot by TAD) a lot more units and more resources yet it is pretty much balanced. Keep in mind it took this game a long time to reach this point, 5 years I think.

On topic,

If I had to guess I would say that the metagame equilibrium is shifting slowly again, Toss got used to 1 way of doing things to win but now that zerg/terran has more knowledge regarding the match up its slowly reaching equilibrium

for the record I think that the skill curves should be roughly the same shape and height for all 3 races.

[Roz]

Originally Posted by BordZ

Ok this is a bit off topic but I feel a rebuttal is needed so here i go;

I understand why both of you replied with what you did however i never indicated that this would be "dumbing down the game" or be impossible. It just take reaching that fine line thats the hard point. If it is impossible to balance the game at the top and appoximately equal (a very tiny variation) at low to mid tiers Bliz has done a bad job in the games design end of story. And I will state it once again Bliz has an obligation to balance the game for low to mid tiers gamers because they paid money for a product.

Starcraft isn't even the most complex RTS out there, from experiance AOE3 had more unit types, more factions (macro mechanics varied a lot by TAD) a lot more units and more resources yet it is pretty much balanced. Keep in mind it took this game a long time to reach this point, 5 years I think.

On topic,

If I had to guess I would say that the metagame equilibrium is shifting slowly again, Toss got used to 1 way of doing things to win but now that zerg/terran has more knowledge regarding the match up its slowly reaching equilibrium

for the record I think that the skill curves should be roughly the same shape and height for all 3 races.

I understand where you are coming from but the whole thing just isn't justified. You can't balance around low-mid level players because it just doesn't work. The units are can be balanced and the low-mid level players just don't know or can't use them to their potential. That is not a problem of balancing but more of a problem of not playing it properly. So to balance the game around low-mid level players, if possible at all (since most of them would have different problems), would mean you would actually have to make the game imbalanced.... However, like i said, i dont even think it's possible to balance the game around low-mid level players.

[Monk]

I don't really think Protoss is underpowered at higher levels. It's just this:

A lot of the community defined pros are actually really good, and take their time in analysing games and replays.
A lot of the self-proclaimed pros that choose protoss have cheesed their way to Master/GM, not knowing much about protoss, and when their cheese fails on repetitive players, they start to lose out.

That's the way I look at it. The race is not underpowered by any means, MC, Naniwa, incontrol, KiwiKaki, Tyler and axslav off the top of my head really have shown great results in tournaments because they understand the race. Saying that protoss is underpowered because master level+ protoss find it difficult to cheese masters+ doesn't mean the race is imbalanced.

I'm not saying that for sure they're balanced or even over powered, but I think a lot of the protoss players don't actually understand their race to actually be effective with it, leaving only a select few pros to actually think of new builds to win games convincingly.

Right now I think Zerg and Terran have a lot of true professionals looking at the race while Protoss have only a few, because of the lack of player skill.

But I say this, Just because Protoss aren't in the top 10 of any GM league, doesn't mean they're UP. I'm sure a lot of Protoss actually practice on customs rather then on Ladder.

Quick Comments

Tom:

Oh dear, completely missing the point AND generally accusing protoss players of cheesing their way to Masters/GM