I'm surprised one of these hasn't been made already.
Anyway...
Anyone listen to the latest episode? Holy arguments batman. I can't believe I'm saying this but I actually am gonna have to side with Idra over Day 9. All his stuff about being unable to kill a Toss deathball and how Toss and Terran players are crap but can win was obvious garbage but his points about Zerg having a lack of options early game and having a harder time scouting were pretty valid, and as much as I love Day 9 he really didn't have anything substantial to come back with aside from "I don't understand what that means." It was pretty interesting.

Tyler's super awesome I love that guy but man some of the stuff he was saying...I think he shoulda just admitted he said some things he maybe shouldn't have and moved on. Even though I don't really agree with what he and Jinro were saying in that thread I understand why they were saying it and why Liquid declined. Turning it personal though and saying Colby was being deceptive was a bit much. And the whole "The forums are a place where nothing but free speech is acceptable" was a little crazy.

What do you guys think?

Listened today at work... I think especially the 2nd discussion was a case of "Shit that guy's right, but I ain't gonna give him that!". Tyler kinda seemed to be out of good arguments and went on pulling pretty wonky stuff out of his arse. While I still think he had a point to begin with, he took it way too serious and totally blew it out of propotion.

Downloading now.  Kinda surprised if things heat up.  Day9 was teasing Idra a few weeks back, didn't think there'd be any animosity there.

sweet

I haven't listened to it yet, but it sounds familiar so I think I can say something.

I'd agree with Idra when he says that Zerg as a race is the least fleshed out. Some of their units are of questionable value/usefullness and they generally suffer from the other races' cheese/all-ins. However, I'd agree with Day9 that the game is still young and we shouldn't start shouting imbalance immediately when things go wrong. As a player you should generally first start to look at yourself and find the flaws in your own play, before something might be considered overpowered.

Idra tends to rage pretty quickly rather than analyze his own play/himself too much. He also tends to defeat himself most of the time. Geoff mentioned in one of the earlier SotG's that Idra kinda has an attitude problem(they were talking about the game where Idra ragequit when he saw a hallucinated Voidray) which causes him to basically already give up before the game has truly ended yet.

It doesn't really mean anything for players below the Grandmaster level. Maybe imbalance is noticeable to players of such a high level, but if you're below that, there's always something you can improve upon that has nothing to do with the balance of the game.

The best point idra had was how unscoutable terran and protoss are for a zerg once marines or stalkers get out, at least that was the one that made the most sense to me. The amount of games I have lost to 6 gate timing pushes when I thought they were simply expanding is rediculous. Same thing goes for terran, just put some marines on the borders of your base and you can do whatever the hell you want.

Great episode of State of Crying.

Idra's big problem is he shoots himself in the foot by doing stuff like calling other players bad ie. Kiwi, and making definite statements "this is like this and that's just how it is" I think people start tuning him out.
I almost think he's doing it on purpose to build up drama.

Idra definitely did seem to be holding a bit of a grudge considering he was pulling out something Day9 mentioned last week when Idra had another rant on Zerg imba, that he is "unable to take discussions of imbalance this early on in the life of a game seriously, and devolves into trolling".

I can agree with Idra to a point, that zerg does have a disadvantage early game with a lack of early scouting options.  However the fact that he continues to wrap all his points in this disgusting idea that when protoss and terrans win, its someone winning against "the better player who deserves to win", or that all SC1 players deserve to win over new players, make it difficult for me to take anything he has to say seriously in the end, regardless their actual merit.

Kiwikeekee.

I gotta say that I miss the old incontrol, before he started worrying about everything he says being taken the wrong way.

On the early podcasts, he was funny as hell and such a pain in the ass.  Now it seems like so much of what he says is preceded by "well, the fanboys are gonna take this the wrong way.  expect 100 page TL thread."

" I gotta say that I miss the old incontrol, before he started worrying about everything he says being taken the wrong way.On the early podcasts, he was funny as hell and such a pain in the ass.  Now it seems like so much of what he says is preceded by "well, the fanboys are gonna take this the wrong way.  expect 100 page TL thread." "

This was the first State of the Game I have listened too, was pretty good. Had lots of good jokes and the actual discussions were great. Idra was totally right and Day[9] was being retarded. I feel bad for Tyler tho, I totally understand what he was trying to say and while I don't really know if I agree or disagree I felt like InControll and Idra were missing the point.

I'm a huge Tyler fan (I watch his stream constantly and have adapted literally the almost same style as him, overly safe and whatnot) but he looked really bad in that argument.  His suggestion that people should not post things if they have an agenda is an impossibility because EVERYONE has an agenda, whether they realize it or not.  Incontrol easily pointed out that flaw by bringing up Tyler's sponsorship.  I read the thread they were talking about and TL went on the offensive immediately, while the EG PR guy didn't really do anything.  I can understand Liquid wanting it explained why they weren't in the tournament but how it was handled in that thread was baaaad.

Day9 was totally right but Idra's aggressive arguing made it look as though Day9 lost.  Day said you cannot discuss balance without examples to analyze, and when you are not in a neutral mood, of which Idra obviously was not in.  I'm not saying Idra was wrong (scouting is a pain, I was playing Zerg tonight and definitely noticed that), but how he wanted to discuss it was not good in any way or would not lead to any actual discussion.

" I'm a huge Tyler fan (I watch his stream constantly and have adapted literally the almost same style as him, overly safe and whatnot) but he looked really bad in that argument.  His suggestion that people should not post things if they have an agenda is an impossibility because EVERYONE has an agenda, whether they realize it or not.  Incontrol easily pointed out that flaw by bringing up Tyler's sponsorship.  I read the thread they were talking about and TL went on the offensive immediately, while the EG PR guy didn't really do anything.  I can understand Liquid wanting it explained why they weren't in the tournament but how it was handled in that thread was baaaad.Day9 was totally right but Idra's aggressive arguing made it look as though Day9 lost.  Day said you cannot discuss balance without examples to analyze, and when you are not in a neutral mood, of which Idra obviously was not in.  I'm not saying Idra was wrong (scouting is a pain, I was playing Zerg tonight and definitely noticed that), but how he wanted to discuss it was not good in any way or would not lead to any actual discussion. "

I don't think Idra was right, but I do think he articulated his argument a lot better.

" @Ben_H said:

" I'm a huge Tyler fan (I watch his stream constantly and have adapted literally the almost same style as him, overly safe and whatnot) but he looked really bad in that argument.  His suggestion that people should not post things if they have an agenda is an impossibility because EVERYONE has an agenda, whether they realize it or not.  Incontrol easily pointed out that flaw by bringing up Tyler's sponsorship.  I read the thread they were talking about and TL went on the offensive immediately, while the EG PR guy didn't really do anything.  I can understand Liquid wanting it explained why they weren't in the tournament but how it was handled in that thread was baaaad.Day9 was totally right but Idra's aggressive arguing made it look as though Day9 lost.  Day said you cannot discuss balance without examples to analyze, and when you are not in a neutral mood, of which Idra obviously was not in.  I'm not saying Idra was wrong (scouting is a pain, I was playing Zerg tonight and definitely noticed that), but how he wanted to discuss it was not good in any way or would not lead to any actual discussion. "

At the very least though he could have given some sorta example to back up what he was saying. Ideally a calm reasonable discussion is optimal but that's not always gonna be possible. I think it's definitely possible to discuss early Zerg options without going into extensive detail and taking forever to analyze thousands of games. I just don't think Day 9 had any other response. "

The problem I have with what IdrA says isn't that what he is saying is wrong, its more becasue it perpetuates the idea that Zerg is weak and that the only reason Zerg players loose games is bacasue T and P are super OP compared to Z when in actual fact 99% of the time the reason Zerg's loose is becasue they suck, or becasue the fucked up.

I play as Protoss and every game I play vs Zerg and win I get raged at becasue there is this idea that Protoss are imba, which is just wrong.



The reason I side with Day9 over IdrA is because atm the only level at which there is even a hint of imbalance is at the very top end, and even then most games are won/loss due to errors in play rather than OMGDATDEATHBALLSOIMBA. The game is too young for it the be out right imbalanced in that sense its just that zergs havn't really found a way to deal with it very well yet.

" @audiosnag: Were can I hear/see this? "

The idea Idra is trying to put forward is that in the early game an army for the Zerg is unable to do much damage or aggression (without being an all in) and would set a zerg severely behind in economy, while 

Why do Zerg complain about scouting when protoss are in the same boat?

You can get a liar at the same time we have a robo or hallucinate.

Finally listened.  Thought the Idra/Day9 debate had some validity.

But the Tyler thing... hot damn, what a stupid fucking argument.  I haven't seen the thread, but all the guy said was they declined?  Jesus.

" @baldgye: I don't want to be a douche, but you should really try to include some facts and reasoning with your sweeping generalizations.

Idra was saying that it is easier for bad players to do well with Terran and Protoss, not that bad Terran and Protoss players are winning everything.  MC is obviously very good, and Idra wouldn't deny that(I'd list some Terrans, but MC has been winning everything lately.  Perhaps Thorzane will win TSL3).  What that really means is that Zerg not as forgiving and has less options as Terran and Protoss, which is true.  Zerg has the least number of units, Tier 3 Zerg units can't attack air and are easily hard countered, a lack of viable scouting in the early to mid game, the main macro mechanic(larva inject) can't be missed, and Zerg has to have the perfect response to early/mid attacks(defending an attack and having a bunch of units left over or building too many spines is really bad).  The success Cruncher has had with his Turtle on 3 bases until 200, then A move to victory is what Idra was talking about.  He didn't show that he has top level skills.  He showed that he can turtle on 3 bases until he maxes out.

Of course people of all levels lose games because of mistakes they made.  Nobody is perfect.  Idra even acknowledged that when Tyler brought it up.   Zerg is designed to be the defensive race, but without the ability to see what is coming Zerg can't properly respond.  It is a guessing game in the beginning.

As for the Tyler thing, I haven't read the thread on TL.  But in general I agree with EG's choice to not say TL whole side.  The only people that have the right and responsibility to speak for TL are TL.  It would be presumptuous for EG to tell TL's side.  

I think my biggest issue with what Tyler said has to do with something he also said a few weeks earlier after MLG.  It was on the topic of the autograph session that TLO had, and the immense number of fans he had over the Halo counterparts.  He called for fans, even if they had no interest in the autographs, or the players, and was going to throw it away after wards to participate and show support for SC2's popularity.  To champion fans acting against their own interests for the sake of an agenda and then despise the actual pros and teams doing the same when much higher things are at stake (corporate sponsorships and relationships between teams) is just such a degree of hypocrisy. 

toss is OP that is all

"

"

The whole Idra/Day[9] thing wasn't really an argument since they were making largely unrelated points.

But man... wtf is up with Tyler. It was clear he was seeing red and had developed tunnel vision. Still, it was a fun episode.

" @baldgye:  Certainly there are plenty of things most Zerg players could do to be more successful, just like there are for Terran and Protoss players. You have not explained how this precludes discussion of the specific topic of Zerg scouting and defense in the early->mid game against a walled-in Terran or Protoss. If you require absolute perfection in all aspects before any discussion can take place, then they might as well shut this forum down because you'll never get it. Following your argument to its logical conclusion, there must be some mistake all Zergs are making which prevents their drone from walking through buildings, their overlords from dying on the edge of the base, or from making an efficient wall of their own. The sticking point in the State of the Game discussion was that there could be some unknown strategy which will solve this problem for Zerg. Unfortunately, that's always the case for any race in any situation, and it's entirely possible that  with the current mechanics, this magic strategy doesn't exist at all. Do you really blame players for pursuing every possible resolution to this problem, rather than assuming the game must be mechanically perfect and restricting themselves to it? "

After listening to the episode finally, I can go into a little more depth.

I would've liked to have the people on SotG actually debate Idra's points. He was the only one actually making an argument. The others were just saying they didn't have enough information to discuss it(Day9, which is a fina stance to take, no issue with that) or ignoring/dismissing Idra(Incontrol, Tyler).
I don't neccesarily think Idra was correct, but I would've liked to have an actual debate on the podcast with some back and forth arguments. I understand it's kinda a non-serious show, but having a nice discussion would be nice sometimes.

Tyler's issue was complete garbage. If he really calls out a guy for posting a fact on the TL forums claiming it's deceptive then he owes that guy an apology.

" @baldgye:  I was in platinum for Zerg before I switched to Terran, though I don't see how it's relevant to a discussion of game mechanics. As for sending in an overlord at 5 minutes, that won't work against a  competent Terran or Protoss opponent, since their starting units shoot air and it costs nothing to patrol the edge of their base with the units they already have, and position tech structures away from the edges. To overcome this, you have to dump 100 minerals and 50 gas (after getting an early Lair) to accomplish the same scouting an opponent could do by just running a worker directly into your base. Meanwhile map control is irrelevant, since you cannot control the part of the map we're worried about, ie their base. The ability of Protoss and Terran to win without map control is the other half of the discussion, but not one I know enough about to discuss here.Both your examples are of players making mistakes to which there are known solutions. The issue we're talking about here doesn't have a known solution and it looks like there may be no solution at all, hence this discussion. "

" @Donos said:

" @baldgye:  I was in platinum for Zerg before I switched to Terran, though I don't see how it's relevant to a discussion of game mechanics. As for sending in an overlord at 5 minutes, that won't work against a  competent Terran or Protoss opponent, since their starting units shoot air and it costs nothing to patrol the edge of their base with the units they already have, and position tech structures away from the edges. To overcome this, you have to dump 100 minerals and 50 gas (after getting an early Lair) to accomplish the same scouting an opponent could do by just running a worker directly into your base. Meanwhile map control is irrelevant, since you cannot control the part of the map we're worried about, ie their base. The ability of Protoss and Terran to win without map control is the other half of the discussion, but not one I know enough about to discuss here.Both your examples are of players making mistakes to which there are known solutions. The issue we're talking about here doesn't have a known solution and it looks like there may be no solution at all, hence this discussion. "

Exactly, hence why I said I don't necessarily disagree with Idra even though I dislike his argument style.  sacrificing  slow overlords only gets you so far.  The common suggestion is to move overlord speed to hatch tech, so that it can quickly be researched early on.  You would still have to suicide an overlord but with speed there is a much better chance of getting info. I don't have any issues with this suggestion, it doesn't negatively affect the other races, and give the zerg a better chance to scout. "

" @Ben_H said:

" @Donos said:

" @baldgye:  I was in platinum for Zerg before I switched to Terran, though I don't see how it's relevant to a discussion of game mechanics. As for sending in an overlord at 5 minutes, that won't work against a  competent Terran or Protoss opponent, since their starting units shoot air and it costs nothing to patrol the edge of their base with the units they already have, and position tech structures away from the edges. To overcome this, you have to dump 100 minerals and 50 gas (after getting an early Lair) to accomplish the same scouting an opponent could do by just running a worker directly into your base. Meanwhile map control is irrelevant, since you cannot control the part of the map we're worried about, ie their base. The ability of Protoss and Terran to win without map control is the other half of the discussion, but not one I know enough about to discuss here.Both your examples are of players making mistakes to which there are known solutions. The issue we're talking about here doesn't have a known solution and it looks like there may be no solution at all, hence this discussion. "

Exactly, hence why I said I don't necessarily disagree with Idra even though I dislike his argument style.  sacrificing  slow overlords only gets you so far.  The common suggestion is to move overlord speed to hatch tech, so that it can quickly be researched early on.  You would still have to suicide an overlord but with speed there is a much better chance of getting info. I don't have any issues with this suggestion, it doesn't negatively affect the other races, and give the zerg a better chance to scout. "

The thing is, overlords are pretty beefy and, with speed, fast enough that I bet they would be able to get full scouting information without dying at all (in those early-game low unit counts). On the other hand, overlord speed is very expensive for that early in the game, enough to neuter the Zerg who bought it. Basically, I'm worried scouting would become too binary: Either you pay a heavy cost and get complete, coninuous scouting at no further cost, or you skip speed and get no vision at all. Little room for influence by either player, beyond that first purchasing decision. A nerf to balance that out would hurt drops later on, of course. Vague secondary thing that just popped into my head: A few specific lair timings could become way more powerful. A zerg on a large map could expand, get a quick lair at one hatchery while getting overlord speed at the other, then as soon as speed pops a bunch of overlords are rushing out onto the field. When lair pops the zerg has a  creep highway to the opponent's base. Depending how the exact economy works out, it might be akin to the protoss 4gate or even worse since (with overlord speed) the overlords could be held back until the last second, making this quite difficult to see until it's too late. I think you're going in the right direction, but I'd propose a safer (I think) alternative: Boost base overlord speed by enough that an overlord can get, say, 70% vision of an enemy base if taking continuous fire from a handful of stalkers or marines before dying, assuming they entered from a good spot (maybe the mineral line, or the part of the base closest to the center, rather than directly over the wall full of units). I don't think this would disrupt current builds since you're spending the same cash and losing the same overlord as before. Further, it can be more or less effective if the Zerg commits smarter positioning or more overlords to the job, and if the opponent makes a concerted effort to stop the overlord or not. The build I proposed above would be less effective since overlords would have to begin moving out much earlier, meaning an opponent could scout them out. If anyone wants to figure out the exact value for overlord speed, you could just measure out the average world-unit radius of main bases,  and multiply that by (DPS of anti-air guards minus a bit for shooting while moving / 200). If it's, I dunno, 15 world units against 4 marines, then 15 * (20/200) = 1.5. For reference, current overlord speed is about 0.47 and upgrades to about 1.87.k, gonna stop talking about this now. Hopefully that all made sense. "

" @baldgye: I don't want to be a douche, but you should really try to include some facts and reasoning with your sweeping generalizations.

@Cataphract1014:  Worker/infantry scouting before anyone has air units (or in zerg's case, air units fast enough to not die before getting any vision). Protoss and Terran can wall off pretty easily and do, but Zerg can't. So, unlike the other races, Zerg is stuck in the dark for several minutes in the early->mid game transition. "

" @baldgye:  I was in platinum for Zerg before I switched to Terran, though I don't see how it's relevant to a discussion of game mechanics. As for sending in an overlord at 5 minutes, that won't work against a  competent Terran or Protoss opponent, since their starting units shoot air and it costs nothing to patrol the edge of their base with the units they already have, and position tech structures away from the edges. To overcome this, you have to dump 100 minerals and 50 gas (after getting an early Lair) to accomplish the same scouting an opponent could do by just running a worker directly into your base. Meanwhile map control is irrelevant, since you cannot control the part of the map we're worried about, ie their base. The ability of Protoss and Terran to win without map control is the other half of the discussion, but not one I know enough about to discuss here.Both your examples are of players making mistakes to which there are known solutions. The issue we're talking about here doesn't have a known solution and it looks like there may be no solution at all, hence this discussion. "

" @Donos said:

" @baldgye:  I was in platinum for Zerg before I switched to Terran, though I don't see how it's relevant to a discussion of game mechanics. As for sending in an overlord at 5 minutes, that won't work against a  competent Terran or Protoss opponent, since their starting units shoot air and it costs nothing to patrol the edge of their base with the units they already have, and position tech structures away from the edges. To overcome this, you have to dump 100 minerals and 50 gas (after getting an early Lair) to accomplish the same scouting an opponent could do by just running a worker directly into your base. Meanwhile map control is irrelevant, since you cannot control the part of the map we're worried about, ie their base. The ability of Protoss and Terran to win without map control is the other half of the discussion, but not one I know enough about to discuss here.Both your examples are of players making mistakes to which there are known solutions. The issue we're talking about here doesn't have a known solution and it looks like there may be no solution at all, hence this discussion. "

Like someone above me stated, I play as Brotoss and if a Terran walls in, I have no way to scout there main unless I go robo or halicenate (and halicinate isn't viable if your 4gating) where as Zerg get full map control at the start of the game... Terran are the only race that actually get to pretty much scout everything (not saying its free).. but Zerg have as many options as the other races to scout... especially in the lower leagues......hell in the lower leagues scouting isn't really important long as your mechanics are sound. "

" @baldgye said:

" @Donos said:

" @baldgye:  I was in platinum for Zerg before I switched to Terran, though I don't see how it's relevant to a discussion of game mechanics. As for sending in an overlord at 5 minutes, that won't work against a  competent Terran or Protoss opponent, since their starting units shoot air and it costs nothing to patrol the edge of their base with the units they already have, and position tech structures away from the edges. To overcome this, you have to dump 100 minerals and 50 gas (after getting an early Lair) to accomplish the same scouting an opponent could do by just running a worker directly into your base. Meanwhile map control is irrelevant, since you cannot control the part of the map we're worried about, ie their base. The ability of Protoss and Terran to win without map control is the other half of the discussion, but not one I know enough about to discuss here.Both your examples are of players making mistakes to which there are known solutions. The issue we're talking about here doesn't have a known solution and it looks like there may be no solution at all, hence this discussion. "

Like someone above me stated, I play as Brotoss and if a Terran walls in, I have no way to scout there main unless I go robo or halicenate (and halicinate isn't viable if your 4gating) where as Zerg get full map control at the start of the game... Terran are the only race that actually get to pretty much scout everything (not saying its free).. but Zerg have as many options as the other races to scout... especially in the lower leagues......hell in the lower leagues scouting isn't really important long as your mechanics are sound. "

lol the differance is what each race needs to respond too. Zerg don't have anti air and we aren't making units all game long like P or T. Protoss can stop all our rushes with a wall and force fields. Terran can stop all our rushes with a wall and bunkers. What can Zerg do to stop all Protoss rushes, or to stop all Terran rushes? "

Produce an ungodly amount of lings... you see it in tournaments when a zerg player gets a hint of an all in, which are usually pretty well sign-posted they will produce just silly amounts of lings and take it out and then have full map control.

And as brotoss its not really a good idea to wall in vs P or T becasue it just means ur wall in will get sniped by what ever all-in the opp does.But personally I just don't think that really anyone out there can really call out a race as inbalanced just because a really vocal pro player says that it is.... hell MVP was in an interview about a week or so ago saying that he thinks that terran are the weakest race...

balance isn't the deciding factor in why people are loosing games, so why bother making out like its a big deal and acting like zerg have a handycap?It's like Incontrol said to IdrA during the show, IdrA thinks that zerg is the weakest race in sc2, which race does he play? IdrA also thought that Terran were the weakest in BW, and which race did he play?

First off, my opinions are based on a collection of observations, I don't have just one retort to the opinion that zerg is weak becasue thats not how I form opinions.
Another thing I would like to state is that really how can anyone make any logical claims that one race is inblanced over the other? There has never been a single game of SC2 where the two players have played totally perfectally, and there probally never will be.

Secondly I still don't understand quite why Zerg players feel its impossible to scout?
-You have drone scouting (which is how P and T scout)
-You have lings (which give you early map control and control of all Xel' naga towers)
-You have overlords (which you can literally have flying around the map in the early game)
-You have Overseers (that can move pretty quickly, they can stop production and drop spies)
-You have creep (a thing that literally spreads across the map removing fog of war and speeds up the movement on your own units)


I don't see how in low level play where mistakes are common place and usually HUGE why a Zerg player would have a problem scouting out there opponent. This isn't me stating, or at least implying facts this is my oppinion on the state of the game, just like IdrA was expressing his own opinion.


oh and @imshl_pl

 You get one ling up his ramp and see a gateway and a cyber core at the front, and a zealot guarding the choke. You try to squeeze an overlord in, but they have 2 stalkers patroling the edges of their base.