That 12 worker start was the biggest mistake in starcraft 2. Its been a few years since LotV was released and its been frustrating ever since. It led to a series of balance updates hotfixes and unit reworks and boring and predictable META pro play. It led to batlecruiser rush into macro, mass infestors and mass warpins in my main baise.
Pro play was on another level back then when the races had 6 workers at the start of the game. I miss those games where the pro`s were microing and outsmarting each other from start to finish. Building an economy and making use of every unit as their army compositions were evolving and getting better after every engagement by replacing the more expendable units with better late game options. And that is what stacraft should be about. Thats why broodwar is more popular in Korea and it is a much better option for a pro player. The early game is even more slower leading to much more intensive early game, where every decision and every move matters.
Shoutout to the terran pros that inspired me to play this game: Polt; Bunny: MMA, YoDa, Taeja, Bomber, Innovation etc…
Honestly I don’t get it. More than half of this game is economy and army production. How can it be that suddenly they realized the game they designed and worked on for so many years was actually better off with an entirely different economy. I mean it’s such a huge change, it’s so much bigger than introducing a new unit here, removing an old unit there. I think the results of this change speak for themselves, we were better off with the old economy. The game feels so tiny now compared to how big it felt before.
They were thinking that worker harasment was the best part of the game from a viewer perspective.So they added more workers and more units that kill workers. Blizzard SC2BalanceTeam is also know for their overkill aproach where they make to many changes for a single problem. Ill give an example where they decided to give more armor to the ultralisc and in the same time splited the marauder atack in to 2.
The problem back then was that player would split the map in halp leading to a super long and slow games where cost eficency was key until one of the players run out of resources. They could solve that problem by just reducing the minerals and gas per base.
However they are going for the overkills once again. With every change more players are quiting the game because a favorite thing is gone or some new thing frustrating to deal with. The game should not be so much about micro but rather macro and decision making.
the other funny thing about the 12 worker start is it makes it so much harder for casuals who practice against AIs. What the AI will do in LOTV is save like 5,000 or 10,000 extra minerals and gas and suck out the resources of the entire map. They can do this much quicker because of the 12 worker start. This is almost unfair to newbies who will get crushed by these AIs. By 10 minutes in they have three bases mined out. Not to mention all of the extra APM AIs have. It just makes turtle play against an AI virtually impossible because even if they mine out the whole map they have saved an extra 10,000 resources. So as a new player you are almost never ahead against an AI…unless its an easy one. If you ever watch your Versus AI or custom replays you can notice this that in LOTV the AI saves an extra 10,000 resources that it doesnt even spend unless it mined out the whole map. They also skip upgrades to make more units.
Holding off the AI’s first attack and expanding safely is usually very easy to do.
The StarCraft II AI reacts very poorly to the player, particularly in LOTV. That makes it very easy to beat once you get used to its quirks:
The AI will usually attack with a single death-ball. If you monitor that death-ball, you can easily respond to every attack. Scout Zerglings and Overseers (Corruption) are the only exceptions that will deal any damage to the player, and those can usually be zoned or cleared with a few units or turrets. Protoss and Terran scouts are not a threat.
Each version of the AI has one preset composition that it will build after its earliest attacks. The AI will not change that composition based on the player’s army, so it is particularly easy to exploit. Most of the compositions that the AI uses are suboptimal and lack sufficient anti-air to deal with heavier air units like Battlecruisers, Carriers, or Brood Lords.
The AI will overreact to every attack by sending its entire army (or all available units). This makes it very easy to bug the AI by hovering a single air unit in the dead-space near the opponent’s base. The AI will usually just sit there waiting for the unit to get close.
The AI will not move air units separately from the main army; so even it if has air units it usually won’t be able to fight something in dead-space.
Most AI compositions do not have enough air units to deal with a massive air army or heavy air units like Battlecruisers. They will also try to punch through Battlecruisers, Carriers, or Brood Lords with ground units that are not actually capable of beating those units.
The AI will usually try retreat once its army becomes smaller than the player’s army. It does not consider whether a player’s units can attack air or ground, so you can often force the AI to retreat even if it has an insurmountable advantage like air units against an army with no anti-air.
The AI will also pull back melee units at melee range or units that are already on top of a Tank line. In both cases, the AI will trade worse because of the retreat order and often lose a lot of units for no reason. Sometimes the AI will actually end up retreating from fights it will otherwise win because of this.
The AI will often pull back immediately after entering Liberation zones. This can cause the AI to stop when the army could otherwise push through the zone and kill the Liberator or the player’s other units.
Sometimes units will march in and out of Liberation zones, taking damage each time until they are dead.
Yes, like the Charge upgrade, despite the fact that Protoss AIs are usually very dependent on Zealots. It is silly which upgrades the AI decides to get and which ones it does not. The Protoss AI will always get Blink even though the AI is not able to evaluate when and where to properly use it, but it won’t get Charge despite the fact that Zealots need it far more than Stalkers need Blink.
The AI will also often be behind and unable to compete when you hit +3/3(/3).
I agree w/the OP. The 12 worker start ruined the balance of the game. More importantly, it ruined the pacing of the game. It eliminated most of the early game, and almost entirely the mid game.
Like it isn’t now? At least before if you wanted to send a worker out right away you may get into your opponent’s base before they even put a unit down at the entrance. Now? Not a chance.
it was even more boring before, building upto 12 drones just to make your spawning pool, and you can totally scout your opponents base now before it’s blocked…
you are also probably a diamond APM spamming troll. Notice in my last comment I said CASUAL PLAYERS. A larger pool of players than you realize exists quit the game because they didnt want to have to use hotkeys and spam APM like crazy once LOTV came out. That’s the majority of my in game friends. They are all gone. Some of the what I call “neo trolls” which are blonde nerds with glasses about 16 years old yes they know how to “kill the hoards” in LOTV because they know all of the pro level strats and they repeat them just like they do on ladder. Which explains how you wind up with noobs in GM. And yes you do because of “speed favoring over skill” in LOTV by the developers. Ask the diamond ladder players if they can beat “To Slay The Beast” Zerg mission in Brood War episode VI. I can promise you they cant because Brood War is about strategy. Anyway my point is a large portion of casuals dont want to use hotkeys how are they going to play a macro game against an AI? Thats without cheeses, all ins, or wall offs. I don’t think they can do it. Just face the fact that Blizzard fu cked up and super charged the AIs with over 600 APM with that kind of APM they can just bank all of the maps resources without you even knowing. Maybe for you the AI is “easy” or whatever. But not to most casual players. Prove me wrong.