Introduction (or what the hell does the title even mean…)
For those of you who are not psychology majors, some explanation might be necessary. The Nature vs Nurture debate is one of the most notorious ones in psychological research and it addresses the question of the source of a problem – is there a genetic basis (nature) or is it due to environmental factures (nurture). To your rejoice, I won’t dig that much into science. the big picture we will be trying to figure out is why is it so hard for Protosses to do well compared to the other two races. Are there problems with the tech tree or the racial balance? Is it due to lack of solid players to push the race forward? Is it Kerrigan’s doing? Is it Enron’s doing? I hope that after some hefty quibbling we can start to understand the situation and work towards a wise and mature conclusion. Hopefully.
The Nature Aspect
When trying to apply the psychological concept of “nature” to a game such as StarCraft, we must carefully think of what does it entail. In this case this is pretty simple – every race in StarCraft has two major components that define it: units with all their relative aspects such as cost, build time, damage, etc.; and tech tree which is where are we headed and how do we get there.
Unit-wise, Protoss seems to be doing fine. With powerful early and mid-game units such as the Stalker, Immortal and Sentry and late-game beasts like the Colossus and the Hight Templar, the obscenely yellow race has basically everything covered. Few exceptions exist but we will examine them below as part of the tech tree because their under-usage seems to be dictated by being forced to make “the other choice”. Thus, we reach the conclusion that if anything is genetically wrong with Protoss, it must lie somewhere in the tech. And I just might know the spots.
Many comparisons to BroodWar can and will be made, because it is there that the Protoss race truly shines with many years of development and the help of not one or two revolutionists. And before gnawing me for this seemingly obvious and misplaced statement and saying that SC2 is far too young, we should first try to answer the question “Can the current Protoss ever end like his predecessor?” Does it have the sufficient backbone to support a progress to perfection? Thus far, the answer seems a bit out of reach.
Do Xenomorphs Dream of Mechanic Caterpillars?
I would like to start with one of the grandest issue Protosses might be having. As it was in BroodWar, Protoss units have remained expensive and hard to get. And although the Warp Gate tech has solved some of the problems with building times, everything that is Protoss still requires its fare share of money.
But here comes the important difference: in BroodWar, the race had means to overcome this drawback. In BroodWar, they had the Reaver, which was more than just an AoE damage dealer: it was Protosses’ most efficient way to keep their enemies at bay while getting their economy up. That is why Reaver openings were applicable in every single match-up and we saw them more than ¾ of the times. They served multiple purposes from evening economies, coercing retreats and forcing Turrets and gas on Scourges.
Now, I am not saying that the SC2 Protoss must reclaim this particular unit. He just needs a way to get even economy-wise with his opponents. With Storm dealing less damage than it used to and the Colossus being too valuable to risk, current Protosses have no way of dealing significant economy damage once the early game ends. Sure, they can chrono boost their economy and try to get even from the beginning but again this is just a temporary, until-the-mid-game solution. Once the macro phase sets in, Protosses find that they are fighting an uphill battle against the MULEs or the ridiculous droning capabilities of Zerg. And at the end of the day, the nature of Protoss forces him to offensively take expansions if he wants to survive. That, however, can be quite risky, especially in PvT with Terrans having gone way more mobile than in BroodWar.
Do not be quick to judge the words above even if you do manage to be even with your opponents. The current state of the game might be very misleading because nobody is yet Jaedongly good and 2-basing-till-the-end seems to be a perfectly fine solution. As the game progresses further, though, and build orders get calculated to the last mineral, things will start to change drastically.
Of Clockworks and Cash
And while on the subject of metallic, crawling monsters, we should throw an eye on their birthplace: The Robotic Facility. Since day one of the beta I’ve had the strangest feeling that something is wrong with this building and it hit me just recently while watching a game where I saw a triple robo! The Robo Facility has been drastically remade since the BroodWar days and now it is no longer “the building for the cute units”. It is now a major production facility with equal importance to the gateway; it has become the Protoss factory! This makes us go back to the money matters.
In BroodWar, Protosses had a smooth progression of their Robo tech. First, they got the Robo facility and warped a Shuttle while waiting for the support bay. Then they would get a Reaver (followed by Observer after observatory) and marched on to destroy SCVs. Everything ran smoothly, step-by-step. No we get this huge shift and Protosses are given Immortals and Colossi which are required to be en masse. And as we know, a single Colossus or Immortal rarely does you any good outside PvP. That is if you ever reach robo tech.
Thus, suddenly, to effectively spam robo units Protosses find it necessary to get more than one 200/100 building in order to mass 250/100 Immortals or 300/200 Colossi. And some people try to do it off of one base and later wonder why they die to a Marauder ball. It is financially crippling and you lose a bucketful of economy without a mean to catch up. Not to mention all that makes the Warp Prism obsolete, because how would you sneak it in-between Observers, Immortals and Colossi. There is just no time; and no money too.
Tiers of Sorrow
And now with the “obsolete” issue on track, it would be a nice time to mention that Protoss is still the only race in the game with entire parts of its tech tree being complete rubbish. I am talking, of course, of the Fleet Beacon tech and the shitty Carriers and Motherships that come with it. Why would anyone go for Carriers as their Tier 3 choice when you have a unit that deals splash, has more range, costs less, builds almost twice as faster AND benefits from your ground upgrades that you need to stay alive? This puts Protoss in hugely disadvantageous position to the other races, which seem to be in full satisfaction from their tech. Seriously, the FB end of Protoss is so useless and superfluous that even a cold-hearted amputation would not do the trick.
I will cut here in order to not be of torment to the reader with a more enormous piece of text. Expect the second part of the feature in a couple of hours and in the meantime feel free to share with us your thoughts on the matter.
Part II
For those of you who are not psychology majors, some explanation might be necessary. The Nature vs Nurture debate is one of the most notorious ones in psychological research and it addresses the question of the source of a problem – is there a genetic basis (nature) or is it due to environmental factures (nurture). To your rejoice, I won’t dig that much into science. the big picture we will be trying to figure out is why is it so hard for Protosses to do well compared to the other two races. Are there problems with the tech tree or the racial balance? Is it due to lack of solid players to push the race forward? Is it Kerrigan’s doing? Is it Enron’s doing? I hope that after some hefty quibbling we can start to understand the situation and work towards a wise and mature conclusion. Hopefully.
The Nature Aspect
When trying to apply the psychological concept of “nature” to a game such as StarCraft, we must carefully think of what does it entail. In this case this is pretty simple – every race in StarCraft has two major components that define it: units with all their relative aspects such as cost, build time, damage, etc.; and tech tree which is where are we headed and how do we get there.
Unit-wise, Protoss seems to be doing fine. With powerful early and mid-game units such as the Stalker, Immortal and Sentry and late-game beasts like the Colossus and the Hight Templar, the obscenely yellow race has basically everything covered. Few exceptions exist but we will examine them below as part of the tech tree because their under-usage seems to be dictated by being forced to make “the other choice”. Thus, we reach the conclusion that if anything is genetically wrong with Protoss, it must lie somewhere in the tech. And I just might know the spots.
Many comparisons to BroodWar can and will be made, because it is there that the Protoss race truly shines with many years of development and the help of not one or two revolutionists. And before gnawing me for this seemingly obvious and misplaced statement and saying that SC2 is far too young, we should first try to answer the question “Can the current Protoss ever end like his predecessor?” Does it have the sufficient backbone to support a progress to perfection? Thus far, the answer seems a bit out of reach.
Do Xenomorphs Dream of Mechanic Caterpillars?
I would like to start with one of the grandest issue Protosses might be having. As it was in BroodWar, Protoss units have remained expensive and hard to get. And although the Warp Gate tech has solved some of the problems with building times, everything that is Protoss still requires its fare share of money.
But here comes the important difference: in BroodWar, the race had means to overcome this drawback. In BroodWar, they had the Reaver, which was more than just an AoE damage dealer: it was Protosses’ most efficient way to keep their enemies at bay while getting their economy up. That is why Reaver openings were applicable in every single match-up and we saw them more than ¾ of the times. They served multiple purposes from evening economies, coercing retreats and forcing Turrets and gas on Scourges.
Now, I am not saying that the SC2 Protoss must reclaim this particular unit. He just needs a way to get even economy-wise with his opponents. With Storm dealing less damage than it used to and the Colossus being too valuable to risk, current Protosses have no way of dealing significant economy damage once the early game ends. Sure, they can chrono boost their economy and try to get even from the beginning but again this is just a temporary, until-the-mid-game solution. Once the macro phase sets in, Protosses find that they are fighting an uphill battle against the MULEs or the ridiculous droning capabilities of Zerg. And at the end of the day, the nature of Protoss forces him to offensively take expansions if he wants to survive. That, however, can be quite risky, especially in PvT with Terrans having gone way more mobile than in BroodWar.
Do not be quick to judge the words above even if you do manage to be even with your opponents. The current state of the game might be very misleading because nobody is yet Jaedongly good and 2-basing-till-the-end seems to be a perfectly fine solution. As the game progresses further, though, and build orders get calculated to the last mineral, things will start to change drastically.
Of Clockworks and Cash
And while on the subject of metallic, crawling monsters, we should throw an eye on their birthplace: The Robotic Facility. Since day one of the beta I’ve had the strangest feeling that something is wrong with this building and it hit me just recently while watching a game where I saw a triple robo! The Robo Facility has been drastically remade since the BroodWar days and now it is no longer “the building for the cute units”. It is now a major production facility with equal importance to the gateway; it has become the Protoss factory! This makes us go back to the money matters.
In BroodWar, Protosses had a smooth progression of their Robo tech. First, they got the Robo facility and warped a Shuttle while waiting for the support bay. Then they would get a Reaver (followed by Observer after observatory) and marched on to destroy SCVs. Everything ran smoothly, step-by-step. No we get this huge shift and Protosses are given Immortals and Colossi which are required to be en masse. And as we know, a single Colossus or Immortal rarely does you any good outside PvP. That is if you ever reach robo tech.
Thus, suddenly, to effectively spam robo units Protosses find it necessary to get more than one 200/100 building in order to mass 250/100 Immortals or 300/200 Colossi. And some people try to do it off of one base and later wonder why they die to a Marauder ball. It is financially crippling and you lose a bucketful of economy without a mean to catch up. Not to mention all that makes the Warp Prism obsolete, because how would you sneak it in-between Observers, Immortals and Colossi. There is just no time; and no money too.
Tiers of Sorrow
And now with the “obsolete” issue on track, it would be a nice time to mention that Protoss is still the only race in the game with entire parts of its tech tree being complete rubbish. I am talking, of course, of the Fleet Beacon tech and the shitty Carriers and Motherships that come with it. Why would anyone go for Carriers as their Tier 3 choice when you have a unit that deals splash, has more range, costs less, builds almost twice as faster AND benefits from your ground upgrades that you need to stay alive? This puts Protoss in hugely disadvantageous position to the other races, which seem to be in full satisfaction from their tech. Seriously, the FB end of Protoss is so useless and superfluous that even a cold-hearted amputation would not do the trick.
I will cut here in order to not be of torment to the reader with a more enormous piece of text. Expect the second part of the feature in a couple of hours and in the meantime feel free to share with us your thoughts on the matter.
Part II
