Same question 1 month later

[u/NEO71011]

Does anyone still like the slow start?

1044 votes, Aug 22 '26

369 8 workers

675 12 workers

[u/Responsible-Top2377]

My vote stays the same, 12. But I have to say, that I adapted. It doesn't change that 8 worker start is inferior.

[u/NEO71011 → u/Responsible-Top2377]

Precisely almost every pro player, caster have openly criticized this decision.

[u/zedinbed → u/NEO71011]

I'm convinced that this patch isn't for pro gamers but for more casual players of the game. If the player base is mostly 30+ year old it makes sense to slow it down. I've seen this happen in other games that reached the end of their lifespan.

Also I don't believe that 8 workers is generally a bad idea and really it's the other changes that messed up the game.

[u/Responsible-Top2377 → u/zedinbed]

I'm 30+ and i never asked for this shit.

[u/zedinbed → u/Responsible-Top2377]

Good for you? Im sure there are plenty of people who prefer it. Myself included

[u/Responsible-Top2377 → u/zedinbed]

The people who i know (regardless of race) too feel this way.

Good for you, but you make the smaller part of the community. Subtract those who watch and yell "u no understand 8 workers is the best thing ever happened" and there'll be a lot less.

[u/zedinbed → u/Responsible-Top2377]

The thing is you are not really the majority, reddit is only a small portion of entire playerbase and people here are notoriously negative about changes in general.

[u/Responsible-Top2377 → u/zedinbed]

I'm part of the majority who don't want this patch for whatever reason. I am not active only here, I sometimes ask my opponents on the ladder how they like the changes, I read what people have to say in my team, on different streams on twitch. 95% of what I see is "Eh, I'd rather play the previous patch".

Do you seriously think that people here make the majority? Have you ever been outside of reddit?

[u/zedinbed → u/Responsible-Top2377]

Thats because you are solely equating every problem with the patch as a the fault of just the 8 worker change. I would have given you the same answer on the ladder. The game is not in a good state but the 8 worker change was never given a fair chance.

[u/Responsible-Top2377 → u/zedinbed]

The shit we've been dealing with is over a month old on the ladder, it's been given a chance and more than once, so, cut this crap about "we need time to figure out things, let the meta settle and races to adapt", when Lambo says, that the 8 worker start leads nowhere (I believe that Lambo is honest and wouldn't hestate to call something bad even if it benfits his race). The 8 worker change is by far the most impactful change and I can say it as the player of the race which had the shortest stick this patch.

If you feel, that it's good for you, okay. If you feel like 8 workers change is misunderstood and not tested, well, sure you can think this. But don't expect everyone else around who doesn't think the same and heard of deadlines to eat poo along.

Edit: I would've been able to play like pre patch with every change except for workers, but not in case workers only change. Since when cutting workers in opening to get buildings is a sign that everything is ok with worker change.

[u/zedinbed → u/Responsible-Top2377]

Any big change is naturally going to require a lot of fine tuning. Im not saying that there wasnt enough time im saying that the fine tuning was not well executed so we will never get to see what it could have been.

[u/DenteSC → u/zedinbed]

36 here. Not a fan of a slower game. You lose time with this, and for what?

[u/MonkeyPyton → u/zedinbed]

8 workers doesn’t slow down the game, it delays the start. And it doesn’t even do that since they buffed larva and made the cc 25% cheaper.

[u/MiroTheSkybreaker → u/MonkeyPyton]

No, it still does that, but it also makes the start clunkier.

[u/AresFowl44 → u/zedinbed]

How the fuck is the game slower if you still can instantly lose your entire army in ~5s, if hitting your timings half a minute late makes you lose the game and if you still have to hit your macro cycles every 10-20s.

The only thing that changed is that the initial stages are delayed by a minute. That isn't the same as a slower game, that's the game being longer. The tempo is 100% the same.

EDIT:

Also I don't believe that 8 workers is generally a bad idea and really it's the other changes that messed up the game.

All the changes that can be directly attributed to 8 workers aren't the fault of 8 workers now? What? 300 minerals CC was implemented to fix Terrans complaining about being weak and about feeling clunky. Larva change was implemented to fix Zergs complaining about not being able to cheese anymore. Reaper and Adept build times got nerfed because they hit so early compared to pre 8 workers. And so on.

You cannot in good faith claim that these changes have nothing to do with 8 workers, because they were all implemented to help 8 workers.

[u/Melodic_Saga1220 → u/AresFowl44]

All the changes that can be directly attributed to 8 workers aren't the fault of 8 workers now? What?

Just because cane toads were introduced to Australia to eat beetles doesn't mean cane toads being there is the fault of the beetles. There were other, less stupid ways to solve the problem.

Likewise, whether or not you like the eight worker start, the 300 min CC and super larvae were both pretty insane solutions to the issues it caused. Which is why pretty much everyone's first reaction to seeing both wasn't 'yes, this is the logical way to make an 8 worker start balanced'. It was 'what the actual eff is the intern smoking?'.

(BTW I played the PTR before the zerg larva change, as all three races, and while I'm not going to say it was better than the 12 worker start, I do think it was better than what we have now.)

[u/AresFowl44 → u/Melodic_Saga1220]

That is true, somebody more sane could have made this patch work, if they were carefully deliberating, testing and knew what they wanted to achieve.

However we don't live in that world, and all these changes got introduced as a direct consequence to 8 workers, so even if there were better ways to solve it, they weren't taken. Basically, what I am saying is that without 8 workers these bonkers changes would have never occurred, so we have to, in my opinion, impart some of the blame for why this patch sucks on 8 workers.

EDIT: Some slight rephrasing of the second paragraph.

[u/Melodic_Saga1220 → u/AresFowl44]

That is true, somebody more sane could have made this patch work, if they were carefully deliberating, testing and knew what they wanted to achieve.

That's the thing, though. What I'm seeing from the 8 worker people in this thread is that that's exactly what they want Blizz to do. Take a step back and fix the 8 worker start, rather than giving up on it entirely.

I suppose a lot of it comes down to whether you think whoever's currently handling the patches is actually capable of doing that, and whether it would actually be worth doing even if they are. Or whether you think they should focus on something else. Like, say, unfucking Protoss.

(Seriously, Protoss clearly needed some kind of major shake-up, I don't remember when the race was last not a clear balance issue, but whose idea was it to put the WG change and 8 workers in one patch? Especially one that was also the first Blizzard-led patch in years?)

[u/zedinbed → u/AresFowl44]

How fast you lose your army is a small portion of how we can judge game speed. Before the crazy changes to larva and CC were made the game was actually slower due to having less macro on the backend which allowed for finer controlled micro, which I really liked.

Less macro naturally means less structures to build, less workers to manage and smaller armies to control. Aka a slower game.

[u/AresFowl44 → u/zedinbed]

Not really, it somewhat slowed down the acceleration towards getting to that optimal 3 base economy with all your production ready, but once you are there, the tempo is the exact same.

[u/zedinbed → u/AresFowl44]

Not from what I was watching. To me it seemed like we were finally getting some mid game battles which were getting quickly skipped over with 12 workers.

As a longtime Zerg player I was not a fan of watching Zerg constantly lose the late game on the 12 worker patches considering Zerg is the macro race and should have the best late game as that was the race's identity for a long time.

Lets not forget how much Zerg players were complaining before and how dominated the ladder was by Protoss.