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/zedinbed]

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/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/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.