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Blog Update 9/15: It might be most beneficial to the reader to skip to my 3rd post on this blog before reading anything else
I guess it's important to point out before I start, that what I'm talking about may refer more to broodwar zerg then starcraft 2 zerg but it is something to ponder relative to sc2.
What we ended up concluding on the blizzard forums was that zerg was or is a "Directional Race" or in another term "Vector Race". That is to say that they do have a "half cheesey" functionality. A zerg that heads in a particular direction of offense or defense tends to stay heading in either one of those directions. The classic wisdom is as follows "do not make units unless you are going to use them" and so because of zerg's directional or vectorial functionality it makes it all the more important to have "meaningful long term impact". One consideration for that impact has been in the form of slowing the enemy down. It might ensure some meaningful hits on the enemy, but since zerg's strength is found in their "timing parallel production" it makes their swarming potential too great in combination with enemy slow and would possibly ensure kills every time. The other side of this could be seen in terms of options. We all know how zerg was forced to make lings in many cases. Zerglings could have had the option to merge pairs together in to any unit for the cost so long as they had the building to unlock that unit. But that also seemed to be outside the realm of a quality unique race that should be zerg.
In broodwar we saw lots of speed upgrades for things. I guess in starcraft 2 we see about as many but they removed the speed upgrade from the ultralisk. They added speed enhancement to creep. It has definitely made one wonder what is up with all the speed upgrades on top of speed creep. I think that all this speed is stretching to reach a concept that hasn't been or they haven't seemed to figure out how to ultimately fulfill in a quality way.
At this time I would like to bring up 3 concepts all at once. "Micro, Sacrifice, and Parameter Adjustment" that is to be viewed as a group of concepts that could be useful to achieving the goal of "a unit made is a unit used' with the greatest intention of "quality micro experience on both sides" and "unique functions or methods of sacrifice". I would also like to add the functional design consideration that a production buildings that has lost x% of life produces x% slower. I honestly feel like these two considerations overall would have made zerg "pure balanced" in broodwar and I suppose that pure balance may not be good for our sense of how the game should be, however, it is worth while to consider when the ideas proposed may have no real argument against them in terms of fairness treatment as with the building damage, but as for zerg and having the considered "parameter altering abilities and sacrificial strength" there could be something said about the fairness however having only speed could be an argument for an unfair amount of redundancy.
So now I will provide the design ideas I came up with considering the aspired concepts above.
The first one could be the most significant since many have complained about the "swarm strength concept" not being there.
1.)To properly define the strength of the swarm you don't say "1 zergling many" (many used to describe the many hit points of life pool, rather, you define the swarm by the phrase "Many zergling 1" that is, many zerglings with 1 hp left. This vision for proper definition of the swarm is illuminated in its uniqueness and difference from the other races using Hegel(the philosopher) concept of "thesis plus anti thesis equals synthesis" that in order to get a 3rd body of uniqueness you combine the opposing factors of the other two. The other two factors in this case are "charge" and "stim pack". Notice that these things are in opposition to each other because you don't want to sacrifice and charge at the enemy simultaneously. But when you combine the two for the sake of the zergling you could use a different application of "leap sacrifice" where the zergling can leap in and sacrifice all its life down to 1 hp, using the life sacrificed as damage to the opponent including the basic damage on the attack.
2.)So the ultralisk would have a toggle ability that would allow it to lose in max or current hp for a gain of movement speed. As soon as you get close to the enemy you would toggle it off of course. But the key aspect of the ultralisk in terms of passiveness is that what ever amount of life the ultralisk loses it does as damage back at ranged units. However, what ever % of missing life the ultralisk has, it takes as a reduced amount of its own attack damage "to ranged units" in the same % of missing life.
I said back at "ranged units" but that damage doesn't have to include the bonus damage from counter unit types, a counter unit should be more effective since the right unit was made. And it doesn't have to include air ranged units as missile like banshees of course.
3.) could have been that mutalisks would have been able to sacrifice their splash damage in order to have what ever damage experienced against them splashed in the same proportioned manner. That almost seemed to be the concept going on when the pros clumped mutalisks together as seemed to be "one unit" diminishing any micro towards them. It would seem that capability didn't have to come in the form of a gimmick, but rather could have been in the form as described as a "parameter changing ability"
It seems that the idea of "a unit made is a unit used" hurts zerg the most when fighting terran who have bunkers, planetary fortress, tanks and on top of it all, high ground.
Maybe it would have been interesting to seem some inverted terrain maps of high/low ground.
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At this time I would like to point out that with the bunker and the planetary fortress. Something has seemed to go out of quality symmetrical design aim whack so to speak.
Terran didn't necessarily need another defense form after the bunker because zerg and protoss had attack building defenses (spine cannon). It only proves that if they were serious about putting the planetary fortress in the game as fairness to terran in a symmetrical sense that they would have considered the fairness for zerg and protoss in terms of "lacking a utility concept" like the bunker. I wrote about that concept previously and here it is.
The swarmwreather: Created by merging the overlord with the spinecrawler (the spinecrawler is unlocked by the pool and not evo, showing its intention to be a part of utility for zerg) This unit is fully mobile everywhere and generally fast. It has the combined hp pools of the spine crawler and overlord but has no natural amor defense to speak of all though it can have its armor upgraded. Ground unit. If the swarmwreather is attacked it releases broodlings per so much life lost. It has no other attack form of its own. Your own units can attack the swarmwreather. The enemy will recognize the swarmwreather as an enemy warrior (fire at it) if it is the only unit of type in the vicinity but as soon as other warriors come in to the vicinity they take the position of priority target.
The swarmwreather can burrow and detonate, however... it can only detonate if an enemy unit is close by and the command of detonation has been acted.
I later decided to perhaps not merge the lord and the spinecrawler to make the swarm wreather because of the "parameter adjusting visibility/invisibility ability" that it could have had for the sake of ensuring the greatest possible utility value out of the overlord for occupying a larva, however, it doesn't really seem to make any difference whether it is the lord and spine crawler merged together or is simply a spinecrawler that can mutate convert in to the swarmwreather alone.
Protoss: Protoss is missing "Quality Utility" thematic. Protoss could have a certain type of building to replace the shield battery which is somewhere between a bunker and swarmwreather, therefore moving around the map in a blink cooldown style that is of substantially different parameter then the stalker blink. Any units inside of the radius of this building have their shields "spirit linked" (wc3 term) or "unitied" (diablo term) to represent the concept of "Semi Mobile Quality" as a differentiating from the other races.
And that leads me to paint the thematic schematic picture over all for all 3 races
Bunker (positional utility ability: salvage)
Swarm wreather (mobile utility quantity: broodling)
Shield Uniter (semi mobile utility quality: unified)
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Finally, I would love to be able to attack the queen in terms of a degrading of esports but the design considerations only come down to a realm of two possibilities
One is to have the queen produce from larva and spine/spore produce linearly at hatchery
Or swap supply cost and upgrade capability with spines/spores and queens as is.
The other would be to have 3 role forms of the queen that are extreme in concept and produce that way out of the hatchery. So that there would be a sort "light rock paper scissors" going on. As we might see something like the flying "glass harasser flying queen" with negative 1 armor instead of positive one made as the proper sort of counter to what ever the enemy throws at zerg...
The necessity would be to have the general 3 way rock paper scissors aspect of the game nailed down for what ever queen forms would be designed.
But for the sake of esports there would need to be a counter offensive potential going on with the queen here for sure as the addition of the queen from broodwar to sc2 hasn't helped to serve esports, that's for sure.
Finally, if the spinecrawler would have been able to mutate in to the swarmwreather of mobile utility value
I guess the question may have been
What would have the queen mutated in to of stationary utility value?
And if it had something that could be significant then maybe the queen would have never needed an attack hopefully.
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I think my final point to this thread is...
The queen should have never been able to attack, but instead the queen should have been able to lay down defense structures like they originally had in alpha or beta...
3 drones would have come off from minerals which therefor would have automatically factored the supply to instantly (or at 20% faster production speed) form a spine or spore where the queen commands
And it would be upgradable and have unit classification.
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Maybe the queen sort of acts as the replacement to the creep colony in a way and when the 3 drones come together to make a spinecrawler under the queen's command, it definitely produces rather quickly if not instantly.
  
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the only controversy is how you mange to not forget to breathe if the rest of your brain is filled with this mess
User was temp banned for this post.
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tough english for me, liked the ultra suggestion - very simple but could be cool
Not sure what u mean with the queen - but ye, the queen attacking in sc2 and also using the "heal" is not likeable with me.
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This isn't tough English. Some of these sentences are a garbled mess.
I mean wtf is this sentence: "However, what ever % of missing life the ultralisk has, it takes as a reduced amount of its own attack damage "to ranged units" in the same % of missing life."
I can only guess he's trying to say that an ultralisk does reduced damage to ranged units proportional to the amount (percentage ) of life it has lost.
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Maybe it requires oxygen deprivation also on the side of the reader for optimal comprehension
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Post #2
On September 12 2016 19:44 Foxxan wrote:
tough english for me, liked the ultra suggestion - very simple but could be cool
Not sure what u mean with the queen - but ye, the queen attacking in sc2 and also using the "heal" is not likeable with me.
Thanks, I wasn't too confident about that one myself so I appreciate it.
Anyways...
Let's say for a minute that the queen's ability to attack is removed and it is now able to lay down spine crawlers.
You command a spine crawler to be made at a location and 3 (non mineral carrying) drones move out and then merge together at the location to mutate the spinecrawler almost instantly.
It might also cost supply if upgrades are desired to work with it, so it's either that queen or the spinecrawler that costs supply and can be upgraded.
But with spawn larva, the name could be changed simply to "spawn" and now it can cast on hatcheries or units.
When casted on a particular zergling in a group that you intend on counter attacking with, upon the effected units death, you can now hit a hot key to spend an additional 50 minerals to revive 2 more zerglings from the corpse and the effect will spread evenly in the revived units but realize that there are only up to 3 or 4 larva to work with.
So a single roach could divide/spend in to two, using up two larva, and then the effect would linger only on one of those two in order to divide in to two more roaches to use up the remaining imaginary larva
Directional or Vectorial zerg function support at its finest.
I think this really helps to support the idea that "a unit made is a unit used"
When it is passing on that "spawn effect" upon death, as though it did not die in vein.
It either ends up being that or that the spine crawler can mutate in to the utility tool of the swarmwreather.
..........
It's also hard to say how long of a wait there would be before the units could be spawned out of a corpse
Date 9/13-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*New Idea!*
At this time I would like to put forth a theory. And the general premise to that theory is that the queen was put in to the game of starcraft to solve a problem, but that problem was improperly percieved because no one knew what the wrong solution was in the first place.
So let's say that all of these unit ideas aformentioned would have been in the game of broodwar.
Well, if that were the case then it might have been much more clear what complex solution the queen could have simplified with the proper role fulfilled. (taking the need for parameter altering abilities and sacrificial concepts out)
In philosophy, there is a theory that beauty is founded on the relationship of "the one and the many".
In starcraft's case, it would be very easy to say that the Queen represents "One" and as far as what represents "the many" would we say only zerglings?
Or would we include all of the zerg units?
One strange point about zerg that people tend to forget is that the zergling AND the mutalisk are both "small" sized as classified by the game.
So imagine for a moment that the protoss race had its "shield unifying semi mobile battery replacement". As far as zerg goes, there should be a life link between the queen and the small units.
Those units would be the zergling and the mutalisk.
Perhaps to be different then protoss, if the queen itself is attacked, then there may be no life link relationship for it. Hence why the queen has 1 armor and other queens can heal that queen.
If this life link were in place then there wouldn't need to be a capability of attacking for the queen and this goes back to supporting the "spine crawler laying" that I say the queen should have had in the first place where 3 drones come together and quickly make the spine.
But then, in terms of "offensiveness" the queen could shift its form in to the "glass harasser flying queen" that has "-1 armor" and flies as fast as any warrior.
Now the enemy ought to try and kill the queen to disable the life link when the queen and zerglings or mutalisks are used offensively, and that -1 armor initially will be really enticing.
Perhaps in the flying form the queen has the ability to cast ensnare instead of transfuse as transfusing spirit linked would be op.
You can start to sense how much this completes the zerg race from broodwar to sc2.
Now as far as being able to cast "spawn" on a unit as previously described, i'm not so sure, perhaps the ensnare spell would be enough.
Couldn't this be a theory that also supports why they added the mutalisk life regen when that might not have been necessary?
And with the swarmwreather, I don't know, would zerg even have needed the roach?
Would the pros please pool together and get blizzard to see that this is a more realistic design for zerg and for e-sports?
Further Thought 9/13:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The considerations have now brought me for a questioning of the roster of zerg units overall and the function of being able to mutate from one unit to another
If we start with broodwar, it would seem to me that it might be possible to divide their entire roster of units down the middle
You have the
Zergling, Hydralisk, and Mutalisk (weak core army)
Ultralisk, Lurker, Guardian (strong and siegelike)
There almost seems to be a concept here of the weaker units being able to mutate in to the stronger ones.
The weaker units are suppose to represent the "defending" side of zerg
While the stronger ones are suppose to represent the "aggressive side"
The one issue with this perspective is that we never saw 2 zerglings merging together in order to mutate in to the ultralisk.
And it's really hard to know why that never was the case...
For the sake of inversion and symmetry, maybe the queen in its first form on the ground with plus 1 armor was only suppose to be able to life link with zerg's lighter units
The ling, hydra and muta (no point with the scourge because that would have defeated the concept of suicidal damage)
And then the weak -1 armor higher speed flying queen, which the would have been able to life link with the stronger siege like units
For the sake of symmetrical design it might make a lot of sense....
Zerg always seemed to be looking for the highlight of their aggression through "units mutated into other units" (proxy units)
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Was going to say that the ability (spawn) would only be castable on the light units (ling, mutalisk, hydralisk)
This is so that the light units can still be offensive, apparently in a cheesy way.
And the flying queen's ensnare may have been an ability that applied to the attacks of the heavier units in order to slow them down.
This actually makes me think of units that can dodge the lurker's attack and how ensnaring applied to their attack would have been useful.
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Maybe ensnare would be fine as is, because you know that the flying queen is not linking the life of the lighter units and so it should be fine to allow it to ensnare for the lighter units, even if they do have a "spawn" applied to them.
Further Thought 9/13: The Overlord
There is one issue or weakness of design that this queen never really solves though
Why the overlord occupies larva and doesn't have that utility value it should have had for doing so because providing vision over a ledge doesn't quite cut it?
Maybe the overlord was suppose to mutate in to the swarmwreather and the spinecrawler was not suppose to be able to.
If one was to think very symmetrically about it...
It's like the overlord should have had a slightly larger vision radius then most units to show its utility value in that regard...
But in a complete opposing sense, it should have been able to land and mutate in to a swarmwreather that would be visually blind, but release broodlings when it looses life or completely detonate in to broodIiings if desired... only to either give the sense of offensiveness or defensiveness the legitimate strength capability it deserves at the time.
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Think about how blizzard wanted banelings to move underground, or many people did.
Imagine if that were to have rather been the overlord that mutated in to the blind swarmwreather that burrowed under the ground but could move around and detonate if desired to, but required that sense of directionalism before confidently doing so which is why it would need a bit of offense in order to see.
There is your grand diamond concept that no money was able to buy....
Further consideration: It's hard to say whether the overlord or the spinecrawler would be able to mutate in to the swarmwreather but I have come up with an expression that ultimately makes sense for Zerg Design Wisdom that builds on the old wisdom of "do not make units unless you are going to use them"
"Do not make offense unless there is a way to use it defensively"
"Do not make defense unless there is a way to use it offensively"
-The True Zerg Philosophy
Don't put a queen that can be upgraded and attack right down the middle of zerg's design and break rules with warriors that produce linearly from hatcheries.
It should be, rather
The Queen that can make offense defensive with life link (unite the many)
The Queen that can make defense offensive by turning spinecrawlers in to swarmwreathers (divide the singular)
And as for the warriors that are more tanky, singular and siege like that are used offensively because the weaker ones mutate in to them...
I guess it's like.... "Combine the many and the singular in to one" with the unit concepts you already have in the game such as the boodlord and the swarmhost
And then we can wonder why zerglings don't combine together to make swarm hosts and mutas don't mutate in to broodlords so that we know that zerg's true offensive legitimacy is many many..... with swarmwreather and swarmhost or swarmwreather.
The "many many" as true offensive legitimacy
And the "One One" the ultralisk as the true defensive legitimacy
Maybe the entire concept is not complete with out the exclusive "many many" but apparently pertaining more to the defensive side....
And that might be that the broodlings which come from destroyed buildings will continue to divide and spend your minerals upon their deaths/divisions until you tell them to stop.
Might as well lay out the whole design schematic from the bottom to the top
Many Many (Offensive Cheese) Infested terran
Many Many (Defensive Cheese) Broodlings From buildings divide upon death and continue to spend your minerals
Many One (Defensive Legitimacy) (Queen life links the weaker units (ling, hydra, muta) but when its attacked link breaks
One Many (Counter positional to mobile utility) Spine crawler converts to swarmwreather life sacrificed for broodling
One and Many (Offensive Legitimacy) ling to swarm hosts, muta to broodlords
One One (Mobile defense and offense legitimacy) Ultralisk.
One One (Positional defense and offense legitimacy) Lurker *why not produce from larva?
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"One is to have the queen produce from larva" -- the most probable reason that this is not the case that I can think of is that players would be prone to misplace their queens if they had the normal army rally point. Furthermore, they are quite slow (though they were much faster in beta) and are associated with a hatchery and as such it makes sense to produce them directly at a single hatchery.
And I think simple solutions tend to be superior over complex solutions. If queens are to be a defensive unit, the best and most robust way to allow them to defend both themselves and the base is to give them an attack.
By the way, a silly thought: in Starbow queens have some sort of enrage for their attack that costs energy, but wouldn't it be funny if seeing drones or larva or whatever die had the same effect?
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Post #3
At this time I feel like the big picture has really all come together
As for zerg it comes together in a way of separation
The warrior queen should not be, and should be divided in to the queen that has no attack but can rather lay down defense quickly by merging 3 drones together, and on the other side, act as a unifier of life pool for the swarm (zerg offense) in an AoE around the queen but to which the queen is actually not a part of if it is the particular target that is attact. Which means if the enemy attacks the queen it will lose life individually as it always has and if killed will disable the AoE life unifying effect to the swarm.
Now, you can see that with the current queen in the game that blizzard was trying to fulfill a concept. That concept being "Zerg should not be defending with defense" because "the best defense is a good offense, especially for zerg's awkward design". But this is so that zerg can potentially have a meaningful "counter offense" and as you can see, the queen divided in to the two capabilities and functions described does not address the offensive side.
The offensive side could come in two further ways.
That the spinecrawler could mutate in to the "swarmwreather" which would make it fully mobile, lose its armor (but can have armor upgraded) and have no attack capability to speak of. Only when it loses life will it release broodlings in a proportion to the amount of life lost. So the enemy either must attack it or zerg must attack it in order to release the broodlings. I proposed allowing the overlord to combine with the spinecrawler to make the swarmwreather so that it would be enticing to the enemy to kill it so that zerg's supply would be lost.
If the overlord and the spinecrawler merged together to make the swarmwreather, the unit may have an opposite concept to the overlord and be blind. But I think that this would allow it to be able to move around while burrowed under ground and then have the option of manual self detonation if enemies are near by, but if it is detonated when an enemy is near there may have only been 1 enemy unit running around.
I think this is what people and/or blizzard was looking for when they were experimenting with the baneling tunneling while burrowed.
On the other side of the offensive picture, I see the queen transforming or converting in to a different form where it sacrifices its 1 armor to have -1 armor instead, and losing its ability to cast spawn larv.... but it becomes fast, flies, and can cast ensnare.
It would still unify the life pool of zerg's offensive army in an AoE underneath it, but keep in mind that it could be picked off by anti air real easy, and zerg would mainly be trying to use it for the ensnare spell rather then the unity unless there were a lot of them.
The final picture of the zerg philosophy comes in the form of the flying queen and how it would work with the swarmwreather.
The queen could be poviding the vision if it is flying above a swarmwreather and then as the enemy walks over it the zerg player would be able to detonate and then cast ensnare for sure kills.
On the other hand the queen could be unifying the life pools of multiple swarmwreathers which would really represent the potential strength of the swarm, however, it is almost humerous because that strength can only really be tapped in to if the enemy decides to force that strength upon itself by attacking the swarmwreather.
As a final note. It is important to realize that the barrack, spawning pool, and gateway were all suppose to unlock utility tools that reperesent the theme of the race. And the spawning pool unlocks the spinecrawler for a reason when the evolution chamber unlocked the spore crawler separately. Protoss once had the shield battery and perhaps they took it out for good reason. But it should have been replaced by the semi-mobile shield unifying pylon that units the shield pool of units and buildings in the AoE.
Now, this may semi-diminish the micro in starcraft which the game if heavily about. But rememeber that shields only are half of what protoss is composed of and terran has EmP to disable those shields, while zerg had plague to drain the life of protoss which they were never able to recover back.
As a final word for terran
Terran can heal and repair.
The planetary fortress mass repaired may have brought enough "unity" concept to the race as is.
They probably thought that terran needed a building form of defense like protoss and zerg, but they never thought to give zerg and protoss a utility unit/building in return.
With out addressing that, it has really hurt e-sports.
And terran has also been understood as the more micro/missile, capable race which would allow them to excel at targeting the queens for the sake of disabling their unity of the swarm.
As a request to the greatest fans of the picture, I would appreciate it if you would cut and paste and post on the blizzard forums to bring the design issues to their attention.
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How do you know for sure that zerg's design was failed?
Because if protoss has lots of minerals and one probe they can make a lot of structures.
Zerg are the opposite, if they have no minerals they can make a lot of spines because all of their drones can be sacrificed off by the queen, merging 3 together to quickly make them.
A concept of "reactive" quantity" as opposed to "aggressive singular" as represented by the photon cannon rush.
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Further thought: All zerg's army should have the life pool unity effect when in the vicinity of the queen except for ultralisks.
And roaches really should not even be in the game
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If you take the warrior queen as it is now and want to perceive the game as Balanced then you would see it this way....
Queen: Strong Tank, Weak Missile unit that sacrifices Production in the form of Casting for Healing (loses energy for spawns when it casts transfusion)
Zergling: Strong Melee, Weak Tank unit that sacrifices its life in the form of attack for health damage to the enemy
You can see very clearly how the zergling has failed in the design it was suppose to have and that design is very important because when they put the queen in to the game zerg became much more of an Expand/Defend race where mass amounts of zerglings and units become possible relative to the enemy's army.
This does not particularly motivate the enemy to play "tech aggression" against zerg however and overall hurts e-sports.
One thing that can be said is that a terran or protoss player should always be playing aggressive against zerg with their ground force because zerg has no way to situationally make a queen that has a strong ground attack and a weak air attack.
That would actually be more fair and reasonable for a situational counter system
But this really only shows how poor the counter system has gotten and with the queen properly implemented in to the game as previously expressed, zerg would actually have hydralisks on tier 1 to counter react against aggressive air to ground units of the enemy, and then counter react with those hydralisks and any spinecrawlers mutated in to swarmwreathers.
This only shows however on terran's side that the banshee should have produced from the factory and started out as a walker with a machine gun that counters zerglings and then lifts its legs up in to itself to the form that it is currently in to counter roaches.
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In consideration that there is no situational option to make a queen that is stronger against ground units then air units, perhaps it would be worth it to consider a new unit
-This unit produces linearly at the hatchery like the queen
-It costs only gas, but perhaps it costs supply like the queen
-Its capability at fighting ground units is better then its ability to fight air units, opposite to the queen
-Maybe it is fast and can only damage units not buildings
-It fights with only its energy bar
-It is unlocked by the evolution chamber which currently and ridiculously unlocks nothing since they moved the spore
colony to spawning pool tech
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Reading some of this stuff made me think it was 2012 all over again...to be honest, there's always been a group of people (me) that hate how SC2 was designed in general. However, you can't really ask Blizzard to redesign things, nor can you say they should've designed stuff with more thought towards "the design of Zerg." It didn't work back then, it's not going to work now. When people asked Blizzard to "design a unit with a moving shot," they made the phoenix, which made a lot of people face-palm...blizzard definitely took a utilitarian approach to designing the game, making everything in order to appeal to the masses.
I used to like posting walls of text, explaining in detail what I thought would be best for the game, but I quickly realized that no one read it, no one cared enough about what I thought, and most importantly, my voice isn't going to change the game in the slightest, especially after the games and major patches have already been released.
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On September 16 2016 18:59 imBLIND wrote:
Reading some of this stuff made me think it was 2012 all over again...to be honest, there's always been a group of people (me) that hate how SC2 was designed in general. However, you can't really ask Blizzard to redesign things, nor can you say they should've designed stuff with more thought towards "the design of Zerg." It didn't work back then, it's not going to work now. When people asked Blizzard to "design a unit with a moving shot," they made the phoenix, which made a lot of people face-palm...blizzard definitely took a utilitarian approach to designing the game, making everything in order to appeal to the masses.
I used to like posting walls of text, explaining in detail what I thought would be best for the game, but I quickly realized that no one read it, no one cared enough about what I thought, and most importantly, my voice isn't going to change the game in the slightest, especially after the games and major patches have already been released.
There is an audience for such posts I do think, but if you want to stand out I think it's mostly about original argumentation, not about coming up with unique suggestions since those just get lost in the crowd. I had some concepts that I favored and when I would post them the reception would basically differ between people that just read the suggestion and dismissed it as stupid and people that actually read the post and engaged with the argumentation from which the suggestion was derived. You'll always get some of the former though, which is annoying.
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In general I don't think that the way zerg is designed and functions creates incentive for the enemy to attack them.
Like, you don't see drones exclusively producing 15% faster because they were drones that produced from the larva of the queen, might be an example. (which obviously creates a design overlap with protoss but zerg already overlaps queens with reactors of terran)
And so what if there is that minor particularly classified overlap? Are people really going to whine that blizzard promised unique races or that they promoted balance and worked on that for years....
The only thing that creates the incentive is the hatchery being there, not the fact that it is being mined, to which zerg do not have some ability to sacrifice the hatchery for the resources salvaged.
Which of course would be a stupid game design, balanced none the less though...
And so, because of that, the game clearly has absolutely no design with e-sports in mind not a single drop of concern.
It's sad to see people even being converted over to this game who, deep down, would rather be playing one that concerns e-sports.
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On the other hand, I would only personally rather see drones produce 15% faster from the larva of hatcheries, all other units and larva spawns aside.
Does this have to do with balance? Maybe, maybe not, but it sure makes sense for the zerg race relative to e-sports.
Maybe it wasn't about the 4 larva spawns...
Only the 15% faster drone producing exclusively from hatcheries exlusively
Zerg shouldn't be forced to be the aggressor because not every unit they have can simply mutate in to something else in order to ensure that "a unit made is a unit used" in terms of their Vector or Directional design function that distinguishes their uniqueness.
Before trying 15%, maybe they could at least try 7.5%, half of chrono boost
But if they did that then I'm sure it would apply to all drones all the time spawn larva or not.
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But not only do they design the game with out 15% increased drone production at hatcheries, which forces zerg to be the aggressor, they don't even have zerg designed properly back at base where they would be quickly merging 3 drones together to instantly make spine crawlers so that they would be able to attack the opponent at his base and defend properly at home.
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Further more, with terran's "reactor" being made, would this imply that scvs be able to quickly sacrificially transform in to a ground to ground turret of some kind for a mineral cost? But be able salvange/transform out?
And what about protoss? Would protoss complain? Well doesn't protoss kind of have the "naturally better" concept with chrono boost?
Maybe this goes back to the "missing utility concepts" for zerg and protoss, the swarmwreather and the semi-mobile shield uniting shield battery replacement.
Then we can say that at least protoss got something out of this...
As you can see though, the entire meta of the game is off from a failure to understand what the philosophy of zerg is all about.
Throw in high ground, choke points, natural defense concepts like planetary fortress and protoss' what ever and the game really hits a low point in terms of concept failure.
I mean, dear god... you know that when they put the PF in to the game that it was making the statement "yes we are also going to give zerg and protoss utility tools like the bunker" but then what do they do? Nothing.
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You can really tell that zerg are suppose to have the 15% increased drone production with hatcheries stand alone, even if it had to take away from future spawn larva casts to work then so be it.
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12/5
I am back with a new theory to compensate the premise of the original one on this blog
The philosophy of zerg is to expand while terran and protoss is to tech
We all know this, and we all know that it leaves zerg in many cases to fight with zerglings against more advanced units
That's just the sour note of starcraft that we've seemed to both love and hate
When they made zerg warriors faster on creep, it didn't necessarily matter so much for the more advanced higher tech units because zerg still tries to do what it can with zerglings first as it is, and speed on creep was doing something for zerglings which was the important thing.
But it seems to me that a whole concept has completely evaded us in our goal of "quality starcraft design" especially in terms of zerg's philosophy of swarminess
And that is to have zerglings becomes more advanced upon unlocking each tier of the zerg race, hatch, lair, hive.
But they need to become more advanced in terms of supporting "The Swarm" but the micro swarm of the Many, and the Macro Swarm of the Creep.
Tier 1 hatchery: Zerglings Have Increased Speed on Creep (currently functioning as intended)
Tier 2 lair: Zerglings leap forward and crash/attack the enemy, sacrificing all of their hp pool down to 1 life as damage against them and the opponent.
Tier 3 Hive: Zerglings get a 13% increased attack speed while on creep now restoring the old zergling completely once the adrenal gland has been researched to a total of 33% attack speed.
And there you go, the problem with the zerg race philosophy of design, now corrected.
Unfortunately I have moved on from starcraft a long time ago, but you can follow me (Kyfoid) now on the DotaFire forums where I seek to correct the design flaws of dota 2.
http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/forum/general
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Are you Atlas[Mech] from US East?
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I can understand you being frustrated with SC2. I was always baffled about your gripes with SC1, though.
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What I just described is now a blending of starcraft 1 and starcraft 2 zerg.
The perfect meet in the middle, which is, in the way I've described it, what we've subconsciously longed for in my opinion.
StarCraft itself is also the failure to recognize the philosophy of thesis plus anti-theses = synthesis
The zergling was always meant to have the function of the combined concepts of the zealot charge and the marine stimpack...
In to a concept that is unique and properly functioning to its own for the zergling.
It's completely necessary because zerg are a directional race
And climbing the tech tree with gaping holes in lair and hive tech that are suppose to represent the progress of the race
Not having truly fulfilled these holes has been the greatest shame in game design history
A complete disgrace
However, we'll see who's going to get honored for design gracefulness, and I don't believe I will even have to do that through starcraft.
I believe I can succeed through dota 2 alone.
I don't need nor care for this game so much anymore, nor its people.
But that's my right after watching 15 years of nonsense.
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On December 06 2016 04:39 AtlasMeCHa wrote:
What I just described is now a blending of starcraft 1 and starcraft 2 zerg.
The perfect meet in the middle, which is, in the way I've described it, what we've subconsciously longed for in my opinion.
Nope. I have not.
StarCraft itself is also the failure to recognize the philosophy of thesis plus anti-theses = synthesis
That's nonsense. It's like saying "The opposite of congress is progress". Nice wordplay, but it's meaningless.
The zergling was always meant to have the function of the combined concepts of the zealot charge and the marine stimpack...
You mean like ADRENALINE GLAND and METABOLIC BOOST?
In to a concept that is unique and properly functioning to its own for the zergling.
It's completely necessary because zerg are a directional race
The Zerg, or any race, is whatever you want it to be. You, the player, should dictate how you want to play the race, not have the game tell you how to play. You can do a tech rush and have a few expensive units early, you can be aggressive in the early game, and you can build your economy. However, none of these are going to work 100% of the time because you have the variable of a human opponent that is trying to gauge what you're doing and is trying to win.
And climbing the tech tree with gaping holes in lair and hive tech that are suppose to represent the progress of the race
Not having truly fulfilled these holes has been the greatest shame in game design history
A complete disgrace
I'm only speaking about SC1, but there is no "gaping holes" in the later tech of the game. I don't know what exactly it is you're looking for. There's a unit to facilitate virtually every function of strategy that you could want.
However, we'll see who's going to get honored for design gracefulness, and I don't believe I will even have to do that through starcraft.
I believe I can succeed through dota 2 alone.
It is very likely that you will do nothing of the sort, and here's why:
I don't need nor care for this game so much anymore, nor its people.
But that's my right after watching 15 years of nonsense.
Your attitude is terrible, and you have maintained for years that the reason you weren't good at SC1 is because the game itself was flawed, rather than admitting you just weren't that good. I also found it very telling that you would complain about Protoss, and you would complain about Terran, saying they only won because of inherent flaws in the game, but curiously enough, you never played any ZvZ. Doing so would've allowed you to prove that you are superior to other Zerg players, but the risk of failure never would let you even attempt it.
You have yet to explain how sAviOr, JulyZerg, and Jaedong were so dominant in their days despite no changes being made to the game. You have yet to explain the success of Sziky, Trutacz, or if you want to go further back, Mondragon. You have yet to explain how half the top players on the ladder were Zerg, and yet you, with your profound understanding of Zerg, have never won a tournament.
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It's quite simple my friend, you just don't understand the concept of PROGRESSIVE design most critical on a DIRECTIONAL race.
Lair and Hive do not unlock more production like a factory and starport would because the races would not be different enough.
Was overseer the right answer? Well just because they did something about it doesn't mean it was the right thing.
That still doesn't mean that they are doing what they are suppose to be doing.
Case closed.
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On December 06 2016 13:34 AtlasMeCHa wrote:
It's quite simple my friend, you just don't understand the concept of PROGRESSIVE design most critical on a DIRECTIONAL race.
Lair and Hive do not unlock more production like a factory and starport would because the races would not be different enough.
Was overseer the right answer? Well just because they did something about it doesn't mean it was the right thing.
That still doesn't mean that they are doing what they are suppose to be doing.
Case closed.
Let's say you're playing Terran in TvZ in SC1. You want to change your tech paradigm. You have to lift off your barracks buildings and start building like 8 factories. Or in TvT if you want to switch from tanks to battlecruisers, then you need to place like 12 starports.
With Zerg, if you want to switch tech, all you have to do is place one building, and all of your hatcheries have access to that tech. So when you get a spawning pool, you have access to lair, and when you gets a queen's nest, you have access to hive. I don't care about SC2 because the developers don't seem to know what they're doing. So using an example from SC2 means nothing to me. You were on this kick about how SC1 was designed incorrectly before SC2 ever existed, because Zerg started with a population ceiling of 9, rather than 10, but neglected to see the obvious advantage of starting with a floating detector unit.
So no, case is not closed.
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EPT
