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With all the discussion about the new zerg egg cancel mechanic introduced in SC2 Beta patch 9 I get the feeling that many people don't understand how production in Starcraft works, especially for zerg.
I'll present you an abstract approach that shows why losing larvae when you cancel an egg is fair.
Terran and Protoss build production facilities which produce production time. Every second you don't have a unit being produced in a production facility you are losing production time. When you have a unit being produced it uses up the production time as it is provided. Whenever you cancel a unit you lose the production time the unit already has consumed. When you cancel quickly, you lose less, when you cancel late, you lose more time.
Chrono Boost increases the rate at which a production facility produces production time.
Warpgates are slightly different, but essentially you lose production time for every second your warpgates are not on cooling down. As far as I know you can't cancel units being warped in.
Zerg production is different, but not by too much actually.
The morphing time of zerg units is a delay, much like the 5 second warp in time of warp gates. It is not related to production time.
A hatchery produces 1 larva every 15 seconds as long as there are less than 4 larvae associated with that hatchery. Every larva is worth 15 seconds of hatchery production time. For every second that you have 3 or more larvae on one hatchery you are losing production time. So you have a buffer of 30 seconds in which you are able to actually produce units from larvae but you are not losing production time if you don't. That's the time between the first larva spawning and the third larva spawning.
A larva is the representation of 15 seconds worth of hatchery production time. This is important. Larvae are production time. When you cancel an egg and lose the larva, you lost 15 seconds of hatchery production time. You lost production time, just like Terran and Protoss.
Spawn Larva increases the rate at which larvae are produced. For each Queen/Hatchery pair you get 60 seconds worth of hatchery production time every 40 seconds. It is very similar to Chrono Boost on production facilities.
Patch 9 lets you regain a larva whenever you cancel an egg. This means that you are not losing hatchery production time at all. This is unfair towards Terran and Protoss who lose production time when they have to cancel a unit.
In the case of 6 pool it is very clear that you don't lose production time: Normally you would lose production time because you would have 3 larvae on one hatchery for a while. But with clever morphing/cancelling you can keep the hatchery producing larvae. In the end you have 90 seconds of production time available instead of the normal 45 seconds.
The implications in early game are obvious, 6 pool and variations become much stronger.
There also are issues later in the game, aside from it simply being unfair that zerg doesn't lose production time from cancelling eggs. Zergs can just morph drones all the time and whenever they have to produce units they can simply cancel the drones and make units without losing anything. They also can start morphing some unit and if they realize that it wasn't such a good idea they can cancel those units and not lose anything major again.
Essentially this mechanic change was a huge boost for Zerg's drone production capabilities. You can stay at minimal army size, always start drones and cancel them if needed.
Most of the hotfixes people are suggesting don't address this issue at all. Whatever you do, as long as zergs don't lose the larva on cancel they don't lose production time. If terran or protoss should have the same abilities, they should be able to switch the unit type that is being produced without losing the time that has been put in so far. For example, start a marine. At 60% change it into a Marauder which will already be at 50% production.
The only reasonably fix is to revert back to the mechanic zerg had pre patch 9.
There never was anything wrong with it anyways.
 
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I cant help but wonder if the whole thing was some accident that no one at blizzard caught lol
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On the one hand, every race doesnt need to be identical but at the same time I kinda suspect Blizzard made this change to try to make it more similar to how toss and terran can cancel without penalty. If this is the case, they totally dropped the ball for the reasons you said.
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Yeah that's what I guess too. Stuff like this happens when you listen to people who don't know how zerg works.
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This had better be an accident -_- If it isnt, it is soo dissapointing on blizzard's part.. to even consider this option.
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I personally believe that there should be a balance of regaining the larva and larva dying. Perhaps the larva should be returned when cancelled only if the total amount of larva is less than 4 (excluding any generated by a queen) at the hatchery. So this will basically save your larva until the hatchery has already replenished the default 3. If there are more than 3, the cancelled larva die
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On April 24 2010 06:49 Bibbit wrote:
On the one hand, every race doesnt need to be identical but at the same time I kinda suspect Blizzard made this change to try to make it more similar to how toss and terran can cancel without penalty. If this is the case, they totally dropped the ball for the reasons you said.
This quote seems to imply a misunderstanding of the OP. When a unit is canceled by Protoss or Terran, they lose production time, not "nothing" as you seem to think. I don't see how you can agree with his reasons for how Blizzard messed up this update while simultaneously misunderstanding such a fundamental part of his argument.
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On April 25 2010 03:39 Zyphyr wrote:
I personally believe that there should be a balance of regaining the larva and larva dying. Perhaps the larva should be returned when cancelled only if the total amount of larva is less than 4 (excluding any generated by a queen) at the hatchery. So this will basically save your larva until the hatchery has already replenished the default 3. If there are more than 3, the cancelled larva die
If you read and agree with my OP you are basically saying that you want zerg to not lose production time, while terran and protoss do. This doesn't seem reasonable to me.
If that's not what you think you must disagree with my OP in some way, so please show me where I am wrong.
The system you propose doesn't work anyways, it still allows you to create "virtual larvae" which are eggs that are only produced to preserve production time, and canceled before they hatch.
For example in the case of a 6 pool, you can do this:
3 larvae, make 1 drone, new larva spawns.
3 larvae + 1 egg, make 2 drones, cancel the old egg, new larva spawns.
3 larvae + 2 eggs, make 3 drones, cancel the old eggs, new larva spawns.
You can also just cycle through egg and larva state forever, always keeping 6 larvae, some of which in egg state, but ready to be canceled.
On April 25 2010 03:46 nineninja9 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 06:49 Bibbit wrote:
On the one hand, every race doesnt need to be identical but at the same time I kinda suspect Blizzard made this change to try to make it more similar to how toss and terran can cancel without penalty. If this is the case, they totally dropped the ball for the reasons you said. This quote seems to imply a misunderstanding of the OP. When a unit is canceled by Protoss or Terran, they lose production time, not "nothing" as you seem to think. I don't see how you can agree with his reasons for how Blizzard messed up this update while simultaneously misunderstanding such a fundamental part of his argument.
I interpreted Bibbit's post like this:
He assumes that the Blizzard guys were convinced that losing larvae is unfair towards zerg (like many people think), and this probably was the reason for the change. He then states that this was a bad idea because it was fair the way it was before and is now again.
I guess Bibbit's post is a little unclear here but I have the feeling that he understood my OP very well 
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On April 25 2010 04:54 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2010 03:39 Zyphyr wrote:
I personally believe that there should be a balance of regaining the larva and larva dying. Perhaps the larva should be returned when cancelled only if the total amount of larva is less than 4 (excluding any generated by a queen) at the hatchery. So this will basically save your larva until the hatchery has already replenished the default 3. If there are more than 3, the cancelled larva die If you read and agree with my OP you are basically saying that you want zerg to not lose production time, while terran and protoss do. This doesn't seem reasonable to me. If that's not what you think you must disagree with my OP in some way, so please show me where I am wrong. The system you propose doesn't work anyways, it still allows you to create "virtual larvae" which are eggs that are only produced to preserve production time, and canceled before they hatch. For example in the case of a 6 pool, you can do this: 3 larvae, make 1 drone, new larva spawns. 3 larvae + 1 egg, make 2 drones, cancel the old egg, new larva spawns. 3 larvae + 2 eggs, make 3 drones, cancel the old eggs, new larva spawns. You can also just cycle through egg and larva state forever, always keeping 6 larvae, some of which in egg state, but ready to be canceled.
Hmm... that's a good point. What if the larva would be able to return for the first 15 seconds, afterwards it would die. That way the zerg player can fix a mistake in 15 seconds, but couldn't abuse the extra larva. Or maybe the larva can't be returned if the total amount of eggs plus the current amount of larva is over 3. This is similar to the first idea, but with more leeway for canceling a few eggs and retaining the larva without exceeding the natural 3.
Now if you blast either idea for losing production time for the protoss or terran, here's where you're wrong: the canceled larva would waste the build time already taken into effect and additionally kill any newly spawned larva.
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On April 25 2010 07:06 Zyphyr wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2010 04:54 spinesheath wrote:On April 25 2010 03:39 Zyphyr wrote:
I personally believe that there should be a balance of regaining the larva and larva dying. Perhaps the larva should be returned when cancelled only if the total amount of larva is less than 4 (excluding any generated by a queen) at the hatchery. So this will basically save your larva until the hatchery has already replenished the default 3. If there are more than 3, the cancelled larva die If you read and agree with my OP you are basically saying that you want zerg to not lose production time, while terran and protoss do. This doesn't seem reasonable to me. If that's not what you think you must disagree with my OP in some way, so please show me where I am wrong. The system you propose doesn't work anyways, it still allows you to create "virtual larvae" which are eggs that are only produced to preserve production time, and canceled before they hatch. For example in the case of a 6 pool, you can do this: 3 larvae, make 1 drone, new larva spawns. 3 larvae + 1 egg, make 2 drones, cancel the old egg, new larva spawns. 3 larvae + 2 eggs, make 3 drones, cancel the old eggs, new larva spawns. You can also just cycle through egg and larva state forever, always keeping 6 larvae, some of which in egg state, but ready to be canceled. Hmm... that's a good point. What if the larva would be able to return for the first 15 seconds, afterwards it would die. That way the zerg player can fix a mistake in 15 seconds, but couldn't abuse the extra larva. Or maybe the larva can't be returned if the total amount of eggs plus the current amount of larva is over 3. This is similar to the first idea, but with more leeway for canceling a few eggs and retaining the larva without exceeding the natural 3. Now if you blast either idea for losing production time for the protoss or terran, here's where you're wrong: the canceled larva would waste the build time already taken into effect and additionally kill any newly spawned larva.
A mistake costs the zerg 15 seconds, nothing more, nothing less. A mistake can cost terran and protoss more or less than 15 seconds, depending on how early they notice it. Protoss can't cancel warp-ins at all. I really don't think that zerg needs to be able to fix mistakes with less cost than now.
I am not entirely sure if I understood your last paragraph.
If you cancel an egg and the unit has already been morphing for say 20 seconds then those 20 seconds are not lost build time. The larva is 15 seconds lost build time, the morphing time is a delay.
Your idea is still somewhat ok though because on the average the zerg will lose at least some larvae = production time for cancelling. Especially after each spawn larva of the queen. However, I don't think that such an option is necessary, and it clutters the game. Game mechanics should have clear rules like:
"if you cancel an egg, it is gone".
Your suggestion would have a rule like:
"If you cancel an egg, it is gone if the hatchery this egg is attached to has more than 3 eggs and larvae attached to it, the canceled egg excluded. You get a new larva if this is not the case. If the egg is not attached to a hatchery XYZ happens"
(if you kill a hatch the larvae don't die immediately so you can have eggs without hatches)
Starcraft already is a complex game, now assume that we start to intruduce complex rules like these - it would become a really bad game. You'd constantly sit in front of your screen and ask yourself "why this this happen?".
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EPT
