6 drones, and starting in the red greatly limits all zerg openers, they would then need to either 6 pool or 6 supply 2 overlords. The 6 pool would be unbeatable, and building 2 overlords would be disabling. Unless you want to give overlords like 10 supply.
I'm still in the middle of working on the idea. It makes sense but it's ugly right now, but I'm starting to figure this out. Like I said, Zerg wouldn't exactly start with the 2 free extra drones, they'd have to go through egg production. Hatchery at 0 control could be fine, but taking away the starting larvae also in order to justify this is kind of a conundrum. But I think I have a way to fix this.
All zerg hatcheries start with the capability of producing a new unit worth 100 minerals and it's produced in linear fashion like the way T and P produce. That way not starting with any larvae actually makes sense. This 100 mineral unit would be a mineral harvester and mine at the rate of 2 drones or workers. So now zerg starts the match with this unit producing at the hatchery right away, no overlord, no hatch control and it also costs 2 control so zerg would be 6 in the red right off the bat. The new unit might have some other interesting role or ability to differ from drones.
You're not exactly starting 6, and you're only taking advantage of your 3 larvae limit burst at the time without a follow through. Now the build 6 hatch lord or pool might sound rough but you're expanding faster and the hatchery would HAVE THE OPTION to start by producing the new worker unit right away or not. If you want it to start producing right away and are at 0 minerals at the time of hatchery completion then you would go into debt -100 minerals. If you would rather produce creep colonies with the hatchery as aforementioned and go into debt that way instead then you could save the 1 time production of this new mineral harvester for later. But remember that you can't finish the sunk or spore state until you're back out of debt since they would cost something like 50 minerals each. So 6 hatch would, in most cases it seems, be producing this new mineral harvester right way.
Back to the overlord warrior idea to change something about it. This "overlord warrior" wouldn't cost 2 larvae but rather 1 additional larvae to mutate. And like I said, might be able to tap into future larvae production of the hatchery for interest's sake. The unit would cost some amount of gas for the mutation but probably no minerals. That means the unit costs 100 minerals, 2 larvae and some gas overall since the overlord is sacrificed in the deal. The damage output of 2 larvae and 100 minerals would equate to 4 lings let's say, but now would be the time to think about what gas cost really means for a warrior. If dropships of terran cost any gas at all then that would mean gas implies nothing special at all. And dropships cost 100 gas! which is a hefty price. It honestly makes no sense. I say, give zerg this ability and then not only take away the gas cost of dropship but take away the supply cost of all shuttles and dropships! Zerg is doubling as supply and dropship. Now overlords might be on the lower life side compared to T and P pylon/depot, but I don't see this turning into a complaint with the ideas suggested as it's always been this way and has never really seemed like much of a problem. I'm sure zerglings mow down depots and pylons just as fast as T/P air kills overlords.
What exactly is the problem with zerg and a hatchery having 1 supply and starting with an overlord? Allowing zerg to go to 9 supply allows for overlord then pool (overpool), 9 pool, 9 hatch, extractor trick 10 hatch, with boosting overlord 11 hatch, and overlord 12 hatch.
Do you think zerg is over powered? Why are focusing so much on zerg, and not other races?
On February 15 2025 07:31 Mutaller wrote: What exactly is the problem with zerg and a hatchery having 1 supply and starting with an overlord? Allowing zerg to go to 9 supply allows for overlord then pool (overpool), 9 pool, 9 hatch, extractor trick 10 hatch, with boosting overlord 11 hatch, and overlord 12 hatch.
Do you think zerg is over powered? Why are focusing so much on zerg, and not other races?
I don't see this as a nerf, I see it as a buff. I mean I always mained zerg so I'm bias.
So if this is the situation we find ourselves in then why not provide it as an option?
The problem is a matter of "cheese state" that zerg seems forced into from bad design and discord of function.
Zerg don't need follow through, they need to be able to go into debt in certain ways while a limited 6 ling rush should be plenty fine to gain a harassment edge and you could still even all in with it. Zerg is too extreme, zerg is too radical in a black and white fashion.
Zerg need the trinity of stability, a diversity debt.
You're going to see what Blizzard did and what this was all about some day.
I'm not sure what your point here is. Are you trying to rebalance zerg when in reality they don't really need it? Especially now that we have a fairly dominant zerg in the form of Soulkey and guys like Hero/JD/Queen are hitting their stride in the daily proleagues.
Zerg doesn't really need buffs or nerfs imo, but the other races need to find ways to stop the zerg ball from growing too big, too fast. At least (from what I've watched weeks after his return) Flash is trying mech builds vs Zerg to break the monotony of 5 rax +1 into SK Terran so maybe that could work. Dunno about Protoss though because historically Protoss just flat out dies to Zerg late game.
Zerg doesn't really need buffs or nerfs imo, but the other races need to find ways to stop the zerg ball from growing too big,
Zerg is not a LEGITIMATELY aggressive race, but their aggression is strong. Their philosophy is to watch the opponent while expanding which means that they let the opponent make the mistake with the first aggressive move that either fails or succeeds, usually determining ultimate outcome. So if you play legitimate zerg, then you're already aiming for no aggression. It might even be easier to set zerg up for failure with their aggression. Even if zerg was balanced in power against T and P, which they are still even inferior, you are expected to play the match as if it was going to last forever, literally.
But try to imagine the most zerg favorable map, since maps are a huge part. I think it would be something with valley starting location, multiple base entrances, and starting out extremely close to the opponent, and then at that point, the bigger the map the better. Basically if you had the ultimate zerg favorable map, the map would have to be massive or extend out in all directions infinitely.
Other races don't need to find ways to stop the zerg ball from growing too big. This would only occur on a map that extends out infinitely in all directions where zerg would be able to emphasize a strength of "flee expand" in order to "snowball harder". No such map exists and no map will ever exist like that, along side also the purely boring philosophy and situation that zerg finds themselves in. The complaint you speak of is false whiners complaint from T and P, just to have something to complain about. And even if the map existed, it would promote the most boring long term game. You have to watch Blizzard's strategy. They don't want a game to be decent, if they can implement hypocrisy, they will find a way to do it and get away with it in psychological manipulation, that way they can move players through trilogies of purchases in the future. And they did.
You're not really thinking about this from the position that the zerg player finds themself in. You're not seeing the situation through their eyes. Zerg need these changes, even if it means T and P have to be counter buffed and all for the sake of a more entertaining game where no race has to be excluded from attaining opportunities of legitimate non-cheese offense. This is an e-sport and zerg are more excluded from the sport than others. It shouldn't be based on Blizzard's safety agenda to favor the more popular races and used as a way to move games along at the same time. You want one race to be inferior to just move games along so that you can qualify a strategy game as an e-sport? And yet the one race that should be thanked for entering RTS into e-sports would be zerg the most.
It's all a major hypocritical deception and joke. It always has been.
On February 15 2025 07:31 Mutaller wrote: What exactly is the problem with zerg and a hatchery having 1 supply and starting with an overlord? Allowing zerg to go to 9 supply allows for overlord then pool (overpool), 9 pool, 9 hatch
You know, I do see a point about how there would be no purpose in doing a 6-pool-5-hatch with my idea, because it seems that the pool would complete before the overlord would and what would be the point of that if you couldn't produce 2 lings to scout? At least the 2nd hatchery would start producing the farming unit no matter what though....
This is where I would say that the spawning pool, if we agree it's worth 250 minerals and so half the value of a CC or a Nexus would provide, say, 5 control.
On February 16 2025 03:02 WombaT wrote: I’m not even sure what the problem is, nor what most of these ideas are meant to do to resolve it
Then you've failed to understand that the missing zerg strength is not technically the lack of the strength of the swarm. Even though conceptually it may still be.
The real missing zerg strength is flexibility in a trichotomy of Brute Force(P), Position(T) and FLEXIBILITY(Z)
And if zerg had that missing flexibility(strength) there might be an approach/style where the swarm is one of the highlight aspects of that flexibility.
On February 16 2025 03:02 WombaT wrote: I’m not even sure what the problem is, nor what most of these ideas are meant to do to resolve it
Then you've failed to understand that the missing zerg strength is not technically the lack of the strength of the swarm. Even though conceptually it may still be.
The real missing zerg strength is flexibility in a trichotomy of Brute Force(P), Position(T) and FLEXIBILITY(Z)
And if zerg had that missing flexibility(strength) there might be an approach/style where the swarm is one of the highlight aspects of that flexibility.
Let's start with bunker, shield battery and sunken colony since they are all unlocked by the associated T1 building tech. Notice that the sunken colony doesn't really belong here since it's not a utility function so how did it become involved? Because zerg had to be different. It's funny that a 200 mineral cost spawning pool can't even unlock a comparable utility building that costs 100 minerals. The creep colony is a deception that zerg has some kind of flexibility strength, where the bunker is a strength of position and the shield battery a strength of brute force since shields are the second layer of defense that establishes that brute force defensively. The evolution chamber at a cheaper mineral cost compared to the engineering bay and forge could have unlocked a utility building of flexibility. But we can see exactly how Blizzard thought about this when taking a look at Starcraft 2 and referencing the Night-elf race from Warcraft 3. It doesn't take a genius to see that they realized that sacrificing workers for buildings was a problem. That's why most NE buildings can attack. But guess what? The NE defense buildings are also flexible because they can attack air AND ground and uproot to move across the map with no restriction and that movement can even be upgraded. Zerg's worker sacrifice for buildings was acknowledged as a problem right then and there. And then look at what we got in Starcraft 2, a queen that doesn't cost a drone and can attack air and ground units. But even though the queen can flexibly attack air and ground units, did it actually provide zerg with a legitimate strength of flexibility? No, because the queen costs control and that's practically a greater restriction in the sense that now zerg is expected to relentlessly send their offense at the enemy to die. Zerg never achieved any legitimate flexibility to compete with T's strength of position and P's strength of brute force. But since Blizzard clearly got their inspiration from Warcraft 3, we can consider how similar all WC races tech similar to zerg with the upgrade of the main building and we could form an argument for zerg's lack of flexibility in this very manner.
So let's say that I want to start with normal zerg and a starting overlord instead of my proposed suggestions. But I want to sacrifice my spawning pool entirely, along with the zerglings and sunken colonies, just so I can start lair tech earlier. Is it a fair trade? Of course it is, because if you provided the equivalent option to any T or P player to sacrifice their barrack or gateway so that they could straight tech to cybercore or factory, I guarantee you that they both wouldn't take the deal and still complain that zerg has an advantage. Yet, I would play as zerg 1v1 all day without spawning pool, ling, or sunk. And I guarantee you that a lot of zerg players would also do the same. It just goes to show that ling and sunk are more meant for team games. Now with this optional start for zerg, imagine double geyser maps. Without lings in this situation I bet you would see a lot more queens produced and broodlings used. And then that's where you would see the real legitimate strength of the swarm, especially if you had more advanced coordination methods for casting broodlings. This is the missing "strength of the swarm" that any zerg player who ever complained about the "missing swarm strength" was soul searching for.
But I personally don't like the way the broodlings skill functions. It's too much of a table flip and risk to pointlessly lose the broodlings. A lose-lose for both zerg and their opponont. I would rather like to of seen something like the "plague of broods" where let's say zerglings can be set to auto-burrow when their life goes into the red. And queens can be set to auto-cast broodlings on their own lings that have gone into the red. But in this manner, I'd say that the broodlings would only be capable of reducing the opponent's life down to 1 in order to not be TOO powerful. Hence, plague and broodling concept mixed together. A strength of weakening let's say.
Blizzard sold out to the pride complex of the masses of young males. Since I'm sure P and T are more popular and we can even say of more masculine value(which I written journals on) if they didn't have any other race to dominate, and once they started legitimately losing, they would surely quit the game and not buy Blizzard products. Because most young males don't want to legitimately put in the work to build themselves up from the bottom. So Blizzard capitalizes on their egocentric self delusion of illegitimacy. What a way to fail at being a legitimate competitor and sport, to be baited into thinking that you're way better than you really are in order to distract you from actually becoming good.
Let's start with bunker, shield battery and sunken colony since they are all unlocked by the associated T1 building tech. Notice that the sunken colony doesn't really belong here since it's not a utility function so how did it become involved? Because zerg had to be different. It's funny that a 200 mineral cost spawning pool can't even unlock a comparable utility building that costs 100 minerals. The creep colony is a deception that zerg has some kind of flexibility strength, where the bunker is a strength of position and the shield battery a strength of brute force since shields are the second layer of defense that establishes that brute force defensively. The evolution chamber at a cheaper mineral cost compared to the engineering bay and forge could have unlocked a utility building of flexibility. But we can see exactly how Blizzard thought about this when taking a look at Starcraft 2 and referencing the Night-elf race from Warcraft 3. It doesn't take a genius to see that they realized that sacrificing workers for buildings was a problem. That's why most NE buildings can attack. But guess what? The NE defense buildings are also flexible because they can attack air AND ground and uproot to move across the map with no restriction and that movement can even be upgraded. Zerg's worker sacrifice for buildings was acknowledged as a problem right then and there. And then look at what we got in Starcraft 2, a queen that doesn't cost a drone and can attack air and ground units. But even though the queen can flexibly attack air and ground units, did it actually provide zerg with a legitimate strength of flexibility? No, because the queen costs control and that's practically a greater restriction in the sense that now zerg is expected to relentlessly send their offense at the enemy to die. Zerg never achieved any legitimate flexibility to compete with T's strength of position and P's strength of brute force. But since Blizzard clearly got their inspiration from Warcraft 3, we can consider how similar all WC races tech similar to zerg with the upgrade of the main building and we could form an argument for zerg's lack of flexibility in this very manner.
So let's say that I want to start with normal zerg and a starting overlord instead of my proposed suggestions. But I want to sacrifice my spawning pool entirely, along with the zerglings and sunken colonies, just so I can start lair tech earlier. Is it a fair trade? Of course it is, because if you provided the equivalent option to any T or P player to sacrifice their barrack or gateway so that they could straight tech to cybercore or factory, I guarantee you that they both wouldn't take the deal and still complain that zerg has an advantage. Yet, I would play as zerg 1v1 all day without spawning pool, ling, or sunk. And I guarantee you that a lot of zerg players would also do the same. It just goes to show that ling and sunk are more meant for team games. Now with this optional start for zerg, imagine double geyser maps. Without lings in this situation I bet you would see a lot more queens produced and broodlings used. And then that's where you would see the real legitimate strength of the swarm, especially if you had more advanced coordination methods for casting broodlings. This is the missing "strength of the swarm" that any zerg player who ever complained about the "missing swarm strength" was soul searching for.
But I personally don't like the way the broodlings skill functions. It's too much of a table flip and risk to pointlessly lose the broodlings. A lose-lose for both zerg and their opponont. I would rather like to of seen something like the "plague of broods" where let's say zerglings can be set to auto-burrow when their life goes into the red. And queens can be set to auto-cast broodlings on their own lings that have gone into the red. But in this manner, I'd say that the broodlings would only be capable of reducing the opponent's life down to 1 in order to not be TOO powerful. Hence, plague and broodling concept mixed together. A strength of weakening let's say.
Blizzard sold out to the pride complex of the masses of young males. Since I'm sure P and T are more popular and we can even say of more masculine value(which I written journals on) if they didn't have any other race to dominate, and once they started legitimately losing, they would surely quit the game and not buy Blizzard products. Because most young males don't want to legitimately put in the work to build themselves up from the bottom. So Blizzard capitalizes on their egocentric self delusion of illegitimacy. What a way to fail at being a legitimate competitor and sport, to be baited into thinking that you're way better than you really are in order to distract you from actually becoming good.
agreed on the last paragraph. zerg teaches proper moral values.
Maybe you could explain to me how hypocrisy and the failure to self organize usefully contributes to the hierarchy that you're part of without being a risk of instability.
But if you want to bring morality into the picture, I'm not sure how morally decent it looks when zerg represents the feminine value of flexibility up against the masculine values of strategic position(T) and brute force(P) while further design changes were made to RESTRICT their flexibility into the relentless sending of mostly inflexible armies just in different ways from SC1 to SC2. Notice that the score category for "units lost" was conveniently omitted going into Starcraft 2 but units lost is what it became more about and all in the name of a queen... That's kind of strange huh? But you don't believe in the values of diversity and flexibility while still being a "hierarchy" and "black and white" values man. Well here is the contrast of value classification that you must be looking for. Purity and Clarity. Now let's put these values into a legitimate hierarchy. That means you have to have 3 tiers. How are you going to do it?
Let's take a look at some values circles that I've thrown together where the 3 games are accurately tuned in with each other by using Warcraft 3 and it's 4 races as a coordinate plane, and then plug Diablo archetypes and Starcraft races in accordingly so that we can get a legitimate sense of what Blizzard's orientation is and the way that the values have naturally fallen into place and compare it to the nature of our very family hierarchy assuming Father at the top, Mother in the middle and Child at the bottom.
Now we see our simple model for a values hierarchy take form. Zerg with the purist values of Energy of the swarm and Wisdom of the overmind representing the Child at tier 1. Terran with the hybrid values of Courage(C) and Conduct(P) representing Bio and Mech. And the clarist values of Strength and Intelligence representing the Brute Strength and Intelligence of the Protoss by sheer common sense. Now we can safely describe Zerg as the Child race, Terran as the Mother Race and Protoss as the Father race, naturally. There's quite a consistent theme going on here between both Starcraft and Diablo. It's the degradation of purity of the child and flexibility of the feminine that raise my eyebrow while the mass death of younglings and humanoid females(cows) ends up being the emphasized and promoted result in these back to back releases.
Now you might ask, what does flexibility and purity have to do with morality? Looks like I'm going to have to pull out my bible for this one...
Psalm 22:6 says, "But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people" Commentary:
Corinthians 1:25 "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26-For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27-but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28-and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are"
Matthew 18:3 "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,"
So what has most likely gone on here? Our narrative has been hijacked by baal worship...
So back to your point.
"agreed on the last paragraph. zerg teaches proper moral values"
I was only pointing out how there's no way for hypocrisy and the failure to self organize to be healthy for our hierarchy. But since you wanted to take it to morality, I figured I'd throw on a couple supporting points to your claim.
The identity of the child is being thrown under the bus in a video game for god's sakes.... That's some next level hypocrisy right there....
And as a bonus, here's a couple trichotomies that I've thrown together.
Adjust in Specific Purpose Contrast in Generalized Role Correlate in Oriented Guidance
Platonian:
-a Beautiful Use (obscure) -a Good Purpose (pure) -a Sensical Orientation (clear)
Feel free to compare this to my RESTORED thread on the Blizzard forums.
On February 18 2025 04:15 Atlas[MeCH] wrote: Maybe you could explain to me how hypocrisy and the failure to self organize usefully contributes to the hierarchy that you're part of without being a risk of instability.
But if you want to bring morality into the picture, I'm not sure how morally decent it looks when zerg represents the feminine value of flexibility up against the masculine values of strategic position(T) and brute force(P) while further design changes were made to RESTRICT their flexibility into the relentless sending of mostly inflexible armies just in different ways from SC1 to SC2. Notice that the score category for "units lost" was conveniently omitted going into Starcraft 2 but units lost is what it became more about and all in the name of a queen... That's kind of strange huh? But you don't believe in the values of diversity and flexibility while still being a "hierarchy" and "black and white" values man. Well here is the contrast of value classification that you must be looking for. Purity and Clarity. Now let's put these values into a legitimate hierarchy. That means you have to have 3 tiers. How are you going to do it?
Let's take a look at some values circles that I've thrown together where the 3 games are accurately tuned in with each other by using Warcraft 3 and it's 4 races as a coordinate plane, and then plug Diablo archetypes and Starcraft races in accordingly so that we can get a legitimate sense of what Blizzard's orientation is and the way that the values have naturally fallen into place and compare it to the nature of our very family hierarchy assuming Father at the top, Mother in the middle and Child at the bottom.
Now we see our simple model for a values hierarchy take form. Zerg with the purist values of Energy of the swarm and Wisdom of the overmind representing the Child at tier 1. Terran with the hybrid values of Courage(C) and Conduct(P) representing Bio and Mech. And the clarist values of Strength and Intelligence representing the Brute Strength and Intelligence of the Protoss by sheer common sense. Now we can safely describe Zerg as the Child race, Terran as the Mother Race and Protoss as the Father race, naturally. There's quite a consistent theme going on here between both Starcraft and Diablo. It's the degradation of purity of the child and flexibility of the feminine that raise my eyebrow while the mass death of younglings and humanoid females(cows) ends up being the emphasized and promoted result in these back to back releases.
Now you might ask, what does flexibility and purity have to do with morality? Looks like I'm going to have to pull out my bible for this one...
Psalm 22:6 says, "But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people" Commentary:
Corinthians 1:25 "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26-For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27-but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28-and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are"
Matthew 18:3 "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,"
So what has most likely gone on here? Our narrative has been hijacked by baal worship...
"agreed on the last paragraph. zerg teaches proper moral values"
I was only pointing out how there's no way for hypocrisy and the failure to self organize to be healthy for our hierarchy. But since you wanted to take it to morality, I figured I'd throw on a couple supporting points to your claim.
The identity of the child is being thrown under the bus in a video game for god's sakes.... That's some next level hypocrisy right there....
And as a bonus, here's a couple trichotomies that I've thrown together.
Adjust in Specific Purpose Contrast in Generalized Role Correlate in Oriented Guidance
Platonian:
-a Beautiful Use (obscure) -a Good Purpose (pure) -a Sensical Orientation (clear)
Feel free to compare this to my RESTORED thread on the Blizzard forums.
Yeah, and my comment wasn't meant to be snarky or anything, I just felt the latest post was quite the escalation and that you've been saying a lot. It would be easier, for me at least, to follow if you would go one point at a time instead of all those things you are trying to say.