The Bane of Terran: Decision-Making - Page 3

On May 04 2010 00:55 JohannesH wrote:
I didnt know having to make decisions was bad thing

On May 03 2010 23:30 IndecisivePenguin wrote:


This is a really good point that became forgotten I think. Larva management is the iconic decision-making aspect of playing Zerg, and it's not mastered easily.

For Protoss, I think deciding what units need to be made is pretty important. Terran has many versatile units: the classic marine that is cheap and attacks ground and air, reapers with cliff jumping, vikings can change form, etc. And mauraders can do well to compliment any ground force. Terran focuses more on the macro mechanics than unit choice compared to other races I think. I don't mean to say unit choice isn't important to Terran, I just mean that the macro mechanics become more important.

On May 04 2010 00:46 AppleTart wrote:
Terrans have 3 options but each of their option does one thing and one thing only... Mule mines minerals and that's all it can do, scan scans and reveals..., and call down makes supply and thats pretty much it.... But chrono and spawn larve may seem simpler because its just one option that costs energy, but deciding what and when to do with each afterward and during is something terran lacks.

Imagine if they made the OC only have one skill, to make a mule. But that mule itself could either build a depot for free or scan somewhere. Then the OC would only have one skill as well but it wouldn't be as simple as just 3 skills vs 1 skill

On May 04 2010 00:58 Archerofaiur wrote:



Thats true for Chronoboost but not for Spawn Larva. The decision making of the what to make with the eventual larva is completly removed from how and when you use Spawn Larva.


Its like saying Proton Charge has decision making because you could decide what to turn the eventual minerals into.


It didnt.

On May 04 2010 01:13 [Agony]x90 wrote:
I just briefly read through the posts, but i just wanted to throw my two cents in. As a Terran player myself in SC 2, i understand what the OP is talking about, even if i haven't even tried the other two races. I think a good way to look at it, is benefit vs no benefit. When it comes to the mule and the supply drop, there is no question at all that there' a benefit, you'll either get more income or extra supply. However, the tricky thing is what to do with scans. As a heavy 2v2 player, i find more and more that our games rely heavily upon my scans in order to look at their tech, check for bases and possibly prepare for cloaked units. This, however, is NOT the same as chrono boost or the queen's abilities. This is because in the case of the queen or chronoboost, EVERYTIME you cast something, you gain a benefit. No question. Your choice as to what you boost or do with the queen may be absolutely horrid and nearly pointless, but in the case of scan, even a well placed, intentional and perfectly reasonable scan can reveal absolutely nothing. In this case, you lose the resource gain from the MULE or the benefit of not having to build another supply. I've run into plenty of situations where i'm forced to scout by means of my scanner, and in doing so, cripple my economy. On the other hand, my teammate pretty much can just chronoboost any of her buildings without any consequence. In the end, the 25 energy goes to use, whereas my scan could do nothing because i missed my opponents tech buildings or my opponent actually expanded else where (And i have had to drop 3-4 scans at one time due to need for information). Not to mention, scan is double the cost of spawn larva or chronoboost, meaning that if by some god awful occurrence, you manage to mess up using the spell, the amount lost is considerably less than with a bad scan. This is at the small detail i find to be my biggest problem.

Many agree that Inject Larva is not an interesting mechanic since it requires no real decision on the players part on where/when/how to use it, you simply go back to your Queen every 40 seconds or so where she is sitting dutifully beside a hatchery and drop the extra larvae. There aren't any other abilities to compete with it really, as Creep Tumor only needs to be dropped about once and then you can endlessly replicate it.

In an attempt to add tension, decision, and versatility to the Queen, I offer the following solution:

Remove Inject Larvae, replace with Spawn Zerg Strain. This ability allows the Queen to place an egg anywhere on the creep (conveniently using the same animation as plant Creep Tumor) containing one of the following: A drone for 25 energy, a pair of zerglings for 25 energy, an overlord for 50 energy. The units cost no resources other than the energy cost for the ability but still take up control (except of course in the Overlords case). They have the same build time as if the unit were being hatched from a standard larva. Additional zerg strains can be researched for the Queen at the appropriate tech buildings (for example, a 150/150 upgrade at the Hydralisk Den allowing the Queen to lay Hydralisk eggs for 50(?) energy).

This has several repercussions - the zerg player now has options available to them when it comes to using the Queen all throughout the game, scaling through early game opening strategies all the way to late game changing decisions.

For example, when that first Queen spawns after your Pool finishes, are you going for an all-in zergling rush that could use that extra couple of lings? Will you spawn an extra drone for that econ boost? Later on vikings are sniping your overlords and you're currently out of larvae, use your queen to spawn a replacement before that vital push?

How about using an overlord to drop some creep just behind your main force and plopping a couple of Queens there both to help in combat and spawn you some front line reinforcements in the heat of battle? Now the Queens have the option of making a difference on the actual field instead of just sitting in your base, and suddenly new tactical split-second decisions open up - drop a few extra roach eggs or cast transfusion on that proxy spine crawler/infestor/broodlord/ultralisk?

It also leads to new tech choices with the research at each building allowing you to add that particular zerg strain to the Queens repertoire, saving you minerals and gas in the long run while you invest the time and resources now for that option.

Liking it so far? Okay, here's one more ability for Queeny.

Spawn Scourge - Spawns two light, flying suicidal zerg units that deal 30(?) splash damage to enemy flying units. Scourge last 30 seconds. Costs 25 energy, 6 second cooldown.

Many have complained of the lack of Zerg T1 anti-air with the relocation of the hydralisk into Tier 2. This gives Queens a slight edge in being the sole AA defender of your base against an early game void ray rush or what have you by bringing back an old zerg favorite, and also doubles as a potential scout ability mirroring the Orbital Commands scan by giving you a couple of cheap fast flyers that you can throw away at your enemies base similar to a hallucinated pheonix!

Now, the numbers and things of course all need to be balanced as I'm no mathematics professor, but I am convinced the mechanics have ALOT of potential, and are pretty much an all around win-win-win improvement over the current system, both in gameplay depth and interesting applicability.

Comments and critique welcome.

On May 04 2010 01:22 Rabiator wrote:
I have felt that Terrans have a "structural disadvantage" in their unit-building mechanics for quite some time.

• Zerg only need Larvae, but from those they can build every unit. This may be a disadvantage when it comes to the decision "to Drone or not to Drone?", but it is a huge advantage when you need to switch the style of your army. Zerg simply need ONE Spire to switch from ground to air full force.
  
• Protoss are also able to switch their main army style from just the Gateway / Warp Gate, because it is a huge difference if you are fighting a Zealot-, Stalker- or Sentry-heavy army. If Protoss needs anti-air they can produce those from all of their Warp Gates in a matter of seconds. Granted, there are also the Robotics facility, but you only need (or maybe two) of these to get all the expensive units you want and Chrono boost helps speeding it up anyways. The Stargate is not as necessary as the Starport is for a Terran player, but you dont need many of those either.
  
• Terrans are screwed in their ability to switch their army style fast, because they need LOTS of buildings to produce units fast enough for a switch. So if you started with a bio-army it is not easy to suddenly start pumping lots of Vikings to defend against a heavy air army.

There is another structural disadvantage to the Terran army and that is its need to diversify. While a Marauder-heavy army may be successful for quite some time it gets annihilated by Immortals. You are practically forced to get Ghosts to survive and these are somewhat hard to use, because they are fragile, expensive AND require energy to use. Apart from the "general" need for anti-air and detection against cloaking I dont see any other race being forced to get a certain unit as much as the Terrans are. Especially if you try to use mech against Protoss it is a necessity to get Ghosts as well.

On May 04 2010 01:25 AppleTart wrote:


Each race should be advantaged/disadvantaged in certain ways. That's why they are so different. It's not just different units and buildings, but different styles.
Zerg are the most "structurally advantaged" and Terran are the most "structurally disadvantaged" That's how it meant to be. But there really is no blatant imbalance between races. That's because terran have advantages in other ways.

On May 04 2010 01:01 ccdnl wrote:
As a Terran player I do feel that one decision or the other dictates our future couple of minutes much more than it does than for a Protoss/zerg player. 5 seconds late injecting a larvae, or 7 seconds late chronoboosting a probe production doesn't seem to have the same consequences as 4 seconds late muling/scanning plus deciding which one you will do.