I was trying to figure out a way that zerg could have 3 different starts, and from this thinking I was able to find a post on the Blizzard forums which makes a lot of the same points that I have made as well.
I feel like this guy starts with the right sense of truth, which raises the question... why do hatcheries even yield any supply at all?
Why can't zerg start with no overlord, 6 drones in the red, and 0 provided control from hatcheries? But then someone could make an argument that zerg would be inferior. How would zerg get that comparable unit capacity to terran and protoss? Spawning pool that provides control? I mean, that sounds terrible right?
Well why not instead we say that when a hatchery completes, out pops two drones no matter what the current control limit is and maybe a delay on first larvae production instead of 1 control and 1 larvae? Then this would actually make sense out of how zerg start with 6 drones in the first place....
Why does Zerg need the starting overlord, and what if the zerg player doesn't want to start with it? Does Terran have to start with a supply depot? Protoss a pylon? No.
On February 09 2025 07:50 WGT-Baal wrote: Mate this isnt the sc2 forum ^^
I'm aware of that and so I will make this observation about my point.
Imagine that you do a 6-pool, lord build order with the 6 starting drones.
The pool and lord complete around the same time. What will your control be at if hatcheries provide 0 control?
5/8.
The 6 zergling rush not only remains just fine... it almost seems destined to be this way.
What if an argument can be made that any additional warriors(zerglings) CONTINUED to be produced by zerg outside of their parallel production capacity(3 larvae in this case) and as a timing attack, is cheese? Such as building a gas extractor and cancelling to get 1 more control for a follow up 2 lings to the 6, and so you might as well just all in because that's the point of going beyond the parallel production capacity limit.
This kind of tells us that the way it currently works, 4-pool, where you end up at 3/9 control is kind of a deception because you think that you're going to have 300 gold and 6 larvae capacity to produce 12 lings at one time when the pool completes. But it doesn't even come close to that. And so compared to my suggestion, it's mathematically unsound. Inefficient. Or we would say.... cheesy
Back to my point, sure, this would mean a slightly earlier hatch. But maybe not really if you have to scout with 1 drone at the start.
Don't understand what you're trying to say? Why it is like that is because it was programmed that way and it may or may not make sense. Does that matter? It's a game that has been played a lot and better players have communicated with Blizzard. However, I haven't come across such a suggestion yet, maybe you should create/program your own RTS game because you certainly have more influence on such processes/things. Your post won't change/move anything or do you just want to brainstorm theoretically? Anyway, good luck
On February 09 2025 08:35 beWaterMyFriend78 wrote: Don't understand what you're trying to say? Why it is like that is because it was programmed that way and it may or may not make sense. Does that matter? It's a game that has been played a lot and better players have communicated with Blizzard. However, I haven't come across such a suggestion yet, maybe you should create/program your own RTS game because you certainly have more influence on such processes/things. Your post won't change/move anything or do you just want to brainstorm theoretically? Anyway, good luck
My theoretical brainstorming exists more on the Diablo 2 blizzard forums, where I make a point that if Zerg and Protoss had 2 minor buffs to match the terran scv advantage, then Starcraft would be more of a role playing game than Diablo, because the Sorceress was never able to transform into the "extreme melee cannon". More of a role playing game than Diablo because it would demonstrate that there is no properly provided trio of archetypes that establishes a trinity of roles.
I kind of lost my mind on how to imagine what Zerg were exactly lacking from that perspective however, because I couldn't figure out what "extreme melee" meant for a drone, if scvs had more life and probes had a greater attack range.
The best shot for the concept of "extreme melee" meaning something comes down to the drone invading the body(host) of an enemy unit as a parasite. So Scvs have more life, probes can attack from a range, and drones can invade a host with a slow dot, probably the total remaining life of the drone if they successfully invade. To clarify, the extremity of this would only be something beyond the logical expectations from small primitive worker units. Flanker was intended to imply a "speed edge" but since no worker should have a movement speed edge over another, you have to think about what else it could mean.
Figured I'd start with a clear and simple point/suggestion before ever mentioning or bringing that up.
Right sorry with the link and the 6 drones i thought it was sc2.
For BW, lore wise, you start with your command and control base. For T that s the CC, P the nexus and Z the overlord (or a cerebrate/kerrigan/the overmind himself). A base with no overlord would be feral and not listen to orders.
Ignoring that, wouldn't it make 6 pool utterly broken? The timing would be brutal. You could double drone scout once the pool and overlord are being built and you d still hit 150 fine when it s done with full knowledge of the position of the opponent. The pool would come down 50% faster (logically, having 6 mining drones vs 4). So instead of like 40-50s ish it would be 25-30s ? (Rough estimate). And sure you d need 100 for the overlord and then wait for it to spawn but overlord takes 25s while pool takes 50s meaning you have 25s to mine with 6 drones to reach 100 mineral (which you would) and a larva spawns every 13s so you ll have the 6 lings also with no delay. So no delay there your 6 pool would hit about 15-20s earlier than a current 4 pool which is game breaking. Or at the very least new maps would need to be made
It would flow well from the Z point of view as you correctly state though. Even if it s only 4 lings due to the larva limitation you propose, the timing would still break most things. It would instantly kill fe builds for P.
Finally 2 free drones per new hatch would be so insanely op.
That being said you could always run it in a UMS and see how it goes
On February 09 2025 09:15 WGT-Baal wrote: So no delay there your 6 pool would hit about 15-20s earlier than a current 4 pool which is game breaking. Or at the very least new maps would need to be made
I don't know about a double drone scout because you have to sacrifice 1 drone for the pool.
Second, I remember a long time ago, and I mean maybe 15 + years ago where I suggested that drones didn't have the ability to attack at all. But I can't remember what my suggested compensation was for that sacrifice.
You might be able to pump the 6 ling out faster, maybe 8 ling with gas trick cheese. But if drones can't attack then at least you wouldn't have to worry about that as a follow up. If drones cannot finish off enemy workers with an attack of their own, then that might be on to something.... Once again I ask, what does extreme melee mean? It might mean "attack with body" and not weapon. The meaning might mean no meaning at all. Maybe probes would be able to attack from a range and drones could just naturally burrow at most.
Maybe it means that drones can go into "egg mode" to perform ramp blocks.... But the egg mode doesn't mutate anything.
Finally 2 free drones per new hatch would be so insanely op.
I agree. Even if it was balanced, it would be hard to make sense of it, but imagine this....
How about zerg sacrifice starting lord, larvae, and hatch control to start with 1 zergling, 4 drones and an extra 25 minerals in the bank. Where does the other 50 minerals go? Into the fact that the hatchery has a special ability. The hatchery can spend the 25 minerals to lay down a creep colony anywhere on the creep which produces instantly and provides 25% enhanced larvae production at the nearest hatchery.
Once spawning pool and evolution chamber complete, in order to finish the creep colony into a sunken or spore, you must take a drone off of your mineral line and have it be consumed by the creep colony and costs the typical 75 gold for either or maybe even 100 gold to balance out. Once sunken or spore start morphing, the 25% enhanced larvae production is lost, but could be canceled to get back the drone and the 25% enhanced larvae production rate.
What this does is it takes us WAY back when hatcheries used to cost 350 minerals. But when a 350 mineral hatchery completes, you get 1 zergling and an extra 25 gold to spend on an instant morph of a creep colony which costs that 25 gold and enhances larvae production by 25%
What if a hatchery could lay down as many instant creep colonies at the cost of 25 gold that the player desires to enhance larvae production at that hatch by 25% repeatedly stacked.
Also, where have we seen something like this 1 zergling start before? Warcraft 3 undead who start with 1 ghoul....
With these zerg changes and questioning what extreme melee drone means, such as egg morph states, and no attacking capability.... I think then you'd be able to consider a probe that can attack from a range?
Because while terran might be able to deal with 1 zergling just fine with 60 life scvs, how would a probe deal with it?
Forgot to mention that maybe after every 3 creep colonies produced near a hatchery, it would raise the holding capacity of that hatchery's larvae by 1.
So zerg may still choose to make more than 2 hatcheries across 2 harvesting locations because they might be thinking more offensively than defensively, but it would at least cut typical hatchery production in half.
It seems that the success of the idea might be determined by the flow of production.
The pool would come down 50% faster (logically, having 6 mining drones vs 4.
I see your point, but allow me to exercise the dialogue of a back and forth argument to come to some kind of resolve.
Realistically, any zerg player could grief that their overlord should have came from the starting larvae and so the lord should be able to start near a mineral patch to mine minerals at the rate of at least 1 drone, because even as a supply structure/unit, it still occupied one of your larvae and even though the overlord can carry units, why should zerg be forced into dropping to leave their base vulnerable?
But then Protoss and Terran are going to say, well in order to make more units I had to wait through the production of my depot or pylon, and then I couldn't use that depot or pylon to farm. So I'd rather have zerg start with 5 drones in the red with no overlord start.
But then the zerg player is going to say that the overlord cost 100 minerals so why can't I start with 2 extra drones and be 6 in the red?
Then the T or P player might say, well as long as you started out having to go through the production of those 2 drones then it should be fine.
So when zerg starts a match, why don't they start with no lord, 2 eggs morphing drones, 4 drones, no control from the hatchery and no starting larvae, so you're still starting 6 in the red. And every hatchery after that which completes starts with 2 eggs morphing drones no matter what control limit you are at.
And then I could ask an expert, would you rather have no control hatcheries and start with no larvae and a lord that has the option to farm at the rate of 1 drone at any mineral location? Or would you rather start the same way with no overlord and 2 drones already in production, still starting out with 4 workers compared to T and P.
Mineral value starts are still equal. 300 for hatch, 200 for 4 drones, 100 for 2 drones starting as eggs = 600 minerals worth of structures/units. So it must be entirely fair.
It would be really interesting to see if zerg started winning more, losing more, or staying the same with this change.
This is so funny. It's actually a positive sign that there is still people theorizing about the game design of such an old game.
If you are looking for a "lore" explanation for the Overlord, is that it is needed by the cerebrate to control the 'minions' (the Drones). This "lore" had some impact on the asymmetrical race design that Blizzard intended. They did what they thought it was best, and nailed it.
I love that Zerg starts with an Overlord by the way.
This "lore" had some impact on the asymmetrical race design that Blizzard intended. They did what they thought it was best, and nailed it.
Starting with the overlord is actually a revelation of zerg's true strength rather than a swarm strength perse, even though the swarm could be involved. Or we could say that the swarm is more of an airborne concept rather than ground. You want to find yourself in a position where you have a few queens with ensnare and upgraded armor overlords dropping on enemy armies. But I'd like to know what % of times zerg has won in this manner. But what that means is that anyone who is good at playing against zerg must be hiding what they are doing and keeping the option open to go air and playing aggressive. Makes me think of another idea too. Imagine overlords that could produce a different kind of offensive unit inside the overlord itself without occupying larvae, and the overlord does not drop the unit. Rather, it turns the overlord into a melee air to ground offense. Yes, air to ground attacker, but melee. Like maybe those hanging arms of the overlord do dot damage or something. You know, if zerg was going to start with an overlord then this is probably the real change they always needed. Remember that the unit inside the overlord wouldn't add to the overlord's life-pool or anything so if the overlord dies then zerg loses all the invested offensive units inside of it. Also, maybe the overlord produces this larvaeless offense by consuming zerg's own defensive structures.... Or maybe not defensive structures but creep colonies. And then you go through the time to produce the creep colony, and then spend what? 125 minerals to make the sunk or spore? The alternative to this idea just ends up being some kind of air network nydus that hold a tunnel in position so that zerg can send in a bunch of bane-drones and quickly replace those bane-drones. But once again, that screams nonsensical for more than one reason. Like why should the worker be a warrior?
Only with something LIKE THIS in place would I agree with you. But I will agree that while zerg starting with 2 eggs producing drones at the start of each hatch may be a perfect solution for zerg, It doesn't make sense for beatiful/interesting asymmetrical purposes. But I just can't imagine playing serious competitive games with the race when being aware of this truth and not at least having the option. I mean, I'd even say that just for the overlord occupying the larvae, it should have came with the vision upgrade. At least imagine that a true viable complaint that zerg can make is that the drone shouldn't even be able to attack for some other compensated benefit. In balance, this might mean we have 60 life scvs, ranged probes and attackless drones. And I don't think that just because a probe would be able to attack from ranged would make it a warrior. Look at the SCV, do we think it's a warrior just because it has 33% more life capacity?
Going back to my original point and another way of looking at it, maybe it would have been best for zerg to have an option of 3 different starts let's say. Because zerg could have started with no overlord, no hatch control, no starting larvae, no drone attacking capability, and then have 1 drone immediately producing by egg, 1 zergling(immediately available inspired by undead wc3), and an extra 25 minerals in the bank. Drones can't attack but hatcheries would be able to lay down creep colonies without the drone. Each one costs say 50 minerals to put down. But then let's say that the hatchery must lay down at least 2 creep colonies to enhance the larvae production rate at nearest hatchery by 33%. Maybe it would require at least 2 to get any larvae production bonus at all, that way zerg would be making either a clear macro defend choice or expand choice. I mean if the enemy scouts creep colonies, they have two options. Either expand or be aggressive and scout. Finally, creep colonies would just consume individual drones to achieve final defense form and cost that additional 75 minerals. The defense structure might already be halfway complete. Sounds like OP defense but if you're good enough at playing aggression against zerg to make them commit to even a single type of defense, then you've basically already gained an advantage because zerg can't switch back and forth between spore and sunk.
I love the fact that zerg start with overlord
Also, when I said that overlords could consume creep colonies, I was only suggesting that to avoid drones becoming considered warriors. That's it. But if the drone didn't have an attack of it's own, then maybe that would be enough to justify a drone to warrior conversion through the overlord. Like if you loaded an overlord up with 8 drones, that could be as much as 16 zerglings worth of damage as air to ground melee. Lose the overlord, lose all 8 drones. But even if the overlord dropped the drones, it's not like the drones are going to become part of an offensive threat.
Also, in terms of just insane idea suggestions from my memory. I remember a consideration where if overlords were not moving they became both blind and invisible. That might even make things more interesting. Imagine zergling unborrow to push enemy forces underneath an overlord that has the drones in it where the overlord also becomes visible once it starts attacking.
Sad thing is, I used to have a clever justification for the concept. But overlord camouflage is all that comes to mind.
Btw, maybe loading up drones wouldn't work, but maybe if hatcheries were divided into 8 sections of life, then an overlord could load up sections of hatcheries into the overlord for this damage I'm talking about. Lose 2 sections of your hatchery, reduce it's larvae production by 25% and it would also have 25% less life.
Imagine the start. You'd load up at least 1 section of your hatchery's life pool because you wouldn't lose anything but the life. Overlord can go out and do an air to ground melee attack for 1.5 zerglings worth of damage.
I d like to see some/all changes in a use map setting perhaps so tests could be done to make it less abstract ?
I don't have starcraft broodwar anymore, and I never bought the remastered. I suppose I'd have to check my bnet account to see if I ever owned it. I used to fiddle with UMS melee, like removing the research times for all zerg speed upgrades since zerg had so many of them, but that's not what I'm really interested in here.
There's some follow up points to clarify and finalize the idea. So Zerg start without the overlord or starting larvae, and 0 control per hatch, but gain 2 drones in production(egg form) from the start and so are 6 in the red on production.
I'd say that because the overlord is not there that these 2 starting drones are free. But with every hatchery produced after that you have to pay for the 2 drones but you don't pay for it with a 400 mineral cost hatchery. Instead, once your 300 mineral hatchery completes, you are charged 100 minerals for the 2 starting drones in production(egg form), but this charge can break the limit 0 of minerals so you can go in debt 100 minerals for these 2 drones. When in debt you obviously can't spend any minerals on anything and will have to wait until you climb back out into the positive.
Might sound like a sloppy idea, but it could be a good idea to provide it as an option until we figure out what to do with the overlord situation which I feel like Blizzard actually attempted to solve with Starcraft 2 but never mentions that they failed at solving it.
The simple complaint is this. That lair tech never unlocked anything but more upgrades to get through. They tried to do something about it in Starcraft 2 with the overseer, but it just seemed to never workout to make sense.
Here's a different idea. Once lair completes you would be able to transform an overlord into an air to ground MELEE warrior unit. The overlord would be able to transform at any location. It would cost 2 larvae and some gas, and at the cost of 2 larvae probably has the output dps of 4 zerglings let's say. This new "overlord warrior" unit would sacrifice the ability to carry units and gain a warrior quality movement speed. Maybe the production of this unit would be able to tap into the future production of larvae of a hatchery. Why? Because this unit has to have it's own niche which would consist of not being able to attack buildings. This is to not conflict with the purpose of flying warrior units and warrior drops. It obviously would be tricky to use for harassing mineral lines as melee air. But this might allow zerg to access the future larvae production of a hatchery going out pretty far into the future. It sounds overpowered, but if you have a lot of overlords and want to see them being put to use then you might have this choice. You are also losing the supply of the overlord as well, so you could dig yourself a hole pretty quick if you go too heavy.
As for the other races dropping methods. The dropship of terran should NOT cost 100 gas. That's really just terrible as it doesn't do anything special. Maybe it should cost 150 gold only. I also think that both protoss and terran could ask why their droppers cost any supply at all. It might be something they would want if zerg was able to morph the "overlord warriors" that I'm talking about.
Also, as aforementioned, it might be interesting to see this zerg unit become blind and invisible while not moving. Might make burrow/unburrow raids more appealing.
Instead of creep colonies enhancing larvae production. Let's say that creep colonies cost 125 minerals and take 30 seconds to produce and are produced by the hatchery which lays them down for no drone cost, yet. Imagine this being another way for zerg to go into mineral debt besides the 2 drones that spawn with each hatchery. So creep colonies would pretty much be the only way to go into severe debt if you're not careful, but the freedom to do that would at least feel like a zerg power and also potentially be intimidating to the opponent.
But then when a creep colony morphs into a sunk or spore, then it requires the drone and costs another 50 minerals and takes another 10 seconds to complete. But here's the key to larvae rate relationship. Once the drone is permanently lost sunk or spore completion, the nearest hatchery gains a 16.7% enhanced larvae production rate for every sunk or spore that it is near until the sunk or spore dies. The only purpose really is to recycle the cost lost of the sacrificed drone for high cost defense structures. It's not to reward zerg for producing defense. It's to compensate a sacrificed drone that committed to AG or AA defense.
So there's at least two totally new things to try right there at the same time which still totally balance out with how the game already is. But how could this be further justified? Well if zerg can start with an overlord to make them the "odd man out" then maybe a zerg player doesn't want to be the odd man out in that way. Maybe zerg wants to be the odd man out by going in to debt in certain ways which is what both of the suggestions could achieve with the editor.
Finally, I think the "overlord warrior" idea would naturally occur after every mass parallel larvae production burst into offense or drones based on the scouted vision of the opponent and you could use it to scoop opponent forces into your defense structures or into your un-burrow raids. This could be a fail for zerg if the opponent is expanding or building another air warrior producer like stargate or starport.
The point is that if you can predict the opponent's committed offense, why can't you burden yourself enough to ensure that it fails?
All balance decisions for broodwar is a joke unless you're going to make a custom map.
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. ---------------------- Broodwar and vanilla only have 1 control for the hatch, which aligns overlords, supply depots, and pylons at 8 supply.
Zerg also doesn't have as many workers, so having an overlord to help scout is also nice.
The hatch gets 1 supply, nexus gets 9, and cc gets 10. I believe terran gets an extra, because their workers have to actively build the building, while zerg gets a supply back, by sacrificing a unit.
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.
EPT
