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On September 19 2012 02:05 Kabel wrote:
@ SmileZerg Thanks for a well written post. I always enjoy reading posts like this with a lot of though put into it. I will try to give my reply and views to each topic you bring up.
Many players have suggested to bring back the Hydra upgrades to Hatchery level. I think it would look better if both upgrades are on the same tech level since there is not a huge power level between them. (Like Zergling speed and attack damage is. The later is a dangerous late game upg that has a huge impact on your army)
Many players also seem to think that the Hydras are very weak and fragile in the first part of the game. If I give back Hydra upgrades to Hatchery tech that might solve the problem. If so, I will probably increase their build time a bit. From 80 to 140 seconds or something, so they will not be super early.
I would stand by this, yeah. Maybe not such a drastically long build time though, 110 seconds would probably suffice. Unless you've changed it in Starbow, that's the same research time as Metabolic Boost, which is both slightly cheaper and available earlier than hydra speed.
I do fear that it will give Zerg a too big early defenders advantage vs Protoss, due to the creep bonus. (Not often I complain about that ^^) I consider it a problem in BW that Protoss could not have much map control vs Zerg in the first 8-10 minutes of the game. The Zealots could not hurt the fast enemy Hydras until they got Zealot speed. Corsairs was often the only Protoss unit you could see on the battlefield early. Hydras in Starbow, with fast speed upgrade, will out micro Zealots, Stalkers and even Corsairs much easier on creep now. They will even catch the Warp prism with Reaver!
Obviously the creep bonus can be nerfed on Hydras. But I think creep should give a good bonus since it makes players more eager to spread it. So it not becomes an "uncessary" thing to do. And that will create some fast early Hydras that probably will be able to "contain" the Protoss. After all, Blizzard choosed to give all Zerg ranged units speed upgrades to lair or hive tech and I think they have a point with that. (Ok thats only Roach and Hydra, but still) I am not saying it can´t be done. I just don´t think the positive aspects will outshine the negative ones. Unless I nerf the Hydra even further to compensate for its faster speed.
Okay, scratch what I just said above. I've got another idea for Hydralisks, I'll post it in a seperate reply since there are already a lot of things to address here.
Besides this, I agree with the lore aspect of the Zerg stages of the tech levels. Maybe I put Nydus back in again.
I strongly urge you to do so! I think by making it a Hive tech requirement, we can avoid the usually "all-in" feel of Nydus Worms and preserve positional advantages more for the midgame, which I believe were the reasons you removed it originally?
Lets continue with the Protoss. You have put a lot of thought into it and you have some thematic and game mechanical points.
@Immortal being warped in
I did experiment with having both the Dragoon and Stalker in the warp gate for a while, a few months ago. The Dragoon could only shoot ground and was beefy and slow. The Stalker was swift but weaker. Kinda like the Immortal/Stalker difference is now..
I felt that by adding the Dragoon to the Warp gate it took away some of the uniqueness from both the Stalker and Dragoon. I think the same issue will arise with Immortal/Stalker as warped in units. The Dragoon was a unit you mostly prefered to spend your money on since it was a better unit for its cost. Why should one choose the "weaker" Stalker? The elegant thing in SC2 is that sometimes the circumstances will make the Stalker the better choice over Colossus/Immortal, simply by allowing you to warp them in were you need them.
By enabling both the "strong and weak" options to be warped in, it takes away one of the advantages of the weaker unit. I would consider Stalker a weaker unit that the Immortal, atleast vs P and T. (Although this is a discussion on its own) The Immortals downside is that it is built at a bad spot. You need to transport or walk slowly to the combat to benefit from them. Something Scen on the EU server does a lot. He likes to ferry them into combat and do nice micro things with the Warp prism to "absorb" spider mine damage with the Hardened shield and snipe tanks with its high bonus vs armored. If Rift is added to the Arbiter, you will be able to add more mobility to the slow Immortal and Reaver. By allowing Immortals to be warped in takes away a crucial target for Rift. (Assuming it will even be a good or useful spell at all)
As fas as lore goes, the Immortal is so heavily armored that it must be built in the robotic facility and is simply to fat do be warped in. ^^
Well I think we have a simple solution on our hands that would give us the best of both worlds.
As you said, the Immortal is simply too fat to be warped in... but what if it was still a Gateway unit regardless? In other words, out of regular Gateways, you can build Immortals, but if they are transformed into Warp Gates the option is greyed out. This gives players even more incentive to not just transform all of their Gateways into Warp Gates, but to make a strategic choice when doing so.
Problem solved! 
@ Sentry at Robotic If there is room for one more caster it is definitely in the robotic bay! It would enable a caster in all three production buildings. But I will probably not add it to the game now. The reasons are: - We need a unit that is not the Sentry model. - It needs a "better" line up of spells. (I will explain what I mean with "better") First of all, the Sentry is associated with the SC2 Sentry, The enemy will be used to thinking it has Force Field etc. Finding another model will surely be possible, even though there is none in the editor. Maybe fan made models can be used. The line up of spells you suggest for it partly depends on a huge rearrangement of the Protoss caster spells. (More about that further down.) To explain what I mean with "better spells" I gotta begin from the start. One of the main things I try to focus on in this MOD is to split the Deathball. One way I have done it is by making the units be less clumped up due to some value changes. But the major way to split the deathball is by making it NOT be the best way to move your army. The players gotta want to split their units and keep them seperated, even outside combat. And why is that important? ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6FkrJ.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ot7q4.jpg) One other way I have tried to improve this is by making each base regenerate less resources and workers compared to SC2. It will hopefully strengthen the importance of harassment and skirmish combat. You can´t destroy the enemy so easily in one big blow. You need to deny expansions, kill workers and stop him from growing at different places. But we are talking about combat now and spells, so lets continue with that. I think that strong AoE-spells is one way to make players keep their army seperated. At least when it is time for combat. Thats one of the reasons I gave EMP back to Ghost since it is an invisible unit that can strike the enemy army at any point, thus the enemy don´t want to clump up his casters. Thats why I want Plague to be in the game in some way. Thats why I want Maelstrom, or something similar, to be in the game too. Thats why I removed Guardian shield in the first place. It makes your army better when it is clumped up. (I know, its the same thing for Arbiter cloak which is a thing that bothers me) Obviously the area of effect on the Shield can be reduced, but you could just build a few more of them. I think that the spells you suggest on the Sentry adds nothing to the game. Don´t get me wrong, I am not saying they are bad ideas. They would work. Even a spell like Void Shell is an uncertain spell. Should it even be in the game? But by not adding the Sentry now, and instead adding it when HotS is released and this MOD is more complete, we might see areas Protoss needs to improve upon, or possible models in the HoTS editor that can be used.
Hmmm... alright, I see your point on disencouraging deathball play. HOWEVER:
- My suggestion for Guardian Shield only blocks projectile attacks, i.e. Stalker, Hydralisk, Mutalisk, Vulture, Interceptor, Arbiter, Wraith, Broodlord, Battlecruiser... as such, it is a situational spell, which can be very powerful against certain compositions, but does not protect anything from units like Reavers, Lurkers, Siege Tanks, EMP, Banelings etc. Therefore, I don't think it necessarily encourages moving your army as a solid ball, but it does allow for positional play by encouraging players to spread their Sentry's out to cover as many units as possible over a wide area!
- The model issue could be slightly confusing, but I think the fact that the unit is now available from the Robotics should already tip players off that it may be different. Another way to make these changes immediately apparent, is to increase the model size slightly, and perhaps change the icon on Guardian Shield. We could also change the units name. A combination of these differences should make it apparent that this is a new caster unit.
Lets look at the other spells your propose:
Feedback that drains energy, deals damage to the target and splash damage to all units nearby. I love it! Brilliant! It causes the enemy to keep his army seperated, which strengthens the importance of army control and gives opportunities to players to find weakness and attack certain parts of each others seperated armies.
Vortex on Dark Archon. It would probably work as fine as Maelstrom does. But once again I let certain things be in the game due to their classic value. Maelstrom was an iconic spell on the Dark Archon and had dangerous synergy with Psi Storm.
I think Vortex can also have an effective synergy with Psi Storm, it just requires more careful timing! Cast the spell over the Vortex just as its time is expired and you are guaranteed to do quite a bit of damage.
While Maelstrom is an iconic spell, I think Vortex carries that flavor over in a progressive manner - in other words, it feels like the next stage of Maelstrom. Both names refer to cyclical storms that suck things in. However, Vortex is more powerful and more versatile, in that it also affects non-Biological units and is harder to avoid.
Phantom on Dark Archon, to create hallucinations of enemy units, is a nice idea and it might be added in the future. Maybe to replace Void Shell, if its removed or moved to another caster? The only thing I think about is how it shall be used. As a snipe spell? Distraction? Make it tank some damage from your own army?
I would strongly recommend putting this in place of Void Shell (even if Void Shell is not moved to another unit, although again the Sentry was intended to open up more maneuvering room for exactly that reason). As I've said before, the DArchons flavor as a caster is about offensive spells which do not require supporting units. Void Shell needs to be cast on something else to be effective. Phantom would let the DArchon both draw fire away from itself and damage an enemy all on its own. Of course, all of the DArchon's spells can still be used in synergy with an army, and would be even more effective that way. But they don't NEED to be, which is the thematic idea of DArchons.
As for what the spell does - yes it is a snipe spell, and a distraction and a damage soak all at once. That versatility is the main draw of it! You can for example cast it on an enemy Ultralisk and have them potentially absorb 500 damage worth of attacks from the Zerg army, although with effective micro the zerg player can split the Ultra away before it is killed and try to focus fire the units around it on other targets (which is where the distraction part fits in). Or you can cast it on a squishy, expensive unit and watch them get annihilated before the opponent has time to prevent it.
Basically, I was looking for something that would give the same double-sided benefit to the Protoss player as Mind control, without overlapping Neural Parasite. Phantom should serve that purpose - it both takes damage away from your own forces, and results in that damage being dealt to an enemy unit, while creating a hectic micro situation for the player to try and diminish that damage.
Phase shift on Arbiter. If I understand it correctly, it is Stasis Field? Or they can move but not attack and take damage? I think the last thing might lead to some weird situations where you use it on your army, moves up to the siege tanks and just waits until the buff is done. Or move into his base.. Maybe I don´t understand it correctly. But I would like to bring in the old Stasis Field back in someway, either like it is in BW or with a twist, for many reasons.
Yeah, this was one of my lesser thought-out ideas I was throwing in there at the time to try and put a new spin on Stasis while moving Vortex to the DArchon... but I realised that it does cause those problems shortly after I posted. Not every idea can be a winner xP.
I would definitely support just giving back Stasis Field.
Anyways, thanks for a well written suggestion. I hope I did not sound too harsh.
No problem! You brought up good points in each area which caused me to have to rethink and improve some of my ideas. I'm just enjoying being able to make contributions to the MOD, and I believe that with time it will be pretty much the greatest RTS there is.
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Hydralisk Speed - Not Merely An Upgrade:
I'm going to propose to you an idea I've had for awhile now. As discussed previously, each Tier of Zerg tech has a theme. For Hatchery tech, that theme is 'short-ranged or melee, OR dependant on creep'. Zerglings and Banelings fit this theme. Spine/Spore Crawlers and Queens can only be used defensively.
With the Hydra replacing the Roach as the final T1 unit, that theme has been somewhat muddied, even with the reduced Hydra range, as Roaches had the weakness of not being able to shoot up. For this reason, I experimented with ideas for making the Hydralisk a hybrid ranged/melee unit. Here is my suggestion:
Remove the Hydralisk speed upgrade entirely. We're going to replace it with a new researchable ability, Frenzy.
Frenzy will essentially function like a Zerg Stim, with a twist: Instead of trading off health for more movement and attack speed, it trades off range. How much range? All of it. Frenzied Hydralisks will become melee units, but gain an X% bonus to movement and attack speed for 12 seconds (they will also lose the ability to burrow for the duration). This has no cooldown.
What does this solve?
- Hydras will still be able to reinforce and maneuver around the map more rapidly, which is a primary racial attribute of Zerg.
- Hydras will not be able to kite Zealots off Creep. They may be able to outrun them, but without a ranged attack they can't engage. However, if Hydras are forced to fight Zealots in close combat, they will have more DPS when Frenzied.
- Fast Hydras on Creep will not be too powerful defensively, as they cannot shoot up or engage at range.
- The range upgrade for Hydras can also be moved back to Hatch tech, as it will confer no benefit while the Hydras are Frenzied.
This also has the benefit of being more skill intensive. Simply rallying Hydras to a location won't be enough to get them there faster - you have to manually activate Frenzy. You can also use it in response to certain abilities - Frenzying Hydras to fight Zerglings after a surround, pulling spider mines, engaging an enemy Zerg force under Dark Swarm... there are a lot of unexplored possibilities.
But what about lategame? Do we really want Hydras to be a melee unit all game long if we want them to move faster?
Well let's not forget the theme of Hive tech: Massive units, and game-changing upgrades (such as Adrenal Glands).
I would say introduce an upgrade to the Hydra Den requiring Hive that let's Hydralisks move the same speed off-creep as on, a la the new HotS upgrade. We can call it Anterior Creep Glands, and add a visual effect to Hydras that leaves a tiny purple slime trail behind them (just resize and recolor the Infestor slime effect).
While this may seem to reduce the importance of Creep, the fact that this upgrade is only available at T3 means that by the time it has been researched, you've probably covered at least half of the map anyway. Additionally, all of your other units will still benefit from it. This just gives Hydras the extra push they need in the lategame to engage speed Zealots in enemy territory.
Thoughts, comments, concerns?
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On September 19 2012 05:57 SmileZerg wrote:
Hydralisk Speed - Not Merely An Upgrade:
I'm going to propose to you an idea I've had for awhile now. As discussed previously, each Tier of Zerg tech has a theme. For Hatchery tech, that theme is 'short-ranged or melee, OR dependant on creep'. Zerglings and Banelings fit this theme. Spine/Spore Crawlers and Queens can only be used defensively.
With the Hydra replacing the Roach as the final T1 unit, that theme has been somewhat muddied, even with the reduced Hydra range, as Roaches had the weakness of not being able to shoot up. For this reason, I experimented with ideas for making the Hydralisk a hybrid ranged/melee unit. Here is my suggestion:
Remove the Hydralisk speed upgrade entirely. We're going to replace it with a new researchable ability, Frenzy.
Frenzy will essentially function like a Zerg Stim, with a twist: Instead of trading off health for more movement and attack speed, it trades off range. How much range? All of it. Frenzied Hydralisks will become melee units, but gain an X% bonus to movement and attack speed for 12 seconds (they will also lose the ability to burrow for the duration). This has no cooldown.
What does this solve?
- Hydras will still be able to reinforce and maneuver around the map more rapidly, which is a primary racial attribute of Zerg.
- Hydras will not be able to kite Zealots off Creep. They may be able to outrun them, but without a ranged attack they can't engage. However, if Hydras are forced to fight Zealots in close combat, they will have more DPS when Frenzied.
- Fast Hydras on Creep will not be too powerful defensively, as they cannot shoot up or engage at range.
- The range upgrade for Hydras can also be moved back to Hatch tech, as it will confer no benefit while the Hydras are Frenzied.
This also has the benefit of being more skill intensive. Simply rallying Hydras to a location won't be enough to get them there faster - you have to manually activate Frenzy. You can also use it in response to certain abilities - Frenzying Hydras to fight Zerglings after a surround, pulling spider mines, engaging an enemy Zerg force under Dark Swarm... there are a lot of unexplored possibilities.
But what about lategame? Do we really want Hydras to be a melee unit all game long if we want them to move faster?
Well let's not forget the theme of Hive tech: Massive units, and game-changing upgrades (such as Adrenal Glands).
I would say introduce an upgrade to the Hydra Den requiring Hive that let's Hydralisks move the same speed off-creep as on, a la the new HotS upgrade. We can call it Anterior Creep Glands, and add a visual effect to Hydras that leaves a tiny purple slime trail behind them (just resize and recolor the Infestor slime effect).
While this may seem to reduce the importance of Creep, the fact that this upgrade is only available at T3 means that by the time it has been researched, you've probably covered at least half of the map anyway. Additionally, all of your other units will still benefit from it. This just gives Hydras the extra push they need in the lategame to engage speed Zealots in enemy territory.
Thoughts, comments, concerns?
have I understood this correctly?
an upgrade which will transform your hydras into zerglings that deal bonus damage to armored (and lasts for 12 seconds)?
quite frankly, I think it will clash with the zergling.
I think hydras are fine the way they are design-wise, balance-wise is a topic that is still under discussion.
on a side note: I really like your posting, it reminds me of my own major posts in many ways. quality and quantity.
edit:
though I do not necessarily agree with your thoughts about design, but thats for kabel to decide, not me.
Kabel wrote:
According to Roblins calculations, Zerg should be on a similar production pace as the other races.
considering the complaints regarding zerg early game I have been feeling anxious and insecure about this for a while.
so I decided to make a quick check on the latest casted game (for a realistic scenario) and check their workercounts at different points of the earlygame to see how the larvae production works out in practice:
0:54:
+ Show Spoiler +zerg:
just started producing an overlord
10 drones
terran:
just finished its 8th SCV (just started producing 9th)
zerg is probably in the lead right now simply because zerg gets to start with 3 larvae, and thus the first few units can be produced faster than normal, we did take this into account when trying to figure out production speed
1:51:
+ Show Spoiler +zerg:
just started producing a hatchery
11 drones (12 before building hatchery)
terran:
10 SCVs, producing 11th
building barracks
4:00
+ Show Spoiler +zerg:
4 zerglings
12 drones, 3 producing
total supply: 17
terran:
recently started natural expansion
2 marines, 1 producing
15 SCVs, 1 producing
total supply: 19
7:50
+ Show Spoiler +first engagement
zerg:
total supply 39
terran:
total supply 44
in total, zerg is interestingly a tiny bit slower in production in earlygame even though zerg expanded before terran and no noteworthy engagements had occurred
a possible reason for this is that zerg spent more money on tech than terran did, or that the "spends drones on buildings" factor is a little bit more prevalent thanI originally thought, or that zerg is simply supposed to expand earlier and the expansion was not "fast" but simply "normal"
regardless, the difference is quite small and not particularly note-worthy, so to me it feels like zergs production almost matches the other races in production, or is at least close enough to be able to be balanced up by other factors.
but in the future, if zerg production becomes a major point of concern then I would advocate a 10% increase in larvae spawn rate.
at the very least the facts tell us the numbers are not horribly off, the current numbers are pretty darn close to the perfect numbers for identical production.
//Roblin
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The fact that it's a temporary duration ability makes them much different from Zerglings. You can use Frenzy to rapidly retreat/reinforce with Hydras, or gain bonus DPS against melee units that have backed them into a corner. Lings are still cheaper, faster, don't cost gas, can morph into Banes, and have better DPS per cost versus Light.
I think it fits the flavor of Zerg quite well. Hydras even have their own melee attack animation in the game already.
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So many unnessicery radical changes.
I really liked the dark archon the way it was, the ability to snipe off energy units gave them worth even without any other upgrades. I would not go for a dark archon to simply deplete the energy off another unit, its too expensive and it can't even auto attack, not to mention they can just use up the energy prebattle if need be.
I don't know if you've realised this as well but giving the science vessel the auto turret is a pretty strong buff to mech and mech is already pretty damn strong right now. Not only do i have to deal with spider mines that do 100 aoe damage but i have to deal with turrets too? all at no cost to the terran. Good luck ever breaking through that.
I would concentrate on tuning the game rather than changing it right now, you're going to do alot more bad than good otherwise.
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On September 19 2012 07:11 scen wrote:
So many unnessicery radical changes.
I really liked the dark archon the way it was, the ability to snipe off energy units gave them worth even without any other upgrades. I would not go for a dark archon to simply deplete the energy off another unit, its too expensive and it can't even auto attack, not to mention they can just use up the energy prebattle if need be.
Feedback doesn't just deplete the energy, it converts it to damage. You know, the way it always worked in both BW and SC2. If anything it should be better now with splash damage.
I don't know if you've realised this as well but giving the science vessel the auto turret is a pretty strong buff to mech and mech is already pretty damn strong right now. Not only do i have to deal with spider mines that do 100 aoe damage but i have to deal with turrets too? all at no cost to the terran. Good luck ever breaking through that.
I agree that auto-turret on the Vessel is a terrible idea. I'm pretty sure it's being replaced by D-Matrix though.
I would concentrate on tuning the game rather than changing it right now, you're going to do alot more bad than good otherwise.
Completely disagree. Going back through the archives of this thread, I've seen how many radical changes have already been made to the Mod over time, and it seems far better today than the earlier versions. Fear of radical change is the reason Blizzard sucks at fixing the regular game right now and why this mod had to be made in the first place. It can always be improved, balance is the last concern. Design comes first, then stats can be tweaked as necessary.
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On September 19 2012 06:59 SmileZerg wrote:
The fact that it's a temporary duration ability makes them much different from Zerglings. You can use Frenzy to rapidly retreat/reinforce with Hydras, or gain bonus DPS against melee units that have backed them into a corner. Lings are still cheaper, faster, don't cost gas, can morph into Banes, and have better DPS per cost versus Light.
I think it fits the flavor of Zerg quite well. Hydras even have their own melee attack animation in the game already.
I don't know, it still feels like a zergling with bonus damage to armored (and morphs into lurkers instead of banelings).
hydralisk: medium speed ranged attacker that can attack ground and air and deals bonus damage to armored, morphs into lurker (static anti-ground splash damage)
zergling: fast melee attacker, morphs into baneling (fast anti-ground splash damage)
frenzied hydralisk: fast melee attacker that deals bonus damage to armored, morphs into lurker
that it has limited duration matters little, in the battle it will primarily be in one mode or the other, players will want their frenzied hydras to stay frenzied as much as possible, while keeping non-frenzied ones non frenzied as much as possible.
it feels like choosing to use hydras invalidates the use of zerglings.
but it might just be me.
edit to avoid double post:
Show nested quote +I would concentrate on tuning the game rather than changing it right now, you're going to do alot more bad than good otherwise. Completely disagree. Going back through the archives of this thread, I've seen how many radical changes have already been made to the Mod over time, and it seems far better today than the earlier versions. Fear of radical change is the reason Blizzard sucks at fixing the regular game right now and why this mod had to be made in the first place. It can always be improved, balance is the last concern. Design comes first, then stats can be tweaked as necessary.
true, but making many radical changes at the same time was only done up to the last month or so, it is possible to walk in circles with designing a game, eventually you need to narrow it down to something you want to stick to, and thats where small changes are very favorable over big changes.
yes, the game is better than it was.
but that does not mean every new design choice was good.
I would estimate that what is seen today is approximately 5% or some similarly small number of all the content which has been created for starbow, the other 95% was discarded for being bad design, clashing with other more interesting elements, not being interesting (still good design, but not interesting), feeling clumsy to use or some other reason.
notice, at the time it was created all of those 95% of the content was thought of as being an improvement to the game in one way or another, all of it was thought to be good design, noone knew it wouldn't pan out, some suspected, others were dubious, but in the end noone knew.
because the design was solid for all of it at the time.
I agree that many of your suggestions make thematical sense, however we cannot just design from themes, and more importantly we cannot in this case change half of the games spellcasters simply because you suggest it and because it makes thematical sense.
I will be honest, I am not convinced in the slightest that your suggestions would be an improvement to the gameplay. a lot of the suggestions feels like change for the sake of change. some sound pretty good though.
starbow have entered a stage of development where details have hardened a little, we now have a great base that works well, we shouldn't try to immediatly change the entire structure, it would ruin the base.
what we should do is change a little bit at a time, and eventually even the base itself will have shifted to conform with our overall wishes.
this is how games are developed. by all developers. big changes only ever happen in the beta at latest, massive changes like doing all of what you suggested at once is so big that it would only ever be done in alpha versions.
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That is a very valid concern.
I would say maybe test it out, see how it goes. If Zerglings are overlooked because of Frenzied Hydras, then it would have to be reverted or played around with.
However, Frenzied Hydralisks would still be slower than Speedlings with the right stats.
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Good morning. I will start from the top.
@Immortal being warped in.
We tried Zealots, Dragoons and HT at Gateways. Zealots, Stalkers and Dark Templar at Warp gate. It was a fun thought and could have been a good thing. But for various reasons I scrapped it. So I still don´t think its good to bring the Immortal to either the gateway or warpgate. I really don´t see how that improves anything
@ Guardian shield and Sentry
Oh I missunderstood you at that one. But I still think its better to add a new caster unit when HoTS is released and this MOD has been a bit more solid, rather than forcing one into the game now.
@ Phantom spell
The idea is nice and it might be a spell that is added to the MOD. But I will not use it now. The reason is that I want to continue and see how Void Shell works. And keeping it on the Dark Archon feels like the best option right now. I will save this one for later use.
@ Frenzy for Hydralisk
I agree with Roblin. I don´t see how this would improve the gameplay or the Hydralisk in Starbow. Huge changes like this really gotta be an enormous uplift to the game. I do think there are ways to adjust the current unit without radical changing the way it functions. An idea like this would fit better in a custom map I think, where there are fewer units to micro etc.
@Zerg larva spawn rate
Roblin, have you considered the larva spawn rate nerf compared to the other races in terms of production? The slower larva spawn rate also effects the other units you produce. Terran and Protoss production buildings produces units at the same speed as before, while Zerg has a harder time to produce armies. Is this something that is mathematically considered?
Overall, I am also starting to feel that Zerg feels very slow to play. Dont get me wrong, I like that there are fewer larvas to work with.. but.. still it does not feel like neither BW or SC2 Zerg.. The spawn rate of larvas in BW was much faster, but also production time of workers. This is not possible here due to the fewer workers per base needed and hence longer production time per worker. But would a 10% increase in larva production and Inject screw everything up?
@changing everything radically
I will try to be careful with what I change. What I generally aim for now is to adjust things in the game that are not needed, useful or might cause problems. I will try to aim for smoother solutions and fine tune the MOD. Its easy to design a complex solution to a simple problem. Much harder to design a simple solution to a complex problem. So remind me of that when I start to go bananas with the MOD!
But the latest changes, that has not been uploaded yet, are:
- Science Vessel: D-matrix, Irradiate and Nerve Jammer
- Ghost: Cloak, Nuke, Stronger snipe, Lockdown and EMP
- Medic: Only Heal and Energize
- Spider mines have been adjusted as decemberscalm made them. (They can be sniped without observer and pulled into enemy units, with good micro. Wanna try this one.)
- High Templar: Starts with Archon warp. Can upgrade Storm and "Matrix" (Which was the old Arbiter spell)
- Arbiter: Vortex and Rift. (Costs 40 energy and teleports 1 unit to it. No cooldown. Can be used 5 times in a row)
- If I can get it to work, Feedback will work as in normal SC2 on the Dark Archon, but it will deal splash damage to units nearby the target. This forces the enemy to split his army and casters more.
The reasons for all these changes was to increase the purpose of getting Ghosts. The Arbiter got a spell that is more true to its orginial concept, why still not overlapping with Nexus recall. The Force Field was removed because it would cause problem with Storm. Hallucination, which is a bad spell on a late game unit like HT, was replaced by something that might actually be compared to Storm in power. (Thus creating a realistic alternative to Storm)
Now, some additional thoughts:
- With Shield removed from Medics, bio will not be good vs Protoss anymore. The Shield was what actually gave Terran a boost in bio engagements vs P. Some players argue for this atleast. I think they have a point. How do you all see on this matter? Is Shield on Medic a much better idea than bringing it back to the Vessel? (I am doutbul myself, thats why I cant let the discussion go yet)
- I replaced the Combat shield upgrade for Marines with a +1 range upgrade, simply because Medics could cast Shield. It would been two kinds of shield. With the Medic Shield probably removed, I consider adding an upgrade to Marines that gives both +10 life and +1 range. Thouths? Should Marines get stronger or remain as rather weak units in term of HP?
- Zerg in the first 8-10 minutes of the game "can" only defend with Zerglings, Queens and spine crawlers. In SC2, the slow roaches was something you could just build a few of to get a boost to your defence. Thats not the case with the Hydralisk. Hydras just melt vs Protoss in early engagements, due to their low HP. The Hydra is truly a unit that gets good in large numbers. I think one of the reasons they are weak early is because they can´t be microed so well cause they are rather slow, even on creep. Two solutions I can think of:
- Increase the creep speed for Hydras?
- Bring back Hydra upgrades to hatchery tech?
- Something else..?
- I still need a name for Matrix that makes it sound like a Psionic spell in some way, and not a spell that alters with physics. (Like the Arbiter does) Ideas?
- I often hear that both Protoss and Terran are more fun to play in this MOD than in SC2 and maybe even in BW. But no one ever says that for Zerg. Me neither. Theories why Zerg feels more.. boring now?
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On September 19 2012 16:45 Kabel wrote:
@Zerg larva spawn rate
Roblin, have you considered the larva spawn rate nerf compared to the other races in terms of production? The slower larva spawn rate also effects the other units you produce. Terran and Protoss production buildings produces units at the same speed as before, while Zerg has a harder time to produce armies. Is this something that is mathematically considered?
Overall, I am also starting to feel that Zerg feels very slow to play. Dont get me wrong, I like that there are fewer larvas to work with.. but.. still it does not feel like neither BW or SC2 Zerg.. The spawn rate of larvas in BW was much faster, but also production time of workers. This is not possible here due to the fewer workers per base needed and hence longer production time per worker. But would a 10% increase in larva production and Inject screw everything up?
I have.
it was a factor which I haphazardly removed from the equation by arguing that terran and protoss needs to build several hundred or towards the lategame even thousands of minerals worth of buildings for the sake of army production, shouldn't zerg also need to do that?
for example, if terran builds 2 barracks, a factory and a command center then he will have spent 850 minerals and 100 gas (almost 1000 resources) on infrastructure, zergs often make do with simply a hatchery (300 minerals)
I think we can all agree that if zerg would build 3 hatcheries (900 minerals) when they expanded to the natural then they would be able to have larvae for army just fine.
well, that was the logic that went through my head, but in hindsight it looks like it was overdone a little bit.
the problem, I think, is that people are used to playing zerg such that you get a heavy drone advantage so that you can spend the larvae on things other than drones and not fall behind in economy.
the new larvae production is not made for that kind of play, with these numbers you are supposed to spend every last larvae as drones, choosing not to build drones with your larvae is the same as cutting workers in the earlygame as terran or protoss, you just dont because its bad for you later on.
with these new numbers then you are supposed to build macro-hatcheries for army production, any army production that does not come from macro-hatcheries will make you fall behind in the workercount compared to the enemy because you "cut drones".
however, as previously stated it seems like it was overdone, this could be because there was other factors that I mistakenly ignored.
of the top of my head it could be the threat of early attacks.
my math synchs up the production of a hatchery to be the same as the production of a command center/nexus, but ignores the fact that zerg needs to spend drones or larvae to get early defence against potential enemy attacks.
see the following scenarios:
scenario 1: I have scouted an early attack coming with a scouting drone, I need some defence, that costs me minerals and drones. I will be fine.
scenario 2: I have not scouted my enemy, he attacked and he killed me.
scenario 3: I have not scouted my enemy, he did not attack and im fine.
the problem is that my calculations assume scenario 3 while we really want it to assume scenario 1 to be realistic.
conclusion: in hindsight the larvae nerf seems to have been a little much, so buffing it a little should be justified, but even after the buff players will still need to build pretty early hatcheries for army production if they want to raise an army.
and about matrix rename... maybe psi-space? I dunno.
edit:
I realize now where the missed hidden factor was lost. its queens.
in SC2 queens is such a huge part of the production, and we nerfed it way harder than we nerfed hatcheries.
hatcheries do match SC2 counterparts correctly, but queens dont. so in total the larvae input have been reduced by quite a bit. (queens in starbow only produce 1/3rd of the larvae they did in SC2, compare to that hatcheries produce 3/4th in starbow compared to SC2)
so here is what I am going to do, I am going to check how high the larvae production would be in SC2 if it was nerfed to 3/4ths of what it was.
then I'm going to take the current starbows ratios of queen production vs hatchery production and increase both so that the ratio is still the same but in total now produces as much larvae as a queen+hatchery combo would in SC2 multiplied by 3/4ths.
queen+hatchery combo SC2: queen production + hatchery production = 6/minute + 4/minute = 10/minute
10/minute * 3/4 = 7.5/minute
so a queen+hatchery combo in starbow should, if we want to keep the zerg production similar to how it fares compared to the other races in SC2, produce 7.5 larve per minute. the difference is that we want more of the focus to be on hatcheries instead of queens, which is what we have achieved in starbow, so we take starbows ratio and increase all of it by a factor X such that the total production is 7.5 per minute.
starbow queen production: 2/minute
starbow hatchery production: 3/minute
hatch+queen combo in starbow: 2+3/minute = 5/minute
5*X = 7.5
X = 7.5/5
X = 1.5
adjusted starbow queen production: 2*X/minute=2*1.5/minute=3/minute
adjusted starbow hatchery production: 3*X/minute=3*1.5/minute=4.5/minute
total production of adjusted queen+hatch combo: 3+4.5 = 7.5 = 10*3/4 = nerfed SC2 total production of queen+hatch combo.
however, when you check the numbers that match this, you see something weird
queen production = 3 larvaes per 60 seconds or 2 larvaes per 40 seconds
hatchery production = 1 larvae per 13.333... seconds
thats right, the hatchery is buffed a ton! so much so that it is even a buff compared to SC2.
why? because these calculations assume that 1 hatch+queen combo should be enough to produce for all of the resources acquired through 1 base.
no macro-hatcheries will ever be needed.
so here come the moment of truth. how many macro-hatcheries do we want per base?
follow the below instructions to get the larvae spawnrate that you want:
think of how many mining bases you should have before it is time to get 1 macro-hatchery, assuming that all hatcheries are attended by a queen. (personally I would say 4, that way opting not to get queens is fairly easily taken care of by getting macro-hatcheries instead (note that X = 2 simply reverses all of it to what we currently have))
lets call this number X
note down K = X/(X+1)
hatchery production = 4.5*K/minute = 1 larvae spawns per 60/(4.5*K) seconds
queen production = 3*K/minute
personally I would say K = 4 which yield:
hatchery production = 3.6 per minute = ~1 larve per 16.7 seconds
queen production = 2.666.../minute = ~2 per 51.4 seconds
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General - I'd like to say I enjoy starbow Zerg. The only downside is that the casters seem a bit bland. The Infestor isn't worth getting over other Lair options (mutas, lurkers). I feel like ITs are somewhat useless with 1 supply hydras, fungal is underpowered and only works in combination with banelings really, and Neural is gimmicky and situational. I'll compare the current infestor to the BW Queen.
Infestor == Queen
Ground << Flying
Slow << Fast
Fungal == Ensnare
neural ? spawn broodling
Infested terran > parasite
can't infest cc << Infest CCs
arguably, the BW queen is a better unit than the starbow Infestor. That's bad.
Giving them plague is of course much too strong at Lair tech (or is it), so let's discuss other options. Corruption (overseer's spell) except make it stop all functions of a building (bunkers, pfs, turrets, etc all get shut down as well as the stop of production) This fits in with the "infest" theme. Give them the ability to Infest Command Centers, maybe?
As for the swarm guardian, maybe change frenzy into an offensive spell that reduces armor in an aoe, so that it's more interactive. maybe call it Disease Cloud.
Ghosts -- Ghost have maybe too many spells. Maybe give lockdown to the wraith/vessel. Personally I wouldn't even mind if you removed snipe and gave Ghost a huge range upgrade (like 11 range maybe?), buffed damage and a huge attack cooldown. But however you do it, something has to be removed on the ghost. There's 12 items on their command card.
Hydras --- I think they're fine as is. I think they need their range upgrade reverted to tier 1 though. You can leave the move speed upgrade for lair. Think of it this way: For defense, creep will provide the necessary movespeed bonus, whereas if you want to be aggressive you'll need to tech and get the upgrade, or otherwise spread creep for mobility. Crawlers/queens might need a slight range or attack speed buff though.
larva spawn rate ---- Not sure. It seems like zerg early game is slow, but I don't think it needs changing, especially with queens. Personally I build a lot of macro hatches (1 per mining base), and it seems to work fine.
AOE feedback on DArchon sounds awesome. I've never been a fan of Void Shell, however, as it is a meta-game spell. It doesn't affect anything on screen: it only affects the mechanical implementation of gameplay and player v player interaction. I'd prefer it be replaced with something that reduced vision/damage. or perhaps Null Void, as seen here: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Sentry/Development (basically an AOE silence)
Arbiters - I feel like they are lacking something. They're good units as is, but the shield regen ability and teleport seem a bit weak for such an expensive late game unit. Protoss has so many spell casters already though, so maybe leave as is for now.
Bio vs Protoss: I think that with the introduction of EMP on ghosts, bio should be plenty strong vs toss. No need for shields on marines. However, medics could use an additional spell, imo. Maybe give them Restoration back, so they can get rid of fungal/irradiate/maelstrom/[my proposed disease cloud for guardian]? Or some kind of Firebat upgrade. [blue-flame perhaps?]
misc. There's lots of un-named / non-tool-tipped upgrades. not too important, but could be cleaned up.
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Anyone on EU up for a game? I got an invite to the HOTS beta but honestly it's boring so I'd like to see what changes have been made to this mod.
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I finally beat Arkuss in a ZvP, but it might have a lot to do with the fact he was downloading things and lagging, while I was secretly ddos'ing his ISP and also secretly downloading 30 gigabytes worth of hydralisk porn as well.
At the very least it helped me feel better about Z, but only a little.
2 big problems. You NEED a macro hatch in main base or a third base while saturating or you will fall behind in worker production. This always happens. 3'rd base is pretty bad, leaves you extremely exposed and then you have no hope against any sort of big attack all in, or dual pronged harassment You will lose workers off a 3 base which makes the problem worse. You sacrifice way too many drones into spines to protect every single angle at that point. 2 base defense is more viable, problem is you are stuck to zerglings and lurkers.
Arkuss appears to be right about hydralisks. They supposedly are your go to counter vs stalker but stalker beats them up so cost efficiently its hilarious.
We only see them built when zerg can afford to have just a giant clump of hydras for defense, but in a big engagement their going to melt by mid game. I'll be going for lurker, and if the toss hits me while I'm about to get lurkers morphed and I'm stuck with a bunch of hydras instead of zerglings for defense I'm dead.
I have an important question. Zerg eco is usually meant to be ahead to fight evenly vs T or Toss in BW AND Sc2. Right now its dead even eco (except Zerg is constrained in what its allowed to do or its sacrificing workers), and Zerg doesn't really pull ahead in eco until its around 40 workers
This is from playing a lot of ZvP trying to figure out what to do vs various opponents.
I currently plan on putting down a third macro hatch around the same time I'm getting my third base. I am always floating 1k mins around that time or shortly after with no larva despite constant injecting. My injects are not perfect, but I'm certain I'm not missing 1k mins worth of injects.
You guys and your math
Another issue I think the entire NA server feels strongly about is the reaver. Currently its a dead unit except for harassment (which dt and zealot warp ins already cover without the unnecasary trouble of getting a drop).
Its a siege unit, which we love about it. Problem is its simply not good enough to warrant bringing it into your army right now. I've bothered to bring a warp prism to shuttle it to the front line, but it simply doesn't do enough damage or fire quickly enough to be of any use. Its sniped easily, which I'm very okay with, but it lacks any sort of meaningful firepower I could have put into archons or immortals instead. It is no comparison to the tank right now at all, I don't even feel the urge to bring it vs clumped hydras or against tank lines.
As Arkuss has already said, this single handedly makes the robo lineup boring. Reaver just can't keep up in the much faster SC2, and it was literally a slug in BW. But it was a powerful slug.
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@Roblin
You are great at math but I sometimes do not understand your conclusions. You advocate that the larva spawn time should be 16 or 13.333 seconds instead of the current 20 seconds as you previously stated? Thats sounds like a huge boost to the Zerg early production of workers! Is there no way to just fine tune the values or make an other small change for Zerg? (If we assume that the larva spawn rate is bad because Zerg falls behind. And because it feels more boring)
@Fishgle
I agree that both casters for Zerg feels.. unfinished. I ain´t satisfied with them yet. The other issues you bring up are things that are under discussion and will maybe be adjusted if appropriate solutions are found. The tooltip things seems to be an issue on NA. Here on EU all tooltips are complete. (Unless I missed some) But when I look at replays from NA there are small errors in tolltips here and there. I don´t know what causes it. Anyone with a solution?
@Jetaap
I will be online later today. Maybe 3 hours from now
@decemberscalm
Zerg feels like the most unfinished race now. There are some issues in it that needs to be identified and adjusted.. Hm..
I am not satisfied with the current Reaver either. It does not hit anything in combat. Or rather, if its slow scarab moves towards its target, and the target is killed before the scarab reaches the point, it will sometimes stop. At other times it floats all the way to the dead body and explodes there. The good thing is that players can split his units vs Reaver shots. The bad thing is that it can be hard to hit anything in a larger combats. Thats atleast how I experince it.
As I always say, if anyone got time to investigate this matter, please do! Starbow is unlocked in the editor. Create a test map, add Starbow as depndencies and try the Reaver. Maybe there are ways to improve it that I have not thought of.
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On September 19 2012 23:26 Kabel wrote:
@Roblin
You are great at math but I sometimes do not understand your conclusions. You advocate that the larva spawn time should be 16 or 13.333 seconds instead of the current 20 seconds as you previously stated? Thats sounds like a huge boost to the Zerg early production of workers! Is there no way to just fine tune the values or make an other small change for Zerg? (If we assume that the larva spawn rate is bad because Zerg falls behind. And because it feels more boring)
I am confused too, the math adds up but give strange results, however, the strange results can be explained by certain factors, to summarize:
20 second respawn:
means that 1 hatchery produces enough larvae to keep up with the worker production of the other races, but no excess larvae beyond that. for excess larvae (aka army larvae) a queen or additional macro hatcheries are required
16 second respawn, queen spawn 2 larvae after 50 seconds:
means that if a player utilizes queens on all hatcheries and manages them perfectly, then you need 5 hatcheries to match the average larvae usage of 4 mining bases.
13.333 second respawn, queen spawns 2 larvae per 40 seconds (or 3 per 60):
means that a single hatchery+queen combo can produce enough larvae needed for its own income a la SC2.
so 20 seconds give the issue we have right now, 13.33 seconds give the issues in SC2 (that no macro-hatcheries are needed).
16 seconds should give enough to not fall behind, even if you are pressured early, while still not being enough to make macro-hatcheries obsolete.
the problem with this is that another problem re-arises (which, for that matter, would get even worse in 13.33 seconds), more specificly that zerg will again quite easily go out of control in drone count.
its tricky, and I guess the matter really comes down to:
pick your poison.
if you allow zerg to have enough larvae to both build some army and keep up in drones then there will be a ton of games where the zerg is not attacked early, so he doesn't need to produce army, so he gets an automatic worker-lead.
I don't like that, it makes zerg so easily go out of control.
and if zerg can easily go out of control then the enemy feel forced to pressure the zerg, for no other reason than that it is zerg. afterall, if they dont pressure then they lose.
and that is what the current larvae spawnrate is based off of, that zerg drone production should not go out of control so fast.
more specificly it is based on having the workerproduction be the same.
however, the result was that zerg felt slow in the early game.
so, I guess there are 4 ways of trying to fix the problem:
20 seconds
16 seconds, queen spawns 2 per 50
13 seconds, queen spawns 2 per 40 or 3 per 60
slightly lower than 20 (perhaps 18) seconds, queen spawns slightly more than 2 per 60 or stays the same
the three first all have their own problems, and the last doesn't guarantee any effect on gameplay. (though that is probably the best choice, simply because it is an attempt to fix the issue at hand while not being any major change)
pick your poison.
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So we are now buffing zerg? Didnt notice thats he was underpowered.
You are again not taking into account that zerg with more bases doesnt need so many workers (he can play with more efficent 1worker/patch) as other races and Z units are very efficent early (hydras>stalkers, speedlings>marines in small numbers/pre stim). I dont think we should buff production to match exactly suply/worker count of other races. In BW zerg almost always was behind in suply.
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Im for leaving it at 20sec and buffing hydras a bit to help zerg out early game. All races should be on even footing economy wise in all three stages of the game imo.
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I really want to test some more things in PvZ before anything gets changed for zerg. I want to see if its even possible for zerg to hold some easy to execute gateway timing attacks that are more narrowed down. This would be a better player than me on Z preferrably and see how it works.
I also intend to find out just how stalkers and hydras interact depending on upgrades, count, creep or not.
Reaver I wouldn't mind being buffed for projectile speed at all.
Another note on PvZ. Corsair is kind of a dead unit from what we've experienced.
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Im against any changes as well. We need to get some more good players, then we can see what builds can be REALLY VIABLE, and what is bad cause people cant use that well yet.
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I really want to test some more things in PvZ before anything gets changed for zerg. I want to see if its even possible for zerg to hold some easy to execute gateway timing attacks that are more narrowed down. This would be a better player than me on Z preferrably and see how it works.
I also intend to find out just how stalkers and hydras interact depending on upgrades, count, creep or not.
Reaver I wouldn't mind being buffed for projectile speed at all.
Another note on PvZ. Corsair is kind of a dead unit from what we've experienced.
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EPT
