|
On October 02 2012 01:32 ArkussSC2 wrote:
I haven't been archon toliet'd yet so I can't say anything and from 1 zerg to another, are you scouting or just being greedy mass expanding? If you pool first you will most definitely have a queen and a spine up at your natural by the time the push comes and from there yu just pull drones if necessary.
I'm testing it right now and will post replays to show if it's holdable or not. So far we conclude that if you don't scout you die but thats the case of most cheese strats like 7pool or proxy 2gate. testing on oakshire, smallest map.
well no one goes pool first in zvt since you are WAY behind if you do so. literally EVERY zerg players has to go and goes hatch first because it is actually easier to hold 11 11 since you can build an much earlier spine than you would with pool first.
dont think you have to test much. in gsl 11 11 rax got wins even this season some weaks ago with the weaker scvs so somebody on our "noob"level will have an even harder time to hold. and that was with the old scv hp.
@OP: is this supposed to be a purely SC 2 BW type of mod or do you wish to get things of this mod in HOTS? if you want to get things in HOTS you should add medivacs instead of medics + dropship, helions instead of vultures and things like swarmhost (as addition to lurker since they have different roles), "arbiter core" instead of MS core and viper. blizzard will never make such drastic changes as you do in this map since it is too late for that since the beta already started but for example the viper is a good replacement for the swarm guardian.
they could take from the mod for HOTS:
- gateway units produce faster than warpgate units (they could start with a small difference to now and rework it "right" in LOTV)
- get in lurker in addition to swarmhost (different roles: lurker space control, swarmhost to get aggressive in midgame)
- give ghost lockdown and introduce science vessel as factory spellcaster (would be antimech unit (lockdown) like warhound should be + science vessel would be a nice mech spellcaster that comes a lot earlier than ravens can)
- calldown permament scv instead of mule (superlategame imbaness of terran fixed: no more 170 supply army for terra)
- morph muta into corruptor (and into BLs once greater spire is available (mutaplay a lot more viable and not (semi) all in anymore)
for everything else it might be too late to do such drastic changes. especially reavers and scourges would need long balancing periods as would the larvae change which is the biggest change in the whole mechanic of a race.
|
archon toilet has only ever been good vs broodlord and mass collosus, neither of which are really in starbow. I know the broodlord is in the game but i havent really seen anyone go for it yet.
|
EU really needs to start sharing replays lol ;D
|
Because this is more based on a BroodWar style than SC2 style you compensate the larva with more hatcheries. Zerg is more than capable of building 3-5 macro hatcheries and must do so to stay alive. Broodwar was no different. What I tend to do is I have a queen at my hatcheries mining and then extra queens spread creep. I don't inject my macro hatchs unless I'm falling behind on my injects then I use my base queens to inject macro hatcheries to "catch up". This gives you the best of both worlds. Map control and devastating armies.
My creep spread sucks compared to SC2 but thats my own fault, not the mod :/
Dec: I edited that testing post, read it. 3 games, didn't pool first in any of them.
|
Man i watched some of the videos. Why does it look so much more awesome than sc2?  Great stuff 
|
|
|
On October 02 2012 04:31 Laertes wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2012 01:41 Decendos wrote:On October 02 2012 01:32 ArkussSC2 wrote:
I haven't been archon toliet'd yet so I can't say anything and from 1 zerg to another, are you scouting or just being greedy mass expanding? If you pool first you will most definitely have a queen and a spine up at your natural by the time the push comes and from there yu just pull drones if necessary.
I'm testing it right now and will post replays to show if it's holdable or not. So far we conclude that if you don't scout you die but thats the case of most cheese strats like 7pool or proxy 2gate. testing on oakshire, smallest map. well no one goes pool first in zvt since you are WAY behind if you do so. literally EVERY zerg players has to go and goes hatch first because it is actually easier to hold 11 11 since you can build an much earlier spine than you would with pool first. dont think you have to test much. in gsl 11 11 rax got wins even this season some weaks ago with the weaker scvs so somebody on our "noob"level will have an even harder time to hold. and that was with the old scv hp. @OP: is this supposed to be a purely SC 2 BW type of mod or do you wish to get things of this mod in HOTS? if you want to get things in HOTS you should add medivacs instead of medics + dropship, helions instead of vultures and things like swarmhost (as addition to lurker since they have different roles), "arbiter core" instead of MS core and viper. blizzard will never make such drastic changes as you do in this map since it is too late for that since the beta already started but for example the viper is a good replacement for the swarm guardian. they could take from the mod for HOTS: - gateway units produce faster than warpgate units (they could start with a small difference to now and rework it "right" in LOTV) - get in lurker in addition to swarmhost (different roles: lurker space control, swarmhost to get aggressive in midgame) - give ghost lockdown and introduce science vessel as factory spellcaster (would be antimech unit (lockdown) like warhound should be + science vessel would be a nice mech spellcaster that comes a lot earlier than ravens can) - calldown permament scv instead of mule (superlategame imbaness of terran fixed: no more 170 supply army for terra) - morph muta into corruptor (and into BLs once greater spire is available (mutaplay a lot more viable and not (semi) all in anymore) for everything else it might be too late to do such drastic changes. especially reavers and scourges would need long balancing periods as would the larvae change which is the biggest change in the whole mechanic of a race. Can you play the mod before posting dude? I'm sorry, its just a lot of the info is really outdated on the main page, we'll clean it up soon, its coming due, but you are posting things that are already in the game, and some stuff that isn't such great design O.o just trust us, we've got some experience in the matter, you need to play the mod and give us some feedback, im on right now if you are down.
hehe yeah. just found this thread today and had no time to play. just saw the "last edited at 09-24-2012" and thought it was up-to-date :-P
will definetly play this tomorrow.
|
On October 02 2012 05:06 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2012 04:31 Laertes wrote:On October 02 2012 01:41 Decendos wrote:On October 02 2012 01:32 ArkussSC2 wrote:
I haven't been archon toliet'd yet so I can't say anything and from 1 zerg to another, are you scouting or just being greedy mass expanding? If you pool first you will most definitely have a queen and a spine up at your natural by the time the push comes and from there yu just pull drones if necessary.
I'm testing it right now and will post replays to show if it's holdable or not. So far we conclude that if you don't scout you die but thats the case of most cheese strats like 7pool or proxy 2gate. testing on oakshire, smallest map. well no one goes pool first in zvt since you are WAY behind if you do so. literally EVERY zerg players has to go and goes hatch first because it is actually easier to hold 11 11 since you can build an much earlier spine than you would with pool first. dont think you have to test much. in gsl 11 11 rax got wins even this season some weaks ago with the weaker scvs so somebody on our "noob"level will have an even harder time to hold. and that was with the old scv hp. @OP: is this supposed to be a purely SC 2 BW type of mod or do you wish to get things of this mod in HOTS? if you want to get things in HOTS you should add medivacs instead of medics + dropship, helions instead of vultures and things like swarmhost (as addition to lurker since they have different roles), "arbiter core" instead of MS core and viper. blizzard will never make such drastic changes as you do in this map since it is too late for that since the beta already started but for example the viper is a good replacement for the swarm guardian. they could take from the mod for HOTS: - gateway units produce faster than warpgate units (they could start with a small difference to now and rework it "right" in LOTV) - get in lurker in addition to swarmhost (different roles: lurker space control, swarmhost to get aggressive in midgame) - give ghost lockdown and introduce science vessel as factory spellcaster (would be antimech unit (lockdown) like warhound should be + science vessel would be a nice mech spellcaster that comes a lot earlier than ravens can) - calldown permament scv instead of mule (superlategame imbaness of terran fixed: no more 170 supply army for terra) - morph muta into corruptor (and into BLs once greater spire is available (mutaplay a lot more viable and not (semi) all in anymore) for everything else it might be too late to do such drastic changes. especially reavers and scourges would need long balancing periods as would the larvae change which is the biggest change in the whole mechanic of a race. Can you play the mod before posting dude? I'm sorry, its just a lot of the info is really outdated on the main page, we'll clean it up soon, its coming due, but you are posting things that are already in the game, and some stuff that isn't such great design O.o just trust us, we've got some experience in the matter, you need to play the mod and give us some feedback, im on right now if you are down. hehe yeah. just found this thread today and had no time to play. just saw the "last edited at 09-24-2012" and thought it was up-to-date :-P will definetly play this tomorrow.
You'll be glad when you finally play it, many of your sugguestions are already in the game, including warpgate/gateway, scv instead of mule.
|
I think that list in particular was praise of the changes, not suggestions - but yeah calm down with your suggestions dude.
A lot of the things you have suggested have been tested or are being tested, and the similarities for Terran with BW simply was due to BW terran being annoyingly well designed...
Blizzard seems to be realising this too with HotS adding nothing but mines and firebats to the terran arsenal, and still lacking the might of BW tanks.
|
Finally back. Oh boy.
Let me start by addressing Arkuss's posts from a couple pages back since I promised to do so.
On October 01 2012 08:47 ArkussSC2 wrote:
Swarm Guardians
Please enlighten me on what is oh so bad about a flying caster? The unit is at hive tech and is completely counterable. We've had flying casters before (BW Queen) and in terms of balance theres nothing wrong with it. You can ramble on about design all you want but if the unit is not causing an issue in game play there is no reason to fix it. Don't fix what isn' broken just because it isn't pretty enough for you. The spells it has are balanced, the unit is killable, enough said.
I have no problem with Zerg having a flying caster. I prefer it, since we already have a T2 ground caster in the Infestor, in fact I've said numerous times that I believe once the Swarm Guardian is removed we should replace it with our own variant of the Viper. I'm actually not sure how you could have possibly missed that..?
Yes the unit is counterable. That's irrelevant for our purposes, I'm not suggesting we change it because I believe it's overpowered or anything (which is not the case). Again you continue to try and use balance to support a counterargument against a design decision, that just doesn't work.
The unit does have some issues. I will reiterate them for everyone's benefit:
- It has only two spells, one of which is incredibly boring and rarely used or liked. For a dedicated caster with no attack, two spells is rather weak.
- Both of its spells are expensive. There is very little granularity to its energy pool. It also lacks a Consume-like ability to make up for this. Basically this means that Swarm Guardian gameplay is stale and uninteresting because most of the time you're just waiting around for the thing to get enough energy to do something. This differs from all other casters because they have either lower power, lower energy spells with a higher granularity (ie can cast more in a smaller time frame, increasing tension of decision-making) or they have some method of attack or other utility (Science Vessel is a Detector, High Templar can Morph Archons etc.)
- The SG is a pure support caster with a protective theme. Both of its spells are used to target your own units to protect or buff them. This overlaps with the Queen, who is a hybrid macro/defensive caster with Transfuse. She takes both the flavor and mechanical side of the role of a "Guardian/Protector" and is an overall more rounded, finished and familiar unit. It also conflicts with putting offensive spells on the SG. It could be done, but it's messy and unintuitive. The only casters in a StarCraft game that had both offensive and defensive spells were the BW Vessel, the Medic and the Defiler, and Kabel whether intentionally or otherwise fixed the Vessel and Medic in this iteration by replacing Optic Flare with D-Matrix (renamed Shield) and D-matrix with Nerve Jammer. Void Shell on the DArchon is a current outlying issue but I think there are plans to change that in HotStarbow.
If the Queen as she is in SC2 did not exist in Starbow, I would say to hell with it, make the SG literally a flying Defiler. Add Consume, remove Frenzy for Plague, problem solved. But that is not the case. Especially since we also have the Infestor in our variant, which complicates things further by being an excellent candidate for the Plague spell.
You cannot look at each Zerg caster in a vacuum. It is a symbiotic puzzle which must be made to work together as a whole to support the distinct theme of each individual unit. You may think that this is just making the game "prettier" or something, but it actually serves an important purpose. Look at most of the RTS games on the market today, and how unsuccessful they are compared to StarCraft. There are a number of reasons for why that is, but one of the strongest ones is racial diversity, and by extension, unit characterization to support racial elements.
Blizzard has done an excellent job of giving each of their units a distinct character, visual pattern, and flavor, which is in stark contrast to games like Supreme Commander which have basically 14 different tanks per race that all look and feel pretty much the same and a bunch of giant walkers that could come from any generic sci-fi setting. Flavor is important! It allows the players to make subconscious connections in their heads about how the unit and the race it belongs to feels and functions.
There is not a need for two defensive casters in the Zerg arsenal, and yes while Dark Swarm is used offensively from a Strategic standpoint, the actual essence of the spell is defense as it protects/buffs your own units rather than harming/disrupting the enemies. On the other hand, I believe Zerg as a race could benefit from more offensive abilities, but putting those on a unit that has a flavor of a Guardian and a strong defensive spell is sending mixed signals as to how that unit is supposed to be used.
We do not have the luxury of creating wishy-washy, unintuitive units in this Mod. For the most part we use units which already exist in either Brood War or SC2, and so the new players understand how they are supposed to function, with some slight differences that can be exciting. If we are going to make any entirely new units, we have to NAIL them right on the fucking head, so that someone introduced to the game can pick up right away "oh that's what this thing is, that's really cool! It's like it should have been in BW/SC2 the whole time".
You might say the SG fits this requirement by being a "flying Defiler", but the fact is, it's not a flying Defiler. It's just a flying Dark Swarmer without Consume, and the Dark Swarm spell makes more logical sense and becomes much more dynamic in terms of decision-making on the Queen. Why is it more dynamic?
- It strengthens the defender's advantage for Zerg by giving the Queens an additional method of response to sudden base raids. This is a primary design goal of the Starbow Mod - emphasized defender's advantage and area control. You might argue this could be too strong - again, that is a balance concern, which can be addressed by tweaking the stats of the spell itself. But we can't even know for sure if it is a balance problem until we try it out, whereas design problems are evident only through analysis and understanding of the fundamental mechanics inherent in all games.
- It encourages creep spread (which is very Zergy in flavor and function) and nonlinear attack methods such as Ovie Drops and Nydus Worms (also Zergy) to use the spell offensively (heightened skill difficulty is healthy for competitive play).
- It encourages macro Hatches to increase the number of Queens you can field late-game for a greater availability of Dark Swarms. Making macro Hatches is already something Zerg players should want to do as a result of the weaker larvae mechanics in Starbow.
- By having Dark Swarm on a ground unit, which is sensible as it's a positional spell that affects ground, the dynamics of the map terrain come back into play as they did with Defilers, which increase the factors involved in the players decision-making when casting the spell, leading to greater complexity and tension. I shouldn't have to keep saying this but people seem to have a hard time grasping the concept that things like this are not about balance - we COULD balance the spell on an air caster, but that removes decision factors and makes it less interesting.
Infestor
Again, I really don't see any issue with fungal growth. You keep going back to "Design" of the unit. Who said infestors are 100% supposed to be stealth casters? Just because they can burrow move? Infestors have been support damage casters since SC2 release as the High Templar have always been. If your problem is the sheer fact it's unavoidable, which it isn't you just have to micro (god forbid you can't clump your army into a ball and run. Isn't that the whole point of this mod? get rid of the deathBALL) your units apart so that fungal doesn't grab your army then we can give fungal an effect like maelstrom how theres a whole 1.5 seconds to get out of the way. As for it not feeling Zergish, no idea what you mean. Zerg has had slow spells (ensnare) and damage spells (plague) since Starcraft 1. The fact one spell does both is not that bad. You keep argueing that it can kill. So can Psionic Storm. Yes you can run out of it but if someone has 10+ High Templars you ain't running away from that unless you're running back to base. Fungal locking is extremely situational and only works on harassment, which requires you have an infestor at the location of the harassment. Also without fungal our Zerg vs Zerg matchups will be a battle of Mutalisks because nothing else stops Muta's as well as fungal + Hydra or your own muta's. Fungal adds versatility to the game and landing "good" fungals isn't as easy as you'd think. I've posted 2 games with infestor use and neither were won just because of the Infestors.
On the Infestor being intended as a stealth caster: This is something Kabel himself has expressed and I strongly agree with. I brought up a point earlier about how each unit in StarCraft is supposed to fit it's own unique character and theme, and that these should support the overall themes of the race they are a part of. This is not only about supporting Lore, but it serves a practical purpose - it teaches the player in a very subtle way how to most effectively use their race according to its philosophy.
One of Zerg's primary themes is stealth through the burrow mechanic, which differs from the cloaking mechanics of the other races in that burrowed units usually cannot attack (the Lurker is an exception, but it trades off the ability to move).
The Infestor has a very quick burrowed-movement. This implies that the unit is meant to make use of burrow as much as possible, an implication strengthened greatly by the fact that two of it's spells are castable while burrowed. It also ties into the overall theme of Lair Tech for Zerg - all T2 units either assault from above or below, through flying (including Overlord Drops) or burrowed mechanics. This also leads to a greater gap in diversity between the Infestor and the ground casters of other races, or at least Protoss in this case. HTs and DArchons are very direct, powerful destroyers in their own ways. The Infestor is about surprise, and unexpected subversions of the enemies own units.
Fungal Growth takes away from this unique feel by being just another destroyer spell like Psionic Storm, but without the area control aspect. It is a long-range, mass AoE damage ability, which breaks yet another Zerg theme, that of melee and short-range attacks. Even Lurkers, which are the primary siege unit of Zerg, have some melee flavor to them by attacking in a forward moving straight line, and only doing so while immobile, as well as not hitting air.
Infestors are supposed to be a support unit. Giving them a kill spell that also removes and restricts possible responses from the opponent changes its role into that of a primary damage-dealer. That discourages Lurker play which is more interesting, and dumbs down the Infestor's theme. Trying to use Psi Storm as a comparison to justify doesn't work for two reasons:
- Psi Storm is a Protoss spell and does not need an analogue in the other races for the sake of racial diversity.
- Psi Storm is only an area damage spell that's powerful against low HP units as opposed to a catch-all effective against every unit. The damage of Fungal Growth may be low, but the slow effect is equally inhibiting to every single unit in the game.
If Fungal were only a slow spell it would be perfectly acceptable, Zergy even. The caster would not be able to serve the role of primary damage-dealer, thus securing it firmly as a support unit on which such a long ranged and micro inhibiting ability belongs.
If Fungal did not slow but purely dealt damage it would be a little better, but it still runs into the issues of potentially allowing the caster to be a primary damage dealer with long range, while having less interaction than Psi Storm, and overshadowing the role of the Lurker.
If Fungal were changed to Plague, in which it cannot actually kill units and has a slow HP drain, it would become a pre-combat ability that leads to dynamic play without making the caster into a ranged destroyer unit.
This can be further improved upon by making it a single-target effect that spreads from unit to unit, encouraging micro from the opponent to split his infected forces away from the bulk of his army, and strengthening the Infestor's theme of turning the opponents units against themselves. This is my standing suggestion as the replacement spell.
"Design" is great but overall we need balance and that should be the critical issue, not adding/removing things to make the lore fit 100% in a competitive multiplayer game. Theres nothing wrong with a flying caster that as it stands only has 1 key ability (Frenzy is great but situational to build order and style) and a spell that slows the target while doing MINIMAL damage. If you want to focus on what feels Zergy then give me 9 different units that I can mass and A move because realistically thats what zerg is. For the SWARM.
My design decisions are always based on competitive play first and foremost. I only use Lore to back-up these decisions and to make the elements of each race fit their philosophy to retain the distinct feel of each, which again I believe is a primary reason for the success of the StarCraft series. Design must come before Balance because it is much, much easier to rebalance a well-designed game than it is to redesign a well-balanced one. Balance exists in numbers and statistics, but Design is the key to making a game fun, exciting, long-lasting and well, good. The perfect example I can make here is SC2 - the game is actually incredibly well balanced if you look at the winrates between all the races. But compared to Brood War, it sucks! I'm sure you all would agree with me there because otherwise you wouldn't be here playing Starbow. The difference is in the design decisions.
Therefore, whenever there is a chance to improve something, we should take it. The Zerg caster line-up needs a moderate amount of work to be as fun as it could be. Once that's sorted out, then you can make the balance decisions on what's too strong, what's too weak, and adjust the numbers accordingly.
|
Swarm Guardian is first and foremost the herald of death for the enemy. No way is it a defensive unit. Either way you are using it to annihilate enemy formations, either at your base, or the enemies door.
Just because it protects zerg units doesn't negate the fact it allows zerg to kill everything on the field. Best way I like to think of dark swarm is in the sc2 cutscene of human kerrigan getting ambushed by hordes of zerglings and hydralisks. There is nothing defensive about it, imagine how screwed a squad of marines and a few siege tanks would be in that position.
And frenzy? That pretty much fits the bill of enabling the zerg units to reap utter havoc on the enemy.
You can look at it in different ways. To me, even in BW its always been the unit foretelling the enemies demise, an engineer of destruction not a caretaker like the queen is.
Its always just described as a flying defiler, because the defining part of the defiler, the one that everyone remembers and creates so many exciting scenarios with is the dark swarm. Everybody so far has just clicked that its a flying defiler.
Move swarm on queen and noone will use it. There is a big difference between a storm drop, reaver micro, and the tedium of having to use an overlord with speed AND cargo to shuttle queens to the constantly shifting lines of battle.
Its also removing the important and spectator friendly dynamic of sci vessel/irradiate vs SG/Deflier/Scourge.
You have to be careful with making Z base defense too strong. Z's main defense is in its mobility of its units which creep spread and queens already strengthen quite a bit.
If T and P can't actually make a push and do some damage in the process, its over for them if Zerg didn't overreact.
If every queen has swarm, every push from Toss or P late game will need melee or some sort of caster sniper to actually deal damage.
|
On October 02 2012 09:21 decemberscalm wrote:
Swarm Guardian is first and foremost the herald of death for the enemy. No way is it a defensive unit. Either way you are using it to annihilate enemy formations, either at your base, or the enemies door.
Just because it protects zerg units doesn't negate the fact it allows zerg to kill everything on the field. Best way I like to think of dark swarm is in the sc2 cutscene of human kerrigan getting ambushed by hordes of zerglings and hydralisks. There is nothing defensive about it, imagine how screwed a squad of marines and a few siege tanks would be in that position.
And frenzy? That pretty much fits the bill of enabling the zerg units to reap utter havoc on the enemy.
You can look at it in different ways. To me, even in BW its always been the unit foretelling the enemies demise.
Like I said, strategically these abilities can be used in a very offensive manner, but the abilities themselves are cast on your own units as support spells, which in the case of Dark Swarm fits slightly better with the Queen and with the case of Frenzy is just kind of boring and uninspired. At least it doesn't offer enough advantage to compete with Dark Swarm on the same caster.
Its always just described as a flying defiler, because the defining part of the defiler, the one that everyone remembers and creates so many exciting scenarios with is the dark swarm. Everybody so far has just clicked that its a flying defiler.
But it's a very poor excuse for one. I could see if the unit had some other interesting abilities but right now it lacks a lot of what made Defiler play interesting. I think the Viper would make a better flying Defiler analogue for us once we modify the spell line-up a bit. It even has Consume!
Move swarm on queen and noone will use it. There is a big difference between a storm drop, reaver micro, and the tedium of having to use an overlord with speed AND cargo to shuttle queens to the constantly shifting lines of battle.
Its also removing the important and spectator friendly dynamic of sci vessel/irradiate vs SG/Deflier/Scourge.
I don't see any difference between Reaver/Prism micro and Queen/Ovie micro. This doesn't actually remove the interaction with Irradiate either, it just opens up new dynamics. Additionally, Overlord Drops will not actually be required in all cases to deploy Queens. Nydus is very likely going to see a return, and efficient creep spread will give you a lot of opportunities as well. There is also the possibility of instituting some sort of speed upgrade for Queens at Hive Tech if it comes to that.
You have to be careful with making Z base defense too strong. Z's main defense is in its mobility of its units which creep spread and queens already strengthen quite a bit.
If T and P can't actually make a push and do some damage in the process, its over for them if Zerg didn't overreact.
If every queen has swarm, every push from Toss or P late game will need melee or some sort of caster sniper to actually deal damage.
In this case you are absolutely right, but it can be balanced by tweaking the spell and the requirements for the Queen to actually cast it. I'm brainstorming various solutions to this right now in fact.
|
You are arguing it has a defensive theme.
I disagree entirely because of how the spell actually functions. Sure, it literally stops incoming ranged damage, but you might be taking that fact too literally if you can only classify that as a defensive spell when that isn't the spells main purpose, and greatly ignores the context in which its always used, game play way wise and lore wise.
Zerg has in general, more money than T and P. It can have two casters per other race caster. In this one, one for Dark Swarm and one for Frenzy. Sure we could put something more interesting, but energy in this case isn't a huge issues. My main gripe with it is that its boring.
You'll need to do SO much changes to make the queen viable when its perfectly fine sitting at base, injecting, warding off harass, and already doing so much. Dark Swarm needs its own dedicated caster. Swarm Guardian which is still a battle support caster is perfectly fine for this, it just needs a tiny bit more fleshed out.
Unloading queens, then using the spell while managing the army (during big engagements everything needs to happen instantly) is WAY different than than managing reaver micro, Templar drops, and even bane drops on top of an army. These queens already need to be at base or you will be extremely larva blocked, so even though you killed the opposing army you are losing the ability to instantly reinforce which Zerg needs.
|
On October 01 2012 08:47 ArkussSC2 wrote:
Blizzard has done an excellent job of giving each of their units a distinct character, visual pattern, and flavor, which is in stark contrast to games like Supreme Commander which have basically 14 different tanks per race that all look and feel pretty much the same and a bunch of giant walkers that could come from any generic sci-fi setting. Flavor is important! It allows the players to make subconscious connections in their heads about how the unit and the race it belongs to feels and functions.
Why do people feel like they can state such lies about games they obviously have no clue about?
That reflects pretty badly on the rest of the post as well as on people who take such posters seriously
|
On October 02 2012 10:06 decemberscalm wrote:
You are arguing it has a defensive theme.
I disagree entirely because of how the spell actually functions. Sure, it literally stops incoming ranged damage, but you might be taking that fact too literally if you can only classify that as a defensive spell when that isn't the spells main purpose, and greatly ignores the context in which its always used, game play way wise and lore wise.
There is a separation between the strategic use of the spell and the flavor of it. Defending your units is the spell's only purpose. The position you choose to do that in determines whether you're using it aggressively or defensively but it is still a spell that belongs on a caster with other defensive spells. The Swarm Guardian does fit that role at the moment, but that makes it undesirable to put any offensive spells on him, and the Queen can fit that same role in a much more finished capacity.
Zerg has in general, more money than T and P. It can have two casters per other race caster. In this one, one for Dark Swarm and one for Frenzy. Sure we could put something more interesting, but energy in this case isn't a huge issues. My main gripe with it is that its boring.
You'll need to do SO much changes to make the queen viable when its perfectly fine sitting at base, injecting, warding off harass, and already doing so much. Dark Swarm needs its own dedicated caster. Swarm Guardian which is still a battle support caster is perfectly fine for this, it just needs a tiny bit more fleshed out.
We could potentially take the route of redesigning the Swarm Guardian, my reasoning is just - why bother, when we already have a defensive caster and the Viper as a potentially much better replacement in that tech slot? Giving players more incentive to bring Queens into forward engagements is also interesting. It happens plenty in SC2 with Transfuses, the only difference is they don't need as many Hatcheries to spawn extra Queens. But you want extra Hatches in Starbow anyways because of the differing larvae mechanics.
Yes this is going to require changing the Queen a bit when she's already a well-designed unit. But the Swarm Guardian is NOT a well-designed unit so either way we will be making changes.
Unloading queens, then using the spell while managing the army (during big engagements everything needs to happen instantly) is WAY different than than managing reaver micro, Templar drops, and even bane drops on top of an army. These queens already need to be at base or you will be extremely larva blocked, so even though you killed the opposing army you are losing the ability to instantly reinforce which Zerg needs.
It is literally exactly the same as Templar Storm drops... I don't understand where you're coming from on that point.
Also yes you need Queens at home, but you also need macro Hatches. A few Queens can inject a greater number of Hatcheries given the longer spawn rate on larvae in comparison to SC2 while the energy regen rates have stayed the same. You are not supposed to need to consistently inject in Starbow as a boring chore like in SC2. If somehow that is the case, we should be looking to rebalance larvae mechanics before anything else.
|
On October 02 2012 10:53 BurnedRice wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2012 08:47 ArkussSC2 wrote:
Blizzard has done an excellent job of giving each of their units a distinct character, visual pattern, and flavor, which is in stark contrast to games like Supreme Commander which have basically 14 different tanks per race that all look and feel pretty much the same and a bunch of giant walkers that could come from any generic sci-fi setting. Flavor is important! It allows the players to make subconscious connections in their heads about how the unit and the race it belongs to feels and functions.
Why do people feel like they can state such lies about games they obviously have no clue about? That reflects pretty badly on the rest of the post as well as on people who take such posters seriously
It was an exaggeration to make a point. Obviously it's not quite that simplistic but I'm not here to go in-depth on the differences between SupCom and the SC franchise. If you're going to judge the whole post on that one remark you severely missed the point.
|
Putting Dark Swarm on the queen is fucking retarded. I'm getting annoyed now. You can ramble on about Dark Swarm fitting a unit all you want and again I'm going to make the same point as I have that you keep getting butthurt about. Balance is key and unit usage. The queen is a unit that helps our economy and map control, adding Dark Swarm to it gives the Queen 3 different roles which is TERRIBLE design. If you are suggesting we remove inject and creep tumour and make the bitch fly again then fine.
As for Frenzy, you've never used it and you've rarely seen it used so don't call it boring. I use frenzy on Hydra's when I get to late game, problem is I don't get very many late game ZvP's anymore. Frenzy is a DOMINANTING ZvP spell which brings the Swarm Guardian to full circle, it has 2 abilities that are supportive aggressive. As for an offensive aggresive we have the infestor, it spawns attacking units (infested terrans), mind controls units for a short term (neural) and kills units with damage over time (fungal growth). How is that bad design? Because it doesn't mimic broodwar? Tier 3 caster is supportive aggressive which is just kind of like protoss tier 3 caster Dark Archon (maelstrom) and Arbiter (vortex).
I'll read that novel you wrote later but something tells me I'm just going to get even more annoyed with you than I already am since you don't give a damn about the games balance and current mechanics, you just want to make it pretty and fit your ideal of perfect design which clearly a lot of people disagree with you on.
|
Also half of your damn stories wouldn't be necessary if you just said "Hey guys, maybe we could add Consume to Swarm Guardian so it doesn't take so long to get energy". That would be much more appreciated than a 1,500 word text wall -.- Also making the Swarm Guardian wait longer for energy adds strategy and clutch spell casts. HT can storm like idiots then morph into Archons after so if they failed as a caster maybe they'll do something as an anti-bio tank. Science vessel can miss some nerve jammers and still ahve use a detector. Swarm Guardian misses a Dark Swarm or a Frenzy and it's clutch, you gotta make them count. Dark Swarm is definitely stronger than both Nerve Jammer and Psionic Storm if we consider all 3 spells being used at max potential so it's fine having greater risk involved with it.
Seriously, simplify your shit. As for saying our Zerg caster line needs work, I recommand you looking at actual problems at hand. Kabel has done a great thing with Starbow by fusing Starcraft 2 and BroodWar together to great the game that Starcraft 2 could have been. Just forgot that Queen has transfuse as well so now you want Queen to have 4 roles? Support Healer/Economy/Map Control/Aggressive Caster. Rethink your design advice
@EDIT: I think I'm just going to stop reading your posts SmileZerg and let Kabel do what he decides is best. There's no point in constantly getting annoyed by you. You are trying to improve the mod and I see that but you have a totally difference stance than a lot of other people on how to fix it. I strongly, strongly suggest before you make any more comments about any units you start playing the mod yourself and see how everything works before you go out and call something useless or boring. Sure the idea of the game is to have "fun" but if you haven't noticed the competitive games are the games that survive the longest and the fun ones (Age of Empires, Empire Earth) have a relatively short life. BroodWar, most competitive RTS ever made back in 1998 finally died after 14 years in the professional spotlight and is STILL being played competitively at a non-pro level.
|
On October 02 2012 11:07 ArkussSC2 wrote:
I'll read that novel you wrote later...
Stopped there. If you didn't even bother to read the post I explicitly made to explain the reasoning behind my thoughts to you in detail, you have no business continuing to criticize the ideas with points I have already addressed multiple times now. You're arguing in circles and you need to keep a more open mind. I'm still open to alternatives on how things could be fixed in a different way, but no one else is offering. It's just a stubborn defense in favor of the status quo that the Mod designer himself has said he is dissatisfied with and is continuing to improve. A constant resistance to change instead of offering your own solutions is going to get us nowhere.
Frankly the fact that a lot of people don't agree with my design perspective doesn't really prove anything. Game design is a complex field and statistically there aren't a lot of people out there with the sort of intellect and vision that you need to be good at it. Honestly, you've argued to put the Colossus back in before and tried to tell me the Marauder was a good unit so I'm not really disposed to trust your input on anything not strictly related to balance. That doesn't mean I reject your opinions off-hand and I wouldn't disagree that you're a good player but it does suggest that the majority vote doesn't actually hold much weight.
|
On October 02 2012 11:18 ArkussSC2 wrote:
Also half of your damn stories wouldn't be necessary if you just said "Hey guys, maybe we could add Consume to Swarm Guardian so it doesn't take so long to get energy". That would be much more appreciated than a 1,500 word text wall -.- Also making the Swarm Guardian wait longer for energy adds strategy and clutch spell casts. HT can storm like idiots then morph into Archons after so if they failed as a caster maybe they'll do something as an anti-bio tank. Science vessel can miss some nerve jammers and still ahve use a detector. Swarm Guardian misses a Dark Swarm or a Frenzy and it's clutch, you gotta make them count. Dark Swarm is definitely stronger than both Nerve Jammer and Psionic Storm if we consider all 3 spells being used at max potential so it's fine having greater risk involved with it.
Seriously, simplify your shit. As for saying our Zerg caster line needs work, I recommand you looking at actual problems at hand. Kabel has done a great thing with Starbow by fusing Starcraft 2 and BroodWar together to great the game that Starcraft 2 could have been. Just forgot that Queen has transfuse as well so now you want Queen to have 4 roles? Support Healer/Economy/Map Control/Aggressive Caster. Rethink your design advice
@EDIT: I think I'm just going to stop reading your posts SmileZerg and let Kabel do what he decides is best. There's no point in constantly getting annoyed by you. You are trying to improve the mod and I see that but you have a totally difference stance than a lot of other people on how to fix it. I strongly, strongly suggest before you make any more comments about any units you start playing the mod yourself and see how everything works before you go out and call something useless or boring. Sure the idea of the game is to have "fun" but if you haven't noticed the competitive games are the games that survive the longest and the fun ones (Age of Empires, Empire Earth) have a relatively short life. BroodWar, most competitive RTS ever made back in 1998 finally died after 14 years in the professional spotlight and is STILL being played competitively at a non-pro level.
See when it comes to competitive play being of the utmost importance we are actually in absolute agreement. When I say "fun" I actually mean "engaging in a competitive way" since that is what I particularly find fun. So that may have just been a miscommunication.
As for not playing the Mod, believe me, I would if I could. I don't have access to a computer that can handle it right now, so all I have to play is Brood War, which I do play quite often. I try to observe games when I can if the lag isn't too bad, but I don't like being a burden for the players who have to deal with that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
