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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
Recommend everyone give this a watch. Day9 can probably do a better job explaining game design than I can with my giant walls of text. I actually just found this on the HotS board, Ee Han timing. Edit: Having just watched it, it's not directly applicable to things we've been debating, but you can draw some indirect analysis from it, and it's still absolutely worth the time. | ||
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Fuchsteufelswild
Australia2028 Posts
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Danko__
Poland429 Posts
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hipo
France482 Posts
- Currently, Swarm Guardian has only one efficient spell. I agree that it make them a bit boring. - Dark Swarm isn't a defensive spell. It can be used for defensive purpose, but even Storm can be used for defensive purpose and no one is calling Storm a defensive spell… - Dark Swarm, like Psionic Storm, is one of the most powerful spell in the game. For this reason, it should not be given to a unit that cost only 150 minerals. In Starcraft, the units with the stronger spells are also the units that cost a lot of gaz. Giving one of this game winning spell to a unit that cost only mineral is moving away from one of Starcraft most basic design rule. - Dark Swarm would fit better on a ground spell caster. This way, it actually requires micro to get in position to cast Dark Swarm (like in BW). It also allows this ground caster to be protected by its own spell. It makes sense, isn’t it? - Infestors in Starcraft 2 are too strong / badly designed because they are good at everything. They are good for harassment, they are good against small ground units, they are good against big unit, and they are good against air unit… In top of that, they actually stop unit from moving, removing a lot of micro during fight. In Starbow, Infestors have almost the same spells than in Starcraft 2. The root effect has been replaced by a slow effect (good thing) but Infestors are still good at everything and it overlaps with the role of others units. The AOE damages of Fungal overlaps with Lurkers and Banneling AOE damages, the DPS of fungal and IT overlap with Hydra DPS and when it comes to harassment capability, Infestor overlap with Muta. After the release of HotS (if Viper make their apparition in Starbow), Neural Parasite may also overlap with abduct when it comes to deal with big units. My idea to fix all this points: - Rework Infestors so it became a true support caster. Its first spells would be Consume and Ensnare (slow movement and attack speed of targeted units). Because of the slow effect, Ensnare would work great with Baneling, Lurkers, Spine or Hydra but since it doesn’t do damages, you can’t make Infestors only. It 3rd spell would be Dark Swarm (researched at Hive tech after a 200/200 upgrad) and it would make Infestor the ultimate support caster. - Remove Swarm Guardian (since he don't have DS anymore). It leaves room for an additional flying spellcasters (Viper?) after HotS release. Viper can have the abduct ability to deal with big units (work as a replacement for Neural Parasite) and some additional spells. We can discuss about them later but I already have some ideas. For example, it can have a pre-combat spell (like Plague) and/or a mobility spell (maybe some kind of Nydus?) and/or a sniping spells (spam broodling?). | ||
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TheDraken
United States640 Posts
i might just dust off my copy and reinstall the game because of it. | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
Moving the spell gives following problems: The most powerful spell in the game on a 150/0 no larvae unit. The most dynamic spell only ever used as a clutch defense, not in intersting offense. Queens will have 4 diffents roles giving them the "Infestor problem". Putting the best siege breaker in the zerg arsenal on the slowest unit in the game Putting the best offensive ability for zerg on the most defensive unit imaginable. If this doesn't convince you that this is a bad idea, hopefully others will give more/better arguments. In related discussion, how is the opinion on removing IT and fungal from infestor, giving it ensnare and plague (Hive tech) instead? As far as I can see, this will remove the "catch and kill" feel of fungals, while still retaining the damage potential. | ||
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scen
Wales61 Posts
A spell that creates invincibility is usually very difficult to balance. | ||
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hipo
France482 Posts
On October 02 2012 19:06 scen wrote: Not everyone is against moving dark swarm to the queen. For all the people saying dark swarm shouldn't be given to the queen because of it's cost, there is a very limited amount of queens you can have at one time. It's not as if dark swarm wouldn't be able to be used offensively it would just be harder to do rather than fly over cast amove. I hardly see how the queen being versatile is such a bad thing seeing as queens can't really be spammed. A spell that creates invincibility is usually very difficult to balance. By the time Zerg reach Lair, they shall have at least 4-5 base and 7-8 hatchery. This is at least 7-8 Queens since, even if they don't have Dark Swarm, Zerg will make one Queen per hatch. It mean that for a minimal cost (assuming Dark Swarm requiere a 200/200 upgrad), Zerg have access to 8 Queens with Dark Swarm. In BW, Zerg don't even need that many Defilers to make them effective so the fact that the number of Queen is limited does not really limit the amount of Dark Swarm available. For the same number of Defiler in BW, Zerg need to invest at least 1050 gas into them. They also need to spend 150 additional gaz every time they loose a Defiler whereas in Starbow, they only need 150 mineral for each dead Queen... And don't forget that Queen have way more hit point than Defiler ^^ | ||
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
How about we take your idea of simply reintroducing the defiler, but use the swarm guardian model, and put it on the ground instead of having it fly. It already looks defiler-ish, much more so than the infestor so people won't be confused. Dark Swarm is worth having of its own accord. Give it a fungal growth/ensnare/plague sort of spell and now you have the aoe support spells on the unit that should have them. Also lets them use swarm on themselves. As for the infestor, we've got neural parasite which is just so awesome in conjunction with burrow, infested marines which everyone knows the power of (some hate it some don't), and room for spell that will make players actually want to use it if fungal is on SG. This could have multiple effects, one of which is that banelings are unintentionally nerfed, but at least that makes there no garunteed mass bane kills you can't micro out of until tier 3 however fungal ends up being. Shouldn't be too much of a problem considering zerg also has access to lurkers, it promotes more careful bane use. We should be thinking of ways to flesh out the casters for Z. | ||
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Kabel
Sweden1746 Posts
I think he has some convincing arguments why Dark Swarm would fit better on the Queen and it would in fact improve the Zerg race and the gameplay. (No I will not explain them since he has already done that so well) But there are also some huge negative effects involved in it: 1. Zerg will be able to completely prevent all form of harassment, especially from Terran. They will get a superior base defence at no extra cost, since Queens often are at all expansions anyways... The Terran drops Marines, Vultures or attacks with Wraiths. BAM! Dark Swarm protects an entire base and the enemy can not do anything to hurt Zerg.. No matter where he attacks, there will likely be a Queen ready with Dark swarm.. : / 2. As some of you mention, the Queen costs no gas so it will not be a big deal if they die from Irradiate, Snipe, Feedback whatever.. Since they are easy and cheap to replace. One solution I´ve heard is to make Queens morph into an other form of Queen that costs gas and can cast Dark Swarm. But I have no other Queen model to use for that. There are some negative things with having Dark Swarm on a flying unit, which have already been said. But I do in fact think there are some advantages too. - Dark Swarm will not be able to protect the Swarm Guardian (Or Viper, if the spell gets moved to that unit once HoTS is realeased) So the caster will be more vulnerable when its on the battlefield. It can´t even burrow or be transported for protection. - The fight for air control gets more important. If the enemy controls the skies, the Swarm Guardian can not get into position. - It is indeed much easier to get a good Dark Swarm at the perfect spot, since you can fly everywhere. But that can be a good thing too. Even lower skilled players can have fun with Dark Swarm and actually cast them at decent places. (That was soooo hard for newcomers in BW >.< ) Here is an example from one of the Vods: (Ignore the weird bug :p )Yes the Swarm Guardian moves into position easily, but if the cast range of the spell decreases, the Turrets would kill the Swarm Guardian before it could cast it. Also, a couple of Wraiths or Vikings could chase away the Swarm Guardian before it could get into the perfect spot. Maybe will we see Terran get turrets up all over the battlefield vs Zerg too, since that prevents Dark Swarm from being used there? Right now 1 Dark Swarm is often enough to move your entire army underneath it. You cast it at the enemy expansion and attack with full force. If it instead effects a smaller area, and maybe last a bit shorter in time, it will become more important where and when you cast it. It might be easy to get there, but to use it at the perfect timing seperates a master from a bronze player. --- I think there are ways to get Dark Swarm to work well on a flying unit. And as some of you have said already, the Swarm Guardian is really boring, simply because Dark Swarm its the only realistic thing it can do. All other casters have multiple uses and decisions. And in terms of lore, if we want the Swarm Guardian to not be a protective caster, I might as well rename it to Viper. (Or something else) I´ve had some busy days now and have a few more, so I will not change anything yet. But I will likely let Swarm Guardian remain as the bearer of Dark Swarm but I might tweak it in some way plus add something more to it. As usual, continue to discuss this matter. Maybe someone has a phenomenal idea to share! @ Infestor I do in fact like that Infestors are versatile. But adding Dark Swarm to it will make it an even more crucial caster to get. It will really do everything Zerg needs.. Instead I would prefer to have the Infestor as the strong caster it is, kinda similar to the SC2 version, and also have a seperate caster with the powerful Dark Swarm. So both Zerg casters have their uses. But I am aware of the problems with current Fungal Growth, that many of you have mentioned. It works ok now, but maybe I will adjust it further or actually replace it with Plague. But I will give it more time before I do anything. | ||
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Fen1kz
Russian Federation216 Posts
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decemberscalm
United States1353 Posts
Excellent point about the sg being flying. One thing I love about it being flying is that its more present for players and spectators. How visible is the swarm guardian compared to the defiler? It becomes more like the sci vessel in that regard. We've seen wraiths snipe sg's plenty of times, zerg has to remember to have some sort of anti air or their ultra ling army won't have swarm to back it up and help siege. If the range of cast is too short it might be way too easy for marines to chop up sg's every time. Brainstormed a few ideas for both infestor and swarg gaurdian. -fungal growth on infestor shoots out an egg sorta like infested marine but with slower speed as the projectile for the splash. Makes more sense, looks cool, makes the root less harsh because like maelstorm you could have micro'ed away if you were paying attention. Infestor would be forced to be more sneaky because it won't work as well on an army that is being paid attention to. Another wacky idea, give abduct to infestor for bio only, but it starts eating the unit, which could either regain hp for the infestor or start making a whole new unit like a permanent infested marine, or maybe just whatever bio unit it abducted. Instead of scv lines getting fungal'ed, burrowed infestors could make their way in and just start abducting scv's. Always used to snipe Templar or snipers trying to snipe SG's. There, it's now a better designed spell than HOTS abduct. If changeling doesn't come back, consider giving parasite to infestor, it fits the whole subterfuge and sneaky unit perfectly. For the swarm guardian I'm in love with the vipers channeled consume on buildings for energy regen. You have to pay attention to your units, requires more micro than the simple BW consume. It would be pretty easy to make in the data editor. Natural Selection sort of mirrors where we are at now in terms of the battle support caster. If you haven't heard of NS, its essentially based off of TvZ. Their caster had primal echo in the first game which was frenzy, and also umbra which was dark swarm. Default ability was a spore cloud that both helped obscure vision and deal damage over time. Primal Scream got dropped in NS2 because it was simply boring and not very visible while in play. The zerg side is the easy to kill, but lethal up close race, why bother with something that just amplifies the token high dps? From this unit we could introduce an alternate dark swarm, poison cloud like the spores from the lerk. But decemberscalm? Are you insane?! We already have so many AOE DOT spells between storm, fungal, and plague!!! Are you MAD?!?!?!? NO, at least that's what my friends tell me to make me feel better. Storm is a quick lethal dose of your units are dead if you don't move NOW. Its a relatively small size. Fungal and plague dot regardless of how you move your units. Imagine the dark swarm, but green, and it starts chipping away damage on enemy units if they stay there. Think about how long dark swarm lasts, this spell isn't an AOE damage spell now, its an area control spell. Cast it, wait for the opposing army to move out and then strike now that they are out of position. Terran trying to go for that killing blow? Retreat with poisonous cloud and they'll have to make the choice between taking damage on their army, finding another path, or just backing off. My main concern with this spell is it might be WAY too good against worker. You could maybe flavor it to be more of a poisonous creep or ground, something like that so hovering units are logically immune. Will brainstorm more later. | ||
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L3gendary
Canada1470 Posts
To balance it you'd have to unlock it's abilities in tier 3. Perhaps make them re searchable at the hive or a new building like a queen's nest. The abilities could be consume, dark swarm, and a slight movement speed upgrade. If you're worried about a lack of gas cost you could make consume cost 25gas or something (that is you have to spend 25gas to consume a unit!). | ||
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ArkussSC2
Canada95 Posts
Some ideas to help "fix" the zerg caster issues. @swarm guardian Dark swarm fits the "guardian" theme because even though its offensive, it protects the units under it.keeping this theme we can give swarm guardian the queens transfuse and the vipers consume off building as December said.now it has two aggressive support spells and a means of regaining energy. @infestor Remove the snare effect from fungal completely.fungal will still be a great spell just dealing damage over time and won't be as game changing when it lands on an army with ling bling approaching. This allows for stealthy fungal use on scvs still and infested terran use and doesn't have the issue we see in sc2 how fungal stops drop harass and such. Another issue I'm seeing in game I want to address after lots and lots of zvp games @hydralisk We had the issue in the past where the hydra was too weak to fend off basic attacks and now we have an issue where hydras just shit all over protoss early game. I strongly believe the economy boost was enough to fix the hydra alone and we can revert the hydra back to just 6 damage for 1 supply. Right now most zvps on na are zerg is on 4 base and doing a killer hydra all in at 9 minutes and even if the protoss survives the zerg is on 4 of 5 bases after giving the zerg a massive economic lead. If we weaken the hydra again we can focus on the "swarm" aspect of zerg without being disgustingly over powered in a certain matchup. ZvP has always been my favourite matchup because of the lore behind it. The protoss, first born of the gods rising up to fight the plague in the universe known as the zerg.right now protosd doesn't have a chance in hell if hydra rush is used. | ||
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ArkussSC2
Canada95 Posts
@smilezerg I read majority of that text wall and we continue to disagree. I really wish you could play because if you feel that a spell like psionic storm is only good low hp units you are sadly mistaken and out of date. We've seen tvp games where storm is used on tank lines to break terran contain and setup. Since a sieged tank is immobile it takes the full 85 damage of storm, two of those and its dead. Let's go to the super extreme, battle cruisers. Very slow unit with 500hp. Hit it with storm and its taking the full 85 because its too slow to move away. I don't mean to pick at one small point but if we quote lines off eachother this thread will be at 400+ pages :p @edit Wokh Dropsc down now does anyone know an alternative way of fast access to replays? | ||
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scen
Wales61 Posts
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ArkussSC2
Canada95 Posts
Didn't mean to send that like that sorry in class. Storm is a great alternative to busting tank lines because a lot of people under masters don't tank spread so your storm kills a clump of 4 or 5 tanks with only 2 casts, not to mention spider mines if you don't wanna suicide zealots into them. Carriers are ideal and immortals are good too but if there's a lot storm or zealot drop is a great alternative, I've seen it done at decent level of play. | ||
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SmileZerg
United States543 Posts
I'll get back into the discussion once I have some time and I'm a bit more awake. | ||
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Zaphod Beeblebrox
Denmark697 Posts
On October 03 2012 03:49 scen wrote: storm is not good vs tanks. I take it you have never seen Jangbi play? | ||
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ArkussSC2
Canada95 Posts
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