On April 01 2013 13:19 topsecret221 wrote: There's always something to be said for macro hatches. An early macro hatchery will not only push your drone count much higher, but continues to provide larva long after you've gotten the drones that you need.
We understand zerg macro. The thing is that we disagree with how it operates right now. We don't like the dynamic of waiting until 3 bases and effectively maxing out on drones prior to really engaging (only exception I can recall is the game between Life and Flash at the last MLG finals), and we disagree with how monotonous the ability is to perform. This provides choice, at least in the early game. And, with a 50 gas cost, replacing these queens should not be too incredulous. Zerg players now need to experiment with openings before claiming that these changes irreparably destroy the race.
If there is one thing zerg has not , than its much gas to waste.Baelings,swarmhosts, and mutalisks cost so much gas that the zerg player is borderline broke on gas nearly the whole time of the game. Its even worst, without getting a minimal amount of 3/4 bases with fully saturated gasgysirs zerg cant afford to keep up certain play styles at all (muta-baeling for example)
So no, zerg has no room for any further queen related - gas costs at all. I don't intend to be rude, but i wonder sometimes if any of the OneGoal developer likes to play zerg. Non zerg player would make queen cost gas or nerf the zerg boost mechanic without nerfing the boost mechanic of the other 2 races, that's just way too one sided.
Its not that we can afford to make a decision, if to build queens or other units, we have/love to build queens to get proper creep spread and some kind of mobile anti air in the beginning. As said before, production of queen is already being limited, cause of there can only be produced one queen out of one hatch at the time. And I would really not recommend you to change creep spread mechanic at all.
Decision making is sure a good thing, but there are some points which relate to very general gameplay mechanics, which are not negotiable without losing the identity of the race completely.The queen is the root of creep spread, zerg macro and early base defense. Its vital for the zerg identity to let the queen be in its natural form.Not everything blizzard did with zerg macro is bad.Creep Spread and spawning additional larva are good things , they make the zerg gameplay more rich and versatile, without being 2 comlex for the beginners.
If you want to change one thing, than add aditional gameplay for people, which are getting better, to the larva mechanic. But dont nerf it on its own, its such a rewarding mechanic for newbies.
This game is good because races are so different, not because they play all the same.
You really sawing the branch you are sitting on.
Their are many other zerg units you can force decision making, but not the queen. There is also absolute no need for nerfing the queen , you will never hear a terran or protoss player say: "Man those queens are really op ,blizzard should really nerf them hard" Only terrans which build only reaper said some things like that.
So don't cripple zerg gameplay.Don't do it man.
Queens are the most powerful early game unit in terms of versatility for their cost. For 150 minerals, you have a unit that A) Protects you from ALL forms of non-allin pressure pokes (especially vs Terran) (When you get 3-6 of them) B) Has an ability that is essentially an expanding speed-buff aura and ward that cost nothing but 25 energy (and rewards exponentially with more tumors) C) Drastically increases your overall economy (larva is the biggest limiter for zerg, not necessarily money) D) Can instantly heal a large chunk of any unit E) Can tank a lot of damage from having a very strong attribute tag (just biological) with 250hp. ---Ties in with point A)
You said yourself that
Its not that we can afford to make a decision, if to build queens or other units, we have/love to build queens to get proper creep spread and some kind of mobile anti air in the beginning.
.
Queens do EVERYTHING (minus detection) needed to survive the early game, get ahead in the mid game, and power through the late game for a relatively cheap investment. It's not a matter of thinking through whether or not to get queens, they simply provide a large amount of power and protection for very little thought or execution. The fact that they can only be produced one at a time per hatch is almost irrelevant since even getting 3-4 queens off 2 base is far in time to defend whatever pressure a terran or protoss is willing to through at zerg early on.
That is FAR too much weight on one unit if we want to consider it properly designed. I won't speak much to balance, because Blizzard has historically done a *decent* job with that so far. But the system in which they achieved their balance could have been better designed to offer more meaningful gameplay. In their system, queens MUST be the workhorse that they are because zerg's other two options for defense are sub par and take too much away from the economy for them to be considered valid options.+ Show Spoiler +
(Banelings don't provide staying power and can take too much time as a reactionary measure early game. They can't hold ground and actually defend since they explode on contact. Roaches take too much supply and REALLY detract from zerg's economic progression when you're building them that early. In addition, they can only effectively defend against non-anti armor ground units in small numbers such as marines, zealots, hellions, other roaches.)
However, with the addition of a tier 1, 1 supply hydra, Zerg's FINALLY have a dedicated combat unit that can handle most threats presented to it with decent micro and positioning etc. In addition, they don't drastically cut into the zerg's economy as much as roaches. The queen's combat role is now allowed to be appropriately relegated to "support the combat units" as opposed to "being the combat unit."
As for the identity of the unit, I presented some thoughts on how the queen should appropriated be represented in earlier posts.
Blizzard buffed the queen in order to make it easier for zergs to defend them selves from aggression. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you side with blizzard) , the queen buffed made it so that all forms of early aggression (specifically TvZ) were essentially worthless. 3-5 queens could really handle anything a Terran threw at it, and forced the match-up into macro games, where zerg naturally had an advantage over Terran.
Looking back pre-queen buff: The standard Terran opening was hellion expand. The hellions came out early enough to Force some form of reaction, slowing down droning. The standard response was a spine crawler, a wall, and a queen at the front, or early zergling speed and or roaches. Getting a 3rd pre 5 minutes was hard and dangerous, as was droning up to 70 drones before making a single attacking unit. What did this produce? Early and Mid Games were much more volatile, and elongated. Nowadays, the early game is to about 5 mins, mid up to around 13, and zergs are easily getting hive tech by roughly 14 - 15 minutes. Now, I don't believe I am the only one who thinks that the 2011 year of starcraft (pre queen buff there was more ling bane muta vs marine tank medi) was much more interesting than the current meta. A lot more interesting tactics involved involving what you did with the units you had, as opposed to 'just' having the right composition and being moderately good at hitting the F key or whatever key it is for fungal.
Post queen range buff: The IceFisher (popularized by Spanishiwa if I recall correctly) became not just standard, but the easiest way to secure yourself without sacrificing any economy, since queens add to, not detract from economy. It is essentially 4 queen 3rd base from zerg, and expo hellion banshee expo from Terran. Or fast 3 base macro if your a Bomber clone. Zergs can purely use 3-5 queens to defend themselves from everything in the early to early mid, then use infestors to defend everything from mid to late game, and flip between broodlords and ultralisks in hive to kill.
Queens are supporting caster to help grow the swarm (inject) and keep it alive (transfuse / creep tumors). They are not meant to be fighting the enemies of the swarm. They are valuable, fragile, and to be well protected deep within the heart of the hive clusters.
Personally, I don't like that blizz made the queen to be the default semi-mobile AA, but given the fact that all other zerg T1 had no AA, it was kind of necessary to keep vikings, banshees, phoenix, and void rays from absolutely wrecking zerg face all day long, so I'll let it go.
Right now, the queen plays the role more like a buff bodygaurd, as opposed to a nurturing mother. (If you could consider anything about zerg nurturing...) This is not how I felt zerg was meant to be. A body system does not send it's red blood cells to fight off a virus (think of a Terran intrusion as a virus), it calls the specialists to deal with intruders: white blood cells. I feel zerg should operate in a similar manner in that queens are the life-blood of the zerg system, and in order to cleanse the system it must summon the mutations that specialize in eliminating threats to the system.
The hydralisk, a 1 supply T1 ranged unit, can now be the catch-all that it was meant to be, instead of the queen. Where lings swarm and overwhelm a low tech intruder, hydras can handle the higher tech threats that lings are not efficient or unable to handle (early hellions, and early banshees.) The queen can go back to what it was supposed to be doing this whole time; letting the teeth of the zerg swarm defend while the queens are helping the eggs mature. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=388155¤tpage=32#630
OneGoal's iteration regarding combat actually reigns back on it's combat capabilities without actually fiddling with the combat numbers + Show Spoiler +
(range, damage, speed, they gave 5 hp but... hmm wondering about that one)
(would not be how I would have done it but accomplishes similar goal.)
The 50 gas cost is soft limit on how many queens you can actually get in the early game. Since you WILL NOT just auto-go for 3-4 queens instantly without delaying the rest of your tech / units, they actually reduced the queen's total effectiveness in defending during the early portions of the game. This allows more opportunities for early harass and pokes since there will not be as many queens to deny them.+ Show Spoiler +
(Zerg will rely more on lings and hydras, but this is a good thing. Banelings as prev. stated are not very good for defensive ground control early.)
The spawn larva ability does NOT enrich the experience of the players. It is infact a rote mechanical requirement for playing zerg that does NOTHING for how the opponent interacts with it, or how the zerg performs it. (Inject Key, Click, Repeat). There is no (very little) thought that goes into performing injects. When I or anyone injects, it is simply a skill determined by if you can mechanically perform on a metronome. It may be simple to understand, but it is boring and uninspiring design. TicTacToe is easy to understand, but it is a boring time-sink that actually offers little mental stimulation.
One Goal's current iteration of the economic factor is that it offers a more meaningful solution to the zerg's larva management issues. Not only is it not just (click, assault colony, repeat,) it is a conscious decision of how / where / when do I want to prepare my colonies. Is it perfect in its current form... probably not. BUT it is better than the current inject larva b a large margin. It offers more meaningful gameplay, and reduces zerg's ability to hard power drones, then hard power army as needed. Now zerg's must be more vigilant about scouting and sensing when an attack is coming in order to start making units BEFORE the attack reaches the zerg's front door instead of just defending with queens long enough to make 20 roaches and lings at once.
Personally I would have given the original queen a personal spawning pool with 2 charges (2 pools per queen) that will produce regular larva at the same rate as a hatchery, must be built on creep, but can only hold 2 at a time. Then I would have reduced the HP on queens, made transfuse as OneGoal did, took away it's AtA (pushing limits yet?) reduced the range to three OR do what Starbow did and limit 1 per hatchery (<3 Starbow) Replace Creep Tumors with Creep Grubs (see link http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=388155¤tpage=39#761)
The queen is was the root of creep spread, zerg macro and early base defense. Its vital for the zerg identity to let the queen be in its natural form.
. That is too much for one unit to bear in terms of design and needs to change. It IS vital for the zerg identity to let the queen be in its natural form.... as a caretaker and swarm nurturing mother. Not the buff tank bodygaurd / medic / combat unit it is in WoL and HotS.
Too everyone who thinks the queen's shouldn't be changed as drastically as they are, remember that the old queen fit well within a design flaw. When the box is flawed, everything in the box must be flawed in order to make it fit. When the box is properly designed, everything in the box must also be redesigned to fix said box. The "box" in this case is zerg unit-economy system. Sub-par Queens work well in Blizzard's sub-par unit-economy interaction system, but if we want better queens we must have a better system. OG has tried to make one with T1 hydras and removing spawn larva. Perfect = No. Better = Yes.
Medivac boost really should cost at least some energy. It doesn't really make sense on any level why it does not, and I fully expect blizzard will put that in within 2-3 patches.
There is some merit regarding changing mules as well as inject with regards to how Terran economic system works. I'm fairly certain OG is working on a separate solution for mules as well that don't turn it into a (just build Orbitals late game and throw away your scvs).
Chronoboost actually is the second best macro mechanic in the game (Terran building add-ons are my favorite ) and I doubt will be touched much. As truth, I would hope that chrono boost gives a slihgtly lowered increase on probe production and mules mine a bit less than they do now (maybe only twice as much as scv instead of 4 times...). OR have assault colonies be allowed to produce drones when on hatchery creep, and only units when off... or something like that. Hmm. There will be some consideration given to the other races as well, it's just that the queens had the most glaring issues to address first.
EDIT: Just read last couple posts, @Hider and Co. There was a fundamental difference in how zerg operated from the other 2 races in that they could produce army and economy at the same time with effectiveness. Zerg tends to lean one-way or the other, so making army will always do damage to the zerg regardless of how much dmg they do the opponent. OneGoal's hydras try to dilute this issue by offering a cheap unit that can defend and attack without a HUGE amount of risk. They can outrange a cannon behind a forge, pick away @ supply depots surrounding bunkers, and generally be a pest. From both races, the units that REALLY shut them down are LOTS of hellions, LOTS of marines WITH stim, a decently sized group of immortals or LOTS of stalkers. All of them require time to get to that point, time that zerg's can exploit with non-allin based pressure attacks. For harassment... Roaches come with burrow move already available :D Have fun.
+1 Pretty much this. The macro mechanic isn't what needs to be fixed, it's the harass tools and general short range of Zerg units. Zerg needs a low risk/low reward harass option that isn't stopped by a simple wall-in. I understand maybe in the late game, where the cap can be changed from 19 to 15, or make Spawn Larva spawn 3 instead of 4, but this approach your dev team is making is the wrong approach. It causes more problems than before.
What zerg really needs is some guerrilla warfare unit which can sneak unseen behind enemy lines in the style of the changeling, some "super"-changeling which can actually do damage by spying, infecting buildings and blowing itself up in the enemy army and distracting the enemy in his own area.It doesn't make so much physical damage but very much psychological damage , by distracting the enemy and bringing him out of his comfort zone.
Think about it, one thing which is totally underrepresented in the zerg gameplay of starcraft 2 is infesting the enemy base. Zerg is the perfect race implementing guerrilla warfare . As an genetic very adaptable race it really should have some parasite-gameplay beyond the infestors lame shenanigans.
The Zerg needs:
The infiltrator
I got the idea by looking at this
It should look something like this:
-It should walk like a spider on the ground , and should be able to move under ground with the back of it showing out of the ground.The back can morph into some perfect imitation of an enemy turret,supply depot, cannon,pylon, spine, spore when you come near such an object by reaching the enemy base .And you can move with this imitation on your back burrowed under ground, but you should do it not in the middle of the enemy base , because a moving supply depot is a very obvious indicator for the enemy that something is not right.You can not be unveiled by scan or some detector like the changeling cant ether.
With perfect imitation i mean if you morph it into a spinecrawler, for example ,it can attack like a spinecrawler the enemy base with exact the same damage like a spine can do.Think about it, how funny would it be, when the enemy sees how one of "his own" spinecrawler turns against him and starts attacking him.Same for turret,cannon,spore. You can also give the enemy control over the fake object, that it stands still and he can control it like his own and in the right moment you take away the control.
-But that's just one ability of the infiltrator and not its best . It can also blow it self up in the middle of the enemy army (the damage should not be too big but noticeable).
-And the best ability is, that it can infect other units and buildings. It crawls onto the enemy building/unit explodes on it and sets free an fungal, which is growing on the building/unit rapidly . And if the enemy doesn't target fire the fungal on the building/unit quick enough than it gets corrupted.
Corrupted units can be controlled permanently by the zerg enemy, perhaps they have lower health than the unit had before infection.
Corrupted buildings are growing slowly creep on the ground and if that creep reaches another building this building is getting also infected by the fungal and the enemy has also some time to kill the fungal on this one,.... If you manage to connect the creep from your homebase with the creep of the corrupted buildings than you can slowly stomach it and gain minerals/ gas from it at a slowly but steady pace. P.S: I will comentate on your arguments Doominator10 later more in depth, just for now: -The gameplay is asymetric.Terrans first unit is anti air, zergs and protoss not. Terrans boostmecanic is implemented into the commandcenter. Zergs boostmecanic is implemented in the queen , so what. I as zerg dont complain that terrans mainbuilding gets scan, supplydrop and mule all in one building. So why should you complain that queen gets spreading creep , injecting larva and healing (which takes long to charge up to that amount of energy by the way) all in one unit. Or that protoss nulifys all early agression with a giant photoncannon on top of the nexus.
Sorry but i really have 2 play some crysis 3 now peace out.
You are vastly overcompensating for the buff that Queens got. Simple fix to the ZvT problem? Change the Queen range to 4. It allows for both counterplay and skill expression that 3 range or 5 range do not because then there is a 1 range buffer between Queens and Hellions. A 50 gas cost is not a "soft limit." You clearly don't understand how to play Zerg if you think a 50 gas cost that early in the game is insignificant. Why do you think Terran players, and players like myself, agree that a 25 gas cost would ruin the use of Hellions? And uh...Queens have 175 HP, not 250.
Also, your list of good things about the Queen just exemplifies what is wrong with the way people present arguments. You list all the good qualities about the Queen without mentioning any of the bad qualities. I can't just list all the good traits of Orbital Commands by saying 1) They can liftoff. 2) They have a 200 energy cap as opposed to a 100 energy cap, and thus allow for more room for error in macro. 3) They grant emergency detection. 4) They call down MULEs that essentially replace the need for SCVs late game, leading to a higher army supply. 5) They give 11 supply to a Nexus's 10 and a Hatchery's 2.
I have to also take into account the drawbacks, and the fact that each race has different macro mechanics. For example, SCVs are vulnerable and can be sniped when building Command Centers. With the Queen's abilities comes a heightened vulnerability in that if you kill Queens, you essentially halt Zerg's army production, drone production, and a good portion of map control. Giving a list of only the pros and neglecting the cons of a unit is something even middle school debaters know is wrong. Don't do it.
You obviously don't recall the insane greediness of Terran players prior to the Queen buff given that you provided absolutely no mention of it in your long post. Yes, 5 range is too much for Queens, but 3 range was so abusable by Terran because Hellions a) allowed Terran to get 3 quick bases, b) prevented Zerg from getting a 3rd to counter the Terran's quick 3rd, c) stopped all creep spread, and d) kept Zerg players in the dark because they had no map control and essentially had to guess what the Terran was going to follow up their Hellion harass with. All this from a 100-mineral unit.
I still have yet to see anyone clarify what it is about this new ability, Assault Larva, that makes for more interesting gameplay. How is it any less menial of a task than Spawn Larva? I have two less larva, not to mention it costs TWICE the energy as Spawn Larva, and in normal circumstances, why would these colonies be built anywhere but on creep? Queens are now more valuable than before, so bringing them off-creep to build proxy Assault Colonies is silly unless you're already winning the game. Like I said before, it's all fancy rhetoric with no substance. Show me a replay of someone playing OneGoal with these changes, put it side by side with a normal HotS game, and show me the improvement. There is none. Spawn Larva actually produces more variety in the game because, although it's a menial task, I have twice the larva, no restriction on what I can build with them, and the spell itself costs half that of AC.
As much as I like the changes to the T1 of Zerg units, there are two other issues that just came to mind that really stick out: a) Zerg has no anti-spellcaster abilities. b) Zerg is still extremely susceptible to splash because the Brood Lord and the Ultralisk are the only combat units that have more than 150 HP. While this was fine in BW, it's not fine in SC2 because of how prevalent splash is in this game. I played with Terran the other day on OneGoal, and it really stuck out to me how hard Vikings countered Zerg air. They rape Mutalisks more than Phoenixes do, and with another low HP air unit (the Venalisk), Zerg now essentially has no counter to Vikings.
There was a fundamental difference in how zerg operated from the other 2 races in that they could produce army and economy at the same time with effectiveness. Zerg tends to lean one-way or the other, so making army will always do damage to the zerg regardless of how much dmg they do the opponent. OneGoal's hydras try to dilute this issue by offering a cheap unit that can defend and attack without a HUGE amount of risk. They can outrange a cannon behind a forge, pick away @ supply depots surrounding bunkers, and generally be a pest. From both races, the units that REALLY shut them down are LOTS of hellions, LOTS of marines WITH stim, a decently sized group of immortals or LOTS of stalkers. All of them require time to get to that point, time that zerg's can exploit with non-allin based pressure attacks. For harassment... Roaches come with burrow move already available :D Have fun.
But lets look at the game this way. Say a protoss opens up forge FE. What is the zerg players optimal response? Hydras right? Because if hydras can pick up the forge/pylons etc at a low/no risk/cost then they will choose do that every single game. And actually that means we can figure out the optimal build orders through backward induction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_induction).
Lets say the hydra response to forge FE has a payoff of +100 minerals for the zerg player assuming both players are equally good (the payoff is estimated by weighting the cost of the tech against the damage dealt to the protoss player +/- other stuff).
The protoss player on the other hand can choose between another build order he gets cannons at the front (in order to prevent hydras) but on the other hand he is weak against something else (blings or something like that). Since the zerg player always can scout what the protoss player chooses (overlord) and then decide which counterbuild he will do, he will always choose the optimal counteresponse. So lets say the payoff of blingbusting someone who does that build is +150 for the zerg player.
Thus the protoss player (given backward induction) will in this situation always choose forge FE and the zerg player will always choose to go hydras as a resposne. The game will therefore be super easy to figure out for all the players. However, if you keep the decision in the game on between whether to drone up or whether to get an army, there is now a 3rd variable which comes into play and that heavily increases the amount of strategies in the game, which means that solving the backward induction game gets much harder (and even when it gets solved, players will still be vary from the equilibrium strategy more often as it is harder for the opponent to figure out exactly which strategy the opponent chose).
You also imply that the cost of not building drones leads to less early game action. I think that is fallacy, because that decision actually incentivizes the opponent (protoss, terran) to put pressure on the opponent in order to keep the game on even footing. Without that incentivize terrans have no reason not to go for quick 3rd cc siege tank expansion every single game and tvz will turn more stalemale'ish than WOL ever was.
The thing is; when a zerg player chooses between whether to drone up or whether to use the larva on army, he weights several factors, such as; - How much will getting army units benefit me in terms of the damage I can do to the opponent with the army - How much will getting army units benefit me in terms of minimizing the amount of damage my opponent will do to me with his pressureplay/timing attack. - How much do I lose in expected income of not getting a drone.
So given these 3 factors it should be quite obivious to see that the incomeloss of not droning is not the only relevant variable, and instead we can adjust the other variables to obtain the desired outcome (more early game harass).
What zerg really needs is some guerrilla warfare unit which can sneak unseen behind enemy lines in the style of the changeling, some "super"-changeling which can actually do damage by spying, infecting buildings and blowing itself up in the enemy army and distracting the enemy in his own area.It doesn't make so much physical damage but very much psychological damage , by distracting the enemy and bringing him out of his comfort zone.
The problem with this is one, is that it will actually be almost impossible to implement practically. Stealth units can always be detected by turrets (and that will make them useless). And secondly, this could make playing against them too unforgiven if the opponent does not have a turret.
I still think the best way is to make it alot easier for the zerg to get units in the backside of the opponents base (in the early game), but the zerg player must never be able to get more than just a couple of units in the base (as it will result in allins being too strong).
Basically I see two approaches to that; 1) Jump units like the reaper --> This will probably be too difficult to actually implement, and could change the gameplay too drastically (I think we should try to make it easy for newcommers to play). 2) Harass-tech (nydus, overlord drop tech, 3rd option) available at tier 1 tech. However this needs certain restrictions. For instance if nydus is avaiable at hatch tech there needs to be a supply limit on how many units can pop out of it (like 3 or 4), and given that change the cost should always be severely reduced (in order to make it low risk/low reward).
On April 02 2013 06:51 Archerofaiur wrote: Im all for a true infesting unit but werent we discussing the fundamental economic and production mechanics of the game?
Well Onegoal is trying to promote zerg early game harassment play by changing zerg macro mechanics. But Onegoal's attempt will likely have the unintended consequence of leading to less early game action (see my previous post). I don't think you can actually get more early game action by changing the macro mechanics (its just not the underlying problem).
Regarding zerg macro mechanics, I honestly don't think the decision of when to get the queen is that interesting after all (it should have a low priority). Don't misunderstand me, its not optimal design that zerg players always wants to get that queen ASAP (it should have more downsides), but I think it will have some consequences on the balance of the game which means more work for the developers. Given that I believe temporal decisions (in general) offers relatively little amount of strategical depth, I probably wouldn't adress this issue at the moment.
On the other hand I believe we can create alot more depth and a lot more choces by reworking how the players uses the queen. In a previous post I suggested five abilities we could give the queen, and each of them had pro's and cons. Throughout early and midgame zerg players will have to choose between how to spend energy, and I believe this will offer a lot of depht into zerg gameplay. At the same time it will be relatively similar to how zerg works in WOL/HOTS (something I think is neccesary as learning Onegoal needs to be easy for newcommers). I did suggest to make larva inject automatical, but thats only goanna work if we give zerg even more tools to spend their APM on. With how zerg currently works in Onegoal, having larva inject as something you choose to do manually is probably a neccesary way of rewarding mechanical skills. But the key is to make larva inject a real decision and not something you just do every 25th seconds without any thoughts.
Assault Collonies, however, doesn't really that problem either. It will still lead to mindless clicking each time your queen has 50th energy. In 95%+ of the times you will just put it in your base, and then maybe once in a while you will take a queen and put it out on the middle of the map if you have good creep spread. However, given the mobilty of zerg units, having slightly faster reinforcements isn't that big of a deal. I think this decision would be a lot more interesting if zerg units were slower. But having the choice between very fast reinforcements and extremely fast reinforcements isn't that interesting IMO.
The problem with Spawn Larva is that it is a rote ability with no decision making. The decision making is diverted later to larva. This decision is drone vs army. And ultimately, I disagree with the assertion that it isn't Spawn Larva that is the problem. Mule is also a huge issue for allowing terran to steamroll their opponents after taking serious damage. It boosts the speed of income and production to allow swells of income when there is no pressure is forth coming. This means that it is optimal to drone or mule 90% of the time until your information says otherwise.
Assault Colony may or may not be the answer. But the mechanics of Spawn Larva and Mule are ultimately unsustainable to varied and healthy gameplay. Out of all of the macro mechanics Creep Spread, Reactors, and Chrono Boost are the best examples of what good macro looks like. They are positional, modular, and/or offer decision making in their application. Mule and Spawn Larva (and WoL Warp Gate) are not good because they are not decisions, and in the case of Spawn Larva and Mule, there really isn't more than 1 application for them.
On April 02 2013 07:21 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: The problem with Spawn Larva is that it is a rote ability with no decision making. The decision making is diverted later to larva. This decision is drone vs army. And ultimately, I disagree with the assertion that it isn't Spawn Larva that is the problem. Mule is also a huge issue for allowing terran to steamroll their opponents after taking serious damage. It boosts the speed of income and production to allow swells of income when there is no pressure is forth coming. This means that it is optimal to drone or mule 90% of the time until your information says otherwise.
Assault Colony may or may not be the answer. But the mechanics of Spawn Larva and Mule are ultimately unsustainable to varied and healthy gameplay. Out of all of the macro mechanics Creep Spread, Reactors, and Chrono Boost are the best examples of what good macro looks like. They are positional, modular, and/or offer decision making in their application. Mule and Spawn Larva (and WoL Warp Gate) are not good because they are not decisions, and in the case of Spawn Larva and Mule, there really isn't more than 1 application for them.
I don't think spawn larva is the problem - Instead its the other choices that is the problem. If you had to choose between spawn larva or the other abilities, then there would be a real decision. Btw how is creep spread interesting in terms of decision making?
Medivac boost really should cost at least some energy. It doesn't really make sense on any level why it does not, and I fully expect blizzard will put that in within 2-3 patches.
Why? What will that accomplish in terms of creating interesting gameplay? Terrans will still be get in and out of a base using speed boost (something many people have complained about). So there will actually be no real risk in using the ability. Instead it will how the effect of slowing down the game when for instance the drop takes his medivac from location A to location B in situations where the medivac is under no threat of taking significant damage. When the transport time the opponent can now afford to react slower to the drop play (since he has more time to get his own units from Location A to Location B.
So unless you believe less multitasking in the game is a good thing, then having the speed boost cost energy is a mistake. You may argue that defending against drops is more challenging than using dropships, which I believe is true. However you can even that out (and encourage multitasking) by buffing zergs and protoss's multitask-units/abilties so they can do similar stuff as the terran can do.
Of course that doesn't imply that there can't be a risk (please note the difference between risk and cost) involved with using speed medivacs, hower adding a cost does nothing to accomplish this. It doesn't even add more decisions, it just make the decision different..
In order to create a real risk invovled with using speed medivacs the opponent needs to have some kind of skill-based counter to it which works well vs. medivacs when speed boosted, but isn't efficient to use when medivacs aren't speed boosted.
Below is an example of risk vs cost; Lets say in BW we removed the scourge from the zerg army. The energy cost of irradiate is instead increased by 50 energy.
IMO it should be quite obivious that while there now will be a true cost of using irradiate, it doesn't really change the game in an interesting way. It will only result in fewer irradiates being used (leading to less micro from both players), and it removes the exciting part of whether the scourge hits the science vessels or whether the marines can shoot them down before. Having scourges in the game make using irradiate a risk as you may lose your science vessel if your not careful, and that is interesting gameplay.
On April 02 2013 07:32 Hider wrote: Btw how is creep spread interesting in terms of decision making?
It has Spatial Decision-Making, Energy Tension, Back to Base and Skill-based Map Control Benefit. It also fits well with Zerg themes, is good for showcasing macro to spectators and offers a unique gameplay experience.
On April 02 2013 07:32 Hider wrote: Btw how is creep spread interesting in terms of decision making?
It has Spatial Decision-Making, Energy Tension, Back to Base and Skill-based Map Control Benefit. It also fits well with Zerg themes, is good for showcasing macro to spectators and offers a unique gameplay experience.
Spatial; Yes only if you restrict the amount of queens that zerg players can have in the game (so they will not have unlimited creep as they do in Sc2. Energy-tension; Same as above. Back-to-base; As previously stated multiple times, this conflicts with the design philosophy of Onegoal Map-control benefit; This isn't decision related.
So yes, I believe if you can restrict zergs to have only 1 queen per hatch you can obtain spatial and energy tension. Putting a gas on the queen will probably only result in early game decisions (thus I dont think that its enough).
On April 02 2013 08:47 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: Which is why we are testing out a gas Queen. It reduces the energy pool early to mid game, increasing energy tension.
I don't think it will matter at midgame. Zerg will just choose to get their geysers earlier.
On April 02 2013 06:03 TonberryBleu wrote: @Doominator10:
You are vastly overcompensating for the buff that Queens got. Simple fix to the ZvT problem? Change the Queen range to 4. It allows for both counterplay and skill expression that 3 range or 5 range do not because then there is a 1 range buffer between Queens and Hellions. A 50 gas cost is not a "soft limit." You clearly don't understand how to play Zerg if you think a 50 gas cost that early in the game is insignificant. Why do you think Terran players, and players like myself, agree that a 25 gas cost would ruin the use of Hellions? And uh...Queens have 175 HP, not 250.
I do realize that a gas cost of 50 is VERY significant in the early game. That's why I say its a "soft" limit. Gas is a precious resource, and you are limited by the amount of gas you have. Its not a hard cap like 1 mothership core, or a soft cap like 1 queen / MSC per base. Its limited by gas, and at that early stage of the game the tension of where to spend the gas is strong enough to where I could consider it a "soft limit." Queens @ 175hp. Fair enough, I must have been thinking of something else (hmm.) 180hp in OG currently. K.
Also, your list of good things about the Queen just exemplifies what is wrong with the way people present arguments. You list all the good qualities about the Queen without mentioning any of the bad qualities. I can't just list all the good traits of Orbital Commands by saying 1) They can liftoff. 2) They have a 200 energy cap as opposed to a 100 energy cap, and thus allow for more room for error in macro. 3) They grant emergency detection. 4) They call down MULEs that essentially replace the need for SCVs late game, leading to a higher army supply. 5) They give 11 supply to a Nexus's 10 and a Hatchery's 2.
I have to also take into account the drawbacks, and the fact that each race has different macro mechanics. For example, SCVs are vulnerable and can be sniped when building Command Centers. With the Queen's abilities comes a heightened vulnerability in that if you kill Queens, you essentially halt Zerg's army production, drone production, and a good portion of map control. Giving a list of only the pros and neglecting the cons of a unit is something even middle school debaters know is wrong. Don't do it.
Bad qualities of all units: They hurt when they die. (It cost money to make them D
Bad qualities of queens: They hurt a bit more when they die.
I might be able to buy the argument that the tension of losing queens is a valid argument of why I might.. decide.. to not... build queens???? but my issue is that they are made so that they are hard to kill and can ward off most attacks. They don't need to be protected nearly as much as you seem to present since they ARE the ones that are doing the protecting. Not only that, but I can't think of many (if any) zerg players who simply limit their queen count to the # of hatcheries they have. I find it quite common for zergs to easily have 4 queens on 2-3 bases, so killing 1 does not really impact zerg's economy. Even if the queen that died spawned 1 creep tumor in its lifetime, it can still replicate itself and provide decent(ish) map control via spreading into the map or simply connecting zerg's bases. I can see some legitimacy with this argument in ZvZ, where building extra queens doesn't pay very well unless you sense mutas (less so in HotS). The only way to "essentially halt Zerg's army production, drone production, and a good portion of map control," is to go on a specific queen hunting spree and kill every queen in zerg's base. Even putting up the funds to kill 1 queen is a hefty investment, and often futile due to transfuse. So no, the bad qualities of queens are not strong enough to merit serious consideration in how to address changing them. Heck, the fact that there is a lot of tension in keeping queens alive in of itself is not a bad thing (I approve), but the fact that queens can essentially defend themselves easily from pokes and harass is a problem.
(Also, there are more options available for scvs building command centers in the players can help negate or exploit said weakness. Build it on high ground as part of wall, then life off. You have successfully made a tactical decision to minimize the risk of building a command center at the expense of a bit of mining time from not building it near the expo. Decision making with BUILDING queens.... non-existent as of WoL and HotS)
You obviously don't recall the insane greediness of Terran players prior to the Queen buff given that you provided absolutely no mention of it in your long post. Yes, 5 range is too much for Queens, but 3 range was so abusable by Terran because Hellions a) allowed Terran to get 3 quick bases, b) prevented Zerg from getting a 3rd to counter the Terran's quick 3rd, c) stopped all creep spread, and d) kept Zerg players in the dark because they had no map control and essentially had to guess what the Terran was going to follow up their Hellion harass with. All this from a 100-mineral unit.
I have issues with calling the standard Terran followup to hellions insane greediness. YES there were Terrans who had some greediness occurring with the fast third CC, but you know what happened to Terrans who took their third too soon? They got rofl pwned by ling bling muta after the lings surround or a couple roaches push away the hellions. The normal followup as I recall was transitioning into marine tank for a followup push on 2 base, while slowly adding in medivacs. Zerg's never had to "purely" guess what Terran was doing because overlords poaching around terran bases could almost always provide a reasonable approximation of a Terran's forces.
Hellions did not "allow' Terrans to get 3 bases quickly, but rather they served as a screen for whatever transition the Terran was doing off of 2 bases (Whether it be an in-base macro CC or a pumping of marine tank.) They serve the same purpose for Terran during the early game as mutalisks do for zerg during the mid game. They screen expansions by keeping the opponent in the base. (Again, Terrans are not on 3 bases at this point because zerg counter attack would be devastating. Terrans would be forced to stay in their base until they have enough forces to defend AND push out, or use clever drop tacics.) The 3 range DID allow Terrans to pressure zergs and keep them penned in for a time, especially since roaches were/are supply expensive and hurt zerg tech development a bit. That won't be as big of an issue with OG because T1 1Supply hydras CAN ward off hellions on their own (Hydras are medium armor) without being a huge side investment.
I still have yet to see anyone clarify what it is about this new ability, Assault Larva, that makes for more interesting gameplay. How is it any less menial of a task than Spawn Larva? I have two less larva, not to mention it costs TWICE the energy as Spawn Larva, and in normal circumstances, why would these colonies be built anywhere but on creep? Queens are now more valuable than before, so bringing them off-creep to build proxy Assault Colonies is silly unless you're already winning the game. Like I said before, it's all fancy rhetoric with no substance. Show me a replay of someone playing OneGoal with these changes, put it side by side with a normal HotS game, and show me the improvement. There is none. Spawn Larva actually produces more variety in the game because, although it's a menial task, I have twice the larva, no restriction on what I can build with them, and the spell itself costs half that of AC.
I agree on the replay part. WE NEED VODS! Somebody get on that. -Looking at you Dakota and IWS- [spoiler](I need HotS still T_T)[/spoiler] Spawn larva vs the colonies.
-Optimal use of spawn larva is to hit the hatchery every time @ 25 energy. No exceptions (not inclusive of the energy tension between other abilities. This is purely with the system of THIS spell.)
-Optimal use of the colonies concept would be varied based on map, strategies (do I place it close to hatchery, far away, out on map, use it as a wall, etc), and potentially more. The colonies do demand some rote mechanical skill (every 50 nrg), but they have the extra element that placement of the colonies themselves matter. Depending on how they are designed, there are varying degrees of how they can be used. The use of them can differ between player to player, more tactics can be used because of them, etc.
Even if spawn larva provided THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF LARVA as the colonies, the colonies would still offer more decision making than inject larva (even if it's a small amount.).
As much as I like the changes to the T1 of Zerg units, there are two other issues that just came to mind that really stick out: a) Zerg has no anti-spellcaster abilities.
Problem? Fungal outranges HT feedback, and infestors are fat enough where emp doesn't do much. Snipe is meh. Thematically why would zerg NEED something that relies on really fancy spells and what not? Anti caster abilities deal in energy. Zerg deals in numbers. Overwhelm the casters. The tricks of the terrans and the storms of the protoss are irrelevant when our numbers blot out the stars. FOR THE SWARM BLAWRAERGFD
b) Zerg is still extremely susceptible to splash because the Brood Lord and the Ultralisk are the only combat units that have more than 150 HP. While this was fine in BW, it's not fine in SC2 because of how prevalent splash is in this game. I played with Terran the other day on OneGoal, and it really stuck out to me how hard Vikings countered Zerg air. They rape Mutalisks more than Phoenixes do, and with another low HP air unit (the Venalisk), Zerg now essentially has no counter to Vikings.
NEED REPLAYS!!!! Also: Hydras = T1 AA. Don't know for sure how viking splash is working so I need data.
I have issues with calling the standard Terran followup to hellions insane greediness. YES there were Terrans who had some greediness occurring with the fast third CC, but you know what happened to Terrans who took their third too soon? They got rofl pwned by ling bling muta after the lings surround or a couple roaches push away the hellions. The normal followup as I recall was transitioning into marine tank for a followup push on 2 base, while slowly adding in medivacs. Zerg's never had to "purely" guess what Terran was doing because overlords poaching around terran bases could almost always provide a reasonable approximation of a Terran's forces.
Hellions did not "allow' Terrans to get 3 bases quickly, but rather they served as a screen for whatever transition the Terran was doing off of 2 bases (Whether it be an in-base macro CC or a pumping of marine tank.
Your misrembering history. 2 base allin tank marine might have been popular in 2010. Queen buff happened in 2012. In 2011 everyone went for hellions into either quick 3rd cc or marine/medi/hellion pressure. Zergs had no way of countering the quick 3rd cc besides blind allining. Muta as a counter to quick 3rd inbase OC.... Eh???
Even if spawn larva provided THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF LARVA as the colonies, the colonies would still offer more decision making than inject larva (even if it's a small amount.).
But this is wrong, because the decision on when to build army units and when to drone is removed. That decision had a lot of depht to it, and there is no way the positional decision can fully compensate for that.
On April 02 2013 08:47 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: Which is why we are testing out a gas Queen. It reduces the energy pool early to mid game, increasing energy tension.
I don't think it will matter at midgame. Zerg will just choose to get their geysers earlier.
"Just choose to get their geysers earlier"?
The standard timing for a Zerg's SECOND gas geyser when not going for an all-in build like burrow roaches, baneling busts, etc. is 5:50-6 minutes. 50 gas is extremely significant, whether you want to believe it or not.
I still have yet to have anyone answer my question:
What warrants a 50 gas cost for Queens?
What added utility was given for this? You added 5 HP (lol) and slammed a very detrimental Armored tag. Compare this to what you did to the Mothership Core. Where is the fairness in this?
On April 02 2013 08:47 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: Which is why we are testing out a gas Queen. It reduces the energy pool early to mid game, increasing energy tension.
I don't think it will matter at midgame. Zerg will just choose to get their geysers earlier.
"Just choose to get their geysers earlier"?
The standard timing for a Zerg's SECOND gas geyser when not going for an all-in build like burrow roaches, baneling busts, etc. is 5:50-6 minutes. 50 gas is extremely significant, whether you want to believe it or not.
I still have yet to have anyone answer my question:
What warrants a 50 gas cost for Queens?
What added utility was given for this? You added 5 HP (lol) and slammed a very detrimental Armored tag. Compare this to what you did to the Mothership Core. Where is the fairness in this?
Why do you think I am talking about the second geyser timing? I am obiviously talking about when you take your geysers at your natural/3rd. Alternative zergs will choose to get like 11 mutas instead of 12 in the midgame etc. Basically the gas increase will have a relatively minor effect after the early game (in terms of effecting how many queens zerg will have).
What warranted the 50 gas cost of the queen? If you read itwhospeaks response you will get a hint of their thought proces (it will make creep spread a decision for instance as you have less of it).
Regarding the balance "whining". This is still absolutely pointless because you don't even know whether assault collonies could even things out? Maybe that actually works as a compensation to the +50 gas cost of queens. I understand that you want an explanation for the gas cost increase, but that should be in terms of whether it creates more interesting games - Not balance.
On April 02 2013 08:47 ItWhoSpeaks wrote: Which is why we are testing out a gas Queen. It reduces the energy pool early to mid game, increasing energy tension.
I don't think it will matter at midgame. Zerg will just choose to get their geysers earlier.
"Just choose to get their geysers earlier"?
The standard timing for a Zerg's SECOND gas geyser when not going for an all-in build like burrow roaches, baneling busts, etc. is 5:50-6 minutes. 50 gas is extremely significant, whether you want to believe it or not.
I still have yet to have anyone answer my question:
What warrants a 50 gas cost for Queens?
What added utility was given for this? You added 5 HP (lol) and slammed a very detrimental Armored tag. Compare this to what you did to the Mothership Core. Where is the fairness in this?
Why do you think I am talking about the second geyser timing? I am obiviously talking about when you take your geysers at your natural/3rd, or they will choose to get 11 mutas instead of 13 in the midgame etc. Basically this will have a relatively minor effect after the early game (in terms of effecting how many queens zerg will have).
What warranted the 50 gas cost of the queen? If you read itwhospeaks response you will get a hint of their thought proces (it will make creep spread a decision for instance as you have less of it).
Creep spread is done because it's a necessity for Zerg. Given that a majority of Zerg's units are short ranged, creep spread is needed to mitigate that by providing speed bonus to their units. Creep spread is already a decision and expression of skill in and of itself because you take away army supply by devoting Queens to spread creep around the map and it takes considerable multi-tasking ability to maintain creep. Compare the creep spread of an average diamond league player to that of a high masters. There's a very noticeable difference. Simply making it harder to creep spread by adding a 50 gas cost adds nothing positive to the game. I read their explanation for it. It's not logical. At least, not to anyone who has actual experience playing Zerg.
EPT
) and I doubt will be touched much. As truth, I would hope that chrono boost gives a slihgtly lowered increase on probe production and mules mine a bit less than they do now (maybe only twice as much as scv instead of 4 times...). OR have assault colonies be allowed to produce drones when on hatchery creep, and only units when off... or something like that. Hmm. There will be some consideration given to the other races as well, it's just that the queens had the most glaring issues to address first.![[image loading]](http://spaceart.de/produkte/babylon_5_schatten_schiff_b5002-f.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/6537/shadscor4zn6.jpg)
