Gamespot: The official SC2 forums stated that there will be a Heart of the Swarm multiplayer beta coming out. What else can you add on that Wings of Liberty's multiplayer has covered last year?
Dustin Browder: Well, it's tough. The Terrans have enough stuff already, thus it becomes a guessing game to know what to do for them. We have to be careful about what new units we can add to the game. At the end of the day, we still have to add in cool s***. [Players] are giving us their money; we have to give them something cool.
There are some easy things we can do and there are some hard things. If we study the game, for example, you would say that the corruptor is lame. Don't get us wrong; they're useful. If there are a lot of colossi, you need corruptors. If there are dark templars, you need overseers. They have a battle function for a situation, but what new battle strategies and tactics do they add in the game? Compare the [corruptors and overseers] to the mutalisks; a player can raid, harass. They can get board control; they can decimate opponents without antiair. Party, right? Having those guys around changes the match. Corruptors? Meh. You build colossi, I build corruptors; end of story.
There are some units we can upgrade wholesale or remove and replace with something better. That's one easy way to give better gameplay without giving so many options you don't know what's going on while also not compromising balance. [...]
Corruption has to be the most uninspired and least interesting spell in the SC universe by a HUGE margin.
The above interview highlights the problems with the Overseer and Corruptor, they are boring. I'm not saying they are too strong or too weak. Underpowered/overpowered if fleeting, lame is forever.
The interview was conducted over a year ago. The consensus in the community agreed with Browder's analysis of the units, and many expected some changes to come with HOTS.
So... what happened? Blizzard openly expressed dissatisfaction towards the Corruptor and Overseer, and heavily implies that we'll see improvements in HOTS. Beta has hit, and the two units are still dull as ever. Will we have another 2+ years of the same old "lame" unit? Certainly a poor choice for an E-sport to leave openly-confessed "lame" units unchanged in an expansion.
The purpose of this thread is to raise attention to the issue, and remind Blizzard that they have not provided any solution in the beta to a problem they admitted over a year ago. Also feel free to propose your own changes
Poll: Should Blizzard change the Corruptor?
Yes, I agree with Browder that its current form is lame (589)
86%
No, I want it to stay as is (92)
14%
681 total votes
Your vote: Should Blizzard change the Corruptor?
(Vote): Yes, I agree with Browder that its current form is lame (Vote): No, I want it to stay as is
Poll: Should Blizzard change the Overseer?
Yes, "make his abilities more interesting" (377)
61%
No, I want it to stay as is (243)
39%
620 total votes
Your vote: Should Blizzard change the Overseer?
(Vote): Yes, "make his abilities more interesting" (Vote): No, I want it to stay as is
Cloud: creates a small cloud that lasts for a short duration. Units (both friendly and foe) under the cloud do not take bonus damage. ie. Roaches only take 10 damage from Marauders. I think the spell will make compositions more interesting, the spell can turn a poor composition into a good one, making engagements rather tricky and suspenseful because it would be hard to predict as a spectator. Maybe too hard to balance though.
I've always thought corruption should work like the devourer's damage bonus in BW.
Why would zerg of all races use a 20% bonus, instead of a small flat increase (like, say, +1/2/3 damage per hit)? It's really counterintuitive, and it's part of the reason the spell has almost zero utility outside of killing colossi and carriers faster.
It could also be reworked so that it does something outside the norm, like changing the unit type of the target (add massive to boost corruptors' damage, add light to boost banelings' damage etc). This brings up another issue: the fact that corruptors do bonus damage to massive is really brutally stupid. It cements them as being "the thing you mass when the other guy makes a wacky tech choice", rather than "high survivability air-to-air unit". Their damage against non-massive units is laughably bad, and they only beat things like vikings because of upgrade superiority or help from fungals/infested terrans.
As for the overseer: all it needs is for contaminate to not cost so much bloody energy. It's a good spell that could be finding a lot more application if it was possible to get it before lair/twilight/armory tech in WoL. The unit is fine for what it is, but contaminate is probably its most interesting ability and it's impossible to use it in a reasonable way most games.
You say the purpose is to remind Blizzard... you're certainly not doing that on TL. Try the bnet forums.
As for the actual units... they said they were thinking about it, and they've decided not to change them yet. I'd give it a month or so of beta and see if they really need a change then.
On September 07 2012 08:34 SgtCoDFish wrote: You say the purpose is to remind Blizzard... you're certainly not doing that on TL. Try the bnet forums.
As for the actual units... they said they were thinking about it, and they've decided not to change them yet. I'd give it a month or so of beta and see if they really need a change then.
Does Blizzard not read TL? I was under the impression that they do
I agree that they are both currently balanced units in WoL, but having said that they are both very boring units that could be given some minor tweaks to add some utility.
On September 07 2012 08:41 neoghaleon55 wrote: you can't do anything with the overseer. It's a unit that costs no supply! Leave it as is, it's fine.
Corruptor, would be nice if they gave it queen goop from BW. lol
I know Browder+Kim mentioned in several interviews that the 0-supply makes it hard to balance, but I don't think it's impossible Hopefully the design team can be creative and think of ways to improve/change the two spells it already has. As a last resort, they can always bump up its supply cost to 1 while still providing 8 supply. That way, they can justify stronger spells on it.
Edit: Or the Overseer must sacrifice itself as part of the spell? That way Blizz can justify a stronger spell since that essentially increases the cost of the spell to 150min/50ves/1larva/42seconds
Not all elements of game design need to accomplish the same thing. Not all units need to be "cool" and not all of them need to be viable in the games competitive scene.
Not every unit has to be exciting. Sometimes they serve to create an interesting dynamic when combined with other units. The corrupter in particular falls in the latter category because they function as a stepping stone to broods that can be exploited by an opponent to punish zergs. This is only due to the fact that corruptors can only attack air, so zergs have strategic decisions involving when and how many corruptors to create, where and when to morph broods, and balancing static defense and supporting army so they don't die to a timing.
The Overseer is great. Changelings are great scouts. Few people currently use them to their full potential (hold watch towers, spot critical paths), and is something that should naturally arise as the general level of mechanics goes up.
I think the reason corruptors are so boring is because of their feeble attack animation. Compare the corruptor and the viking for example
The viking in fighter mode is essentially the same thing as a corruptor (long range air to air combat unit), yet viking battles are way cooler because of the little explosion after each attack. It also sounds like the deadly missile it's supposed to be. On the other hand the corruptor attack looks and sounds like my grandpa spitting out a cherry pit.
On September 07 2012 09:40 red4ce wrote: I think the reason corruptors are so boring is because of their feeble attack animation. Compare the corruptor and the viking for example
The viking in fighter mode is essentially the same thing as a corruptor (long range air to air combat unit), yet viking battles are way cooler because of the little explosion after each attack. It also sounds like the deadly missile it's supposed to be. On the other hand the corruptor attack looks and sounds like my grandpa spitting out a cherry pit.
Simple, effective easy change that would probably work. I like it. The corrupter does what it should, and as a bonus you get a spell that no one uses cuz they forget its there. You might as well use it its there and its a CD spell.
On September 07 2012 09:20 Cybren wrote: Not all elements of game design need to accomplish the same thing. Not all units need to be "cool" and not all of them need to be viable in the games competitive scene.
It's not about viability. Even in Dustin's analysis, he clearly states that they have defined purpose in the army, but they are extremely one dimensional unlike the Mutalisk which is multidimensional.
I think it is hard to justify boring units, especially in Starcraft where the unit variety is very limited (in MTG, each set has hundreds of cards, and each format allows mutiple sets). Neither Timmy, Johnny nor Spike gain anything from boring.
id just like to state that the corruption ability is a great ability, BUT the fact that its single target makes it useless. if they made it an AoE ability it would be infinitly more useful.
it might not even be necessary to change the corrupter right now. I saw sheth going SH/Corrupter and it seemed very strong, the best anti-ground and the best anti-air weapons being used together, and they synergize well with cost since they almost cost the opposite of each other in minerals/gas. so I dunno, I'd like to see something changed but it's not a big deal.
overseer can remain as is, unless they give it a parasite ability like the Queen had in BW, that ability was godlike!
On September 07 2012 09:20 Cybren wrote: Not all elements of game design need to accomplish the same thing. Not all units need to be "cool" and not all of them need to be viable in the games competitive scene.
SC2 isn't like MTG, because players can't elect to leave certain things out of their race and make it 'tighter' like you can when building a magic deck. There's also no notion of 'card value', which in MTG is often dictated by viability in competitive play (not how much 'fun' it is for casual players).
Units like the oracle and reaper are basically not optimal in any sense, but they're a part of their races and the game has to be balanced with that in mind (because it's a high level competition for some, a job for others, and so on)
The equivalent to johnny/vorthos cards in SC2 is the single player: russian doll banelings, science vessels healing thors, AOE missile turrets and so on. Or custom games - things like 'momir basic' are a lot of like money maps and so on.
The 'elements of game design' that are for fun casual players in SC2 are mostly removed from the units/buildings in the competitive part of the game. We shouldn't be stuck with garbage units like WoL hydralisks just because some guy out there finds them "fun"
they do their job. i've never made corrupters or overseers in a game and immediately thought to myself 'aw maaaaan, i'm feeling so bored right now, i wish i'd never bought this game', what i was thinking to myself is 'phew, now these DT's won't end the match' or 'phew, now i can deal with these colossi/phoenixes/whatever, oh and now i'm probably going brood lords if the game goes much longer, which are awesome and fun to use because they RAPE FACE'
though it would be kind of cool if the corrupter's spell was redone. the original corruption concept was pretty cool and appropriate to the unit. maybe it could be something like, units hit with corruption do light AoE to all units around them (yours and theirs), for however long it lasts? the overseer is fine - changelings are next to useless in progames but they hurt the game in exactly zero ways, and contaminate is fine, there was a time when it was being worked in as an essential part of some zvz builds, i think people just got lazy and stopped spending the APM on it because there were other more important things to work on.
Overseer must be a nightmare to balance and satisfy players. They have to make its abilities worth the 100 gas needed to morph it as well as not make its abilities amazing for a unit that takes NO supply.
the corruptors spell is uninteresting and boring, as mentioned by other TL members, the spell could be changed to synergize with other zerg units like the muta, instead of having a flat out 20% dps received debuff, make the mechanic work similarily to the acid spores of the devourer from sc1, whereby the targets armor reduces by 1 per sec to a maximum of -9 or something alike, the spell could also be a small aoe making late game mutas viable vs air.
On September 07 2012 11:00 StrikeNova wrote: Overseer must be a nightmare to balance and satisfy players. They have to make its abilities worth the 100 gas needed to morph it as well as not make its abilities amazing for a unit that takes NO supply.
They changed it to 50 gas xD
I honestly think the overseer is a great unit, and is almost better than the protoss observer (Controversially). Changelings are a fun unit, and people who don't pay attention get punished. Also when it comes to late game it's pretty hard even for pro players to keep an eye on changelings and it wastes alot of APM to get rid of them. Thus zergs can often get away with getting vision on an opponents army.
I find the corruption ability to be a bit lackluster. I feel like at the time it becomes viable to use it's kind of weak. Basically when the opponent has so many production facilities the production damage is miniscule.
It is also is a detector and is tanky as shit (Observers aren't tanky). I think it is an under rated unit.
Does anyone think that the corrupter should be given a "corrupting" attack animation that kind of adds up visually on the opponents units? They need to get rid of the pitiful attack animation at the moment and give it an "exorcist" kind of splash looking goo/slime animation.
Maybe also changing the corrupt spell all together to something that accumulates the "corrupting" effect. Whether its AS, MS, Armor I dont know but there needs to be changes fast since its one of the most boring units. Being 1A of nature is fine as long as it has cool/impactful visual animations ingame imo.
Instead of Corruption I thought out a new feature for the Corruptor:
Corruption Crash - Some kind of one time use Kamikaze attack that make the Corruptor crash land on the ground. Either to crash into buildings that will be corrupted, or some kind of crash land on open ground or crash into a unit that does a certain amount of damage to the unit and afterwards the Corruptor is destroyed.
Perhaps it's spell can be to crash land into static defences unpowering them for a certain amount of time. Imagine as a last resort the Zerg's Corruptors, after killed all Colossus in the enemy army start to fall from the sky on every Photon cannon and Stalker nearby. It should be very spectator friendly seeing all Corruptors fall from the sky in a last valiant effort to feign defeat. It also follows the lore of masses of Zerg sacrificing themselves: Think Locusts, Banelings, Broodlings, and now Kamikaze Corruptors. It could be balanced easily to not be OP by making the impact damage as low as necessary. It could also add lots of spectator friendly micro moments if, when spotted, the enemy units tries to dodge the falling Corruptors that all of a sudden start to rain from the sky.
Overseer is fine, honestly. It might be boring but the abilities do the trick. Corruptors however do need a change to make them more exciting or useful once there is no more enemy air units on the map.
On September 07 2012 21:10 HowardRoark wrote: Instead of Corruption I thought out a new feature for the Corruptor:
Corruption Crash - Some kind of one time use Kamikaze attack that make the Corruptor crash land on the ground. Either to crash into buildings that will be corrupted, or some kind of crash land on open ground or crash into a unit that does a certain amount of damage to the unit and afterwards the Corruptor is destroyed.
Perhaps it's spell can be to crash land into static defences unpowering them for a certain amount of time. Imagine as a last resort the Zerg's Corruptors, after killed all Colossus in the enemy army start to fall from the sky on every Photon cannon and Stalker nearby. It should be very spectator friendly seeing all Corruptors fall from the sky in a last valiant effort to feign defeat. It also follows the lore of masses of Zerg sacrificing themselves: Think Locusts, Banelings, Broodlings, and now Kamikaze Corruptors. It could be balanced easily to not be OP by making the impact damage as low as necessary. It could also add lots of spectator friendly micro moments if, when spotted, the enemy units tries to dodge the falling Corruptors that all of a sudden start to rain from the sky.
What do you think?
Corruptors are quite expensive so there is a high cost to sacrificing them. I'm not sure if I totally agree with your direction, I feel like there is more skill and strategy keeping them alive, and doing something useful with them even when air has been eliminated (by replacing corruption with a more useful spell). Sending them in to kamikaze once you are done with them seems to be the easy way out.
The Corruptor is just too bland of a unit. Wasn't it supposed to have a new spell called Siphon or something? Apparently they took it out.
Originally the Corruptor was supposed to infest other air units and make them shoot spores at their allies when killed. That was a pretty sweet mechanic, which was unfortunately removed.
On September 07 2012 21:58 Michaels wrote: Overseer needs parasite ability from broodwars queens
You are the second person to make this comment. Is parasite that much better than Changeling? If I recall correctly, almost no one used parasite in prolevel play.
Parasite is too annoying imo, once the unit is infected, it lasts forever (minus the spell on medics that is never used). Wtf do I do with my infected unit, sacrifice it?
On September 07 2012 21:51 Serelitz wrote: The problem is that instead of acting and changing/removing those boring units, they added more in the form of Battle Hellion / Warhound.
I understand that people find Warhound boring, but what I don't understand is that people find Battle Hellion boring. Battle Hellion isn't new unit, is new ability added to the old unit, which changes Hellions from one-dimensional unit(Worker killer) to being good, and somehow interesting unit since it has more uses. It can be used as harasser, defender, pusher, and as buffer unit that soaks damage for Siege Tanks.
I would like for Corruptors to be changed to old, WoL Alpha Corruptors, where when they killed some stuff, those things turned into Corrupted Mass that does damage.
On September 07 2012 21:58 Michaels wrote: Overseer needs parasite ability from broodwars queens
You are the second person to make this comment. Is parasite that much better than Changeling? If I recall correctly, almost no one used parasite in prolevel play.
Parasite is too annoying imo, once the unit is infected, it lasts forever (minus the spell on medics that is never used). Wtf do I do with my infected unit, sacrifice it?
No-one was using queens when I was playing brood war and I was very bad so I dont know why they didnt use it. But that skill is very cool in theory in my opinion. I think it would be very usefull on overseer and people would start using multiple overseers just to parasite some worker in mineral line just to know where is his next expansion or main army and he would have to sacrifice infected unit or use it to fake attack and attack somewhere else etc.
support this. corruptor might be okay (another spell would be nice but not necessary, they are AA like vikings) but give overseer a new spell or make contaminate more viable.
On September 07 2012 21:36 hugman wrote: Give Corruptors the ability to morph into Mutalisks, lol
the other way around would actually be really nice since it would allow a much smoother transition from mutas to BLs. the problem with mutas is that you have to transition into a completely different techpatch. from ling bling muta into BL infestor corruptor. thats one of the main reasons there is no midgame in ZvP and ZvT since zerg has to go ling infestor to tech fast enough to BLs.
morphing mutas into corruptor for cost xy would make midgame mutas more viable as a macro build. combined with LAIRTECH hydraspeed (hope blizzard realizes hivetech speedupgrade with all the AoE is BS) and the swarmhost zerg would have a lot of viable midgame options and games would finally be a lot more fun to watch and play for both sides (no more ling infestor spine turtle into boring BL infestor).
If they are going to change the corruptor, I think they should just give it a weaker version of what the devourer had in BW. Stacking debuff that adds +1 damage.
In BW it was AoE and stacked 9x, making mutas hella strong. In SC2, it would have to be weaker to remain at lair tech. So either single target stacking +2 in stacks up to 5, our AoE stacking +1 up to 3 stacks.
On September 07 2012 21:45 village_idiot wrote: The Corruptor is just too bland of a unit. Wasn't it supposed to have a new spell called Siphon or something? Apparently they took it out.
Originally the Corruptor was supposed to infest other air units and make them shoot spores at their allies when killed. That was a pretty sweet mechanic, which was unfortunately removed.
The Corruptor’s Corruption ability has been replaced by a new ability called Siphon that allows Corruptors to target buildings and slowly damage them. This damage is converted into resources for the zerg at the same time.
If I recall correctly, it did 1 damage/sec and returned 1 resource/sec. Probably more interesting than corruption it was a buffed a bit.
I'd like to see a parasite-themed spell (like the Queen's 'Parasite' from Brood War) for the Corruptor. Perhaps casting the ability could cost health of the Corruptor as well - it basically uses the spores/whatever inside itself to cast it.
Exaple: The Corruptor showers an area with its spores. Each unit affected by the spore gives a small area of vision around itself for the caster player. If the affected unit dies, a broodling emerges from its remains. The spell affects non-massive ground units. Lasts 60 seconds. costs 100 energy and 50 health
I find it funny that Blizzard changed the energy cost of Contaminate just as the community was finding out how good it was, but before it was abused. I would have liked to have seen it be abused.
Also, I just had an idea, what if you could for no cost but only time (about 20 seconds?) change a mutalisk to a corruptor and vice versa? Or would that be insanely overpowered?
corruptors are perfectly fine. they look awesome (one of the most well-designed units imho), they have a clearly defined role, and provide an ability to have some room for micro. they also can morph into another unit
same for overseers: good design, clearly defined role, room for micro
BROWDER: WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT?
i guess he only likes huge robots that autocast and can be a-moved. thats his idea of a "cool" unit...
On September 08 2012 03:55 summerloud wrote: corruptors are perfectly fine. they look awesome (one of the most well-designed units imho), they have a clearly defined role, and provide an ability to have some room for micro. they also can morph into another unit
same for overseers: good design, clearly defined role, room for micro
BROWDER: WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT?
i guess he only likes huge robots that autocast and can be a-moved. thats his idea of a "cool" unit...
People who like the corruptor is a small minority, but to actually think it is an example of top-design... I think you'll need to elaborate before I can even begin to understand your train of thought.
The community agrees with Browder quite strongly here:
Poll: Should Blizzard change the Corruptor?
Yes, I agree with Browder that its current form is lame (589)
86%
No, I want it to stay as is (92)
14%
681 total votes
Your vote: Should Blizzard change the Corruptor?
(Vote): Yes, I agree with Browder that its current form is lame (Vote): No, I want it to stay as is
They were talking about giving corrupter a move like those sentries in the matrix where it swoops down and starts tearing away at buildings. It was supposed to give the zerg minerals for the damage they cause like that, but they couldn't make that work I guess. =(
I think the idea of corruption, debuffing a unit aint so bad, its just there could be cooler debuffs, or debuffs that sync better with units. Like an aoe debuff that syncs with muta glaives, or a debuff that for example damages a unit the more it gets hit, so ur not forced to make a shitton of corrupters only to have most of them still flying around when all collosi are dead, and just being supply waste.
I think Overseer should lose Contaminate and get Parasite from BW. Contaminate makes no sense on a scouting unit anyway, and the Overseer is thematically just about vision and scouting. Parasite would be a nice complement to Changeling which is sometimes too easy to shut down. You may have to find some way to balance Parasite (do 30 damage to this unit to remove the parasite, or whatever) so it doesn't just become a game of Parasiting the colossi, but overall I think the ability would really fit and be a great replacement for Contaminate. Possibly, Contaminate could be given to Corrupter. Just throwing that out there.
I think the corruptor is a great unit. But yea it could be a little bit more interesting. Corruption as spell is just boring. I really like the idea with a debuff. Not to sure about the contaminate idea.
Utterly boring unit (corruptor)... zero micro potential... and there should be a rule that rts games should never have spells which "Increase damage done to unit"... They are absolutely the most boring of all spells (in most games).
Corruptors are really boring in general and pretty much just seem like a "counter" unit as stated in the interview. This isn't that bad though, compare it to the scourge in bw. Scourge really had no purpose other than countering dangerous air units, especially corsairs. I don't think every unit in the game needs to play 2 or more roles, but it would be nice to give players some more incentives to make corruptors.
The overseer doesn't need to be changed. It is still mainly unexplored and is actually very important to zerg scouting. Honestly, with detection, changelings, and the lesser used contaminate, the overseer plays many roles and is a very dynamic unit. I hope they don't change it.
Not every unit needs a special ability. The corruptor is a bit boring for sure, but Zerg already have a ton of interesting things and the single most versatile caster in the game in the Infestor. I'm worried that giving 'cool' abilities to absolutely everything will make the game silly.
I like the unit aesthetically, bar the attack animation, even giving it something with a bit more oomph, as a poster previously suggested to bring it into line with the viking's missile would make it a bit more tolerable.
On September 09 2012 03:20 GenesisX wrote: Corruptors are really boring in general and pretty much just seem like a "counter" unit as stated in the interview. This isn't that bad though, compare it to the scourge in bw. Scourge really had no purpose other than countering dangerous air units, especially corsairs. I don't think every unit in the game needs to play 2 or more roles, but it would be nice to give players some more incentives to make corruptors.
The overseer doesn't need to be changed. It is still mainly unexplored and is actually very important to zerg scouting. Honestly, with detection, changelings, and the lesser used contaminate, the overseer plays many roles and is a very dynamic unit. I hope they don't change it.
Even if you are fine with the Corruptor's narrow role, would you still agree that Corruption is a terrible ability, and genuinely uninteresting?
I like to compare the the Corruptor to the Phoenix, since they are both anti-air. But graviton beam adds a new dimension to the Phoenix, same with ground form for Vikings.
Corruption does very little, if any, to add depth to the unit.
On September 09 2012 03:20 GenesisX wrote: Corruptors are really boring in general and pretty much just seem like a "counter" unit as stated in the interview. This isn't that bad though, compare it to the scourge in bw. Scourge really had no purpose other than countering dangerous air units, especially corsairs. I don't think every unit in the game needs to play 2 or more roles, but it would be nice to give players some more incentives to make corruptors.
The overseer doesn't need to be changed. It is still mainly unexplored and is actually very important to zerg scouting. Honestly, with detection, changelings, and the lesser used contaminate, the overseer plays many roles and is a very dynamic unit. I hope they don't change it.
Even if you are fine with the Corruptor's narrow role, would you still agree that Corruption is a terrible ability, and genuinely uninteresting?
I like to compare the the Corruptor to the Phoenix, since they are both anti-air. But graviton beam adds a new dimension to the Phoenix, same with ground form for Vikings.
Corruption does very little, if any, to add depth to the unit.
Oops forgot to address that. Yeah, corruption is a terrible ability. I think one poster suggested a acid spores ability like devourers from bw, which seems interesting, but might be a bit strong due to fast attack rate of corruptors. If it were me I might just remove all abilities from corruptors. Or like you said, maybe have a ground spell effect for them?
On September 09 2012 03:20 GenesisX wrote: Corruptors are really boring in general and pretty much just seem like a "counter" unit as stated in the interview. This isn't that bad though, compare it to the scourge in bw. Scourge really had no purpose other than countering dangerous air units, especially corsairs. I don't think every unit in the game needs to play 2 or more roles, but it would be nice to give players some more incentives to make corruptors.
The overseer doesn't need to be changed. It is still mainly unexplored and is actually very important to zerg scouting. Honestly, with detection, changelings, and the lesser used contaminate, the overseer plays many roles and is a very dynamic unit. I hope they don't change it.
Even if you are fine with the Corruptor's narrow role, would you still agree that Corruption is a terrible ability, and genuinely uninteresting?
I like to compare the the Corruptor to the Phoenix, since they are both anti-air. But graviton beam adds a new dimension to the Phoenix, same with ground form for Vikings.
Corruption does very little, if any, to add depth to the unit.
Phoenixes are also not particularly good as a catch-all anti-air unit, although they are one of my most beloved units. Apparently during alpha corruptors had some cool spells at various stages but they had to be toned down a bit. If I heard a genuinely great idea for an ability I'd be all for it, but some of the ones here just seem a bit gimmicky and don't actually add depth to the unit's role.
why not give Preordain to the Overseer? it makes much more thematical sense, a small "bug" in a unit/structure that grants vision/knowledge, and would fit in with its role much better.
that way the Oracle can get some sort of small-range cloaking, similar to the range of a Warp Prism's power-field...
On September 09 2012 03:20 GenesisX wrote: Corruptors are really boring in general and pretty much just seem like a "counter" unit as stated in the interview. This isn't that bad though, compare it to the scourge in bw. Scourge really had no purpose other than countering dangerous air units, especially corsairs. I don't think every unit in the game needs to play 2 or more roles, but it would be nice to give players some more incentives to make corruptors.
The overseer doesn't need to be changed. It is still mainly unexplored and is actually very important to zerg scouting. Honestly, with detection, changelings, and the lesser used contaminate, the overseer plays many roles and is a very dynamic unit. I hope they don't change it.
Even if you are fine with the Corruptor's narrow role, would you still agree that Corruption is a terrible ability, and genuinely uninteresting?
I like to compare the the Corruptor to the Phoenix, since they are both anti-air. But graviton beam adds a new dimension to the Phoenix, same with ground form for Vikings.
Corruption does very little, if any, to add depth to the unit.
Phoenixes are also not particularly good as a catch-all anti-air unit, although they are one of my most beloved units. Apparently during alpha corruptors had some cool spells at various stages but they had to be toned down a bit. If I heard a genuinely great idea for an ability I'd be all for it, but some of the ones here just seem a bit gimmicky and don't actually add depth to the unit's role.
Corrupt was a more powerful version of Contaminate in the beta, before it was changed to what it is now.
I always wondered what it'd be like if a corruptor was one supply (w/ adequately reduced stats and costs) while increasing BL morph cost to 3 additional supply and more money?
On September 09 2012 06:53 usethis2 wrote: I always wondered what it'd be like if a corruptor was one supply (w/ adequately reduced stats and costs) while increasing BL morph cost to 3 additional supply and more money?
Not sure what this is trying to solve, but can use more < 2 supply units.
Good thing they got rid of scourge! Corr so much more exciting! Good thing they got rid of reaver! Collsi so much more exciting! Good thing Goliath magically underwent a species split and turned into the thor/warhound!
On September 09 2012 09:39 wcr.4fun wrote: Was that really an interview with dustin browder? Actually admitting stuff is lame?
Great too see them actually admitting it. Now let's change them!
Yep
If anyone ever gets to do an interview with the Blizz team during the beta, hopefully we can sneak this question in and pressure for some change. Otherwise, 2+ more years of the same old until Lotv.
On September 09 2012 06:53 usethis2 wrote: I always wondered what it'd be like if a corruptor was one supply (w/ adequately reduced stats and costs) while increasing BL morph cost to 3 additional supply and more money?
Not sure what this is trying to solve, but can use more < 2 supply units.
I was thinking of a typical situation where Z has a lot of useless corruptors left over taking supplies after successfully shot down colossi. Reduce the risk-reward cost of corruptors while increasing that of BLs.
Overseer is fine as it is, it's not like the Observer is SUPER interesting or anything lol
Corrupters tho .. yea corrupters are just lame. I always thought that Corrupters would be interesting if they were really fast and had melee attack (or like 2-3 range tops lol) w/ their tentacles. It would've been able to bring in an unique, interesting dynamic, and a funny contrast to the Broodlords they'd evolve into.
On September 09 2012 12:15 ArvickHero wrote: Overseer is fine as it is, it's not like the Observer is SUPER interesting or anything lol
Corrupters tho .. yea corrupters are just lame. I always thought that Corrupters would be interesting if they were really fast and had melee attack (or like 2-3 range tops lol) w/ their tentacles. It would've been able to bring in an unique, interesting dynamic, and a funny contrast to the Broodlords they'd evolve into.
be careful, you'll remind dustin browder of the giant squids in RA2 and this will be implemented
What happened to the idea of "siphon" I heard mentioned in some interviews, that corruptors could use this "Siphon" spell on enemy structures and it would start channel a mineral steal spell.
On September 09 2012 14:13 NTTemplar wrote: What happened to the idea of "siphon" I heard mentioned in some interviews, that corruptors could use this "Siphon" spell on enemy structures and it would start channel a mineral steal spell.
I thought that sounded kinda cool :o
But that isn't Starcraft 2 spell, it was just plain retarded. It is like playing Warcraft 3 in space, stealing minerals...
On September 09 2012 14:13 NTTemplar wrote: What happened to the idea of "siphon" I heard mentioned in some interviews, that corruptors could use this "Siphon" spell on enemy structures and it would start channel a mineral steal spell.
I thought that sounded kinda cool :o
But that isn't Starcraft 2 spell, it was just plain retarded. It is like playing Warcraft 3 in space, stealing minerals...
Why isn't it an SC2 ability??
It adds a unique new element to the game.
edit: btw, this is starcraft, there are abilites not spells here.
On September 09 2012 14:13 NTTemplar wrote: What happened to the idea of "siphon" I heard mentioned in some interviews, that corruptors could use this "Siphon" spell on enemy structures and it would start channel a mineral steal spell.
I thought that sounded kinda cool :o
They took it away ;_;
At least they tried, I guess, but it was painfully underpowered. It did 1dmg/sec and returned 1min/sec.
Corruptors were far more interesting back in beta when they had contaminate that could be used on defensive structures. You could actually build corruptors as a support unit for your mutas, or when you wanted to attack a PF. It was slightly imbalanced, but it made corruptors somewhat interesting at least.
I think the main issue is still the fact that moving shot doesn't exist (+ air stacking).
If you look at it, why are mutalisks in bw so much fun? After all they don't have any abilities. They just attack stuff. They were interesting because you could get so much out of 9-11 mutalisks.
On September 10 2012 01:39 wcr.4fun wrote: I think the main issue is still the fact that moving shot doesn't exist (+ air stacking).
If you look at it, why are mutalisks in bw so much fun? After all they don't have any abilities. They just attack stuff. They were interesting because you could get so much out of 9-11 mutalisks.
Yeah, Blizz needs to add moving shot to tons of units. Moving shot is all positive and no negative. Noobs can ignore it, pros can master it to get that extra 5% out of your units.
What about giving the Corrupter a lift ability? Something similar to the Phoenix gravitron beam except where the Corrupter swoops down, grabs the unit, and can hold it for a period of time. When the Corrupter is holding the unit, neither the Corrupter nor the unit being held can attack, but the Corrupter is still free to move. The unit being held can also not be hurt. At the end of the time or if the Corrupter is killed, the unit is dropped. If this happens over "dead space" where there is no ground below, then the unit being held dies.
I feel like something like this would not only be interesting and useful, but would also add some pretty cool micro to the game. You can pick up your own units to save them from the battle, use them to make small drops in the enemy base, pick up enemy units so that they cannot attack and fly them away from battle or even off the edge if you engaged in a good position. An ability like this may be hard to balance, but it would be pretty APM intensive to be useful and it would add a completely new dynamic to the unit.
On September 10 2012 12:54 Beef Noodles wrote: PLEASE OH PLEASE get rid of corruptor and bring back scourge and balance them some how
That is impossible. The only way why Scourges were balanced for their 25/75 cost was because they had the most retarded AI ever made. AI is close to perfect in SC2, and Scourges would've been gamebreakers for Zerg, because no race would ever go for Air play vs. Zerg, and drop play also would have been shut down.
On September 10 2012 01:54 MattBarry wrote: Honestly, the devourer wasn't very interesting either, it's just a role that needs to be filled
The devourer didn't fill any role, it was almost unused in the pro scene. And yes, it was a lame unit. BW had them too, but it was much luckier in that so many boring units turned out to be unviable.
On September 10 2012 12:54 Beef Noodles wrote: PLEASE OH PLEASE get rid of corruptor and bring back scourge and balance them some how
That is impossible. The only way why Scourges were balanced for their 25/75 cost was because they had the most retarded AI ever made. AI is close to perfect in SC2, and Scourges would've been gamebreakers for Zerg, because no race would ever go for Air play vs. Zerg, and drop play also would have been shut down.
Increased cost, weaker attack, or slower movement speed are all ways to balance out the smarter AI pathing.
I think Corruptors are pretty useful units right now, even though they're horribly bland. All I really want is a good ability to make the unit interesting (and no, Broodlord Morph doesn't count!).
Maybe just a different version of the first spell they had pre-WoL-berta (air units killed by them would turn into temporary, stationary turrets) ? How about killing ground units that have the spell cast on them spawns two Locusts, while killing an air unit spawns two (nerfed) Scourge?
Also, in order to make things slightly more challenging, I think any spell they get should have a really small cast range (as in nearly melee), so that it's harder to pull off. That way the spell can be made stronger as well, and it's more satisfying when you're actually able to do it.
On September 10 2012 01:39 wcr.4fun wrote: I think the main issue is still the fact that moving shot doesn't exist (+ air stacking).
If you look at it, why are mutalisks in bw so much fun? After all they don't have any abilities. They just attack stuff. They were interesting because you could get so much out of 9-11 mutalisks.
In anticipation of posts claiming that Muta stacking would be imbalanced with unlimited selection, I'd like to point out that blizzard could easily prevent that:
They could make Muta stacking their passive ability (with an icon in the command box, and a tool tip explaining how it works), that allows them to form a tight flock of 9 Mutalisks (or whatever number they find balanced). Beyond those 9 Mutas, the flock's "density" would be inversly proportional to the number of Mutas selected. The density would also decrease away from the flock's core.
That way it'd be quite easy to focus fire fringe Mutas while still dealing severe damage with splash/AoE, if the Zerg tried to abuse stacking by selecting a ton of Mutas.
On September 10 2012 01:54 MattBarry wrote: Honestly, the devourer wasn't very interesting either, it's just a role that needs to be filled
The devourer didn't fill any role, it was almost unused in the pro scene. And yes, it was a lame unit. BW had them too, but it was much luckier in that so many boring units turned out to be unviable.
On September 10 2012 12:54 Beef Noodles wrote: PLEASE OH PLEASE get rid of corruptor and bring back scourge and balance them some how
That is impossible. The only way why Scourges were balanced for their 25/75 cost was because they had the most retarded AI ever made. AI is close to perfect in SC2, and Scourges would've been gamebreakers for Zerg, because no race would ever go for Air play vs. Zerg, and drop play also would have been shut down.
Increased cost, weaker attack, or slower movement speed are all ways to balance out the smarter AI pathing.
They could keep their overkill as an intended mechanic and maybe make them decelerate when turning, so that you'd have to catch the enemy off guard/predict their movement/corner them.
On September 10 2012 12:49 PulseKiller wrote: What about giving the Corrupter a lift ability? Something similar to the Phoenix gravitron beam except where the Corrupter swoops down, grabs the unit, and can hold it for a period of time. When the Corrupter is holding the unit, neither the Corrupter nor the unit being held can attack, but the Corrupter is still free to move. The unit being held can also not be hurt. At the end of the time or if the Corrupter is killed, the unit is dropped. If this happens over "dead space" where there is no ground below, then the unit being held dies.
I feel like something like this would not only be interesting and useful, but would also add some pretty cool micro to the game. You can pick up your own units to save them from the battle, use them to make small drops in the enemy base, pick up enemy units so that they cannot attack and fly them away from battle or even off the edge if you engaged in a good position. An ability like this may be hard to balance, but it would be pretty APM intensive to be useful and it would add a completely new dynamic to the unit.
I love this idea! They already have the tenticles to lift!
Chromatophoric Camouflage: Need detector to see overseer. Costs energy when overseer is moving, but merely prevents energy regeneration when overseer is stationary.
Ocular Parasite: cast on a friendly unit to make it a detector (the spell they wanted to put on the viper).
Infiltrate: Like a neural parasite for buildings. Control the building as long as the overseer keeps channeling. Attacking the overseer at all breaks the channel. (Balance consideration: would have to be channeled for some balanced amount of time before it provides control because cancelling a key upgrade would be huge)
Moving shot isn't going to happen. Not because Blizzard doesn't want to but it just doesn't fit in 3D universe. The only way to achieve moving shots like the video above is to completely get rid of attack animation. Then what's going to happen is that we're going to see mutalisks dropping eggs as they fly by. It will confuse viewers and newbs, and even for seasoned gamers it'll definitely look weird for there is no attack animation.
In order to have attack animation, deceleration/acceleration is essential. And at that point the possible micro-trick is stutter-step. Stutter-step is arguably more APM intensive than moving shots, and I thought many people wanted the game to be more challenging and skill-based?
On September 12 2012 06:19 usethis2 wrote: Moving shot isn't going to happen. Not because Blizzard doesn't want to but it just doesn't fit in 3D universe. The only way to achieve moving shots like the video above is to completely get rid of attack animation. Then what's going to happen is that we're going to see mutalisks dropping eggs as they fly by. It will confuse viewers and newbs, and even for seasoned gamers it'll definitely look weird for there is no attack animation.
In order to have attack animation, deceleration/acceleration is essential. And at that point the possible micro-trick is stutter-step. Stutter-step is arguably more APM intensive than moving shots, and I thought many people wanted the game to be more challenging and skill-based?
I don't really understand this reason. Why can't the animation continue while on-the-move? Especially for units like the Corruptor where their animation aren't very pronounced.
1) They acknowledge there is a problem 2) They do nothing discernible to fix said problem
I wonder then, have they simply run out of ideas? That is, they see there is a problem, but don't actually know how to fix it? Because the truth of the matter is, the Corrupter may be boring, but it is necessary. It's necessary because of the Collosus. So to fix the Corrupter, they'd probably have to fix/ replace the Collosus. And somehow I don't think that's going to happen.
So that is where we sit. Dissatisfied, but the corrupter is back for one more round.
maybe give the corruptor a spell that, when cast on a unit, causes that unit to generate creep? would help zerg ground forces, generate a bit of vision, and perhaps cause the enemy to kill the unit to prevent it being used against them....
On September 12 2012 07:41 Falling wrote: 1) They acknowledge there is a problem 2) They do nothing discernible to fix said problem
I wonder then, have they simply run out of ideas? That is, they see there is a problem, but don't actually know how to fix it? Because the truth of the matter is, the Corrupter may be boring, but it is necessary. It's necessary because of the Collosus. So to fix the Corrupter, they'd probably have to fix/ replace the Collosus. And somehow I don't think that's going to happen.
So that is where we sit. Dissatisfied, but the corrupter is back for one more round.
Could they seriously be out of ideas? Maybe. I seriously just do not understand what is going on with Blizzard now a days. Anyone who takes a moment to think about the Colossus (or for that matter, Warp Gate, Forcefield, etc) can see how much damage it does to the game from a design perspective.
That having been said, I think there are ways to make the Corrupter more interesting whilst still maintaining the current relationship/dynamic between it and the Colossus (however horrid and boring it may be). I'm hesitant to use the word, but hopefully Blizzard won't forget to take a look at the Corrupter. And the Overseer. And the Void Ray. And the fact that the Dark Shrine exists.
Could they seriously be out of ideas? Maybe. I seriously just do not understand what is going on with Blizzard now a days. Anyone who takes a moment to think about the Colossus (or for that matter, Warp Gate, Forcefield, etc) can see how much damage it does to the game from a design perspective.
That having been said, I think there are ways to make the Corrupter more interesting whilst still maintaining the current relationship/dynamic between it and the Colossus (however horrid and boring it may be). I'm hesitant to use the word, but hopefully Blizzard won't forget to take a look at the Corrupter. And the Overseer. And the Void Ray. And the fact that the Dark Shrine exists.
So, you play zerg, and have difficulties playing against a protoss opponent am I right? They sure should nerf/change everything about protoss, and btw of doing this throw some up on zergy units...
On September 12 2012 19:14 Tikan wrote: So, you play zerg, and have difficulties playing against a protoss opponent am I right? They sure should nerf/change everything about protoss, and btw of doing this throw some up on zergy units...
I play all three races at a decent level. I first started with Protoss, as they were favorite in terms of flavor/lore/aesthetics.
These sorts of conversations never have anything to do with "nerfing" stuff. Its about changing the design of the units (how they function, what abilities/spells they have, etc.) so as to allow for more interesting relationships to develop between them. The Corrupter-Colossus dynamic, i.e. how they interact with one another, is not particularly fun for either player involved in it. Nor is it fun to watch. If you read the OP, you would see a quote from Dustin Browder himself admitting that the use of the Corrupter is rather one-dimensional and boring.
I thinks we cannot accuse DB of not staying true to his words. During development, new considerations arise all the time.
While the corruptor is quite boring, I think it is okay because he does his job well. Not every single unit needs to be super exciting. In a way, the interesting thing about the corruptor is, that he is not very interesting.
There are some important choices involved. When broodlords are morphed, how many corruptors will the player let unmorphed for air defense? Does he use micro to morph damaged corruptors instead of healthy ones?
I think a cool idea for the Overseer would be if it had the ability to land and plant itself like a supply depot/pylon. You could use it to block parts of the map on the fly. It will be latched into the ground so it can't move but it will become un-attackable by air.
This ability will make it worth upgrading all overlords that way if they are get harassed by air they could land all their overlords that have become overseers and prevent being supply blocked.
The corruptor is by far the most boring unit in starcraft history.
My take:
Remove contaminate from the overseer and give it to the corruptor. Tweak the numbers (longer cooldown, shorter duration, channeled) if need be. You can even still call the ability "corruption" since it basically does just that with structures. It would make contaminate actually useful and it would give the corruptor more than one role.
I think the overseer serves a good purpose already and doesn't really need "fixing" just for the sake of fixing. I do remember that originally its sight range would increase the longer it remained stationary. I like that idea. Or just slightly buff the changeling..
On September 12 2012 22:40 BisuDagger wrote: I think a cool idea for the Overseer would be if it had the ability to land and plant itself like a supply depot/pylon. You could use it to block parts of the map on the fly. It will be latched into the ground so it can't move but it will become un-attackable by air.
This ability will make it worth upgrading all overlords that way if they are get harassed by air they could land all their overlords that have become overseers and prevent being supply blocked.
That's really gimmicky, I don't think I'd support that
On September 12 2012 22:40 BisuDagger wrote: I think a cool idea for the Overseer would be if it had the ability to land and plant itself like a supply depot/pylon. You could use it to block parts of the map on the fly. It will be latched into the ground so it can't move but it will become un-attackable by air.
This ability will make it worth upgrading all overlords that way if they are get harassed by air they could land all their overlords that have become overseers and prevent being supply blocked.
I don't support this for the overseer but I think it's a cool idea in general for a unit.
On September 12 2012 22:40 BisuDagger wrote: I think a cool idea for the Overseer would be if it had the ability to land and plant itself like a supply depot/pylon. You could use it to block parts of the map on the fly. It will be latched into the ground so it can't move but it will become un-attackable by air.
This ability will make it worth upgrading all overlords that way if they are get harassed by air they could land all their overlords that have become overseers and prevent being supply blocked.
That's really gimmicky, I don't think I'd support that
The fact that 2 ppl already don't support this idea and it falls in line with force fields and destructible rocks means it's a brilliant blizzard idea. See what I did there?
i like that line. You go colossus i go corruptors, done. Reminds me of bw ... you go carriers, i go goliath. I hated when a toss went carriers, because i had to build goliaths instead of vultures. I think it is quiet a nice micro battle between colossus and corruptors, so that unit doesn't need any changes at all. If you feel its boring you don't appreciate all the micro and positioning this unit causes.
On September 12 2012 21:57 [F_]aths wrote: I thinks we cannot accuse DB of not staying true to his words. During development, new considerations arise all the time.
While the corruptor is quite boring, I think it is okay because he does his job well. Not every single unit needs to be super exciting. In a way, the interesting thing about the corruptor is, that he is not very interesting.
There are some important choices involved. When broodlords are morphed, how many corruptors will the player let unmorphed for air defense? Does he use micro to morph damaged corruptors instead of healthy ones?
I'll concede your first point.
I'd agree with you on your second point... if we had moving shot. But because we don't, I'd love to see more interesting unit design on pretty much everything.
As for the important decisions. Those same decisions would exist if a broodlord could be morphed from the mutalisk. Those decisions aren't inherent to the corrupter and the corrupter needs more than that to make it interesting.
On September 13 2012 10:17 FeyFey wrote: i like that line. You go colossus i go corruptors, done. Reminds me of bw ... you go carriers, i go goliath. I hated when a toss went carriers, because i had to build goliaths instead of vultures. I think it is quiet a nice micro battle between colossus and corruptors, so that unit doesn't need any changes at all. If you feel its boring you don't appreciate all the micro and positioning this unit causes.
Goliath-Carrier micro is not equivalent to Corrupter-Collosus micro. Not by half. And that's a very large reason why it needs significant changes. Positioning is subtle and existed in BW as well. Goliath-Carrier micro was in addition to that. MicroPlus if you will. And it was very visual/ obvious, which means very good for spectating.
The thing with overseers and corruptors is that . .
Corruptors morph to BL. Which is an interesting mechanic and adds tension when they are morphing but their spell is pretty boring. They should allow the unit to burrow just for lols.
Overseers are a really good mobile detection that can be made on the fly, they are so cheap... like really really cheap. Don't touch anything about them cos they are so good atm.
Corruptors will never have an interesting mechanic. I hate to say it, but the development team at Blizzard has lost their inspiration and creativity. They simply don't have the capacity to invent new and interesting things anymore (look at Diablo, for example). While games like DotA have a thousand interesting and nuanced mechanics, the abundance of which is in itself a sort of balancing agent, Starcraft has stagnated.
People creating out of real passion and interest will always invent amazing things. People doing it for a job create stale, uninteresting things.
I think if Blizzard was clever about the Corrupter they could potentially kill two birds with one stone.
There have been a lot of people asking Blizzard to remove the Colossus and replace it with the Reaver, or some other unit that allows for some sort of micro via the Warp Prism. I don't think Blizzard would ever remove the Colossus, and its highly unlikely that they'll redesign it given how "successful" the unit has been. That having been said, allowing Protoss to do some sort of Warp Prism micro with their Colossi would be awesome and make using the Colossus a hundred times more interesting/fun.
I think that with a significant enough change to the Corrupter they can introduce a more micro-oriented relationship between it and the Colossus, which would greatly benefit both units and solve two problems at once. The Corrupter could be more "interesting" and the Colossus would have an opportunity to be micro'd/controlled specifically well like a normal unit.
Maybe something like making the Corrutper a melee/shorter range unit? It is already a very durable unit, which is really the only distinctive attribute or "interesting part" of the unit. Why not expand on that and straight up make it a melee/short range unit? Obviously it'd need some numbers changed and a new/altered ability. That way the Corrupter has a more interesting relationship with the Colossus (which can be micro'd away in Warp Prisms) as well as other Zerg units like the Infestor (whose root ability becomes key to using the unit as effectively as possible).
Any change that makes the Corrupter more "fun" is already a godsend, but I think that in changing this unit there is the potential to indirectly make the Colossus more interesting as well (both to watch and use).
Changeling to be able to change into different units your opponent makes, not just the default tier 1. And its not like your opponent wont notice if there is a stalker roaming without their control.
Late in this game a significant number of corruptors engage tempests and it is largely inneffective. What good is an anti-air unit that is air and only attacks air that requires tier 2 and gas if 20+ of them largely fail to do even thier only job in the game?
Yes Zerg is behind but this is just silly. For such a pigeonholed unit, why does it fail so completely, while the other anti air units have more than one function and do their job well? Vikings can land, phoenix can lift (and move attack), corruptor has no redeeming ability.
Once again the best proposals for fixing an sc2 problem is just bringing back a broodwar mechanic. Acid spores will definitely make the corrupted les boring and will encourage players to get less mass corrupters but instead have a combination of corrupters and mutas to maximize damage.
On September 13 2012 15:10 Vindicarian wrote: There have been a lot of people asking Blizzard to remove the Colossus and replace it with the Reaver, or some other unit that allows for some sort of micro via the Warp Prism. I don't think Blizzard would ever remove the Colossus, and its highly unlikely that they'll redesign it given how "successful" the unit has been. That having been said, allowing Protoss to do some sort of Warp Prism micro with their Colossi would be awesome and make using the Colossus a hundred times more interesting/fun.
You can already load Colossi into Warp Prisms. It's just that nobody does it.
The main problem is that you need the Warp Prism speed upgrade to make it faster or equal to notable units, i.e. stimmed rines, Hydras on creep, Queens on creep, and Stalkers.
I always thought it would be cool if corruption reduced the range of the affected unit by 1 instead stead of increasing damage taken. Would overlap with blinding cloud now, but it would have been cool and useful against tanks, vikings, bc's, other corruptors, phoenix, void rays, colossus, immortals... not worth it against swarms of t1 units though like marine/marauder, roach hydra, stalkers
Corruptor is what really needs improving. Some different ideas...
-Give the corruptor a 'chew' ability where it latches onto a structure, chewing on it and halting production until something comes to shoot it off or until the ability ends. Basically a nerfed corruption. -Give the corruptors a surge ability where they will temporarily fly faster & become more maneuverable, kinda like how a squid surges through the water
I feel that the biggest problem for corrupters isn't that their role is extremely limited and boring, but rather that they are needed for broodlords. This essentially forces zerg to get a unit meant to gain air superiority in every form before getting their end game broodlords which are hard countered by air. In the end, it just encourages one dimensional play whereby zerg just simply needs to make corrupters from larvae.
Now, imagine if the corrupter is a unit of its own in the spire tech like the mutas and that broodlords are morphed from a new unit that has an entirely different role. In this case, getting corrupters will be a deliberate decision which requires much more calculation into the composition required. At its current form, all that's needed is make more corrupters, and if the broodlords are dying, use them, if not, morph them.
On September 18 2012 06:14 osiris17 wrote: Corruptor is what really needs improving. Some different ideas...
-Give the corruptor a 'chew' ability where it latches onto a structure, chewing on it and halting production until something comes to shoot it off or until the ability ends. Basically a nerfed corruption. -Give the corruptors a surge ability where they will temporarily fly faster & become more maneuverable, kinda like how a squid surges through the water
I like moving contaminate to corruptors, but I imagine getting the "latching" animations right for all the buildings could be difficult.
We're seeing some community discussion on units that we shipped with Wings of Liberty. Examples include:
- Carrier -Thor -Void Ray -Ghost
While we are very willing to change these units down the road we are not focused on them for the next few weeks. We are very interested in what kind of strategies we are introducing with the new beta units as well as what types of balance problems we are creating.
Obviously you can post on any subject you like and if you want to talk about older units feel free. We will definitely read your posts on older units. But we probably won't make balance or design changes of any significance to older units anytime soon. Once we stabilize the balance on the new beta units we will take a look to see what changes make sense to older units.
I've been saying this since the day we got proposed changes, where the hell are the Corrupter and Overseer changes? They didn't get better, and the game hasn't grown around their use? Fix these units! Don't think you can squeak by and ignore em, Blizz -_-
On September 07 2012 21:10 HowardRoark wrote: Instead of Corruption I thought out a new feature for the Corruptor:
Corruption Crash - Some kind of one time use Kamikaze attack that make the Corruptor crash land on the ground. Either to crash into buildings that will be corrupted, or some kind of crash land on open ground or crash into a unit that does a certain amount of damage to the unit and afterwards the Corruptor is destroyed.
Perhaps it's spell can be to crash land into static defences unpowering them for a certain amount of time. Imagine as a last resort the Zerg's Corruptors, after killed all Colossus in the enemy army start to fall from the sky on every Photon cannon and Stalker nearby. It should be very spectator friendly seeing all Corruptors fall from the sky in a last valiant effort to feign defeat. It also follows the lore of masses of Zerg sacrificing themselves: Think Locusts, Banelings, Broodlings, and now Kamikaze Corruptors. It could be balanced easily to not be OP by making the impact damage as low as necessary. It could also add lots of spectator friendly micro moments if, when spotted, the enemy units tries to dodge the falling Corruptors that all of a sudden start to rain from the sky.
What do you think?
I really love this idea. I've never thought of corruptors or overseers as not being fully utilized but adding this kamikaze crash to the corruptors would bring the unit more into line with the other two races air units but in a very zerg like style.
It'll be great for those late game scenarios where you're trying to tech up to greater spire or the spire has been sniped and you're left with corruptors floating uselessly over head while the opposing army is slow pushing into your base. It'll buy you time to at least mass zerglings and banelings for one final push at defense.
Just have them do enough single target damage to heavily armored and massive units, siege tanks, immortals, ultras, archons and thors . Sounds like fun decision making and a cool mechanic to use and watch. Would be easy to counter with marines, stalkers, burrow, and both attacking and supporting air units (medivacs, warp prism, oracles) would work.
Would be a cool reason to remove vipers also. Vipers are boring. I'm not a fan of abduct I think it ruins positional play and it's over kill with zerg players having two siege units now. Take corruption away, give a nerfed duration blinding cloud to the corruptor with a hefty cooldown, add corruption crash, and you'll have a much more useful and fun unit.
On September 18 2012 06:14 osiris17 wrote: Corruptor is what really needs improving. Some different ideas...
-Give the corruptor a 'chew' ability where it latches onto a structure, chewing on it and halting production until something comes to shoot it off or until the ability ends. Basically a nerfed corruption. -Give the corruptors a surge ability where they will temporarily fly faster & become more maneuverable, kinda like how a squid surges through the water
I like moving contaminate to corruptors, but I imagine getting the "latching" animations right for all the buildings could be difficult.
Not really. They're computer programmers.. it's their job to make animations.
We tried a bunch of things for the Overseer. Every time we had a good/strong ability, there was always the same problem. You can create an infinite number of Overseers due to them having no supply restriction.
This meant, in order to get the Overseer working correctly with a powerful spell we needed to increase the cost and/or have a supply cost.
Neither sounded good for obvious reasons like:
- If Overseers cost 1 supply you lose 9 supply when you morph one from an overlord (since you lose the overlord)
- Zerg mobile detection is nerfed way too much
- Is the new spell even cool with the tradeoffs/downsides the new Overseer has now?
I think maybe the corruptor's ability instead of making a debuff for enemy units, can instead have a buff for friendly units? Something like fungal growth on friendly units beefing them? Better armor/ better AR/ or something? Or maybe even have different buffs for different unit types? Like more armor for ultras, more attack speed for lings? or the reverse? more armor for lings/ more damage for ultras?
Sorry guys, I have communicated badly in this area. We will rebalance the entire game including the old units. Just not today. We have months left in the beta. We can only do so much in 1 week and trying to do eveything at once is a mistake. You'll have to trust me on that.
We are still making core design changes to some of these new units. Warhound came out, Oracle got a new spell and may get a new spell again. We aren't really liking the last new spell. Widowmine may get some changes. Etc.
I'm not saying "we will never make changes to Thor" or "we will never making changes to Void Ray" I'm just saying:
"For another week or two (depending on how things go) we will be focused on design changes on these new units."
On September 08 2012 02:06 Illiterate wrote: I find it funny that Blizzard changed the energy cost of Contaminate just as DESTINY was finding out how good it was, but before it was abused. I would have liked to have seen it be abused.
Also, I just had an idea, what if you could for no cost but only time (about 20 seconds?) change a mutalisk to a corruptor and vice versa? Or would that be insanely overpowered?
I fixed your post. Destiny is the sole reason why it got nerfed, because he invented an unstopable 1 base all in vs protoss(protoss would never get warpgate, thus they would lose to 2 base roaches).
On Topic: The corruptor is a boring, one-dimensional unit. It's effin good, but it's boring as shit, and i don't even want to look at them.
On September 08 2012 02:06 Illiterate wrote: I find it funny that Blizzard changed the energy cost of Contaminate just as DESTINY was finding out how good it was, but before it was abused. I would have liked to have seen it be abused.
Also, I just had an idea, what if you could for no cost but only time (about 20 seconds?) change a mutalisk to a corruptor and vice versa? Or would that be insanely overpowered?
I fixed your post. Destiny is the sole reason why it got nerfed, because he invented an unstopable 1 base all in vs protoss(protoss would never get warpgate, thus they would lose to 2 base roaches).
On Topic: The corruptor is a boring, one-dimensional unit. It's effin good, but it's boring as shit, and i don't even want to look at them.
Bullshit. Protoss produces fast enough from gateways alone, not only to hold such play, but also to expand, if they choose to go gateway expand. Contaminate wasn't nerfed, the Overseer was buffed in a way that meant that contaminate had to have its energycost nerfed accordingly to keep it on even powerlevel with before.
May or may not be true that such an allin might have had a place before, but noone ever cared about it as it would definatly have been dealable. 2base roach is really weak, especially as you have to invest heavily into lair and overseers early on.
On September 08 2012 02:06 Illiterate wrote: I find it funny that Blizzard changed the energy cost of Contaminate just as DESTINY was finding out how good it was, but before it was abused. I would have liked to have seen it be abused.
Also, I just had an idea, what if you could for no cost but only time (about 20 seconds?) change a mutalisk to a corruptor and vice versa? Or would that be insanely overpowered?
I fixed your post. Destiny is the sole reason why it got nerfed, because he invented an unstopable 1 base all in vs protoss(protoss would never get warpgate, thus they would lose to 2 base roaches).
On Topic: The corruptor is a boring, one-dimensional unit. It's effin good, but it's boring as shit, and i don't even want to look at them.
Then why don't we change the Corruptor to not be just one-dimensional boring unit that it is right now? I think that Blizzard will come up with something.
On September 07 2012 21:10 HowardRoark wrote: Instead of Corruption I thought out a new feature for the Corruptor:
Corruption Crash - Some kind of one time use Kamikaze attack that make the Corruptor crash land on the ground. Either to crash into buildings that will be corrupted, or some kind of crash land on open ground or crash into a unit that does a certain amount of damage to the unit and afterwards the Corruptor is destroyed.
Perhaps it's spell can be to crash land into static defences unpowering them for a certain amount of time. Imagine as a last resort the Zerg's Corruptors, after killed all Colossus in the enemy army start to fall from the sky on every Photon cannon and Stalker nearby. It should be very spectator friendly seeing all Corruptors fall from the sky in a last valiant effort to feign defeat. It also follows the lore of masses of Zerg sacrificing themselves: Think Locusts, Banelings, Broodlings, and now Kamikaze Corruptors. It could be balanced easily to not be OP by making the impact damage as low as necessary. It could also add lots of spectator friendly micro moments if, when spotted, the enemy units tries to dodge the falling Corruptors that all of a sudden start to rain from the sky.
What do you think?
I love this idea. Probably just because I am a retard and make corruptors to soon and lose even though I am way a head
On October 04 2012 07:00 StreetWise wrote: Browder stated on the b.net forums they are open to changing WOL units, however they are looking at tweaking HOTS units first.
nothing new. There were multiple posts from him about this already. It's just that people will cry until the patches hit the servers.
Stuff like the BC vs ground buff, carrier removal, Raven buff etc were already in the game and removed because blizzard wanted to force people into trying the new units in the WoL setup first, before they start going exclusively mass raven/BC (which they did). And there were a lot of comments about changing units "down the road" etc...
I think it is time for TL to start a "Reasonable wishlist"-thread for blizzard. Basically a list thread about units that are boring and should be changed (reasonably; unlike changes that blizzard won't make like pathing, selection, BW-units and complete removal/overhaul of core units)
Cool post, would definitely recommend like others, to repost on battle.net forums. Maybe not for a little while as DB has posted several times now that they are not dealing with old units until they finish messing with new stuff.
On October 04 2012 07:00 StreetWise wrote: Browder stated on the b.net forums they are open to changing WOL units, however they are looking at tweaking HOTS units first.
nothing new. There were multiple posts from him about this already. It's just that people will cry until the patches hit the servers.
Stuff like the BC vs ground buff, carrier removal, Raven buff etc were already in the game and removed because blizzard wanted to force people into trying the new units in the WoL setup first, before they start going exclusively mass raven/BC (which they did). And there were a lot of comments about changing units "down the road" etc...
I think it is time for TL to start a "Reasonable wishlist"-thread for blizzard. Basically a list thread about units that are boring and should be changed (reasonably; unlike changes that blizzard won't make like pathing, selection, BW-units and complete removal/overhaul of core units)
Would absolutely love to see that. If we really want blizzard to change stuff we need a decent following for it. A collective and embraced list of reasonable changes would be really cool.
On October 04 2012 07:00 StreetWise wrote: Browder stated on the b.net forums they are open to changing WOL units, however they are looking at tweaking HOTS units first.
im glad for that clarification. the last statement was pretty brunt about not touching old units.
in regards to a previous post of mine, adding acid spores to the corruptor:
FYI Acid Spores was the Devourer attack from brood wars. Each attack placed 1 acid spore on the target which reduced the target attack speed, stackable upto 9 acid spores, iirc upto 12% reduction in dps.
The way SC2 is designed, corrupters are solely built to be a hard counter to massive units: colo, carrier, BC, BL, and now tempest. The corrupter fills the original role of the scourge in some respects by making it very hard for toss and terran to build these units. With these expensive units dying very quickly, corrupter have contributed to the stale evolution of the game.
But this is an opportunity to allow units like the carrier, BC, and now tempest, to add another sorrily needed dynamic to the game. A change in the DPS model of the corrupter is probably needed to balance the reward.
How acid spores will effect units and matchups (assuming reduced corrupter dps): Colossus: survives longer in an engagement from lowered corrupter dps, but ground attack speed is reduced Carrier: markedly increased effectiveness vZ because corrupter cannot kill as fast and acid spores have no effect on interceptors. Tempest: To note since I wrote this blizzard added +massive to tempest. Tempest are most likely built to counter BL, Tempest already has low DPS, forces zerg to make decisions regarding the number of corrupters they build/morph, for whether they want to reduce tempest effectiveness or add BLs to their army. BC: survives longer in an engagement from lowered corrupter dps, but overall damage effectiveness is reduced .
Even having acid spores as a spell (to replace/in addition to corruption) would be neat, effecting both ground and air targets, adding another level of micro to the unit. In this regard, returning energy to the corruptor?
i have no real solid maths on the above, just an idea.
On October 04 2012 07:00 StreetWise wrote: Browder stated on the b.net forums they are open to changing WOL units, however they are looking at tweaking HOTS units first.
FYI Acid Spores was the Devourer attack from brood wars. Each attack placed 1 acid spore on the target which reduced the target attack speed, stackable upto 9 acid spores, iirc upto 12% reduction in dps.
The way SC2 is designed, corrupters are solely built to be a hard counter to massive units: colo, carrier, BC, BL, and now tempest. The corrupter fills the original role of the scourge in some respects by making it very hard for toss and terran to build these units. With these expensive units dying very quickly, corrupter have contributed to the stale evolution of the game.
But this is an opportunity to allow units like the carrier, BC, and now tempest, to add another sorrily needed dynamic to the game. A change in the DPS model of the corrupter is probably needed to balance the reward.
How acid spores will effect units and matchups (assuming reduced corrupter dps): Colossus: survives longer in an engagement from lowered corrupter dps, but ground attack speed is reduced Carrier: markedly increased effectiveness vZ because corrupter cannot kill as fast and acid spores have no effect on interceptors. Tempest: To note since I wrote this blizzard added +massive to tempest. Tempest are most likely built to counter BL, Tempest already has low DPS, forces zerg to make decisions regarding the number of corrupters they build/morph, for whether they want to reduce tempest effectiveness or add BLs to their army. BC: survives longer in an engagement from lowered corrupter dps, but overall damage effectiveness is reduced .
Even having acid spores as a spell (to replace/in addition to corruption) would be neat, effecting both ground and air targets, adding another level of micro to the unit. In this regard, returning energy to the corruptor?
i have no real solid maths on the above, just an idea.
If I recall correctly, the biggest boon that acid spores gave was the fact that they acted as negative armor adjustments and were applied in a splash, even though the actual damage of the attack only hit one target. So with 9 spores a 3/3 Battlecruiser would actually sit at -3 armor, meaning each hit it would take would actually add three damage to it. This made a few devourers with a hand full of mutas (and hydras, of course) that much more deadly since each glave bounce would benefit from the armor reduction. Making the opposing units attack slightly slower was really just gravy on top of this.
As for cool new uses for the overseer, I've always wondered why zerg doesn't have some sort of cliff walking ability. What if... the overseer's energy could be used to simulate cliff walking? When the drop tech is researched, instead of the overseer being a transport, it could attach its tentacles to the same space worth of units that it would have been able to as an overlord (maybe excluding massive units?). Then it could hop units up cliffs until it's energy runs out, kinda of like cloak, only the energy would run out faster the more units are attached by the tentacles. In this way no one unit really gets the cliff walking ability, so you don't have to worry about infinite cliff crawling lings like in the HOTS single player previews from a while back. But Zerg then do have a bit more options when it comes to some of the more closed off spaces.
As for the corruptor, I've had a few ideas, but none that were quite as good (imo) as the overseer idea, so I'll leave it at that. I do think these units could use a little love, though.
On October 04 2012 07:00 StreetWise wrote: Browder stated on the b.net forums they are open to changing WOL units, however they are looking at tweaking HOTS units first.
nothing new. There were multiple posts from him about this already. It's just that people will cry until the patches hit the servers.
Stuff like the BC vs ground buff, carrier removal, Raven buff etc were already in the game and removed because blizzard wanted to force people into trying the new units in the WoL setup first, before they start going exclusively mass raven/BC (which they did). And there were a lot of comments about changing units "down the road" etc...
I think it is time for TL to start a "Reasonable wishlist"-thread for blizzard. Basically a list thread about units that are boring and should be changed (reasonably; unlike changes that blizzard won't make like pathing, selection, BW-units and complete removal/overhaul of core units)
Would absolutely love to see that. If we really want blizzard to change stuff we need a decent following for it. A collective and embraced list of reasonable changes would be really cool.
yeah. It wouldn't even need to be concrete changes. It could be just general suggestions like:
overseer: problems: it has no use outside of scouting and detection. contaminate is not useful and hard to balance with a 0 supply 50/50 unit suggestion: remove contaminate, add a different spell
and then add an example: 125energy spell: every ability of the targeted unit costs 50extra energy to be used. If the unit has no energy, it cannot use abilities. (duration 4sec)
I could go on for ages with such problems, suggestions, examples and I think that the community would stand united behind a lot of problems and suggestions, even if they would not like the examples. But in the end, concrete changes are what blizzard has to decide upon and which they have the better tools to. Our job is to rise their awareness that there is stuff to improve upon.
On October 04 2012 07:00 StreetWise wrote: Browder stated on the b.net forums they are open to changing WOL units, however they are looking at tweaking HOTS units first.
nothing new. There were multiple posts from him about this already. It's just that people will cry until the patches hit the servers.
Stuff like the BC vs ground buff, carrier removal, Raven buff etc were already in the game and removed because blizzard wanted to force people into trying the new units in the WoL setup first, before they start going exclusively mass raven/BC (which they did). And there were a lot of comments about changing units "down the road" etc...
I think it is time for TL to start a "Reasonable wishlist"-thread for blizzard. Basically a list thread about units that are boring and should be changed (reasonably; unlike changes that blizzard won't make like pathing, selection, BW-units and complete removal/overhaul of core units)
Would absolutely love to see that. If we really want blizzard to change stuff we need a decent following for it. A collective and embraced list of reasonable changes would be really cool.
Blizzard has been the most receptive towards SC2 changes I've seen in a long time. If we want to get some big changes in, this would be the time to rally behind this because it probably will not happen again until Legacy of the Void comes out.
On September 07 2012 09:40 red4ce wrote: I think the reason corruptors are so boring is because of their feeble attack animation. Compare the corruptor and the viking for example
The viking in fighter mode is essentially the same thing as a corruptor (long range air to air combat unit), yet viking battles are way cooler because of the little explosion after each attack. It also sounds like the deadly missile it's supposed to be. On the other hand the corruptor attack looks and sounds like my grandpa spitting out a cherry pit.
I agree. Corruptor just needs a new attack animation and perhaps ability redesign.
Overseer is fine as is. It's zergy, and its spells are nice and situationally useful.
They need to make the Overseer cost like 2 supply, while still giving you 8 supply, for them to make them interesting. Since otherwise, whatever "usefull spell" they give them, will be ridiculously overpowered.
The first ZvZ i ever played, i thought to myself, by golly i'm gonna harass the shit out of his Overlords. So i said, Mutalisks might be able to give me harass capability, while giving map control, some sense of army improvement, but hell, I'm gonna make Corruptors instead. They will kill Overlords better and if my opponent goes Mutas, it's autoloss for him. Well, turns out.. Mutas are better at killing Overlords than Corruptors Back when we all were newbies..
So i think maybe if they made Corruptors better at killing Overlords or something, there would be at least some other appliance for it. Then i remembered the Alpha ability, the Corruptors had, which was something along, when they kill units, they posses them. Well maybe to have this interesting dynamic, while being balanced, you could do some sort of requirement. Like, when you've damaged an air unit down to beneath 33% HP, then you can sacrifice your Corruptor and take over the air unit, with a cool animation of the Corruptor colliding into the Air Ship.
I admittedly did not read every post in here, so not sure if this was suggested or not;
What about giving the overlord the observer ability when lair hits (e.g.like the dropping creep ability is unlocked by lair) and then redesign the overseer? (And even call it something else that matches this new [overseer] unit's abilities.)
EDIT: Or even swap around the drop creep ability to the overseer, giving the overlord the observer ability as a passive upgrade once you hit lair and the need to spend gas to drop creep...
On October 04 2012 21:49 selaas wrote: EDIT: Or even swap around the drop creep ability to the overseer, giving the overlord the observer ability as a passive upgrade once you hit lair and the need to spend gas to drop creep...
That would work only if the Creep Spread ability would be as good as from the Creep Tower(Nydus Worm evolution that will be in the campaign), because people don't use Overlords for Creep Spread at all, they use Creep Tumors, since they cost only energy, and you don't risk to lose the Overlord.
I don't get the hate towards the Corruptor, it does what it's supposed to to and moreover has an ability, which can be pretty handy. It's basically a Roach in the air. No every unit needs to have something super special in my opinion.
On October 04 2012 22:04 CruelZeratul wrote: I don't get the hate towards the Corruptor, it does what it's supposed to to and moreover has an ability, which can be pretty handy. It's basically a Roach in the air. No every unit needs to have something super special in my opinion.
That "flying Roach" comparison is actually pretty good, it has solid speed, it is very tanky, and doesn't have good dps, but problem is that Roach is very very cheap, unlike Corruptor that is 150/100. I mean, Vikings are 150/75, and they are fragile because they have long range, but besides that, they can land and attack ground(which isn't so good, but it is decent for harassing), Corruptors can't do anything like that.
With Phoenixes and Vikings, you can always harass/support your army since they actually can take on ground targets, if the enemy doesn't have air units anymore, but if you are left with Corruptors, and you usually are left with masses of them, you have to sacrifice units to be able to morph them into Brood Lords, since Brood Lords cost additional supply. That in my opinion is bad design. They have to do something with its ability, change it somehow, so it actually matters and can change the outcome of the fight vs. ground units. Right now, you can use it vs. ground, but barely anyone is doing it, since the buff isn't actually that big, and you will use it only vs. Large units.
They are good for what they are made for, but that isn't really the point.
On October 04 2012 22:44 Ramiz1989 wrote: With Phoenixes and Vikings, you can always harass/support your army since they actually can take on ground targets, if the enemy doesn't have air units anymore, but if you are left with Corruptors, and you usually are left with masses of them, you have to sacrifice units to be able to morph them into Brood Lords, since Brood Lords cost additional supply
Not every unit has to be exciting to create a compelling game environment. The fact that corruptors are a required stepping stool for broods gives your opponent reasonable timings against that tech. It also opens up counter-attack opportunities for your opponent if you lose an engagement since corruptor -> brood reload time is so long. Their one-dimensionalness also balances out the fact that they can dominate the air war (when appropriately massed) by giving your opponent an opportunity to punish you if you over-commit.
On October 04 2012 22:50 Kamwah wrote: They already turn into BLs while being semi-useful in their pre-evolution state. I don't think they need changing tbh
Changing means changing their ability, the Corruption, not them as unit... And it is terrible design that you are forced to make units that are useless(In case enemy isn't making air units or that get countered by Corruptors) to be able to transform them into units that are useful.
On October 04 2012 22:50 Kamwah wrote: They already turn into BLs while being semi-useful in their pre-evolution state. I don't think they need changing tbh
Changing means changing their ability, the Corruption, not them as unit... And it is terrible design that you are forced to make units that are useless(In case enemy isn't making air units or that get countered by Corruptors) to be able to transform them into units that are useful.
It's not terrible design. If you only want Broodlords, then making corruptors and turning them into broodlords just means more clicks and more time, than spawning broodlords from eggs directly. Designwise this is completly fine.
What is not fine is that the corruptor has no "natural" micro potential (not faster than other air units, not higher ranged) and basically no ability micro. You use corruption (or you don't because the difference isn't gamedeciding most of the time) when you can and simply on the biggest units you can click on and the effect isn't influencial enough to really provoke any micro from corruptors (like you have to focus corrupted units, else they are inefficient) nor from their opponents (like you have to get out of range with corrupted units asap, or they will go down way to easily). As a Master Zerg, I can't even tell you when I used corruption the last time, as it is so insignificant to gameplay that I don't know if I use it at all these days, or if I do I don't remember it.
I agree that not every unit has to have a lot of depth outside of what it does, but I think it should at least have a little bit of it, especially if the unit is not interesting strategywise.
What is not fine is that the corruptor has no "natural" micro potential (not faster than other air units, not higher ranged) and basically no ability micro. You use corruption (or you don't because the difference isn't gamedeciding most of the time) when you can and simply on the biggest units you can click on and the effect isn't influencial enough to really provoke any micro from corruptors (like you have to focus corrupted units, else they are inefficient) nor from their opponents (like you have to get out of range with corrupted units asap, or they will go down way to easily). As a Master Zerg, I can't even tell you when I used corruption the last time, as it is so insignificant to gameplay that I don't know if I use it at all these days, or if I do I don't remember it.
I agree that not every unit has to have a lot of depth outside of what it does, but I think it should at least have a little bit of it, especially if the unit is not interesting strategywise.
Exactly my point. Corruption is right there with the Thor's 250mm cannon.
It's not terrible design. If you only want Broodlords, then making corruptors and turning them into broodlords just means more clicks and more time, than spawning broodlords from eggs directly. Designwise this is completly fine.
I don't think that Morphing is bad design, but Morphing from Corruptors, that most of the time won't be even used when you are rushing Brood Lords, is.
I don't like the comparison between the SC2 and BW, but for example, Mutalisks in BW are also used for harassment and aren't that good in direct engagements. In the late game, when you are left with Mutalisks, and when there is basically nothing you can do with them anynore, you change them into Guardians so you can use them for harassing expansions etc.
How currently SC2 works, you go for Mutalisks/Roaches, then you start making Corruptors just for the sake of Brood Lords, while you sacrifice Mutalisks/Roaches to free the supply for mass Infestors and Brood Lords. Sorry, that is bad design, at least it is in my eyes. But then again, that is because Corruptors aren't used for anything except for anti-air because they don't have anything that affects ground as good as Vikings or Phoenixes. So, if the Corruption is somehow changed, and allows Corruptors to be better units, the design wouldn't be half bad as it is now in my opinion.
Colossi have the same "boring" that the corrupter has. The reason they aren't changing corruptors is because they aren't changing colossus. At least if you make corruptors, you will eventually get broods anyway. if I make colossus and you make corrupters..then my colossus are just junk.
On October 05 2012 00:05 TheResidentEvil wrote: Colossi have the same "boring" that the corrupter has. The reason they aren't changing corruptors is because they aren't changing colossus. At least if you make corruptors, you will eventually get broods anyway. if I make colossus and you make corrupters..then my colossus are just junk.
That is like saying that if you make Mothership, my Infestors and Brood Lords are just junk... That is not how this game works. If you have Motership and Archons, I certainly can't just a-click with Corruptors. Even so, I've seen pro Protoss players go with the Colossi until the late late game.
What is not fine is that the corruptor has no "natural" micro potential (not faster than other air units, not higher ranged) and basically no ability micro. You use corruption (or you don't because the difference isn't gamedeciding most of the time) when you can and simply on the biggest units you can click on and the effect isn't influencial enough to really provoke any micro from corruptors (like you have to focus corrupted units, else they are inefficient) nor from their opponents (like you have to get out of range with corrupted units asap, or they will go down way to easily). As a Master Zerg, I can't even tell you when I used corruption the last time, as it is so insignificant to gameplay that I don't know if I use it at all these days, or if I do I don't remember it.
I agree that not every unit has to have a lot of depth outside of what it does, but I think it should at least have a little bit of it, especially if the unit is not interesting strategywise.
Exactly my point. Corruption is right there with the Thor's 250mm cannon.
It's not terrible design. If you only want Broodlords, then making corruptors and turning them into broodlords just means more clicks and more time, than spawning broodlords from eggs directly. Designwise this is completly fine.
I don't think that Morphing is bad design, but Morphing from Corruptors, that most of the time won't be even used when you are rushing Brood Lords, is.
I don't like the comparison between the SC2 and BW, but for example, Mutalisks in BW are also used for harassment and aren't that good in direct engagements. In the late game, when you are left with Mutalisks, and when there is basically nothing you can do with them anynore, you change them into Guardians so you can use them for harassing expansions etc.
How currently SC2 works, you go for Mutalisks/Roaches, then you start making Corruptors just for the sake of Brood Lords, while you sacrifice Mutalisks/Roaches to free the supply for mass Infestors and Brood Lords. Sorry, that is bad design, at least it is in my eyes. But then again, that is because Corruptors aren't used for anything except for anti-air because they don't have anything that affects ground as good as Vikings or Phoenixes. So, if the Corruption is somehow changed, and allows Corruptors to be better units, the design wouldn't be half bad as it is now in my opinion.
Well, I wouldn't say it's bad design. I rather think that it is really hard to find the right unit to morph BLs from. For example, if you put it on mutalisks, this would be really big buff for mutalisk play, as once mutas become less efficient, you just morph broodlords from them. With the "12muta BW-limit", this is way better than in SC2 with mass muta into mass BL or BL/muta. It would basically force the game to offer air-to-air counters to mutalisks, so that if you encounter mutas, you can also use the same units to encounter broodlords. And not only there would be the need for such units, P/T would be forced to build them against mutalisk play. (nerfing either Broods or Mutas being another option)
I don't no, but I think in terms of balancing mutalisks and corruptors and broodlords, it is at least easier to put broodlords on corruptors, though I agree that with the state the corruptor is in, it is still not a very interesting choice. I think it would be best if the groundsuperiority broodlord morphed from a flying unit, which already was mainly used for antiground combat purposes, not a harass unit like the mutalisk that forces turtle play (which the broodlord is good against) nor a flying unit that has not really a purpose outside of protecting broodlords, after you morphed them into broodlords.
On October 04 2012 22:03 Ramiz1989 wrote: That would work only if the Creep Spread ability would be as good as from the Creep Tower(Nydus Worm evolution that will be in the campaign), because people don't use Overlords for Creep Spread at all, they use Creep Tumors, since they cost only energy, and you don't risk to lose the Overlord.
If anything, Overseer would be used less.
Yeah that seems like a reasonable thing, the improved creep spreading that is. We would need some sort of incentive to use the new [overseer]. I guess the changeling isn't incentive enough. Swapping the creep drop ability was an example obviously, even a total remake of a morphed overlord of some sorts would be nice.
The only problem I can see surfacing immediately is the whole supply problem. It can't be an offensive unit as it basically cost 0 supply and even add to it. Unless you solve it with a cut down in supply added when morphing it (meaning you lose supply). But it would still be problematic and a bitch to balance I think...
On October 05 2012 00:05 TheResidentEvil wrote: Colossi have the same "boring" that the corrupter has. The reason they aren't changing corruptors is because they aren't changing colossus. At least if you make corruptors, you will eventually get broods anyway. if I make colossus and you make corrupters..then my colossus are just junk.
we don't know whether they change either. We will find out in a few weeks when they change the WoL units. And Corruptors aren't good enough to turn colossi into "junk". Vikings aren't good enough for that, and Corruptor vs Colossus is even worse, because you will always take stalkerfire, if you want to combat them. They are a healthy addition if Colossi are being used and they limit the amount of Colossi a Protoss can make, but in the end you need Broodlords to counter Colossusbased play outside of timingpushes.
Also it's a bad argument to say, X is boring, so Y should be boring as well. Colossi should be more microable (faster fire animation, faster turning rate) and be less powerful on a-move, similarily corruptors. HotS beta gives blizzard the option to change such things without messing with balance/gameplay too much. Just make it so that they are a little weaker on 1a and a little stronger when controlled.
On October 04 2012 23:59 Big J wrote: What is not fine is that the corruptor has no "natural" micro potential (not faster than other air units, not higher ranged) and basically no ability micro. You use corruption (or you don't because the difference isn't gamedeciding most of the time) when you can and simply on the biggest units you can click on and the effect isn't influencial enough to really provoke any micro from corruptors (like you have to focus corrupted units, else they are inefficient) nor from their opponents (like you have to get out of range with corrupted units asap, or they will go down way to easily). As a Master Zerg, I can't even tell you when I used corruption the last time, as it is so insignificant to gameplay that I don't know if I use it at all these days, or if I do I don't remember it.
I agree that not every unit has to have a lot of depth outside of what it does, but I think it should at least have a little bit of it, especially if the unit is not interesting strategywise.
So about the corruptor... Obviously just a brain fart, but: Give it Overseer's contaminate spell (with a massive cooldown/energy cost) and try to just do something else with the overlord and the whole observer problematique?
I feel that there could be something useful in there somewhere. Even a single target slow only (e.g. entangle, but for one unit) from the corruptor (or even from the overseer as a swap) ...?
Corrupters are flying castles of death and Overseers are free units. What more could you want? Lame, or boring? So what, they fill their roles and quite nicely I might add. Overseers fill their role greatly, especially with the Changeling. Corrupters are so difficult to take down.
I remember early WoL build where Corruptor was turning dead enemies into attacking units. That's why it was named Corruptor anyway. It's a shame Blizzard no longer tries to make this unit more enjoyable.
On October 05 2012 01:50 Indolent wrote: I remember early WoL build where Corruptor was turning dead enemies into attacking units. That's why it was named Corruptor anyway. It's a shame Blizzard no longer tries to make this unit more enjoyable.
Yes, for me, that was the best design, at least it was very interesting and cool, but I think that it would create a lot of mess... I mean, just think about the Infestors, Corruptors and Brood Lords, it would be a lot harder to deal against. No that you have tons of Infested Marines and Brood Lings, but now whenever your Viking dies, it turns into immobile Zerg turret that is flying. It would be free units galore(like it isn't now...) and it would be very hard to stop.
EPT![[image loading]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4440395098_d87444c110.jpg)
army, but they are extremely one dimensional unlike the Mutalisk which is multidimensional.
