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Reposting this from here, as I think it also pertains to this thread.
A major contributer of the current problems with Zerg (that show up mostly in ZvT) is the fact that, in order to get the mobility that Zerg had in BW, you need to spread creep. I see (amongst others) two huge strengths that mobility gives you:
1. The ability to have your army positions be less predictable.
2. The ability to retreat when you want to.
We can see that, due to the mechanics of creep, the first strength does not come into play until the late-game (assuming the other player doesn't kill the creep tumors). Early game, the creep acts like a huge beacon saying "HERE I AM, COME AND FIGHT ME." So simply put, the zerg wants to spread creep to become mobile, but cannot take advantage of it as much.
The ability to retreat properly is a huge strength, one which currently can only be used on creep. This a big problem too, and is (imo) one of the biggest contributors to 200/200 syndrome. Simply put, if they want to attack the opponent and be able to pull out, they either have to spread the creep right up to the other player's front door, or attack without creep and be unable to retreat. If the Zerg player wants to have creep at the opponent's base, it takes a long time to spread (and defend) the creep to the opponent, so you might as well get a max army while you do so. If you don't, you'll want as large an army as possible so that you minimize your chances of losing. Additionally, you'll want to stockpile larva so you can quickly make a new army.
A subtle consequence of these two problems is that they make the zerg army less able to react quickly, which is supposed to be their strength in SC2 (and is, to an extent). Specifically, say the zerg has been spreading creep and macroing, and they scout a Terran expo on the far side of the map. How do they react? You can't send your army, as your army is not as strong if they get caught off the creep in the middle of nowhere, and you could lose a battle, be unable to retreat, get your army killed, and lose to a 1a2a3a into your main (or, less drastically, have your creep spread lessened). Pretty much the only unit worth sending is speedlings, and hellions laugh at those. So, it becomes difficult to punish an expansion that you scout.
Having a creep carpet works counter to the design of the zerg (the game design, not lore design), at least in it's current form. Personally, I'd up the speed of all zerg units, remove speed bonus on creep, make the creep increase the HP regen of zerg units. While not precisely related, I'd love to let Zerg have more of an ability to keep the Terran player honest, so perhaps removing the armor value on Supply depots would make early pools more viable. But regardless, as a game designer, I view the creep as a tool which, on the surface, seems to work with the strengths of the zerg, but actaully only hinders it. I love the idea of it, but the current implementation is poor.
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Perhaps I'm being redundant, but I'd just like to strongly emphasize the point that creep CANNOT be required to give Zerg an even fight. I honestly don't think giving Zerg units infinite speed on creep would fix the fundamental problem in the mechanic (no don't bother responding to that, it's not serious): it's completely and totally passive and defensive.
I don't think the ability to permanently put unbuildable creep in your opponent's base is something anyone wants. But when you make an attack, you need to send your units towards the opponent's base, and thus there is not going to be creep there. This means you can never, ever attack with ground units or you will not have an even fight.
Zerg is, or at least I think people want it to be, heavily reliant on using very fast units that bring swift death to enemy units unless the enemy pools all or most of his units together into one army, sacrificing control of a larger area. I personally don't think the current Zerg unit pool is capable of being cost-effective at this job other than the Mutalisk simply due to attack statistics, the effects of unit balls with lack of Zerg splash/range, and costs, and the map pool is terrible for it too, but I digress. Anyway, creeping up the map gives a large enough advantage with vision and possibly moving crawlers to forward chokes that I'd do it even if creep gave no speed. But being scared to death of sending Hydralisks to kill a totally undefended expansion because they'll take a full minute or more to get there and back and cost so much is not something I like as a Zerg player.
If we don't have map control with ground units, but are reliant on extra bases to break even, how are we supposed to play? Never mind the problems where even getting our economy running is difficult because of how cost-ineffective early units are and how crawlers cannot be reactionary.
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Fast units all the time --> Zerg is nimble race.
Slow units except on defensive creep --> Zerg is macro race.
SC1 took the first option. SC2 took the second.
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On August 19 2010 08:59 Severedevil wrote:
Fast units all the time --> Zerg is nimble race.
Slow units except on defensive creep --> Zerg is macro race.
SC1 took the first option. SC2 took the second.
Except that it's kind of hard to out-macro your opponent when you can't punish them for expanding.
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i think creep is totally fine where it is right now, after a larva injection i put a tumor down and by the time i have my nat a quarter of the map is already taken over by creep giving me sight and giving me the "o shit" factor over my enemy. the reason why you feel the way you do about zerg unit speed is because your so used to seeing zerg units run along creep that you use that as the minimum.
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On August 19 2010 08:59 Severedevil wrote:
Fast units all the time --> Zerg is nimble race.
Slow units except on defensive creep --> Zerg is macro race.
SC1 took the first option. SC2 took the second.
There is no such thing as a macro race that cannot exert map control.
The creep mechanic as it stands is more of an albatross around the neck than anything for Zerg. Off-creep, their units are too slow to be considered mobile, except for zerglings. Compare this to Protoss and Terran which have remarkable unit compositions for getting excellent mobility almost anywhere on the map. On-creep, it is just enough for Zerg to be able to reasonably defend their map control. They have to get map control in the current design to be able compete with the other races, but they have a lot of difficulty defending without creep. Spreading creep only serves to equalize Zerg on the defensive instead of giving them an advantage, and the concept of creep guiding unit design has led to units that are ineffective at projecting threats against Zerg's opponents.
Is this the best mechanic to suit Zerg? There have been a few alternatives posed by the community. There is probably one suggestion for every user :p
Instead of speed bonus, give zerg ground faster speed by default and one of...
-Higher regen for Zerg units on creep
-Reclamation of minerals from units that die on creep
-Free nydus worms on creep
-Creep slows down enemy units
-Anything that gives Zerg a distinct homeground advantage!
How about moving a creep bonus to lair/hive tech and give it to Zerg as an endgame strength/threat instead of as a cage?
One other issue that I think is evident is that the spread of creep around a hatchery is too small to effectively defend mineral lines on some maps with queens. It literally makes Zerg defense harder than Protoss or Terran defense! What advantage does Zerg have with creep? Especially when they nerfed Queen speed off creep. It's like they want Zerg to play as passively as possible, to the point of breaking where the lightest and safest harassment can be a vicious blow.
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Zerg has already been balanced around the mechanics of creep. Its the same way Protoss build times are longer thanks to chrono boost and warp gate. Sure it feels like it is an unnecessary debuff, but if it were changed (making it so every thing builds as fast as if it was always chrono boosted) Protoss would be horribly over powered.
This is actually pretty good, instead of giving everyone a bonus automatically, it rewards the toss and zerg players that actively use their energy. The only problem is that terran doesnt have anything like this, so they get that "straight up bonus".
This will obviously seem like a stupid suggestion (and it basically is, just take it as an example), but if terran scvs mined slower, and mules were a bit more effective miners, it would be a lot more like the current state of zerg and toss. If they are active they are not punished, however if they are lackadaisical then they are punished.
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But they haven't been balanced. The mechanic of creep is fundamentally broken because balancing around creep renders zerg units unable to apply pressure. They are strong where there is creep, which is tautological as that is where they are in control in the first place.
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As hunch said, zerg is used to their movement speed on creep as a minimum, and feel helplessly crippled the second they get off creep. People have stopped seeing creep as a buff, and now think that creep just makes their speed normal. Off creep, yes, zerg is at a slight disadvantage. However they are still extremely capable of taking down terran and protoss armies. On creep zerg units ability to defend dramatically increases.
The whole game is balanced around this idea. Every zerg unit has a speed where they are cost effective against their respective counters off creep, and even better on creep. If zerg always moved as fast as they did on creep, they would also need several debuffs, because they would be too strong.
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Here's how I, as Zerg, hold off Terran timing pushes: Infestorling. It works really well because it can work against bio and mech.
I recomend building an extra hatch in ur main cause u need to mass a lot of lings - dont let ur minerals stack - spend them before the push or ur toast.
And this really actually works against Terran.
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On August 19 2010 13:01 BrightLegacy wrote:
As hunch said, zerg is used to their movement speed on creep as a minimum, and feel helplessly crippled the second they get off creep. People have stopped seeing creep as a buff, and now think that creep just makes their speed normal. Off creep, yes, zerg is at a slight disadvantage. However they are still extremely capable of taking down terran and protoss armies. On creep zerg units ability to defend dramatically increases.
The whole game is balanced around this idea. Every zerg unit has a speed where they are cost effective against their respective counters off creep, and even better on creep. If zerg always moved as fast as they did on creep, they would also need several debuffs, because they would be too strong.
But this is simply not true! You can proclaim it as loudly as you want on the forums, but in tournaments, this is not what is observed. It makes sense on paper, especially when you use cleverly crafted statements using words like "slight" to describe the disadvantage zerg units have off creep. It is crippling, not slight.
Also it is not fun, which is the main thrust of this thread. Even if you balance it, it is not fun. It is passive and frustrating.
A good set of games that happened just recently to look at is TLO v. Madfrog from today's tournaments. Madfrog valiantly fought off the harass he had no real answer to, but to no avail. When he tried to counter attack, there was no use, because zerg units cannot counterattack in the early game-- and for that matter neither in the mid game, nor in the late game.
Tomorrow there will be more examples. We will see dimaga fight against odds and the powerhouse Idra take on players with half his strength but even chances against the crippled zerg armies.
The only reason why I disagree with your theorycrafting is because of the games from excellent players- excellent terrans and zerg alike (PvZ is a different matter)- that demonstrate that the fundamental design of zerg is flawed. It is unsound as a basis for a race and it leads to boring and frustrating play even if it were balanced. But observation is all the evidence I need to make my opinion. I am curious how you formed yours.
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Zerg needs a better defense. They need to be able to counter banshee rushes, hellion rushes, thor rushes (one thor with a lot of SCVs repairing it - kinda rare, but ppl do it), and early marine marauder pushes with one build. ZvT is too specialized. they need to know what T is doing so they can counter it.
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On August 19 2010 13:11 blacktoss wrote:
But this is simply not true! You can proclaim it as loudly as you want on the forums, but in tournaments, this is not what is observed. It makes sense on paper, especially when you use cleverly crafted statements using words like "slight" to describe the disadvantage zerg units have off creep. It is crippling, not slight.
Also it is not fun, which is the main thrust of this thread. Even if you balance it, it is not fun. It is passive and frustrating.
A good set of games that happened just recently to look at is TLO v. Madfrog from today's tournaments. Madfrog valiantly fought off the harass he had no real answer to, but to no avail. When he tried to counter attack, there was no use, because zerg units cannot counterattack in the early game-- and for that matter neither in the mid game, nor in the late game.
Tomorrow there will be more examples. We will see dimaga fight against odds and the powerhouse Idra take on players with half his strength but even chances against the crippled zerg armies.
The only reason why I disagree with your theorycrafting is because of the games from excellent players- excellent terrans and zerg alike (PvZ is a different matter)- that demonstrate that the fundamental design of zerg is flawed. It is unsound as a basis for a race and it leads to boring and frustrating play even if it were balanced. But observation is all the evidence I need to make my opinion. I am curious how you formed yours.
As a low level random player, my opinion can only count for so much. I have always found that zerg was my favorite race, and I have the most wins as zerg. So from my point of view, every thing is fairly balanced. And I have watched TLO vs Madfrog, and although I agree with you in the fact that zerg is the worst race among the pros, TLO was clearly the better player among the two.
I dont think that zerg is even really that underpowered. ZvP is incredibly balanced, and I only really tip the hat in favor of protoss because more people play toss and it is more developed. I think the main problem is that Terran is overpowered, and it can exploit its strength the most against zerg.
Back on topic, I enjoy spreading creep (it is one of my favoirte aspects of zerg), and messing with the way creep works would only ruin PvZ. TvP on the other hand is not totally balanced yet, and TvZ is clearly in terrans favor. The real solution here is to tone down terran.
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On August 19 2010 12:28 blacktoss wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2010 08:59 Severedevil wrote:
Fast units all the time --> Zerg is nimble race.
Slow units except on defensive creep --> Zerg is macro race.
SC1 took the first option. SC2 took the second.
There is no such thing as a macro race that cannot exert map control. The creep mechanic as it stands is more of an albatross around the neck than anything for Zerg. Off-creep, their units are too slow to be considered mobile, except for zerglings. Compare this to Protoss and Terran which have remarkable unit compositions for getting excellent mobility almost anywhere on the map. On-creep, it is just enough for Zerg to be able to reasonably defend their map control. They have to get map control in the current design to be able compete with the other races, but they have a lot of difficulty defending without creep. Spreading creep only serves to equalize Zerg on the defensive instead of giving them an advantage, and the concept of creep guiding unit design has led to units that are ineffective at projecting threats against Zerg's opponents. Is this the best mechanic to suit Zerg? There have been a few alternatives posed by the community. There is probably one suggestion for every user :p Instead of speed bonus, give zerg ground faster speed by default and one of... -Higher regen for Zerg units on creep -Reclamation of minerals from units that die on creep -Free nydus worms on creep -Creep slows down enemy units -Anything that gives Zerg a distinct homeground advantage! How about moving a creep bonus to lair/hive tech and give it to Zerg as an endgame strength/threat instead of as a cage? One other issue that I think is evident is that the spread of creep around a hatchery is too small to effectively defend mineral lines on some maps with queens. It literally makes Zerg defense harder than Protoss or Terran defense! What advantage does Zerg have with creep? Especially when they nerfed Queen speed off creep. It's like they want Zerg to play as passively as possible, to the point of breaking where the lightest and safest harassment can be a vicious blow.
You should make a thread about this.
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I think such a thread would be redundant or too close to theorycraft to be worthwhile. :p
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On August 19 2010 13:08 Antares777 wrote:
Here's how I, as Zerg, hold off Terran timing pushes: Infestorling. It works really well because it can work against bio and mech.
I recomend building an extra hatch in ur main cause u need to mass a lot of lings - dont let ur minerals stack - spend them before the push or ur toast.
And this really actually works against Terran.
The only problem with this defense is the time between when you hit lair and the time when you get infestors with enough energy to cast.
I love this build too, but it has problems, in my experience, with say a marauder/hellion push that can get out a little bit before you can really get enough energy on infestors for FG. A marauder/hellion/thor push can also be deadly if NP isn't researched yet.
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Creep isn't that much of a crutch, drop creep with ovies. Ovies were sacrificed libereally in BW all the time.
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It's actually the opposite of a crutch. A crutch would be something that zerg players rely on in order to compensate for unsound strategy and mechanics. It is the opposite of a crutch. It is the glass load bearer that Blizzard built Zerg around.
Or at least that is how it seems.
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On August 19 2010 13:27 BrightLegacy wrote:
As a low level random player, my opinion can only count for so much. I have always found that zerg was my favorite race, and I have the most wins as zerg. So from my point of view, every thing is fairly balanced. And I have watched TLO vs Madfrog, and although I agree with you in the fact that zerg is the worst race among the pros, TLO was clearly the better player among the two.
I think you should reevaluate your position. I will make an analogy to explain my argument.
I play chess sometimes. Not a lot, and not very well. I think I have a reasonable chance to beat anyone who isn't a prodigy or plays in clubs or at tournaments. I can still remember just learning how to play when I was a child. Anyone I would play would easily beat me with simple, but fundamentally unsound strategies. As I developed, I became more aware of the threats posed against me, but I still had difficulty against such strategies because I was not skilled, and I did not understand what made one particular tactic or strategy strong and others completely unviable.
At this level, there are a plethora of chess openings that look good or even very strong, but ultimately are fatally flawed. A novice player will not have the acumen to spot those flaws or understand the theory that creates good strategy. But, with good instruction and watching grandmasters play, they can come to quickly understand what is a good strategy and what is not, even if they still have trouble formulating such understanding by themselves.
The same principle applies in Starcraft 2, and in any particularly complicated, nuanced game. As novices, you and I, we cannot judge for ourselves what is flawed and what is sound. We have poor vision on foot, but on the shoulders of progamers and teachers, we can see things we did not even know existed in the game. This is why I think replays and the commentaries of pros and knowledgeable casters is more valuable than just the experiences of an amateur alone.
My arguments are not made by theorycrafting. I am essentially transcribing what I see and what I hear on replays and analyses into a coherent thought. Maybe I am completely wrong. This is completely possible because I am not the one playing in tournaments or making these commentaries. I am listening and trying to learn. This is what I have learned. If I have learned it wrong, I would like to be corrected.
P.S. Oops, I double posted >.< how do I delete my extra post?
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On August 19 2010 13:44 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2010 13:08 Antares777 wrote:
Here's how I, as Zerg, hold off Terran timing pushes: Infestorling. It works really well because it can work against bio and mech.
I recomend building an extra hatch in ur main cause u need to mass a lot of lings - dont let ur minerals stack - spend them before the push or ur toast.
And this really actually works against Terran. The only problem with this defense is the time between when you hit lair and the time when you get infestors with enough energy to cast. I love this build too, but it has problems, in my experience, with say a marauder/hellion push that can get out a little bit before you can really get enough energy on infestors for FG. A marauder/hellion/thor push can also be deadly if NP isn't researched yet.
ive never been marauder/hellion rushed before. ive been marine/hellion rushed and marauder marine rushed, but never marauder/hellion. secondly, i have a shitload of lings in this build. i even have a 2nd hatch in my main, and can produce more lings if i get attack and can hold out against rushes.
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EPT
