EPT[D] Zerg creep: Killing the Zerg spirit? - Page 13
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Jadix
United States134 Posts
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kidcrash
United States623 Posts
On August 20 2010 02:15 EverEmber wrote: I think that it wouldn't be to hard for blizzard to reverse the way The Creep works. Instead of making your units move faster on the creep, make enemies move slower. This, to me, makes a whole lot more sence. Looking at it, it looks like it would be squishy and sticky, something that only the zerg know how to navigate. This would also increase the swarmy feeling because you could surround enemies that are trying to retreat. The problem with slowing down your entire enemies force is it would take away their micro which isn't really what we want to do. However, I agree that since the creep obviously will be on your side of the map, it would fit better as a defensive role. If they were to implement this, I'd like the see the mechanic as 50% speeding up your own units and 50% slowing down your opponents', so it wouldn't be too overwhelming in either sense, but you'd still be getting the best of both worlds (50% as compared to the current mechanics' effectiveness). Since the mechanic would be half slowing and half speed increasing, essentially it wouldn't be a direct nerf or buff but just a redesign and re-balancing. I think this would fit better with the fact that creep is going to be in a defensive position more often than it's in a offensive positioning obviously, since it's on your side of the map. A creep mechanic that strictly increases your units speed has too much emphasis on an offensive role which conflicts with where the creep usually is (your side of the map; defensive positioning). | ||
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Cotonou
42 Posts
Just make creep auto-spread. Plant a tumor, rally it to the enemy's nat, and have it automatically crawl in that direction. One less mechanic crying for the Zerg's attention. | ||
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blk.man.smart
United States20 Posts
On August 20 2010 03:40 Cotonou wrote: Creep is fine, in my opinion. The real problem is how much attention it takes to spread it vs how much attention non-zergs have to pay to remove it. A 15 minute investment can be wiped in a few minutes with a zealot and an observer. Just make creep auto-spread. Plant a tumor, rally it to the enemy's nat, and have it automatically crawl in that direction. One less mechanic crying for the Zerg's attention. I don't believe that is the right approach to solving the problem.The solution isn't to make it easier to spread, but rather make it harder to kill. If a zerg takes 10 minutes to build his creep it should take comparable time for the opponent to remove it. A mechanic that simply made creep tumors "harder" to kill as time passes would make creep a lot more interesting. That way the opponent has an incentive to prevent a zerg from spreading creep in the first place, as opposed to waiting until he is ready to push out to clear it. It also rewards zergs who try to spread creep earlier, since it will be more "secure". It would be a rather simple change to make once you figure out the best way to making creep tumors "harder" to kill. Maybe it builds up hp over time to some reasonable limit. Maybe it gets an armor bonus every few minutes. Having creep spread itself removes complexity from the game, while making it harder to kill would add more complexity and strategy, which is what you want in a RTS | ||
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eNyoron
United States170 Posts
I also think it would be interesting for drones to be able to morph into creep tumors. | ||
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Ecael
United States6703 Posts
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blk.man.smart
United States20 Posts
On August 20 2010 05:09 Ecael wrote: Umm to those suggesting for creep to be made harder to remove over time. You realize a lot of the complaints are already about how defensive Z is, right? Why are you making a suggestion that only places more reason for opponents to be offensive early on and force Z to defend and play the long, macro game? If the opponent is forced to go out earlier to kill creep it gives the zerg opportunities to be offensive, though not in the traditional case of direct attacks on the opponents base. But the zerg aren't a direct attack, smash your base with my units kind of race. That is terran. Zerg is offensive in a guerrilla warfare kind of way, picking off weakness in the opponent. If creep gets harder to remove over time then there are really 3 responses to take. 1) If the opponent turtles up then he has creep at his door that he can't clear off instantly allowing for more aggression by the zerg player. 2)If he moves out to clear creep with only a fraction of his force, he will be fighting on zerg's turf and can get easily surrounded and taken out by the zerg army. 3)If the opponent sends his whole army out his base, well then it is just a push/all-in and they are being more aggressive. The zerg can either be defensive and try to defend the push, or attempt a backstab. Right now option 1 doesn't happen, because creep would take several minutes to reach a base and is cleared very quickly. Option 2 doesn't happen because all it takes is a couple marines or zealots to clear creep quickly, so there is no risk in doing it. Pretty much option 3 is what happens at some point in the game and the zerg gets stomped. Of course this is not the end all solution. But if the change is combined with other minor changes like increasing base speed and decreasing creep bonus, and improved early game for zerg, it can have a larger impact on the match-up in general. | ||
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blk.man.smart
United States20 Posts
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Ecael
United States6703 Posts
Well, so let's say that 1 isn't viable at all, that leaves us 2 and 3. With creep getting harder to kill, 2 would seem viable, except not. Your opponent isn't going to be pushing to kill all of your creep, he'll deal with the ones most threatening to him, to the edge of the creep spread and consequently easy to kill. The problems Z suffer from now isn't fixed, you still have 3 as the most likely situation like you said. However, what's the point of mixing in a creep removal change to other changes like increasing base speed/decreasing creep bonus and an improved early game for Z? Like, balance wise, it is much likely that we'd see one of these implemented then a bunch at once, and making creep harder to remove just feels like it is at the very bottom of priority list. Also to elaborate a bit more on why making creep harder to kill would open up the options I mentioned above, it will simply give the zerg more time to react. If you notice your opponent is trying to take out your creep, you will have time to access the situation and decide the appropriate response. Right now tumors are so weak, they can clear a large chunk before a zerg player can even react to prevent it. That won't be true if the difficulty of creep removal is directly related to how long the tumor is there. Again, T and P won't need to (and won't) clear all creep. At the moment, they'll clear the outer fringes, and then along with a big push murder the rest coming up. The former won't be affected by a change like that and the latter won't be a huge deal breaker. | ||
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Thoreezhea1
United States532 Posts
Then again, we would be faced with a zerg vs zerg problem, would the enemy zerg be slowed down, does it have to be allied, or what? It could be a chemical recognition thing, where chemicals coating hostile zerg trigger small amounts of slime and triggers tiny muscles that contract to pull the enemy away, any protoss and terran would be recognized as threats. (c'mon, when will there be terrans helping toss helping zerg in the game universe?) But then we would be faced with the problem of queens and crawlers, if enemy units are slowed down, then it would take a century to get the crawlers and queens from one side of the hatchery to the next. If you simply sped up the move ment of queens and crwlers, they would be confused with frontline units, you would have overlords dropping creep, queens, and drones, the queens would plant tumors, the drones would take root and start attacking, the queens adding backup and transfusing th crawlers, the nyduses would popup and pour out infestors, launching terrans and MCing the more powerful units. Would you want that? No. But the Koreans would, but THEIR zerg is ALREADY op. Zerg is broken, but this is | ||
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Roniii
United States289 Posts
On August 17 2010 15:59 ahwala wrote: Yes. Zerg is broken in so many ways that it's impossible to fix, well at least until HotS, which is my last hope for SC2. hahaha, there hasnt even been 1 balance patch yet. Have a little faith in Blizzard! I am sure they will not let us down. | ||
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Melancholia
United States717 Posts
On August 19 2010 23:34 driftme wrote: Ok... so... you want a free instant and unlimited transport to the enemy's base? Please. Right now there's a risk to attempting a nydus "drop", which is good. Creating a drop situation with no risk is just stupid. There would still be a build time, it would either be lower or there would be less cost. And this would only be if they let you creep up their base with an overlord first. Who are you playing against that you think people are confused when you burrow? I thought they got rid of copper league. People aren't omniscient, so long as you don't try to burrow once they already have detection or within sight of them they can't know for certain where you are.This is even more ridiculous than the free nydus worm idea. Really? Undetectable units? So you basically have invulnerable roaches, especially when you factor in the +regen thats part of your creep idea. All these ideas are pretty inane. I'll be glad when bad zerg players stop coming up with retarded plans to make them better. That probably wont happen though. Right now you can see moving burrowed units even without detection, I'd get rid of that. Also, stop being an asshole, it makes your already feeble points even weaker. | ||
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driftme
United States360 Posts
On August 20 2010 03:40 Cotonou wrote: Creep is fine, in my opinion. The real problem is how much attention it takes to spread it vs how much attention non-zergs have to pay to remove it. A 15 minute investment can be wiped in a few minutes with a zealot and an observer. Just make creep auto-spread. Plant a tumor, rally it to the enemy's nat, and have it automatically crawl in that direction. One less mechanic crying for the Zerg's attention. You're not sitting there for 15 min watching the creep though. Micro-wise, its harder to kill the tumors than it is to place em =] | ||
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blk.man.smart
United States20 Posts
On August 20 2010 05:51 Ecael wrote: Except the argument is that Zerg's offensive capabilities are stunted off creep. What weaknesses are there for you to exploit if Zerg is really suffering off creep? If guerrilla warfare is hard before, a change to how hard to kill creep won't affect that. Well, so let's say that 1 isn't viable at all, that leaves us 2 and 3. With creep getting harder to kill, 2 would seem viable, except not. Your opponent isn't going to be pushing to kill all of your creep, he'll deal with the ones most threatening to him, to the edge of the creep spread and consequently easy to kill. The problems Z suffer from now isn't fixed, you still have 3 as the most likely situation like you said. However, what's the point of mixing in a creep removal change to other changes like increasing base speed/decreasing creep bonus and an improved early game for Z? Like, balance wise, it is much likely that we'd see one of these implemented then a bunch at once, and making creep harder to remove just feels like it is at the very bottom of priority list. That won't be true if the difficulty of creep removal is directly related to how long the tumor is there. Again, T and P won't need to (and won't) clear all creep. At the moment, they'll clear the outer fringes, and then along with a big push murder the rest coming up. The former won't be affected by a change like that and the latter won't be a huge deal breaker. First I want to say you make several good points. This is an interesting debate but let me see if I can answer some of your concerns. What I like about this rather simple change is that it won't dramatically impact late game encounters. A max army should be able to one shot tumors. That is what max armies do, kill stuff fast. Late games are much less of a problem for zerg than early-mid game, so any change so aim to benefit zerg in that phase without impacting the more balanced late game. What the change could impact however are earlier pushes. How? There are two cases. Case one the opponent is pushing and decides not to kill the tumors. Then he is fighting on creep and zerg has the advantage (unless you believe creep doesn't give any advantage). Case two is the opponent takes the time to clear the creep before engaging an army. In that case having tougher creep tumors, that couldn't be taken out in one shot would delay the push. Basically you are able to trade the tumor for time, and even 5-10 seconds could mean the difference between getting that next wave of units, or moving your crawlers into the right position. Right now, no smart player would opt not to kill tumors because they are cleared out instantly with a scan and a-move command. However, if it took another 3 or 4 volleys to kill a tumor then the attacker has a choice to make, while presently there really isn't one. In regards to mixing it with other changes, I'm of the opinion as few changes need to be made. I believe small changes that add choice will go a lot further towards balancing the game than big which can have unforeseen consequences. Maybe its because I'm a programmer and know how what appear to be simple changes can have terrible affects on a large complex system like SC2. Tougher tumors is a small change. Giving creep less of a speed bonus is a small change. I'm more advocating small changes than any idea I put forth myself. | ||
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
Maybe also faster creepspreading and receding. | ||
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Nearsite00
United States31 Posts
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
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Sqq
Norway2023 Posts
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TheRealPaciFist
United States1049 Posts
On August 20 2010 03:26 kidcrash wrote: The problem with slowing down your entire enemies force is it would take away their micro which isn't really what we want to do. However, I agree that since the creep obviously will be on your side of the map, it would fit better as a defensive role. If they were to implement this, I'd like the see the mechanic as 50% speeding up your own units and 50% slowing down your opponents', so it wouldn't be too overwhelming in either sense, but you'd still be getting the best of both worlds (50% as compared to the current mechanics' effectiveness). Since the mechanic would be half slowing and half speed increasing, essentially it wouldn't be a direct nerf or buff but just a redesign and re-balancing. I think this would fit better with the fact that creep is going to be in a defensive position more often than it's in a offensive positioning obviously, since it's on your side of the map. A creep mechanic that strictly increases your units speed has too much emphasis on an offensive role which conflicts with where the creep usually is (your side of the map; defensive positioning). How about this... ...let's call the amount that creep currently increase speed X. What if zerg units gained no speed bonus on creep, but all of them become X/2 faster than they currently are off-creep. Then, make creep slow down enemies by X/2. This would help out Zerg early aggression (X/2 boost) and defense (X/2 slow), and it might reduce the incentive to spread creep (X/2 advantage instead of X), but I think there's plenty incentive already (map control!). Also, this would be less likely to inadvertently imbalance matchups than other solutions like hp regen on creep, because it's based in the same mechanics | ||
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Cyber_Cheese
Australia3615 Posts
If the opponent is forced to go out earlier to kill creep it gives the zerg opportunities to be offensive, though not in the traditional case of direct attacks on the opponents base. But the zerg aren't a direct attack, smash your base with my units kind of race. That is terran. Zerg is offensive in a guerrilla warfare kind of way, picking off weakness in the opponent. reapers hellions and banshees, but no, zergs the guerrilla one zerg definitely are the base smashers, thats why theyr so reliant on macro as for slowing down enemies on creep, theyr already slow enough, to make it slower would kill the games flow more | ||
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