At one point people thought that Nydus worm was going to be reinvigorated/buffed for HotS multiplayer, then people heard that it would be campaign-only; but now that HotS is released, they aren't even in HotS! As far as I know the model in that video just seems to appear for a boss and I think also a 'neutral' creep in evolution mission. At least they used the model for SOMETHING, but isn't it kinda disappointing Blizzard didn't do anything with the Nydus worm for HotS?
I'll go off-topic a bit here by stating a bit of a lamenting rant about why I'd rather have a different change —like nydus worm change— than the swarm host. Personally I wasn't ever much of a fan of the Swarm host. Zerg doesn't really need tank units when they already have zerglings and roaches, and another ranged attacker isn't that useful when they have hydralisks and roaches (and broodlords), and they don't really need a unit-spawning siege unit when they have the Brood Lord. Aside from that, locusts —while obviously useful— have issues where they don't work well as siege units when enemies have units that can regenerate and/or units that deal lots of damage. All protoss units have shields which regenerate, all terran units can be repaired or healed easily, and roaches can regenerate easily with burrow, making locusts very limited in their siege use if the opponent micros/repairs. Units that were already frequently used and very strong against zerg (Planetary fortress, bunker, siege tank, colossus) do excellent against the locusts and make such units even more standard.
The current state nydus worm is in also overlaps with something— overlords with ventral sacs. While one might think that it's a reason to not work more on the the nydus worm, if the nydus worm mechanics were changed enough it would make the two more distinct. Adding attacking nydus worms or creep paths (but not necessarily those options) are some ways of freshening things up and making them more useful and diverse.
I don't even know if this topic is worth discussing though, since obviously HotS is out and Blizzard isn't going to make any more big changes.
I think you summed it up in your last line. It is unfortunately not worth discussing because this will never happen, at least not until LotV. Even then, I don't foresee a huge nydus change. They're just too situational (which I think would be cool if they weren't, but no one uses them for a reason I feel).
Shooting nydus worm could be pretty OP and hard to balance, I mean how do you justify the cost of something that can pop up anywhere and tank dmg while the rest of your army does dmg. Creep worm is pretty OP because creep is already hard enough to clear simply because it slowly disapates.
Zerg has already has insane utility, and these kind of changes would be, quite frankly, ridiculous; I believe Blizzard brought up these "cool" things in the early concept stage of HotS, but they didn't make it into multiplayer for practical reasons like the one listed above.
Nydus is already ridiculous as is but only a handful of zergs use them creatively. It does not need a change. And drops do not make nydus redundant, it makes nydus even stronger...
we already have spinecrawlers that already do a bunch of damage without costing supply. and if these things are units they're just really ridiculous units that would be extremely difficult to deal with :x
The Nydus worm (the one with the "Creep Tower" and the one that hits structures) is in the editor.
Just place "Greater Nydus Worm" you can build the Creep Tower, the regular Nydus (which has cargo), and the one that attacks structures.
The Creep Tower takes 10 seconds to build and has the ability to make a long highway of creep in one direction (that lasts as long as the Creep Tower is present).
Edit - NVM, didn't know the video already showed it (bah, youtube changing things again and making it hard for me to view videos >.<).
Edit 2 - Just figured out it was because Youtube automatically entered me in the html5 trial. Opted out and phew... everyone is back to normal and working!
Have you guys seen the movie Tremors? Those kind of worms that you can move around underground and come up and stun stuff, that would be cool to have for zerg.
At one point people thought that Nydus worm was going to be reinvigorated/buffed for HotS multiplayer, then people heard that it would be campaign-only; but now that HotS is released, they aren't even in HotS!
I hate reading false info. People claimed it was "Single player only" because in early beta there were the worms models in the Map Editor, but not when playing Multiplayer.
IN FACT : The 2 new Worms were planned for MULTI-PLAYER ONLY, RIGHT FROM THE START.
Zerg Zerg are the most stable and largely unchanged since BlizzCon. The swarm host is still serving well as a zerg siege unit that can burrow and pressure the enemy from a distance (in a very zergy way), but the viper has some slightly different new abilities. In addition to Abduct, the viper also has the ability to blind biological units in an area of effect. Blinded units have their range reduced to 1. This is obviously effective against terran infantry as well as zerg roach and hydra armies. The viper can also regain energy by feeding off of minerals. This locks up the mineral patch and prevents it from being harvested, so you want to use this ability away from your base.
We have decided to keep the overseer and make the viper a pure caster. We will be taking a look at the overseer to see what we can do to make his abilities more interesting.
We are also trying some additional abilities on the nydus network to allow you to spawn different types of nydus worms. The most interesting worms have been a worm that can spew creep across several screens to create a zerg assault highway, as well as a worm that attacks only enemy buildings, meant to be used as a ground-based zerg base raider.
Dustin Browder said on US Beta forum (deleted) that it didn't make it because they couldn't balance it (which is a lame answer, they didn't even let the players play with it)
Free 1button creep spread and a teleportable building attacker that can't be stopped by anti-drop static D would be balanced by....
For the record, the reason I made the topic was to mention how I didn't see them in the campaign despite it being planned for it. It would have been fun to use them. That doesn't make much of a thread though so I made it more interesting.
On April 03 2013 08:45 Xapti wrote: At one point people thought that Nydus worm was going to be reinvigorated/buffed for HotS multiplayer, then people heard that it would be campaign-only; but now that HotS is released, they aren't even in HotS!
I hate reading false info. People claimed it was "Single player only" because in early beta there were the worms models in the Map Editor, but not when playing Multiplayer.
I wouldn't call what I said false info at all. I just said people thought nydus worm was going to appear in multiplayer, not that Blizzard said we'd see them there. The thoughts were expressed in the thread I linked.
Why don't they just make it like BW. Both sides need to be built on creep but it only costs minerals and unloads much quicker. Then it won't be a just gimmicky all-in tech but a way to link ur bases together.
For the people saying this looks imbalanced: I doubt blizzard even when experimenting with the nydus worm intended for the worm to spawn that quickly. For all you know, the nydus worm structure needed to be upgraded which meant tier 2.5. Obviously being able to spawn so many worms instantly with just vision would be OP. But I could see this being viable if it came out as slowly as nydus worm and can be killed by 2 workers while spawning to make it harder to harass with.
A lot of the numbers would need to be adjusted in terms of cost, hp and dmg but I always felt that when blizzard first introduced the concept, it was a great idea. Nydus worm is pretty much the forgotten building for zerg. People have been saying since WoL beta that zerg will learn to use the building with time but it really hasent happened.
Wow, those look really awesome. Hopefully these are implemented in LotV, I was thinking maybe Blizz would be adding some new unique building for all the races in LotV anyway.
Maybe Nydus should unload units much quicker only when the area around it is already full of creep. I don't know how they'd implement it, though. The base movement speed bonus zerg gains from creep is just not enough to unloadm, say a bunch of zerglings. The Nydus's radius that it currently gets to cover with creep over time could be measured, and if it's already fully covered it could get a 100% unload speed bonus, when half of it is already covered by overlords, then a 50% bonus or something like that maybe. I don't see Nydus currently being worth the resources and the risk involved of using it and getting busted so quickly.
On April 03 2013 09:08 Existor wrote: They're staying with current nydus only because Swarm Hosts + Nydus can be a new thing in ZvX games
This right here^^^^ I won't divulge the strategy, but ZvP there's a pretty much unbeatable OP strat here. Ive never lost with it, and I have a friend in NA GM that says he's never lost with it. Even incontrol recognizes him now, and once talked about how he's doing really cool things with the nydus that other zergs just don't even think to try.
I also wanna add that in a ZvT i built 5 swarm hosts and set them on my opponents planetary third while i messed around with my army vs. his army in front of his natural, and they laid waste to the planetary.
Swarm host + nydus worm is an amazing thing to behold. Extremely fun to play with too. Nyduses don't always have to try to be sneaked into the enemy main to get utility out of it.
I honestly think the nydus worm is in a fine place as is. That's always the one thing that no one really ever truly explored its potential throughout 3 years of SC2.
The main problem, and only one I believe, is how units are unloaded. I ultralisk comes out at the same rate as zerglings, this isn't right. Units should be unloaded by their size and the order they were put in.
So if one ultralisk can comes out at a time, so could two swarm host, or 4 roaches/hydras, or 4 banelings, or 9 zerglings. While I don't think this will effect the late game as much, I can see more mid/early games experimenting with nydus play if they now have the potential to load out units faster.
I don't know if there's a place for nydus worm in starcraft 2. Creep gives enormous mobility while units having to come out one by one is pretty worthless. Nydus didn't come into play in bw but for defensive purposes while you had the occasional troll offensive nydus.
On April 03 2013 12:50 avilo wrote: Anyone that's played command and conquer knows why these nydus worms will never, i repeat, never make it into SC2.
Ya.. and neither will force fields, warp-in, and flying dark templar (banshees).
Seeing how Wraiths were in BW I don't see how this is a big deal.
If you got 8 workers kills with a wraith in BW you had an incompetent opponent or got really lucky over the course of 3 minutes for that tiny pew pew to do its magic.
People joked banshees automatically got 10 kills if you built them for a while there.
On April 03 2013 12:50 avilo wrote: Anyone that's played command and conquer knows why these nydus worms will never, i repeat, never make it into SC2.
Ya.. and neither will force fields, warp-in, and flying dark templar (banshees).
You obviously have no clue what i'm talking about. In command and conquer base defenses were instantly built and instantly popped up from the ground and could be placed anywhere you had a building radius.
What ended up happening was static base defense became so strong you could literally attack people with your buildings and turrets which made the game incredibly stupid and "easy."
This nydus worm is obviously not in the game for very similar reasons - it's impossible and not ever going to be worth balancing a unit you can essentially instantly have on the map that attacks on it's own.
Not going to happen. All of the things you listed on the other hand are no where near as bad in comparison and deal with creating actual units within the game, not static buildings.
Since you obviously had no fucking clue what i'm talking about but decided to inanely respond anyways...the best way i can describe it would be if you could attack your opponent with supply depots that are cheap and able to compete with the military units within the game cost for cost.
On April 03 2013 22:34 Zygno wrote: I play Terran and think the Nydus worm isn't very good and would deserve a buff. Not sure how to change it though~
While they make it buildable anywhere, it can't be buffed. It's too strong vs slow armies if you can't kill it in your main before it sets off.
If it was on creep only and a defensive thing they could give it a HP buff or something, but I still think defensive it's good already it's just nobody uses them. You as zerg basically have really great map vision if you're creep spread is good so you can get units in and out of it before they arrive at your base.
On April 03 2013 12:50 avilo wrote: Anyone that's played command and conquer knows why these nydus worms will never, i repeat, never make it into SC2.
Ya.. and neither will force fields, warp-in, and flying dark templar (banshees).
You obviously have no clue what i'm talking about. In command and conquer base defenses were instantly built and instantly popped up from the ground and could be placed anywhere you had a building radius.
What ended up happening was static base defense became so strong you could literally attack people with your buildings and turrets which made the game incredibly stupid and "easy."
This nydus worm is obviously not in the game for very similar reasons - it's impossible and not ever going to be worth balancing a unit you can essentially instantly have on the map that attacks on it's own.
Not going to happen. All of the things you listed on the other hand are no where near as bad in comparison and deal with creating actual units within the game, not static buildings.
Since you obviously had no fucking clue what i'm talking about but decided to inanely respond anyways...the best way i can describe it would be if you could attack your opponent with supply depots that are cheap and able to compete with the military units within the game cost for cost.
Take my response with a grain of salt, because I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about.
However, who says that these fictitious supply depots that are cheap could compete with the military units in the game cost for cost? You made that up to support your argument.
That may have been the case in C&C, but it wouldn't have to be in sc2.
I'm not saying that these kinds of nydus canals even need to be in the game, but to say that they would be impossible to balance when something like force fields exist is... interesting.
The new nydus options would be too strong. I do think the original nydus can get a slight buff in controls. For example you should be able to set it to auto unload so you can actually use it as a nydus canal. Ie, you just put your hives' waypoints to the nydus and then new units automatically unload at the nydus spot. At the moment nydus has some nice niche usage as a surprise tactic but I see it being used way too few as just a way to transport units quickly. For example I'd love to see nydus just used to swarm locusts into a base (leaving the hosts at your end of the nydus) or just using them to reinforce quicker to different bases.
The problem with changing the nydus worm is that the game ended up pretty balanced, and that's their goal. I'd love the nydus worm, corruptors and corruption and contaminate to be made more fun, but there's no incentive for them to do it. They'd need to throw balance out the window and start from the ground up, and as much as I'd literally pay for that, it won't change now. I wish the first 2/3 of the beta was based on "what is fun" and then balance from there.
I think what they should do is make Nydus Worms spawn instantly on creep. This makes them a strong defensive idea (to defend outlying bases from speedvacs, par exemple) and they would open up new offensive strategies (Such as reinforcing a la Offensive Pylons or laying down creep from a Lair-Overlord to do a sneak attack).
Ultimately, this would strengthen the zerg quite a bit, so I imagine it would upset the balance of the game. (It is hard to say yet what races need buffs) But it would make the Nydus Worm quite useful.
Can you imagine how imbalanced those nyduses show in the video would be in multiplayer mode? I still feel that the current Nydus is relatively undiscovered. I can picture a lot of tricks that could be used with it by advanced players. A few ideas off the top of my head.
I wonder if it's possible to proxy mine a base with nydus and drones? And picture a player with beastly multi tasking in the mid or late game using constant pressure through multiple nydus attacks all over the map. I also imagine there are some strong timing attacks where you use the nydus to negate travel distance, though I'm pretty sure I've seen Effort use a build like that to great effect before so I guess that isn't completely undiscovered.
On April 03 2013 23:37 AnomalySC2 wrote: Can you imagine how imbalanced those nyduses would be in multiplayer mode? I still feel that the current Nydus is relatively undiscovered. I can picture a lot of tricks that could be used with it by advanced players. A few ideas off the top of my head.
I wonder if it's possible to proxy mine a base with nydus worms? And picture a player with beastly multi tasking in the mid or late game using constant pressure through multiple nydus attacks all over the map.
You can mine a base, but you have to constantly tell them unload on the correct side according to whether they have minerals or not for every single trip, as well as unloading them to the hatchery and then telling them to return to the nydus (so not really feasible). Late game pressure would be awesome in theory, but they die so fast and use so much gas, in addition to not being able to be cancelled of course. I would love to see nydus play over running to just end a game though, it's such a Zergy concept I wish could work.
Edit:
On April 03 2013 23:37 AnomalySC2 wrote: I also imagine there are some strong timing attacks where you use the nydus to negate travel distance, though I'm pretty sure I've seen Effort use a build like that to great effect before so I guess that isn't completely undiscovered.
On April 03 2013 22:34 Zygno wrote: I play Terran and think the Nydus worm isn't very good and would deserve a buff. Not sure how to change it though~
While they make it buildable anywhere, it can't be buffed. It's too strong vs slow armies if you can't kill it in your main before it sets off.
If it was on creep only and a defensive thing they could give it a HP buff or something, but I still think defensive it's good already it's just nobody uses them. You as zerg basically have really great map vision if you're creep spread is good so you can get units in and out of it before they arrive at your base.
I really disagrees with the "too strong against slow armies" part. I can't see how something is too strong if you can destroy it with 10 Workers before it emerges from the ground... I also think that Nydus is in "ok" place, and I think that they are really underused, but I don't see them as too strong vs. anything.
The Nydus Worm isn't used very often in competitive play and it definitely needs a buff if it were to be used a little more. Much like the Warp Prism that wasn't used by most professionals until it got the 100/100 buff, I think that Blizzard should go in that direction with the nydus. As a Protoss player I never fear any Nydus play after the early game because it will rarely happen, unless the zerg player is experimenting with swarm host/nydus play.
Some pro's have put the nydus into good use in Hots, such as Spanishiwa using it to siege a Protoss going FFE with queens and swarm hosts which he moved across the map using the nydus network. Unless it will be buffed in future patches, I don't see how the current state of Nydus Worm usage will change soon
On April 03 2013 12:50 avilo wrote: Anyone that's played command and conquer knows why these nydus worms will never, i repeat, never make it into SC2.
Ya.. and neither will force fields, warp-in, and flying dark templar (banshees).
You obviously have no clue what i'm talking about. In command and conquer base defenses were instantly built and instantly popped up from the ground and could be placed anywhere you had a building radius.
What ended up happening was static base defense became so strong you could literally attack people with your buildings and turrets which made the game incredibly stupid and "easy."
This nydus worm is obviously not in the game for very similar reasons - it's impossible and not ever going to be worth balancing a unit you can essentially instantly have on the map that attacks on it's own.
Not going to happen. All of the things you listed on the other hand are no where near as bad in comparison and deal with creating actual units within the game, not static buildings.
Since you obviously had no fucking clue what i'm talking about but decided to inanely respond anyways...the best way i can describe it would be if you could attack your opponent with supply depots that are cheap and able to compete with the military units within the game cost for cost.
Maybe next time you explain what you are talking about to begin with instead of being enigmatic and waiting to jump on the first person who responds.
On April 03 2013 21:58 Toss.Pro- wrote: Maybe a much quicker unload time when built on creep rather than off of creep. This would boast it's defensive uses without making it imbalanced.
I like this idea. Then again.. Do zerg really Need the nydus worm? I mean.. they seem to be doing quite fine with their sick creepspread
As the most mobile race, and the race which can most easily repopulate high tech units, it simply cannot have an army which can wipe out the other races.
Supply free units in WOL made the game imbalanced. Infested Terran, Broodlings, and Sunken walls were the reason. Blizzard couldn't give Zerg another.
In my opinion spine crawlers and spore crawlers should be able to be transported via Nydus Worm: 1) Very Zergish style of infesting the map with creep (and buildings) 2) Spines and Spores wouldn't be too affected by slow unloading animation on Nydus 3) Higher reward for costly Nydus, with the probability of being detected still the same. 4) Such a good synergy with Swarm Host contain attempts (like a Brood War Lurker contain... ) 5) Nydus already spreads the creep around itself while popping out 6) Not imbalanced, probably, as the time to borrow spines and spores (spines especially) is long enough in my opinion
On April 04 2013 01:26 -_- wrote: Zerg cannot have the strongest 200/200 army
As the most mobile race, and the race which can most easily repopulate high tech units, it simply cannot have an army which can wipe out the other races.
Supply free units in WOL made the game imbalanced. Infested Terran, Broodlings, and Sunken walls were the reason. Blizzard couldn't give Zerg another.
On April 03 2013 09:58 Csong wrote: Those look pretty imbalanced and I dont think theres any way of making something like that balanced in sc2
yeah, if the dmg is too high, they're op as hell and if it's to little noone uses them. And especially against Terran with no static anti ground def, it would be just a joke...
On April 04 2013 01:26 -_- wrote: Zerg cannot have the strongest 200/200 army
As the most mobile race, and the race which can most easily repopulate high tech units, it simply cannot have an army which can wipe out the other races.
Supply free units in WOL made the game imbalanced. Infested Terran, Broodlings, and Sunken walls were the reason. Blizzard couldn't give Zerg another.
Nydus worms are definitely under utilized. I remember watching a game during WoL beta where the zerg abused the mobility of nydus worms. He built a worm near a terran expansion, unloads a bunch of ultras, snipes it then run away into the worm as the army arrives thus he only lost 100/100 while doing so. During all that another worm appears at another corner of the map and the ultras snipe another base. So, 2 bases dead for 200 min 200 gas. I'll take that trade any day.
Seriously why are people so stuck in the mindset of 'im gonna spawn a worm right in the centre of his base and I hope he doesn't see it'. NOT seeing the worm offers arguably greater psychological impact to the opponent. So no you don't have to sneak an overlord into the back of his main, spawn a worm and hope he doesn't see it. All you have to do is build 2 nydus networks and simultaneously spawn 2 worms in front of his natural and, say 5th base(preferrably out of sight). When the army arrives to clean up one of the worms you unload the other one and attack that expansion, spawn another worm at that expansion and when the enemy army arrives you jump back into that worm. 300/300 for a base, still a pretty nice trade for me. Meanwhile you can spawn even more worms around the map just to keep him confused and attack at the first sign of weakness.
People are just too caught up with their deathball mentality and see worms as a way to increase the mobility of an army, when it also provides a constant and real threat to an opponent with poor army positioning. It's not a cheesy tactic to get your army somewhere, but a solid way to get your opponent else where.
So I guess 300/300 for one base is more than enough of a reason to NOT buff nydus worms. People just need to think outside the box and be bold enough to experiment.
I sincerely see no other reason than "we want something different" for not having it in SC2. This led them to scrap off great ideas from BW and reinvent them in some butchered version which will have/had to be taken out later on...
Nydus worms are definitely under utilized. I remember watching a game during WoL beta where the zerg abused the mobility of nydus worms. He built a worm near a terran expansion, unloads a bunch of ultras, snipes it then run away into the worm as the army arrives thus he only lost 100/100 while doing so. During all that another worm appears at another corner of the map and the ultras snipe another base. So, 2 bases dead for 200 min 200 gas. I'll take that trade any day.
Seriously why are people so stuck in the mindset of 'im gonna spawn a worm right in the centre of his base and I hope he doesn't see it'. NOT seeing the worm offers arguably greater psychological impact to the opponent. So no you don't have to sneak an overlord into the back of his main, spawn a worm and hope he doesn't see it. All you have to do is build 2 nydus networks and simultaneously spawn 2 worms in front of his natural and, say 5th base(preferrably out of sight). When the army arrives to clean up one of the worms you unload the other one and attack that expansion, spawn another worm at that expansion and when the enemy army arrives you jump back into that worm. 300/300 for a base, still a pretty nice trade for me. Meanwhile you can spawn even more worms around the map just to keep him confused and attack at the first sign of weakness.
People are just too caught up with their deathball mentality and see worms as a way to increase the mobility of an army, when it also provides a constant and real threat to an opponent with poor army positioning. It's not a cheesy tactic to get your army somewhere, but a solid way to get your opponent else where.
So I guess 300/300 for one base is more than enough of a reason to NOT buff nydus worms. People just need to think outside the box and be bold enough to experiment.
First, just a minor correction. 2 nydus networks and 3 worms is 600/700 not 300/300.
Second, I think the reason people think of them as harassment is because otherwise you're still trying to break the front, but then you're spending your time loading units and then unloading one unit at a time. It is literally faster and far cheaper to just use Overlords or to move there usually. Additionally every time you're just spawning a worm around the map to keep him confused your army is spending more time loading and unloading and you're spending the money on transport which in all likelihood isn't benefiting you at all. That's before even considering that you have to load them units in, in the correct order if you want to be able to load anything more than 1 fastest unit (Zergling) at a time. They're just not a threat, and certainly not a risk worth investing in.
Using them as a proxy pylon can be fun (provided that it's not faster for the units to run to the spot again) but it's not the wrong mentality that's keeping Zerg from using Nydus more. Conceptually it's the coolest weapon in the arsenal...it just doesn't work out that way.
Aperently Protos are perfectly fine with using pylons to warp in for multi-pronged attacks or reinforcements, despite the fact that they cost minerals and can be found and destroyed, an you can only warp in however many warpgates you have.
Also, you do not have to use mostly zerling armies, do you?
On April 03 2013 09:26 HeeroFX wrote: Shooting nydus worm could be pretty OP and hard to balance, I mean how do you justify the cost of something that can pop up anywhere and tank dmg while the rest of your army does dmg. Creep worm is pretty OP because creep is already hard enough to clear simply because it slowly disapates.
Yes, how do you balance every Gateway unit from Protoss?
On April 04 2013 03:11 naastyOne wrote: Aperently Protos are perfectly fine with using pylons to warp in for multi-pronged attacks or reinforcements, despite the fact that they cost minerals and can be found and destroyed, an you can only warp in however many warpgates you have.
Also, you do not have to use mostly zerling armies, do you?
Are you really suggesting you see no difference between a 100 mineral structure which allows as many units to spawn as you can build at it (which doesn't warn the enemy ahead of time) and a 100/100 structure with half the health which requires a 150/200 structure to build, and allows you to get units one at a time after they first run from their spawn location to another building, which you then have to tell to unload every time a new unit makes it in to the network before you regain the use of your units? Oh yeah, and there's a chance that you can lose everything you put in it.
Nydus worms are definitely under utilized. I remember watching a game during WoL beta where the zerg abused the mobility of nydus worms. He built a worm near a terran expansion, unloads a bunch of ultras, snipes it then run away into the worm as the army arrives thus he only lost 100/100 while doing so. During all that another worm appears at another corner of the map and the ultras snipe another base. So, 2 bases dead for 200 min 200 gas. I'll take that trade any day.
Seriously why are people so stuck in the mindset of 'im gonna spawn a worm right in the centre of his base and I hope he doesn't see it'. NOT seeing the worm offers arguably greater psychological impact to the opponent. So no you don't have to sneak an overlord into the back of his main, spawn a worm and hope he doesn't see it. All you have to do is build 2 nydus networks and simultaneously spawn 2 worms in front of his natural and, say 5th base(preferrably out of sight). When the army arrives to clean up one of the worms you unload the other one and attack that expansion, spawn another worm at that expansion and when the enemy army arrives you jump back into that worm. 300/300 for a base, still a pretty nice trade for me. Meanwhile you can spawn even more worms around the map just to keep him confused and attack at the first sign of weakness.
People are just too caught up with their deathball mentality and see worms as a way to increase the mobility of an army, when it also provides a constant and real threat to an opponent with poor army positioning. It's not a cheesy tactic to get your army somewhere, but a solid way to get your opponent else where.
So I guess 300/300 for one base is more than enough of a reason to NOT buff nydus worms. People just need to think outside the box and be bold enough to experiment.
It is literally faster and far cheaper to just use Overlords or to move there usually. . . That's before even considering that you have to load them units in, in the correct order if you want to be able to load anything more than 1 fastest unit (Zergling) at a time. They're just not a threat, and certainly not a risk worth investing in.
Again I would like to stress the point of nydus worms is trying to get your opponent where you want him to be. You aren't supposed to unload your worm when there are units around because you are supposed to get his units away from one of the worms, the one that you'll unload if he fails to identify it's location(which he should because having the worm out of sight is better than letting him see it: if he doesnt know where the worm is he won't know where you'll attack). It's about pulling your enemy away and being able to retreat quickly which is something overlords can't do. They don't have ignite afterburners and cannot guarantee a safe retreat, and why risk your overlords getting killed in a fake drop that tries to pull units out of position when a nydus worm can do the trick? It's not even a fake attack, basically you have units in two places at once before unloading(schrodinger's cat anyone XD) so he must defend where he thinks is important
yes you can only unload units one by one, but then you don't have to face his army directly anyway(his army's out of position+you have a ticket home), so you can simply load in enough stuff to take out a base instead of having the whole army inside to avoid such nydus congestion. Dont think in terms of deathballs.
Additionally every time you're just spawning a worm around the map to keep him confused your army is spending more time loading and unloading and you're spending the money on transport which in all likelihood isn't benefiting you at all. . . Using them as a proxy pylon can be fun (provided that it's not faster for the units to run to the spot again) but it's not the wrong mentality that's keeping Zerg from using Nydus more.
See this is the wrong mentality I was talking about: nydus worms are more than transports that helps you reinforce your army(creep highways already do that quite nicely anyway), they pull your enemy out of position so you can attack anywhere you want, and if being able to pull your enemy around the map like a puppet isn't a benefit I don't know what is.
About the 600/700 thing, remember the investment into nydus network isn't a one off but one that can be used throughout the late game. It's not a one time 'tactic', but a strategy that can repeatedly threaten the opponent. And even if it's a one off, 600/700 for all workers+base still looks like a decent trade to me.
I think the problem with what you're saying though Uh-Oh is that the worms are so easily killed that there is no comittment to be made. You're alerted when the threat exists, and by the point you could afford to threaten multiple areas of the map at once, the game it usually so far through that production and defences are going to be protecting those areas enough anyway.
Also why not run by? It's cheaper, not much slower on most maps (sometimes even faster) and can achieve the same thing for the most part. There's no good composition to use this with in the current meta game (except swarm host play) where the alternative of not gambling on really fragile expensive worms is worse.
It's also worth mentioning I think, there's no way that if the nydus worm was powerful enough to be worth gambling on, we wouldn't see the best in the world use it.
Edit: Somehow this post feels more aggressive in tone than I expected. It's not intended to be. I do wish the nydus could be used for clever positional play. When I first picked up SC2 it was the thing I most wanted to be able to make work, but it just doesn't seem to work in practice.
I think maybe nydus worm would be a lot more viable like this:
If you already have creep where you are placing a nydus worm , it finished the worm at 2 x the speed , or has 2x health or something ?
And they should be able to release lings quicker FFS , right now it's only viable if using roach or hydra or ultra , big units that ain't so bad being popped out 1 by 1.
I love the concept of nydus worm , but 95% of the time it gets caught and stopped so easy.
Then again , watch TLO's stream , amazing how he uses nydus worm.
On April 03 2013 22:34 Zygno wrote: I play Terran and think the Nydus worm isn't very good and would deserve a buff. Not sure how to change it though~
While they make it buildable anywhere, it can't be buffed. It's too strong vs slow armies if you can't kill it in your main before it sets off.
If it was on creep only and a defensive thing they could give it a HP buff or something, but I still think defensive it's good already it's just nobody uses them. You as zerg basically have really great map vision if you're creep spread is good so you can get units in and out of it before they arrive at your base.
I really disagrees with the "too strong against slow armies" part. I can't see how something is too strong if you can destroy it with 10 Workers before it emerges from the ground... I also think that Nydus is in "ok" place, and I think that they are really underused, but I don't see them as too strong vs. anything.
Nonono that's what I'm saying. If they got a huge health buff you wouldn't be able to stop them building.
On April 04 2013 03:35 Iyerbeth wrote: I think the problem with what you're saying though Uh-Oh is that the worms are so easily killed that there is no comittment to be made. You're alerted when the threat exists, and by the point you could afford to threaten multiple areas of the map at once, the game it usually so far through that production and defences are going to be protecting those areas enough anyway.
Also why not run by? It's cheaper, not much slower on most maps (sometimes even faster) and can achieve the same thing for the most part. There's no good composition to use this with in the current meta game (except swarm host play) where the alternative of not gambling on really fragile expensive worms is worse.
It's also worth mentioning I think, there's no way that if the nydus worm was powerful enough to be worth gambling on, we wouldn't see the best in the world use it.
The thing is when a worm gets killed you know where the army is, which means you know where an army isn't defending and can therefore proceed to attack that undefended location.
The thing about runbys is that they are small and can only do limited damage. Say you do a 12 roach runby into the main base, how much are you gonna kill before the enemy kills you? A couple of add ons or pylons, maybe one production structure but that's pushing it. Anything too big is just too much of an investment into a suicide attack that has no guarantee to do enough damage to justify such a manoeuvre.
With nydus worms, you can: 1 Draw the enemy army away with no units at all 2 Deploy a sizable force far away from the army that can do a lot of damage in a very short time 3 Retreat safely with minimal losses 4 Strike at another location again before the army is finished dealing with the previous attack to do even more damage while still losing very little units
A runby is a risky move that has no guarantee it will do enough damage, with the units involved in a suicide mission. In comparison, nydus worms, being able to do a lot more damage and without a suicidal nature is a far superior option.
Good composition for this kind of play? Anything bigger than roaches will do nicely(so you can unload your strike force sooner). In the lategame I reckon hydra/ultra will be the best in these kinds of scenarios as they can be unloaded relatively quickly and has insane DPS output.
Reason why no pros used nydus worms? BL infestor is a bad comp for nydus worms, and then there's of course the deathball mentality. Similar to how mass recall is underused in WoL because people are so obsessed with winning a deathball battle with stinky vortex toilets when mass recall can be used in a similar fashion as well(and mind you we have seen pros, notably kiwikaki, use this to great effect vs machine and stephano)
On April 04 2013 03:57 uh-oh wrote: With nydus worms, you can: 1 Draw the enemy army away with no units at all 2 Deploy a sizable force far away from the army that can do a lot of damage in a very short time 3 Retreat safely with minimal losses 4 Strike at another location again before the army is finished dealing with the previous attack to do even more damage while still losing very little units
I hadn't considered your first point, but wouldn't that only be the case if they were made aware of it's location (and thus able to kill it with anything)?
The rest of your points though, I fear, are somewhat undone by the .5 unloading time for units and the .25 second loading for each unit. Trying to imagine a group of units that could be a threat to anything late game that wouldn't take longer to get to a worm, load up, unload and then move in than would take to simply run to the point is quite challenging. And with running to the spot, you don't pay the extra cost.
Trying to load in with the .25 seconds per unit also makes retreating kinda expensive unless you had enough time to retreat that you could have just left anyway.
Your fourth ponit is the way I've always seen it attempt to be used in the past (when not simply used as an 'I hope he doesn't see this in his main' ability) and the reward just never seems worth the risk. If we're still just talking a small group of units, bane drops or Mutas just seem better.
Edit: I always feel like it's a more expensive, non flying warp prism that takes longer to use and alerts your enemy while being completely stationary. I was so excited when Blizz said they would look in to making it more usable/fun.
On April 04 2013 04:08 Iyerbeth wrote: I hadn't considered your first point, but wouldn't that only be the case if they were made aware of it's location (and thus able to kill it with anything)?
Simple, deliberately bait the enemy into seeing the fake worm by spreading creep with overlords, perhaps even unloading enough units so he has to pull his army away. He has to pull his army because he doesnt know what's inside the worm and he can't risk having 5 ultralisk coming out and killing that puny force he sent to clean it up.
The rest of your points though, I fear, are somehwat undone by the .5 unloading time for units and the .25 second loading for each unit. Trying to imagine a group of units that could be a threat to anything late game that wouldn't take longer to get to a worm, load up, unload and then move in than would take to simply run to the point is quite challenging. And with running to the spot, you don't pay the extra cost. Trying to load in with the .25 seconds per unit also makes retreating kinda expensive unless you had enough time to retreat that you could have just left anyway.
the group of units you are looking for is ultralisks, perhaps with hydra support, they dont have to be in large numbers because like I said, they do insane DPS. Im no zerg but Im sure they will do MUCH more damage then a flock of mutas or baneling drops. With the relatively small number of ultras/hydras you need to do damage and the fact the the enemy army is out of position, the load in/unload time shouldn't be too much of a problem. Also you always want to leave at the very last second in order to maximize the time that you are doing damage, and nydus worms are your best bet at that.
Oh and you can spawn more than one worm to speed up the loading process if you really want to get a big blob of stuff in one place.
Your fourth ponit is the way I've always seen it attempt to be used in the past (when not simply used as an 'I hope he doesn't see this in his main' ability) and the reward just never seems worth the risk. If we're still just talking a small group of units, bane drops or Mutas just seem better.
the risk is actually VERY small, either you do sick damage to your enemy, or you lose a nydus worm for the price of one mutalisk and a tiny amount of units. spawning more worms minimizes the risk even further, in that even if one worm is killed you can still retreat. This style is also more effective in the late game when the enemy has more bases to defend, and I don't think investing in occasional baneling drops or late game muta switch is as good in that situation, let alone being unable to do more damage than ultra/hydra can.
On April 03 2013 09:42 Cinim wrote: It's quite wrong to say that it's too early for big changes because hots is released, there was some quite major changes early in wol
Of course there's going to be plenty of balance changes in the future but we're not going to see any units removed or new units introduced until the next expansion. I believe this'll also apply to no changes in how current units work (the most drastic perhaps been the removal of a research-able upgrade) so for the next couple of years we're stuck with the Nydus as it is.
Those creep high-way and building attacking Nydus' do actually sound good on paper but look incredibly gimmicky. I do hope the Nydus is re-invented in some way in the future though, it's a great concept that's I believe is been very under-used at the moment. It just needs something to coax people into using it more and subsequently realising they're actually good (just like with Warp prisms and Phoenix in WoL).
I think the current Nydus Wurm is neither too strong nor too weak, however it is heavily underused, having other utilities such as a creep spreader and perhaps the Nydus attacker(though not so creative,) would make getting Nydus Canal more attractive. It's kinda like when Hallucination wasn't free, it wasn't necessarily bad, it's just that you don't alway know when it would come to great use, but now that we have it always, we suddenly start to do a lot of creative shit with them. Same can be said, if there were new options for Nydus. And the cannot be balanced part, really annoys me, because that's obviously bullcrap. You can adjust builld time, damage, cost, life and even vision. I think the creep spreader should definitely just spew the creep and then it should immediately start to dissipate like normal creep, then that would be moderately balanced. The Nydus Attacker I don't think is so creative, so I don't wanna talk about that one, but think about a Dune Wurm-like Wurm that you place at one place and it's invisible like a mine and then when units walk over it, it jumps up and eats everything, something like that would be really cool!
Just make nydus worm cloaked until he gets built, but with clear sign that he is there. Opponent would need detection to destroy it, but would be aware of the worm.
On April 04 2013 04:08 Iyerbeth wrote: I hadn't considered your first point, but wouldn't that only be the case if they were made aware of it's location (and thus able to kill it with anything)?
Simple, deliberately bait the enemy into seeing the fake worm by spreading creep with overlords, perhaps even unloading enough units so he has to pull his army away. He has to pull his army because he doesnt know what's inside the worm and he can't risk having 5 ultralisk coming out and killing that puny force he sent to clean it up.
The rest of your points though, I fear, are somehwat undone by the .5 unloading time for units and the .25 second loading for each unit. Trying to imagine a group of units that could be a threat to anything late game that wouldn't take longer to get to a worm, load up, unload and then move in than would take to simply run to the point is quite challenging. And with running to the spot, you don't pay the extra cost. Trying to load in with the .25 seconds per unit also makes retreating kinda expensive unless you had enough time to retreat that you could have just left anyway.
the group of units you are looking for is ultralisks, perhaps with hydra support, they dont have to be in large numbers because like I said, they do insane DPS. Im no zerg but Im sure they will do MUCH more damage then a flock of mutas or baneling drops. With the relatively small number of ultras/hydras you need to do damage and the fact the the enemy army is out of position, the load in/unload time shouldn't be too much of a problem. Also you always want to leave at the very last second in order to maximize the time that you are doing damage, and nydus worms are your best bet at that.
Oh and you can spawn more than one worm to speed up the loading process if you really want to get a big blob of stuff in one place.
Your fourth ponit is the way I've always seen it attempt to be used in the past (when not simply used as an 'I hope he doesn't see this in his main' ability) and the reward just never seems worth the risk. If we're still just talking a small group of units, bane drops or Mutas just seem better.
the risk is actually VERY small, either you do sick damage to your enemy, or you lose a nydus worm for the price of one mutalisk and a tiny amount of units. spawning more worms minimizes the risk even further, in that even if one worm is killed you can still retreat. This style is also more effective in the late game when the enemy has more bases to defend, and I don't think investing in occasional baneling drops or late game muta switch is as good in that situation, let alone being unable to do more damage than ultra/hydra can.
Assuming everything you've suggested is right for a moment (I do think that cost for cost, mutas will always be the better option for instance) there still seem to be a few problems. First, no one under masters would be able to do that stuff well enough for the investment, so it would at least remain unused to 98% of the player base for the most part.
Secondly though, we're still left at the point where zerg are investing in a technically challenging build when the standard and known works at least almost as well, if not better. Any other option is already capable of winning games without such an APM increase requirement, and the investment can actually fight back. It feels like an investment of effort that is being tried to fit in just because it's not used and not for any actually good reason. Of all the options to put a threat somewhere on the map, the nydus worm appears to be simultaneously the hardest to use and the worst.
A Nydus buff is needed but if I was going to guess I'd say it won't come until LotV. As we've seen Blizzard is fine with saving key fixes to units/tech (hydra speed, ultra dmg, burrow/ov speed on hatch tech) for the expansion and calling it an "upgrade". All of these fixes were called for by the players in WoL BETA when zerg sorely needed a buff (after roach nerf), and yet Blizzard delied deployment for the expansion to make it feel like more had changed.
Expect LotV to include many fixes we have been calling for all along and maybe one or two new adequate units. Coming Soon.
On April 04 2013 05:24 ObeseHydra wrote: They could do one of the following: - reduce gas cost for the ending; - faster unload tim; - Give it armor so it can't be so easily killed by workers.
Armor definitely. I've always wanted that for a long time. As it is now, if a player discovers a nydus worm at 50% completion, he can pull 9 workers from like 10 squares away and still have enough time to kill the worm with his workers.
Unload time could mainly just use improvement for smaller units like zerglings; a proportional-to transport size unload delay mechanism would be nice, but I don't think it's huge.
On April 03 2013 12:50 avilo wrote: Anyone that's played command and conquer knows why these nydus worms will never, i repeat, never make it into SC2.
Ya.. and neither will force fields, warp-in, and flying dark templar (banshees).
You obviously have no clue what i'm talking about. In command and conquer base defenses were instantly built and instantly popped up from the ground and could be placed anywhere you had a building radius.
What ended up happening was static base defense became so strong you could literally attack people with your buildings and turrets which made the game incredibly stupid and "easy."
This nydus worm is obviously not in the game for very similar reasons - it's impossible and not ever going to be worth balancing a unit you can essentially instantly have on the map that attacks on it's own.
I didn't want this thread to be a discussion about the exact worm shown in the video appearing in multiplayer (but rather why it wasn't in the campaign, or what features you would like for a nydus worm in multiplayer), but while on that topic: it does not matter how powerful a certain unit is; it can always be balanced with other factors such as build time and cost. The worm wouldn't even necessarily be powerful; if they were to cost 150/150 and shoot like a marine there'd be very little utility to them. Obviously C&C was just designed bad by having a combination of two bad things: defensive structures being too effective and/or too much range, and being to easy to build. You talk about the OPness of building something out of the blue, but don't consider things like autoturrets or command centers floating around before morphing into PFs, which are not an issue despite being strong and useful.
On April 03 2013 12:50 avilo wrote: Anyone that's played command and conquer knows why these nydus worms will never, i repeat, never make it into SC2.
Ya.. and neither will force fields, warp-in, and flying dark templar (banshees).
You obviously haveusly have no clue what i'm talking about. In command and conquer base defenses were instantly built and instantly popped up from the ground and could be placed anywhere you had a building radius.
What ended up happening was static base defense became so strong you could literally attack people with your buildings and turrets which made the game incredibly stupid and "easy."
This nyduiously not in the game for very similar reasons - it's impossible and not ever going to be worth balancing a unit you can essentially instantly have on the map that attacks on it's own.
Not going to happen. All of the things you listed on the other hand are no where near as bad in comparison and deal with creating actual units within the game, not static buildings.
Since you obviously had no fuckingly had no fucking clue what i'm talking about but decided to inanely respond anyways...the best way iwould be if you could attack your opponent with supply depots that are cheap and able to compete with the military units within the game cost for cost.
I've played all of the C&C games except C&C 3. Using base-defense buildings offensively is one of the stupidest strategies possible on ladder. First, like you said, you can only build buildings in range of your MCV (i.e. your starting "command center"). While it's true that you could move it, no one would ever do that because you'd need it to be stationary to construct your macro buildings.
Furthermore, unlike SC 2, in C&C you can only build one building at a time. Therefore, even if you got your slow moving MCV close to the enemy base without getting it destroyed, you'd only be able to be one base-defense at a time. Furthermore, the base-defense buildings while strong, are not strong enough to win the game. Your opponent can just building their own base-defense building in their own base to counter your offensive base-defense buildings. By the way, in Red Alert 2, two Soviet Rhino tanks can tank on a Soviet Tesla tower. So I really don't see how defensive buildings are OP unless you're talking about the French cannon. However, that simply proves that stats are more important than the concept itself.
You're idea is laughable at best. Have you played C&C on ladder?
Furthermore, in WC3 Humans had instantly deployable scout towers and Elfs had walking towers. They weren't OP. OPness is just a matter of stats.
just gonna mention i made that video these nydus didn't build instantly. likely they would have had a build time like the normal nydus. i simply made them build instantly for demonstration purposes.
On April 04 2013 02:49 fabiano wrote: They should just bring back the BW Nydus Canal.
I sincerely see no other reason than "we want something different" for not having it in SC2. This led them to scrap off great ideas from BW and reinvent them in some butchered version which will have/had to be taken out later on...
Don't reinvent the wheel.
Current Nydus can act like BW's nydus... The only difference is that SC2's nydus cost gas quite heavily and can spawn outside of creep, which I would say it has more utlity than BW's one. The main problem is that it cost too much gas, which can be tweaked.
In my opinion, decrease the gas cost but slightly increase build time for worm might be a better choice since it would not be so all-in if use and could be used more in defense (i.e. connect bases). At the same time, it would not make offensive use be too powerful, as the enemy would have more time to spot the worm coming up.
One thing to consider though is that the pathing system in SC2 and BW are very different. I think one of the reasons pros don't really use Nydus is that Zerg ground units are already very fast. In three bases situation, it might be faster to move from main base to natural, or from natural to third faster by move command than using Nydus, since Nydus has to load/unload unit one at a time.
In truth one of the few things that REALLY excited me about HotS is the proposed changes to the Nydus Worm. I was always a huge fan of the unit, I think it's great blend of a terrific concept and great visual design which thematically fits the race incredibly well. And the level of neglect for it is surprising - after initially (and probably rather unfairly) being deemed "OP as hell" in WoL beta it was nerfed and fell into complete obscurity, so much that even the lowest leagues find it inefficient. It was so obscure that I've had opponents on ladder being actually happy during or after losing to a good Nydus move - that worm was so rare getting surprised by it had become an actual event, same as actually seeing a Carrier (and to a lesser extent the Nuke).
So actually hearing that Nydus Worm is getting addressed in HotS was great news, and seeing gameplay videos was even more exciting. Few weeks later and the HotS stopped being the "Zerg" expansion and became a "let's try to balance this game around this new Widow Mine thingie before the deadline" expansion, with the Nydus yet again being forgotten almost completely.
I'm still hoping that either some sort of change is still being planned (but everything is hush-hush until they feel safe to introduce it without disturbing the balance too strongly) or that an actually effective strategy using the current Nydus will surface (like combining it with Swarm Host which people keep mentioning which I think still needs time to see whether ot actually is great or just a gimmick - remember that brief time when "Nydus mining" was deemed the best thing since sliced bread). However I'm not being too optimistic here, and the best bet seems to be waiting another 3+ years and hoping that LotV would give more love to Zerg than HotS did.
On April 03 2013 09:18 nomyx wrote: Blizzard said that the ideas for nydus weren't good enough and zerg already had enough stuff at tier 2 (better hydras, better mutas, swarm hosts)
whats funny is that this turned out to be false. hydras are still meh units, mutas are about the same. terran have widow mines to deal with them now. swarm hosts are also meh units.
there was no reason to not put them in game and atleast TEST them in public and remove it if it didnt work like with warhounds. i dont get why it never went to beta at all.
The video seems like it was put up trying to point out how imba it would have been. Just because it looks SO IMBA.
Moreover, I don't know where you're getting this conception that Swarm Hosts aren't powerful, especially when you assume that Locusts aren't good against P because Protoss units have shields. Right now, the metagame of the 2 or 3 base SH timing is AMAZINGLY powerful.
I think people should try to use nydus not as a tool to "doom worm" yet he enemies main, but rather as a tool to move units to bases quickly or a quick reinforcement tool.
Can someone please enlighten me how does the Swarm Host/Nydus synergy work?
Because I just realized the Locusts cannot enter the Nydus. So the only thing I see the Nydus allowing me is.. getting those Swarm Hosts to some location more quickly. Which is the same as using it for any other unit, which in turn has by general acknowledgement across all leagues has been proven to be a rather unattractive option.
On April 04 2013 02:49 fabiano wrote: They should just bring back the BW Nydus Canal.
I sincerely see no other reason than "we want something different" for not having it in SC2. This led them to scrap off great ideas from BW and reinvent them in some butchered version which will have/had to be taken out later on...
Don't reinvent the wheel.
Current Nydus can act like BW's nydus... The only difference is that SC2's nydus cost gas quite heavily and can spawn outside of creep, which I would say it has more utlity than BW's one. The main problem is that it cost too much gas, which can be tweaked.
In my opinion, decrease the gas cost but slightly increase build time for worm might be a better choice since it would not be so all-in if use and could be used more in defense (i.e. connect bases). At the same time, it would not make offensive use be too powerful, as the enemy would have more time to spot the worm coming up.
One thing to consider though is that the pathing system in SC2 and BW are very different. I think one of the reasons pros don't really use Nydus is that Zerg ground units are already very fast. In three bases situation, it might be faster to move from main base to natural, or from natural to third faster by move command than using Nydus, since Nydus has to load/unload unit one at a time.
the best thing about BW nydus is actually instant transport. there was no delay between units like in SC2
if they wanted to make nydus more viable, they should tweak the current nydus (have they ever done that?) instead of adding gimmicks to make it more viable.
On April 05 2013 07:26 nomyx wrote: if they wanted to make nydus more viable, they should tweak the current nydus (have they ever done that?) instead of adding gimmicks to make it more viable.
I agree, a buff like boosting load/unload time, especially for low-supply units, increasing armor, and/or reducing the worm's gas cost would work fine. If buffing the nydus worm leads to OP early-game cheeses, then move the nydus to hive tech or give it a hive tech upgrade that gives it utility.
IMO nydus has the most potential as a fun, balanced tool for zerg in the later stages of the game, allowing players with extra money to quickly move their army to defend and attack at different points on the map. Right now the main barrier to this is the load/unload time, as moving a large army across the map often takes about the same time as loading the units into a nydus worm and unloading them at another one.
They could just make the ground animation 'cloacked', so you'd need detection to be able to spot the upcoming worm. It will become visible when popping of course.
As it pops, it already emits a warning sound, which is more than enough tbh. This can also be countered by placing detection at smart spots, but prevents workers from killing the worm if there is no detection in range.
On April 04 2013 02:49 fabiano wrote: They should just bring back the BW Nydus Canal.
I sincerely see no other reason than "we want something different" for not having it in SC2. This led them to scrap off great ideas from BW and reinvent them in some butchered version which will have/had to be taken out later on...
Don't reinvent the wheel.
Current Nydus can act like BW's nydus... The only difference is that SC2's nydus cost gas quite heavily and can spawn outside of creep, which I would say it has more utlity than BW's one. The main problem is that it cost too much gas, which can be tweaked.
In my opinion, decrease the gas cost but slightly increase build time for worm might be a better choice since it would not be so all-in if use and could be used more in defense (i.e. connect bases). At the same time, it would not make offensive use be too powerful, as the enemy would have more time to spot the worm coming up.
One thing to consider though is that the pathing system in SC2 and BW are very different. I think one of the reasons pros don't really use Nydus is that Zerg ground units are already very fast. In three bases situation, it might be faster to move from main base to natural, or from natural to third faster by move command than using Nydus, since Nydus has to load/unload unit one at a time.
Well, it's also a problem that the Nydus is a two-step process. Click to get in nydus, hotkey+click to get out of correct Nydus.
I thought that adding a salvage mechanic to the nydus worms would increase its usefullness. You would build the nydus network like you do now and can then start spawning nydus worms like you do now. The change would be that you can "salvage" a spawned nydus worm just like you can salvage a bunker (the worm wouldnt explode, he would burrow back into the ground) and you will get a percentage of the ressources back (in the 60-100% range). This would put the nydus in a similar place that drops are for terran. A clever planned assault with a nydus could strike where the enemy doesnt expect it, do damage and retreat without losing many units (or none if you get the salvage off).
On April 05 2013 08:16 Scio wrote: I thought that adding a salvage mechanic to the nydus worms would increase its usefullness. You would build the nydus network like you do now and can then start spawning nydus worms like you do now. The change would be that you can "salvage" a spawned nydus worm just like you can salvage a bunker (the worm wouldnt explode, he would burrow back into the ground) and you will get a percentage of the ressources back (in the 60-100% range). This would put the nydus in a similar place that drops are for terran. A clever planned assault with a nydus could strike where the enemy doesnt expect it, do damage and retreat without losing many units (or none if you get the salvage off).
Or they could just make Nydus Worms cost minerals only...
200m instead of 100m/100g would be a LOT more affordable.
On April 05 2013 08:16 Scio wrote: I thought that adding a salvage mechanic to the nydus worms would increase its usefullness. You would build the nydus network like you do now and can then start spawning nydus worms like you do now. The change would be that you can "salvage" a spawned nydus worm just like you can salvage a bunker (the worm wouldnt explode, he would burrow back into the ground) and you will get a percentage of the ressources back (in the 60-100% range). This would put the nydus in a similar place that drops are for terran. A clever planned assault with a nydus could strike where the enemy doesnt expect it, do damage and retreat without losing many units (or none if you get the salvage off).
Or they could just make Nydus Worms cost minerals only...
200m instead of 100m/100g would be a LOT more affordable.
While it would be a lot more affordable that way, you are still almost guaranteed to lose those minerals when you use the nydus to attack which makes smaller attacks not worthwhile. I mean imagine a protoss giving up a warpprism for every drop he does. Drops and nydus are ofc quite different but i still think it would be interesting and entertaining to see the nydus used for smaller attacks and harrassment.
On April 05 2013 08:16 Scio wrote: I thought that adding a salvage mechanic to the nydus worms would increase its usefullness. You would build the nydus network like you do now and can then start spawning nydus worms like you do now. The change would be that you can "salvage" a spawned nydus worm just like you can salvage a bunker (the worm wouldnt explode, he would burrow back into the ground) and you will get a percentage of the ressources back (in the 60-100% range). This would put the nydus in a similar place that drops are for terran. A clever planned assault with a nydus could strike where the enemy doesnt expect it, do damage and retreat without losing many units (or none if you get the salvage off).
Or they could just make Nydus Worms cost minerals only...
200m instead of 100m/100g would be a LOT more affordable.
While it would be a lot more affordable that way, you are still almost guaranteed to lose those minerals when you use the nydus to attack which makes smaller attacks not worthwhile. I mean imagine a protoss giving up a warpprism for every drop he does. Drops and nydus are ofc quite different but i still think it would be interesting and entertaining to see the nydus used for smaller attacks and harrassment.
Okay... then lets start from scratch then.
Nydus is cool because its zerg popping out of the ground.
The current incarnation allows an entire zerg army to spill into the battle. This forces Nydus to be balanced otherwise its too strong.
The current balance feature is that it costs gas and takes time to setup
This, I feel, is bad.
New idea--what if Nydus worms were cheaper, but didn't transport so many people?
Proposal--invisible APC
Imagine an APC that is invisible.
Now imagine a large worm that swallows zerg units and then burrow moves but his burrow movement ignores buildings.
I'll go off-topic a bit here by stating a bit of a lamenting rant about why I'd rather have a different change —like nydus worm change— than the swarm host. Personally I wasn't ever much of a fan of the Swarm host. Zerg doesn't really need tank units when they already have zerglings and roaches, and another ranged attacker isn't that useful when they have hydralisks and roaches (and broodlords), and they don't really need a unit-spawning siege unit when they have the Brood Lord. Aside from that, locusts —while obviously useful— have issues where they don't work well as siege units when enemies have units that can regenerate and/or units that deal lots of damage. All protoss units have shields which regenerate, all terran units can be repaired or healed easily, and roaches can regenerate easily with burrow, making locusts very limited in their siege use if the opponent micros/repairs. Units that were already frequently used and very strong against zerg (Planetary fortress, bunker, siege tank, colossus) do excellent against the locusts and make such units even more standard.
I dont agree with that at all. Swarm hosts are good. Sometimes I feel they are too good actually. 1) mathematically speaking a locust is only slightly worse than a roach or a hydra while a swarm host costs like 3 roaches and 2 hydras. That is you pay 50% more compared with roaches to have a new army every 25 seconds. And you pay the same price compared to hydras but lose antiair ability, 15 less health, and -3 range while you gain a new army every 25 seconds. On paper that is freaking awesome, and it is.
2) they are incredibly supply effective, twice more than roaches are. Basically I gave up on roaches at this stage besides the situations when I kind of feel constrained to some kind of allin. With roaches you need to trade armies or you are so stuck with a terrible army. With swarmhosts you can just mass and dont be pressured to do damage or to rush hive and feel extremely vulnerable in the process.
Some advice: 1) use with hydras! For anti-air. For good ranged dps support. Snipe important units and buildings, retreat, repeat. 2) get a feeling of how much gas you need and use it carefully. 2 hydras upgrades, 1 swarm host upgrade, ranged and carapace upgrades and lots of units that have 2:1 minerals-gas ratio. That takes lots of gas. Mass lings at the start and some queens added into the army later (you are slow anyway) can solve this problem partially. 3) don't just make like 6-8 SHs and hope it makes it. They are not support units, you need many of them to make them count. Currently I aim for 16 SHs then just pump hydras while constantly being aggressive. 4) micro locusts. Put individual ones ahead of the group, focus fire or hold position when they get stuck trying to run around walls. 5) and get a plan B to switch away from SHs. 6) dont put your army on top of SHs when the enemy pushes you back. 7) attack at different locations as much as you can.
On April 05 2013 08:16 Scio wrote: I thought that adding a salvage mechanic to the nydus worms would increase its usefullness. You would build the nydus network like you do now and can then start spawning nydus worms like you do now. The change would be that you can "salvage" a spawned nydus worm just like you can salvage a bunker (the worm wouldnt explode, he would burrow back into the ground) and you will get a percentage of the ressources back (in the 60-100% range). This would put the nydus in a similar place that drops are for terran. A clever planned assault with a nydus could strike where the enemy doesnt expect it, do damage and retreat without losing many units (or none if you get the salvage off).
Or they could just make Nydus Worms cost minerals only...
200m instead of 100m/100g would be a LOT more affordable.
While it would be a lot more affordable that way, you are still almost guaranteed to lose those minerals when you use the nydus to attack which makes smaller attacks not worthwhile. I mean imagine a protoss giving up a warpprism for every drop he does. Drops and nydus are ofc quite different but i still think it would be interesting and entertaining to see the nydus used for smaller attacks and harrassment.
That's a great idea. It does seem strange that nydus worms can't burrow, because they can tunnel through the ground just fine. Your idea makes sense, the zerg could recycle the worm's biomass and reclaim some of its cost.
I love the idea of encouraging small-scale harassment, but I think it might make nydus worms too stronger in the early game, resulting in a nerf to other aspects of the worm which would make it less useful late game. It would be worth testing, though, who knows how it would work out in practice.
I was really hoping it would be made into a some sort of scouting tool... like add energy to the building and for some of it you can pop up a nydus eye anywhere in the map to scoop what is around. (or maybe something that is not totally an Orbital Command Scan ripoff)
I think with the correct change, nydus will change Zerg completely and allows less death ball. Right now the ability to transport every unit but at a high cost means nydus is a huge investment and more of a gamble.
I was thinking to make it similar to the Zerg drop pots that are in the campaign,dropping just a few zerglings roaches and hydra
What I really hope they do is get rid of that annoying sound every time a worm pops up. Nydus worm all-ins get hard countered by good building placement and on the whole are not anymore powerful than other forms of unscouted all-ins, so why does blizzard still insist on keeping the sound in like a rape whistle. Blizzard could make it so that your units/buildings have to be in close proximity to hear the scream so that people aren't immediately aware of your troop movements the instant your nydus worm pops.
On April 04 2013 05:05 NightOfTheDead wrote: Just make nydus worm cloaked until he gets built, but with clear sign that he is there. Opponent would need detection to destroy it, but would be aware of the worm.
You can't be serious... Some of the suggestions in this thread have me shaking my head at how delusional some people are
On April 03 2013 21:58 Toss.Pro- wrote: Maybe a much quicker unload time when built on creep rather than off of creep. This would boast it's defensive uses without making it imbalanced.
You will have to remove the overlord spread creep ability then. Or else it really doesnt matter.
I actually want nydus worm to be bufffed in health/armour.
So make the nydus worm 'egged'. It will have higher health/armour during the spawning time. Then, Scream and hatch! "@#@#^#"!!! back to nornal nydus worm At least this will prevent workers to kill it.
I don't care if SC2 is not BW, but if SC2 just reverted it back to the BW nydus it would get used a lot. The nydus change in SC2 left a big gaping hole in the flexibility of lategame Zerg.
Considering the BW nydus was fundamental for late game Zerg and used every game. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Nydus change from BW to SC2 was like changing a fundamental unit like the siege tank. It can siege anywhere on the map as long as you have vision except it makes a global alert sound, costs twice as much, takes 20 seconds to siege, and triple the time to fire.
Sounds stupid and useless? Well when you have any perspective from playing broodwar, so did the SC2 Nydus and a lot of other butchered units.
On April 03 2013 08:57 albis wrote: faster load/unload time maybe so they can be used defensively to connect far off bases like bw.
This is what zerg needs, to make nydus useful. Every time you use it defencively for drops for example the time units come out you lost everything. Offencively it's very gimmicy and situational. I supose if you buff the unload speed people will cry when 50 roaches instantly unload in there base
It's a difficult thing to buff, but atm nydus is just a gimmick. Unlike BW where it was a great mobility asset lategame.
On May 31 2013 14:31 sluggaslamoo wrote: I don't care if SC2 is not BW, but if SC2 just reverted it back to the BW nydus it would get used a lot. The nydus change in SC2 left a big gaping hole in the flexibility of lategame Zerg.
Considering the BW nydus was fundamental for late game Zerg and used every game. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Nydus change from BW to SC2 was like changing a fundamental unit like the siege tank. It can siege anywhere on the map as long as you have vision except it makes a global alert sound, costs twice as much, takes 20 seconds to siege, and triple the time to fire.
Sounds stupid and useless? Well when you have any perspective from playing broodwar, so did the SC2 Nydus and a lot of other butchered units.
defensive nydus networks are not needed anylonger. unlimited selection, good pathing, creepspread+speed bonus on creep are more than sufficient to transport zerg armies.
On May 31 2013 14:31 sluggaslamoo wrote: I don't care if SC2 is not BW, but if SC2 just reverted it back to the BW nydus it would get used a lot. The nydus change in SC2 left a big gaping hole in the flexibility of lategame Zerg.
Considering the BW nydus was fundamental for late game Zerg and used every game. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Nydus change from BW to SC2 was like changing a fundamental unit like the siege tank. It can siege anywhere on the map as long as you have vision except it makes a global alert sound, costs twice as much, takes 20 seconds to siege, and triple the time to fire.
Sounds stupid and useless? Well when you have any perspective from playing broodwar, so did the SC2 Nydus and a lot of other butchered units.
defensive nydus networks are not needed anylonger. unlimited selection, good pathing, creepspread+speed bonus on creep are more than sufficient to transport zerg armies.
I disagree with you. You can't make it to drops in time. What is better sending some units by nydus network to save a base or run your whole army from the opposite end of the map to the base to be way to late to save it? The answer is obvious.
Late game terran drops are incredibly powerful and defensive nydus worms can be the only way to be able to save bases as bio drops just destroy hatcheries in a heart beat.
I do wish nydus would cost 200 minerals instead of 100/100 but I doubt that will ever get changed :/.
Dustin Browder said on US Beta forum (deleted) that it didn't make it because they couldn't balance it (which is a lame answer, they didn't even let the players play with it)
Free 1button creep spread and a teleportable building attacker that can't be stopped by anti-drop static D would be balanced by....
Are people serious? You can balance these by adjusting building time, cost, tech requirement, dimension of the creep, damage and hp of the worm Ideas is what matter, there are tools to make it more balanced.
Oops didn't see the date of that post. But my statement still stands though
On May 31 2013 14:31 sluggaslamoo wrote: I don't care if SC2 is not BW, but if SC2 just reverted it back to the BW nydus it would get used a lot. The nydus change in SC2 left a big gaping hole in the flexibility of lategame Zerg.
Considering the BW nydus was fundamental for late game Zerg and used every game. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Nydus change from BW to SC2 was like changing a fundamental unit like the siege tank. It can siege anywhere on the map as long as you have vision except it makes a global alert sound, costs twice as much, takes 20 seconds to siege, and triple the time to fire.
Sounds stupid and useless? Well when you have any perspective from playing broodwar, so did the SC2 Nydus and a lot of other butchered units.
defensive nydus networks are not needed anylonger. unlimited selection, good pathing, creepspread+speed bonus on creep are more than sufficient to transport zerg armies.
I disagree with you. You can't make it to drops in time. What is better sending some units by nydus network to save a base or run your whole army from the opposite end of the map to the base to be way to late to save it? The answer is obvious.
Late game terran drops are incredibly powerful and defensive nydus worms can be the only way to be able to save bases as bio drops just destroy hatcheries in a heart beat.
I do wish nydus would cost 200 minerals instead of 100/100 but I doubt that will ever get changed :/.
oh well, the new terran drops are a bitch. yeah, with only minerals it may be ok, but I still doubt it would be too good as units come out 1by1 and you may just end up in a situation were you have to wait for enough units to unload before you can combat the drop.
On May 31 2013 14:31 sluggaslamoo wrote: I don't care if SC2 is not BW, but if SC2 just reverted it back to the BW nydus it would get used a lot. The nydus change in SC2 left a big gaping hole in the flexibility of lategame Zerg.
Considering the BW nydus was fundamental for late game Zerg and used every game. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Nydus change from BW to SC2 was like changing a fundamental unit like the siege tank. It can siege anywhere on the map as long as you have vision except it makes a global alert sound, costs twice as much, takes 20 seconds to siege, and triple the time to fire.
Sounds stupid and useless? Well when you have any perspective from playing broodwar, so did the SC2 Nydus and a lot of other butchered units.
defensive nydus networks are not needed anylonger. unlimited selection, good pathing, creepspread+speed bonus on creep are more than sufficient to transport zerg armies.
I disagree with you. You can't make it to drops in time. What is better sending some units by nydus network to save a base or run your whole army from the opposite end of the map to the base to be way to late to save it? The answer is obvious.
Late game terran drops are incredibly powerful and defensive nydus worms can be the only way to be able to save bases as bio drops just destroy hatcheries in a heart beat.
I do wish nydus would cost 200 minerals instead of 100/100 but I doubt that will ever get changed :/.
oh well, the new terran drops are a bitch. yeah, with only minerals it may be ok, but I still doubt it would be too good as units come out 1by1 and you may just end up in a situation were you have to wait for enough units to unload before you can combat the drop.
That is the problem we have right now and why nydus is not used atm to defend long distance bases.
The unloading time is the problem aswell if you greatly increase it, it's going to be very useful defencively. Unfortunatly it's also going to be very useful in the offence. That might give balance problems i would imagine.
On May 31 2013 14:31 sluggaslamoo wrote: I don't care if SC2 is not BW, but if SC2 just reverted it back to the BW nydus it would get used a lot. The nydus change in SC2 left a big gaping hole in the flexibility of lategame Zerg.
Considering the BW nydus was fundamental for late game Zerg and used every game. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Nydus change from BW to SC2 was like changing a fundamental unit like the siege tank. It can siege anywhere on the map as long as you have vision except it makes a global alert sound, costs twice as much, takes 20 seconds to siege, and triple the time to fire.
Sounds stupid and useless? Well when you have any perspective from playing broodwar, so did the SC2 Nydus and a lot of other butchered units.
defensive nydus networks are not needed anylonger. unlimited selection, good pathing, creepspread+speed bonus on creep are more than sufficient to transport zerg armies.
I disagree with you. You can't make it to drops in time. What is better sending some units by nydus network to save a base or run your whole army from the opposite end of the map to the base to be way to late to save it? The answer is obvious.
Late game terran drops are incredibly powerful and defensive nydus worms can be the only way to be able to save bases as bio drops just destroy hatcheries in a heart beat.
I do wish nydus would cost 200 minerals instead of 100/100 but I doubt that will ever get changed :/.
oh well, the new terran drops are a bitch. yeah, with only minerals it may be ok, but I still doubt it would be too good as units come out 1by1 and you may just end up in a situation were you have to wait for enough units to unload before you can combat the drop.
If BW Zerg had Creep spread and unlimited unit selection instead of Nydus, it would destroy the staple ZvT and ZvP strategy (using cross-map expo for 3rd) and Zerg would be much worse late game.
BW Nydus unloaded units incredibly fast compared to SC2. I don't see how the situation is any different, in fact it would be even more useful.
BW Nydus allowed Zerg to take distance expansions balancing out late-game play on different maps and opening up more diverse strategies. Right now it seems like Zerg has to expand very tightly and gets stuck once past 3/4 bases especially on certain maps.
BW Nydus allowed the 3rd to be taken on the other side of the map, achieving two things. First was to force Terran to have to travel further to attack expansions which was advantageous to the more mobile Zerg. Secondly, it was to have influence on the other side of the map and allow for faster/safer expansions in between.
This change alone would completely change the landscape of Zerg expansion patterns presumeably for the better because right now every race expands in the exact same way and its boring.
I too would like to see increased unload speed of Nydus, a higher HP and Armor of the nydus once deployed, balanced by increasing the time it takes to build in the first place. This means it would be better defensively than offensively, which would make the Nydus much better. I think 150/50 would be a better cost as well.
In Sc2 right now people mostly have been going for things that buff their offensive potential by numbers. We rarely see any investment that is done for defensive purpose or something that unlocks abilities that will only be worth their cost if you use them right. So I don't see the Nydus being used for getting expansions even for the BW cost, unless people are forced to do it or it would or the advantage would be immense. Not sure if people will use upgrades like burrow, ovi speed or for example a Raven later on to gain advantages in the long run, when everyone is at the point where those things will be needed to get the edge. One reason in my eyes is the need to get out unit upgrades asap, because your army rarely works well enough without them, and the rush into your final composition that comes along with it. So a match plays out to fast in the end, to get enough out of those upgrades maybe. I don't like the Blizzard approach to it though at making those things free or easy to get and would prefer if they try out increasing the cost for the unit upgrades that boost their stats or just leave their hands of that. (Protoss upgrades change forced non mirror matchups into a pretty annoying rush for your upgrades style)
As for the Nydus I constantly use them on several ladder maps for grabbing gas expansions (the nydus cost in that case is laughable fast equalized) and hope that someday pro level will not be about attacking your opponent and immediate effect only but simply get an advantage with whatever works in terms of units and upgrades. Still would be interested in seeing changes to the Network (not the worm), maybe flipping the cost of Network and Worm. But most of all decreasing the unload cooldown on the Network, which would be a purely defensive buff. And yes I connect my bases with the Network and only in rare cases with the Worm.
Thats a great idea Millet. It is possible Blizzzard will look at the Worm, as in HotS at least they seem to prefer buffing where weak over nerfing where strong. Something almost everyone would agree with
I remember reading a fairly simple idea of just improving the nydus worm when its close to a hatchery. It a very straightforward change to increase its defensive use. On another note, I really cant understand why there's a global sound alert. Not paying attention to the corners of your base should be punished and if you are paying attention to your base and the nydus is outside, I dont see the need to warn someone of an incoming attack just because that person is camping things out.
Cost 100/100 for the network. Takes 80 more seconds to build. Zerg can only have 1 network alive at a time (like mothership)
Nydus keeps the current 100/100 worm but the cooldown on that is increased to 60 seconds
Nydus gains a new 150/ 0 cost worm. The way this works is the nydus gains a charge every 60 seconds (with a max of 2 charges). Spawns with 1charge. Each charge lets it use one 150 mineral worm. The 150 mineral worm instantly spawns a invulnerable nydus which spawns 6 zerglings in 3 seconds and then disappears. Does not follow food limit rules, meaning zerg technically could get 206food using this nydus.
This 150 mineral nydus is also not bound by the rules of buildings. It will spawn and "push" units out of the way if there are units blocking the spawn, then after 3seconds the invulnerable worm disappears. This 150 mineral nydus can spawn ontop of units (being usable in battle) but it cannot spawn ontop of buildings (it still follows that rule)
Sure, the 150 mineral worm would allow zerg to get 206food.... now how overpowered is that REALLY ???
I think this is an amazing idea for the nydus. How overpowered, really, is putting 150 minerals worth of zerglings on a 60 second cooldown to be spawned in your enemies base instantly??? I guess, this will make us find out x.x
I feel the nydus is fine how it is now. The only change I'd like to see happen is A) Faster spawn rate when trying to plant the worm. or B) More HP/armor on the worm. There has been countless times I've tried to do a nydus in base only to have workers kill it.
On June 01 2013 02:10 OfficeBrahzz wrote: heres my idea for the nydus
Cost 100/100 for the network. Takes 80 more seconds to build. Zerg can only have 1 network alive at a time (like mothership)
Nydus keeps the current 100/100 worm but the cooldown on that is increased to 60 seconds
Nydus gains a new 150/ 0 cost worm. The way this works is the nydus gains a charge every 60 seconds (with a max of 2 charges). Spawns with 1charge. Each charge lets it use one 150 mineral worm. The 150 mineral worm instantly spawns a invulnerable nydus which spawns 6 zerglings in 3 seconds and then disappears. Does not follow food limit rules, meaning zerg technically could get 206food using this nydus.
This 150 mineral nydus is also not bound by the rules of buildings. It will spawn and "push" units out of the way if there are units blocking the spawn, then after 3seconds the invulnerable worm disappears. This 150 mineral nydus can spawn ontop of units (being usable in battle) but it cannot spawn ontop of buildings (it still follows that rule)
Sure, the 150 mineral worm would allow zerg to get 206food.... now how overpowered is that REALLY ???
I think this is an amazing idea for the nydus. How overpowered, really, is putting 150 minerals worth of zerglings on a 60 second cooldown to be spawned in your enemies base instantly??? I guess, this will make us find out x.x
Your idea won't happen, none of these will happen, they aren't going to change the Nydus worm grammatically (probably at all) until at least LoTV, and maybe not even then.
Zergs need some kind of answer for mid game, and while, this does have the potential to be OP, we can fix that by putting a supply on it. It could kinda be like the Zerg version of Widow mines.
They added in the speed boost for medivacs.... why not let zergs get better nyduses, so more people actually uses nydus. Nydus is kinda like the old wol reaper.... not used too much and needed a buff.
they should just remove the gas cost on each worm, and there, new unit. It would be so amazing to be able to use them to defend drops, 100 gas per worm just is too hefty of an investment...
I just wish the nydus was cheaper to build and then I might use it more frequently, or we could at least build 2 exit points at the same time or at least some over lap.
I wouldn't even mind building 2 tunnels just so i can have 2 exit points spawning at the same time if they weren't so expensive to build. This would open up the use of it a lot more but still leave it easily stoppable. Unfortunately I can't see this change ever happening and now that overlord speed is hatch tech its just a cheaper faster option
What about: Nydus worms are now spawned as 'eggs' that grows! So they will have extra hp/armor while building up, but they will have normal stat when hatched. A slight buff to nydus!
why would a nydus worm require that much time to pop out to surface when it can instantaneously travel from the network to the targeted location???My logic is that except few special nydus strains, all normal nydus worms are in 'infant' state (come on, the network is so small to have that big worm living in. Quote from Starcraft wiki. "By the Second Great War, the nydus worm was an evolution of the nydus canal. These worms live inside a nest-like structure called the nydus network..."http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Nydus_worm). Therefore, although they can speedily travel to the location, they require additional time to grow so that it can act as a tunnel.
SO the animation should be: 1.when a zerg player clicks to build a nydus worm, they will have 0.3~2 second delay to spawn this egg, depending on the distance between network and worm (giving more realistic stuffs! Only ally players can see this worm animation! Borrowing nuke launching concept). At this moment, nothing is built yet. 2. After this, an egg pops out from the ground with normal spawning time. 3. When hatched, it SCREAMS!!! and behaves exactly same as current worms afterwards.
On May 31 2013 16:07 Millet wrote: The nydus should really be unloaded based on supply. Meaning 12 zerglings (6 supply) gets unloaded at the same rate as 1 ultralisk (6 supply).
Yes; I've always thought the same... EXCEPT it should not be supply, but rather overlord (transport) capacity. This is particularly important for banelings, at 1/2 supply which cost over 3x as much as a zergling (and hence 3x as effective). Cost/power aside, banelings are also particularly effective for nydus/drops, so the 2 slot occupation in overlord applying to nydus unload time would make very good sense.
On June 15 2013 15:54 SsDrKosS wrote: What about: Nydus worms are now spawned as 'eggs' that grows! So they will have extra hp/armor while building up, but they will have normal stat when hatched. A slight buff to nydus! ...
While I've been a fan of increasing the armor or health of the worm itself, this is a good idea aside from aesthetics (egg is stupid — the fact it's underground is reason enough to give it more armor than normal). In my opinion a dozen workers should not be able to be pulled from mining 14 squares away after discovering a worm's 50% constructed, and yet STILL manage to kill it before it completes.
On June 01 2013 02:29 FosTA wrote: The only change I'd like to see happen is A) Faster spawn rate when trying to plant the worm. or B) More HP/armor on the worm. There has been countless times I've tried to do a nydus in base only to have workers kill it.
My thoughts exactly. It could be nicer if they gave it more innovative features instead though; since right now you can already get fast and relatively safe/guaranteed unloading with overlords, it's just slightly less mobile (e.g. jumping from enemy's base back home, or from enemy's main to enemy's 3rd)
nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
What they really need is a silent/ cheaper worm that has to be placed in range of a hatchery. The nydus canal seems so critical for defense in BW, but that can hardly be said for it's successor. In fact the only time I use it defensively was base trading against air toss in WoL and that was once in a blue moon.
On June 16 2013 00:02 Zailemaos wrote: nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
You are supposed to multi-prong. Watch any Terran progamer drop 4 hellbats onto a mineral line and wipe it completely uncontested.
It's because of a decent army poking in the front or killing their 3rd base.
On June 16 2013 00:02 Zailemaos wrote: nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
You are supposed to multi-prong. Watch any Terran progamer drop 4 hellbats onto a mineral line and wipe it completely uncontested.
It's because of a decent army poking in the front or killing their 3rd base.
I hope you are joking. Zerg has no ground units that have same efficiency for that cost. Also nydus can only build one nydus canal at the time.
On June 16 2013 00:02 Zailemaos wrote: nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
You are supposed to multi-prong. Watch any Terran progamer drop 4 hellbats onto a mineral line and wipe it completely uncontested.
It's because of a decent army poking in the front or killing their 3rd base.
I hope you are joking. Zerg has no ground units that have same efficiency for that cost. Also nydus can only build one nydus canal at the time.
You can build two worms at a time with two nydus networks.
And you dont even need to spawn two worms at once. Poke the third with the army with a worm already done behind you, spawn a worm in the main with lings(or whatever units you want to counter attack with, i think ultras are the best since you can unload them faster per supply) inside and unload. If the enemy decides to run back and defend the main keep poking and retreat the lings/ultras back into the nydus, if he focuses on the army, load it into the worm and unload into the main. Even though your zerg army is less cost efficient it doesnt matter, because the nydus worm will keep his army running around and you can avoid a direct engagement while doing damage.
This is just one of many ways that you can use nydus to force multitasking, army splitting and decision making from your opponent that my feeble protoss mind can think of.
I would just love any change to the Nydus worm. I feel like it has the potential to create really cool games and strats but at it's current cost for value it's so rarely a good way to spent your ressources.
Probably just making it cheaper would do the trick. I feel it's okay that workers can kill it cause otherwise it'd be incredibly strong.
On June 16 2013 00:02 Zailemaos wrote: nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
You are supposed to multi-prong. Watch any Terran progamer drop 4 hellbats onto a mineral line and wipe it completely uncontested.
It's because of a decent army poking in the front or killing their 3rd base.
I hope you are joking. Zerg has no ground units that have same efficiency for that cost. Also nydus can only build one nydus canal at the time.
You can build two worms at a time with two nydus networks.
And you dont even need to spawn two worms at once. Poke the third with the army with a worm already done behind you, spawn a worm in the main with lings(or whatever units you want to counter attack with, i think ultras are the best since you can unload them faster per supply) inside and unload. If the enemy decides to run back and defend the main keep poking and retreat the lings/ultras back into the nydus, if he focuses on the army, load it into the worm and unload into the main. Even though your zerg army is less cost efficient it doesnt matter, because the nydus worm will keep his army running around and you can avoid a direct engagement while doing damage.
This is just one of many ways that you can use nydus to force multitasking, army splitting and decision making from your opponent that my feeble protoss mind can think of.
Ya, I can think of a million way that nydus would work. With all my "flash" like multi-task, it should be EZ PZ.
They should just change the worm to not make that annoying scream, we don't get a protoss roar every time a warp prism warp-ins. And let in unload quicker by setting cap on cargo space that can be unload. Something like 8 cargo spaces of units will get unload. Which would mean for example 1 ultra or 8 lings would unload at the time.
On June 16 2013 03:00 Elldar wrote: They should just change the worm to not make that annoying scream, we don't get a protoss roar every time a warp prism warp-ins. And let in unload quicker by setting cap on cargo space that can be unload. Something like 8 cargo spaces of units will get unload. Which would mean for example 1 ultra or 8 lings would unload at the time.
That's actually a good idea, really. The scream for nydus is ok I guess, since ghost nukes also warn your opponents.
I'd love some nydus changes, because to be honest, I've never used them outside of being pylon-walled in my main before they fixed that with neutral depots.
that " internal testing" is just crap. If they actually tested stuff, the initial hellbats drops would have never been released. They just didn't want to work hard on their game so they claim all the ideas they said they were gonna work on were actually tested but didn't work.
On June 16 2013 00:02 Zailemaos wrote: nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
You are supposed to multi-prong. Watch any Terran progamer drop 4 hellbats onto a mineral line and wipe it completely uncontested.
It's because of a decent army poking in the front or killing their 3rd base.
I hope you are joking. Zerg has no ground units that have same efficiency for that cost. Also nydus can only build one nydus canal at the time.
You can build two worms at a time with two nydus networks.
And you dont even need to spawn two worms at once. Poke the third with the army with a worm already done behind you, spawn a worm in the main with lings(or whatever units you want to counter attack with, i think ultras are the best since you can unload them faster per supply) inside and unload. If the enemy decides to run back and defend the main keep poking and retreat the lings/ultras back into the nydus, if he focuses on the army, load it into the worm and unload into the main. Even though your zerg army is less cost efficient it doesnt matter, because the nydus worm will keep his army running around and you can avoid a direct engagement while doing damage.
This is just one of many ways that you can use nydus to force multitasking, army splitting and decision making from your opponent that my feeble protoss mind can think of.
Even though this does sound like a great idea, It's hardly viable. It would cost so much gas. Especially if you wanted to keep applying the pressure in the same fashion(keep rebuilding worms when they get killed off). They also don't need to run their hole army back when a worm is being created because workers kill it just as easily. It's also very rare that a worm goes into an enemy base un-detected
I do think the initial structure should cost gas but when building the worms, It need to either cost way less gas or none whatsoever(perhaps more mineral intensive?) Or keep it same cost but make the armour higher. That way it takes a few fighting units+workers to take it down efficiently instead of just like 5 scvs.
EDIT: Cost per cost if you're going to be abusing mobility A la Nydus network(jumping between bases), It's 10000000 times better to just go drops instead. You can drop multiple units at once. You can hit 2 bases with drops without spending 100/100 each time you want to do it. You can run the overlords away if you see it won't work whereas the nydus will just die and you lose your investment.
The problem with nydus will always be it's risk vs reward.
While the mobility it offers is amazing, the risk once you set one to build is that it gets denied and then you are insanely far behind unless it's an ultra late game nydus.
If blizzard would find a way to adjust the risk vs reward to be a little less of a risk people would probably use them a lot more often.
Easiest way off the top of my head would be... -Remove the gas cost off the worm itself. -Limit the number of units that can pass through a nydus to 16 cargo spaces. -Have a CD of around 25 seconds on the nydus load ability. -Have it work both ways, so that it's not easy to dump a whole army off at point B and retreat it to point A. This should add sufficient risk to loading a lot of units through the cheaper nydus. -Would still allow for mass army loads but would require more networks requiring a heavy gas cost (so gas cost would be similar to original nydus).
On June 16 2013 04:46 Patate wrote: that " internal testing" is just crap. If they actually tested stuff, the initial hellbats drops would have never been released. They just didn't want to work hard on their game so they claim all the ideas they said they were gonna work on were actually tested but didn't work.
Well, David Kim admited that his worst race was Terran, and told us he might have buffed Terran too much because of it. He's a random player, his Protoss and Zerg skills are good, but his Terran is poor.
On June 16 2013 00:02 Zailemaos wrote: nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
You are supposed to multi-prong. Watch any Terran progamer drop 4 hellbats onto a mineral line and wipe it completely uncontested.
It's because of a decent army poking in the front or killing their 3rd base.
I hope you are joking. Zerg has no ground units that have same efficiency for that cost. Also nydus can only build one nydus canal at the time.
You can build two worms at a time with two nydus networks.
And you dont even need to spawn two worms at once. Poke the third with the army with a worm already done behind you, spawn a worm in the main with lings(or whatever units you want to counter attack with, i think ultras are the best since you can unload them faster per supply) inside and unload. If the enemy decides to run back and defend the main keep poking and retreat the lings/ultras back into the nydus, if he focuses on the army, load it into the worm and unload into the main. Even though your zerg army is less cost efficient it doesnt matter, because the nydus worm will keep his army running around and you can avoid a direct engagement while doing damage.
This is just one of many ways that you can use nydus to force multitasking, army splitting and decision making from your opponent that my feeble protoss mind can think of.
You forgetting a couple points here. A bunch of workers can kill a nydus, don't need to send even 1 army unit to the worm as long as you see it in time (which you should) Making a Nydus worm costs 100/100 each time so constant nydus spamming to try to lure the enemy back is actually a very bad idea.
if nyduss were really strong, more pros wouldve used them, but they dont because they suck,..... Blizzard shouldve buffed them just like how they buffed DTs. They are too much of an investment. T.T
On June 01 2013 04:37 DavoS wrote: If Blizz buffed the worm so that you could cancel a nydus worm being built then I'd probably use them way more
Oh, you can´t? Well, that´s pretty silly.
That would be monstrously powerful lol. Essentially free teleport where you have vision. Where do I defend? :D
First of all, I think you're misunderstanding. He's saying cancellable, not salvageable. Secondly, even if you were thinking salvaging, salvaging isn't free anymore, it's 75% refund (although considering that it's a trait specific to a single unit/structure, I suppose if they were to introduce it to another unit, it could be different refund rate).
On June 16 2013 01:00 Orangered wrote: Yeah. It's been a long time since I last say nydus on ladder.? Zergs whats up??
That isn't even the issue. The issue is that it was nearly never used except as explicitly I'm-not-trying-too-hard tactics, which are typically all-in or just to have fun since the person doing it is already far ahead and/or a more competent/experienced player. One of the big reasons people used them is just for the sake of variety and such, but after a few months of WoL, that sort of interest dies off.
On June 16 2013 00:02 Zailemaos wrote: nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
You are supposed to multi-prong. Watch any Terran progamer drop 4 hellbats onto a mineral line and wipe it completely uncontested.
It's because of a decent army poking in the front or killing their 3rd base.
Wtf are you talking about? What time does it take for 2 hellbats to kill a mineral line without units being pulled compared to the time it takes for a nydus to finish. Not to mention you don't lose gas from dropping hellbats and you can't kill hellbats with an scv/drone/probe. That is literally the dumbest comparison to make. It is more like a protoss warping in units into a base, however even that can't be killed off by workers.
I think if they made nydus canals much cheaper but require infestation pit it would be used a lot more.
Right now the cost to benefit ratio is way off for it to be used enough to really see the potential. It is relatively easy to scout and to easy to kill. If you try it mid game and fail the loss of resources put you so far behind. Also the loading and unloading speed is so slow it isn't even useful enough to link bases on large maps for defense late game.
It could have been cool with minor tweaks but they scrapped to many cool things for Zerg in HotS.
On June 16 2013 04:46 Patate wrote: that " internal testing" is just crap. If they actually tested stuff, the initial hellbats drops would have never been released. They just didn't want to work hard on their game so they claim all the ideas they said they were gonna work on were actually tested but didn't work.
Well, David Kim admited that his worst race was Terran, and told us he might have buffed Terran too much because of it. He's a random player, his Protoss and Zerg skills are good, but his Terran is poor.
On June 16 2013 04:46 Patate wrote: that " internal testing" is just crap. If they actually tested stuff, the initial hellbats drops would have never been released. They just didn't want to work hard on their game so they claim all the ideas they said they were gonna work on were actually tested but didn't work.
Well, David Kim admited that his worst race was Terran, and told us he might have buffed Terran too much because of it. He's a random player, his Protoss and Zerg skills are good, but his Terran is poor.
Recently he said this? Reference?
Sure, sorry for not linking the source, it was Blizzard Reddit "Ask me Anything" when HoTS came out :
DK: The most important thing we realized was feedback we get both from ourselves and from pros need to be weighted depending on skill. For example, I personally have a hard time playing Terran compared to the other two races. And back then because I was one of the players who was playing at the highest level, I took this personal experience as a bit too much of an important factor. In the hots Beta, I was also struggling the most as Terran, but this seemed correct for the balance of the game. And sure enough, all the major tournaments that happened so far, all three races balance is looking solid, many Koreans are also saying Terran is the strongest, and overall just gauging my skill level vs. how the game should be more correctly this time around is working out much better.
David Kim (you need to play Random when working on balance at Blizzard) was the only good player at Blizzard for a long time and Terran is his worst race... it had an impact on his decisions to balance the game.
On June 16 2013 03:00 Elldar wrote: They should just change the worm to not make that annoying scream, we don't get a protoss roar every time a warp prism warp-ins. And let in unload quicker by setting cap on cargo space that can be unload. Something like 8 cargo spaces of units will get unload. Which would mean for example 1 ultra or 8 lings would unload at the time.
That's actually a good idea, really. The scream for nydus is ok I guess, since ghost nukes also warn your opponents.
I'd love some nydus changes, because to be honest, I've never used them outside of being pylon-walled in my main before they fixed that with neutral depots.
Well, the scream should be removed to make it easier to set up defense without letting your opponent know that you expanded. I personally would hesitate to connect bases with a nydus if a scream and no offensive nydus worm mean I expanded. Besides a nydus work is a big blip on the minimap and the no sound would only make the biggest difference in low leagues and sloppy games in the higher leagues. Most good players already has their base covered and got a keen eye on the minimap. Pro-players will extremly rarely miss a nydus that get started in their base. The nuke don't show up on the minimap and has a small red marker that show where it will land, the sound makes more sense because it would be extremly hard to see that red dot unless you were looking for it. Besides nuke instant kill units so with no sound it would be too strong. Nydus that is undetected is not guaranteed to do unbelievable damage.
On June 16 2013 00:02 Zailemaos wrote: nydus worms need more armor so they dont get killed by workers.. it just feels so stupid nydusing into the enemy base only to have them pull workers and kill it.
You are supposed to multi-prong. Watch any Terran progamer drop 4 hellbats onto a mineral line and wipe it completely uncontested.
It's because of a decent army poking in the front or killing their 3rd base.
Please, think before posting. Not everyone has the stupid-post filter extension.
OT: I completely agree with giving it 8 cargo space unload speed, it will probably make it worthwhile.
On June 15 2013 17:59 Xapti wrote: While I've been a fan of increasing the armor or health of the worm itself, this is a good idea aside from aesthetics (egg is stupid — the fact it's underground is reason enough to give it more armor than normal). In my opinion a dozen workers should not be able to be pulled from mining 14 squares away after discovering a worm's 50% constructed, and yet STILL manage to kill it before it completes.
Waht did you read my underlying thought and still think egg is stupid? I love to see more eggs from Zergs!!! anyway, I really want to see nydus worm become 'worth' to use.
On June 18 2013 21:44 Elldar wrote: Well, the scream should be removed to make it easier to set up defense without letting your opponent know that you expanded. I personally would hesitate to connect bases with a nydus if a scream and no offensive nydus worm mean I expanded. Besides a nydus work is a big blip on the minimap and the no sound would only make the biggest difference in low leagues and sloppy games in the higher leagues. Most good players already has their base covered and got a keen eye on the minimap. Pro-players will extremly rarely miss a nydus that get started in their base. The nuke don't show up on the minimap and has a small red marker that show where it will land, the sound makes more sense because it would be extremly hard to see that red dot unless you were looking for it. Besides nuke instant kill units so with no sound it would be too strong. Nydus that is undetected is not guaranteed to do unbelievable damage.
This was why I was arguing for some health and/or armor buff. almost anyone can spot nydus worm and kill it. And this gives me a great idea!
if nydus worm is spawned on creep, it makes no sound (edit: perhaps no warning either?).
It would not be great to use this mechanism to enemies' main base because of the size of overlord's creep spread (too big to miss) but will make a great use in expansion & transportation b/w hatcheries
Conclusion: nydus worm should get buffed either increase health and/or armor when it emerges from the ground so that it won't die too quickly when spotted by workers or make it more 'silent' than now it is.
EPT
I wish the first 2/3 of the beta was based on "what is fun" and then balance from there.
