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On May 30 2022 20:42 serendipitous wrote:
Hydras are meant to be a squishy long range backline unit with high dps and they do that job wonderfully. Dunno why we'd want to buff them.
The thought process from the last few replies in the thread was "how to make sc2 more like BW" and specifically "how to make the queen less of a catch-all defensive clutch for zerg early game".
So, that's why people are thinking of a way to make hydra less garbo and somewhat decent vs early game, so that you actually:
* make larva more impactful in the early game
* specialize the queen only for macro mechanics (inject+creep)
* make hydras relevant again, which was part of zerg identity in BW
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On May 30 2022 20:11 syndbg wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 13:12 dph114 wrote:On May 30 2022 00:12 Vision_ wrote:On May 29 2022 22:33 Beelzebub1 wrote:On May 29 2022 21:05 Vision_ wrote:Having an eye on the previous video i linked some days ago, hydralisks aren t enought cost efficient against marines/medivacs.. Of course you can argue that Zergs need a mixed army composition with Banelings, but their cost is the same amount of minerals and gas (and Tier 1...). I feel like it s more dependant about player skill injection than a true strategic decision and Zergs can run out of bankrupt if his parry (of paying hydralisks) isn t enought cost-effective. That s why adding one point to the hydralisks range (and lower his damage in consequence) possibly not have such a big impact (in term of priority) on the units range ladder (  Range ), ... And with reducing medivacs range from 4 to 3, you could get a new relationship/interaction between units (by now it s about mediv : 4 + 5 = 9 (marines) against 6 for hydralisks). With these changes, a skilled Zerg could snipe more medivacs. Just my feelings But why? Hydralisks are not a balance issue, they aren't weak, they aren't strong. Why would they need a buff to snipe medivacs? lol because marines/medivacs rapes hydralisks. and? Should BC's be buffed because corrupters rape them? Woah R-word. D: I don't t think the analogy is correct. BCs have a good window where they're strong, which is pretty much until you have enough corruptors to 1shot BCs. Hydras... I don't think there's a time when the hydra is better. However, the idea of playing with the default hydra range might be useful. Note that queens are extremely needed to defend proxy raxes. In the current state with awful range w/o upgrades and the current hp/cost, hydra is just useless vs that.
Yeah if you're using Hydras to defend proxy raxes, you're doing something wrong
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On May 30 2022 20:49 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 20:11 syndbg wrote:On May 30 2022 13:12 dph114 wrote:On May 30 2022 00:12 Vision_ wrote:On May 29 2022 22:33 Beelzebub1 wrote:On May 29 2022 21:05 Vision_ wrote:Having an eye on the previous video i linked some days ago, hydralisks aren t enought cost efficient against marines/medivacs.. Of course you can argue that Zergs need a mixed army composition with Banelings, but their cost is the same amount of minerals and gas (and Tier 1...). I feel like it s more dependant about player skill injection than a true strategic decision and Zergs can run out of bankrupt if his parry (of paying hydralisks) isn t enought cost-effective. That s why adding one point to the hydralisks range (and lower his damage in consequence) possibly not have such a big impact (in term of priority) on the units range ladder ( Range ), ... And with reducing medivacs range from 4 to 3, you could get a new relationship/interaction between units (by now it s about mediv : 4 + 5 = 9 (marines) against 6 for hydralisks). With these changes, a skilled Zerg could snipe more medivacs. Just my feelings But why? Hydralisks are not a balance issue, they aren't weak, they aren't strong. Why would they need a buff to snipe medivacs? lol because marines/medivacs rapes hydralisks. Did you even try to reply in the context and? Should BC's be buffed because corrupters rape them? Woah R-word. D: I don't t think the analogy is correct. BCs have a good window where they're strong, which is pretty much until you have enough corruptors to 1shot BCs. Hydras... I don't think there's a time when the hydra is better. However, the idea of playing with the default hydra range might be useful. Note that queens are extremely needed to defend proxy raxes. In the current state with awful range w/o upgrades and the current hp/cost, hydra is just useless vs that. Yeah if you're using Hydras to defend proxy raxes, you're doing something wrong
That's a pretty shallow reply taking things out of context.
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Northern Ireland25054 Posts
On May 30 2022 20:46 syndbg wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 20:42 serendipitous wrote:
Hydras are meant to be a squishy long range backline unit with high dps and they do that job wonderfully. Dunno why we'd want to buff them. The thought process from the last few replies in the thread was "how to make sc2 more like BW" and specifically "how to make the queen less of a catch-all defensive clutch for zerg early game". So, that's why people are thinking of a way to make hydra less garbo and somewhat decent vs early game, so that you actually: * make larva more impactful in the early game * specialize the queen only for macro mechanics (inject+creep) * make hydras relevant again, which was part of zerg identity in BW
I’m not sure how relevant identity is, they’re just profoundly different games. At least in terms of the presence of a particular unit, people wanted better Carriers as they too are iconic, only for the prevalence of Carrier-augmented deathballs to disavow many of that notion.
Giving Zerg more to think about, and more options correspondingly rather than Queens as a catch all just seems a good fundamental design tweak.
As it stands hydra are the only candidate that can possibly be slotted in to give Zerg reliable AA against a variety of air harassment that hits pretty early, and Zerg 100% need that alternative if the Queen is to be modified to be less of a catch-all
I don’t think beyond that more hydras equals a more Zergy feel though, while I think there’s some balance issues with it/them creep in SC2 absolutely has a Zerg flavour, banes too. Zerg get to play with highly mobile, numerous and squishy melee/short range comps in ling/bling/muta that feels very swarmy too.
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I don't think aiming to make hydras a good early game unit in SC2 is even vaguely realistic (for one, the way zerg econ scaling and early gas interact means you'd need hydras to be bullshit OP as units to fill the queen's role without crippling the Zerg).
However, making queens worse AA for the midgame and hydras better there makes some sense, and is a lot more realistic. The damage point idea (for AA specifically, I don't think it could be balanced vs ground) is solid because it is a major buff against low health units like interceptors (and to a degree mutas) that hydras currently absolutely suck against struggle with.
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What I'd like to see is a deep change inspired by sane first principles.
- No free units
- No stacking AoE
- No race-specific damage (like the extra widow mines damage against shield)
- No mono units
- Spell casters should not be useful once massed, or in direct combat (the ghost...)
I also think that Liberators, Cyclones, Colossus, Disruptors, Swarm hosts and Lurkers are not well designed and tend to create stale situations.
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Northern Ireland25054 Posts
On May 30 2022 21:25 DormeurDuVal wrote:
What I'd like to see is a deep change inspired by sane first principles.
- No free units
- No stacking AoE
- No race-specific damage (like the extra widow mines damage against shield)
- No mono units
- Spell casters should not be useful once massed, or in direct combat (the ghost...)
I also think that Liberators, Cyclones, Colossus, Disruptors, Swarm hosts and Lurkers are not well designed and tend to create stale situations.
What do you mean by no mono units?
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On May 30 2022 21:28 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 21:25 DormeurDuVal wrote:
What I'd like to see is a deep change inspired by sane first principles.
- No free units
- No stacking AoE
- No race-specific damage (like the extra widow mines damage against shield)
- No mono units
- Spell casters should not be useful once massed, or in direct combat (the ghost...)
I also think that Liberators, Cyclones, Colossus, Disruptors, Swarm hosts and Lurkers are not well designed and tend to create stale situations.
What do you mean by no mono units?
The mothership. It should simply be removed, this is a pure gimmick.
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An other aspect of the game that I think could have profound implication is the max 200 pop limit.
In my opinion, the max population limit should only be reached on rare occasion, extremely late game.
Thus, it should be increased, and the map ressources should maybe be decreased, depending on the results.
The dynamic of 200pop vs 200pop with huge banks is not great, often leading to stale situations.
Of course many units should be rebalanced accordingly, the cost of roaches comes to mind...
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The Queen is a bit too versatile in my opinion, it can be used as a macro unit, defense unit, attack unit and support spell caster, both anti ground and anti air.
This role could maybe be slit into two versions of the queen, the basic defense queen and the advanced attack queen...
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Northern Ireland25054 Posts
On May 30 2022 21:44 DormeurDuVal wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 21:28 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2022 21:25 DormeurDuVal wrote:
What I'd like to see is a deep change inspired by sane first principles.
- No free units
- No stacking AoE
- No race-specific damage (like the extra widow mines damage against shield)
- No mono units
- Spell casters should not be useful once massed, or in direct combat (the ghost...)
I also think that Liberators, Cyclones, Colossus, Disruptors, Swarm hosts and Lurkers are not well designed and tend to create stale situations.
What do you mean by no mono units? The mothership. It should simply be removed, this is a pure gimmick.
Ok I get you now. It’s pretty rarely deployed though and is a borderline gimmick anyway, which is IMO fine. I don’t mind the odd unit that is super situational.
What’s wrong with stacking AoE or race-specific damage?
Clumping, easily deployable, high DPS compositions (hello bio) need counter measures, and AoE is that countermeasure.
You need mines to be potent to some degree for bio-mine to be viable, Protoss happen to have a rather tanky melee unit, Zerg have a numerous and squishy, speedy melee unit. If you outright buff mines and their damage you both melt Zerg, but also Terran units from dragged mines. That upsets the rather delicate, borderline balanced interaction there, so doing that is rather problematic. If you don’t boost their damage mines relatively tickle Zealots charging in.
So the best compromise is a bonus damage to shields, which Protoss only possess. It’s not the most elegant solution possible but it’s not really fundamentally different from attack/armour bonuses.
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On May 31 2022 01:17 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 21:44 DormeurDuVal wrote:On May 30 2022 21:28 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2022 21:25 DormeurDuVal wrote:
What I'd like to see is a deep change inspired by sane first principles.
- No free units
- No stacking AoE
- No race-specific damage (like the extra widow mines damage against shield)
- No mono units
- Spell casters should not be useful once massed, or in direct combat (the ghost...)
I also think that Liberators, Cyclones, Colossus, Disruptors, Swarm hosts and Lurkers are not well designed and tend to create stale situations.
What do you mean by no mono units? The mothership. It should simply be removed, this is a pure gimmick. Ok I get you now. It’s pretty rarely deployed though and is a borderline gimmick anyway, which is IMO fine. I don’t mind the odd unit that is super situational. What’s wrong with stacking AoE or race-specific damage? Clumping, easily deployable, high DPS compositions (hello bio) need counter measures, and AoE is that countermeasure. You need mines to be potent to some degree for bio-mine to be viable, Protoss happen to have a rather tanky melee unit, Zerg have a numerous and squishy, speedy melee unit. If you outright buff mines and their damage you both melt Zerg, but also Terran units from dragged mines. That upsets the rather delicate, borderline balanced interaction there, so doing that is rather problematic. If you don’t boost their damage mines relatively tickle Zealots charging in. So the best compromise is a bonus damage to shields, which Protoss only possess. It’s not the most elegant solution possible but it’s not really fundamentally different from attack/armour bonuses.
Agreed here on all counts.
I think the mine +shield damage was one of the better tweaks to a unit that made it workable in an extra matchup.
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I am not saying that the window mine is unbalanced but that the way this balance was achieved is ugly.
Tanks are an other AoE unit, they don't do special damage to a race.
I think that Protoss having tanky units is a trait of the race, that should be preserved for diversity of gameplay engagement, if mines were not that effective against some protoss composition because of their tankiness, I don't think that would be a huge problem, but of course that should be balanced.
Stackable AoE is something that in my opinion should really be adressed. Psi storm is a very powerful AoE spell, but it can't be stacked, and this is a very good design choice as that would make it a doom spell if it was, use 4-5 templars and cast as a full 3-4 stacked storm and see your army evaporate in an instant.
The same logic should apply to collosus, the overlaping lasers should not do overlaping damage, idem for lurkers and many other AoE.
And the free units thing, I think this is a recipe for stale turtle style games.
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On May 30 2022 21:11 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 20:46 syndbg wrote:On May 30 2022 20:42 serendipitous wrote:
Hydras are meant to be a squishy long range backline unit with high dps and they do that job wonderfully. Dunno why we'd want to buff them. The thought process from the last few replies in the thread was "how to make sc2 more like BW" and specifically "how to make the queen less of a catch-all defensive clutch for zerg early game". So, that's why people are thinking of a way to make hydra less garbo and somewhat decent vs early game, so that you actually: * make larva more impactful in the early game * specialize the queen only for macro mechanics (inject+creep) * make hydras relevant again, which was part of zerg identity in BW I’m not sure how relevant identity is, they’re just profoundly different games. At least in terms of the presence of a particular unit, people wanted better Carriers as they too are iconic, only for the prevalence of Carrier-augmented deathballs to disavow many of that notion. Giving Zerg more to think about, and more options correspondingly rather than Queens as a catch all just seems a good fundamental design tweak. As it stands hydra are the only candidate that can possibly be slotted in to give Zerg reliable AA against a variety of air harassment that hits pretty early, and Zerg 100% need that alternative if the Queen is to be modified to be less of a catch-all I don’t think beyond that more hydras equals a more Zergy feel though, while I think there’s some balance issues with it/them creep in SC2 absolutely has a Zerg flavour, banes too. Zerg get to play with highly mobile, numerous and squishy melee/short range comps in ling/bling/muta that feels very swarmy too.
The queen AA change is the exact reason why the Hydra keeps getting mentioned over and over again as it seems like the only candidate to address the Zerg AA issue.
Moreover, currently you can get the "swarmy feel" only by going for ling/melee based compositions.
What I'd like to see, and also some people arguing for changing the hydra I suppose, is to have the same vibe when going other compositions, namely "ranged"=roach+hydra and I believe with changes to both roach an hydra it is possible.
I'd like Roach and Hydra to coexist in T1.5 and have Zergs to do some decisions in the early game which unit they want to commit.
I imagine something like:
Roach
- supply changed form 2 to 1
- reduced the attack range from 4 to 3
- unit characteristics: slow, sturdy, armored, tanky, defensive, low range
You can have much more roaches in the maxed army, however they are not gonna scale well in bigger fights as many of them gonna be blocked from attacking due to lower range. Hopefully this would mean more scattered fights when zerg maxes out. Also easier to build in the early game as the cost is lower because you do not need that many overlords which means that building only a few defensive roaches is not that big of a commitment.
Hydra
- moved to Hatch tech (obviously still needs Den)
- supply changed form 2 to 1
- cost changed to 75/25
- build time: 24 -> 19
- tune/balance health and DPS later on
- unit characteristics: fast, nimble, squishy, AA, easily microable, long range
Indented to provide early game AA to help fight against harass units. Lesser cost and 1 supply should allow to build fearsome swarmy army with 1 supply roaches as a backbone. Also might become a go-to AA in the bigger armies but hard to tell.
Queen
- AA & ground attack range reduced to 4
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I had a similar idea, because I was tired of Roach wars in HotS and thought about 3 range Roaches, how different it would be. I think what adds a lot to the death ball, which is so disliked, is units with long range. When you think about it, the less range the more positioning matters and it becomes a battle for concaves, but with long range you just stand and shoot.
So my idea for the Roach was to go back to the original design of the Roach from the beta. Armour increased from 1->2 and range decreased from 4->3.
As I said earlier I would also like to see -1 range Hydras in exchange for a movement speed buff.
And so with these range changes, the Zerg ranged unit army would consist of 3 range, bulkier Roaches tanking the front, with faster, 4 range Hydras in the next line and then lastly sieging from the back we have the 6 range Ravagers. I think this makes more sense, so the Ravagers are well protected, but are also the slower unit. Instead of as it is now, where all the ranged Zerg units incl. the Queen have the 4-6 range and so they all awkwardly clump up.
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On May 30 2022 04:07 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2022 00:12 Vision_ wrote:On May 29 2022 22:33 Beelzebub1 wrote:On May 29 2022 21:05 Vision_ wrote:Having an eye on the previous video i linked some days ago, hydralisks aren t enought cost efficient against marines/medivacs.. Of course you can argue that Zergs need a mixed army composition with Banelings, but their cost is the same amount of minerals and gas (and Tier 1...). I feel like it s more dependant about player skill injection than a true strategic decision and Zergs can run out of bankrupt if his parry (of paying hydralisks) isn t enought cost-effective. That s why adding one point to the hydralisks range (and lower his damage in consequence) possibly not have such a big impact (in term of priority) on the units range ladder ( Range ), ... And with reducing medivacs range from 4 to 3, you could get a new relationship/interaction between units (by now it s about mediv : 4 + 5 = 9 (marines) against 6 for hydralisks). With these changes, a skilled Zerg could snipe more medivacs. Just my feelings But why? Hydralisks are not a balance issue, they aren't weak, they aren't strong. Why would they need a buff to snipe medivacs? lol because marines/medivacs rapes hydralisks. Building other units than the hydralisk is not an option?
* make hydras relevant again, which was part of zerg identity in BW (syndbg quote)
I now approve the concept of getting three balanced basic units in the Zerg army play-style. I also consider Stalkers as odd in the meta. but generally i m convinced 99.9% by a reduction of speed damage interaction (which is an average complicated tweak - indeed this is mostly mathematical), to resume, i promote hydras to be a core unit, coming sooner.
Is the concept of balancing each race one after the other realistic/do-able ? as long as it remains balanced against the two others I think most of members of this forum would rather like to see Zerg be patched in first (if you must chose only one entire race to re-work)
It s hard in my mind to consider air domination as a part of the strategy. I enjoy mutas, vikings and phoenix. I also enjoy Tempest and kinda like BC. But i don t really like to talk about Corrupters. I can imagine bigger supply cost units in the air domain but it would be a part of a new era Is there an issue with vipers because you can create them without limit ? are air casters breaker only because they can be created in just one time in the Zerg race ?
For example, would you require two larvas for creating a viper, i mean it s not completely out of sense ?
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I dont understand why everyone here wants to buff hydra, which would break all the mu's simply because aoe is much weaker in sc2, for it would pretty much make every mu mass hydra, this would also mean some of the other races units might need to buffed mostly siege tank and gateway units for protoss imo.
This would destroy balance and meta of sc2 as we know it.
If you really wanted to make hydra t1 unit, imo reduce its range to something like 4, and make its anti-air range bigger. Make it dedicated aa and nerf queen antiair or heal? This would make hydra similar situation as reaper a dedicated early game unit. It wouldnt effect balance later in the game..
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Ladder should be forced to Random,
That would end all unconstructive balance whining.
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On June 03 2022 04:38 UnLarva wrote:
Ladder should be forced to Random,
That would end all unconstructive balance whining.
And replace it all with the much more constructive "Let us choose our race again" whining.
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Separate note: In the current state of affairs, we can expect more changes. The community at large (possibly) has some influence here. Given this, I think it'd be somewhat nice to focus on realistic changes.
Changing the supply or place in the tech tree of any core unit, like the hydra, is not a realistic change.
I don't think there's any point discussing it. Not only will it not happen (not practically relevant), but I really don't think it's possible to construct a good theory about what the game would actually look like after such a change (outside of the immediate early game, like hydra allins vs protoss becoming a thing).
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On June 03 2022 06:37 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2022 04:38 UnLarva wrote:
Ladder should be forced to Random,
That would end all unconstructive balance whining. And replace it all with the much more constructive "Let us choose our race again" whining. ------------- Separate note: In the current state of affairs, we can expect more changes. The community at large (possibly) has some influence here. Given this, I think it'd be somewhat nice to focus on realistic changes. Changing the supply or place in the tech tree of any core unit, like the hydra, is not a realistic change. I don't think there's any point discussing it. Not only will it not happen (not practically relevant), but I really don't think it's possible to construct a good theory about what the game would actually look like after such a change (outside of the immediate early game, like hydra allins vs protoss becoming a thing).
Any problem has his own issue. With a good team in place (pro, stronk-casuals and casters), with a first release of slower damage interaction, i don t think replacing Hydras in T1 is impossible. You could also give a chance into a 9-starter workers in an eventual incomming era. (ps : the first release is about creating a copy of sc2 with slower damage interaction and eventually 9 workers starting, then patchs could be delivery on it)
On June 03 2022 04:11 dph114 wrote:
I dont understand why everyone here wants to buff hydra, ..
I said Hydras are a bit weak, but it s considering the bio playstyle of Terran. I didn t want to speak about buff, even if i m going too far when i said "bio rapes hydras", i promote just a new composition of basic zerg units. and so Hydras aren t weak against Protoss
First Release :
> Slower interaction Damage
> 5 workers starting
> Workers carry now 10 minerals (instead of 5). The time for gathering ressource is increased up to be equal like "if the worker would have done 2 back and forth". HHM (Hot Harvesting Minerals) : after been gathered, minerals are hot and can t be gather until the next trip.
> In Consequence, workers gain 70% hit points. Their damage is reduced by 33%. Their mineral cost increased from 50 to 100, double construction time,
> New ground type for forbidden installation buildings
> Larva no longer provides Drones
> Hatchery New ability is added > Create Drone. This spells creates Drones (the time to make drone is a little bit shorter than SCV or probes)
> Spawning time for tumors increased from 11 to 13
> Warpgate duration protoss units inverted in term of logic
I will do the "slower interaction damage" sheet. Then the author of HHM could be a big help.
Then i m searching modders to go further in modifications (...)
WIP : decrease 30% damage per second
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EPT
