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On July 02 2008 08:33 MrRammstein wrote:Yea 100 mins and 200 gas is nowhere to being cheap  ... talking about unit's costs do you think they will change much? TBH I'm surprised that Banelings cost 25/25 not (as I read) previous 25/50 and Ghost 100/200 not 100/100... can it be to promote some units but avoid showing other as overpowered? and about transporting I read idea (on sc2armory) of Nomads transporting vehicles? was it in build ? edit: where abilities like Charge or Blink possible to turn off, so they aren't auto-casted?
Nomads were not transporting vehicles.
Blink is a useactivated ability so no need to "turn anything off".
Charge is autocast everytime it is up which is great and if you dont want them to charge/get lured just use the hold position command. One guy I played forgot that and I lured about 7 zeals into my waiting banelings which instantly vaporized them.
I felt that the baneling cost was fine, people with good builds, control and timely detection (aka not being a dick and just getting those observers) had a normal fighting chance against my army as is to be expected.
Ghosts along with marauders felt really expensive on the one side but they are so so strong when used properly so I'm withholding judgement on their costs. They are really really good units.
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On July 02 2008 07:42 FrozenArbiter wrote:No plz :D I'd be very interested in hearing more about the medivac. Everyone who went so far, that we've heard from, said they liked it while almost everyone hated it previously so I'd be very interested to hear as much as possible about this unit.. If you don't mind 
I've just used them in two games orso and they felt nice to use but I just dont like the whole concept. But objectively from the terran perspective they felt really normal and smoothely integrated into the gameplay and the starport gives you a good midway stop along the way to banshees in TvZ.
From a zerg perspective I kinda have some beef with medivacs and phase prisms as without scourges in the game there just is no effective way to deal/prevent them from doing what they are on their way to do, let alone if they are escorted. (except for obviously seeing them both comming with patrols and overlords/overseers across the map and just pulling units/your army back to deal with it but thats after the fact) Corruptors just didnt feel up to the task and Hydras/Queen just can't give chase across most terrain.
The whole deal with medics in SCBW were that a) they would have to walk up to a unit to heal while the medivacs heals are instantly from range which is really good. But then again you don't have as many medivacs as you had medics I guess. On another note is that when the battle turns sour you can just fly your medivacs away over hard terrain while in SCBW you would lose your medics and would have to rebuild them (refer again to hard way to deal with prisms and medivacs across unaccessable terrain from a zerg PoV).
Hope someone who played T alot can give a better account of this unit as it surely is an interesting one.
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On July 02 2008 12:45 MrRammstein wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2008 12:03 Nyovne wrote:
I was away all night after comming home with to my appartment and had a great night out on the town with my friends, so I'll fix my neglect of you tomorrow when I wake up and reply to whats been posted here got quite a few things to say about what's been said on this page :p.
FA: Lets say Medivacs make me frustrated that there's no scourges in the game anymore which I've missed on *alot* of occasions. If there's one unit I really want back in the game, and even more so then the original medic (even with jetpacks!) it's the scourge. With distance...
Anyways till tomorrow, peace out. Can't wait for it  1 thing Frozen Arbiter mentioned are Medivacs flying over army, distracting micro, so is there some way to drag selected those Marines and w/e without Medivacs?
one thing Frozen Arbiter mentioned are Medivacs flying over army, distracting micro, so is there some way to drag selected those Marines and w/e without Medivacs?[/QUOTE]
How is this a different problem from medics running around between your marines and which even needed to be right up against the unit they were going to heal? Moving the medivac (of which im 95% sure that it heals while it moves) has absolutely no impact at all since its a ranged heal which I think heals as well while it moves. The medivacs are pretty much healing from the back either way. Drag selecting marines with medics between them was just the same deal.
But the real point is just, you aren't drag selecting when controlling your forces, you're just using control-hotkeys to select and maneuver your army so there's no problem at all with selecting and controlling.
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On July 02 2008 13:18 Invisible_Zergling wrote:
Hey nyvone or anyone here that attended wwi.
Did zerg egg hatching and building animations look better then the earlier build? Before the larvae just instantly turned into egg w no animtion and then turned into zerg guy with no animation. Where these animations present?
Sam with the drones turning into buildins and the hatchery turning into lair/hive. They seemed to be missing those animations. everything was instant.
Sad about the lurker and infestor!!?? Karune said like months ago they already created a new model for that like wtf?
And can you tell us more about changelings and what the zerg spawn swarm look like and do?
Does it need an upgrade?
And does anyone know if where any sc pics from wwi present other then the 8 blizz released? thx
Yes the animations were present as they offcourse would be for the final game, the ability animations all look great except for the medivac spotlight heal as someone put it so well earlier on page 13.
The changeling does not require an upgrade, it is an innate ability of the zerg overseer which is the evolved version of the zerg overlord which becomes available at lairtech and requires 50mins/50gas to evolve and the spawn changeling ability itself costs 35 energy. It kinda looks like a small larvae.
They roam the map till they spot (important: your line of sight! if the tank spots it first for example itll just instagib it with its arclite cannon) the first hostile enemy unit and then mutate into a zealot marine or zergling which I believe is (neutral) to your opponent so their units won't attack it on their own. Afterwards you can stroll in till he takes you out after noticing you running around and scouting his army composition and tech if hes slow on the update and doesn't pay any attention. They can burrow! So you can just sit it out till something passes safely into your line of sight.
The hatchling has an energy duration as well and will expire like hatchlings and SCBW broodlings after a certain amount of time, sadly I cannot attest to what amount of time that would be in the build we played since I didn't pay attention to that detail at all.
Zerg "hatchlings" or the "swarm" that lives in buildings are just little 10/20 hp buggers that deal 4 damage at a fast attack rate which move at medium speed. They look like little mad spiders with a weird head where all the legs meet and are really cute haha. Once a zerg building dies they all appear at once as a little angry mob that starts to rage at whatever hostile unit is near before dying automatically after about 5 seconds so they're more there as a treat then that they actually do something usefull.
Well I guess if you probe/zeal rush and manage to take that expo hatchery down you will lose your zeal/probes to them if you aren't careful. But all in all they seem more of a flavor and cute bonus then anything thats of any real play value. Just see them as SCBW1 broodlings that just last 5 seconds.
PS. IMPORTANT NOTE ON BURROW: It doesn't reduce the burrowed units sight range anymore like it used to do in SCBW.
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On July 02 2008 13:56 IdrA wrote:Show nested quote +2) Idra wrote that after microing some Stalkers and Nullifiers he understands Blizzard's point of view on MBS.
If auto-mining would be cut, leaving worker icon, would micro like above even for MBS?
What do you think, experienced ones ? i said i understand why they thought it would compensate, but theyre still wrong. after a couple of days of playing the game good players will be able to do stuff like that as easily as theyre able to dance goons and split rines now. mbs definitely needs to go, as does automining. i dont think the idle worker thing is that big a deal.
Automining needs to go, definately. MBS in its current form is better then it was but its still bad for the game in the sense that it kills the room players to differentiate themselves in skill. Blizzard is going overboard as expected to make the game easy and accessable to total scrubs which as expected is hurting the room to skill differentiate.
Noone cares about the idle worker thing as Idra said.
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On July 02 2008 22:09 Nyovne wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2008 07:14 MrRammstein wrote:1) Did anyone look closer to Range Indicator? On SC2 streamed games it looked like it's permanent for some ranged units like Siege Tank? What happens when multiple Tanks are selected? Also what could be those circles around bases, because I have no idea what they indicated??? 2) Idra wrote that after microing some Stalkers and Nullifiers he understands Blizzard's point of view on MBS. If auto-mining would be cut, leaving worker icon, would micro like above even for MBS? What do you think, experienced ones ? I don't really understand what youre aiming at with that 2nd question :o.
edit: kk just answered xP
Well Thank You again for next wall of info :D
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On July 02 2008 14:35 IdrA wrote:
oh and something i forgot to mention, the new gas mechanic
i dont see why theyre willing to put something that artificial and contrived in while having such a problem with manual macro.
that being said, i think they should try removing the gas mechanic but keeping the current setup, with most tech units being very gas-heavy and each assimilator having only 1000 gas. without being able to refresh your gasses it would force you to expand pretty aggressively, keeping the game fast paced. you could already see some of that in the wwi games. if you didnt keep up in expansions mid game you would end up with zealot heavy armies vs collosus based armies, doesnt work out too well.
Yeah but in a proper game I found I was stuck on 2-3 base for quite a while and by the time I really had my 3rd base going on most maps (some were easier, especially vs P as in SCBW to just take 3 straight away) my main geysers would be depleted. This totally blocked my ability to effectively access Hive Tech units. And that even is with Z who are still the easiest race to expand with from my limited experience.
More gas into the geysers is obviously an easy solution but a mechanic for it requiring attention and a limited resource doesn't sit wrong with me either. The only point again is that combined with MBS it requires 1 hotkey to bind all your geysers and just spam it whenever the ability is up so it negates the extra attention mechanic again which is just counterproductive with the whole idea behind it.
But most of all I totally agree with the fact that they better tackle the manual macro issues first.
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On July 02 2008 14:59 IdrA wrote:
thats true, but its also easier for zerg to expand and secure more gasses.
(actually im not sure how well that transfers to sc2, but it seems like it would hold true)
if they did go that direction it would require alot of balancing, i just think it encourages a game style that they seem to want and alot of people find enjoyable (aka not turtling 3 bases and waiting for a 2-2 170 push)
I can just say about this that larvae management as is to be expected from how Zerg as race mechanics functions as a whole is still one of the major points of import while playing the race. So yeah it's a point of interest on how it will devellop and affect timings to stay effective at certain moments of timing in the early game and early-midgame transition.
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On July 02 2008 15:26 VIB wrote:
Can the changeling use stimpack to quickly get to the enemy base and scout?
Hehe no the changeling stays the changeling in every way, from upgrades to abilities. It does not gain anything from the form it takes. All it does is change colour and form.
If an opponent selects a changeling it will also say "changeling" for him and not marine/zealot/zergling which the little bugger is trying to pass for.
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On July 02 2008 15:49 MrRammstein wrote:
edit: question about units infested by Corruptors:
How much health do they have? Do bigger units when infested have more?
edit2: Did Archon have any abilities like Feedback?
I cannot answer the question about the health corrupted units have but if I memmory serves me right they retain the same max/hp as the unit that got corrupted *but* they only have 33% of their max/hp. For the rest they are stationary turrets that can only use their air to air attack, and if it didnt have one before (like a corrupted overlord for example) it will not gain one and it'll just hand there. A corrupted collossus is a nice battlefield ornament but sadly totally useless.
Sadly corruption lasts a whole of 10 seconds with an upgrade at hive level to increase it to 15/20 sec or something, most certainly not more.
So in short, they disappear moments after getting corrupted already and will not impact anything after that single battle being fought.
I found it all rather underwhelming for such a cool concept and it really left me disappointed.
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On July 02 2008 16:51 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2008 14:35 IdrA wrote:
oh and something i forgot to mention, the new gas mechanic
i dont see why theyre willing to put something that artificial and contrived in while having such a problem with manual macro.
that being said, i think they should try removing the gas mechanic but keeping the current setup, with most tech units being very gas-heavy and each assimilator having only 1000 gas. without being able to refresh your gasses it would force you to expand pretty aggressively, keeping the game fast paced. you could already see some of that in the wwi games. if you didnt keep up in expansions mid game you would end up with zealot heavy armies vs collosus based armies, doesnt work out too well.
Hrm, I was sort of hoping SC2 would bring back the viability, sort of, of some 1 base or 1 base nat builds like SC was played around 2002-2003  Don't you think essentially forcing the players to play a super aggro expansion game will limit them quite a lot in what they can do? I guess this is easily fixed by mapmakers tho. EDIT: You do have a good point about it discouraging turtling..
The whole thing is not a problem at all and I greatly encourage this "sub-route" blizzard has taken concerning this.
It's as you put so well, a problem fixed by mapmakers. It's one of the things that has be hopefull and enthusiastic about SC2 and that it appears to be a game thats balancable by *map* just as SCBW is.
Just changing a map can solve so many balance problems or create such a new and innovative playground for the three races we all know and love but as fast as it can solve them it can create them. I mean imagine a SCBW map with no gas in main and just at the expo, that would provide quite the twist, but if it's a good one or original one... Unlikely.
A game that's mostly mapbalanced is the way to go, it's worked *wonders* for SCBW and keeps a certain part of the community (mapmakers) interested and active in the community as a whole. That plus it keeps a game dynamic, it gives fresh battlegrounds, forces new strategies and all in all a game that is mapbalanced over a basic ground balance level as there is in starcraft broodwar just allows for a way, namely through new and innovative maps on a regular basis to breathe new life into the game to keep it going and going.
That plus the whole 1-2 gas per main or expo gives alot of possible variations in strategic routes to take. Especially from a zerg p.o.v. I found that, will I take 1 gas? 2? is a big question regarding not only your tier 1 unit choice (banelings + zerglings, or pure roach, or roach ling baneling) but also determines how much gas you take with you to tier 2 and how fast you can access your factions tier 2 goodies.
As an added fact there now is on the maps we played, with their one thousand gas per geyser, is that the faster you take your gas, let alone your 2nd gas the faster your main will deplete and if you if you haven't expanded then ur kinda screwed unless you prevented your opponent from doing the same and which offcourse affects all three races differently. On the map we played it was a real treat if you could keep your opponent boxed up in his main as long as you could to delay his expansion so he would gasstarve himself really fast and would take his expansion on two depleted geysers so he'd have issues to replenish his gas units and keep up with upgrades while you keep pressuring him.
It grants a huge way to differentiate between plays and the way they will be played, the maps we played at WWI forced a really agressive style which was prolly intended by blizzard since most of the time there was a 20 minutes timelimit on the games and it forced players to explore the new gas mechanic.
Hope I made some sense in all this FA.
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On July 02 2008 22:30 Nyovne wrote:
From a zerg perspective I kinda have some beef with medivacs and phase prisms as without scourges in the game there just is no effective way to deal/prevent them from doing what they are on their way to do, let alone if they are escorted. (except for obviously seeing them both comming with patrols and overlords/overseers across the map and just pulling units/your army back to deal with it but thats after the fact) Corruptors just didnt feel up to the task and Hydras/Queen just can't give chase across most terrain.
Maybe it's just cause I'm not a zerg player, but I never thought about the massive repercussions that result from the removal of the scourge. Now that you mention it, that is a big freaking deal.
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On July 02 2008 17:04 MrRammstein wrote:
If Blizz lowered cost of all buildings and resources... but they rather want to avoid bigger armies aka 5minerals per trip...
No, the new pathing plus automining means that especially for scrubs, but even for progamers that you will probably even have more minerals comming in, especially early on then you do now with a 8 mineral return.
I mean when a mineral field is saturated with workers, 8 obviously gives a faster return but till then I think the 5 mins with the new pathing is at least a match for it. Maybe not when you number crunch it but it *felt* good and about the same.
There most certainly was no shortage of massing large numbers of units and seeing large scale battles like in SCBW in the good games I played that went to midgame with us both having 2 or more bases.
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On July 02 2008 23:18 Centric wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2008 22:30 Nyovne wrote:
From a zerg perspective I kinda have some beef with medivacs and phase prisms as without scourges in the game there just is no effective way to deal/prevent them from doing what they are on their way to do, let alone if they are escorted. (except for obviously seeing them both comming with patrols and overlords/overseers across the map and just pulling units/your army back to deal with it but thats after the fact) Corruptors just didnt feel up to the task and Hydras/Queen just can't give chase across most terrain. Maybe it's just cause I'm not a zerg player, but I never thought about the massive repercussions that result from the removal of the scourge. Now that you mention it, that is a big freaking deal.
Yeah that's why I hope some people who really explored Protoss and Terran will show up in this thread to share their part cause I can just really speculate on my very limited experience with those two races which is even less then my zerg experience and from how it felt from an opponents perspective from another race.
Not being able to snipe phase prisms, medivacs, nomads, observers is a big big freakin deal and hurt my early-midgame transition alot where I was kinda depending alot on the power of my burrowed units and I really wished I had a change to knock out their detection but there just wasn't a proper way like in SCBW where you could snipe vessels and observers. For the rest it leaves you with dealing with consequences of opponents actions instead of being able to decisively prevent them.
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Do you still feel up to writing this blog ;DD?
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that actually might be the reason for the removal of scourge, with the power of burrowed banelings and the overall improvement of burrow they might not have wanted a cheap, easy way to take out detection.
also it seems to go more with the overall idea of being able to easily attack your opponent by 'sneaky' means, with the introduction of all the terrain bypassing stuff, protoss warping in, zerg nydus canal, terran reaper/improved drops.. basically it seems like they dont want you to be able to easily stop drops and similar tactics.
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On July 02 2008 18:42 Klockan3 wrote:
Btw, why are people hating the corrupters? They are cheaper than mutas, do more dps than mutas and have more health than mutas. VS zerg they cant infest stuff but on the other hand they beat mutas hands down which in itself is a huge improvement over sc1 zerg, while they should be able to go toe to toe vs the other races aa air with their very high health per cost.
But from what I heard people did not really teach the stages were air comes into play so its probably the reason.
They are like corsairs but way slower. My beef with them is that you cannot harass with them, you cannot effectively use them to prevent drops or use them to snipe detectors like vessels or observers with. And it your opponent doesn't have air they are just uselessly hanging there.
In a mass air to air battle they are devastating though because once they start corrupting the tide turns against your opponent really really fast because you become stonger at the rate he becomes weaker.
I would feel that they would suit a much better role as support flyers (and corruption would be a debuff that lasts for x-seconds and while an affected unit dies it would become corrupted) and built at spire tech instead of lair and that zerg would get scourges back to fill that vacancy which would adress at least what seemed to me from my limited gameplay experiences some issues that seemed to arrise.
Plus that fact that scourges would be a WICKED way to deal with Collossi .
My general feel is just that zerg air power should consist of a unit mix to be effective the same way that a zerg ground army is composed. I mean in SCBW you have mutas backed up by devourers and scourges screaming through everything. At the moment mutas just blow huge amounts of ass and corruptors fail at everything except a mass air battle after which they suck and cant finish anything. They are a concept that would make a *perfect* support unit in my humble opinion.
An alternative what doesn't hype me at all but which might work better then this for my feeling would be to change them into little cheap (and fast!) 1 supply air skirmishers.
Still I'll settle for scourges with corruptors in a support role any day, it would just touch so many issues going atm like zergs insane weakness to offensive cliff-play against them.
Don't get me wrong I absolutely *LOVE* the concept behind corruptors, it's just implemented like shit. I love the baneling concept as well and that turned out just sick awsome great perfect in the build we played so I hope they leave that alone.
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On July 02 2008 23:26 IdrA wrote:
that actually might be the reason for the removal of scourge, with the power of burrowed banelings and the overall improvement of burrow they might not have wanted a cheap, easy way to take out detection.
also it seems to go more with the overall idea of being able to easily attack your opponent by 'sneaky' means, with the introduction of all the terrain bypassing stuff, protoss warping in, zerg nydus canal, terran reaper/improved drops.. basically it seems like they dont want you to be able to easily stop drops and similar tactics.
Yeah sadly I know but I just severely disagree with the sentiment that you get stuck with having to deal with the consequences of your opponents actions instead of actually being able to prevent them beforehand.
Mobile detection isn't even hard to get, cannons and radar towers provide static detection, observers are still as easily accessable like they were and nomads require just a starport with addon so are aquirable at the same rate like dropships used to be in SCBW.
I really think their should be a proper way to deal with it and scourges are well suited to it. At the moment you hardly even have to protect your detectors cause if they just hang back a bit they are untouchable which just seems a bit wrong to me as zerg burrow at least appears to be a really important piece of gameplay for them.
Again it's having to deal with consequences instead of playing a high control strategy that allows risky investments and a way to prevent your opponent from doing things instead of being forced to be stuck to deal with the consequences.
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On July 02 2008 23:25 MrRammstein wrote:
Do you still feel up to writing this blog ;DD?
Haha once I finish all this ranting and this thread quiets down a bit I'll compile it and write a big ass SC2 zerg blog with some P and T mesmerizing.
^^;;
Glad to see you're in this thread still btw Greg/Idra, you have well thought insights and offcourse a great point of view from which you regard this whole little adventure .
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On July 02 2008 15:49 MrRammstein wrote:
edit2: Did Archon have any abilities like Feedback?
Oh btw I didn't build archons I just fought against them so I can't help you on that one, I hope someone else can.
Archons seemed to suck alot though and I'd put my money on Collossi any day of the week. They just seem to be nice to create midcombat when your HT run out of energy, especially with the archons Power Overwhelming buff they receive for the first 20 seconds after morphing (it increases their damage by X, dunno how much).
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EPT
