Gamespot: The official SC2 forums stated that there will be a Heart of the Swarm multiplayer beta coming out. What else can you add on that Wings of Liberty's multiplayer has covered last year?
Dustin Browder: Well, it's tough. The Terrans have enough stuff already, thus it becomes a guessing game to know what to do for them. We have to be careful about what new units we can add to the game. At the end of the day, we still have to add in cool s***. [Players] are giving us their money; we have to give them something cool.
There are some easy things we can do and there are some hard things. If we study the game, for example, you would say that the corruptor is lame. Don't get us wrong; they're useful. If there are a lot of colossi, you need corruptors. If there are dark templars, you need overseers. They have a battle function for a situation, but what new battle strategies and tactics do they add in the game? Compare the [corruptors and overseers] to the mutalisks; a player can raid, harass. They can get board control; they can decimate opponents without antiair. Party, right? Having those guys around changes the match. Corruptors? Meh. You build colossi, I build corruptors; end of story.
There are some units we can upgrade wholesale or remove and replace with something better. That's one easy way to give better gameplay without giving so many options you don't know what's going on while also not compromising balance. [...]
Corruption has to be the most uninspired and least interesting spell in the SC universe by a HUGE margin.
The above interview highlights the problems with the Overseer and Corruptor, they are boring. I'm not saying they are too strong or too weak. Underpowered/overpowered if fleeting, lame is forever.
The interview was conducted over a year ago. The consensus in the community agreed with Browder's analysis of the units, and many expected some changes to come with HOTS.
So... what happened? Blizzard openly expressed dissatisfaction towards the Corruptor and Overseer, and heavily implies that we'll see improvements in HOTS. Beta has hit, and the two units are still dull as ever. Will we have another 2+ years of the same old "lame" unit? Certainly a poor choice for an E-sport to leave openly-confessed "lame" units unchanged in an expansion.
The purpose of this thread is to raise attention to the issue, and remind Blizzard that they have not provided any solution in the beta to a problem they admitted over a year ago. Also feel free to propose your own changes
Poll: Should Blizzard change the Corruptor?
Yes, I agree with Browder that its current form is lame (589)
86%
No, I want it to stay as is (92)
14%
681 total votes
Your vote: Should Blizzard change the Corruptor?
(Vote): Yes, I agree with Browder that its current form is lame (Vote): No, I want it to stay as is
Poll: Should Blizzard change the Overseer?
Yes, "make his abilities more interesting" (377)
61%
No, I want it to stay as is (243)
39%
620 total votes
Your vote: Should Blizzard change the Overseer?
(Vote): Yes, "make his abilities more interesting" (Vote): No, I want it to stay as is
Cloud: creates a small cloud that lasts for a short duration. Units (both friendly and foe) under the cloud do not take bonus damage. ie. Roaches only take 10 damage from Marauders. I think the spell will make compositions more interesting, the spell can turn a poor composition into a good one, making engagements rather tricky and suspenseful because it would be hard to predict as a spectator. Maybe too hard to balance though.
I've always thought corruption should work like the devourer's damage bonus in BW.
Why would zerg of all races use a 20% bonus, instead of a small flat increase (like, say, +1/2/3 damage per hit)? It's really counterintuitive, and it's part of the reason the spell has almost zero utility outside of killing colossi and carriers faster.
It could also be reworked so that it does something outside the norm, like changing the unit type of the target (add massive to boost corruptors' damage, add light to boost banelings' damage etc). This brings up another issue: the fact that corruptors do bonus damage to massive is really brutally stupid. It cements them as being "the thing you mass when the other guy makes a wacky tech choice", rather than "high survivability air-to-air unit". Their damage against non-massive units is laughably bad, and they only beat things like vikings because of upgrade superiority or help from fungals/infested terrans.
As for the overseer: all it needs is for contaminate to not cost so much bloody energy. It's a good spell that could be finding a lot more application if it was possible to get it before lair/twilight/armory tech in WoL. The unit is fine for what it is, but contaminate is probably its most interesting ability and it's impossible to use it in a reasonable way most games.
You say the purpose is to remind Blizzard... you're certainly not doing that on TL. Try the bnet forums.
As for the actual units... they said they were thinking about it, and they've decided not to change them yet. I'd give it a month or so of beta and see if they really need a change then.
On September 07 2012 08:34 SgtCoDFish wrote: You say the purpose is to remind Blizzard... you're certainly not doing that on TL. Try the bnet forums.
As for the actual units... they said they were thinking about it, and they've decided not to change them yet. I'd give it a month or so of beta and see if they really need a change then.
Does Blizzard not read TL? I was under the impression that they do
I agree that they are both currently balanced units in WoL, but having said that they are both very boring units that could be given some minor tweaks to add some utility.
On September 07 2012 08:41 neoghaleon55 wrote: you can't do anything with the overseer. It's a unit that costs no supply! Leave it as is, it's fine.
Corruptor, would be nice if they gave it queen goop from BW. lol
I know Browder+Kim mentioned in several interviews that the 0-supply makes it hard to balance, but I don't think it's impossible Hopefully the design team can be creative and think of ways to improve/change the two spells it already has. As a last resort, they can always bump up its supply cost to 1 while still providing 8 supply. That way, they can justify stronger spells on it.
Edit: Or the Overseer must sacrifice itself as part of the spell? That way Blizz can justify a stronger spell since that essentially increases the cost of the spell to 150min/50ves/1larva/42seconds
Not all elements of game design need to accomplish the same thing. Not all units need to be "cool" and not all of them need to be viable in the games competitive scene.
Not every unit has to be exciting. Sometimes they serve to create an interesting dynamic when combined with other units. The corrupter in particular falls in the latter category because they function as a stepping stone to broods that can be exploited by an opponent to punish zergs. This is only due to the fact that corruptors can only attack air, so zergs have strategic decisions involving when and how many corruptors to create, where and when to morph broods, and balancing static defense and supporting army so they don't die to a timing.
The Overseer is great. Changelings are great scouts. Few people currently use them to their full potential (hold watch towers, spot critical paths), and is something that should naturally arise as the general level of mechanics goes up.
I think the reason corruptors are so boring is because of their feeble attack animation. Compare the corruptor and the viking for example
The viking in fighter mode is essentially the same thing as a corruptor (long range air to air combat unit), yet viking battles are way cooler because of the little explosion after each attack. It also sounds like the deadly missile it's supposed to be. On the other hand the corruptor attack looks and sounds like my grandpa spitting out a cherry pit.
On September 07 2012 09:40 red4ce wrote: I think the reason corruptors are so boring is because of their feeble attack animation. Compare the corruptor and the viking for example
The viking in fighter mode is essentially the same thing as a corruptor (long range air to air combat unit), yet viking battles are way cooler because of the little explosion after each attack. It also sounds like the deadly missile it's supposed to be. On the other hand the corruptor attack looks and sounds like my grandpa spitting out a cherry pit.
Simple, effective easy change that would probably work. I like it. The corrupter does what it should, and as a bonus you get a spell that no one uses cuz they forget its there. You might as well use it its there and its a CD spell.
On September 07 2012 09:20 Cybren wrote: Not all elements of game design need to accomplish the same thing. Not all units need to be "cool" and not all of them need to be viable in the games competitive scene.
It's not about viability. Even in Dustin's analysis, he clearly states that they have defined purpose in the army, but they are extremely one dimensional unlike the Mutalisk which is multidimensional.
I think it is hard to justify boring units, especially in Starcraft where the unit variety is very limited (in MTG, each set has hundreds of cards, and each format allows mutiple sets). Neither Timmy, Johnny nor Spike gain anything from boring.
id just like to state that the corruption ability is a great ability, BUT the fact that its single target makes it useless. if they made it an AoE ability it would be infinitly more useful.
it might not even be necessary to change the corrupter right now. I saw sheth going SH/Corrupter and it seemed very strong, the best anti-ground and the best anti-air weapons being used together, and they synergize well with cost since they almost cost the opposite of each other in minerals/gas. so I dunno, I'd like to see something changed but it's not a big deal.
overseer can remain as is, unless they give it a parasite ability like the Queen had in BW, that ability was godlike!
On September 07 2012 09:20 Cybren wrote: Not all elements of game design need to accomplish the same thing. Not all units need to be "cool" and not all of them need to be viable in the games competitive scene.
SC2 isn't like MTG, because players can't elect to leave certain things out of their race and make it 'tighter' like you can when building a magic deck. There's also no notion of 'card value', which in MTG is often dictated by viability in competitive play (not how much 'fun' it is for casual players).
Units like the oracle and reaper are basically not optimal in any sense, but they're a part of their races and the game has to be balanced with that in mind (because it's a high level competition for some, a job for others, and so on)
The equivalent to johnny/vorthos cards in SC2 is the single player: russian doll banelings, science vessels healing thors, AOE missile turrets and so on. Or custom games - things like 'momir basic' are a lot of like money maps and so on.
The 'elements of game design' that are for fun casual players in SC2 are mostly removed from the units/buildings in the competitive part of the game. We shouldn't be stuck with garbage units like WoL hydralisks just because some guy out there finds them "fun"
they do their job. i've never made corrupters or overseers in a game and immediately thought to myself 'aw maaaaan, i'm feeling so bored right now, i wish i'd never bought this game', what i was thinking to myself is 'phew, now these DT's won't end the match' or 'phew, now i can deal with these colossi/phoenixes/whatever, oh and now i'm probably going brood lords if the game goes much longer, which are awesome and fun to use because they RAPE FACE'
though it would be kind of cool if the corrupter's spell was redone. the original corruption concept was pretty cool and appropriate to the unit. maybe it could be something like, units hit with corruption do light AoE to all units around them (yours and theirs), for however long it lasts? the overseer is fine - changelings are next to useless in progames but they hurt the game in exactly zero ways, and contaminate is fine, there was a time when it was being worked in as an essential part of some zvz builds, i think people just got lazy and stopped spending the APM on it because there were other more important things to work on.
Overseer must be a nightmare to balance and satisfy players. They have to make its abilities worth the 100 gas needed to morph it as well as not make its abilities amazing for a unit that takes NO supply.
the corruptors spell is uninteresting and boring, as mentioned by other TL members, the spell could be changed to synergize with other zerg units like the muta, instead of having a flat out 20% dps received debuff, make the mechanic work similarily to the acid spores of the devourer from sc1, whereby the targets armor reduces by 1 per sec to a maximum of -9 or something alike, the spell could also be a small aoe making late game mutas viable vs air.
EPT![[image loading]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4440395098_d87444c110.jpg)
army, but they are extremely one dimensional unlike the Mutalisk which is multidimensional.
