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On September 03 2009 12:49 d_so wrote:
thx for the writeup
maybe make this ability have diminishing returns in terms of cooldown: first time cool down is so and so, second time has an increased cd, etc. after a while it's so slow you have to make urself a new queen
although that would work, it would not be very SC like. We just need to find a middle ground on how much she costs, how fast she moves /damage she does, how much mana/time is needed to cast it, how many larva can be created, etc.
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The real problem is likely the cost and build time of the queen. The queen is only less vulnerable than a 2nd hatchery due to mobility and the ability to make a smaller base.
For 150 minerals, you get 1.5x the production. And a build time of 25 - a hatchery has a build time of 100. Any way you look at it, that is very imbalanced. If a queen only made 2 larva with each cast, I think it would be much more balanced, and a build time closer to 70 or 75. You could still get the queen much earlier than a second hatch, but due to the lower mineral cost rather than the insane build time, and it's production would be balanced with a hatchery's.
The queen makes 1 second slower than a zergling. (Just off the sc2armory's stats).
Compare to the BW build - after starting the 12 hatch, it takes 100 seconds for the 2nd hatchery to spawn, whereupon you get 1 larva immediately and 1 more larva every 13 seconds. So to get 3 larva takes 26 seconds initially, 39 aftewards. I haven't played SC2, but I assume this is the same?
The queen's cooldown for making 4 larva is 25 seconds. That's a larva every 6.25 seconds - less than half of what a hatchery in BW has.
And since the hatchery has 75 more build time, a queen first build gives you an additional 12 larva early game. If the zerg could power 12 more drones in any BW matchup that early, they would be immensely broken.
A queen having 175 hp doesn't really matter much because the point at which you could attack and kill her before the production kicks in is likely before a P or T player would even have combat units.
Also, denying early scouting workers is really a problem. Is she faster than scvs/probes/drones?
If so, an additional tweak that would be very useful would be making her slower - notice that no group other than terran can deny scouting early game in BW, and terran are much weaker early game to make up for it, and in addition, marines are pretty useless against protoss for anything else. It should definitely not have a ranged attack. 200 + 150 = 350 , T needs 150 + 50, but that's a very different unit (40 hp marine that moves slowly and has 6 attack vs 175 hp queen with 8 attack).
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On September 03 2009 13:25 ShadowDrgn wrote:Mazar raped me in ZvT and ZvP a lot with queen first builds into mass speedlings/banelings and roaches. I eventually got sick of it and started playing zerg. It's impossible to keep a scout alive on creep so I was really confused in that other thread when Chill said comsat isn't necessary in SC2. Maybe scouting with floating barracks is viable... Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 08:33 Hot_Bid wrote:
I mean, I'm not going to go up to David Kim and be like "yo Queen is imba" after playing 5 games with it. I know enough about StarCraft to know I'm not THAT good at it haha. Mazar and I asked one of Blizzard's programmers about this and he thought David Kim got his queen a bit later. We tried to track down the SC2 bonjwa and get some insights, but we failed at finding him. Supposedly he spent a lot of time in the public SC2 area playing random people. 
holy fuck really? Shit I think I played him, some asian dude 2-1'd me in the tourney area what exactly does he look like? I think the guy had a greenish shirt and a nice watch.
Does he have a facebook or something?
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Lings are fast enough on creep that they can deny early scouting pretty well anyway. Queens just also can stop flying scouts and assist vs other zerg units from what I've seen.
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On September 03 2009 14:27 Nevuk wrote:
The real problem is likely the cost and build time of the queen. The queen is only less vulnerable than a 2nd hatchery due to mobility and the ability to make a smaller base.
For 150 minerals, you get 1.5x the production. And a build time of 25 - a hatchery has a build time of 100. Any way you look at it, that is very imbalanced. If a queen only made 2 larva with each cast, I think it would be much more balanced, and a build time closer to 70 or 75. You could still get the queen much earlier than a second hatch, but due to the lower mineral cost rather than the insane build time, and it's production would be balanced with a hatchery's.
The queen makes 1 second slower than a zergling. (Just off the sc2armory's stats).
Compare to the BW build - after starting the 12 hatch, it takes 100 seconds for the 2nd hatchery to spawn, whereupon you get 1 larva immediately and 1 more larva every 13 seconds. So to get 3 larva takes 26 seconds initially, 39 aftewards. I haven't played SC2, but I assume this is the same?
The queen's cooldown for making 4 larva is 25 seconds. That's a larva every 6.25 seconds - less than half of what a hatchery in BW has.
And since the hatchery has 75 more build time, a queen first build gives you an additional 12 larva early game. If the zerg could power 12 more drones in any BW matchup that early, they would be immensely broken.
A queen having 175 hp doesn't really matter much because the point at which you could attack and kill her before the production kicks in is likely before a P or T player would even have combat units.
Also, denying early scouting workers is really a problem. Is she faster than scvs/probes/drones?
If so, an additional tweak that would be very useful would be making her slower - notice that no group other than terran can deny scouting early game in BW, and terran are much weaker early game to make up for it, and in addition, marines are pretty useless against protoss for anything else. It should definitely not have a ranged attack. 200 + 150 = 350 , T needs 150 + 50, but that's a very different unit (40 hp marine that moves slowly and has 6 attack vs 175 hp queen with 8 attack).
I read the whole thread, and other than the mod posting and a few others who played the game this is the best post in the thread. thanks for the numbers and breakdown.
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On September 03 2009 14:29 CharlieMurphy wrote:
holy fuck really? Shit I think I played him, some asian dude 2-1'd me in the tourney area what exactly does he look like? I think the guy had a greenish shirt and a nice watch.
Short Asian with glasses doesn't really narrow it down, unfortunately. I wasn't exactly stalking the guy.
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10387 Posts
On September 03 2009 12:41 Hot_Bid wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 12:33 d(O.o)a wrote:
I'm curious, did you try a 1gate expand sort of build? or 2gate using zeals to force defense but never actually attacking or faking the attack and pulling back while adding an expo or something like that. 1 gate expand = instadeath to lings 1 gate into stalkers = might get ramp broken by lings 2 gate commit zeals to attack = death if the Zerg is decent 2 gate save zeals, get stalkers, pressure = maybe you win if you micro well vs hydras FE = gigantic coinflip, if you guess right on defense you are probably even, if you guess wrong, you instadie
What about forcefield?? Did any P try to FE with forcefield?
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On September 03 2009 14:46 ArvickHero wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 12:41 Hot_Bid wrote:On September 03 2009 12:33 d(O.o)a wrote:
I'm curious, did you try a 1gate expand sort of build? or 2gate using zeals to force defense but never actually attacking or faking the attack and pulling back while adding an expo or something like that. 1 gate expand = instadeath to lings 1 gate into stalkers = might get ramp broken by lings 2 gate commit zeals to attack = death if the Zerg is decent 2 gate save zeals, get stalkers, pressure = maybe you win if you micro well vs hydras FE = gigantic coinflip, if you guess right on defense you are probably even, if you guess wrong, you instadie What about forcefield?? Did any P try to FE with forcefield?
Well to make an obelisk you need a pylon first for power, then make the dark pylon (which all together cost 300 and lots of time). Like even shield batteries build super fast and cheap and that strat sucks in BW. How would it be good in sc2 with more lings and queen?
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On September 03 2009 14:37 CharlieMurphy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 14:27 Nevuk wrote:
The real problem is likely the cost and build time of the queen. The queen is only less vulnerable than a 2nd hatchery due to mobility and the ability to make a smaller base.
For 150 minerals, you get 1.5x the production. And a build time of 25 - a hatchery has a build time of 100. Any way you look at it, that is very imbalanced. If a queen only made 2 larva with each cast, I think it would be much more balanced, and a build time closer to 70 or 75. You could still get the queen much earlier than a second hatch, but due to the lower mineral cost rather than the insane build time, and it's production would be balanced with a hatchery's.
The queen makes 1 second slower than a zergling. (Just off the sc2armory's stats).
Compare to the BW build - after starting the 12 hatch, it takes 100 seconds for the 2nd hatchery to spawn, whereupon you get 1 larva immediately and 1 more larva every 13 seconds. So to get 3 larva takes 26 seconds initially, 39 aftewards. I haven't played SC2, but I assume this is the same?
The queen's cooldown for making 4 larva is 25 seconds. That's a larva every 6.25 seconds - less than half of what a hatchery in BW has.
And since the hatchery has 75 more build time, a queen first build gives you an additional 12 larva early game. If the zerg could power 12 more drones in any BW matchup that early, they would be immensely broken.
A queen having 175 hp doesn't really matter much because the point at which you could attack and kill her before the production kicks in is likely before a P or T player would even have combat units.
Also, denying early scouting workers is really a problem. Is she faster than scvs/probes/drones?
If so, an additional tweak that would be very useful would be making her slower - notice that no group other than terran can deny scouting early game in BW, and terran are much weaker early game to make up for it, and in addition, marines are pretty useless against protoss for anything else. It should definitely not have a ranged attack. 200 + 150 = 350 , T needs 150 + 50, but that's a very different unit (40 hp marine that moves slowly and has 6 attack vs 175 hp queen with 8 attack). I read the whole thread, and other than the mod posting and a few others who played the game this is the best post in the thread. thanks for the numbers and breakdown.
Some numbers on what would happen with the changes :
if the queen spawned 2 larva every use, it would be 1 larva every 12.5 seconds, which would be better than a hatchery but not noticeably except at very high level of play.
If you slowed it down to 75 build time you would have at the minimum 3 more larva, more likely 5 more larva than a hatchery (because of the additional time to get 150 extra minerals). However, this advantage would rapidly erode after early game as the 2nd hatch would have greater larva production. So going queen first would indicate an early rush build if 12 hatch was feasible on the map.
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On September 03 2009 14:48 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 14:37 CharlieMurphy wrote:On September 03 2009 14:27 Nevuk wrote:
The real problem is likely the cost and build time of the queen. The queen is only less vulnerable than a 2nd hatchery due to mobility and the ability to make a smaller base.
For 150 minerals, you get 1.5x the production. And a build time of 25 - a hatchery has a build time of 100. Any way you look at it, that is very imbalanced. If a queen only made 2 larva with each cast, I think it would be much more balanced, and a build time closer to 70 or 75. You could still get the queen much earlier than a second hatch, but due to the lower mineral cost rather than the insane build time, and it's production would be balanced with a hatchery's.
The queen makes 1 second slower than a zergling. (Just off the sc2armory's stats).
Compare to the BW build - after starting the 12 hatch, it takes 100 seconds for the 2nd hatchery to spawn, whereupon you get 1 larva immediately and 1 more larva every 13 seconds. So to get 3 larva takes 26 seconds initially, 39 aftewards. I haven't played SC2, but I assume this is the same?
The queen's cooldown for making 4 larva is 25 seconds. That's a larva every 6.25 seconds - less than half of what a hatchery in BW has.
And since the hatchery has 75 more build time, a queen first build gives you an additional 12 larva early game. If the zerg could power 12 more drones in any BW matchup that early, they would be immensely broken.
A queen having 175 hp doesn't really matter much because the point at which you could attack and kill her before the production kicks in is likely before a P or T player would even have combat units.
Also, denying early scouting workers is really a problem. Is she faster than scvs/probes/drones?
If so, an additional tweak that would be very useful would be making her slower - notice that no group other than terran can deny scouting early game in BW, and terran are much weaker early game to make up for it, and in addition, marines are pretty useless against protoss for anything else. It should definitely not have a ranged attack. 200 + 150 = 350 , T needs 150 + 50, but that's a very different unit (40 hp marine that moves slowly and has 6 attack vs 175 hp queen with 8 attack). I read the whole thread, and other than the mod posting and a few others who played the game this is the best post in the thread. thanks for the numbers and breakdown. Some numbers on what would happen with the changes : if the queen spawned 2 larva every use, it would be 1 larva every 12.5 seconds, which would be better than a hatchery but not noticeably except at very high level of play. If you slowed it down to 75 build time you would have at the minimum 3 more larva, more likely 5 more larva than a hatchery (because of the additional time to get 150 extra minerals). However, this advantage would rapidly erode after early game as the 2nd hatch would have greater larva production. So going queen first would indicate an early rush build if 12 hatch was feasible on the map.
I dunno if that would work though, 2 gate zeal was extremely good if you didn't have a queen.
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On September 03 2009 14:51 CharlieMurphy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 14:48 Nevuk wrote:On September 03 2009 14:37 CharlieMurphy wrote:On September 03 2009 14:27 Nevuk wrote:
The real problem is likely the cost and build time of the queen. The queen is only less vulnerable than a 2nd hatchery due to mobility and the ability to make a smaller base.
For 150 minerals, you get 1.5x the production. And a build time of 25 - a hatchery has a build time of 100. Any way you look at it, that is very imbalanced. If a queen only made 2 larva with each cast, I think it would be much more balanced, and a build time closer to 70 or 75. You could still get the queen much earlier than a second hatch, but due to the lower mineral cost rather than the insane build time, and it's production would be balanced with a hatchery's.
The queen makes 1 second slower than a zergling. (Just off the sc2armory's stats).
Compare to the BW build - after starting the 12 hatch, it takes 100 seconds for the 2nd hatchery to spawn, whereupon you get 1 larva immediately and 1 more larva every 13 seconds. So to get 3 larva takes 26 seconds initially, 39 aftewards. I haven't played SC2, but I assume this is the same?
The queen's cooldown for making 4 larva is 25 seconds. That's a larva every 6.25 seconds - less than half of what a hatchery in BW has.
And since the hatchery has 75 more build time, a queen first build gives you an additional 12 larva early game. If the zerg could power 12 more drones in any BW matchup that early, they would be immensely broken.
A queen having 175 hp doesn't really matter much because the point at which you could attack and kill her before the production kicks in is likely before a P or T player would even have combat units.
Also, denying early scouting workers is really a problem. Is she faster than scvs/probes/drones?
If so, an additional tweak that would be very useful would be making her slower - notice that no group other than terran can deny scouting early game in BW, and terran are much weaker early game to make up for it, and in addition, marines are pretty useless against protoss for anything else. It should definitely not have a ranged attack. 200 + 150 = 350 , T needs 150 + 50, but that's a very different unit (40 hp marine that moves slowly and has 6 attack vs 175 hp queen with 8 attack). I read the whole thread, and other than the mod posting and a few others who played the game this is the best post in the thread. thanks for the numbers and breakdown. Some numbers on what would happen with the changes : if the queen spawned 2 larva every use, it would be 1 larva every 12.5 seconds, which would be better than a hatchery but not noticeably except at very high level of play. If you slowed it down to 75 build time you would have at the minimum 3 more larva, more likely 5 more larva than a hatchery (because of the additional time to get 150 extra minerals). However, this advantage would rapidly erode after early game as the 2nd hatch would have greater larva production. So going queen first would indicate an early rush build if 12 hatch was feasible on the map. I dunno if that would work though, 2 gate zeal was extremely good if you didn't have a queen.
Yeah you'd have to alter the build around a bit or change maps. (2 gate zeal was also really good on almost every blizzard map ever in BW, especially Lost Temple on certain positions).
Getting a queen at the same time as you do in the current build likely wouldn't be too bad if it were 2 instead of 4, but still wouldn't be ideal.
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... my idea:
drones have 1 health?!?!?
SVC WITH TWENTY KILLS!?!?!?!?!? WINWINWINWINWIN! TOTAL BALANCE!
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10387 Posts
On September 03 2009 12:59 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 12:36 ArvickHero wrote:On September 03 2009 12:08 Archerofaiur wrote:
I think this is kind of like if we were playing SC1 alpha and someone discovered that making workers all game was unbeatable. Of course you would have people saying making workers is overpowered. to be honest, this was a really dumb analogy. Why? The new macro mechanics are analogous to SC1's manual worker mining. Its something you want to do all game to increase your army size. If you tried playing SC1 without making any more workers I think youd have a tough time winning aswell.
Your analogy is dumb because first of all, making workers all game was a logical step in thinking, and not overpowered. Its like someone discovering that more buildings lead to bigger armies and then some other guy saying its overpowered, when they can simply keep up by doing the same thing.
The problem here now is that everyone is abusing their macro mechanics to the very fullest, but when the Zerg really abuses their macro mechanic, it just leads to a seemingly broken larvae production rate that just gives you complete control over the entire game. So even if T or P maximizes their macro production with their respective mechanics, it won't matter because Zerg benefits so much from the mechanic that they can engage in fights and afford to lose their armies because they can respawn the entire thing very quickly with Spawn Larvae, while the T or P absolutely cannot afford to lose the first fight, otherwise, they'll be sure to lose the game, thanks to the larvae mechanic. Hot Bid is on the fence about this being imba, but I'm rather certain that 1 hatch Queen build is too powerful in the hands of a smart player.
A slightly better analogy is playing a normal game in BW, with the constant building workers thing and etc, but the Zerg uses the hack that kills larvae for minerals, or a hack that doubles or triples the larvae production rate of each hatchery.
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I guess people had the exact same reaction beeing 4pooled in ol` good days
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Amazing, but you MUST have overlooked sg. Good players at blizzard tested this game for several months now, and because the new macro mechanics are maybe the most important feature of the sc2 I must think they really toroughly analyzed at least this part.
My logic:
1. Zerg is historically a race which has a lots of early-game strategies, aiming to break the P(T) early wit lings or hydras
2. The Zerg macro improvement is the only one which can be used to produce units, not just for helping the economy
From this 2 point, to me at least, it's obvious that new early-pressure options are avaialble, so they must be tested.
Now, Blizz said Z is the WEAKest and i'm sure as hell they knew what larvaes are good for.
What i have in mind is that sg directly counters that stuff. You said this denies FE, ok, fair enough, i accept it, but i've got 2 ideas which could work with P.
1. Because (as far as i understood) Overlords arent detectors from the start 1 DT stops the attack pretty much. You say it's hard to tech but i can't believe the game it's so imba that it's easier to bring out 15 hydras than 1 DT out of one base if you focus on it.
2. The classic 1 base, block the ramp mass zela. As far as i saw lings do not directly counter Zealots, nor do hydras, actually zealots work decently well against both. Idk how accecible the P macro-boost is but 1 base mass zela attack might be viable. No?
And these are just some ideas i came up with while reading the writeup.
S1 who played this game could answer to my theories?
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On September 03 2009 15:29 Geo.Rion wrote:
Amazing, but you MUST have overlooked sg. Good players at blizzard tested this game for several months now, and because the new macro mechanics are maybe the most important feature of the sc2 I must think they really toroughly analyzed at least this part.
My logic:
1. Zerg is historically a race which has a lots of early-game strategies, aiming to break the P(T) early wit lings or hydras
2. The Zerg macro improvement is the only one which can be used to produce units, not just for helping the economy
From this 2 point, to me at least, it's obvious that new early-pressure options are avaialble, so they must be tested.
Now, Blizz said Z is the WEAKest and i'm sure as hell they knew what larvaes are good for.
What i have in mind is that sg directly counters that stuff. You said this denies FE, ok, fair enough, i accept it, but i've got 2 ideas which could work with P.
1. Because (as far as i understood) Overlords arent detectors from the start 1 DT stops the attack pretty much. You say it's hard to tech but i can't believe the game it's so imba that it's easier to bring out 15 hydras than 1 DT out of one base if you focus on it.
2. The classic 1 base, block the ramp mass zela. As far as i saw lings do not directly counter Zealots, nor do hydras, actually zealots work decently well against both. Idk how accecible the P macro-boost is but 1 base mass zela attack might be viable. No?
And these are just some ideas i came up with while reading the writeup.
S1 who played this game could answer to my theories?
DTs are much higher on the tech tree iirc.
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On September 03 2009 15:55 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 15:29 Geo.Rion wrote:
Amazing, but you MUST have overlooked sg. Good players at blizzard tested this game for several months now, and because the new macro mechanics are maybe the most important feature of the sc2 I must think they really toroughly analyzed at least this part.
My logic:
1. Zerg is historically a race which has a lots of early-game strategies, aiming to break the P(T) early wit lings or hydras
2. The Zerg macro improvement is the only one which can be used to produce units, not just for helping the economy
From this 2 point, to me at least, it's obvious that new early-pressure options are avaialble, so they must be tested.
Now, Blizz said Z is the WEAKest and i'm sure as hell they knew what larvaes are good for.
What i have in mind is that sg directly counters that stuff. You said this denies FE, ok, fair enough, i accept it, but i've got 2 ideas which could work with P.
1. Because (as far as i understood) Overlords arent detectors from the start 1 DT stops the attack pretty much. You say it's hard to tech but i can't believe the game it's so imba that it's easier to bring out 15 hydras than 1 DT out of one base if you focus on it.
2. The classic 1 base, block the ramp mass zela. As far as i saw lings do not directly counter Zealots, nor do hydras, actually zealots work decently well against both. Idk how accecible the P macro-boost is but 1 base mass zela attack might be viable. No?
And these are just some ideas i came up with while reading the writeup.
S1 who played this game could answer to my theories? DTs are much higher on the tech tree iirc.
how higher? You need 1 citadel, 1 archives, 1 DT. That's like 400 gas, isnt it? Remember you tech straightly without exping
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On September 03 2009 16:02 Geo.Rion wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 15:55 Nevuk wrote:On September 03 2009 15:29 Geo.Rion wrote:
Amazing, but you MUST have overlooked sg. Good players at blizzard tested this game for several months now, and because the new macro mechanics are maybe the most important feature of the sc2 I must think they really toroughly analyzed at least this part.
My logic:
1. Zerg is historically a race which has a lots of early-game strategies, aiming to break the P(T) early wit lings or hydras
2. The Zerg macro improvement is the only one which can be used to produce units, not just for helping the economy
From this 2 point, to me at least, it's obvious that new early-pressure options are avaialble, so they must be tested.
Now, Blizz said Z is the WEAKest and i'm sure as hell they knew what larvaes are good for.
What i have in mind is that sg directly counters that stuff. You said this denies FE, ok, fair enough, i accept it, but i've got 2 ideas which could work with P.
1. Because (as far as i understood) Overlords arent detectors from the start 1 DT stops the attack pretty much. You say it's hard to tech but i can't believe the game it's so imba that it's easier to bring out 15 hydras than 1 DT out of one base if you focus on it.
2. The classic 1 base, block the ramp mass zela. As far as i saw lings do not directly counter Zealots, nor do hydras, actually zealots work decently well against both. Idk how accecible the P macro-boost is but 1 base mass zela attack might be viable. No?
And these are just some ideas i came up with while reading the writeup.
S1 who played this game could answer to my theories? DTs are much higher on the tech tree iirc. how higher? You need 1 citadel, 1 archives, 1 DT. That's like 400 gas, isnt it? Remember you tech straightly without exping
the zerg watches you do this and injects for drones instead while expoing. now what?
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On September 03 2009 13:27 tedster wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2009 12:50 FabledIntegral wrote:On September 03 2009 11:13 tedster wrote:On September 03 2009 10:58 FabledIntegral wrote:On September 03 2009 10:11 tedster wrote:
Everyone who feels that this could be fixed by simply making the Queen more expensive is missing the point - there is no choice when it comes to the Queen, and regardless of how much she costs Zerg still has to beeline straight to her, at which point they have a ridiculous economic advantage and unit production rate for the rest of the game.
This is stupid good on a number of levels, but Hot_Bid is the first reviewer to point out the craziest and most counter-intuitive issue - zerg now has the EASIEST time reaching mad drone saturation, instead of the hardest, and benefits from it more than any other race, since they can pretty easily reach infinite unit production rates (infinite larvae) with the smallest expenditure.
Not true - if you put the Queen later in the game, or the inject larvae at least, Zerg will be much more vulnerable early game to rushes, etc. It will also allow T/P to establish their positions on the field more. I heard a 2gate rush is quite hard to counter without the Queen. It will not only reestablish the entire concept of Zerg needing to go beyond 1 base play, but also force Zerg to play at a much slower gamepace, etc. T/P won't have to overcompensate on defenses as much either, and will have chances to throw in their own macro mechanics. Defending from rushes means less drone pumping and more unit pumping, which means they'll prob not be able to afford a queen as soon because all minerals will be spent on either units or more drones. Remember, spawn larvae only creates more larvae, you need minerals to actually buy the units. If you move the queen to later game because it's too overpowered early game, you're basically saying zerg has to be as good early on (when it doesn't have a macro mechanic) as T or P when they do have their mechanic, which would probably throw the balance of power off even further as soon as the queen did come into play, all while making zerg easier to play. No matter where you put the queen in its current incarnation, it's going to create an imbalanced playing field unless the other races gain dramatic new macro mechanics. How is that true? By what "rules" state that macro mechanics need to be introduced at the same part of the game to be balanced? It doesn't necessarily throw off the balance of power at all. Terran supposedly doesn't even use theirs too much early game, while Toss may have higher worker saturation by midgame thus increasing the yields even further with the mechanic. I'm not arguing that it doesn't need to be tweaked, but you're overexaggerating the effects. The basic idea that all 3 races should be viable at every point in the game is basic game balance. Obviously some races may have a slight advantage over others at specific timing windows, but the general balance should remain. Testing of SC2 has shown that a player utilizing proper macro mechanics will absolutely slaughter a player who is not (similar to in SC!) On top of that, it's already been shown that Zerg suffers badly in the early game if they are not abusing Larvae Inject. Now, compound this fact with zerg being considered BY FAR the most limited race in options in the current build of SC2's early game, and you've got a situation where delaying the macro mechanic is simply impossible. On top of all that, you're suggesting a significant delay to a mechanic that was added in because macro was considered too easy without it. Making zerg "good enough" to compete for a significant period of time without it removes the burden of macro and creates a very linear early game - which is part of what makes Warcraft 3 so boring to SC players. Another enormous problem that you practically invite is how "Queen tech being delayed invites T and P to rush zerg early game before it comes out". I understand what you're trying to say (more play with zerg making units vs. drones instead of spamming both with larvae) but you're absolutely missing the point with respect to how this would destroy game depth. Admitting that spawn larvae is probably too strong and putting it at a higher tech with the intention that T and P should be rushing Z every game (in order to win before the queen comes out) and have an advantage in doing so is a horrible linear gameplay idea and would necessitate A.) Zerg being weaker than T and P in general for it to be fair and B.) T and P rushing Z every damn game. This is a bad solution and would result in a matchup far less interesting than the current ZvZ in SC1 that so many people seem to dislike.
I disagree with a lot of what you're saying. Just delaying the macro mechanic wouldn't mean that they are imbalanced in any way. Just as Zerg 3 base vs Toss 2 base is relatively considered balanced in SC1, having a macro mechanic later than others could be balanced in SC2. Not only would it be easier to balance (as you remove many early game factors), but the Queen would still exist to fend off early rushes, which without is what people are saying Zerg suffers early on (they say that if you try to play vs rushes without Queen you are screwed).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Terran macro mechanic comes significantly later than the Toss one? I would guess by the time you actually get mules would be around the time spawn larvae would be viable. As it is currently, Toss/Zerg get their macro mechanic significantly before Terran (I think, as said I have NOT played yet). So wouldn't this completely break your theory?
It still wouldn't invite rushing because I clarified that only the spawn larvae tech could be delayed to lair, thus the queen would still be used to fend off rushes, have whatever hp infusion ability, etc. In SC, as it is, the games already ended up with P + T rushing Z everygame, with 2gate as the standard build from toss and marine/medic from Terran, if not a bunker rush! So what are you talking about there??
It doesn't necessitate Zerg be weaker in any way. As said it would create Zerg macro mechanic be more on par with the timing of the Terran mechanic, and the Protoss mechanic affects all probes at once, thus as the game progresses the mechanic becomes more and more powerful. Also as the game progresses I'd assume the Queen would be easier to snipe with flying units, etc.
Your argument of saying it removes the burden of macro is also questionable... I mean as it is at lower levels it's already significantly easier to play Protoss than Zerg... Zerg will still have more units to manage than Toss and all you need to do is click once or something to activate an obelisk, while you have to actually inject the larvae and mutate them with Zerg.
Something I think could be interesting to experiment with (this would definitely not solve the problem itself) could be increasing the time it takes for units to spawn from mutated larvae compared to regular larvae. You'd definitely notice the difference early game, but by the mid/late game phases it would probably hardly be noticeable.
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EPT
