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Hello. Im Todie beta tester from Sweden and active theorycrafter on the matter of this game since '07 or something. i mostly post at SCLegacy, but i got to thinking of something i feel is really important right now, and wanted to spread the word further....
Lately voices have been raised about the direction of BNet 2.0 this was a good effort that may have had an impact we are yet to see materialize. but i think its clear we've gone as far as we can with that for the moment.
lets make one thing clear: outlining the general states of units in the game is a big part of the beta test; not talking about specific stats, but more in general terms, what they can do and what they cant do: long or short range, high or low tech requirement, splash or flat damage - and probably most importantly at this point - what abilities they posses and how those work! these are things that will be hard to change after release!
TLDR: lets make it a priority to discuss what would make infestors frenzy and corruptors corruption good abilities, or what kind of abilities could replace them. - I have two suggestions.
.. so its rather obvious that some unit abilities are in really rough shape compared to others. i think it should be a clear priority for the community to keep on brainstorming about how to best solve these issues: the developers are clearly not doing too well on this end by themselves, while still just as clearly being aware of the general problems - most notably with zerg needing some spicier gameplay.
they have poked around with The infestor and corruptor; Infested terran and Contaminate (previously known as corruption) - these were OK abilities but (arguably) not good enough fits on these units, they were moved to the overseer.. that was arguably a good move.
but what replaced them?
frenzy and a new corruption. both one target abilities with very flat impacts. they are barely used, and when they are, its not to great effect. and lets be clear: these abilities couldnt become more dynamic & feel more interesting to use by simply revamping their stats. its what the abilities do and / or how they are targeted that make them icky. you know im right.
on a lesser level of concern is Thors strike cannons; its not good for much otehr than picking off key buildings or rarely target utlras - even more rarely, target colossi. is this enough?? are there any good alternatives (something far fetched 'd be to replace stun with AoE slow. but that would mess with the marauder. maybe AoE slowed atk spd?)
So lets try to focus our nerdy energies on something that might actually matter: to have a nuanced discussion on alternatives to revamp or replace these abilities - and possibly others that are deemed unfit. (i cant think of much more past far-fetched funky mothershit suggestions, which feels so out of reach by now)
i made a BNet thread on this today, including my previous suggestion to revamp frenzy and a similarly branded suggestion to revamp Corruption - to make it spread as units were killed. http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25172124456&sid=5010
My Personal perceptions of these specific abilities, and suggestions on how to "fix" them:
Corruption. its a one-target ability that increases damage taken by 20% .. i would be a fool to call that useless. but lets look closer at what supposedly makes this ability interesting to use; when do you use it? to enable you to kill an important unit more quickly. why cast it on unit A over unit B ? Unit A has more Hit points. (arguably, massive units can be more favoured too due to corrupters dmg bonus, but massive have more HP anyway!) The only alternative use is to "spam it to spend energy" ; maybe on ground targets.. You could say that youll want to target the units that are most important to kill, first but the game is fast and corrupters slow: it rarely quite works like that; your targeting doesnt feel like a choice.
This ability costs not only energy but valuable time for the player and the unit to cast; if i bother to get into a position to cast some corruption on a pack of colossi before i attack them, i might slightly misjudge and end up having several corruptors taken down by stalkers before they can get off enough shots to make that casting count in terms of damage dealt, let alone in terms of attention spent on micromanagement! .. ofcourse you can fail getting a worthwhile EMP or PSI storm off too, but those can also pay off immensely if they are used just right. - not saying corruption should be able to have that great effect, but it clearly needs more potential impact value!
... that said, im not trying to conceal the fact that there surely are situations when this ability is straightforwardly useful, but lets get something clear: situational usefulness doesn't make Corruption a worthy interesting ability - its still a bland and flat ability; at best it makes one unit 20% easier to kill - the choice of unit is clearly a no-brainer and the energy cant be otherwise used so for the most part its only a matter of time-management for the player " is this action worth it?" .... sc2 is a really tight fast game. when you spend time on micromanagement, you want to know that it can pay off in a grand way. Use of this ability cant pay off in a grand way, at least not due to crisp execution. soy ourre probably better off spending that time and attention on more careful macro or general unit-positioning.
...In my opinion though, Corruption isnt conceptually useless. it just needs some spice. i havnt spent much time actually pondering this, but just as an example, what if the corruption effect could spread between enemy units as you killed them? this would empathize micromanagement around those units for both sides; if killed while under the effect, one or a few nearby units could become corrupted in turn. This would also make it viable to cast it on smaller units, even zerglings or marines, knowing that when killed, it would make other units more vulnerable!
Frenzy its the same basic deal here really. only its even more situationally useful; Infestor energy is actually valuable. this makes the ability not good for much else than casting on ultralisks, which obviously is very restricted; the zerg clearly needs more flexibility in the potential use of their core spell-caster.
and it might encourage some irrational unit movement; bunching up units in one ctrl group before battle just to enable casting frenzy on them all. (this reminds me of the hopelessness of using healing spray effectively in battle, in warcraft 3)
what has generally been spontaneously proposed is to just make Frenzy target as an area of effect spell. this would probably make it better and feel like a more rational use of time and infestor energy in general, but i think the spell would still feel quite bland.
also i think it would be near impossible to target it in rational ways on swarming melee units when battle and / or tactical movement had already started: we wouldnt want such an AoE buffing ability to promote generic clustering of allied units for the mere purpose of getting as many of them frenzied in one casting as possible! (think of the hoplesness of using healingspray in wc3; it brings this unwelcome gimmick "if i just cluster my units here i can use the ability 100% effectively" which has practically nothing to do with tactical spacing towards your opponent)
Like Corruption, Frenzy isnt bad as a general concept for an ability. I think we should all consider the idea behind it; though feeling like its plastered on to fix something, it does potentially fix something significant; NP & Thor canons are potentially quite nice abilities that has some sort of fit in the state of the game, but as it was, the very threat of them ever coming into play made ultralisks a very bold choice in these matchups.
... so how about we just change some of the abilities inner workings:
instead of making the ability standard friendly-buffing AoE, what if we made it spread when the frenzied unit ("the frenzee") participated in killing an enemy unit?
the effect shouldnt spread too aggressively, maybe not AoE but to at most2-3 nearby allied units per enemy killed?
what about AoE attacks that kill more than one unit in a hit? should this multiply the spread? maybe not. maybe there could be a cooldown of one second or something on the spread-effect. i dont know.
Finally, its debatable to what extent the timer of the spell should be able to get renewed by further unit-by unit spread; this would most likely require a significant cut of duration, which in turn would make frenzy necessary to cast "in battle"
... to paint a picture of one of many possible directions this suggestion can go: When a unit is frenzied, it will spread the frenzy to 2 nearby units any time it participates in killing a unit (if attacked unit dies within 1 second?)
the spread frenzy inherits the remaining duration on the initial frenzee.
This rewards focus-fire micromanagement in that such attention maximizes the utility you can get out each frenzy cast. However, even without that attention the effect will still spread, especially if you compensate with more castings of frenzy.
with duration begin inherited, it still retains that predictable factor of when it wears off, for you and your enemy. this keeps things rational and can have tactical implications.
You can cast it on one or two units in a pack of mutas just as they fly in to harass a worker line. Depending on how many castings you use, and if you target fire initially, it will take more or less kills (=time) for the effect to spread to all of the mutalisks in the pack.
if you rank up enough kills fast enough, you will have the effect spread through the pack giving +25% damage which can be very deadly, and even make the enemy hesitate about engaging the pack before the effect wears off (the duration isnt affected, so he/she can estimate when it wears off by estimating when you cast it)
Maybe you can even extend the power of such aggression by recasting the frenzy with perfect timing; retaining a position when you use the last of the damage boost on the pack to rank up even more kills, - which sets up for spreading the recast frenzy more easily (maybe more recently cast frenzy can allow "rewrite"; spreading to already frenzied units to increase the remaining duration on them)
... remember, these suggestions aim to make the abilities interesting, not to make them "more effective" ; the sheer potnetial effectivness is tweaked by stats; maybe 25% damge boost is too high with such spread; mabe the durations are too high.. but thats easiyl adjustable. the core mechanics of the abilities are not easily adjustable after release
If there is interest and it would help in illustrating my suggestions, i think i'd be able to make a custom map featuring the changed abilities, that people could try using "test map" in their own editors.
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I think the idea of the frenzy spell is to make the ultra usefull. Right the idea of increased dmg of the ultra is pretty worthless, as dmg is not its problem. It needs to be able to tank, and if the spell increased life instead of dmg, frenzy would be usefull and the ultra would be balanced. Your idea seems interessting though, but it will be difficult to balance, and would not buff the ultra, as frenzy then would be mostly used on ranged units. Your change would then require an individual ultra buff + the frenzy change. And these changes requires even more balance work by blizzard.
However yes, this idea of frenzy definately seems interessting.
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A pretty obvious change in my opinion would be to change frenzy's 20% to attack speed instead of damage. I'm getting a little irked at how little armor factors into anything these days. At least is the 20% applied to attack speed, it would keep the same armor damage reduction ratio.
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I put a lot of thought into this as I was searching for an analog of dark swarm against tanks that was as different as possible.
Make frenzy into this. It could have a range 9 and the same 25 mana cost. It would really answer the tank line effectively as casting it on an ultra would make him one hell of a tank for 5 secs.It would guarantee that unit would do some damage if used at the right time.
Also, the skill cap with the ability would be very high as it would be most effectively used when the target was as close to death as possible. It could also be used to save clutch units like other infestors running away, queens, or anything that really needs to not die. It also has synergy with the queens heal as any unit can be saved after escaping. I myself would love to see heal used more often and more effectively.
Who honestly doesn't want to see a hero ultralisk, your last unit alive be able to take out those last 4 marauders saving your base and allowing him to become a mighty meta-morph... I know I do.
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Your vision of corruption spreading around upon unit death is actually a good one and i like it. Frenzy however is just rebundant and if they wanted zerg to live trough constant cannon shelling they should have given frenzy a different name and it should have either of these effects or all.
- puts target unit in a state of mindless rage where it has increased attackspeed, ignores crowd control and cant die for x amount of seconds, you can also target defensive structures. Now not only is it useful on ultralisk but its usefull across the board as a defensive spell to protect your.
1. queen and mindcontrolling infestors. 2, spore / spine crawler 3. lings, roaches, hydralisk etc.etc.etc.
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On June 09 2010 23:11 Makh wrote: A pretty obvious change in my opinion would be to change frenzy's 20% to attack speed instead of damage. I'm getting a little irked at how little armor factors into anything these days. At least is the 20% applied to attack speed, it would keep the same armor damage reduction ratio.
this is reasonable. but doesnt adress the problem by itself, also a 20% damge boost acutaly decreases the effect of armor, which can make the decition of when & how to use frenzy more dynamic, so im not sure i agree.
about the ultralisk, after seeing d9d 131 with TLO vs Jinro, and the recent tank nerf, im not sure the ultralisk needs a nerf. but lets not dereail this.
Any otehr suggestions on how to acutaly fix frenzy & corruption? would you guys prefer straight up AoE targeting to the current system or to what i suggested?
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On June 09 2010 23:28 Todie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2010 23:11 Makh wrote: A pretty obvious change in my opinion would be to change frenzy's 20% to attack speed instead of damage. I'm getting a little irked at how little armor factors into anything these days. At least is the 20% applied to attack speed, it would keep the same armor damage reduction ratio. this is reasonable. but doesnt adress the problem by itself, also a 20% damge boost acutaly decreases the effect of armor, which can make the decition of when & how to use frenzy more dynamic, so im not sure i agree. about the ultralisk, after seeing d9d 131 with TLO vs Jinro, and the recent tank nerf, im not sure the ultralisk needs a nerf. but lets not dereail this. Any otehr suggestions on how to acutaly fix frenzy & corruption? would you guys prefer straight up AoE targeting to the current system or to what i suggested?
Just because one extremely good player did really well with ultras is not = balanced. ZvT is still just too difficult for most players.
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Would the frenzy on broodlords increase the broodling attacks aswell? or just the initial 10 or however much damage they do when they throw broodlings
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HowlingMirage:
Unfortunately no. . . Frenzy has very poor synergy with Broodlords because the newly created Broodlings are unaffected
The skill might be viable if it transfered. Say if you frenzied an Overlord full of units. . . those units inside would also be Frenzied.
The window would be small of course, but investors would be a must have unit if you were going to research Overlord Sacs
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On June 09 2010 23:26 Madkipz wrote: Your vision of corruption spreading around upon unit death is actually a good one and i like it. Frenzy however is just rebundant and if they wanted zerg to live trough constant cannon shelling they should have given frenzy a different name and it should have either of these effects or all.
- puts target unit in a state of mindless rage where it has increased attackspeed, ignores crowd control and cant die for x amount of seconds, you can also target defensive structures. Now not only is it useful on ultralisk but its usefull across the board as a defensive spell to protect your.
1. queen and mindcontrolling infestors. 2, spore / spine crawler 3. lings, roaches, hydralisk etc.etc.etc.
i like that. especialy combined with transfusion.
define "crowd control" ?
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The thing about corruption is it just feels clunky to use. The corruptor seems to waste a lot of attack time casting it and it's not really a clear visual spell in a battle. I think corruption should take less cast time and the effect should be a little more pronounced.
As for changing the effect, maybe it could work as an AoE centered on the target unit. Target unit and all units around target take +20% damage (non-stacking). So when you cast corruption on a unit the player would be encouraged to separate the infected unit away from the pack. You'd probably have to reduce the % bonus as well to balance it out. As an AoE massive units (which corruptors already counter) would be less affected by the ability's AoE as the unit itself takes up most of the AoE's range.
Another possibility or combined possibility is that corruption affect could prevent things like healing, health regeneration, repairing, and shield recharge. So you might corrupt a colossi and harass it constantly since its shields won't recharge. This way you'll eventually be able to bring it down while minimizing your losses.
The double effect of this is now it's an odd strategic decision. Do you target the high priority targets with it? It will cause that unit to die faster, but then your corruption effect is over once they do. The other option is to cast it, then focus down other units under the effect of corruption.
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Todie:
CC would just be any Stun, Snare, Knockback, or Mind Control ability.
Abilities like the Pheonix's Grav beam, Fungal Growth, 250mm Cannon, Concussion Shell, Neural Parasite, etc.
Making it immune to all of these would be imbalanced; as well as, the "cannot die for x seconds" since you could just keep recasting it on the same target to make it Immortal
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Keeping with the death theme of Corruption you have suggested I think I would prefer to see something along the lines of this:
When corruption effects a unit nothing happens, however if that unit dies while under the effects of corruption it will explode, causing a percentage of its maximum health in damage to surrounding units and spreading corruption to those units. Newly effected units are only effected for 10% of the time corruption normally lasts.
This rendition of the ability adds a new way for zerg to deal aoe damage, which is currently quite limited for them but it can be avoided by the opponent if they are quick enough to micro the effected unit out of the ball of units. To balance it it could also effect friendly units (so you could potentially kill your own units) but friendly units would not be able to be targeted by the spell nor gain the corruption debuff via transfer when a nearby unit dies.
As far as Frenzy goes, I would like to see it removed from the game as it just isn't starcrafty at all. It belongs in the Warcraft universe instead. However, if it must stay, then perhaps a channeled aura would be cool, it would drain energy like cloak does but effect friendly units (not teammates units) around the infestor.
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i think corruptors should be given a "true corruption" spell because they r called "corruptors" after all. it costs 200 mana and when its used u get a random one of the following abilities:
Bribery - u pay minerals and one of the opponents units (he's not sure which one) becomes ur unit to use.
Electoral fraud - other player, no matter how much he wants to build a unit or building, can only build the stuff u want him to build for 30 seconds
Cronyism - u favor the workers that mined the minerals that were used to build ur corrupter. the workers that mined the minerals that were used to build ur corrupter get the best jobs -- like mining from gold minerals, building the greater spire / fusion core, etc. they also don't have to scout or fight.
Embezzlement - u get 50% of what ur opponent mines for 30 seconds without him knowing
Kickbacks - ur opponent's buildings and units cost 50% more for 30 seconds
Illegal campaign contributions - for every 50 energy, one of ur opponents workers stops working. he doesn't know which and it doesn't show up on his idle workers bar. best used against terran bc it might be an scv building an important building
Match fixing - costs 10,000 minerals, if ur playing a korean he immediately loses the game
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ok hm the infestor lets seee. how about instead of frenzy it gets an ability called darkest swarm an ability thats EVEN STRONGER than dark swarm
like units under it take 0 damage at all and u literally CANNOT SEE whats under the swarm, so zerg could have like nothing under it or 50 ultralisks under it its so dark
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Corruption could be an interesting autocast. Not sure if that fixes it, but that would give it flexibility.
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I like the way you're thinking.
Frenzy could also work as a 'cloud' following the unit, much like an aura, which would make it viable on bunches of small units as well as on big, important, targets like the ultra. The cloud gets bigger/lasts longer when a unit it buffs kill a target.
Corruption could be permanent, or last something ridiculously long like 240 secs, and wouldn't be imbalanced. This would add some interesting dynamics to the game, with the corruptors trying to find important unguarded targets to corrupt them as a form of harassment.
While we're at it, they should bring back spawn broodlings for the Queen instead of transfusion. But instead of killing a target like in BW, she would simply spawn her eggs on the ground (creep?), and after a few seconds, a few broodlings would spawn. This could create some tension with spawn larva. This ability could also be required to be cast on a hatchery, to make it a form of harassment control, but since queens can barely move off creep anyway...
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I always thought frenzy would work better on the Overseer, Infested Terran should go back to the Infestor (it was a fun mechanic and sometimes useful to throw units up onto a cliff) (or remove it for something original)
I think the overseer should only get the indirect abilities like that, and it usually hovers over your army.
Give contaminate back to Corruptors and have all the unit buffs/debuffs on the overseer. Since (lorewise) it's more of a forward commander kind of unit. (of course spore cloud would be a better replacement but probably overpowered)
In a perfect world frenzy wouldn't exist in it's current form however... Corruption spreading on death is a great idea Frenzy having an area of effect that is a bit smaller than an ultralisk is also good.
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oh man, I love this idea, to have a corrupted unit spread corruption in a one area range when it dies. then you could cast it on big units OR small units and both are somewhat effective!
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Making Corruption last a very long time would definitely make the ability more interesting.
Frenzy... (First of all the name needs to be changed) ....its intended as an ultralisk ability... giving it an 'aura' like effect wouldn't change that much because you would still want to put it on a tough unit.
Perhaps if it also gave the unit +100 hp it would be worth casting on smaller units... (135 hp Zergling, 130 hp Baneling, 180 hp Hydralisk might be worth 25 energy)
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