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Or what about for every creep colony that has not mutated or mutating in to a spine or spore
The nearest hatchery gets a larva production boost of 25% per colony
75 (colony) mineral cost out of 300 mineral cost (hatchery) = 1/4 = 25%
This is still fair since in order to double the production of your hatchery it would require 4 sacrificed drones
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Actually....
How about drones acquire the properties of the inverse of zergling stats relative to zealot stats of equal resource cost value until the spawning pool completes at which point drones go back to normal.
Then it can be part of lore that the spawning pool converts life essence of drones in to the damage essence of zerglings which is why zerglings do so much dps per amount of resources spent.
The Math is this:
4x zerglings = 100 minerals = 140 life = 59.6 dps
1x zealot = 100 minerals = 160 over all life pool = 34.6 dps
Difference between health pool = 20, 160 + 20 = 180, 180 / 2 = 90 life per 1 drone
Difference between DPS = 25.6, 34.6 - 25.6 = 9, 9 / 2 = 4.5 dps per 1 drone
Drone stats with Spawning Pool :
40 life 5.4 dps
Drone stats with out Spawning Pool (zergling to zealot inverse)
90 life 4.5 dps
So the drone gets a 50 life buff and a .9 dps nerf until the spawning pool completes at which point it loses 50 life and gets an additional .9 dps
And the lore behind the spawning pool explains it all
Then I would say any enemy units hit by drones on creep lose a % of movement speed for a period of time or until they leave the creep.
This would have to at least be due to the fact that zealot's shields are recharging faster then zerg life regeneration.
Combine this change with the creep colony effect on nearest hatchery as aforementioned in previous post and then I'd say you have the zerg problem solved.
But I think I would also switch the spore and spine crawler unlocking position in the tech tree
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I decided to actually make a map to test what the zerg race would be like with out defense structures with a few of the changes described applied in the map.
I'm not sure if it will all work perfectly but the following effects should be in the map
1.) Drones have 90 life until spawning pool completes, at which point they drop down to 40 life
2.) Spore colonies produced result in 4 zerglings which cost 100 minerals (including drone) and of course double the build time as 2 zerglings.
3.) Sunken colonies produced result in 2 hydralisks which cost 150 minerals and 50 gas (including drone) and of course double the build time of 1
A question for 2 and 3 may be whether the drone cost should be included or not
Here is the Map
*See Post #85 for most recent version*
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On May 13 2017 10:29 AtlasMeCHa wrote: I decided to actually make a map to test what the zerg race would be like with out defense structures
2.) Spore colonies
3.) Sunken colonies
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Here is the most recent and updated version of the map, I fixed a lot of things and added the ability to try as terran against this zerg design.
http://sc.nibbits.com/maps/view/139712/test-new-zerg-design
The changes are:
Drones no longer factored in cost in drone to warrior conversion costs, but....
-1 drone can convert in to 6 lings for 150 mineral cost and 3x build time of 2 lings by producing evolution chamber and making spore. (creep colony: 75 mins, sunken colony 75 mins)
The problem is that these lings made from drones are suppose to be defensive in concept and LOSE LIFE OFF CREEP instead of REGEN
-1 drone can convert in to 3 hydralisks for 225 minerals and 75 gas and 3x build time of 1 hydralisk, by producing spawning pool and making sunken colony. (creep colony : 75 mins, sunken colony 150 mins, 75 gas)
the problem is, again.... these hydras and lings made from drones like this should slowly lose life off creep.
-Drones still have 90 hp at start and basically retain the 90 hp since I could not get them to go from 90 life and 4 damage (the inverse of 4 ling to 1 zealot) back to 40 life and 5 damage (normal) upon spawning pool completion.
So try this map, and see if you still can't beat a good terran player, even with these "seemingly" over powered changes.
And you still have the option to play zerg in the classic style, but you will not have defense structures.
The whole key and philosophy to beating this zerg design now lies in the destruction of his hatcheries
Hatcheries that have always had 250 less life then CC or Nexus, that should have ALWAYS been the primary target for the sake of winning.
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And my latest book concept
"The Delayed Reactive Ghost Dimension of the Zerg Race"
Where added perpendicular production on top of zerg's 3 larva wide parallel production (3 larvas worth of units produced from drone for 3x the cost and build time of 1 larva)
Completes the zerg race dimensionaly
And the fasion by which it has been applied here can be justified by, for example:
1.
-The evolution chamber costs 1/4th the hatchery
-The barrack and gateway cost 1/4th the command center and nexus
Conclusion: A way in which the evolution chamber unlocks zergling
2.
-The spawning pool costs the same amount of money as the academy or cybernetics core (200)
-This 200 mineral structure should be classified to unlock either advanced units (medic/firebat) or ranged units (dragoon)
-In some way, the spawning pool now unlocks the hydralisk
Conclusion: The Delayed Reactive Ghost Dimension of the Zerg Race
But quite simply addressing the question:
What would the zerg race be like with out static defense?
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At this point you may have made the observation that I have, and that is that a zerg that can open up
by having 90 life drones, access to upgrades and perpendicular production of zerglings is too powerful all at once.
And it is too powerful all at once.
Aside from the upgrade access and perpendicular production however,
The purpose of the 90 life 4 damage drone prior to the spawning pool, after which the spawning pool has been completed and the drone goes back to 40 life and 5 damage
Is to open up new options for builds, such as the 5 drone rush, and the fast expand at an expo near an opponent drone rush with a fast recovery after good harassment.
What I realized was that to make these changes and the 90 life 4 damage drone possible (prior to spawning pool)
Was that what ever damage the hatchery has sustained by percentage is also the percentage damage to the production output speed of larva by the damaged hatchery.
With this in place, the 90 life 4 damage drone that is the inverse of 4 ling's life and damage to 1 zealot
This actually promotes the idea that the opponent should try to attack the hatchery initially, perhaps opposed to the drone if he is rushing. But it is a more balanced and situational choice at least.
There could possibly be put in to the game though a counter option of life sacrificed by the drone or warrior units made from the drone of dumping their life back in to the hatchery.
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It could also be said that the zerg race doesn't have to get rid of defense structures, but this fortifies the point that when defense structures are made, they are only suppose to be used 1 at a time at each base.
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Update on the map: I was able to get the creep colony to be 10 armor like an egg, but not sure while mutating. - I still haven't solved the problem of lings going beyond the food cap, so you'll just have to play fair if you want a legitimate test.
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A final comparison of legitimate options would be,
Either all of this gets implemented
or
You go back to 350 mineral hatcheries and zerg start with an extractor
Extractors life reduced from 750 to 210-250
Since comparatively, 300 mineral hatchery 1/6 of 1250 life = 208.33 (50 mineral extractor)
extractor build time drops from 40 to 20 (1/6 of hatchery)
And now a hatchery just automatically builds an extractor on vespene gas with out drone mutation
When ever it is in range of gas
For 0 cost since it is factored in to the 350 mineral hatchery
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Imma definitely send an email to blizzard asking to implement these changes for remastered.
This looks so much better and well balanced than the original game it's amazing.
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And now I will bring it all together and bring home the point in relation to the ability "burrow"
Just look at where burrow is in the tech tree relative to what was explained and it says just about everything....
With the 90 life 4 damage drone as the inverse of lings to zealots prior to spawning pool
We could see the fast expand near enemy drone rush/harass recover with 2 hatchery drone production opening.
And if burrow gets researched somewhere in there as it is immediately accessible in the tech tree....
Then it would be possible to set up a surprise drone attack on the enemy as they may counter and come out to kill the hatch that may very well be outside the enemy's base.
Even when considering the perpendicular production of defensive zerglings unlocked by evolution chamber, you don't need the speed upgrade of zerglings when you could already have burrow to get in range of ranged attackers, instead you would rather have a raw upgrade of melee or carapace.
This brings in to light the whole philosophy of zerg as a macro defending economically capable race.
Where surprise masses of burrowed and upgraded units can catch the enemy off guard, and be used to protect across multiple bases by an offensive means.
Producing lings with drone mutation perpendicularly, meaning 3x the build time and cost of 2 ling for example
Has been what zerg has needed all along in order to make the burrow concept everything that it was suppose to live up to.
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Atlas, I would like to play the custom map with you to test it out.
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I am Kyfoid on Korean (Fish) server
Online right now, well, online now @ 7:49 a.m. eastern time
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It's also interesting to point out that if the original game's design for zerg was actually done right
The points of:
Do not make units unless you are going to use them:
Which leaves zerg with hydras and mutas (because hydras mutate in to lurker later and mutas mutate in to guardian later)
Which leaves zerg with hydras against protoss,
And mutas against terran
And because it is also proper with zerg to "not make buildings unless they are going to use them"
Means that zerg should have a choice between either making spawning pool or spire
200 or 200/200 gas
and as both the zergling and muta are small units
the choice between one or the other small units (zergling or muta)
In order to be viable against terran, not protoss
Otherwise the assumption is that zerg is suppose to use spells against terran....
Which means that the problem is that parasite and consume from the queen and defiler need to be switched around
So i'm going to say that it could be possible that zerg is ok against protoss
But the problem with zerg in zvt is that parasite and consume need to be switched around for zerg to be viable against terran.
I could make the argument that this is in fact true, because the queen is ALREADY a great flying and fast scout, so why does it have a scouting spell (parasite)
It's obvious that consume and parasite need to be swapped with each other.
Now it becomes clear that zerg should be using the queens to consume lings to take out medics that are speckled around out the infantry.
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The only reason why I say that zerg could be fine against protoss until proven otherwise is because
A.) protoss are still stupidly using or opening up with cannons against zerg
B.) zerg can open with the (3 - 2 - 1 drone on gas, 3 hatch build) where zerg opens with 3 drones on gas, get's missile upgrade, pulls 1 drone off of gas until hydra speed and range are gotten, and then pulls another drone off of gas to do 3 hatch hydra with 1 drone on gas.
But you see the critical point for why this works is because
A.) Zerg isn't making many buildings or teching uselessly for units that they aren't going to use
The hydra works and works great because they can convert in to lurkers later
Neither of which work good against terran due to tanks and marine/medic
and then the Muta doesn't end up working that great because you can't research guardian aspect on the same tier like you can with lurkers...
This only seems to come back to the point that zerg were suppose to be using spells against terran
Where consume and parasite need to be swapped between queen and defiler
Because the queen is already a fine scout with out parasite
And the design conflict there suggests piss poor design with complete design conflict.
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I would honestly switch parasite with consume and also switch the 150 gas cost of the defiler with the 100 gas cost of the queen.
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And at that point, once you realize how dumb it would be for queens consuming and using broodling on everything, you would realize that broodling and plague need to be inverted with each other so that broodling would simply be a single target life eating spell and plague would no longer eat away at the opponent's life but rather apply an affect to a group of units where if they died they would spawn broodlings.
And that's the end of the story, there is no more
And I didn't buff or nerf ANYTHING
Merely filled in the gaps and made some flips and applied some inversions.
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Final List of design changes
1. Drones can morph in to 4 zerglings for 100 minerals and 2x the build cost of 2 zerglings with evolution chamber tech.
2. Drones can morph in to 2 hydralisks for 150 minerals and 50 gas and 2x the build time of 1 hydralisk with spawning pool tech.
3. Units made from drones lose life off creep.
- Just realized that 6 lings or 3 hydras coming from 1 drone is too much. This is just a way for zerg to have a way of paralleling protoss costs when you consider it closely. 4 lings = 1 zealt = 100 minerals, 2 hydralisks = 1 dragoon = 150 minerals and 50 gas.
4. When there are 0 warrior units on the creep and drones are on the creep OR UNDER OVERLORDS, drones acquire the attributes of 90 life and 4 (from 40 life 5 damage) which is the inverse of lings life and damage to zealot. Just say that this is a capability of the creep that provides the drone when it isn't supplying the dps output of warriors (which isn't a buff to anything, merely justifying the natural high dps output of zerg's warriors). When the 90 life 4 damage drone attacks an enemy unit on the creep, it slows the unit by a %. This effect does not apply with basic drones.
5. Consume and Parasite are switched between queen and defiler. The effect of Spawn broodling and the effect of plague are switched between each other and so are their names with further clarification. I.E. Plague Host, Brood Disease
The original spawn brood-lings now because like a single target plague, and plague becomes merely an aoe status changing effect that causes enemy units to release broodlings upon death.
Conclusion: Swarm Fixed.
And this can actually answer a point earlier in this entire thread. The leap sacrifice zergling concept found through the Plague Host ability of the queen as it consumes lings to apply plague host.
The change of design also promotes more micro as well, as key units are weakened which challenges zerg to use its army to pick those key units off, rather then just a free kill that took no skill what-so-ever (original broodling).
And as said before, these changes do not really change anything about the game.... merely fills in the gaps, and applies some swaps as well as some inverses.
*added OR UNDER OVERLORDS to #4
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Why are you playing so damn early in the morning? When do you play the game normally?
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just tell me your name on what ever server you are on, will play when ever but not so much later on at night. I don't really play too much anymore either. Tried to get back in to it.
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At this point I would like to get in to more of the "why" for these changes, aside from the drone change, in regard to how they work together to serve a point.
If zerg would have a greater defensive army by the design changes suggested, then it is possible for this to create conflict with the spawn broodling spell as it currently is. Key units such as tanks and high templars may be too conveniently picked off with spawn broodling, while the rest of zerg army (now greater on the defensive side) is used to protect zerg's bases.
This is precisely why I am suggesting that spawn broodling and plague from the defiler essentially be introverted with one another.
Look at it even from a starting point of view of Plague first. Zerg needed plague in starcraft 1 because they did not have lurkers for the sake of killing marines or zealots. This didn't make a whole lot of sense because plague worked both against air and ground units, and ultimately just way more effective and ideal against air units over all since air units cost more gas, while the ground army may not even cost any gas at all.
This, to me, suggests that plague, as critical of a spell for zerg's strength seems to be, is designed more for ZvZ then the other match ups. Why? Because zerg is more of an air race then terran or protoss are. We know that spawn broodlings can only be used on ground units but that it doesn't do anything in regard to countering army. How is it that protoss and terran are able to push the zerg race off of army with army when zerg is the swarm? The result is a zerg race whos answer to ground army and tanks/high tamplers is Queens and Lurkers. This is horribly dull and boring for the game overall. Zerg casts broodlings on key units only to get broodlings that immediately die and do not last, and lurkers are a positional unit that is just not great at posing much threat against mobile armies.
The game should be dancing, and zerg with the potential of having good army along with queens that weaken down key targets individually, rather then instantly killing them, means that there would be a lot more micro/sacrifice of lings going on, on key targets, more zerg units dying on the screen, which there should be as zerg is the swarm and it supports also the entertainment factor, and finally, more micro in terms of dodging storms, more army for surprise attacks on key units with say hydralisks unburrow and more overlord drops on enemy army to get him to attack himself while key units that are already weakened get finished off.
What could be expressed in terms of the greatest of zerg strength and philosophy is an economy zerg that is on the aggressive about sending drones toward the enemy in bursts to proxy mutate and set up critical amounts of army forces burrowed underground that are used to surprise key protoss and terran units out of sacrifice.
That is how the zerg race should be played with "legitimate aggression"
in a "legitimate e-sport"
A very complex yet fantastic way of looking at the whole problem is,
Consider a zerg race that is parallel production as they currently are, but as drones get closer and closer to the enemy, and further and further away from home, the more perpendicular they become in production of army.
Greater amounts of army, at a longer production timing result accordingly.
Seems to be too complex, yet also good at the same time, for it to ever be viable.
But it's actually funner to think about then even play this game.
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And so, to sum it all up....
The reason why starcraft is bad game design particularly for zerg and their critical elements of
"numbers" "micro"
is for the 3 following reasons
"gaping holes" "redundancies" "concept/effect confusion" conflicting with lore, where lore is prioritized as superior to proportionate functionality when lore should be 2nd, and there is no reason why it can't be.
Gaping Holes: Such as how Zerg require the element of defensive perpendicular production on top of their offensive parallel production which would allow drones to mutate in to twice as many warriors that would be produced from larva for double the build time and cost with these warriors also slowly losing life off of creep. Overall, aligning zerg warrior costs with protoss warrior costs in many cases.
(4)Lings - Zealot (100 mins) (2)Hydras - Dragoons (150m 50g) (4)Scourge - High Templar (50m 150g) (2)Mutalisk - Reaver (200m 200g)
Redundancies: Such as when the queen is given the ability parasite and already acts as a good scout, and has the ability "broodling" which takes away from the micro of zerg numbers that is suppose to be a critical element of the zerg race. Now bringing the entire design concept of queen and defiler in to question, in which case I propose switching parasite with consume and the effect of plague with the effect of spawn broodling. Making zerg more tempted to sacrificing numbers for the sake of taking out critical weakened targets.
And finally
Concept/Effect Confusion: Which is pointing out again the confusion of broodling effect with plague effect, which would now allow the defiler to apply a status to a group of targets, where if they were to die, would all become the broodlings as we know them. It's not even that lore is treated as superior to proportionate functionality that bad game designers refuse to acknowledge. It's even to the point that they place lore above essential concepts and thematics of what core elements a race is suppose to be all about.
Note: Nothing of the sum of concept and value of the game overall was actually changed by these implementations
Moral of the Story: Don't hate the player, hate the game
END OF STORY
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Are you Atlas[Mech] on USEast (I believe [Mech] was originally a west clan) who would host play/obs constantly?
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Yup
And 4th reason of bad game design
Useless/Meaningless Empty Space: Overlord Carrying Capacity
All addressed in the previous post with "gaping holes"
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