|
There has been much debate over the last few weeks over the changes that Blizzard is making regarding macro mechanics, most specifically being the changes made to the larva inject mechanics for Zerg players going to an auto-inject function. This was done with the idea in mind to streamline macro for the race to leave time to focus on other aspects of the race, being micro, creep spread, position, expanding, etc. However, there has been a lot of disagreement over what this is doing to the race, with pros even coming out to say that it was a detriment to the race and to the game in general, essentially dumbing down any sort of multitask or "skill" involved, and ultimately boiling down to a lower skill ceiling.
While there has been a lot of ideas about what to do about the mechanic, and how the mechanic can be altered to not only allow for a more forgiving, casual friendly experience, as well as a way for very skilled players to separate themselves from other Zergs, they usually go by the wayside due to balance, or complete automation of the game, which is something that Starcraft fans DO NOT WANT.
So I was thinking, how can we make the game forgiving to casuals and allow for the macro strength of high-level players to still shine?
I came up with the Diminishing Returns concept for Zerg, essentially taking what was great about larva inject in the past and combining it with the auto-inject we currently are playing with in the Beta.
Energy basically regenerates at a rate of 1 energy per second, meaning that the amount of time that it takes to build the amount of energy needed for an inject would be 25 seconds. This is a structured time period that great zerg players have become accustomed to, going back to their base and injecting every 25-30 seconds for maximum efficiency. However, with auto inject, you don't even have to go back to your base anymore or even think about injects to achieve maximum efficiency. This is a PROBLEM because it takes any sort of base management or difficulty in Zerg macro mechanics out of the game and streamlines it TOO MUCH.
My idea is this:
Alter the inject mechanic on the queen: remove the current state of auto inject and increase the larva inject spawn to 3 larva at 25-49 energy. Make 25 energy the baseline for injecting, as it currently is. Every 25 energy more that the queen has can spawn 1 more larvae (50-74 spawns 4, 75-99 spawns 5, 100+ spawns 6), up to a maximum of 100 energy that can be used to inject.
What this essentially does is allow for Zerg players who have a lower grasp on strength of macro to not be hit with the extremely unforgiving situation of not having any larva because they didnt inject. If their queen has 200 energy because they didnt inject at all for 200 seconds, they can inject, and get 6 larva, making the mistake and lack of attention to macro a little more forgiving. But, this differs from somebody who babysits their queens and injects better, making the better macro player have access to more larva faster. Here is an example of how that works out:
1.) A player who injects at 100 energy will get 6 larvae. 2.) A player who injects at 75 energy and again at 25 energy (100 total) will get 8 larvae. 3.) A player who injects at 50 energy and again at 50 energy (100 total) will 8 larvae. 4.) A player who injects at 50 energy, 25 energy, and 25 energy (100 total) will get 10 larvae. 5.) A player who injects at 25 energy 4 times (perfect injects, 100 total) will get 12 larvae.
What this example shows is that if you larva inject with more efficiency and when the skill is available as fast as possible, you reap the most benefits. Examples 2 and 3 show that a player who loses track of inject but comes back with a perfect inject subsequently will have the same benefit of someone who has an average inject time of 50. This mechanic allows for players who might forget or be focused on other things to recover more easily from screwing up injects, and by improving throughout the game and remembering to inject, it allows for comebacks, and for stabilization after missing injects, more forgiving than WOL/HotS, but less automated or lifeless than LotV.
The energy ranges also come into play in showing skill and efficiency, where a player who injects every 38 seconds, for example, will get the same amount of larva as someone who injects at 25 energy, but at a lower pace, since they are not being perfectly times with their injects.
One thing that would need to be balanced according around this is the maximum amount of larva that a single hatchery can hold (currently at 19). With tech switches and such being a part of the Zerg arsenal, reducing this might become a problem, but that can be addressed with testing.
I believe that this model is more along the lines of what people are looking for in macro mechanics for zerg that are forgiving to casuals, but also allow for really skilled players and macro perfectionists to reap the maximum benefits from the mechanic and display their skill accordingly.
Let me know what you think of this idea, and I accept any and all criticism to the idea.
|
Another idea to go along with this (different from the energy range idea) is remove the energy cost for injecting and make it on a separate cooldown, where one more larva spawn in the queen charges every 25 seconds, starting at 3, making it slightly more streamlines compared to the above idea. Indication of charging larva can be displayed on the UI in the toolbar on the spawn icon or on a separate charge icon. After injecting, the ability will go on a 40 second cooldown (like that of injecting in hatcheries) and begin again with 3 after that where:
(With larva spawn timer being 29 seconds), meaning 3 larva will spawn after a total of 54 seconds (charge time + inject timer). 4 Larvae are available after 79 seconds. 5 larva are available after 104 seconds 6 larva are available after 129 seconds.
|
Ahah, I wrote a very similar idea in an other topic, just few minutes after yours so I guess you won there. ^^
I am on the side of "autocast inject" should absolutely not exist, and I was fine with injects in HoTS:
But I reckon that Blizzard wants inject to be easier, so in my opinion one option would be to make missing injects a bit less punishing :
* inject is manual again, cost 50 energy by default, but produce for every extra 25 energy one additional lava. So for example, you have a queen with 80 energy, it injects and thus produces 3+1 larva and your queen is left with 5 energy, but if your queen has 60 energy it will make a "normal" inject giving 3 larvas and the queen is left with 10 energy.
So the most optimal would still be to inject every 50 energy, but when your inject are delayed you still get a bit of a compensation and not a pure waste of the extra energy.
For example to illustrate this, 1 queen which inject 4 times (200 energy total) every 50 energy will give you 3*4=12 larvas, while if you inject with a 200 energy queen it will give you 3+2*3=9 larvas.
Then the problem with this change is that you could theoretically have stuff like 2 queen per hatcheries which inject every 100 energy alternatively thus giving a +2 larvas boost. It might be a problem, although it would be a 150 mineral investment per hatch dedicated only to inject so no creep spread + 2 supply + mechanically much harder as you have to select the right good queen each cycle . So it's unclear to me if this would be problematic or not, but it would be one effect of this change.
|
However creative this idea is, it just 100% will not work, the answer is no, just no.
|
|
Manual Inject larva is soulcrushingly annoying and unfun. I don't want it back in any shape or form.
|
So now injecting with 4 queens per hatches becomes the most optimal inject. GG
|
Unfortunately it's hard to see this working out. Let's say a long TvZ game takes place where the T goes mech. The Zerg could theoretically alternate the highest energy queens to inject, thus exploiting the mechanic and banking larvae at a much faster pace. Of course this assumes the Z player has massed queens, but even if the Z makes 5 or 6 queens only, the creep spreading queens will eventually bank energy and allow the Z to get several more larva off one inject.
|
This doesn't work. Most of the times that you realise you're out of larvae are when you're under pressure and trying to get units out, and when it happens, it's usualy too late to inject and wait for larvae too come. Lack of inject would still be unforgiving as it was.
|
Why does this need to be a complicated solution where "some players can turn auto inject off and others can turn it on and if you have 25 energy you get 10 larva and 50 energy you get.."
Geeze, simplicity is sometimes a beautiful thing. Blizzard is trying to adjust the game where the range of skill needed, the so called Floor is much lower, and the difficulty remains high(if not higher depending on how you look at it). Changes like this hurt on both ends because it is making the game forgiving to some degree which helps at the highest level, and becomes confusing and odd at the lowest level to understand.
Why is this so hard?
Options are pretty simple:
1 - Keep Auto Inject. Fine. Lets move on and balance the game. 2 - Go back to old style of injects, people just need to get better at doing it. Fine. 3 - Remove inject totally. Let queens be creep and defense. Maybe give them a spell where they can move faster or something as an energy dump to help defensively and maybe create situations where they can join the offensive battle more often. Hatcheries just spawn up to 6 larva now and adjust the spawn rate. Make zergs build macro hatches. No more larva spawn. Balance the larva spawn rate and move on.
I like option 3 because it makes Zerg have to choose between maybe an extra hatch early for larva, or 2 queens, or 1 queen and then make a hatch later, which then slows creep spread. Heck I'd even be fine with an upgrade that was opened up at Lair or hive tech that allowed for an additional 2 larva per hatchery or something like that if they wanted to add something in the game that served as a unique feature to reward getting to larva tech or hive tech(might be interesting in zvz to change larva amounts whoever gets to hive first).
Any of these 3 work, are easy to understand, and I'd be fine with any and we can then just move on from this. It seems like a lot of theorycrafting for something that should be a simple solution.
|
On September 03 2015 04:19 FLuE wrote: Why does this need to be a complicated solution where "some players can turn auto inject off and others can turn it on and if you have 25 energy you get 10 larva and 50 energy you get.."
Geeze, simplicity is sometimes a beautiful thing. Blizzard is trying to adjust the game where the range of skill needed, the so called Floor is much lower, and the difficulty remains high(if not higher depending on how you look at it). Changes like this hurt on both ends because it is making the game forgiving to some degree which helps at the highest level, and becomes confusing and odd at the lowest level to understand.
Why is this so hard?
Options are pretty simple:
1 - Keep Auto Inject. Fine. Lets move on and balance the game. 2 - Go back to old style of injects, people just need to get better at doing it. Fine. 3 - Remove inject totally. Let queens be creep and defense. Maybe give them a spell where they can move faster or something as an energy dump to help defensively and maybe create situations where they can join the offensive battle more often. Hatcheries just spawn up to 6 larva now and adjust the spawn rate. Make zergs build macro hatches. No more larva spawn. Balance the larva spawn rate and move on.
I like option 3 because it makes Zerg have to choose between maybe an extra hatch early for larva, or 2 queens, or 1 queen and then make a hatch later, which then slows creep spread. Heck I'd even be fine with an upgrade that was opened up at Lair or hive tech that allowed for an additional 2 larva per hatchery or something like that if they wanted to add something in the game that served as a unique feature to reward getting to larva tech or hive tech(might be interesting in zvz to change larva amounts whoever gets to hive first).
Any of these 3 work, are easy to understand, and I'd be fine with any and we can then just move on from this. It seems like a lot of theorycrafting for something that should be a simple solution.
You could maybe simply give hatcheries with lair a larva-buff, i.e. no other upgrade is needed? And the hive would buff it more. The upgrade would have to quite substantial since it costs 100/100, although that is not so much if you compare it to reactors which cost 50/50. This buff could be faster spawnrate and higher larva cap or something similar.
|
I think we need manual injects back. This accomplishes that while still making it more forgiving. I love it!
|
xTJx right, if you didn't inject in time it might be too late.
There are other problems with the approach - pro players may just save some energy for transfuse and suddenly you wasted this extra energy to extra larva.
|
I like the idea, but it might be too complex to really fit into the game (no other spell works like this). Then again LotV orbital mechanics are pretty bizzare now too.
|
United Kingdom20145 Posts
On September 03 2015 02:42 Kranyum wrote: Manual Inject larva is soulcrushingly annoying and unfun. I don't want it back in any shape or form.
Zerg has no reason to go back to their base now and maintaining zerg macro if you know when to expand and which units to build is the easiest by far of the 3 races
|
On September 03 2015 12:03 Toster256 wrote: xTJx right, if you didn't inject in time it might be too late.
There are other problems with the approach - pro players may just save some energy for transfuse and suddenly you wasted this extra energy to extra larva.
Which is precisely why an approach like this would make Injcect much more than a manual task and gave some depth for pro players to explore.
I personally had the idea of diminishing returns as well and even wrote a post about it, but decided to wait until after next patch. However I agree that a more forgiving inject mechanic could be a better approach than automatic injects.
|
I think this is a very good concept, but you need to somehow prevent the increased lategame remax potential, with many queens with high energy. But this may not be that big of a problem, since queens take up supply and the potency of transfuse in the lategame.
|
On September 03 2015 19:42 Robzi wrote: I think this is a very good concept, but you need to somehow prevent the increased lategame remax potential, with many queens with high energy. But this may not be that big of a problem, since queens take up supply and the potency of transfuse in the lategame.
This. While it sounds simple at first, it can be "abused" by multiple queens. It buffs queens and makes it complicated for beginners to know how many you need at which state of the game. On the other hand its a plus for people who like tinkering about zerg builds
|
On September 03 2015 20:06 Insidioussc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2015 19:42 Robzi wrote: I think this is a very good concept, but you need to somehow prevent the increased lategame remax potential, with many queens with high energy. But this may not be that big of a problem, since queens take up supply and the potency of transfuse in the lategame. This. While it sounds simple at first, it can be "abused" by multiple queens. It buffs queens and makes it complicated for beginners to know how many you need at which state of the game. On the other hand its a plus for people who like tinkering about zerg builds
Automatic injects are essentially abuse by default. Endgame 4+ hatcheries is essentially a constant flood of larvae - if you don't kill any zerg units you will be overrun by waves of units guaranteed.
People like to say that it's an early/midgame buff, but injects are the first thing people drop when lategame gets too heavy and they rely on multiple hatcheries. Zergs don't have to do that anymore.
|
On September 03 2015 04:19 FLuE wrote: Why does this need to be a complicated solution where "some players can turn auto inject off and others can turn it on and if you have 25 energy you get 10 larva and 50 energy you get.."
Geeze, simplicity is sometimes a beautiful thing. Blizzard is trying to adjust the game where the range of skill needed, the so called Floor is much lower, and the difficulty remains high(if not higher depending on how you look at it). Changes like this hurt on both ends because it is making the game forgiving to some degree which helps at the highest level, and becomes confusing and odd at the lowest level to understand.
Why is this so hard?
Options are pretty simple:
1 - Keep Auto Inject. Fine. Lets move on and balance the game. 2 - Go back to old style of injects, people just need to get better at doing it. Fine. 3 - Remove inject totally. Let queens be creep and defense. Maybe give them a spell where they can move faster or something as an energy dump to help defensively and maybe create situations where they can join the offensive battle more often. Hatcheries just spawn up to 6 larva now and adjust the spawn rate. Make zergs build macro hatches. No more larva spawn. Balance the larva spawn rate and move on.
I like option 3 because it makes Zerg have to choose between maybe an extra hatch early for larva, or 2 queens, or 1 queen and then make a hatch later, which then slows creep spread. Heck I'd even be fine with an upgrade that was opened up at Lair or hive tech that allowed for an additional 2 larva per hatchery or something like that if they wanted to add something in the game that served as a unique feature to reward getting to larva tech or hive tech(might be interesting in zvz to change larva amounts whoever gets to hive first).
Any of these 3 work, are easy to understand, and I'd be fine with any and we can then just move on from this. It seems like a lot of theorycrafting for something that should be a simple solution.
There's another option... Non automatic "instant" injects.
ie Injects are manual, But they provide the larva within 3-10 seconds of being cast on the Hatchery, instead of 40 seconds Then just lower how much larva a Hatchery can hold (from 19 down to 3+amount of 1 inject)
|
|
|
|