Customized play styles: uber universal upgrades

how can you consider tunneling to be "normal" cloak? giving zerglings and hydras the ability to tunnel does not mean allowing them to attack while underground. they would still have to un-burrow before they can attack, and thus reveal themselves in the process. cloaking without being able to attack is no where near as powerful as what you called "normal" cloak, the night elves had non-attack cloaking in wc3 and rather being OP it was next to useless. because the whole point of cloaking is so that you can engage enemy without being retaliated against unless the enemy has a detector. you might say that tunneling will give zergs scouting advantages but all that is secondary. the main thing you want from cloaking is to be able to attack the enemy without them being able to fight back. but tunneling doesn't given offer that. therefor it's different from what you called "normal cloaking" so the races are still distinct.

also people tends to overestimate the degree of imbalance a lack or too much of a certain mechanic for a particular race would cause, before the brood war expansion the zergs didn't even have a unit that could attack while "cloaked", meaning you didn't even need a detector when playing against the zergs, but the zergs were not weak because of this, the races were still balanced. i remember when broodwar first came out lurkers totally owned non zerg players because they didn't realize that now they do need a detector. what i am trying to point out is even with such a huge hole in the zerg's mechanics before broodwar, the races were still balanced.

people say that tunneling is OP because it would be like giving all zerg ground units cloaking, this is wrong as i explained above, because they fail to realize the one fundamental difference - all but the lurker couldn't attack when burrowed, so in order to engage the enemy, they have to reveal themselves, which rather nullifies the whole point of cloaking, unless you only want to scout. there are also many other variables which can control the effectiveness of tunneling, things like the rate of movement underground and visual indication of underground movement can be adjusted until balance is reached

 

But what's the point of implementing such ineffective cloak? It's slow, and doesn't enable attacking while hidden.

I know burrowing's usefulness, but I don't suppose it needs mobility.

 

it doesnt need it per se, but it is just a nice addidition

 

Well, it could be available together with burrowing anyway. As long as it's very slow movement while burrowed. But never an uber expensive upgrade, as I see it rather useless in late games. Like I said, Nydus Worms should take the subtle invasion role in their... hands?! :-\

 

the point is that it would still be better than only being able to burrow, which is next to useless apart from the lurker

 

it would be like the reaver speed

 

@Itzahexgor, I don't see much sense in your argument. Basicaly, if you give the lurker the ability to move while burrowed it becomes, by all definitons, cloaked. The unit is invisible and it can move and attack normaly (every unit has to stop if it wants to attack, not counting the new cobra). You could just give him a cloak and the ability to attack when not burrowed, because I don't know why someone would ever unburrow him.

@Bnechbreaker, you got me there. Burrow is not a kind of cloak, it just makes an unit invisible and useless. You're right. But even if the units had to reveal themselves to attack, meaning that they would get hit back, I still don't like the idea of burrowed movement. While I agree that the current burrow is useful very rarely and that it needs an upgrade if Blizzard wants players to use it frequently, I find the idea that every unit of the Zerg could have a kind of "cloak" (yes, they couldn't attack while burrowed, but I still count it as a weaker cloak) really, really weird, not to mention SERIOUSLY overpowered. It would basicly nullify the significance of choke points. You could just move 30 zerglings through the zealots or marines to the high templars and siege tanks and...well, you can imagine. And even if it was not for that, I just can't see it happening. It seems like some 9 year old kid thought "ZOMG WUDNT IT BE K00L IF I COULD BUROW MY ULTRALISKS" or something, no offense ment to whoever actually came up with the idea.

 

I see no point in this as normal upgrades give uniqueness to players. Air players would get three cybernetics core or ground players would build 2 evolution chambers etc. Giving universally applying upgrades would in my opinion take out a lot of customization than add to it. Rather than having universal upgrades include more specialized upgrades such as defilers can move underground or ultralisks can finally burrow, giving lurkers more range etc. This would give players their own styles more than a limited amount of universal upgrades.

 

It would be cool if the lurker can just curl in to a ball and charge himself at his enemys and slash em down with his spines

 

the ambush could work if their units had a short (maybe .5-1 second) cooldown once the units popped up around them
sorry... random

 

The Burrowed moverment speed of the Lurker would be much slower than its normal walking speed. Its really for when you're either attacking and need to get a bit further forwards because they're out of range without having to expose themselves (which seems like a logical evolution to me), or for setting up an ambush. So for when traveling they would be unborrowed because it's much faster. Or if they have been detected and unable to attack back (being attacked by Air units or something) then they would unburrow so that they can escape quicker.

 

@ Patuljak, You continue to insist that burrowed movement would somehow be OP in this scenario, but the only reason you give is basically the fact that you just personally dislike the idea. I see no real logic in your argument. It still keeps the three races distinctly different, at least just as much as before, while it isn't imba in this scenario.

Anyone playing against Zerg would at the very least have detectors at their choke that late into the game. Anyone any good would have detectors anyway.

Just to clarify, the kind of burrowed movement that I personally had in mind isn't super slow in case everyone is on a different page on the whole speed thing. It would be close to the units original movement speed. Not exactly the same, but not snail speed, because that would just be useless. And I don't think tunneling should let a unit go through anything that they otherwise wouldn't be able to move past above ground. Such as building, walls/cliffs, water, etc. At the very least, they shouldn't be able to move through anywhere that they can't unburrow at. So any kind of blockade would impede burrowed movement, all with the exception of other units.

I don't know who it was that brought up the nydus worm, but it does require vision. We are told that nydus worm deployment works similarly to the nuke. You paint a target location, then shortly after, it pops up.

 

I can just imagine it now. Paved bases ala Tiberian Sun to prevent subterranean surprises

 

Name suggestion for Last Ditch. Zeal of Aiur, or Zeal of Adun.

Can you imagine 8~12 phoenixes all with red HP activating Overload simultaneously, and a foolish Zerg player flying his entire fat bunch of mutalisks into it? That would be sick. I won't really ever happen, but that would be sick.

 

How about Tassadar's Will?

 

Anything along those lines would be pretty good IMO.

Perhaps a name that pays homage to Fenix, the Protoss hero martyr.

 

I picked Tassadar because he sacrificed himself to save his people. Fenix was martyred by Kerrigan in what could be considered a markedly less honorable death



Something I want to know is why everyone supports this idea but shoots down factions as inherently imbalanced.

I myself like both.  Perhaps each race can have 2 or 3 subfactions AND universal upgrades.  Then there would be a huge variety in strategies and tactics

 

How about Undying Will? I dont think it should have to do with any speific protoss martyr because a number of them were created during SC and the brood wars.

Also does anyone have any suggestions/opinions about ability ideas? (Im posting them again because they got buried by the disscussion)

 

I like it but the Terran thing could be called "advanced engineering"

 

Yah, that does sound alot better let me change it.