Ok, so alot of people seem to think that zerg are imbalanced, weak, incomparable to the other races, or thematically out of alignment along the 7th axis of the square root of 7.... Personally, I think they could use some tweaking and they are not quite the best they could be, but its a work in progress. Anyway, the point of this thread, is what ideas do you have to make the zerg either A. More balanced, B. More interesting, or C. More dynamic? My balance ideas are as follows Bring back overlord detection, there's no reason not to have it, and NO positive benefit they gain from its removal, that's my only real gripe with sc zerg, but it is a fairly major one. Switch the hydra and roach around, I understand that this is not sc1, but the lack of any real air defense before tier 2 leaves the zerg incredibly vulnerable to early air. 2 Queens are nice and all, but they lose to any real air presence, not to mention that the lack of AA while on the offense can be murder. For some interesting Ideas Sadly enough atlasmech had one that would actually be pretty cool. Its impossibe to implement as the game stands now, but mabye as a custom game of sorts? Anyway it was the zerglings as the basic unit for the zerg, and able to mutate upwards into all the other units. Also in the same vein, It would be kind of cool not to mention very fitting with the lore if the zerg could produce units on the move, mabye queens produce larvae, and a creep trail as they move, and thats why they move so slowly off the creep? Obviously the spawn larvae ability they currently have would have to be removed, transmute as well most likely. then again I dont particularly like either ability as a "zergy" thing. Spawn larva exists as an apm dump, and transmute is a biological shield battery. What do you all think?
Auto cast option for queens to spawn larva be nice. Infestors in groups all summoning a infested marine at once be very nice. On a more dramtic level, some kind of troop production building that doesn't generate or need creep would give the zerg something simlar to sneaky barricks and crystal summoning. A tier one anti air be nice too. I'm against overlord detectors tho. Just make it WAY too easy for zerg to detect stuff.
Saw the first paragraph of the OP and was about to scream "ATLASMECH SOCK PUPPET!!!1!1q!" Thankfully the rest of the post is actually understandable. I'm fine with the overlord-to-overseer morph; as the devs said way back when, native detection in Overlords made the Zerg way too "detectorific" and made the other races' cloaked units almost useless to a competent Zerg player. Unfortunately Changelings are too easy to spot most of the time and so are nearly useless; there are lots of times when I wish the Overseer had the Queen's Parasite ability from SC:BW. the early-game AA thing is sort of helped out by having a Queen or two, but like so many other aspects of SC2 it all comes down to scouting the enemy's base and seeing what they're up to. The Uprooting mechanic for defensive structures is a godsend - you may not be able to plunk down a Spore Crawler fast enough to actually attack, but at the very least you could scare away that one pompous Void Ray/Banshee going to town on your mineral line and buy yourself some time to prepare. Besides, putting Hydras back down to tier 1.5 would mean we'd have to nerf them back down to a reasonable level. I like my beastly 12-damage, fast attacking Hydras dammit! @Draco Spirit: Autocasting any of the major base abilities is a bad idea - not only does it take out a lot of the required macro, you may also find yourself wasting mana on Hatcheries that have already hit the 19-larva limit, or need to Transfusion some unit/structure only to find that your Queen doesn't have enough mana! The same thing could be said about calling down MULEs, then not having any energy to scan when you need it. What I'd really love to see with the Queen was suggested by a forumgoer a while back - give it 50 starting energy instead of 25. Doesn't sound like much, the the ability to cast both Spawn Larvae and Creep Tumor straight out of the Hatchery would be extraordinarily helpful in the long run.
Lol kaaraa, the was actually a dig AT atlasmech I thought that would be kind of obvious Anyway, I dont like the autocast spawn larva idea either, however as I said before the way it is now its an apm dump. it serves no purpose but to bring you back every 25 energy to cast the spell, mule/chrono boost which are the only equivalents are able to be saved to provide a boost when needed. Queens on the other hand provide no bonus by having excess energy. Like I said, I just dont like the queens the way they are now....
The bonus of a queen's energy is having it heal damaged buildings or units. And you can never have enough creep tumors. ^^
Aurora's got the idea. Transfusion is DAYUM sexy. I've actually gotten into the habit of using it between attacks when doing Mutalisk harassing, and it helps a ton. Also: That's what made me think you were atlas for a sec. It's obvious now but I was sleep deprived when I read your post, so I had a bit of a herp-derp moment.
I gotta say, you had me for a second there as well. And while I do like your idea of switching roaches and hydras, I think they would have to be nerfed a bit, as they roll over marines quite easily.
I'm okay with the lack of overlord detection, it makes for more tactical choices and sets apart experienced players from noobs. I was also going to suggest more emphasis on the morphing... I'd love the opportunity to run into battle with a group of units, run away and let my opponent try counter them, morph my units and attack again. I don't exactly want morph-any-unit-into-any-other-unit but if there were a bunch more morphing units, and maybe even a couple units that could morph back and forth that would be really interesting. Also, if you want APM, maybe morphing upgrades rather than buying them at the evolution chamber. For example, if I create a Hydralisk maybe I could morph it into a slightly better one (maybe one with longer range), but it takes quite a while leaving the player vulnerable, managing morphs could require a fair bit of experience and allow for some interesting tactical decisions. The Zerg player maybe could even morph the unit buildings, like morphing a Hydralisk lair allows for different Hydralisks to be morphed. Though really what I'd like to do is morph a Ultralisk into an Omegalisk. I have a feeling Blizzard may be working on this anyway. (crosses fingers) I think the Zerg also deserve a cliff climbing unit, like the reapers and the Collosus. One idea is to give a unit the ability to jump, for instance Zerglings that can leap, a little like blink I guess, even if it is an upgrade only available late game I think it would be a lot of fun. Although at the same time not having a cliff climbing unit balances the Zerg nicely against Collosi. I would also like to see some more interesting uses of burrow. I quite like the Roaches-heal-faster-when-burrowed thing. Maybe a unit that can burrow across cliffs? Or bring back a unit that can attack from underground (like the Lurkers). I haven't seen many top level matches with lots of Roach Burrow, when it happens it is awesome, but I'd like to see burrow either more useful or cheaper. Even if burrowed units were not so vulnerable (for example if they get a big armor bonus when burrowed) that might make it more commonly used. Infestors can be quite awesome and Koreans sometimes use them incredibly well, but I'd like to see more use of burrow for all the other units (especially Ultralisks because they look so funny when they burrow). I'd like to see some other uses of creep. Like maybe the creep tumors could ensnare or slow down enemy units. By doing so the tumor would reveal itself and be killed, but if done at a critical time it could make a big difference. Maybe also some extra mobility on creep, like being able to teleport units across creep with something like a Nydus Canals but creep based and easier. This would make it much more important for opponents to kill off creep tumors and make the Zerg even more mobile, which is kind of their thing. Maybe just making Nydus Canals build really fast and/or cheaply on creep would do this, allowing Zerg players to quickly defend bases or attacking from behind enemies on creep. (This could easily make the Zerg OP if done wrong of course, but the Zerg mobility is a lot of fun). Zerg right now do not have a Capital Ship : an equivalent for the Battle Ship and the Carrier. Broodlords are wonderful though, I'm just pointing out there is no big air ground-attacking and air-attacking Zerg unit. (Though I'd MUCH rather have Omegalisks than a capital ship). What about bringing back a possess building unit, like the old Queen's ability. Maybe even done through creep. What I mean is that if you can get creep and a tumor near enough (perhaps through clever Overlord use) you can spread creep to an enemy building and possess it. It would probably be really hard to pull off, but an interesting strategy, probably achievable if you manage to kill off an enemy's expansion. (Can you imagine, INFESTED ZEALOTS) I'd also like some early game air defense, though so long as the Zerg player does decent scouting they should be okay. The problem right now (if it is a problem) is that Zerg is the most vulnerable vs air early game and has the only defenseless air units (Overlords), so it is easy to cripple a Zerg player with air superiority. I think this affects noobs, but doesn't seem to be a problem for experienced players. Maybe an easier way of scouting Terran would help, but the Zerg lack of early air defense is not unbalanced. How about a cannibalistic unit, it can eat other units or severely wounded enemies and get stronger, even level up. This could require some extra APM and be themed to the ever evolving-consuming Zerg. Or maybe a face hugger unit? If Zerg is a burn of Aliens anyway it makes sense to have something that can lay it's eggs in marines and zealots. Not like the old Queen though, one-shotting Thors would be ridiculous. I'd like a Zerg unit with the ability to gunk up enemies and stop them using their specials. If it wasn't too OP of course. That way the Zerg player could gunk up some siege tanks while they are on the move and assault them before they lay siege. This would make it a lot easier to deal with the Terran ball. On the other hand there are already excellent ways to deal with the ball (like simply running around it and attacking their base). I'd also like to get away from the APM of the current queen's spawn larvae, or at least reduce the punishment of missing a spawn larvae, which right now is the difference between a win and a loss, and I don't think its repetitiveness will be good for the Single Player experience of the expansion (not that I really play Single Player). If Zerg requires that much APM I'd rather it be doing something enjoyable (like some more creep tumor teching, or morphing units, or more units with minor spellcasting (like cannibalizing or leaping), or simply having more numerous cheap units). That's all that I can think of for Zerg for now.
