Queen's Spawn Larva- is it enough? other ideas?

so the terrans and protoss both get some kind of mining bonus. the zerg don't. this is especially obvious if you've already maxed out the number of workers on the mineral fields.

is it useful enough? the protoss and terran are probably going to have their spells up as often as possible to get a boost. the spawn larva seems to become less and less useful later in the game.

how about having a speed bonus instead? a temporary, super-speed boost for a medium-sized area of the creep that DOES affect drones (and other ground units)? this can be used for a small economy boost as well as for base defense. i think it'd be more useful than 3 extra larva...

 

First of all, please do a search. We have numerous threads with lively discussions on this very topic. For example:

Zerg Resource Idea:http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10619
Zerg Egg Mechanic:http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10332

Secondly, you ask "is it [Queen Larva Spawning Mechanic] useful enough?" The answer to this question is: we don't know. The game is not in Beta yet, and none of us have actually played Starcraft II enough to be able to say anything about it. Everybody is freaking out about the perceived Zerg resource inequity - RELAX! Beta will most likely balance it, and if not, Blizzard will fix the problem!

 

well, if we all stopped talking about what we don't know about the game until after it's out... there'd be no point to these forums. we already know SC2 will have a very similar foundation to SC1, the macro/resource management will still be quite similar, etc. we can make some decent guesses already.

also, i did search. i found the other threads to be only slightly related to what i want to discuss. the first link has little to do with the queen's actual ability. the second is proposing a huge (permanent upgrade?) change to spawning mechanics.

 

There is also this thread:

Gathering Rate Disparity:http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10410

My main point is we have a million discussions going on about Zerg economic "woes" that your idea doesn't need to be its own new thread. That's all.

And you are correct that if we stopped talking about what we don't know about the game there'd be no point to the forums - but I just think there are way too many threads out there discussing Zerg economics that make the assumption based on three Battle Reports that the Zerg have economic problems. I have less of a beef with your (and other people's) ideas, then with the fact that everybody is premising their ideas with something to the effect of "Seeing how the Zerg are worse off than the other two races bla bla bla. The Beta is imminent, and balancing issues will be fixed anyway.

 

I barf at the numerous threads that flood in asking * OMG ZERG IS SO NOT UP TO STANDARDS OMGZ BLIZARD BE FAILING!

 

And going out of your way to complain isn't much better.

 

I not complaining, who said I dont like barfing?
Also bro, its not going out of my way, I was doing my normal routine of checking new threads. When I saw it and posted. No biggy.

 

well, my position is that zerg's boost doesn't have to be an economic one- just "is it equally useful?" i get the feeling that blizzard was trying to give the zerg a "general purpose" spell. unfortunately, its boost is not as obvious as the terran/protoss's.

i mean, for both the protoss and the terran, they'd want their spells on as often as possible. that automatically indicates its usefulness. if, say, the larvae that the queen spawned were "special"- i.e. they build the units twice as fast- then i think most players would be spawning "special" larva as often as possible, even if they weren't building units right away.

so no, the zerg don't need an economic boost to equal the protoss or terrans. it's probably the easiest way to balance, sure, but i enjoy asymmetrical races. i just want to see if people think the abilities are equally useful.

 

You say both the Protoss and Terran want their spells on as often as possible and infer that only if the Larva did something more than just spawn than Zerg players would want to spam Spawn Larva too. However, that is incorrect.

The Queen's Spawn Larva ability originally was more than just spawning larva and more or less did exactly what you suggested (mutate units at a faster rate with the special Larva), but Blizzard took it out. They found that simply spawning three extra larva is plenty useful. Case in point - one article I read (don't remember the exact source) said that the Queen's Spawn Larva ability made it so that Zerg players no longer need to immediately build multiple Hatcheries - as they did in the original Starcraft. This is a HUGE deal.

In that respect, Spawn Larva is definitely "equally useful."

 

huh. i had no idea they tried that already. still, it seems to be more of an early-game benefit as opposed to a steady boost throughout the game. fits the zerg, though... they are more prone to rushing than the other 2.

 

See though it won't be more limited to early-game benefit because a good Zerg player will always be producing units. Theoretically, there could be no more waiting for Larva to spawn from your Hatcheries/Lairs/Hives ever, with enough Queens of course.

 

Or you could rush a hatchery and micro yo dang queens and make tons and TONS of babys. On both of them? Woot woot.

 

its very usefull. very very very very useful. early game with a queen out a zerg player will basically have double the units then terran or toss without even having to build a extra hatch. with a queen thats like 12 zerglings compared to 6 from one hatch while the terran may still only have like 2 or 3 units out or less.

that will just over whelm any player early game and make zerg rushes ALOT stronger then they ever was, however i dont know how usefull it will be mid/late game when zergs usually have plenty of hatches to make units. but its undeniable that early game its a pretty strong skill... you really dont even have to play the beta to know how useful it is early game for zerg. not to mention it saves money that would have otherwise been spent to make a 2nd hatch for those 12 zerglings to spawn at once from the start. and it can be cast again so thats 24 zerglings on the field to overwhelm someone in the beggining...

you would realy have to be on top of your game to defend against that and it adds a whole new lvl of swarming ability for the zerg. and, as a 2nd option you can produce double the ammount of drones if needed. making 6 drones instead of 3 from that one hatch. but how that compares to the terran and toss eco boosters i have no idea. for a eco booster it might do well and it might not.

 

We could make an upgrade for the zerg hatchery. Upgrade: Drone spawn- 200/mins 200/gas- every 2-3 mins a drone spawns. This drone can do everything a normal drone can do.

 

How does that help? If you have all of the minerals being garthered posible, you might have then out sooner then other races but the other races will do the same shortly and with boosting skills that give them double what the zerg are taking in. And even if you can spawn more you still need the resources to morph them.

 

Last BR made it pretty clear i think. With roughly the same amount of workers, the protoss were resourcing about the double minerals per minute with proton charge.

Spawn larvae is the Zergs equivalent to protoss warpgate and terran reactor , giving them their unique production boost. It does nothing to boost income other than at the very early stage of an expansion, the resting 90% of that expansions existence, when its worker capacity is full, Zerg will be outresourced by both of the other races.

This means that in the current build, the Zerg would have to constantly expand to keep those extra larvae translating into more minerals, just to keep up with regular protoss production, not allowing for attacks on those many undefended expansions.

Protoss and terran get a production and resource boost, Zerg only get a production boost. Needs fixing methinks. Zerg shouldnt be forced to expand just to keep up the gathering rate of a single base Protoss player.

And yes its not even beta and yes probably it will be fixed, but hey, this forum is for discussing things. If you feel discussion is unnecesary, save yourself some time and spare us the insight.

Whats interesting is how these kind of things slip past Blizz from time to time. It really tells you not even them can design a good game from scratch... its all in the fixing.

 

Step 1: Remove that economy boosting sh*t from the game. The golden minerals are good enough as far as screwing around with an already perfect economic system for the game.
Step 2: Get rid of this retarded defensive role for the Queen; Give it some decent move-speed for f*cks sake, give it an attack that actually makes sense (I wiggle these claw-like appendages and bobby pins shoot out! Fantastic!).
Step 3: Remove all current abilities from the Queen. They're sh*tty ideas, frankly.
Step 4: Let the Queen spawn larva/lay eggs, whatever, wherever the f*ck you want.

Here you go.
Zerg Queen - 125 Minerals/25 Vespene Gas.
Hit Points: 125
Energy: 150
Armor Type: Armored
Armor: 0
Ground Attack: 5 (x2)
Air Attack: 5 (x2)

Abilities:
►B]Spawn[/B]
Energy: 25
Usage: The Queen pauses, then forces out 1 Zerg Egg, which can hatch into any Zerg strain already available to you. While laying Eggs, the Queen cannot move and attacks at a rate slower than normal.
►Burrow
(Unchanged)

 

I like everythig except for the last 2 steps. The Zerg I think NEED the spawn larvae the way it is. You can mass the sh*t out of another player if they can spawn stuff like that (the way they can now) so just removing the stupid mineral boost would fix things (can workers still have the boost for gas 2?)

 

why not setting protoss and terran boost with low life(easy to kill) unlock only at late game. cost high and boost limited probes/SCV

 

how would that help. That would force the Zerg player to be constantly attacking the enemys resource line just to keep up with there mineral consumption rate.

Any truely good player would still have a hard time doing this. A pro wouldn't choose a race that he would be stuck doing that constantly unless he was going to "cheese". Witch can be neat to watch but if that was the only "true" way to win no one would play Zerg.

Especialy because people would just prepare for a rush tactic as soon as they encounter a Zerg player, whitch I guess you could us that to our advantage because while the enemys preparing for a rush you're just sitting sound expanding like a drunk dude on crack. Then that would make it so that the Zerg wouldn't have to do that but after a few minutes the enemy would notice the Zerg did attack and would go one the ofensive and start to expand as well.