Zerg seem worse in SC2.

Is it just me, or do Zerg seem worse in SC2 compared to what they were in SC1? They seem very uninspired and uncreative compared to the new Terran and Protoss units and mechanics. I just want to know if anyone else feels this way, or if I'm losing my mind; I'll put my thoughts into convenient 'pros vs. cons' format!

What I like:
- Banelings: Creative, useful; good work Blizzard. Baneling mines ftw.
- Corruptors: Creative, useful (I think); Good work.
- Mutalisks: Weren't changed; best idea yet!
- Guardian: Good idea with the broodling spawn.
- Roach: I like it, but do something about it's attack animation; hideous.


What I don't like:
- Tier 3 Lurkers: What kind of retarded idea is this? Lurkers are only useful when you can actually get them before detection becomes available.
- Overlords: No detection? Starcraft was perfectly balanced while Zerg still had this unique racial trait.
- Queens: Good idea, poorly executed. Reminds me of units straight out of Warcraft 3 with all it's abilities.
- Overseer: Does this thing really even have a purpose? Seems like a candy-coating to the Overlord nerf. Present a real air caster to replace the Queen please, not this floating piece of dog**** covered in WoW C'thun-esque eyeballs.
- Nydus Worms: Started out like a cool, unique idea, until they made it suck. This thing should just eat up Zerg units and move around wherever the hell you wants and spit them out. Hell, Protoss can warp **** in with prisms and warp-in; why was the original concept for the Nydus worm thrown out?
- Hydralisks: Why the damage/cost nerf?
- Infestor: Spawn Marines? Really now; what is this, Warcraft in space? It doesn't even make sense, seriously.
- Changeling: Too gimmicky; Parasite worked fine.

 

Alright, i'm going to counteract all that you have said with 1 word. Are you ready for this?
B TO THE E TO THE T AND A
THAT SPELLLSSSsS

BEEETTAAAAAA

I'm getting tired of seeing these useless over reacted posts. Its not even in beta, they can still change an entire race if they wanted too, they could get rid of the protoss warp in if they wanted too as well. Please dont fret, blizzard has never ever provided us with a bad game and will not in the future. 1 word. BETA

 

You just need to wait until the beta balances everything...

Seriously? Detection is always available before the Lurker in SC1. And if you seriously think that Lurkers only are useful without the presence of detection... There's always detection around. If not, you're playing against someone inexperienced and should win regardless.

In addition, Lurkers outrange static detectors now, which is awesome. The added range also means that the linear splash is bigger and can hit more units at a time.

 

Yeah, I know the game is in beta; that doesn't really change the fact that I feel like majority of the ideas they've had for Zerg have been dog**** though. Saying the game is in Beta is almost a bad thing; how can they possibly fix all the **** they've ruined in such a short period of time? (Even if it is a Blizzard Beta, which lasts 5x longer than the usual.)

@GMG

Not necessarily, a good Lurker-tech can catch players off-guard if you deny them scouting your build. Also, Lurkers kind of lose their zing when you know they're there. Detection usually comes out after the realization: "Oh ****, Lurkers." Now, they're T3, so players are rocking detectors just for the hell of it, and Lurkers have their own structure. "Oh look, a Lurker Den or whatever the **** it's called; I wonder if I should consider the possibility that he's making Lurkers or not."

 

No it isn't.

The point of beta is to start balancing the game with thousands of testers. Right now, Blizzard is just throwing around ideas.

I agree with some of your points, and would love to spazz about zerg economy, but it's way too early to panic. When zerg have a 12% win percentage in the first week of beta, then we can start really panicking. If it's that bad, which it probably isn't.

 

Perhaps. I think things would have went more smoothly if they worked on all three races simultaneously though; maybe putting Zerg on the back-burner is striking a bad nerve with me, or maybe I'm envious of all the new and more polished mechanics the other races are seeing so far.

I'd hope Blizzard wouldn't make a game with two good races and one poor race, but considering the time they've given to Zerg compared to the other two races, I don't know what to think.

 

It's your opinion that the Zerg are relatively bad, not a fact. I know Dustin has said that they might be a little weak, but that's something I think beta definitely can redeem. It's not like the Zerg need an embarrassingly large overhaul or something.

I think they look amazing considering that they were worked on last, as well as, well; Beta. If you are right, and the Zerg need an overhaul, Blizzard will lengthen or back out of the beta and fix it. Does it sound Blizzard to you to make two nice and one kinda s****y race?


If you're a good Zerg player, you won't have to rely on the surprise moment but can micro the Lurkers properly to get some good use out of them anyways.

Also, don't slap SC1 strats right on top of SC2. Of course it might not be the same. I am pretty sure one other Zerg unit or three will be viable for wtf surprise rushes anyway, it just won't be the Lurker.

 

I thought beta started weeks ago; odd. Thanks for informing me.

I guess, Gasmaskguy. Hopefully they keep the ability to hold your Lurkers in the game, that would make me feel a little less uneasy about their state.

And I've lost much faith in Blizzard after they butchered World of Warcraft into a casual/commercial pile of **** , lied about patches and neglected Warcraft 3, and let hacking run amok in Diablo 2. They've never provided us with a bad game, but they've been quick to let them turn into ****, or butcher them.

 

I agree that the Roach attack animation and the Infestors Spawn Infested Marines ability needs to be fixed. I think that Infestors should spawn Broodlings that can shoot air instead of Marines.

 

I trust the Spawn Infested Marines ability will get replaced in beta. It's totally illogical. Dustin explained it in a recent interview to work something like this; The Infestor doesn't create the Marines, it swallowed them ages ago. Then the Marines chill in Zerg sauce until the Infestor pukes them out on command.

My question: "But I just made the Infestors?! When did they sneak off and swallow a bunch of Marines?!" (especially painful to think about in a ZvZ or ZvP)

 

They're stored in the infestation pit, although that creates its own problems.

 

My good sir you should of never said this. World of warcraft went down hill when the Burning cusade ended. After that blizzard has been failing to improve boss battles, PVP, and simple bugs that should of never made it out of its tasting stages but did.

Blizzard CAN MAKE MISTAKES. there not robots and even then a person makes a robot - therefor it can be flawed...

 

Thats in your opinion, I thought it was a great game, all of the games from blizzard have been great interesting UBER games. I dont know why you say bc was bad. Thats on your view. I probably shouldnt of said * in the future* but the chances of them making a bad game..........uh. Thats like the chances of me losing my virginity. Please gtfo and maybe comment on the topic. I also might as well say, blizzard makes games with twice as many pros as cons.

 

Good 1 Redlazer!

You should be a zerg hero yourself for standing by your thoughts, don't mind those who wouldn't accept the truth but, at least give the game a chance to start before giving the verdict... it hasn't even started yet and everybody seems in high spirits already.... some maybe hypocrites about it but deep down they know it and wouldn't do anything about it...

But like they said, it is true that zerg is still gonna get a lot of changes, the only thiing that we can hope for is that in some way, the zerg could be on par against the other races tremendous advantages compared.

The only thing we can say is we sympathize but we cant do a thing about it (w/c makes me a hypocrite myself lol)
I just hope we receive progress reports after blizzcon 09. Yeah!

 

In my opinion, regardless of fact that they may be slightly underpowered at the moment, the Zerg in StarCraft2 will be vastly superior to what they were in StarCraft1. There may not be any flashy reasons which clearly show their superiority in comparison to the original, unlike the Terran and Protoss which have their Thors, Planetary Fortresses, Colossi and Motherships, Immortals and Marauders, Banshees and Void Rays, etc, as, generally, they've retained their original cohort from StarCraft1. They've definitely got some new beauties, like Roaches and Banelings, but really they've kept their main fighters, being Zerglings, Hydralisks, Lurkers, Mutalisks, Guardians/Brood Lords and Ultralisks, which have remained relatively unchanged.

However, the main thing that has changed is the pathing, and although that doesn't exclusively apply to Zerg, it definitely benefits them the most. Zerg are a team that needs to mass and needs to surround, and their capabilities of doing so have been greatly increased. Not only can Zerg now overwhelm their opponents much more quickly instead of trickling around as they all marched in single file, but their able to mass quicker with the Queen's Spawn Larvae ability, as well as with the Brood Lord's Broodlings, Corrupter's corruptions and Infestor's Infested Marines, regardless of how much you disagree with the lore of the ability itself, but on top of that, players are now able to select hundreds of units at a time, as opposed to the twelve in StarCraft1. That not only means that they're producing units faster and that those units will not stretch out into a single file queue, but there's not even any delay between sending in groups of twelve, or even control groups, and the same goes for both retreating and Burrowing or Unburrowing. In regard to these new factors, I can't really see Zerg in StarCraft2 being comparable to StarCraft1until you've played them for quite some time, because these universal mechanics change everything about them up so much.

Now onto what you said about what you don't like, there are a few problems. Firstly, as GMG said, they are far from only being useful without enemy Detection, and, again as he's said, with their siege range, they've become comparable to the Siege Tanks of old.

With the Overlords, there was a good reason for removing immediate and universal Detection, for example, Cloaking will now be plausible against Zerg opponents. While I'm definitely not a fan of the Overseer, giving all Overlords Detection from square one isn't the way to go.

As for Queens, she has abilities. So what? Most casters do. The Queen is very much an auxiliary unit, not taking up a Larvae to produce, having the abilities to immediately spawn four more, spread Creep and regenerate Biological targets. While I did prefer it when the Queen had her Razor Swarm ability and the Overseer had Transfusion, I fail to see how she can be considered as a good concept that's been poorly executed. I don't see how the execution differs from her concept.

With Nydus Worms, I definitely think that the most recent build is the most polished. When they travelled underground and Cloaked, it all seemed a bit messy and incomplete, especially when it comes to transversing oceans, lava or space between space platforms.

As for as I know, the Hydralisks have not been nerfed, and have actually been buffed a fair bit. According to the latest build, they have ten more health, deal base ten damage as opposed to ten Explosive damage in the original, and deal an additional six against Armoured Air targets. Apparently they're speed demons both on and off the Creep as well.

While Spawn Marines may not be the best ability lorewise, but having seen it in action I definitely thing it would be a very useful spell. Blizzard appears to be sticking with it, though changing them to some other creature and giving a proper Infestation ability to the Infestor would probably be the best case scenario.

I definitely agree with the Changeling, however, and especially with their limited lifespan. Parasite was great, and even if it returned with a few more restrictions, such as not being castable on units like the Mothership and the like due to there being no apparent way to remove them currently, it would still be superior to the Changeling.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHA xD

We're in a forum for a pre-beta game, we get to discuss balance despite it not being the key focus of blizzard at this time.

Anyway, i agree that there are major issues that need to be resolved, the lurker, such a key unit at all levels of play seems to be at the mercy of the infestor, the infestor is at tier 3 the lurker is at tier 2, the infestor moved down so the lurker moved up, at the moment it is at an awkward position where it's usefulness is greatly dimished because, as Dustin said (paraphrasing) 'There were too many units at lair tech'. Combined with the fact that they have renounced a hold fire button for lurkers, and haven't even made a straight response about replicating the effect of starcraft with the stop or hold position commands, i don't see lurkers being used much at all. Even the mutalisk, which you said was an up point has lost it's effectiveness due to the difficulty of stacking, this is not blizzards fault as they have attempted to warp their own engine to perfect it, but still dimishes the power of the zerg.

 

I don't know about other people but before I joined this forum I wasn't sure what race I liked. I looked at the main site evey day for a week hoping for an update, and then I was able to play SC1 loved it. Soon fell in love with the Zerg and can't seem to like the other races as much. And I also had hope that blizz was saving the best race for last. Then I joined this forum looked at the Zerg. Fell in love again at the new ideas etc. And then I started to look at the other races and then saw the Zerg in game play. And saw how bad they sucked in every video I watched inclueding on YouTube. Then I felt bad and a few opinions of mine, SC Zerg were awesome other than pathing in my opinion because they were weak and couldn't aford to be away from the group. Another opinion of mine is that the banelings are cool I'm glad that hydras are back as 1.5 and I F***ing hate roachs, when I first herd about them I thought HOLY CRAP THAts AWesome!!!! And then I learned that they had a huge regenerate rate. Then I saw them in battle, and they were eaten for breakfast by marines that are infantry that roachs have (or had) double damge to, and were slightly meant to counter and yet they sucked D*** at it. I also thought of the infester as crap. Then they got new visuals that gave it a plus and new abilitys witch I wasn't sure about. And I also like the idea of razer swarm. But I'm still unimpressed by there the last race to be shown, (beat for last sinerio) and to me they've lost there shine and have become a huge pile of BS!

Of course this is MY opinion, that doesn't mean others don't and others will always have different opinions, this doesn't mean that Zerg can change.

I'd say scrap the roach (even the name is pretty bad) and maybe the curropter, the infester needs a little more original spells. And add some new units with better purposes and a resonanable amount of awe to go along.

Onestly I'm sure every thing will be fixed but it looks like quite a lot of different tactics have seemed to not change. Get a zergling rush and maybe add some banelings for extra help. Do a muta harrass at the same point and just wait a little less for a spell caster and a little longer for a much better lurker. And since the lurker has it's own building do we have to still morph hydras? It would be nice to not have to spend so much on build time.

I like the idea around the queen. And seeing as she has around 200 +50 energy (I think like previous casters) and with what I think is a 25 energy instant 4 larvae, each queen can make 24 larave with all of that larvae that makes them M***** F***ing usful with a little bit of work. My only problem with that is then there's around 27 eggs mophing right next
to the hatchery. Tell that doesn't cause cluter when there in egg form and then hatch around the same time.

Anyway that's my thoughts hopes and dreams for the Zerg. The Zerg just need a little sugar, spice, and evrything nice (or in this case everything diabolical!)

(Edit: Holy F***! I think this is my longest post yet!)

 

I 'spose. Hell, I probably just want to see more Zerg content. It seems like what's out there is outdated by the time it's exposed, and there isn't much of it to start. And perhaps I'm just a tad bit of change; I've grown real accustomed to the Zerg of the ol' days.

 

Great post IHG. Your point if I understand rightly is that instead of gaining big guns like motherships or thors which has made sc2 terran and protoss stronger then there sc1 companions, Zerg has also involved, and become much more flexible in sc2.

Still some balance problems, for example the wierd spawn infested marines, and perhaps the lack of detection (corsairs + dt's - old good combi would destroy zerg in sc1 if they had to upgrade there ovies), but thats too a matter of balance.

I mostly like the Zerg right now, flexible like never before!

GD->

Roaches were never meant to directly counter marines, and judging them on some crappy battles is very much wrong. I think they are really fine, and will work good as a tier 2 meatshield, with for example burrow as a way to micro them (detectors have become a problem for most races). I think they especially in ZvZ will create more interesting play than ever before. So IMO they shouldnt be scrapped.
Corruptor is wierd yes, but we will have to wait for BETA to see how it works out against other air units on a more realistic way.
The finestor needs Dark Swarm back instead of infested marines IMO; I just loved that spell. Just balance it down and let it require Hive - no imbaness then.


So im mostly very happy for the Zerg right now. They require some balance fixes and perhaps a few changes (infestor, changes remove the stupid overlord upgrade and make the detection an upgrade in the lair or something like that, some changes to the queen), but they are so flexible right now, and got two high tier units I like!

 

Only people who know me well get that joke XD