Leaplings

Xios

Zerg need a new T1 unit, i think leaplings should be the way to go.

Evolved from zerglings (same as banelings), Leaplings will be kind of monkey like, think of the Geists in WoW

They can climb cliffs like reapers, be slow moving(same as zealots), but have a Leap (charge) ability to pounce on units. They will have a slow but high dmg attack, prob, 10 (+5 vs armoured) or something, and will cost 25 minerals and 50 gas on top of the zerglings.

Edit/ This will not only be a counter to the terran/toss blocks, but also to the sentry forcefield as the leaplings jump over the fields

RoyalMarine

ha that would be cool. but sadly blizzard are a company that dont give 2 shíts about their customers desire's or wants or suggestions.

pixelburp

I don't think they need a new unit, but instead, perhaps they need another caster ability that can counter that early-game fragility of the Zerg.

I'm thinking perhaps of a new default ability of the Overlord that can block areas ala the Protoss Sentry's "Force Field" spell. In keeping with the Zerg atmosphere it could be a 3x3 tumor or something (the tail of a nydus maybe, I dunno). The overlords would still be too slow for it to be abused (I think), but for blocking off your ramp and stopping those early rushes, it would be invaluable.

The tumor could be destructable, but strong enough to buy you those extra few seconds. At least then you're actually setting your own pace to the game, rather than reacting to the other guy's tactics.

TheDoc

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

ha that would be cool. but sadly blizzard are a company that dont give 2 shíts about their customers desire's or wants or suggestions.

Genuinely the most incorrect comment I've ever seen in relation to a blizzard game : /

RoyalMarine

TheDoc wrote: »

Genuinely the most incorrect comment I've ever seen in relation to a blizzard game : /

why so? i spend a lot of time on the blizzard forums and most of the suggestions people make, apart from a small handful go ignored.

Shiminay

Imagine you change the amount of damage an attack does by 1 point for a Zergling. How big an impact would that have on the rest of the game? How many thousands of man-hours would you need to test it's full impact in all aspects - early rushes, mid game expansion assaults, end-game desperate last stands etc. Imagine having to test that for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, ffa, etc, etc, etc...

There's no easy way to implement a change when you're talking about something as big as this. For that reason I think Blizzard have to be realistic in what they choose to even just try to change internally to see what happens. I'm sure there are hundreds of great ideas being thrown at them but it's just not feasible to try and test them all.

I get the impression that Blizzard are serious about fine-tuning for it's community, I just think that they know how important it is to make sure they're not releasing any lemons that radically alter what happens and how.

Funky

I'd like to see them try a buff on creep tumours to see if slightly improved mobility would help the zerg out a little bit. Like make them be invisible while building except to detectors, spread a bit quicker or maybe something like the first one per queen being free. Alot of issues zerg have as far as I can see stems from their difficulty in reacting to early game harass cause they essentially have to sacrifice 4 early larva in order to start spreading creep, and even then they can't really surround their base in it.

I think the leapling idea, while interesting, would be far too huge a change to just throw out there. Like Kharn said it'd need a crazy amount of balance testing. Like for instance the fact that you could morph lings into a pretty strong unit it would free up a load of larva for more droning since you wouldn't need to be so careful about an early push.

pixelburp

I think some kind of equivalent to the walls 'toss or terrans can build is what would be most helpful tbh, hence my suggestion. A new unit demands rigorous balancing, whereas an otherwise neutral ability to create a basic turtle option for Zerg shouldn't shake things that much.

TheDoc

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

why so? i spend a lot of time on the blizzard forums and most of the suggestions people make, apart from a small handful go ignored.

And they have to sive through a serious amount of absolute ****e.

From 1000 suggestions, less then 5% would be actual, genuinely good ideas.

Just because they arnt repsonding to every **** idea doesnt necesarily mean its bad o ntheir part.

And alot of people like to think that they know more then the devs and are more intune with the game, which is always, 100% of the time, not the case, as WoW has clearly showed.

These guys are amking games along time, and have made some seriously big, good games. And as a company are one of the most interactive when it comes to community involvement and staying in touch updating etc.

And over the years they have understood and have become pretty much adept at ignorning the stupid silly comments, and acting on the very few intellegent changes.

I would imagine the SC2 changes will come from either absolute blatantly obvious imbalance for one. I can assure you that the devs definitly watch the pro tournaments and they will no doubt review the games and gather data to see what sort of changes can be made.

But having for example hundreds of people shouting " zerg need buff" isnt exactly going to make them buff the race.

Balancing happens at the highest level of play, and can trickle down.

I think its literally a case there are very few good zerg players.

Jonny7

TheDoc wrote: »

Balancing happens at the highest level of play, and can trickle down.

I think its literally a case there are very few good zerg players.

Agree with all but last sentence.

The majority race during the Beta in korea was Zerg. They were dominating. Blizzard corrected the overpower of zerg, but many feel that they slightly 'overcorrected' them just as they reached the very end of the beta.

The more complex nature of Zerg means they are less newbie friendly - thats fine, understandable

At higher level, well the weekend cups are a good indicator of how the races match up and since the end of the beta there is a clear dominance of Terran. There have been a few upsets here and there such as Idra winning the KOTB comp (only 8 players though) and Fruitseller getting to finals of GSL. Zerg had a strong showing in cups during the Beta but since the end of the Beta they've practically disappeared and been replaced by Protoss and more and more Terrans.

The next balance patch will most definitely result in zerg appearing once again

Bicky

I did not buy the game until about 6 weeks ago. Now i am enjoying it a lot and trying to get some friends to play. A number of them got the game at release and at this stage have stopped playing because of what they see as clear imbalance issues.
I am three games into toss having switched from zerg. If you cant beat them, join them.
In my opinion they need to enlarge the size of the starting creep by 20 % or so. That would slow down initial attacks.
I think they should also make overlord speed and dropship into one upgrade. Since the overlord is no longer a detector.
Btw Why should blizzard listen to the community. Every single player will have different ideas to balance the game.

Anti

Anyone else think they look like t10 rogues?


/gets coat and leaves.

BlitzKrieg

I agree that new abilities/units is very unlikely.

But I wouldnt mind a chitchat about possibilities.

One I thought was perhaps to entice more creep use is the power for creep tumors to have a fungal spurt which essentially every unit in its creep range to get stuck with fungal growth. Not every part of creep now, just the part around the growth (the range it adds to the creep that shows up when you plant it.) so putting them at chokes would be highly powerful and encoruge terran to bring ravens with them when going on creep. Also it would effect early game. Should that first batch of energy for your first queen go to a larva inject or a defensive creep tumor in the mineral line to catch reapers/hellions harassment on the way?

Br4tPr1nc3

i dunno if zerg need AS MUCH of a buff as people are making out.

lets be honest, in the right hands, theyre really powerful.
look at fruit dealer in the gsl.

theyre not as strong as terran or protoss early game, but can fend off attacks if played right.

BlitzKrieg

i dunno if zerg need AS MUCH of a buff as people are making out.

Its not so much of a buff I feel they need but to have their tendacy to go down single minded tracks toned down...or improve their scouting.

Cause at the moment if you misread your opponent and take the wrong focus (mutaling, hydraroach, fast expansion etc) you'll get hit far too hard to recover. In contrast a terran can sort of make the same mistake and mass mule call in will keep them swinging, less so chrono boost can have a similar effect (though protoss when they get to cybernetics core can easily shift focus when needed.) Zerg, yes its easy to build a massive army, lose it and then have it rebuilt, but to shift its focus is not as easy. New tech trees need to be opened and researched to bring in effective alternatives and some of them (i.e anything airborne) requires heavy gas mining requiring a shift of focus in the economics.

Almost all of this would be mute if simply zerg had the best scout in the game...but they dont, they have the worse with two opponents who enjoy better anti scout tools.

better scouting means easier time shifting their tech to counter their opponent. At the moment we need tier 2 for that better scout (overseer/teched up overlord) which comes with a high cost.

Its either sort that out or allow zerg to shift unit composition easier which was a major part of the beta with hydra's and roaches being moved up and down and up and down on the tier scale all the time.

Br4tPr1nc3

i do agree with ya actually.

but when you say its hard for them to switch tech,
i dunno, to me, it seems a little easier for them,
well, in the sense that protoss and terran both have to build the extra buildings to pump out more units in order to switch, while zerg need to build one building and then suddently pump out out up to 7 units per hatchery simultaneously.
i think thats their strength. its just that zerg buildings take a lot longer to make, as well as take a drone too.

i will agree that some of their units are very gas dependant, which really hurts.

** build extra buildings for terran, protoss have it fairly hand with warp gates.but extra ones never hurt.

BlitzKrieg

I have a big long rant about dead end tech and gateway tech on the science thread.

To put simply terrans and protoss have to build new buildings to access some tech but there is an ease from these buildings available to you to shift not only your tech but your strategy a new direction as the tech tends to spread itself among them and flows. So its actually very natural feeling when macroing to move from one army make up to another with reactor/tech lab swapping etc being universal, all the buildings providing units that can counter each aspect (though at different levels...AA for factory is at tier 3, but its tier 1 on starport/barracks etc)

Of course in that rant I pointed out for its ability to simply cover every possible scenario the cybernetics core is the single best building in the game. You go air, infantry, vehicle it doesnt matter the cybernetics core is there to help. hence the tech tree feels like it flows. You build to a certain point such as cybernetics core and then shift your tech accordingly with ease. To mass infantry using warp gates, up to robotics or mass air with tech upgrades via stargate.

In contrast zerg has its vast majority in dead end tech, going roach/baneling/hydra/ultralisk/brood lord gives no benefit to any other unit in your army. Only the spire gives you more then 1 unit from a building. All the rest, you invest and you get one unit and 1 or 2 tech upgrades for that unit. If that unit is already pre empted (ala roaches vs fast air protoss) then the shift to change the army make up is drasticly more then other races. Terran can spam marines...no new buildings needed, protoss can spam stalkers, again only one building needs to be built beyond the basic gateway. Zerg need to tech up to tier 2 put down a den or spire (and to support alot of mutalisks/corrupters quickly the spire needs more then 2 gas mining) or spend 150 mineral per unit for queens which require alot of micro to take on the offensive (and cant be mass produced in numbers ala other zerg units) and then they have the counter. its simply more work.

Thats why in its most simple form, scouting is what needs to be changed. Zerg's dead end tech would not be a problem if it was alot easier for zerg to scout an opponent. Right now its painfully hard to scout after the initial seconds of the game without a costly overlord sacrifice. It would not be OP as we still have a more mechanical tech tree. If I was to spot a fast air before the first void ray is out isnt an automatic GG in my favour but it would give me a fighting chance at least to get enough queens to hold it off or to push in with lings to kill the mineral line while his land forces are small.

At the moment zerg players are relying heavily on reading when an opponent takes gas if at all in the opening moves of the game. Which really only tells you if you are getting bum rushed or not.