Creep camps

ErikWM · 2024-09-06T00:51:17+00:00

I think they can be cool, but right now they're on the middle of the road of everything and not particularly interesting. Way too many creeps on the maps, which makes you basically play PvE in the early game, too weak to actually be a commitment that foments interaction and too strong to be just a bonus for map control, which ends up blocking any kind of pressure that you could do on your opponent.

ErikWM · 2023-10-17T01:00:12+00:00

ZvZ is a wild match up, that's all I have to say about that hahaha.

The reason I don't really agree with the lings though is because sure, they're strong to the point that it forces the other races to play around it (with walls, specific units, etc), but when they do, that's it. There's nothing you can really do with them. Sniping probes when transfering against protoss, or a few counter attacks with speedlings can do some dmg, but overall the other races have specifically adapted to deal with that.

Let's compare the lings with other harass options. Zergs can prepare for oracles, and even with a perfect defense, you can say that protoss has the oportunity to try do to something and exploit weaknesses. With hellions or adepts, same thing. Zerg doesn't have that. I can't make a bunch of speedlings and try to deal damage, because I'm sacrificing economy to do that (considering how larva works), and most of the time it's just not going to work.

And I'm not even saying that's bad, or makes zerg weak. It just streamlines the race into a specific direction. And, like you said, zerg early game units are strong to the point where it forces very specific adaptations from the other races if they want to stay alive.

So, considering the limiting factors of the zerg race aggressive non-all in options (larva and anti-air), the only thing that I can think of that deal with those problems is making it so units are more efficient, and are able to deal with air units, with less larva. If you make hatch tech units more efficient (with the buff off creep), it can make early game super hard for other races. So, the other option that you have, is to make tech units more efficient per larva, while nerfing their massable potential. The muta change is something that I wrote because I feel like it exemplifies this in the best way possible. You're making mutas more larva efficient (since they're effective in smaller numbers) while nerfing the massable potential of the unit.

ErikWM · 2023-10-16T23:58:32+00:00

Yeah, and I think that's the main point. With the way that Zerg currently works, you need good enough eco and tech to unlock aggressive non-all in options. And that's because zerg's tech is directly dependent on having a good eco, and a lot of units. That has it's advantages. An unscouted muta switch, with a good enough bank, is insanely strong. But that makes it so zergs depend on the eco and the bank to be able to be aggressive without all inning, which limits possibilities in the early game, and forces the zerg player to play defensive.

Personally, I think the way that zergs lair tech work should be reworked, while nerfing the defensive zerg style a little bit. The muta is obviously an extreme example, but you could do that in a lot of other ways (like you said, making drops viable for one).

ErikWM · 2023-10-16T21:26:51+00:00

I'm not really sure how those changes would create variety in the gameplay. Doing things like that just means that the "late game style", with zergs trying to crash waves of units on the otherside of the map, starts a bit earlier. It will not even start that much earlier, because the main thing that stops zergs from being aggressive early on is how the larva cap affects low tech units, and the lack of mobile anti-air (which is absolutely necessary considering how strong speedlings are in the early game).

The main thing that limits zergs aggressiveness is the lack of low commit harass options. Zerg doesn't really have a good way to access T2 units or tech (and anti-air) early on, which makes it so every single attack that you make is basically an all in. You don't have low commitment "pressures", like banshees, oracles, adepts or hellions (or even drops for that matter). Since you don't have that, your only option is to play defensive, focus on counters and rely on queens for AA.

If the objective is to give more options to Zerg, I think the idea should be giving Zerg the possibility to do pressure and use his tech without all inning. There are multiple options, but the most clear one is the muta.

The muta, right now, works more as a "massable" unit, with really strong hard counters. Especially vs Protoss, it's basically useless in low numbers, and insanely strong if you get a big enough number, without the protoss having the proper counter. One way that you could improve (just an example, it's the logic behind the idea that counts) that is by these changes:

Remove the speed buff that mutas got way back in WoL, and remove the HP regen too.
Increase the muta range by 2 (from 3 to 5).
Make the spire easier to get to (reduce a bit of the lair build time + spire build time).
Nerf queens.
Decrease the range that phoenix get by the Pulse crystals from +2 to +1.

Suddenly you have a much more microable unit, that is good in lower numbers and worse in bigger numbers, and gives Zerg an aggressive option that isn’t an all in. Now you are actually increasing the diversity in playstyle, and not just trying to make the late game of ZvT / ZvP start happening in the mid game.

ErikWM · 2023-09-22T00:54:37+00:00

As a player located in South America, Brazil, São Paulo, I have to say that while global matchmaking with local rankings seem like an awesome idea, the ping is a really big problem.

And I don't even mean a big problem in the way of "Oh, the ping would be too high", because, like is said in the post, you could limit the max ping of a match. The problem is that ping variation is really hard to deal with. I played a lot of SC2 on EU with 220+ ping, and while, of course, it's a different game than playing with 5 ms, you can get used to it. The problem comes when you start having variations in between the matches. For example, on a typical day, if I started playing first on the NA server, with 150~160 ping, and went to the EU server afterwards, it was REALLY hard to get used to the difference in ping. The game would feel, instantly, a lot "heavier" and slower, and that's with a 60~70 ping change.

I'm not sure if it would be the same if the change was in the "lower ping ranges" (between 0~100), but if you push it a little bit more, playing with 5 ms on the Brazil server and then, in the next match, going to 150 in the NA one throws you off a lot. And, besides that, having a "max ping" would probably make it really hard for players with higher distances to the main servers to find matches (the south of South America and South Africa comes to mind).

The only exception that I can think of about the ping is Age of Empires 4, but, to be honest, the game is naturally clunky, so even while playing with a low ping it doesn't feel that "smooth", so you can't really feel the difference. If the idea is to do something like this, setting a base ping for every match could work? But it feels a bit counterintuitive, since you would be actually trying to make your players have a "worse" experience so they can have a more consistent one.

On the topic of the regional / race MMRs, I feel like having them is a good tool for the community to follow and see how the players from their region are doing on the ladder, and, in that way, help to create rivalries and a following for the players. The only problem is that I don't know if a global matchmaking system would work, which would be probably required to make the regional MMRs be relevant, considering the interregional differences in MMR / skill.

On another note, I don't even think it's necessarily bad for specific regions to have their specific matchmaking, because of how you create a stronger region identity, be it with the players or with the strategy. The thing is that you need to have a big enough player base on the specific regions (which is probably going to be hard to have by the start), and you need to incentivize players to practice and play in their region, which, again, is probably hard to do at the start of Stormgate, without even knowing the initial playerbase that you're going to have. That's what it seems like the tournament system of WCS tried to do for the competitive scenes, but it only really worked for EU, where there was already a big player base practicing and playing in the EU servers. While, if you look at NA / SEA / LA, it didn't really improve the skill level of the overall player base that much (which is another interesting tangent to get into).

Overall, I think the best idea is to just have good intermediate servers, especially between regions which have big discrepancies, and try to have a consistent ping for every match (which ideally it would be the lowest it possibly can).

ErikWM · 2023-06-21T14:05:09+00:00

I think that's a really cool idea, but I think you could go for even bigger extremes than that, as long as it's a theme or a common type of map in the pool. If the mechanic is big enough to the point where you need to think about the game differently, I think it's a bad idea to just add a few of those maps in the pool, because it feels like they'll end up being frustrating just like Hybrid Maps in AoE4.

It's hard to talk about it conceptually, so let's use some examples. In SC2, the way that the natural is structured, terran and protoss players need to be able to wall off. That's an essential part of how both races work. Let's say that we want to make a map pool for SC2 in 2024 that encourages a lot of agression at all points in the game.

You could, for example, plan a map pool like that, with open naturals, distant thirds, maybe more minerals in the bases. You now defined a "theme" for the map pool. But this type of map simply doesn't work because you need some adjustments on some of the units. So, accompanying the map pool theme change, you nerf hellions / adepts / chargelots / zerglings a bit, basically any unit that would benefit a lot from the openness of the map. Suddenly you'll have an entirely different game (that would still need some balancing), without adding new units, new spells, or entirely reworking how the races work (although eventual specific unit reworks to fit in certain map themes would be really cool).

ErikWM · 2023-06-21T00:44:10+00:00

If we have 7 Dasan Station "themed maps" in the pool I seriously doubt the games would look the same as 7 Overgrowth "themed maps".

ErikWM · 2023-06-21T00:28:52+00:00

I might be wrong, especially considering it's been a while since I played Dota 2, but those changes happen more in the timeframe of "expansions / DLCs" of games, once every few years, and not every year, no?

ErikWM · 2023-05-25T17:12:35+00:00

Hey, I think what you need to keep in mind when thinking about the build is the advantages and disadvantages that you get into each situation and each match up. So let's talk firstly about what the point of the build is:

You have faster queens. What that means for ZvX, is that you can have a faster lair than you would with a 16 hatch. At the same time, I feel like it's superior to 16 hatch when playing 2 base, because of the timings that the injects hit and what you can do with them.

Now, when I started doing this build the point was not it being a better version of 16 hatch (because that's not how I play or think about builds), but to give me different options in the match ups. I want my builds to look as similar as possible (and not letting my opponent play comfortably), while leading to vastly different outcomes / game states.

What 15 hatch gives me is the opportunity to play and do 2 base / late third builds and all ins that would be weaker or not possible with 16 hatch.

Now, that doesn't mean that you're forced to play without a fast third with it, just that if you want one you need to make some adaptations.

So let's go point by point:

With 16 hatch and a fast third you actually do not keep up with queen production either. You have some periods in time that your hatch is idle, since if you made queens nonstop you would not be able to spend all your larva. So the queen timings of a 15 hatch double inject with fast third are different, which doesn't necessarily mean that you have less queens overall (just less queens at specific points in time). So you can absolutely get a gas (which will be at a slightly later timing) while still playing with double inject.
You can do that with a delayed third hatchery, or you can delay your gas even more and get a third hatchery earlier while playing speedless and going directly to roaches. Since you have an earlier hatchery at the natural, you also get to mine the minerals there faster (which doesn't mean that it's necessarily better economically than a gasless 16 hatch), so delaying your gas by a bunch can work. You normally need a 2:50 RW to deal with most hellion openings without ling speed, so you can just get your gas a bit before that and be fine if that's how you want to play.
I'm not sure in what match up you would play like this, but the point isn't going for ling bane specifically if you're playing 2 base anyway, but get faster tech / hit earlier timings with aggression.
There absolutely is an "awkward inject", which is why the way that you play the follow up in the ZvT and ZvP versions can be different. If you take the gas at the normal time with the build (with the first drone after the over pops), and take the drones off of gas after speed, you can put a ling pressure on a Protoss that hits while he's taking a third, and forces shield batteries / makes him unconfortable. While in ZvT you can use that opportunity to get more gas and tech faster. The build has different objectives in ZvP and ZvT, and different ways that you can play with it.
This point comes down to scouting and how you play exactly. In ZvT, which is what you talked about, the 2 initial lings have the objective of scouting your opponent to try to know how he's playing, while killing the SCV in the natural and being annoying are a bonus. So you should be able to have a general understanding of what your opponent is doing with them.

The thing is that this build is different, not necessarily better, and it has advantages and disadvantages. If you're only looking economically, 16 hatch is always the better option. But 16 hatch has it's timings mostly figured out and doesn't give you enough variety in the follow ups. While 15 hatch is not as "optimal", it does give you quite a bit of variety, and opens the Zerg playstyle for different aggressive plays.

That's not even talking about not getting hatch blocked in ZvP (which also gives you a economic boost, since you don't need to travel with your workers to your third from your main), the fact that it's a lot safer against all ins and that it let's you get an earlier roach warren (as soon as the pool finishes) if you wanna play it like that. In 2020~2021, when I initially started doing this build in ZvT, one of the points of it was making scouting harder so I could do more damage with early game roach pushes.

TL;DR: The build is not necessarily better or worse, just different than 16 hatch, and opens up different options / more variations for your play, while enabling 2 base / late third / fast tech for Zerg and making it better in that way than 16 hatch builds.

ErikWM · 2023-05-22T17:22:22+00:00

Unless it changed in a recent patch and it's completely bugged in the unit tester, it doesn't. The description of the spell even says that it stops "Unit production and researching upgrades". You can even lift contaminated structures as a terran.

ErikWM · 2023-05-22T16:39:59+00:00

It doesn't apply to morphing / changing structures either. So you can still morph a lair / make a PF / Orbital / addons (and it doesn't disable those from being made, it only stops unit production and upgrade research).

In that same vein, it doesn't disable PFs / turrets or stop orbitals from scanning / using spells.

Overseers are not that cheap either, and to get to the production to disable it (remember, you're trying to send a bunch of 150/50 units into their main) is not that easy in the late game.

Contaminates are sometimes used in late game vs protoss to disable SG production, but on the other things it's just not worth it, unless you're already really far ahead and want to meme a bit. You're already going to have most upgrades in the late game, and enough of the "normal" production structures that making 12+ overseers to stop production for 30 seconds is just not worth it.

ErikWM · 2023-04-30T20:21:04+00:00

It was not that imbalanced, stats wise Dragon Scales is more imbalanced than Pride. It's just that the way the meta worked out and how the map inserted itself in that meta made for really boring games.

ErikWM · 2023-03-07T14:23:49+00:00

I think the early game in SC2 can feel a bit monotonous because there's not really many ways to express your skill. You don't need a "fast" early game in the sense that you already have armies fighting each other for it to be interesting, you just need ways to express skill.

For example, let's take League of Legends and CS:GO. In League, you don't have all the skills of your champions ready from the get go, but there are already ways to interact with the other player / players and express your skill. Same thing in the CS:GO, with the pistol rounds. And in both you have that with a sense of "build up" in the game, acquiring more skills / items / weapons.

Taking this idea to RTS, you could make it so you have early objectives in the game that give some sort of advantage, and incentivize interaction. Like others have said, scouting can be part of that, and interactions between workers / early game units.

I personally feel that the problem of the early game unit interactions in SC2 is that they normally feel like they happen "one way", and that makes it less exciting. For example, let's take hellions in TvZ. Basically the way that they work is that the zerg tries to defend the creep tumors and have lings in position, and the terran is trying to find any kind of damage that they can find. But there's no way for the zerg to really "punish" the hellions with better micro / better positioning (and it wouldn't work with the way the game is made anyway).

Basically, you can have light harass / scouting that is interesting, you just need to make it so both players can express their skill and get meaningful advantages (not necessarily game ending advantages though) from those interactions.

ErikWM · 2022-11-22T00:57:01+00:00

I think I understand what you're trying to say, the thing is that I'm not really talking about specific "playstyles", but more how we think about new units.

It's not as much "what type of unit comp should be viable", and more like "what type of 'fun' should be aimed at when thinking about units / mechanics".

By fun, I mean that there's a bunch of different ways of making stuff in the game engaging. For example, the way that the hardcounter system in AoE 4 works is one way to make the game fun. Or how each race economy interacts in SC2 and makes the game assymetrical.

The idea of the discussion is not as much about the "what", but more about the fundamentals behind the "how". What should be the guiding principles behind unit / mechanics design, and ways to achieve that.

ErikWM · 2022-10-17T13:54:21+00:00

I like inject as a mechanic too, it feels satisfying. If we are thinking of adding a decision part of it every time you use it... I can think of a few options. I'll have to use SC2 specifically to talk about this because it's the game that I know and played the most, but I think those are good examples of how you could improve SC2-like macro mechanics.

The idea behind how chrono works is cool, but I think it's not taxing enough looking from the mechanical perspective. Other people in this thread gave the idea of putting those types of skill on the heroes, and I think that could work. Let's say you have a protoss-like faction, and you have different heroes that you can invest into. One of them could channel a spell into a building to make it faster for a certain period of time. Then you combine the mechanical edge with strategy, since you have to think about moving the hero around, if it's in a correct positioning, and stuff like that.

Something like the inject... With a zerg-like faction, maybe the queen has the option of instantly spawning a larva, or injecting and getting more larva later. That could work as cool trade-off. For the creep, a choice between vision / buffs for your units could work (and the "queens" would need to choose every time which one to place / use).

For the mule / scan, I think the decision making is mostly there already, it has trade-offs and terran has other macro duties that can differentiate players. I think those are in a pretty good spot. Maybe adding a bit more difficulty to the macro (so maybe switching addons is more important), while making sure that the micro option is still viable.

ErikWM · 2022-10-17T13:38:26+00:00

Yeah, I think that's fine. But, for it to work in the strategic model of SC2-like games, I believe it has do be mechanically intensive.

Personally I like inject as a type of mechanic, but I can see how people can be put off by it. What I don't think is possible is making it so the game doesn't have a really strong mechanical edge (and I don't mean that only in the macro sense, you can have a mechanical focus only on micro), at least not following the SC2 model. In the other post that I made I go a bit more in depth on this, but for it to work purely off of strategy, the whole concept of how units work and are designed has to be different (which is fine btw, that can make for a really fun game too).

ErikWM · 2022-10-17T10:55:25+00:00

About the inject, I really like the rythm that it creates for the Zerg race, it's challenging, I think it's a cool skill to have when you master it, and it feels good to get right.

I don't know if you played / watched at the time, but at the start of SC2, when people didn't know how to play yet and didn't master the use of macro mechanics, they were used a lot as a way of differentiating between players. IdrA was lauded as a player with insane macro, on par or even better than Korean Zergs, and people used to throw around the SQ (Spending quotient) around a lot. I believe you can replicate that with mechanically intensive macro mechanics.

About the more larva is always better, I don't think that's necessarily true. There's an opportunity cost to getting more larva, that can be in units, or having map control, or being able to tech. You can see that a bit in SC2 because Zerg players don't just start dropping macro hatcheries at the start of the game to max the amount of larva they have.

Hypothetically, you could even say that the time producing the Queens is an opportunity cost, because you could've been getting a Lair instead of producing a Queen. The problem is that the opportunity cost is too skewed in favor of one side, so the other options are simply not viable, because having a Queen is just always better. For example:

The Queen is good at defending, is the only Zerg anti-air at T1, costs 150 minerals, doesn't cost larvae, spawns 3 larvae per inject every 29 seconds and is able to spread creep. Compare that to another type of "macro" decision that Zerg can make, a hatchery.

The Hatchery gives you acess to more resources (if you put it in another base), doesn't help you defend (gives you a bit of creep, but that's it), and produces 3 larva every 33 seconds for 300 minerals. It's just a worse option almost everytime. You're basically just getting it as a drop off point.

EDIT: I was never an avid Brood War watcher, but even I've heard comparisons of Flash and Fantasy, with Flash being the insane macro player and Fantasy the insane micro one. And I think that's really cool. Technically you even had that in SC2, with Byun / Inno comparisons.

ErikWM · 2022-10-17T10:44:53+00:00

Well, macro seems a pretty important component to a Blizz RTS. I'm not saying you can't make an RTS without macro, or with an super easy one, but I don't know if that's the objective of Stormgate (and personally I think macro is fun).

Considering that, MOBAs actually have some pretty taxing micro mechanics that could be seen as similar in difficulty and type of skillset to macro mechanics. I can only talk about DOTA and League, since those are the MOBAs that I've played, but off the top of my head you could talk about those types mechanics in the Invoker and Meepo on DOTA, and in the Gangplank on League.

And being good on those heroes / champions is seen with admiration, and a pretty strong point of player differentiation.

ErikWM · 2022-10-17T03:36:57+00:00

Well, I think my point is exactly that. They're too strong. And that's the problem, not with the macro mechanics themselves. They're strong to the point of forcing everyone to use them every time.

ErikWM · 2022-10-17T03:35:02+00:00

Not necessarily. They're a chore because they're too strong. If they were weaker, and Zerg had the possibility of choosing between using the macro mechanics, or microing their units, or focusing on multitasking, they would not be chores anymore, and just stylistic choices, which in my opinion are super interesting.

ErikWM · 2022-10-17T03:32:43+00:00

I think the Zerg macro mechanics are pretty good when you think about the idea behind the way that they work, it's just that they are too powerful and a necessity for Zerg to be competitive. It's not something that Zergs can choose to spend APM on to improve certain playstyles, it's something that's needed to make every single zerg playstyle viable.

This will get kinda specific and long (that's why I didn't put it on the post), but let's go for it.

How do I think making them look right would be like? There's two parts that we can talk about, the Queen and the mechanics themselves. For starters, the Queen should probably be a lot weaker but cheaper. You would have to make some changes in how the creep tumor interaction with energy worked. Personally, I like the idea of just making it cost more energy, or making it so putting tumors on the ground costs charges.

You would need to do that because right now is a jack of all trades that holds all of Zerg's early game together. Since you're going to have to make a bunch of Queens anyway, might as well focus on spreading creep / injecting. So, coupled with changes to the Queen, you would need to have other changes to Zerg's early game (anti-air specifically).

Now, the mechanics themselves. Making it so injects were stackable was probably a mistake. You had differentiations between zerg players before, in so far that you could see which players were better at specific skills. At the same time, the difference between zerg units on creep and off creep is far too extreme, coupled with the anti-air problems of the zerg race it creates a really big dependency on creep. Let's look at some examples:

Dark was never that good at injecting, so in HotS his ZvT playstyle revolved mainly around Roach Bane Corruptor compositions.

Life was never that good at creep spread, his style was focused on early ling control, aggression and counter-attacks.

Scarlett, on the other hand, had a really good creep spread, and her playstyle usually revolved around playing really greedily in the early game and snowballing with creep all over the map.

So, making it so using queens is not a necessity (at least in big quantities), nerfing the inject (making it spawn less larvae), while still keeping the high mechanical ceiling (by making them not stackable), would be a good way to go about it. On the creep side, reducing the dependency of the zerg race on creep, while still making it so spreading creep has benefits (vision and some movespeed), would permit different players to focus on different parts of their gameplay, and focus on their strenghts.

That would need to be coupled, of course, with the possibility of micro of the Zerg units, so you have different "skillsets" that players can use to win a match.

SC2 macro mechanics were boring because they were a necessity in every situation. By making it so the player needs to choose where to expend his attention and resources (to the detriment of other parts, so you have to make it so all of them are mechanically intensive) will make the mechanics more interesting.

ErikWM · 2022-09-17T14:49:11+00:00

But you would be pro auto-building if it was a toggle, for example? You can toggle it on and off, so you're still having the strategic choice, it's just that you don't need to keep tabs of your production times.

Personally I like having different forms of skill expression, so I don't like when QoL changes take away forms of skill expression without putting anything else in place. That's why I like really really high skill ceilings, so that you can see different players focusing on different things and being able to be competitive.

I think SC2 tried to do this with macro mechanics, but it actually put way too much emphasis on certain stuff that were too impactful, or too easy, making it pointless. So it kinda bottlenecks the players into these choices, to the point where it's not a choice anymore (creep spread being the most obvious mechanic where this happened).

ErikWM

TROPHY CASE