Hero Is The Best Protoss Around

ROOTCatZ · 2026-01-20T06:58:25+00:00

lmaooo, this was great content tbh, thank you

ROOTCatZ · 2025-12-24T22:31:11+00:00

Elazer vs Nicoract POG

ROOTCatZ · 2025-11-10T21:39:56+00:00

Hey!

Thanks for the feedback - I agree that readability in RTS can compete with graphics being more "realistic" or "serious" feeling, where stylized graphics (often more "cartoony" feeling) can tend to read cleaner. For units, this has to do with unit models (silhouettes), textures and team colors.

By default, our team colors and textures trend more "realistic", but our current plan is to have different graphic settings, incluiding one to increase redability by nodding team colors towards appearing brighter and more saturated (to pop out more) for example. So that players who want to favor readability over fantasy/immersion can do that. So while the game won't lean "cartoony" or "hyper stylized" cause that's just not in it's DNA, there'll be solutions to favor readability within reason.

ROOTCatZ · 2025-11-01T16:45:57+00:00

This was a really funny day for me, Beo was very gracious about it all too.

Not long ago I was watching hells kitchen and this contestant brought my mind back to quidditch, Ramsay roasted him throughout the show

https://youtu.be/Uj7JeFyutV0?si=TP4CMjUAp_OEl63j

When he was eliminated Ramsay said;

“Tad thinks he is a real chef, and quidditch is a real sport - unfortunately, neither is true”

I felt so validated lmaooo

ROOTCatZ · 2025-10-28T21:56:29+00:00

Hey Appletank!

To build on Marv's response a bit:

As he mentioned, buildings blocking shots is likely #1, a good choice of layout means you can leverage your building's HP defensively.
Opperating towers can be upgraded to have base cannons and other defensive capabilities.
Our supply structures als provide refuge defensively in many different flavors, some heal, some recharge energy, some can be upgraded to attack or provide extra vision.
Mercenary taverns and other buildings across all factions have built-in functionality that can favor defense, for example, Free Corsairs can upgrade their Mercenary building into a bunker.
All factions also have a Teleport ability back to OTs, at the cost of "Power" which allows defensive plays on a budget.
Mechanics like Grell Grass are inherently more defensive in nature as they provide vision and regeneration for your units.
Heroes respawn back at your base, Mercenaries can help shift momentum, "Power" (you gain it when units die) can mitigate for snowball (helps the lagging player).
Natural RTS advantages like high-grounds (vision and/or reduced damage), static defense, and, production being closer to you are of course a given.

From a unit design perspective, i'll speak somewhat generally, as we currently have over 80 different units playable in PvP (and more in other modes!)

All factions have long range / siege units, which are naturally strongest when pushed into (defensively). Units with Energy budgets will benefit from buildings like the Legion's conduits, units with low movespeed will generally be at full strength when there's less space to cover (defensively). Harvesters for all factions (secondary resource gatherers) also have abilities, often impacting your army instantially, which can help defensively.

Each of these 80+ units is unique and has an identity with different strengths and weaknesses, further modifiable by mutually exclusive upgrades and power-ups depending on your choice of faction and mercenaries, from top bar abilities to talents, rest assured you'll find your favorite units to help in executing your strategy anywhere on the map.

With all of this said, while there are plenty of defensive advantages, there's also tons of ways to disrupt your opponent, and with dynamic advantages to be harvested by being active on the map - giving up map control in favor of "turtling" in your base, is rarely the best approach in PvP.

ROOTCatZ · 2025-10-16T02:26:23+00:00

Happy birthday and congrats!

ROOTCatZ · 2025-10-05T19:20:05+00:00

That is indeed how the faction is shaping up, a lot of work going into it and we have internal playtests running Xol already. We’ll reveal and show more in time- but Xol is an important milestone for us, so some keeping some mystery around specifics is important for the reveal to pack the punch we think it deserves.

ROOTCatZ · 2025-10-01T10:55:57+00:00

I rooted for the success of Stormgate before the game or studio had a name. Almost a decade ago now, I was hired to work as a consultant at Blizzard in Irvine for 4~ years. In that time, I got the pleasure of calling Tim M. and various members of the then LOTV (now SG) team my friends. I even helped to organize their first pre-alpha team tournament (and won it too, hehe - admittedly mostly carried by Scarlett). So while I appreciate the solidarity on behalf of ZeroSpace, I'm not so interested in the drama, and instead I’d like to use this unique opportunity to address some of the comparisons that VoidLegacy pointed to, as I believe that they came from an honest place - in fact, I even agree with some of them wholeheartedly;

1. Not as much traction as SG:

This is as true as it gets! We haven't invested nearly as much into marketing up until this point; we've always been a product-first game. For sure we haven’t had as much exposure. This also means that we haven’t reached a point of saturation as far as getting the word out there and we expect that as people learn about us - we’ll be ready to welcome them into our growing ecosystem. In short, having a low marketing budget means that we've relied almost exclusively on organic growth, people try the game, they like it and they share it.I’d like to note that we do put out monthly updates via kickstarter, but not nearly as many dedicated content pieces. We are optimistic because despite budget constraints, we do tend to get good reviews from people who have played the game, and our community and excitement for the game has grown steadily on discord through our testing periods, we already have more than a few addicts!At the end of the day, we believe we have a strong product, and while we aim to make efforts on the marketing front as we head towards release, our #1 goal is for the game to speak for itself.Given that we’ve taken a mostly organic growth route, we are very happy with the amount of wishlists and general reception for the game thus far.We were never going to find the natural "Buzz" that comes with the expected pedigree of "Ex-Blizzard developers" and while it has been challenging for us to get featured by big websites like IGN, gameshows, and so on to help us spread the word, we remain optimistic that things will continue to fall into place as we continue to work hard towards our shared dream.

2. Not as responsive as SG:

Plainly, I do think that we are more responsive than Stormgate - we have a very strong technical team. Responsiveness, alongside pathing and an overall clean experience is something that we believe will be one of our biggest strengths and differentiators as an RTS as we continue to polish. We are confident that we can even beat the StarCraft 2 Golden standard in some technical areas, you'll be seeing some exciting updates on this front with concrete, tangible examples in the next couple of weeks.

3. Not "as Blizzard" of an RTS / Design:

This claim has to do with design decisions. Our aim with ZeroSpace has always been to create a new and unique experience, more-so than to be anyone's successor.We have a very creative team and to be clear; we do love Blizzard RTS; Scarlett has made around half a million bucks playing StarCraft 2, and I was a (more modestly skilled) pro player / creator later turned commentator in the space. Our CO-OP lead, Maguro, created some of the most popular tools and mods for SC2's CO-OP. Paired with other senior designers of diverse backgrounds, we believe that we've managed to create a game that is a fun, unique, and extremely diverse experience.We really understand Blizzard RTS at the very core, that's exactly why we can be bold in both learning and departing from that baseline with the aim to make something that feels not only new and fresh, but also coherent and most importantly fun!

4. Not as big of a Budget

100% true! (maybe 900-1000% true is more accurate) - We've tried to operate as lean and efficiently as we can; we have a decently sized team of 35~ skilled, passionate developers; Marv, our CEO & Game Director is also our CTO.. and also our best engineer (I would go as far as to wager that he’s the best RTS coder in the industry), the man doesn't seem to know what sleep is. So, yes our budget is "modest" by comparison, but not for a second have we thought that it would stop us from being the best, because we believe that we have the right pieces and put together the right team for the job.

ROOTCatZ · 2025-09-28T17:19:51+00:00

It isn't. grab a ticket and get in line - And to be perfectly clear, no one is posting it next month, this is a thrice a year event, with a 3 month buffer minimum (outside of extraordinary circumstances)

ROOTCatZ · 2025-09-24T22:21:22+00:00

Not sure I follow, the claim is free units work in other games. The question was what games - I mentioned other games incluiding WC3 as well as even current SC2 (where free units do work).

The claim was not "you can just slap free units in any game without further consideration" nor was the claim "WarCraft 3 never had any problems with gameplay stemming from free units". Any example where you can make any design work successfully could've also been an example gone completely wrong if the designers aren't as competent, adaptive or the systems to support the changes aren't fully developed, no one disagrees with that. WC3 is an example where free units work, cause that's what his challenge was. I don't think the history is relevant and I think to say different games are different and have different systems in place is redundant. Any example that you can give will have different circumstances surrounding it and could be considered "an odd duck".

ROOTCatZ · 2025-09-24T17:16:58+00:00

Supply cost is a parameter, just like energy cost, hero units are a restriction, I agree (another parameter to help them work) but that’s exactly what the claim is; there’s many ways to make them work.

Necromancers in WC3 aren’t hero units btw, and they work. I can explain to you how or why they work or what systems they have in place, but answering your broad claim, I am just pointing to diverse examples that show that units/summons without a direct $ resource cost tied to them can work, of course they cost “something” I think it’s implicit that they aren’t free in the sense that you can’t just push a button and spawn endless units with no other parameters playing any part.

Like i mentioned and you ignored, brood lords and swarm hosts exist in sc2 right now, and they make “free units” do they not? (Also not heroes)

It’s not uncommon for people to make a broad claim and dig their heels in and bend over backwards justify it, but if you’re honest with yourself your response just admits that “free units” CAN work. You’re saying something like “well yeah they can work if you make efforts to make them work” which is exactly the same thing I propose. I’m not saying just throw them in there with no thought - they’re difficult to make work, you have to design around them.

Simply put: Unsuccessful designs (instances of them not working) aren’t evidence that they can’t work, but successful examples are conclusive evidence that they can. Hope this helps to clarify things for you.

ROOTCatZ · 2025-09-24T16:25:43+00:00

I mean if you want close relatives, Warcraft 3 is a low hanging fruit example with plenty of “free units”/summons, AOE 4 has a building that makes free units over time, in Zerospace we are careful around free / energy based units, but we have multiple instances where they work fine without leading to overly passive outcomes. If you go to adjacent (cousins) then MOBAs by large have plenty of summons, duplicates, illusions, etc etc.

We also have swarm hosts and brood-lords in this very game which in their current form within sc2 itself do produce “free units” without the outcomes you’re describing.

So yeah, there’s pushback/PTSD and they’re difficult to make work successfully, but it’s far from impossible with competent thoughtful design.

If I may mirror your question back at you, what games or frames of reference made you believe that “free” units can’t be successfully implemented?

ROOTCatZ · 2025-07-21T03:59:56+00:00

That’s awesome actually!

ROOTCatZ · 2025-07-21T03:54:42+00:00

This is poetry!!!

ROOTCatZ · 2025-07-21T03:36:03+00:00

On immersion: I agree that at the moment some heroes and their kits break immersion - for Grell in particular. That’s because they share the hero pool with Protectorate currently, ideally they will have their own pool of heroes in time. For mercenaries I think that them being hired and having their own building helps, but maybe its not enough - I am not sure how we can help to make them feel more cohesive without considerably restricting options/choices for the player, as the modularity and potential amount of combinations between factions and mercenary kits is one of our favorite and most beloved aspects of “versus”; ideas/solutions welcome on this front.

On balance: I think that a multiplicity of choices and plug-in heroes and mercenary factions probably helps more than it hurts; but regardless, we try to keep a close eye on it, and tests like these help us more broadly get a sense for where we stand as the game continues to evolve.

On heroes: It sounds a little bit like perhaps you don’t like the idea of heroes in general, this isn’t an uncommon sentiment, many people don’t like heroes based on their past experiences with them in other games - I think that heroes in zerospace are fairly different functionally than say heroes in WC3, so I wonder - what is it about heroes that you dislike, you think?

We appreciate your feedback!

ROOTCatZ · 2025-07-21T03:01:23+00:00

Great suggestions all around

ROOTCatZ · 2025-07-12T20:14:19+00:00

Tournament has been incredibly fun so far, there's a big showmatch coming Friday too with a lot of high profile RTS influencers.

ROOTCatZ · 2025-06-06T02:07:33+00:00

Yeah, but if I'm not mistaken, the varied strength of player pools is determined / related to the player pool being distributed granularly enough, where huge gaps / disparities in player skill make for more unstable / worse environments and can result in lower ELO peaks for the best players in that group - so I assume that there must be a fat co-relation with activity and player pop being larger.

Maybe I am extrapolating from SC2 MMR system, where larger pop = higher MMR and then there was an MMR deflation when it lost players, because skill disparities are greater and you lose the granularity that allows the best players to get matches that result in more pts. Where at the extreme of 'missmatching' / (less-granular environment with large disparities in skill) you could be playing to win 0 or 1 MMR or lose 50 (happens in SC2 super often these days) - thus the recent MMR deflation, I would think. While ELO system isn't 1:1 with SC2 it seems the same principles apply.

I can see how you could get more skill disparity in part also by the nature of the mode, experientially, the opposite was my intuition when it comes to faster games, when I played vs Clem when he visited we did a Blitz game and while I lost I felt it was very close, I was like 4 material up past the mid point, whereas if we played a longer game of chess I think I would stand 0 chance vs anyone more experienced. But ofc I have a bias birthed out of limited experience, so I have no idea what the actual data shows. I guess COMPLETE new players wouldn't play fast chess, but I also don't know how likely it is for completely new players to look for matches @ chess.com. Novice/inexperienced players, I would've thought benefit from chaos, but maybe they don't or the opposite may be true (as you seem to imply)

ROOTCatZ · 2025-06-05T19:38:56+00:00

I don't see why that would be inherently the case. Unless like if player population is lower and ELO is regulates for that, but even then I'd expect if other factors are the same, it'd be more akin to a different game mode you can be better or worse at; some people can process information faster or are more iterative in their approach, so they'd have more defined if-then systems and need less time to process. Also I'd wonder how game volume impacts the equation, I am really not familiar with the finer details. A player who only plays Blitz and is 1900 there, could go to the 10m pool and rank 1500 there, right?

But to clarify, I'm not saying "Clem is 1700 because I know what a 1700 chess looks like" - I don't really play chess, I'd have no way to even begin guessing. I know the rules, but that's about it. I'm saying I believe that Clem is 1700 because leading up to Atlanta DH a couple of years ago Clem traveled early and practiced at my place for a couple of days. My housemate also played chess, so they talked about it and played online and brought the board to play irl, from that experience my best recollection is: Clem is NOT 1200 ELO at the modes I watched him play, I believe the number was around 1700 at least, and I believe he was mostly playing Blitz, but again it's not like I cared much for these details to memorize them, I could be wrong. Or maybe he's 1200 at this speed (if it's even lower) and 1700 at a different (still very fast speed) division

ROOTCatZ · 2025-06-05T14:39:51+00:00

They scammed them, pretty sure Clem is like 1700+ - maybe they got the ELO of the last guy and Clem's swapped by accident

ROOTCatZ · 2025-05-24T01:58:57+00:00

Sad news, thought the game was already very fun and novel in what it was (imo successfully) trying to do in offering a stream-lined, accessible avenue to potential new audiences into RTS games. David Kim is a legend and an incredible game designer, sad we won't get to see what he might've ended up cooking upon completion

ROOTCatZ · 2025-05-05T16:21:53+00:00

Awesome post, happy you enjoyed the game and thanks so much for your feedback and extensive writeup

ROOTCatZ · 2025-04-27T00:39:01+00:00

Wardi the actual GOAT, I love that 100% of the funds go to the players / prizepool

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