Zerg Hex Forum

I would also like to highlight the "skill expression" part of this argument, as I feel it's one of the main issues that this game has had while I've been playing.

The general idea should be that the more "skill"/effort required to execute a strategy, the greater the potential rewards. Let's start with a good example of this: Strikeling Balls. It has clear positives (high eco, high potential damage) but also negatives (letting Terrans expand more freely, requiring some micro/unit control). It also has adequate and fair counters, those being walls and shock troopers. So, a skilled Zerg properly making use of Strikeling balls will be able to either deal decent damage to an unprepared Terran's economy, or force the prepared Terran to spend his economy on shocks and walls, putting him further behind.

Zerg Hex needs more of these options. Perhaps in one situation, Strikelings aren't the right tool - instead, Beastlings may be the correct play, or Tanklings, or an Ultralisk Rush. Each unit should have something unique to offer and be viable in at least one situation. In order to fully optimize the value one gets from these units, they should require Zerg micro/focus. Standard melee SC2 is full of these little micro adjustments that, over time, add up into a great advantage. Zerg Hex currently lacks these.

On the other hand, this game has also suffered greatly from the opposite: Low skilled options that can result in huge advantages, or require significant effort from the other side to counter. The two most blatant examples are 4.5 Tanklings and 3.X Firebats, neither of which required much skill to execute but were extremely punishing to players who weren't aware and/or prepared to stop them. This is anathema to the idea of skill expression in an RTS and should be considered bad game design. It also feels "dirty" for players to win by abusing an overpowered strategy. Players love being rewarded for pulling off a high skill/high risk play that wins them the game, or lets them feel superior to their opponents. Outplay potential, macro wins, skill expression, those are the things that most players find most rewarding, and I'd wager a good portion of Zerg Hex's playerbase sticks with the game because of that.

This will be more of a theoretical post than a balance suggestion, I prefer talking about game design and letting the developers handle balance.

A lot of people have different issues with how Zerg works in the game, especially in this patch. A lot of people have discussed this in detail, so I will keep it short.

Zerg does not have enough options for skill expression.

Let's take a moment to look at other games similar to Zerg Hex (asymmetric games) such as Kerrigan Survival, Probes vs Zealot, Galaxy Vampirism, etc. In these games, the smaller team (Zerg/Zealot/Vampires) is always the side that has to be proactive. They have to use their abilities, micro, get map control, etc. In Zerg Hex, it's supposed to be somewhat similar (you need to use your tools to stop Terrans from hard ecoing, hitting their power spike, and killing you), but Zerg simply doesn't have the tools to do this. The game isn't the Zerg's game to win, it's the Terran's game to lose.

This is one of the reasons I feel so many players used Roaches last patch, and are complaining so much after they've been nerfed to a more manageable state. Roaches were one of the only methods Zerg had to actually be proactive and break Terrans early without requiring coordination/economy/terrans screwing up. Never mind that Roaches kneecapped their economy and basically functioned as an all in, it let Zerg players feel like there was something they could actually do.

If we look at the current patch (or even last patch), there are only 3 real ways Zerg can show their skill. The first is by building units/spawners and researching upgrades to counter what the terran is doing. The second is strikeling ball/micro early. The third is mass infestor transfuse to deny pushes. Aside from that, there really isn't too much that differentiates a top tier zerg from a mid tier one.

This leads to gameplay feeling rather stale. I think the last patch was overall essential for the health of the game, but there do need to be more changes to improve the game over time.

I see a lot of people on the forum asking for a "Pro" mode, in my mind that's a terrible idea, there should only be one mode that everyone should play. The issue is, right now, Zerg simply doesn't have options to show skill, so raw number/economy buffs are the only things that could even out the playing field. Adding new defensive options for Zerg would fix this issue both in public and private lobbies, since less skilled Zergs simply won't be able to make use of the available tools, meaning it will come down to skill.

Proposals
- Rework infestor units (except Torra) to serve a spellcaster role rather than simply statballs. If needed, increase the spawn time to fit with the power of the new abilities.
- Replace the second tier of Hatcheries in the Zerg Base with Lairs, which have a powerful 1/game defensive option. (My first thought was something similar to Stukov's infest from Co-Op, but I will leave the ability up to you).
- (Not sure about this idea) Add an upgrade to allow Hydralisks to morph into Lurkers/Impalers for a heavy cost, or add new defensive focused units to the Zerg's arsenal to allow better base defense.
- In order to keep the game more balanced for public games, nerf or remove capacity upgrades on Slowlings/Creepers/Tanklings/etc. to prevent Zerg from focusing a single player from the start of the game, due to the new defensive options helping defend more from them.
- Once these new options are in game, add a cost to transfuse to prevent unbeatable infestor walls at big spines.

The important thing is to make sure these options require micro from the Zerg player (cannot be left on autocast/afk), are purely defensive (help defending against good terrans, not used to crush noobs like old Roaches), and have adequate counterplay from Terran. All of these options should be easy to counter if the Terran player has the skill to do so. You also should be required to prepare them in advance, similar to how infestors work now. You shouldn't be able to just use them at a moment's notice, it should take map awareness and skill to use.

As always, thank you for all your hard work on the game WMaster, and hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.

As yet another side note, I actually enjoy long games. There is nothing inherently wrong with longer games.

There is nothing wrong with long games.

There is, however, something wrong with a long game which is 90% afking. Which is what almost every single long game last patch boiled down to.

Look at Melee, or any other popular arcade map. The number of decisions/micro you have to make is always either relatively flat or goes up linearly with the game's duration. This was not really the case with Zerg Hex.

Ion bunkering in your base with chemplants is extremely noninteractive. If you want to play tower defense, go play tower defense.

I understand that people like playing defensively and wiping out attack waves. The simple fact of the matter is that those types of games have been already done much better on the arcade. Go try some of them if that's what you like

I think there is room, in the future, to expand late game tech options for terrans, but it should always be PROACTIVE and require map/active control to achieve. Sitting AFK in base autocasting upgrades for 15 minutes does none of that.

So you are against posting a list of actual trolls who sabotage their team, but you are fine with humiliating another player on the forum by posting replays of their play and mocking their mistakes in front of the entire forum?   

Putting random trolls on blast is completely different than calling out someone for contributing little to a discussion while having no skill.

If you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.