An idea for the Zerg

[DemolitionSquid]

Why'd you have to say that? You were doing so well. But this is just pure, total ignorance.

Species evolve. Populations evolve. Individual organisms do not evolve! That's Hollywood Evolution, not real evolution.

Hydralisk to Lurker is a metamorphosis, not evolution (it even produces a cocoon). Same goes for anything else like this the Zerg do. Larva metamorphose into other creatures, not evolve. Lairs do not evolve from Hatcheries. And so on.

I know that. I meant metamorphosis, its just more common to call it evolution in SC. I chose the wrong word and it became unclear; replace evolution with metamorphosis and my point still stands.

[Triceron]

I like how you say that's Hollywood Evolution while we're talking about a videogame that's influenced by sci fi flicks.

[Norfindel]

You can't arbitrarily shove new units into the middle of a preexisting evolution chain.

Zergling -> Baneling = OK

Roach -> Ultralisk = Not OK

Hydralisk -> New Unit = OK

New Unit -> Hydralisk = Not OK

Yeah... because the Devourer and the Muta are like two drops of water

[Quirel]

Hey, did anyone else have a "WTF?!" moment when Pokemon came out with the 'Baby Stages" of select pokemon? I mean, there was Pika, Tyrogue, Igglybuff, and so on.

"Where the Hell did these come from?" Well, at LEAST Tyrogue had a good explanation, as it linked Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan (Tyrone? Bruce Lee? Jackie Chan?).
I guess my point is, inserting a new Zerg form between Egg and 'SC1 unit' will make little or no sense. Best just to do away with the SC1 unit and make a new unit for the 'stage three' form.

[DemolitionSquid]

Yeah... because the Devourer and the Muta are like two drops of water

As I said: You can't arbitrarily shove new units into the middle of a preexisting evolution chain.

Mutalisk -> Guardian = Ok

Mutalisk to Devourer = Ok

X -> Mutalisk = Not OK

y -> Devourer = Not OK

[Nicol Bolas]

You can't arbitrarily shove new units into the middle of a preexisting evolution chain.

Why not? Gameplay trumps all else. So you can do whatever you need to make the gameplay better.

[Sarov]

As I said: You can't arbitrarily shove new units into the middle of a preexisting evolution chain.

Mutalisk -> Guardian = Ok

Mutalisk to Devourer = Ok

X -> Mutalisk = Not OK

y -> Devourer = Not OK

Or perhaps in other words: If there was no unit between two in the first game, why would you put one there in the second?

[n00bonicPlague]

Wake up Nicol — gameplay doesn't trump all else all of the time.

A game designer worth anything can make good gameplay within the bounds of pre-existing lore.

Note: Lore ≠ random retconned bullshit.

[DemolitionSquid]

Why not? Gameplay trumps all else. So you can do whatever you need to make the gameplay better.

Because even the gameplay needs to make some sort of sense. The SC universe needs to have consistency. There needs to be logical follow-through of technology and ideas.

Of course, I have just realized I was wrong on the most important aspect of this issue.

It is logically possible for a unit to be included in an intermittent state with Zerg, as long as that intermittent state or "Nymph" retains the genetic code of all forms available to the Larva. So a Larva could metamorphose into a Nymph, and that Nymph into a Mutalisk or Hydralisk. In fact, if all Zerg retain the genetic codes of all other Zerg, things like an Ultralisk metamorphosing into a Zergling could occur.

The question then does relate back to gameplay. How willing are you all to let any Zerg change into any other Zerg unit because of this?

Personally, I'm not willing to have it at all.

[sandwich_bird]

That's a terrible unit. Sorry. I wouldn't build that for anything other than to make Mutalisks.

Can you go deeper into why? If you wouldn’t build this unit then I suppose you don’t build zerglings that often… Aside from the obvious get mutalisk use and faster harassment, the unit would shine when you are going Ultralisk or Brood Lord since it can go heal your units really fast (healing anything else would be stupid, granted). I believe it’s a nice concept even though it might need some stat tweaking.

We've had this discussion over and over again. The Zerg are built out of 2 kinds of units: massable generalists and specialists. There are only so many ways you can make a massable generalist unit. And the Zerg in SC1 already had them: ground only (Zergling), ground attack anything (Hydralisk), and air attack anything (Mutalisk).

You can play with the numbers, maybe poke around with some passive effects or something. But these are basically the 3 roles for any massable generalist unit. And since the Zerg also have the racial trait of "no activated abilities except burrow and spellcasters", you don't have very many options for playing with these 3 kinds of units.

These two characteristics (unit differentiation and lack of activated abilities) are a substantial part of what makes the Zerg the Zerg. If you remove these restrictions just to satisfy some "I need new things" urge, then they aren't the Zerg anymore.

This is in no way a good reason why not to add abilities to an intermediate evolution form because it is completely subjective. In fact this is a false statement since every single unit can be either classified as a massable generalist or a specialist and so the Zerg wouldn’t be special at all according to what you are saying. I do not believe that adding a suicide heal ability would completely change the “substantial part” of what makes the Zerg the Zerg.

A world where words mean different things from what they do in reality? If they're going to talk about something "evolving", then it should mean actual evolution. If you're going to talk about something going through a "metamorphosis", then that's the word you should use. Not "evolving."

Funny how you say this after saying this

Species evolve. Populations evolve. Individual organisms do not evolve! That's Hollywood Evolution, not real evolution.

Hollywood evolution and game evolution are the same. There’s really nothing more pointless than arguing over a term that widely holds more than one signification even if one of the 2 isn’t official.

Words are used for communication. If you use the wrong word, you are not communicating. There's no bad writing quite like being unable to actually communicate with your audience.

Did you have problems understanding evolution in this context? Doesn’t look like it.

As I said: You can't arbitrarily shove new units into the middle of a preexisting evolution chain.

No one really know what stages the larva undergo in the cocoon before he becomes a mutalisk. What if he becomes one of those units before being a mutalisk? This is entirely possible. If you would stop the morphing process before it is completed then bang you get this new unit. Simple as that...