Accelerated Mutation: my suggestion for queen tension

[Todie]

so i buckled down and made a post on the B.net forums with a concrete suggestion and an almost academic explanation of the percieved problem. here goes:

while i like how the game plays in general, and the queen as a unit, i feel that the actual task of spawning larva is too much of a no-brainer sometimes. where i hang, this seems to be a general perceived problem with spawn larva.

in short: the queen has a symbiosis with the hatchery - which is a great, sort of proven by now even? but she is not actually versatile in that role past being a defender (rarely) & spawner of larva(always - there is no reason not to - thats the problem)

in my epxerience, if you are able to streamline your use of Spawn larva (hotkeying queen with hach), its not actually mechanically hard to keep up with it at what feels like a reasonable rate - for me [rank 30 silver 50 games played] ... unless you make a thing out of managing it in detail for complete control. i mostly view this as a good thing; few if any players are actually optimizing the use of SL in large scale games... the attention it requires - its arguable how good it is for the game, but that not what this thread is about., Anyway, i'd rahter have more focus on HOW something is used rather than how much, in a case where simply "more is better" as with current SL.

Spawn larva feels plastered on some times, as the actual action of spawning larva rarely involves a notable strategic choice or tradeoff; if i do this now, i can make more units in a little while, if i dont, i will have more energy on my queen... energy to do what exactly?! .. so there's no reason not to cast SL, and IMO there should be. in similar situations, terrans can use the energy to scan, when ever they want to buy a clue on what their enemy is up to.

protoss can pick what building to CB so there's always some choice to that. i dont think the chrono boost mechanic is necessarily as good for everyone as it could be, but im leaving that for another thread: Energy tension on the queen is more important!


so to solve the energy tension problem described above, one might think tweaking the current- or adding more straightforward -abilities would do it... to be brief i disagree with that with good reason:

the queen works so well with SL as her main ability because that ties her to the base in a natural way, it gives her a constructive role, put simply: if we were to buff transfusion or give the queen other straightforward abilities, that wouldnt really do much for the problem at hand; people could just make more queens to make use of these abilities while doing the same amount of SL as before.

so what we need is a new ability, that's symbiotic with the hive-cluster in a very similar way that SL is. we can probably come up with several suggestions along this line, but having thought on it a little bit, im going to settle for suggesting ONE, and i hope to gather some support among you all for it as to make blizzard see it & consider it:

Accelerated Mutation
targeted on hatchery/Lair/Hive
cost 25-50 energy
same duration as Spawn larva
Effect: Makes larvas that are mutated into units at the targeted hatchery hatch 50% faster but come out with 50% life (regenerating to full) and have all kinds of abilities inhibited for a period of time

(these numbers can be tweaked of course, as well as SL numbers, but you get the idea)


this may look "too similar" to Chrono boost but think again; the tension on the queens abilities along with the core difference in protoss & zerg production mechanics makes the abilities quite distinct: Accelerated Mutation will not actually boost your long-term productivity, thats what you use SL for (and CB for protoss), SL is proactive - to enable building more units later. Accelerated Mutation is for reactive play - something that CB can also do, AM can be used on greater scale - the zerg way, but has drawbacks both on teh short-term (spawning not fully developed units) and the long term (less energy left for other queen abilities; mainly SL: less units later unless you have larva abundance) ... similary of course, Using SL means less energy for AM as a reactive defesnive or offensive tool in reacting to army movment or army composition etc.

this would actually add energy tension on the queen, in a way that surely isnt bad for anyone.

if you like the direction of this suggestion. please post! discuss it!

if you want to post similar suggestions here, do so. but please keep it within the scope of Queen+Hatchery symbiosis?

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...779&sid=5010#0

diversifying queen use is my priority atm.. if any beta tester reading this ha constructive things to say about this brand of suggestions, please leave a note on that thread. i think its all rather rational & straightforward and deserves some attention.

my first real attempt at actively contributing as a beta tester.


edit: a second suggestion:

a new Suggestion:
how about an ability that speed up building morphs? CB cant do this ..! and you are not making buildings so often that making extra queens to do this becomes an obvious choice (?) ... it could have a short enough duration that you could benefit form using it at least twice on most buildings, energy cost would correlate to duration, but for simplicity's sake, lets assume 25 sec / 25 energy, with the rate of the morph-speed boost being subject to balance. 50% ?

in order to make this easier to balance, while spicing up the ability, it could come with a drawback: the ability would only boost %-completion-progress and not any extra HP; this would mean that while you'd be able to rapidly morph an important tech structure, the more you focused on morphing it quickly, the less HP it would have upon completion - at which point it would be stuck with regular zerg HP-regen, and left vulnerable. this leaves room for some extra transfusion use as well!

does this seem rational? would people just make more queens to be able to do this AND SL ? ... ti strikes me as one of those things, that maybe they wouldn't. but i'd rather have know that it couldnt be used other than as a trade-off with SL.. but i guess that doesnt really matter, sicne more queens actually cost money and supply and cant be otherwise utilized very straightforwardly.

[pure.Wasted]

What are the situations where you imagine using AM would be preferable to using SL?

[Todie]

simplest example: to replace lost overlords to be able to acutaly tart making regular units again ASAP.

to make an extreme example, lets say you see a protoss force head out onto the map , to take an offensive stance (maybe you sot thema bit late - they are already close!). it contains several colossi but only some sentires for AA.

your current army is ill-composed to deal with the colosi threat, but you have a spire up so you want to churn out those corruptors ASAP.

AM comes in really handy.

a less extreme case: you make a striaghtforward assault on a terran oponent, managing to whipe out the bulk of his marauder-heavy infantery-ball

realizing he will mostly be able to reinforce with marines (due to reactors) and bunkers on the short term, you opt to reinforce as quickly as possible using AM on zerglings and roaches (/hydras + possibly combining with a nydus)

sometimes, churning out many units at a fast rate is very rewarding.


also, remember to keep a relativistic mindset about the numbers: 50% health might be much too low, what do i know. maybe i should include an example on the b-net post?

[Gt2slurp]

You deserve the point for pointing out the queen energy tension problem. This is a very complex problem and the core of this is to have 3 ability completely different but equally useful in very different situation, and to keep everything balanced. It is a titan job^^.

I am not totally in favour of your solution but maybe it worth a try after some number tweak.

The problem of the queen is the exact timing that enable you to SP non-stop. It is really bad for creativity, your queen never got extra energy. The transfusion could also be a really strong spell, upping the cost to 75 or 100 you completely heal a single structure. You keep an over 100 energy queen at expo and micro to save your expo by saving the queen and then transfuse the hatch before your army storm in.

Just my little 2 cents^^

[Todie]

... yes the numbers on the possible drawbacks fo the ability is comepltely arbitrary. may be way off: im not even sure tehy are needed at all: the tension in itself can be enough.

anotehr possible drawback that i should have mentioned is to have the ability not ´be stackable with SL.. so that you arnt rewarded for again increasing your amount of queens to be able to do more SL AND AM, whenever. becasue that kind fo kills the tension.... if this or other mentioned drawbacks are included, energy cost(s)/duration ratio could be cut to compensate.

This is a very complex problem and the core of this is to have 3 ability completely different but equally useful in very different situation, and to keep everything balanced. It is a titan job^^. [...] The transfusion could also be a really strong spell, upping the cost to 75 or 100 you completely heal a single structure.

as mentioned, part of the problem is actually that no ability the queen has is acutaly in active competition with SL on a consistent basis: come midgame, 100% optimal SL-use is a rare sight, and so you will have extra energy for tumor & transfusion. yet, it woudlnt be worth saving energy specifically for that, and deliberately not cast SL- it wouldnt be even if the abilities were considerably buffed - if that would have any effect, it would just be more queens on the field for a larger total energy-pool.

so im saying, we need to think in terms of queen & hatchery tension simultaneously: come up with an ability that works alongside spawn larva, that also interacts with hatcheries in such a way that its nt rewarded to just built more queens to get to use all abilities. - an actual alternative to SL, that is better sometimes, and worse sometimes.

[Krikkitone]

Well Tumor does see some use, but with the mechanics youu only use it once.... so it is like a BO.. when do you skip Larva to get the 'expanding creep' tech?

The timing is a big issue, it could be solved one of two ways

1. Make the timing shorter than energy regen time/allow SL to Overlap (so that it is more like MULE, saved up energy can be used)
2. Make the timing much longer than energy regen time (so energy builds up)

The problem with #2 is there is not a choice being made

[moosh]

It's been said once before but i'll say it again. The spells on the queen aren't really meant to compete with each other. The tension is in what you DO with the larva. You have a choice between more economy or defense (drones) or a stronger offense.

[arthas]

Transfusion,needs the most rework if you ask me,in most games paces are extremly dinamic so i doubt someone will have 75 energy on a queen to heal a friendly unit for 125hp...Or even if they have that energy they will spawn larvae on both Hatcheries and probably drop a tumor

[GRUNT]

At a glance, it sounds like it doesn't creates energy tension, so much as being something you do with your excess Energy when you haven't been on top of Spawning Larvae .

I mean in an ideal situation, assuming you've been on top of your Spawn Larvae macro, you should have enough Larvae lying around to react to an imminent threat.

Also, Accelerated Mutation can be used for long-term gain, if you use it instead of Spawn Larvae to produce Drones with, since those Drones come out 50% faster. If it's four Larvae like with Spawn Larvae, then all the better . It doesn't really matter that they'll only have 50% hp since they won't really be doing any fighting.

Also, if I need to make units in a hurry, and press 's' to select all my Larvae, it's going to be a real pain to need to be careful which units I make with Accelerated Mutation because I'd rather I have Drones spawning with 50% HP than Ultralisks :[.

[pure.Wasted]

It's been said once before but i'll say it again. The spells on the queen aren't really meant to compete with each other. The tension is in what you DO with the larva. You have a choice between more economy or defense (drones) or a stronger offense.

When a MULE gives you a crapton of minerals, you also have the tension in "what you DO with the [minerals]." So SL doesn't present anything unique. On the contrary, since you're not ALWAYS right to get a MULE the moment you have the energy to do so, SL is objectively less choice-dependent than MULE or Chrono Boost.

Besides, even MULE, which is infinitely more tension-y than SL, falls far short of what my standards for a SC2 macro mechanic dictate. That SL doesn't even measure up to MULEs says more than enough.