If you think there is a problem with the Queen...

[pure.Wasted]

They should just increase spawns larva cost from 25 to 50 energy, and in return make the larva spawn in 10 seconds instead of the current 40seconds. Would be much more easy to use this ability with the time decrease and you wouldn't have to spam it as often.

When making a suggestion it usually helps to repeat the problem in your head a few times to make sure the suggestion is actually relevant.

The problem: not enough decision-making is involved in the SL casting process.

The solution: let's make SL less inconvenient to use.


Hmmm...

[Perfecttear]

Well i sugested to decrease the time from 40 s to 10s or even 5s, because that is actualy the only thing that bothers me about spawn larva and the zerg. When you have multiple hatcheries and queens it's like playing tetris, with the 40 second delay, it just takes to much efort to use efficently, compared to the terran and the protoss mechanics, who are use and forget mechanics.
edit: (yeah i didn't bother reading archers posts, just saw queen in the title and wanted to share what has been bothering me with her for quite a while)

[ArcherofAiur]

Vespene is the bottleneck to macro. Giving one race the ability to get gas faster than any other race is completely imbalanced. Not to mention the potential to abuse it with multiple queens.

Yah people used to say that about minerals or research time. I dont buy it.

[Asfastasican]

Yah people used to say that about minerals or research time. I dont buy it.

Well Terrans don't have much of a mineral ceiling anymore and Toss aren't seeing much of the later. It would be interesting to see what Zerg can do with something aiding them with their vespene gathering. Fun to think about but also could be OP.

[Raisk]

The problem: not enough decision-making is involved in the SL casting process.

Im just brainstorming here, but I do think the best solution is to actually give SL some competition for the Queens mana reserves and Im sure many of you agree with me on that. A vespene mechanic has been suggested and could easily be balanced with raising zerg vespene costs, one would have to choose between making many cheaper units or focusing on producing fewer, stronger, vespene costlier ones.

But I had another idea for a mechanic, that Im sure has been suggested before. The ability to speed up building production, you just cast it on any building that is morphing in, and it speeds up its construction time. However I am uncertain of how much use such an ability would get as Zerg do use the fewest buildings of all the races, I am afterall just throwing ideas out there.

[TheRabidDeer]

Yah people used to say that about minerals or research time. I dont buy it.

It can be proven by simply looking at the income tab in a replay. A saturated base will yield 700-800 minerals and only 250 gas. Gas is absolutely the limiting factor in most cases and is why most unit compositions have at least one unit that costs significantly more minerals than gas or even only cost minerals.

I think the problem with the queen (outside of there being no room for error, I agree that reducing the time to spawn larva would work, maybe make it 30 seconds so you can "catch up" on energy) is that spawn larva is 99% of the time too good of an ability to pass up.

[ArcherofAiur]

It can be proven by simply looking at the income tab in a replay. A saturated base will yield 700-800 minerals and only 250 gas. Gas is absolutely the limiting factor in most cases and is why most unit compositions have at least one unit that costs significantly more minerals than gas or even only cost minerals.

Yah but that doesnt prove that giving one race an advantage is impossible to balance. If I showed you a SC1 replay where none of the races could speed up research time would that prove that Chronoboost is impossible to balance?

[TWD]

Reducing the number of larvae that spawn larvae provides would create absolute havoc on the Zerg early game. The only reason they are able to keep up economically with other races is because of spawn larvae. Without it they would not be able to pump out as many drones. It's made worse by your idea that the Queen should cost 50 gas. It would push back the zerg economy by 30 seconds to a minute making them vulnerable to most rush strategies.

The gas mining mechanic would almost certainly be OP and goes completely against the way that the Zerg is setup. It's easier for zerg to expand, but it's also more difficult to build an economy. Building drones takes away from being able to build other units, and creating a new building requires another drone that could be mining. Having the ability to instantly gather as much gas as you want would completely undo all of this. It would practically ensure that Zerg would mutalisk rush every game. With multiple queens it would be easy to gather as much gas as you want instantly.
________
HOW TO ROLL A BLUNT

[Hav0x]

Yah but that doesnt prove that giving one race an advantage is impossible to balance. If I showed you a SC1 replay where none of the races could speed up research time would that prove that Chronoboost is impossible to balance?

There is a difference between speeding up the production of something and just handing a race an insane economic advantage. MULEs work because minerals are usually not the limiting factor in production. 9 times out of 10 You are waiting on gas to research/produce something. Giving Zerg a giant boost to gas production, which can be spammed non-stop with enough queens, would boost the already amazing production they can reach with spawn larva.

[ArcherofAiur]

Reducing the number of larvae that spawn larvae provides would create absolute havoc on the Zerg early game. The only reason they are able to keep up economically with other races is because of spawn larvae. Without it they would not be able to pump out as many drones. It's made worse by your idea that the Queen should cost 50 gas. It would push back the zerg economy by 30 seconds to a minute making them vulnerable to most rush strategies.

I think everyone here realizes that fixing Spawn Larva is going to require massive rebalancing just as Protoss did a few weeks back. Remember how Protoss early game had to be rebalanced at the begining of balance.

Its painful. But what is Blizzard if not a commitment to quality.

The gas mining mechanic would almost certainly be OP and goes completely against the way that the Zerg is setup. It's easier for zerg to expand, but it's also more difficult to build an economy. Building drones takes away from being able to build other units, and creating a new building requires another drone that could be mining. Having the ability to instantly gather as much gas as you want would completely undo all of this. It would practically ensure that Zerg would mutalisk rush every game. With multiple queens it would be easy to gather as much gas as you want instantly.

First off there would be checks on "instantly gaterhing as much gas as you want" in the same way that MULEs dont "nstantly give you as much minerals as you want.

Second Zerg would be sacrificing Queen energy in order to get gas. This means sacrficing drones (and future econ) and units.

There is a difference between speeding up the production of something and just handing a race an insane economic advantage. MULEs work because minerals are usually not the limiting factor in production. 9 times out of 10 You are waiting on gas to research/produce something. Giving Zerg a giant boost to gas production, which can be spammed non-stop with enough queens, would boost the already amazing production they can reach with spawn larva.

There is a difference between everything. Trust me I saw all these arguements 3 years ago when I started talking about racially unique macro mechanics. You wouldnt believe all the people that said that minerals were a vital limiting factor that could not be messed with or the universe would collapse. It was even worse for the idea that one race could speed up their tech. People screamed bloody murder at that one

Second contingent on this plan involves making queens a limited resource like OC and Nexi.