[Greg]

Hello, I've been doing 12 years of research on the zerg race and I have an essay here which I believe could be very insightful for game designers and the community. First I will start with a historical review, and then get right in to my great points and end with awesome potential solutions.

HISTORICAL REVIEW:

"Don't make units unless you are going to use them" was the classic wisdom which we all knew was what made the difference between the good and the bad players in Starcraft and Broodwar.

I would always make my best effort to put this theory in to practice with the zerg race due to their function and design. It's simply much more critical that zerg's offense gets used and meaningfully so due to the very possible set back in econonomy when Terran and Protoss do consecutive timed attacks which cause zerg to produce a surge of offense, then follow up by simply running back to their own base while having virtually kept a constant flow of economic production in the mean time.

This rule taught me one thing about zerg in broodwar. That zerg must first and foremost be the aggressor and not the reactor.

So zerg must always rush zerglings in to mutas asap because zerglings lack so much ultimate value and any real value that they had was found through other heavy gas costing units, Ultralisks to take hits for zerglings, and Defilers to cast dark swarm.

The standard play for zerg was actually quite simple...

-A quick minimal zergling rush that consisted of about 2-4 zerglings to try and get the opponent on the defensive. This rush was not done too early so that no loss of economy occured. At some point, in order to make the most use of those 4 zerglings research burrow and surround the enemy with burrowed lings as scouts.

-Mad rush to the most minimal amount of mutas possible, usually 5 so that you can effeciently conduct 1 hit K.O. on opponent's economy. (This was very effective because of a questionable game mechanic that allowed zerg to stack mutalisks which I feel could have been, at times, the sole thing that kept zerg alive in pro leagues)

-Finally a mass gas consumption overhaul to make ultralisks which actually made their numbers of zerglings more of a potential strength then opposed to a weakness as the ultralisk could absorb heavy blows for the numbers.

-The only other possible option was to make guardians which we all know is now the broodlord which you can see has had the power of numbers incorporated right in to it's very attack function supposedly correcting the flaw of the guardian as it wasn't nearly as viable.

And that's simply how zerg was played standardly, nothing more, nothing less.

But was this the intended function of the zerg race? To survive on minimal muta aggression and enforce value in to their basic army via other late game units to give them battle significance?

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THE POINTS:

My main gripe that I have with zerg in regard to the concept "Don't make units unless you are going to use them" is fortunately narrowed down to the two most basic units for the zerg race.

-Zergling
-Overlord

I'm not saying that there is a lack of battle use and significance for these units because they are not strong or don't have attack power, I'm saying that these units lack reasonable utility use for battle situations as most of the time zerg is forced to use larvae to make both of them, and then the follow up role confliction that occurs as they are expected to make use of the zergling through burrow scouting, and the overlord cliff scouting. The possible point that overlords can be used for drops is virtually irrelevant as investing the money and time in to them with out doing a heavy drop is not worth it, and doing a heavy drop is risky and wasteful, while the greatest possible use, a baneling drop, requires extraordinary diversion technique.

Two changes that we see going in to starcraft 2 is the addition of the Roach and the situational/utility function of morphing baneling.

My feeling is that blizzard made observations of race design from previous games such as the nightelves from warcraft 3. Everyone knew how weak the archer was, and most people felt that the standard play was to actually get the huntress as it seemed to compensate for any potential weakness that the archer had. I decided to go back and try to master the nightelf race and on that journey found that the archer was actually their true strength and standard play through a unique playstyle approach.

I would start with ancient of war first and pump archers constantly in to KOG for a timed attack of about 5 archers + his entangling roots. The engtangle would disable, hold, and drain a single target's life while the archer focus fire was 100% effecient.

The power at this time would allow me to atleast push any opponent back to his main base which in turn would give me an opportunity to farm his creeps. This was the point where it was just a mad rush to get level 1 and level 2 thorns for my archers and in doing so allowed me to dominate and keep the opponent at his base.

Then, I would be on to druids of the talon for fairie fire, and hippogryphs.

The hippogryphs are very key to the point I'm trying to make here... It's the hippogryphs that give progressive utility value to their basic archer unit, while the huntress simply doesn't have anything that progressively useful.

Because ancient of wind was made, it unlocked the ability to make chimera roost at tree of eternity, and I would make 2 of them to do a 4 chimera timed attack. The archers and hippogryphs were very valuable here as they provided ample protection for the chimeras.

And simple as that, I realized that the archer was most certainly the standard play for nightelves, not the huntress that everyone assumed.

With that said, it seems to be that blizzard could have possibly made a mistaken judgement that by including a unit nearly identical in style to the huntress, the roach, would correct a lot of things, but lo and behold it has far from not.

On the other side of the coin, the utility value of being able to mutate banelings I feel is a step in the right direction, however the meaningful use of the baneling seems to be torn between whether it should be used on units or buildings. It's splash attack style suggests best used on packed armies, while on the other hand it has a bonus damage to buildings where the splash damage is not effeciently used.
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THE BEST SOLUTIONS:

I was cycling through different ideas of a useful utility function for the zergling with a friend. Because I felt the ability to morph the zergling in to baneling had potential... We considered the ability to mutate the zergling in to practically any unit...

We concluded very shortly after that this was clearly over powered and did not make sense as this is the role of larvae. Zerg would simply not seem to retain their core unique economic function if this was done.

But then I was struck with the realization that zerglings and mutalisks actually share a unique bond... They are both small units and this can be observed on the old starcraft damage type and unit sizes chart.

We then thought, what if the zergling could mutate in to the mutalisk?

We quickly concluded that this would be over powered for two reasons.. First you would be able to make a large sum of zerglings early game which would set you for all the possible muta production you would every need later which would give too much economic opportunity. Second, you would be able to proxy morph zerglings in to mutalisks near the opponent's base.

Although we knew that this wouldn't work, we felt like it was on to something and we addressed those problems to result in something very cool and beautiful.

-Zerglings would consume another zergling in order to mutate in to mutalisk.
-Must be done on the creep.

So you could select, let's say, 12 zerglings on creep and click "Consume in to mutalisk" 6 zerglings would consume the 6 other zerglings and then mutate in to mutalisks.

But what justifies the mutalisk aside from it being a small unit?

It really seems to give a progressively meaningful value to zerg, and the zergling going from tier 1, to tier 2 and tier 3. To start with a force which act as scouts and initiators, which can evolve in to harrasers (mutalisks), and then ultimately end up as the siege brute force destroyers (Guardians).

This was the sort of progressive value that really seemed to be missing from the zergling.

As far as the overlord and it's utility value, I came to the conclusion that it was basically missing the ability to act as an unloaded gun to be filled with zergling ammo. That this is another beatiful idea for getting utility value from both the zergling and the overlord.

And why does this make sense?

The connection between the overlord and broodlord is that they are both "Lords". It just seems logical that the overlord would function with motif similar to that of the broodlord. There are obviously some critical questions to this like "What would the firing distance be, and would there be impact damage?" But now things are starting to come to light for the zerg race.

And remember how the archer mounts the hippogryph? It seems that blizzard is not afraid to mimic older games for the purpose of enhancing the starcraft series which is why this idea has potential written all over it.
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Conclusion: My only hope with this essay is really to just open people's eyes up to the problematic flaw that occurs with the zerg race as it is the combination of the overlord and the zergling together that do not ultimately have significant enough utility value for battles for the larvae that they occupy and are forced to use.

If you read the whole essay, then I commend your patience.

Thank you.

I

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