Karune, Blizzard’s RTS community manager, has clarified some issues and answered questions regarding yesterday’s new screenshots featuring the Zerg swarm.

First, Karune discusses the Baneling in response to a few questions:

An expected question was asked: Will the Banelings’ splash damage affect friendly units, like the Goblin Sappers of WarCraft III?

Currently, the Banelings’ attack does not harm friendly units, adding to their deadliness. This of course may be subject to change in the future to maintain balance.

Luckily for the Swarm and their allies, their units are immune to the Baneling’s corrosive acids. This sounds like a good idea from a gameplay standpoint, since many Zerg units are small and more vulnerable to splash damage attacks. Including Banelings in a Zergling swarm would otherwise do more harm than good.

In case you weren’t sure that this green explosion is a Baneling’s doing, Karune confirms:

If you are referring to the blobs of green in the first screenshot, those are the exploded corpses of the Banelings. Those creatures are currently quite the melee killers in StarCraft II.

Lastly, an interesting comment prompted another reply from Karune:

Fill a few overlords with banelings and drop them into a peon line to instantly destroy all their peons and cripple their economy. Not even a few cannons/turrets will halt this strategy.

 

Unless I don’t fully understand how the banelings function (do they operate on a timer?), I predict most zerg players will opt for this strategy.

 

You are absolutely correct, this is one of the best economy raiding strategies at the moment for Zerg. If you can get some Banelings into the enemy’s peon line, you can significantly stifle their economy, as well as force them into a defensive minded mentality. Nonetheless, there are counters to this, such as if you are playing Terrans, you can upgrade your Command Center to a Planetary Fortress, thus defending your economy from light raids. Luckily, those Banelings have very little hit points, and are easy to kill with ranged weapons.

To summarize: The Banelings’ explosion does not affect their allies, but it is extremely deadly to melee attackers who can’t kill the Banelings (which have little health) before they get to exploding range.

Karune has also answered a question on a completely different subject. This is the type of question that gets asked repeatedly on Battle.net. We’re not sure why he decided to answer this one, but we’re glad he did.

can we expect a new graphical change to SC2 ?

 

i mean, will we have a kind of grapics change like there was with the SC1 pre alpha alpha/ beta ? because that was huGE !

 

 

 

I think you can expect changes. How much and how huge those changes are will be a matter of opinion.

 

 

The team has heard some feedback from the community that is concerned that the look of SC2 is too “colorful” and that more “realistic” color choices would be more in keeping with the original StarCraft. We saw a lot of these types of posts early on after we made the announcement.

 

 

I just spoke to Sam Didier (our Art Director) about this issue and he tells me that in order to make the units read well we have added A LOT of team color which really blows the units out and makes them look super-colored especially with the brighter colors (red, blue). The art team plans to take one or more passes over all the units in the game to try to balance out team color so it still works for game play but looks less bright and more in keeping with the original StarCraft. Changes to the over-all look to the game are always an option and the team is always tuning and trying to balance out the look of the game.

This is one thing that Blizzard is not going to screw up. To remain a competitive game, StarCraft 2 will have playability as its first priority – it will certainly not be hindered by graphics. As well, we’ve already seen the developers changing unit designs after receiving community feedback.

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13 Comments to “Zerg Attack Follow Up: Karune Responds”

1. Isaac — November 27, 2007 @ 6:48 pm
   

   It would be quite helpful if in the future you included a link directly to the thread that is discussed on the post. So whenever you post regarding a Karune thread it’d be great if the original link could be included somewhere for easy access.

2. Ken — November 27, 2007 @ 9:55 pm
   

   I hate zerg drops in SC1… and it seems that I’m going to hate them more on SC2… grrr…

3. Eros — November 28, 2007 @ 7:04 am
   

   Liked that idea Isaac.

   Well.. call me a noob, but isnt the Banelings that explosive things that appear in SC2 original unit introduce video? Why will they be more use than zerglings to raid peon lines?

4. SCV_Operator — November 28, 2007 @ 9:57 am
   

   I wonder if the baneling is better for disrupting workers simply because it deals all its damage in one go? you might only need one or two of a bunch to make it through defences and you’d have all the workers at a mineral patch taken out in seconds, rather than having to move a bunch of zerglings around

5. Ken — November 28, 2007 @ 9:13 pm
   

   quoting Eros:

   “Well.. call me a noob, but isnt the Banelings that explosive things that appear in SC2 original unit introduce video? Why will they be more use than zerglings to raid peon lines?”

   because splash damage from the banelings = 45 damage. 1 exploding bane will kill like 3 or 4 probe/drones but it won’t kill SCVs. but if there is an overlord full of it, then dropped at the worker lines, consider yourself raped!

6. Ken — November 28, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
   

   Quoting SCV Operator:

   “I wonder if the baneling is better for disrupting workers simply because it deals all its damage in one go?”

   Yes, in fact all its damage are for “one go”. its like a mini infested terran, but its tier 1.5 and its cheap and dispensable, unlike the friggin’ expensive IT where you have to get a friggin’ queen and you have to friggin’ cripple a friggin’ CC to get it. hehe =D

7. Dill — November 28, 2007 @ 9:44 pm
   

   I now wonder how advanced banelings will actually be, too low tech seems kind of iffy thanks to the lower amount of long range units in the early game.

8. Kane — November 29, 2007 @ 11:24 am
   

   OTOH, they might otherwise be completely useless.

9. Arthur Santana — November 30, 2007 @ 3:57 am
   

   That old screenshots are bizarre!!! They even seem fake for me. =p

10. Zetaras Xal'Kurat — November 30, 2007 @ 4:43 am
    

    It does look fake, doesn’t it? It’s real, though. Check out or “Development Cycles” post.

11. alabyow man — November 30, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
    

    great. just great. MORE ZERG DROPS ON SC2? ME TERRAN BASE GO BOOM BOOM IN 5 SECONDS WITH BANELINGS!!! DOGDAMMIT!

12. Starcraft 2 fan — December 21, 2007 @ 12:29 pm
    

    banelings are relatively weak so unless you leave your base defenseless or scout poorly, it would be your own fault if you get pwned by banelings

13. zerg kicks ass — January 20, 2008 @ 5:46 pm
    

    i think the baneling is a great idea especially since all i do is zerg drops and zerg rushes