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16
It’s been more than a month since the last official Q&A batch. This does not come as a surprise, of course, since the entire Blizzard crew was busy dealing with the WorldWide Invitational event in Paris.
This Q&A batch is composed of a long, comprehensive “Chat with Devs” introduction, dealing with the new Vespene Gas mechanics, and six new answers to fan-submitted questions.
Chat with Devs: Since the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, the topic of the new Vespene Gas mechanic has come up a lot across many different fansites and message boards. Thus far, this is one of the biggest changes which will affect the macro management of bases in StarCraft II. To shed some more light on this new mechanic, I have gotten a chance to talk to Dustin Browder, our Lead Designer for StarCraft II, about the progress thus far of the new mechanic, as well as the objectives this new mechanic is designed to achieve.
To start, the new Vespene Gas mechanic is to further distinguish the play style in which players gather minerals versus gathering gas. In the original StarCraft, the gathering of gas was very linear in the rate in which gas is gathered. Often, players would put 3-4 workers on the gas, and the players would forget about it until the geyser was depleted. Minerals on the other hand, were much more exponential in the rate of growth and were also often played differently amongst different races. Zerg would likely expand rapidly with less drones in each expansion and Protoss/Terran could sustain a sizeable force with higher numbers of workers on a smaller number of expansions.
How the New Vespene Gas Mechanic Works
For StarCraft II, with the new Vespene Gas mechanic, players will have 2 gas geysers at their starting position. These geysers will start with X amount of gas (currently 600 and subject to balance) and at any time players can purchase additional gas in their geysers for X minerals (currently 100 and subject to balance). With each purchase of additional gas for your geyser, the geyser increases with X gas (currently 600 and subject to balance) and the geyser shuts down for 45 seconds. When a geyser is depleted, workers will still be able to gather gas at a low rate of 2 per round (subject to balance).
How the New Vespene Gas Mechanic Plays
With this new gas mechanic, players have a wider variety of strategies in developing and maintaining their refineries, as well as additional attention needed to make sure they are collecting gas at the most efficient rate. On the production side, players now also have to decide between sticking to Tier 1 units longer, or to play it balanced with one geyser, or even max out on gas to invest heavily on teching and higher tech units. Additional, the relationship between minerals and gas have an added layer of depth since investing in additional gas will actually cost the player minerals as well. How often a player invests in gas will also not necessarily be consistent through the game too and will depend upon what units that player is currently choosing to mass. Scouting too has an added layer of depth as well, as a players gas collecting play style may determine if the player is teching to a higher tier mineral heavy unit (like a Dark Templar) or a higher tech gas heavy unit (like a High Templar).
Overall, players will have to build the appropriate buildings as well as gather resources in a particular method in order to execute a certain strategy at a professional level. It is the hope of the development team that this new mechanic will not only make gas collecting more interesting, but also increase the amount of macro management skill needed to compete in StarCraft II at the top levels while at the same time making the game playable for mid level players without using some of these more advanced techniques.
Aside from an adjustment to the numbers involved, the system described is the same as the one revealed during the WWI event, which we have already covered:
All these major changes have been implemented to StarCraft 2 for one purpose: complicate the “macro” portion of the game, which has been downsized severely with the introduction of new and improved user interface aspects, and mainly, Multiple Building Selection (MBS) – which allows players to select all their similar unit producing buildings together and deliver a single command to construct units out of all of them.
These changes will steal some of the added focus to the micromanagement portion of StarCraft 2, which pro-gamers, who’ve had a chance to play the game extensively, have reported about, and divert it back to base and economy management. Other such changes, meant to give players more macromanagement decisions to play with without dumbing down the UI, are being considered by Blizzard.
Check out our post about the subject here.
Moving on, the Q&A portion has interesting new tidbits and clarifications:
1. How exactly does the Corruptors attack work? Is it a stacking debuff that takes effect after a certain number of stacks? And if so can the debuff time out? Would you be able to hit and run kill for example Battlecruisers with a few Corruptors over a couple of minutes?
The attack is technically a debuff, but does not do damage over time. Every time the Corruptor attacks a unit, it’ll leave a debuff on it for a couple seconds. If the unit dies within those couple seconds, the unit will be corrupted.
This description of the Corruptor is incomplete, as evident by the Zerg reveal video, where a group of Corruptors corrupted a few Terran fliers on their own. The Corruptors likely cause damage themselves, or at least damage that goes towards Corrupting a unit which does not actually lower its physical hitpoints. Aside from this, the Corruptor also leaves a “Corrupting debuff” on the attacked unit, which causes it to become Corrupt should it die while under the effect.
2. What are the current stats and build times for the Queen defensive buildings?
n
To catch us up, Zerg defensive buildings arent built by the queen anymore. Instead, they are built from the drone once again.
Spine crawler:
- Only hits ground
- Health is 300 (uprooted health 100)
- Movement speed is 2.25 (1 off of creep)
- Damage is 20 +20 armored
- Range is 7
- Attack speed is 1.5 sec
Spore Crawler:
- Only hits air
- Health is 300 (uprooted health 100)
- Movement speed is 2.25 (1 off of creep)
- Damage is 15
- Range is 7
- Attack speed is .8608
The developers have decided that the Zerg deserve means to create defenses that don’t rely on the Queen, which can’t be everywhere at once. The new defensive colonies, aside from being granted mobility, are almost identical to their StarCraft 1 versions. However, the Queen likely still possesses her “Swarm Infestation” ability, allowing her to turn any building into a defensive structure temporarily.
3. The Queen seems to be a very potent unit, although its tasks are more defensive ones, it can be used in crazy rush strategies, according to Karunes experiences. Well, if the Nydus Worm was able to transport even queens, she would get even more potent. You could easily think of crazy rushes using your opponents creep to just overwhelm him with your units AND your defensive structures. So here is the simple question: Can the Nydusworm transport queens among all the other units?
n
Defensive structures will not be able to enter the Nydus tunnel network, but the Queen will be able to. Furthermore, the Queen will no longer be able to build defensive structures. Drones will morph into defensive structures, similar to the original StarCraft.
4. When the Zerg Sunken Colony is uprooted and on the move is it more vulnerable to enemy attack?
Yes, the Spine and Spore Crawlers will have less hit points while they are uprooted. The actual number of hit points will be determined through balance testing.
5. In many cases, the micromanagement of units in StarCraft revolved around gameplay mechanics (Dragoon dance, Mutalisk stacking, Reaver/Shuttle micro, etc.), rather than special abilities with cooldown/charges (Stalker’s Blink, Phoenix’s Overload, etc.).
Is the amount of this kind of special abilities in SC2 a concern of Blizzard, and how would this affect the overall gameplay?
Players will still have dependence on both gameplay mechanics as well as special abilities. For instance, Stalkers will have the basic dancing mechanic as Dragoons had in the original StarCraft. Marauders are another unit highly dependent on micromanagement to get the most effectiveness out of the unit, making sure you use their attacks slowing effect at opportune times.
Though for StarCraft II, we are introducing much more positional micromanagement, which will amplify units damage significantly. A Colossus will fire in a line and lining up that radius with the enemy units will be crucial in battles. Flanking Jackals from multiple angles will surely add to its potency as well.
Overall, we definitely want to balance the game with both plenty of gameplay mechanics as well as special abilities that create opportunities for the players to initiate clever strategies as well as innovative maneuvers on the battlefield.
Unlike what many people may think, Blizzard’s developers know what made StarCraft 1 the great game that it is, and are not likely to forget to implement one of the most important and fun aspects of battle in their new game.
6. Terrans currently appear to be at a disadvantage in terms of troop mobility, (as compared to ‘Warp-in’ and ‘Nydus Worm’) are there any plans to bring back the, ‘drop-pod’ or other new transport mechanic?
Actually, we consider the Terran side to be quite mobile. Let us first look at the Reapers. This unit is the fastest ground unit in the game which traverses terrain without even having a spotter. In addition, the Medivac Dropships, allow added mobility to all Terran ground units. With the addition of the Dropship being able to heal, it has become even more of a staple in Terran strategies, giving even more increased incentive for players to build Dropships than the original StarCraft. On top of this, Vikings providing both ground and air support at a click of a button, gives that added support of mobility and options when moving a Terran army around.
The method in which Terran will be mobile is indeed different than Warp-in and Nydus Worm, though they are not considered less mobile than the other races.
Also worth mentioning is the Terran’s ability to relocate their buildings by lifting them into the air and repositioning them on the ground. Aside from that, the Salvage ability makes it easy for Terrans to create impromptu production bases, knowing that the investment will not be lost.
In accordance with the StarCraft tradition, one race lacks a distinct ability that is available to the other two races, while still managing to function in a balanced way. While the Terran race may lack a point-and-click transportation method which the Protoss and Zerg now have, they will not be at a disadvantage on the whole.
Related Posts:
- » Patch 1.1.3 - New Battle.net Filters and Thor AI
- » StarCraft 2 Name Change and StarCraft Race Video Overview
- » BlizzCon 2010 Summary - Art, Gameplay and Pictures
- » Patch 1.1.2: Roaches Get Their Groove Back, Void Ray Nerfed
17 Comments to “Q&A 41: Corruption Debuff, Zerg Defenses, Unit Dance Moves”
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I guess the Queen has to take off her hard-hat now…
I think it’s rather interesting that defensive buildings can’t enter the Nydus Tunnels, but a Drone can. But since Drones can become defensive buildings again, it balances out.
Also, now that Queens no longer produce “units” of her own, the MBS doesn’t help Zerg as much as the other races, except for when you have a few Hatcheries/whatever close together.
나는 세계안에 가장 중대한 게임 선수 이다.
나는 모두보다는 더 낫다.
I think if you can read an english website, you ought to at least make the effort to respond in the same language.
The vespine macro management is what primarily takes this game from starcraft 1.5 to starcraft 2, in my opinion.
The bit about transportation just shows how distinct the races are from each other, and I am quite happy that blizzard works hard to provide us with the proper ‘elements’/'tools’ to make this game great.
THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC// actually comment #2 is meaningless and nothing important.
Besides, what happens if a reaper tries to move on the water hidden by a blocking cliff? Something like below:
ground
—— (cliff)
water
#4 The game will crash, lol..
No, he will probably just jump up on the cliff and stay there or move around the water.
the game will rock, but i cant wait, they want it to be perfect, but if blizzard was like other RTS game companys this game would be released 3-4 months ago.
thats wy we love blizzard, they take time on thier games!
BUT I CaNT WAIT
The game crashes.
Whoops, teach me to refresh before I shoot off a comment.
Heh heh, then he TRANSFORMS into Aquatic Duel Pistol man!
Although I think you need to both see and issue a move to location, and I’m guessing you’ll be clicking on the water for a while before something happens.
Speaking of clicking, I hope the critters explode in sc2
The gas thing is kind of growing on me. From the explanation it seems to be becoming a more logical procedure.
The Zerg defensive buildings coming from drones again seems like a reluctant step back. I have a feeling the photon cannons will get their ‘energy mode’ back, or the moving building mechanic will be left to the Terrans. I wonder if they tried zerg defensive structures building from nothing but creep and nearby buildings or nearby queen? I guess then the question would be where is the build button…
About the corruptor description being incomplete, implying that the corruptors does not inflict damage:
What is said is that the corruption debuff does not do damage >over time<. They might still do damage on impact. Which means that they can kill things, like in the video.
In respond to #4, I dont think we will have this situation in the standard maps.
ground
—— (cliff)
water
The terrain behind the cliff is hidden only if it’s higher than the terrain where reapers stand. As usual we have water surface lower than ground level, so reapers can see water beneath the cliff. Only if we have a kind of high lake, like this ____|~~~~~|____ then Blizzard will have to build in an upgrade “swim suit” or something in that direction for reapers ^.^ But as I said, I take this high lake as irregular terrain and it will not exist in regular maps.
The new vespene gas mechanic is awesome. That really makes SCII different from SCI. I can’t agree more with THE BANANA REPUBLIC that this change takes SC as we knew from SC 1,5 to SC 2. I want a new game, but don’t want to lose the standard units from SCI. SCI and SCII do share the same Universe, there has to be standard units of both. And when we talk about the SC universe, I have to say I can’t wait to know what happens next. I have had enough from Q&A batches, new screenshots. Beautiful gameplay doesnt attract me anymore, but how the story goes. And I want to know how Blizzard ends it. It could hardly be an open end like WoW for WC III i think. So what is it?
Well, they probably want some opening at the end of the stroy, so they can stcik in another game if they so wish…
mistake in last post: stroy should be story
Wow, I just noticed something weird. Bunkers have colors!
Nikasi -
But of course the “regular” sc2 campaign will end with a twist! It will be a plot device for the sc2 expansion to be released a year later (which, i’m sure is already in development)!
lol that unit dance moove thing was kinda missleading
i thought they were gona make it like wow and give units dance moves for real 0.0
ㅋㅋ 니들 내가 머라고 하는지 모르지 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 이딴 건 우리나라 유딍들도 다 안다. ㅋㅋ
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