StarCraft II Q&A batches/41

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.

--- StarCraft II Q&A Batch 41 ---

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? (sc2pod.com)

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.

2. What are the current stats and build times for the Queen defensive buildings? (starcraft2forum.org)

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

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 Karune's 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? (starcraft2.4players.de)

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? (www.starcraft2.com.au)

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? -lepape (teamliquid.net)

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.

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? (sclegacy.com)

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.

--- End of Transmission ---

Additional Material
You can be sure that if the game turns out to be too difficult for new players to get into, we will make necessary changes to fix that. As we keep progressing through the development phase, we are seeking to give expert players more depth in gameplay as well as make the game playable and fun for beginning and intermediate players.

The solutions to both of these goals lie both in gameplay design as well as in our future battle.net plans. This will no doubt be one of the biggest challenges in creating StarCraft II and we are spending the necessary resources in making sure both goals are achieved.

Karune:

Of course you realize that queen making static vs Larva making drones making static is two completely different economic models?

That isn't as simple as changing a units price, because it changes larva count, which is the most critical aspect of playing zerg.

Now if the zerg was having trouble losing his queen and defenses before, how much more trouble will he have with a lower larva count?

The queen making the buildings was actually one of the few real advantages SC2 Zerg had over BW zerg so far due to saving larva count.

Now the queen will just die faster, and the defenses will just die faster, because the zerg has fewer larva to make other units and structures with, back to BW economy.

Finally, don't take this the wrong way, but from the exhibition matches we have seen from WWI, it becomes obvious that the blizzard play testers shouldn't be taken too seriously regarding balance issues.

After all, you guys made the game, yet got pasted by people who hadn't even played the game before, or played it just once; not knowing timing of micro, build orders, or in many cases even build/train costs.

Craftmatic2, you bring up a good point. This is also why the Queen will be able to create Morphalisks(name still changing), larvae that will be able to exist independent of the Hatchery and be able to be morphed into units very fast.