Z and P missing the comparable advantage of the 60 life SCV

I mean, if Starcraft was ever serious about balance as supposedly being “the most balanced RTS ever made” then why does terran start out with a 33% hp pool advantage with their SCVS? Oh but they fixed that in Starcraft 2, so we should go buy an trilogy promoting more racial uniqueness. A scam. But was it really a fix and a step in the right direction when we were promised even more racial uniqueness in starcraft 2? Maybe a Zerg with the strength of the swarm wouldn’t have hurt either.

Imagine hatcheries that yield 2 control a piece, dropping overlords down to 7. And zerg starting out with a main hatchery and an expansion hatchery but with no workers. Now let’s say they also start with 200 gold instead of 50. This means that Zerg is starting with 800 gold with of structures and gold. T and P start with 600. A zerg start with 200 gold in the bank like this might be a 33.33% advantage over the opponent. 200/600 = 33.33% and that’s apparently what Terran already has with 60 life workers over T and P’s workers.

Now the question becomes, how would protoss stand out with a 33% advantage in some other way?

Also… if Zerg produces an evolution chamber, why can’t that unlock an ability of hatcheries to switch between modes of production. In a new alternative mode, they produce broodings instead of larvae. Or, at least 1 hatchery per evolution chamber made would receive this ability. Maybe these broodlings stay alive on creep and/or their lifespan timer doesn’t start until they take damage.

This ties in to my previous “3 different starts” as suggested for zerg, one inspired by the manner in which the undead race starts in WC3. 3 drones and a zergling. And another start with lair access, with lair = 9 or 10 control. No access to a spawning pool the rest of the game, but queen’s broodlings could last forever, even after taking damage or never returning to creep.

Probe shields and Drone health recover automatically and neither of them have to continue working on building a structure while being exposed to attack.

I feel like that makes sense and I’m not surprised that SCVs kept their health advantage in SC2.

1 Like

An unfavorable advantage to the prior, on a comparable 75% difference within the window

Was starcraft 1 really that imbalanced when it was “the most balanced rts ever”?

Abandoning the step in the right direction that the previous game was already in, just to draw people into the sales of a trilogy, and more than fail on the promised “more unique races”

Scvs don’t have to continue working on a structure and can be repaired and terran starts with 10 control.

You get taken advantage of from the start and by the little things when big ratio differences are involved.

Show us your 2500 MMR Terran account?

They. Will. Never. “Balance”. The. Game.

1 Like

I was actually able to come up with a different idea inspired by my op here. It seems like protoss would potentially become weaker if zerg has this +200 gold advantage from the start, even if it was proportionally balanced to an scv’s +20 life. I’ve even thought that if zerg sacrificed the starting overlord and drones for an additional starting hatchery at an expansion that even though you could start with 200 gold, 2 hatcheries yielding 2 control a piece, and 4 larvae to produce 4 drones right off the bat(starting out behind) that even if this wasn’t technically an unfair advantage for zerg, it still might harm the rock-paper-scissors dancing counter system and how would the zergling rush be possible with this start? It just seems like Zerg is such a black and white or directional race that they need the option to start macro defense style, or standard aggressive style AT LEAST. But then the question becomes, should the player be able to hide this start from his opponent? Because if he could hide his start from the opponent, or even have it be a randomized start, then it might end up being some kind of advantage for the zerg player. But if the opponent was always aware of which type of start zerg had of these two, then it almost doesn’t make sense because both players would know what to expect and what to aim for from the start. Plus zerg standard start isn’t even really aggressive. Who’s to say that zerg should always “4 hatch all in” on a standard start? And then maybe a true aggressive start with a bonus 100 minerals from a sacrificed overlord might actually be TOO aggressive of a start because zerg would start 50 minerals away from a spawning pool. And then the macro start with a bonus 200 minerals? That’s really only being ultimately justified by the missing 5 supply compared to a protoss start of 9 supply. In my mind, I’m assuming that 5 supply = 250 gold of drones and so zerg would be able to start with 2 hatcheries with 2 control each and 250 gold. But in reality, 5 supply is really only worth 75 gold at most if an overlord yields 8 control/supply. So it’s all problematic, BUT, there might be a way out.

What if… when zerg lays down a drone to morph a hatchery, zerg immediately gets 2 supply right away from it? So imagine a zerg start where they do not have an overlord and 2 extra drones to make up for it. So their control starts at 2 and with 6 drones they are starting 4 over their max supply. You could still do the 6 zergling rush with a 6-pool-lord. Or, you could 6 hatch lord. It almost seems like raising the control of the hatchery even matters for this. You might not have to raise hatchery or lower overlord control. So your start with 6 drones and be 5 control over the granted 1 by the initial hatch. (5 in the red as they might say). I don’t understand what the problem with this would be. You could start 6 pool, then produce lord and then have enough minerals on time to produce 6 lings because you’ll be at 5/9 supply. Or you could do 6 hatch expand lord pool. Which could still potentially yield an aggressive timing attack, but at least zerg would be set up to macro.

The starting overlord ruins it for zerg. The funny thing about the point of 6 ling at 5/9 supply is that actually, the hatchery didn’t even have to yield even 1 supply for the 6 zergling production going from, what would be, 5/8 to 8/8 supply once the 6 zerglings are all produced at once. I noticed that on a different discussion, someone else has made the same point about hatcheries not yielding any supply at all.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/sc2/t/lotvs-biggest-flaw-exposed-hatchery-should-not-give-supply/26822

Conclusion: no control yield from hatcheries, and no starting overlord. Just start with 6 drones in the red. Now you basically have 3 openings. Double lord, pool lord, or hatch lord.


Going even deeper into this. What if someone argues that hatcheries that provide 0 control is now an inferiority?

Well what if upon hatchery completion, out pops 2 drones no matter what supply zerg is at? That would actually make sense of how zerg starts with 2 extra drones. So zerg actually would get something from hatchery completion, it’s just not control. It’s 2 drones no matter what supply zerg is at.

I’ve decided to take this matter to the pros. It makes too much sense at this point.