Queen should be redesigned... its just lame

[Tierdal]

Ok so forget to mule? NP call down 2! But wait you may need scans... or supply in a pinch... GREAT design


Hey my mineral line got wiped out i need to speed up probe creatiron! OH wait i need military units! Ohw ait I need a fast carrier... Protos macro ability? GrEAT DESIGN

Zerg? Puke every 40 seconds.. do it or you lose... also you dont do anything else ever because you only have enough for larvae and the other abiltieis dont do junk

[Colrath]

If you don't mule/com-stat or use chrono boost, you will also loose.

[Tierdal]

If you don't mule/com-stat or use chrono boost, you will also loose.

You do realize that you can forget about it and then just spam them unlike vomit

[Nephrahim]

Wrong. You can't spam Boost unless you use it on a bunch of different buildings, which is dumb.

MULE is the ONLY one you can spam, and even then, Resources are exponential. The sooner you get them, the better, you WILL lose your games if you save all your energy for 4 MULE drops at once.

[AKIRA]

Not only that, but when you create new larva w/ the queen you can build them into ANYTHING. You can still only build one unit at a time with chrono boost, you can still only see one spot at a time, mules are nice but you can always make permanent drones quicker than the CC can make mules and you can always make them into overlords (which isn't an instant & free supply but still, they want each race to be unique).

Not to mention they allow you to expand your creep w/o having to use a hatchery - which is better imo than creep colonies as you no longer have to waste a unit on them.

The queen is, if anything, a little overpowered as all of the increased larva can be made into anything, and once you chrono boost something you're stuck with that specific building, and it rarely lasts even the entire length of the build. Terrans have a get out of cloaked unit jail for free but I'd rather have the ability to heal, spawn more larva and expand my area to build.

[Warpspeedten]

I agree its too easy to spam Spawn right now, but I don't think that the ability itself is a bad thing. Zerg really shouldn't have to build a second hatchery just to keep up with the other races production. Maybe spawn should have a higher mana cost or they should make spreading creep actually matter.

[Perq]

I play zerg and as I've said in countless threads. I love the queens as they are now. It's fine,.

[Sonofsamus]

You do realize after laying down one tumor it can clone/leapfrog itself all over spreading your detection?

Transfusion essentially lets the zerg repair their buildings on top of their natural regen.

How can you complain about larva spawning? One queen per hatchery et al and you're even more swarm then you were before.

[Horizon]

Ok so forget to mule? NP call down 2! But wait you may need scans... or supply in a pinch... GREAT design


Hey my mineral line got wiped out i need to speed up probe creatiron! OH wait i need military units! Ohw ait I need a fast carrier... Protos macro ability? GrEAT DESIGN

Zerg? Puke every 40 seconds.. do it or you lose... also you dont do anything else ever because you only have enough for larvae and the other abiltieis dont do junk

I agree, Spawn Larva is the epiphany of bad game design.

Whereas Chrono Boost requires choice on what building to use it on, whether its for more probes, to speed up your army production, or research time, and MULE requires a tradeoff between Comsat Scan, Spawn Larva requires no player choice, and allows for no player choice. You simply must use it every time you can.

It's a test to see whether you can remember to use the spell every minute or whatever which is just bad design, while the other macro mechanics tests whether the player makes an intelligent choice which is far interesting from a gameplay point of view.

[Joneleth]

The Queen is great. I love the Queen. It is and does what an insectoid "queen" should be. I want to mate with the Queen for life.

[Sodamuffin]

I agree, Spawn Larva is the epiphany of bad game design.

Whereas Chrono Boost requires choice on what building to use it on, whether its for more probes, to speed up your army production, or research time, and MULE requires a tradeoff between Comsat Scan, Spawn Larva requires no player choice, and allows for no player choice. You simply must use it every time you can.

It's a test to see whether you can remember to use the spell every minute or whatever which is just bad design, while the other macro mechanics tests whether the player makes an intelligent choice which is far interesting from a gameplay point of view.

Marry me.

[Talbs]

the queen is fine ability/power wise, i just think the larva should be autocast on nearby hatchery close to queen

also i dont like chrono boost. i ONLY used chrono boost on probes and NEVER "stopped" building probes until i reached 30 probes and i used chrono boost every 25 energy

i watched the replay. my enemy forgot to build scv's for about 20 seconds and still when i reached 30 probes my enemy had 27 scvs. even with my constant nonstop chrono boosts on my nexus and i didnt waste my boosts either i waited for right for my boost to end before i started another


chrono boost is very weak. 1 mule gives 250 bonus minerals per cast because the mule does not interrupt scv production

[Frozen]

Ok so forget to mule? NP call down 2! But wait you may need scans... or supply in a pinch... GREAT design


Hey my mineral line got wiped out i need to speed up probe creatiron! OH wait i need military units! Ohw ait I need a fast carrier... Protos macro ability? GrEAT DESIGN

Zerg? Puke every 40 seconds.. do it or you lose... also you dont do anything else ever because you only have enough for larvae and the other abiltieis dont do junk


I think Zerg have the best ability. for terran to produce more military, they have to build more military buildings. same for protoss. and you can keep chrono boost up constantly on only 1 thing per nexus. so that's +50% build speed for 1 unit at a time. Queen produces military faster than either race.

But who am I to argue with the 43rd place silver league player?

[Omniance]

The Queen is amazingly poor design. You need a Queen at each Hatchery to maximize it's Larva generation, which means that each Hatchery basically gives -1 food because the Queen eats up two food, and you need one for almost every Hatchery just to keep up with the other races because of MULEs, Chronoboost, and Reactors. This also effectively increases the cost of each Hatchery by 150 minerals, though this may be a bit moot, as Zerg does not need to build as many soldier training structures as the other races with her around. Her abilities are also quite mundane, even Spawn Larva, despite how good it is.

Spawn Creep Tumor
Only ever used if she has somehow gained extra energy. Which only happens if you're not paying attention and maximizing Larva output with Spawn Larva. The Tumor itself is rather useless as you can just use an Overlord to Generate creep wherever you want on an entire map without needing creep to be there beforehand, and without having to chain tumors every few seconds.

Spawn Larva
Must be used whenever it is up to stay in the game. Falling behind on this ability can mean certain death in some situations as you will not have enough Larva to create sufficient workers, soldiers, or Overlords to keep up with the other two races.

Transfusion
Useless.The Queen never has enough energy to cast this, and when/if she does (which means you're doing something wrong in most cases as you have a Queen that's somehow sitting there with 50+ energy,) she can't even use it on herself (some defensive unit,) and even if she could cast it on herself, it wouldn't even heal her fully in some cases. Whatever she does cast it on is likely to die regardless, as she's only going to be able to cast it once before you have to pull her away and make sure she's back in the Kitchen spawning more Larva. I've only ever used this ability three times. Once to see how well it worked, and two other times when I've burrowed the Queens at expansions I've lost, which meant they had extra energy left over.

The Queen also has pitifully low HP for how much she costs, and (although I haven't done the math here, so I could be wrong,) it seems like two Zerglings are able to deal damage as fast, or faster than her to ground.

[Soli]

The basic design is fine - tumors and transfusion both just need a small boost. Transfusion is invaluable for beating back rushes or for straight teching builds that rely on sunkens early game, etc., but you're right that it's too rarely useful to be worth saving energy for given how important spawning more larvae is.

Give tumors some minor defensive ability or something to make them more appealing, maybe find a way to boost Transfusion a bit, and slightly increase the base spawning rate of larvae while slightly nerfing the larvae spawning ability so the total production rate if the skill is constantly used remains unchanged, but it's less absolutely necessary at all times to keep unit production up.

That said, changing such an important unit and/or key race mechanics just because some people are annoyed by Queens is a tad dramatic, given that Zerg seem well balanced at least on a macro level now (they have pretty even win/loss and resource collection numbers despite having the most radically unique economy / macro mechanic.

As a parting thought, if requiring basic micro like spamming an ability once per minute to keep your efficiency up seems like terrible game design to you, Starcraft probably isn't your ideal game to begin with. This genre has ALWAYS rewarded micro 'busywork' to some extent, and remembering to keep your econ buildings running smoothly IS a relevant game skill. If you don't see how going back to base for even a single second to recast the larvae skill can be a meaningful game decision if, say, you're in the middle of combat, or trying to run a 4 expo economy and keep units and upgrades pumping out consistently across 8 different buildings, then I'm guessing the whole 'time management' aspect of this game has gone right over your head.

[Sentrysteve]

I think the queen would become a lot more strategical if the energy for the heal was brought down drastically.

Off the top of my head I believe it restores 150 hp for 50 energy. I'd rather see 80 hp for 20 energy. This would allow players with crazy micro to try to have a queen in a battle throwing out heals. Keep in mind the queen would still be as slow as hell when not on creep (thereby encouraging the use of creep tumor, making it more useful) and the heal would still have the 10 second cooldown (I believe it has that) although at the rate units die in SC2 I wouldn't mind seeing it reduced.

[Omniance]

The basic design is fine - tumors and transfusion both just need a small boost. Transfusion is invaluable for beating back rushes or for straight teching builds that rely on sunkens early game, etc., but you're right that it's too rarely useful to be worth saving energy for given how important spawning more larvae is.

Give tumors some minor defensive ability or something to make them more appealing, maybe find a way to boost Transfusion a bit, and slightly increase the base spawning rate of larvae while slightly nerfing the larvae spawning ability so the total production rate if the skill is constantly used remains unchanged, but it's less absolutely necessary at all times to keep unit production up.

That said, changing such an important unit and/or key race mechanics just because some people are annoyed by Queens is a tad dramatic, given that Zerg seem well balanced at least on a macro level now (they have pretty even win/loss and resource collection numbers despite having the most radically unique economy / macro mechanic.

As a parting thought, if requiring basic micro like spamming an ability once per minute to keep your efficiency up seems like terrible game design to you, Starcraft probably isn't your ideal game to begin with. This genre has ALWAYS rewarded micro 'busywork' to some extent, and remembering to keep your econ buildings running smoothly IS a relevant game skill. If you don't see how going back to base for even a single second to recast the larvae skill can be a meaningful game decision if, say, you're in the middle of combat, or trying to run a 4 expo economy and keep units and upgrades pumping out consistently across 8 different buildings, then I'm guessing the whole 'time management' aspect of this game has gone right over your head.

It might be alright if the ability was actually used once per minute, but it's not. It must be used every forty seconds for each Hatchery. In mid-to-late game this can be as many as 3-4 Queens having to use this ability. That means you're going to have to use it at least once every ten to thirteen or fourteen seconds just to ensure that you're keeping pace with your opponent(s). No other race has to do anything this tedious with Micro/Macro when it comes to increasing production efficiency. Especially since you can just select and hotkey multiple structures of the same type and build units without ever having to actually look back at your base. Zerg cannot do this. They must hit backspace, and cast Spawn Larva on each individual Hatchery, every 40 seconds, through out the duration of the game.

At no point do you have to use a MULE to stay with the other Races (unless of course you've fallen behind due to an attack,) though it does certainly help you get ahead, in fact, saving an extra 50 energy for a Com Scan is usually a good idea to help mid-combat against cloaked and burrowed units over the course of any given match.

Chrono Boost is an open-ended ability, allowing you to increase the production time of whatever you need at the moment. Probes, Zealots, Immortals, Weapons Upgrades, Blink -Whatever.

Because of the reasons I've presented, I believe that the Queen is of poor design choice, and hurts the game more than helps it. My suggestion would be to change her drastically and give her more intuitive abilities which require more intelligent choices and less tedious and useless ones that you're required to use every 40 seconds. I'll toss out a few examples that I think would make her a much more interesting unit.

Metabolic Synchronization
This Queen is biologically tuned to the structure that produced her, increasing the generation of Larva by 1 every 10 seconds, and increasing the number of Larva the structure can sustain at any one time to 15. The Queen must remain near the structure that she's synced with for this ability to remain in effect.

Resychronization - 100 Energy
Syncs the Queen to the target Hatchery, Lair, or Hive. Allowing it to gain the benefits of her Metabolic Synchronization. Only one Queen may be synced to a structure at a time.

Demutation - 25 Energy
The queen destroys a targeted Zerg unit you control, using it's biological remains to instantly generate a single Larva and restoring half of the unit's production costs.

Transfusion - 75 Energy
The Queen instantly restores 175 hit points to the targeted biological unit or structure. If cast on the structure synced with the Queen, it will restore 20% of it's life instead (250 to a Hatchery, 360 to a Lair, and 500 to a Hive,). Requires a Lair.

Consume
Consumes a target Zerg unit under your control, instantly giving the Queen 50 energy. Requires a Hive.

I also suggest that the Queen be allowed to move while burrowed to give her more survivability in the mid-to-late game. It's not as if she'll be leaving the creep to sneak into another person's base anyway.

[Tierdal]

Wrong. You can't spam Boost unless you use it on a bunch of different buildings, which is dumb.

MULE is the ONLY one you can spam, and even then, Resources are exponential. The sooner you get them, the better, you WILL lose your games if you save all your energy for 4 MULE drops at once.

Right... cuz toss only get one production building ever...

[Tierdal]

You do realize after laying down one tumor it can clone/leapfrog itself all over spreading your detection?

Transfusion essentially lets the zerg repair their buildings on top of their natural regen.

How can you complain about larva spawning? One queen per hatchery et al and you're even more swarm then you were before.
The abiltiies are AWESOEM
The design of FORCING YOU TO CLICK QUEEN every 40 seconds... is terrible


There is also little choice

You spawn larva, over anything, in any circumstance

[Eloderung]

I agree, Spawn Larva is the epiphany of bad game design.

Whereas Chrono Boost requires choice on what building to use it on, whether its for more probes, to speed up your army production, or research time, and MULE requires a tradeoff between Comsat Scan, Spawn Larva requires no player choice, and allows for no player choice. You simply must use it every time you can.

It's a test to see whether you can remember to use the spell every minute or whatever which is just bad design, while the other macro mechanics tests whether the player makes an intelligent choice which is far interesting from a gameplay point of view.

Agreed. Larva Spawn is the worst of the macro mechanics.

Larva Spawn requires that you use this ability without question every 40s, except one creep tumor early on. Chrono Boost and Orbital Command can reserve energy to use as needed. For example, a Nexus can handle four Chrono Boosts at full charge, and it's not a bad idea to reserve a charge for something like an emergency observer replacement or fast counter to X new unit your opponent builds. Good terran players will never allow their Orbital Command to run dry for obvious reasons, and emergency supply / Comsat / MULEs are all helpful.

It needs to be changed somehow, preferably to make it more of a choice and less of a "Keep this up always!". Although zerg NEED the larva spawn every 40s, so hopefully it's a creative solution.

[Fohobogah]

I don't think spawn Larva is any different then chrono boost.

Chrono boost does : Allows you to build form one building fast for a certain amount of time. Results are an increase in unit production, be it military or economic units.

Spawn larva does: Increase the number of larva an hatchery will spawn in 40 sec. Result: Increase in production. Be it military or economic units.

And really, you cannot judge the queen for that ability only. Healing and tumors are Great assets! You also have to chose between one queen that do all your hives and do nothing else, or many queens that do one hive each and move around to heal/spawn tumors.

[Zlefin]

I concur that larva feels suboptimal as a macro mechanic. If anything, I feel that queens are overpowered. For 150 gold, you get a mobile base defense unit, that's already fairly decent compared to a spore colony, since it's mobile; it can provide a little extra ranged oomph for taking down base harassers, especially reapers. It ups your production, and has 2 other decent abilities. Creep tumors are a superb scouting tool, it's a self-replicating burrowed ling that lets your units move fastser. Heal is a heal, after awhile your queens get enoguh mana to use it; healing a single defensive building, or queens healing each other, really helps a defense last longer.

[Jwray]

Hey guys, I have a great idea for an ability for every unit that will work just like the queen.

Activate OPness - 10 second duration, 10 second cooldown -- increases the damage of this unit by 100%.

You'd better be spam activating it on all of your units for the whole game, or else you lose!

[Jwray]

I think the queen would become a lot more strategical if the energy for the heal was brought down drastically.

The heal is not bad at 50 energy for 150 health - medivacs only supply 3 health per energy and they cost more / reqire more tech. The problem is that spamming the spawn larva ability is absolutely required to maintain a halfway decent rate of production without a 3rd or 4th hatchery.

[Booname]

The heal is not bad at 50 energy for 150 health - medivacs only supply 3 health per energy and they cost more / reqire more tech. The problem is that spamming the spawn larva ability is absolutely required to maintain a halfway decent rate of production without a 3rd or 4th hatchery.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here. Maybe that's the intention: zerg is supposed to build those extra hatcheries to replace the queen(s) as their larva spawning/macro mechanism. A hatchery = 2 queens in cost, but save a whole lot of headache

I mean, if you have the resources to continuously need all the extra larva, can you not afford the extra hatcheries?

[Shodan]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here. Maybe that's the intention: zerg is supposed to build those extra hatcheries to replace the queen(s) as their larva spawning/macro mechanism. A hatchery = 2 queens in cost, but save a whole lot of headache

I mean, if you have the resources to continuously need all the extra larva, can you not afford the extra hatcheries?



but those extra hatcheries can be more effective with more queens spamming every 40 seconds!!

[Vexorian]

Hmnn, just an imho following: Aren't chrono boost and spawn larva equally bad (or good) in terms of game design? I do not think there is a trade off at all with using them, they are both basically mandatory. Whereas you can say that chrono boost is not as linear because you need to pick what to boost. Spawn larva isn't that linear either, you get to choose what to use the extra larva on. Either way it is probably best to keep using these skills continuously without any trade off.

Terran are imho doing better here, both MULE and sweep are extremely useful and using a MULE can render you vulnerable to cloaking or reduce your scouting chances, but not using the MULE will delay your economy,,,

[Disastorm]

The Queen is amazingly poor design. You need a Queen at each Hatchery to maximize it's Larva generation, which means that each Hatchery basically gives -1 food because the Queen eats up two food,

pretty sure hatchery gives 2 food so 2-2 = 0.

[Specter]

Metabolic Synchronization
This Queen is biologically tuned to the structure that produced her, increasing the generation of Larva by 1 every 10 seconds, and increasing the number of Larva the structure can sustain at any one time to 15. The Queen must remain near the structure that she's synced with for this ability to remain in effect.


I really like this ability, thought it might be better as 1 larva every 15 seconds so it isn't more powerful then the current ability. THIS is the kind of thing that would make the game a lot more fun to me, especially if the queen had other abilities that had to be used strategically.

Resychronization - 100 Energy
Syncs the Queen to the target Hatchery, Lair, or Hive. Allowing it to gain the benefits of her Metabolic Synchronization. Only one Queen may be synced to a structure at a time.

Demutation - 25 Energy
The queen destroys a targeted Zerg unit you control, using it's biological remains to instantly generate a single Larva and restoring half of the unit's production costs.

Transfusion - 75 Energy
The Queen instantly restores 175 hit points to the targeted biological unit or structure. If cast on the structure synced with the Queen, it will restore 20% of it's life instead (250 to a Hatchery, 360 to a Lair, and 500 to a Hive,). Requires a Lair.

Consume
Consumes a target Zerg unit under your control, instantly giving the Queen 50 energy. Requires a Hive.

I also suggest that the Queen be allowed to move while burrowed to give her more survivability in the mid-to-late game. It's not as if she'll be leaving the creep to sneak into another person's base anyway.

I like the other abilities too however I think they should be more like this...

Metabolic Synchronization
This Queen is biologically tuned to the structure that produced her, increasing the generation of Larva by 1 every 20 seconds, and increasing the number of Larva the structure can sustain at any one time to 9. The Queen must remain on creep that is connected to the structure that she's synced with for this ability to remain in effect.

Spawn Creep Tumor
Same as it is now.

Evolution Boost
75 energy. Target building builds 100% faster for 5 seconds

Transfusion
50 energy. Heal all units or buildings in a small radius for 100 health.


I feel like this will make players either send their queen with their units to help them out and help build new expansions or stay at the base and help it grow. Additionally, if the zerg player invests a lot of time into expanding their creep network, he/she could eventually have their queen fight in the front lines while still getting the larva spawning bonus.

[Darthjiggles]

Guess what OP, If a protoss is not constantly chrono boosting he falls behind and will lose. It doesn't matter what form the macro mechanic comes in, if you aren't using it you will fall behind. QQing because you have to do something to keep up is like saying "if you don't build any combat units you cant win!", its really a "well duh" situation. I find chrono boost incredibly boring just as you find inject larva incredibly boring. Building a unit? Chrono boost, Researching? Chrono boost, Warp gate cooling down? Chrono boost...do you see where I'm going with this?

I would like zerg/toss to be more like terran macro but it wont be happening.

[Omniance]

I like the other abilities too however I think they should be more like this...

Metabolic Synchronization
This Queen is biologically tuned to the structure that produced her, increasing the generation of Larva by 1 every 20 seconds, and increasing the number of Larva the structure can sustain at any one time to 9. The Queen must remain on creep that is connected to the structure that she's synced with for this ability to remain in effect.

Spawn Creep Tumor
Same as it is now.

Evolution Boost
75 energy. Target building builds 100% faster for 5 seconds

Transfusion
50 energy. Heal all units or buildings in a small radius for 100 health.


I feel like this will make players either send their queen with their units to help them out and help build new expansions or stay at the base and help it grow. Additionally, if the zerg player invests a lot of time into expanding their creep network, he/she could eventually have their queen fight in the front lines while still getting the larva spawning bonus.

The problem is that the rate of Larva essentially has to be the same to keep up with other races. An extra Larva every 10 seconds is the same as four every 40 seconds, the only difference is that you won't be getting them in bulk to build a sudden surge of units. The current maximum number of Larva a Hatchery can have is 19, so I thought 15 would be a good max.

Evolution Boost is too similar to Chrono Boost unfortunately, and Blizzard really wants to create unique abilities for each race, and Transfusion having and AoE attached to it would likely be over powered.

Guess what OP, If a protoss is not constantly chrono boosting he falls behind and will lose. It doesn't matter what form the macro mechanic comes in, if you aren't using it you will fall behind. QQing because you have to do something to keep up is like saying "if you don't build any combat units you cant win!", its really a "well duh" situation. I find chrono boost incredibly boring just as you find inject larva incredibly boring. Building a unit? Chrono boost, Researching? Chrono boost, Warp gate cooling down? Chrono boost...do you see where I'm going with this?

I would like zerg/toss to be more like terran macro but it wont be happening.

Having to spam Spawn Larva every 40 seconds is not like not building units, and it's not like using Chrono Boost. Chrono Boost is an open ended ability that can be used to more quickly create or upgrade whatever is need, and if you've forgotten to use it, you can hit up multiple buildings to make up for lost time. You cannot do this with Spawn Larva.

[Joneleth]

Redesign..?

How about making the Queen replace Hatcheries? As a unti/structure hybrid in the shape of giant arachnid, able to uproot and walk about, and with native Sunken and Spore Colony-like offensive attacks..

but that might be too similar to the Terran Command Center so

[Jwray]

There should be multiple viable options about how to use a queen's energy. If it's just "remember to press this button exactly every 40 seconds or you lose" that's just bad game design and cluttered/tedious macro. WTB zero clutter maps.

[Mindless]

check out my idea see what you think.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23767637444&sid=5000

[Omniance]

check out my idea see what you think.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23767637444&sid=5000

I don't think Blizzard wants the Queen to be mobile, so there's a problem with her having a Larva trail behind her. On top of that, the Queen needs to provide some kind of Larva production boost akin to the one she does now, so that Zerg will be able to keep up with Reactor from Terran and Chrono Boosted production from Protoss.

If the Queen was allowed to be more mobile, like you suggest, they'd likely have to change her role entirely, forcing her to become some kind of battle support unit, and causing her to be pushed back from early Tier 1 to mid to Tier 2 because they wouldn't want people to rush with her in the early game.

[Specter]

The problem is that the rate of Larva essentially has to be the same to keep up with other races. An extra Larva every 10 seconds is the same as four every 40 seconds, the only difference is that you won't be getting them in bulk to build a sudden surge of units. The current maximum number of Larva a Hatchery can have is 19, so I thought 15 would be a good max.

The reason I set it at 20 is because I thought the 1 every 10 seconds would be too powerful since you would be getting the same effect as the larva spawn now but you would get them faster. Maybe 1 every 15 seconds?

Evolution Boost is too similar to Chrono Boost unfortunately, and Blizzard really wants to create unique abilities for each race, and Transfusion having and AoE attached to it would likely be over powered.

I was thinking of that when I made evolution boost so I made it make buildings build faster, something that chrono boost cannot do. As for the heal, yeahs it OP. Maybe 50 hp or smtin?

[Eloderung]

All they need to do with the queen is make sure that A) You don't need to spam Spawn Larva every 40s (if you wait 50s, you waste larva, because the larva stack up).

The function of Spawn Larva is fine, just like the function of Chrono Boost is fine.

With Chrono Boost, if you wait until you have 35 energy instead of 25 energy to Boost, you don't lose anything. If you want until 90 energy instead of 25 energy, you lose nothing. With Orbital Command, you don't lose anything until you wait until 200 energy. With Spawn Larva, you lose Larva the *moment* you take longer than 40 seconds to cast the ability. That's the problem with it.

[Mindless]

I don't think Blizzard wants the Queen to be mobile, so there's a problem with her having a Larva trail behind her. On top of that, the Queen needs to provide some kind of Larva production boost akin to the one she does now, so that Zerg will be able to keep up with Reactor from Terran and Chrono Boosted production from Protoss.

If the Queen was allowed to be more mobile, like you suggest, they'd likely have to change her role entirely, forcing her to become some kind of battle support unit, and causing her to be pushed back from early Tier 1 to mid to Tier 2 because they wouldn't want people to rush with her in the early game.

Her heal takes up too much energy to be used as a good supporter, and her ground attack is weak. And producing a larva is + production, not only do u not have to wait for larva to spawn like her ability does but you can also maker her larva automaticly spawn back once unit is made or have a timer on it and adjust it to what is felt to be balanced. Also a terran player needs a refinery and expansion to make a reactor which costs +125 minerals which can get you a 2nd barracks almost. so its not like they can do a fast rush with it. Also the crono boost and mule has been changed as well. So Queen is still something you want to keep at base for faster workers but you do have the option to go out and pull some cool tatics with her. Right now the tactics are limited out side base as she is now.

[Excrement]

A little hint. You can use the mini-map to spawn larva, just be close to where your hatch is and it works.

Also for all you non Zerg players, if there are more than 4 larva on the ground the hatchery will not spawn anymore, so the queen is kind of a double edged sword.

I also find after early game 1 queen can support up to 2-3 hatches' depending on distance and usage.

Here is another tip number your queen, hold shift R, click mini-map on hatch 1, R click mini-map second hatch, release shift, and boom larva on two hatches without even having to go to your base.

The real problem is without the queen Zerg just can't keep up with unit production as the hatch does not spawn larva fast enough in the early game.

If I do not build a queen I am dead to anyone one does, or anyone who decides to zealot or MM rush me.

She is also good for killing an early overload scout. That sucks losing an overlord that early.

[Omniance]

The reason I set it at 20 is because I thought the 1 every 10 seconds would be too powerful since you would be getting the same effect as the larva spawn now but you would get them faster. Maybe 1 every 15 seconds?

I was thinking of that when I made evolution boost so I made it make buildings build faster, something that chrono boost cannot do. As for the heal, yeahs it OP. Maybe 50 hp or smtin?


Well I set it at 1 every ten seconds because that's really about how much it gives now, (4 Larva every forty seconds,) though I could see that being nerfed to 1 Larva every eleven to twelve seconds.

The problem with an AoE heal in Starcraft is, there's so many units on the field, especially with Zerg, that it's going to really turn the tide of battle regardless of how much it heals. Even if it was 25, if you pulled back a group of Speedlings into your base and hit it, all of them would be healed back to full, and it's likely that your opponent would be inevitably pushed back, as you would essentially be instantly increasing the number of units in your army by a large margin.



Her heal takes up too much energy to be used as a good supporter, and her ground attack is weak. And producing a larva is + production, not only do u not have to wait for larva to spawn like her ability does but you can also maker her larva automaticly spawn back once unit is made or have a timer on it and adjust it to what is felt to be balanced. Also a terran player needs a refinery and expansion to make a reactor which costs +125 minerals which can get you a 2nd barracks almost. so its not like they can do a fast rush with it. Also the crono boost and mule has been changed as well. So Queen is still something you want to keep at base for faster workers but you do have the option to go out and pull some cool tatics with her. Right now the tactics are limited out side base as she is now.

Well I'm entirely sure that they want to keep her a defensive/support unit and not a field support unit. If you looked at the suggestions I made earlier in the thread, I believe something like that might be more appropriate for a defensive unit like the Queen. I don't think Blizzard really wants her out and about in the midst of combat, because that would essentially just make her another unit. In real life Queens rarely leave their Hives once they're established, and I think that's the direction Blizzard is trying to go with the Queen in SC2.

Also, her creating a single Larva at a time would actually provide less Larva in the long run than she does currently. Right now she provides the player with 4 Larva every 40 seconds. This means she's providing a medium of 1 Larva per 10 seconds. If she only produced a single Larva at a time, and only produced it when she is not mutating a new unit, it would mean that she would provide much less flexibility than she does now as she would have to wait upwards of 20 seconds to produce another Larva, as (unless I'm mistaken,) the Drone is the fastest building unit, and it takes 20 seconds before it is finished.

[Mindless]

Well I'm entirely sure that they want to keep her a defensive/support unit and not a field support unit. If you looked at the suggestions I made earlier in the thread, I believe something like that might be more appropriate for a defensive unit like the Queen. I don't think Blizzard really wants her out and about in the midst of combat, because that would essentially just make her another unit. In real life Queens rarely leave their Hives once they're established, and I think that's the direction Blizzard is trying to go with the Queen in SC2.

Also, her creating a single Larva at a time would actually provide less Larva in the long run than she does currently. Right now she provides the player with 4 Larva every 40 seconds. This means she's providing a medium of 1 Larva per 10 seconds. If she only produced a single Larva at a time, and only produced it when she is not mutating a new unit, it would mean that she would provide much less flexibility than she does now as she would have to wait upwards of 20 seconds to produce another Larva, as (unless I'm mistaken,) the Drone is the fastest building unit, and it takes 20 seconds before it is finished.

Well if you saying Blizzard is forcing us to use a certain unit in a certain way like having to keep her near base then that is kinda stupid. With my suggestion it still makes sense to keep her at base since she is too slow when not on creep and too valuable to let her die. But With my suggestion she can still be of use not in base, maybe not a lot of use, but more then it is now, allowing for more options.

And you say the queen now makes 4 larva every 40 seconds? That would = the same if you had 2 queens making 2 units every 20 seconds. So she can produce fairly fast still. But how fast she can spawn larva is not decided that will have to be tweaked for balance. Also she will use tumors and heal more since she cant use energy for larva. So I think it all balances out. And with my suggestions crono boost will not speed up unit production so they have no need to worry about keeping up with that.

[Omniance]

Well if you saying Blizzard is forcing us to use a certain unit in a certain way like having to keep her near base then that is kinda stupid. With my suggestion it still makes sense to keep her at base since she is too slow when not on creep and too valuable to let her die. But With my suggestion she can still be of use not in base, maybe not a lot of use, but more then it is now, allowing for more options.

And you say the queen now makes 4 larva every 40 seconds? That would = the same if you had 2 queens making 2 units every 20 seconds. So she can produce fairly fast still. But how fast she can spawn larva is not decided that will have to be tweaked for balance. Also she will use tumors and heal more since she cant use energy for larva. So I think it all balances out. And with my suggestions crono boost will not speed up unit production so they have no need to worry about keeping up with that.

Like I said, Blizzard probably doesn't want the Queen to be like a normal field unit. From the way she's been explained, designed, and presented both in-game by her tooltip, and out of game by Blizzard employees, it's likely that she's supposed to stay in your base and provide your base with support.

Also, if you have two Queens (which is more than the price of a Hatchery because they'll be eating up four food combined,) and they were to produce 2 Larva every 20 seconds that would still be less than two Queens using spawn Larva on two Hatcheries. This, combined with that fact that she would have to be pushed back a Tier as she'd be more mobile and offensive than she is now, would make Zerg incredibly slow at producing units in the early game and would also eliminate the slight defensive ability that they have now, which is something they already lack.

[Mindless]

Like I said, Blizzard probably doesn't want the Queen to be like a normal field unit. From the way she's been explained, designed, and presented both in-game by her tooltip, and out of game by Blizzard employees, it's likely that she's supposed to stay in your base and provide your base with support.

Also, if you have two Queens (which is more than the price of a Hatchery because they'll be eating up four food combined,) and they were to produce 2 Larva every 20 seconds that would still be less than two Queens using spawn Larva on two Hatcheries. This, combined with that fact that she would have to be pushed back a Tier as she'd be more mobile and offensive than she is now, would make Zerg incredibly slow at producing units in the early game and would also eliminate the slight defensive ability that they have now, which is something they already lack.

Then they need to redesign her. Making a unit a must have and can not win without, means there is all ready a flaw in that unit. Protoss have to build 3 gateways that = 450 minerals that build 3 units at a time, and Zerg having to build a hatchery for 350minerals that gives supply and can build 3 units at a time I see not so much unbalance if you want faster production be like SC1 and build another hatchery. And i offering a unit like queen 150minerals to be like a gateway and produce a unit but can move and heal ect. So I do not see much difference for balance wise. And a simple fix to making larva spawn on hatchery a millisecond faster or so is not too hard if people find it not supplying fast enough.


But thx for challenging my idea. You do bring up some decent points, But I feel like I have some equal points as well. So I don't no if we will get anywhere with this lol. But if you wish to continue I will listen and here you out. I just want to help improve the game so I want my suggestions to be challenged so I can move on to finding better ones.

[Thezizz]

In free-for-alls where expansions are the name of the game, the Queen management just gets ridiculous for my tastes. Same with the abundant Nexus energy to a lesser extent, but at least with hotkeys you don't have to move your camera back to each individual base, and you can quickly expend multiple Chrono Boosts.

I'd recommend doubling effectiveness and cost for one or both of these, or else change Spawn Larva to automatically target the nearest Hatchery.

[Omniance]

In free-for-alls where expansions are the name of the game, the Queen management just gets ridiculous for my tastes. Same with the abundant Nexus energy to a lesser extent, but at least with hotkeys you don't have to move your camera back to each individual base, and you can quickly expend multiple Chrono Boosts.

I'd recommend doubling effectiveness and cost for one or both of these, or else change Spawn Larva to automatically target the nearest Hatchery.

An auto-casting A.I. for Spawn Larva wouldn't really fix the problem, as the Queen would still be out of energy the entire game, disallowing her from casting anything else, which is what one of the problems is, in addition to the tedious Macro required for her to be used effectively.

[Endymon]

What the spawn larva should be, is a quick boost in emergencies when you need extra troops now, and cannot wait.
So, what it needs is a tradeoff, something more than the energy cost, or heck they could remove the energy cost in this case.
Make it take X% of the target hatchery/lair/hive's hp to spawn the larva. That way, you COULD use it when you need that extra boost in production, but you wouldn't want to spam it non stop, because then your hatcheries would have their hp reduced so low they could be easily sniped in a few hits.
If this requires rebalancing of larva spawn rates, or hatchery cost or whatever, then thats fine. Tedius macro mechanics are no fun.

As others have pointed out, chrono boost suffers much of the same problem as there is no real choice in using the mechanic. The nexus either needs a secondary spell to cast, or the chrono boost should be changed to not require tedium. Change it to be a "linking" of the building to another building. So chrono boost, lasts until canceled, defaults to the nexus itself, Can be retargeted at any time to any other unit or tech structure to grant haste to that structure.
See, suddenly its changed from a tedius mechanic, to something more fun.

[Thezizz]

An auto-casting A.I. for Spawn Larva wouldn't really fix the problem, as the Queen would still be out of energy the entire game, disallowing her from casting anything else, which is what one of the problems is, in addition to the tedious Macro required for her to be used effectively.

I don't mean auto-cast, I mean you click the button and the Queen does the rest since it's a pretty safe assumption that you want to target the nearest Hatchery/Lair/Hive.

I would be in favor of an overhaul though.

[Khalanil]

I don't mean auto-cast, I mean you click the button and the Queen does the rest since it's a pretty safe assumption that you want to target the nearest Hatchery/Lair/Hive.

I would be in favor of an overhaul though.

Or they could make the ability targetable onto the Queen itself, and make that cause the Queen to spawn larva a the closest hatchery. That way, you could place all of your queens into a single hotkey, and issue the order to spawn larva onto the wireframe of each individual queen every 40 seconds.

[Zodiac]

I agree with many of the thoughts here. I think the queen unit is fine as is and is a good unit and provides useful base defense/unit spawns/etc. However, it's strange that the mechanic parallel for terran and protoss are mule/comsat and chronoboost respectively which both require choices. It would be "ideal" if you had to make a decision with the queen as well -- if that never comes about that's understandable but the decision making adds further depth to the game.