Change Worker mechanics

I was wondering about the effect of bringing more distinction the three races' worker. As of SC1 they are each virtually identical. So what if we change it so that:

You get two drones for 1 food, but each drone can only carry 4 min
SCV cost 1 food, can carry standard 8 min
Probe cost 2 food and can carry 16 min
Each will take 5 seconds to gather the minerals.

Each race can gather 16 minerals in 5 seconds with 2 supply of workers.

Of course you would adjust the HP/ATK for each for balance. Also depending on how Refineries work in SCII the simplest method for making this work would be.

Drones get 4 gas but take 1 second to gather gas
SCV carry 8 gas but take 2 seconds to gather gas
Probe carries 16 gas but takes 4 seconds to gather gas.

Each race can gather 16 gas in 4 seconds with 2 supply of workers.

This would make the workers fit their races better. And for the most part they would still still balanced but there would also be slight differences in game mechanics that would add more character to the game.

Drones would be vulnerable to splash but durable to direct attack due to their large numbers but low HP. SCV's would be average and Probes would be be more resistant to splash more vulnerable to direct attack due to low numbers, high HP.

This will also fit the three races building style.

You will have more drones than scv's/probes which is good because you have to sacrifice them to build. SCV's are normal. Probes will be fewer but thats okay because a single probe can build an entire base.

Expanding will be slightly different for each race as a single drone/scv/probe will be slightly different risks for each when sending to scout.

The more I think about this the more I think it will work great and be a good feature to SCII!

 

the teching for protoss would be very slow when probes take 4 seconds to gather gas, maybe all of them should take atleast 1 second to gather gas or maybe zergs could have the longest seconds of gathering gas since their cost of gases is low compared to terrans and protoss.

However i like your idea

 

I agree with Marine, zerg need less resources, so they should be the slowest, while protoss should be slightly faster

P.S.- I like that sig Marine

 

/\ Thanks i never really thought that you'd liked it

 

Actually, what I am intending is that min and gas gathering rates are still equal, just the mechanics are different
(I made a calc error with the min so I edited the OP)

So for minerals:

In 5 seconds with 2 supply of workers you get:
4 drones x 4 min = 16 min
2 SCV x 8 min = 16 min
1 Probe x 16 min = 16 min


For gas, in 4 seconds with 2 supply of workers you get:

4 drones (1 second each) x 4 gas = 16 gas
2 SCVs (2 seconds each) x 8 gas = 16 gas
1 Probe (4 seconds) x 16 gas = 16 gas

So you see that the overall gathering rate for equivalent supply cost is balanced, yet each race retains their unique differences.

 

its ok, i see no reason why not to put it into the game except that some wouldnt like it because it is not the same as SC1. but i really dont think 1 probe should cost 4 supply, when most of their warriors only cost 2 or 3 supply.

 

My mistake.
I meant drones will cost 0.5 supply, SCV cost 1 supply and probe cost 2 supply.

 

A Probe costing as much food as a zealot? Wouldn't upping the Probe's supply to 2 make it harder for Protoss since more supply would have to be diverted to Probes instead of their armies?

 

also just reading it again, and notice that you didnt adjust for the new minerals / gas per trip. right now in SC2 one trip gives you 5 Minerals or 6 gas. yellow minerals give you 8 minerals per trip.

and Baal is right a bit, tho matches usually dont require much beyond 150 food supply, and i fear that since all workers gather at the same speed, and that the minerals field is still limited to 1 worker to mine at a time, that the probes will gain an advantage because of their greater return rate, even if its at the cost of 2 food supply.

 

Why not just make them all cost 1 supply and keep the time and cargo differences? That sounds nice, although Protoss would develop even slower early game, so it might not be such a good idea after all.

 

nice idea there...
but maybe a too disadvantage and would make the game unbalanced..
though keep trying!

 

don't like it, makes zerg production lines too crowded and protoss must construct additional pylons too often

protoss would be able to get alot more out of a full production line.

 

No offense but I can hardly believe any of you really played Starcraft on Battle.net when I see the amount of stupid ideas and comments in this topic.

Modifying the amount of resources a worker could collect would badly change the balance of the game : if a drone for instance could only collect 4 minerals at a time, that would mean, correct me if I am wrong, that the Zerg players would need twice more available mineral slots at the beginning of the game, because, unless this feature has been removed in Starcraft 2, many workers cannot work together on a given slot. And the Protoss players wouldn't even need to build expansion buildings anymore if the probes would now be able to bring back twice more resources if the minerals are not too far. Even having different move or gathering speeds, or just 7 minerals brought back instead of the usual 8 for a given race would unbalance the game so much that nobody will play this race anymore.

I agree that workers are all alike, but workers in early games can definitely not be changed at all in my opinion: this would require so much balance tuning that Blizzard may need many patches just to fix that, and the community struggling with unbalanced games for months meanwhile. No thanks.

I agree that workers with few different features would bring some more originality into the game, I don't like either the fact that they are all alike. My suggestions would be that they have non-gathering related abilities at the beginning of the game, and maybe gathering related upgrades later, when everybody have started building an army or teching or expanding.

Few ideas:
_The probe can help a building regenerates its shield faster (a bit like a SCV can repair a terran building, this would drain its own Shield points though, or the probe could have some energy points, and the repair efficiency would be slower than the one of the SCV)
_The probe can teleport resources, and would work like a wisp gathering lumber in Warcraft, but this would be a tier3 upgrade, and the general gathering efficiency would be of course reduced.
_The drone can enjoy the melee attack upgrades
_Any small-sized zerg unit could morph into a building (tier 3 upgrade + additionnal cost for the building)
_The SCV could be able to repair protoss buildings (tier 2 upgrade, slower repair rate though)
_The SCV could have more HP, and have a kind of self-defense ranged attack (this would be a new worker unit, only available at tier3, a kind of equivalent of the Thor in the workers department)
_The probe could be able to give its resource pack to another probe, and this would enable them to perform a kind of chain gathering lol. Not sure if this would help though.
_The new dropship could be able to take onboard packs of resources, instead of units. This way they could help in gathering resources in far locations in late game. Tier 2 or 3 upgrade.
_The drone could be able to burrow the resources, like squirrels lol, or to use the nydus canal as "motorway" to quickly get back to the main building.
_The protoss could be able to convert gas into mineral (tier 3 building, not sure if this can be done without unbalancing too much the game)
_The SCV could be able to build some small building/device close to a mineral, enabling him to gather the resources more quickly. The device could not be moved then, be destructible as any other building, and would only be available from tier2.

Feel free to comment these suggestions.

Yeah, and since zerg need less resources, their units should be weaker, and since Protoss now have more resources, what about giving them more powerful again units?

Seriously. If you enjoy only unbalanced games, make your own mods when the editing tools will be available, and find some suckers online in order to prove you right.

 

Jissé, treat this topic as a fun suggestion in between information leaks, to pass time. Don't take it too seriously, especially because this thread is meant to propose ideas, not to deal with balance issues.

Some of your ideas are genuine and sound nice, while others would just overcomplicate the game.
1. I want the shield battery back with the ability to recharge units and buildings.
2. Interesting idea, but there'd need to be a limit on the distance over which it's teleported.
3. Drones spit, so if anything, they'd benefit from ranged attack upgrades. I don't see the point in this though.
4. Definitely no. The drone has a special DNA that enables it to "evolve" into large organs. Other units can only moderately alter their DNA, like the zergling, overlord, and the mutalisk.
5. I don't see the point in this, nor the lore behind it, so no.
6. I don't see the point in this.
7. This would only hinder the Protoss since you'd need a lot more probes to mine.
8. Interesting suggestion, but I can only see this happening if all 3 races get it.
9. Nydus canal use makes sense, burrowing minerals doesn't.
10. I don't think so. The rate would have to be so slow that it wouldn't be used in competitive play.
11. Resource gathering is already pretty fast so I don't see the point in this building.

Next time, please number your ideas for easy reference

 

the teleport idea would work, but only for the assimilator (freeing up probes for minerals)

 

I think it'd work better for minerals and have Zerg "teleport" gas from the extractor. It's an organ and should be able to send gas through the creep.

 

i decided to post this because it is about what the topic is., it was proposed by Archerofaiur on the official forums.

 

the person typed a lot, here is the last part.

 

My apologises for taking the thread too seriously, I understood the sections of this forum where people would basically be able to discuss anything anyhow was the lounge and the junkyard, and that the people who posted in this thread really mean what they wrote. I was interested by the topic, and by reading the title I was like "a good topic, at last I am not the only one who don't like those cloned workers!", but when I started reading the comments, I was like "omg those n###bs are just looking for some official hax&$*!!".

The problem is that in such game like Starcraft, that is to me between arcade and RTS, so the strategy and the "realism" are simplified so much that a unit with 1% of his/her/its HP can move as quickly as if it was 100%, the resources gathering part of the game mechanics is so simple that the smallest change can ruin the whole gameplay within a fingersnap, and as it is really hard nowadays to find a really good RTS (understand where you have good chances to win with different possible strategies), I just tried to mean "please, let Starcraft 2 alone, go play Warlords: Battlecry or some other sucky games if you want unbalanced mindless games!".

To be on topic, I agree that the workers could be more different, but doubt Blizzard will bother with this part: the workers are not sexy enough to make the players buy the game, while a lot of ones will buy it just to mass Thors or that big spaceship for the Protoss...

I like the tentacle idea from a roleplay point of view (yes it has to be, because that would be zergish), but don't like it from a gameplay point of view (ruin the game, and yes the warp idea is much more a protoss thing). I also agree that the zerg bases should be considered more like a whole living organism, with different organs but kind of shared things (as long as there is some creep between the related buildings).

 

i like the tentacle idea but not being able to be attacked would be imba (zerg worker lines already benifit from burrow), maybe when the hatchery is attacked the tentacles draw in? so when they raid they just attack the hatchery and the production stops untill the raid is over and you ungarrision the tentacles (no extra cost). Or just have it more expensive or slower gathering rates.

The warp out minerals for protoss i cans see working with probes stil actually mining the minerals but not having to return to base to drop them off.

Auto minings a basic concept (didn't blizzard put it in anyway?) but when compared to the other ideas proposed seems to simplify terran too much (alot of newbs seem to only use terran because they are fairly simple, easiest building etc)

And Jisse people discuss possibilities for starcraft 2 and share their ideas, please no "OMG, don't hax starcraft! starcraft is perfect! just make it 3d!"