I’m very excited for the next StarCraft 2 expansion. I think there are lots of things that can be done to make the game more alive, for example I suggested daily quests a while back. But now I want to address some thoughts on the economy change and the early game for Zerg.

At BlizzCon we got an interesting update about the resources in the game. They were reduced to 70 % of what they are in HotS. The idea behind it was to make players expand more and open up for more harassment. I really liked the idea but there were some problems. Since the bases got mined out fast there wasn’t a lot of bases to harass after all. It was also quite efficient for Terran players to move Command Centers around when a base was mined out.

December 17th Blizzard came with a new update. The change they are currently testing is letting half of the mineral patches be as they are in HotS (having 1500 minerals) and the other half only 750 minerals. I really like that idea. That way players will still be encouraged to expand more often but they will also want to keep their bases mining for a long time. That is more likely going to open up for more harassment and more action. This will also make players on a high level to work harder for their economy. You will have to look closer at when to move workers and you will have to put some extra thought into your economy as it will vary depending on if your bases are fully functional. I really like the changes to the economy, what do you think?

As a Zerg player I was a bit disappointed in the early game for Zerg (in ZvP and ZvT) when HotS came out. I always felt like Zerg was the most limited race in the early game and that the race didn’t have a lot of options. With the Mothership Core it was really hard to do anything but adapt to the Protoss the first 8-10 minutes of the game. Of course you could still 6-pool, proxy hatch or try to go for early speed but all the possibillities felt very risky. Protoss players however could choose to go for a quite fast 4-gate, just harass with a few early units and a Mothership Core, go early Stargate, DT’s or just macro and maybe even take a fast third base. I might be a bit biased but I think the possibilities for Zerg are a bit too limited. The same goes for ZvT. With the Siege Tanks not having to be upgraded and with the addition of Widow Mines it got quite hard to do a lot of different openings. There was and are basically two choices. Either you could go Roach – Ling – Baneling all in or you macro with either early speed or with a four queen opening.

Due to this I was hoping to see a new early game unit or other early harassment posibilities for Zerg in LotV. That, or some changes in the defence for Protoss and Terran. Not because I want to make the games shorter but because I want more possibillities. I think it makes the game more fun. How about making the Nydus Worm more useful in the early game? What if it didn’t require Lair and was a bit cheaper? What if Swarm Hosts were a lot worse but could be built with a Roach Warren only? That way they would be more interesting early on and useless in the late game. Or if we really wanted them in late game there could be an upgrade requiring Hive or something like that. Blizzard seems to like the idea of making upgrades more interesting. Earlier Overlord drops could also be fun. Maybe cutting the amount of supply in half without an additional upgrade and making Overlords able to drop with just Overlord speed upgraded.

As you can tell I want more action and more possibilities. I think it makes the game not only more fun to play but also more interesting to watch. It opens up for more creativity and more variations for both players and viewers.

Thoughts? 🙂