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So I read this whole thread : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=213083 and one argument that was being said over and over again is how the pathfinding and the units general level if AI was very very bad and terrible and most importantly hard.
I`ve read this in many times also in other threads, but is it true?
I dont know, maybe it is not that way. Yeah, sometimes in some games you may loose a couple of dragoons who went the opposite direction of what you ordered, or a group of marines will die, because you orderder them to hold position, but they moved and died to lurkers, or a scarab wont blow for ever, or when it blows it wont kill a single scv, etc, etc, yes these things will happen occasionaly, but was it that important? was it that hard to avoid such things by taking a bit more intention to your army? Was the AI that dumb? I dont think so.
I admit, I was D noob and these things didnt affect me so much, maybe this was much more worse for the better players!
I wonder what you think about that? Was it that hard?
 
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No, it was bad. Bad bad bad. These things helped the player be more conscious of their army, but that doesn't mean that ai was good. Having stupid dragoons, or just stalled ones, was annoying as fuck!
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Its very hard, Dragoons are only one example but after following the BW pro scene for nearly 2 years I am still so impressed every time I see a protoss player moving large goon heavy armies all over the map as one fluid group. I believe that the ability to adapt to the difficult ai is one of the things that really separates good BW players from great ones.
Ill add that while it may not seem like a such a big deal to avoid dumb dragoons by giving the army a little extra attention but what is more impressive is that the pros are able to give that attention while keeping up with their macro and general multitasking.
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Getting good at making your units do what you want them to do is one of the pleasures of learning BW. It takes focus, and if you are flustered your army control will reflect that... It makes emotions very much a part of the game. It's always fun when things you do to frustrate your opponent manifest themselves in his army control...
I don't really know what you mean by hard. It's hard for both sides. It is one more thing a BW player has to master in order to become a great player. Even at the top tier, there are some players better than others at controlling particular units, and they become known for that. I think that adds personality to the game, and I love it.
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While it was quite bad, it means flanks are extremely powerful, and allows a good player to punish conga line movements. Also because units hardly clump, you can pick off straggling units with ranged units. Choke points also become super important in determining strategy, terrain plays a much larger role.
TL;DR >> more strategy and tactics
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When I engage in PvT, it looks completely differently than how stork does it, or how bisu does it, or best.
in sc2 its the same engagement over and over. Less personality. Legitimate argument.
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Croatia9509 Posts
As said already, it adds a layer of depth to the game and personality which you start to appreciate with time.
Sure it may seem hard, bad and frustrating at times, but it just takes time to master it. Is it really fair that a person who's been playing a game for 1 week can control his units the same way as someone who's been practicing for years?
And I definitely think it's blown out of the proportion at how bad it really is. People who got spoiled by SC2 mechanics feel like it's unrealistically impossible to play BW anymore or something. But we've been doing it for years and it grew to be a characteristic of BW which we would joke about and not really put much thought into it.
It's just the way it is, not hard, not bad..... just right.
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The biggest problem I had with pathfinding in scbw (besides Medusa - fuck that map) was really just retreating all my units up a ramp to defend a recall. Otherwise, I didn't have too many problems with path finding. I do miss the not-auto surround though and the way units behaved though. The sc2 community really overreacts on how "bad" it was.
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Definitely blown out of proportion. I never remember thinking wow I lost because my dragoons got stuck or something like that. And I was a pretty bad BW player too.
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On April 19 2011 02:22 Comeh wrote:
The biggest problem I had with pathfinding in scbw (besides Medusa - fuck that map) was really just retreating all my units up a ramp to defend a recall. Otherwise, I didn't have too many problems with path finding. I do miss the not-auto surround though and the way units behaved though. The sc2 community really overreacts on how "bad" it was.
Bad AI is the easiest thing to blame after map imba and race imba and luck.
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Not only do they have all the characteristics already mentioned above, but sometimes when you're microing units, you have to order them to move in certain directions in order to actually get them to move where you want them to. Like for the dragoon, you needed to tell it to move like down/left and then left at certain angles if you wanted them to move down a certain path, not just down/left. And other units as well.
These things don't show at lower BW levels like C and below, but once you get higher, these things matter. Knowing where to order your units so that they'll move in the path that you want them to is important to the higher level players.
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On April 19 2011 02:36 ieatkids5 wrote:
Like for the dragoon, you needed to tell it to move like down/left and then left at certain angles if you wanted them to move down a certain path, not just down/left. And other units as well.
Thats so cool. Didnt know it. I wonder what tricks the pros know to improve the pathfinding. Their armies always move so smooth.
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When I played SC and BW 98-02. I had no issues with being frustrated at the AI. I guess I just never really noticed it sucking. All I knew was build more workers and you could magically win games.  Now not so much.
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Once I stood at my ramp in a tvz, not near to the edges, because that way is it simplier to get down without too much unit clumpimg. Pressed hold postition, get back to buy scv and a depot, and speedlings came up massacred all 8 rines, without a single shot from them.
Also marines are the one of the dumbest units, they have a great range, but with attackmove, they use to move nearer instead of firing. That`s quite annoying when you micro against mutas, much harder vs 2h mutas (no range yet), lurkers.
Vultures tend to no attack at all (just like marines) while in hold position. Goliaths vs carriers hold pos. is an autoloss, they wont shoot nothing, only their targeted interceptor with a 2 shot/hour rate.
Play a blue storm tvp, tell your opponent to go carriers at some point, try to micro with goliaths, try to get back to clean a recall or two from the middle of the map. Enjoy the glitches.
When you`re trying to get down from a ramp untis go forward "crash" with another unit in front of them, changing direction backwards, going back till it crashes againt, and then trying again to get down. Or just moving a 5-6 hotkey army, it isnt just like 1a2a3a4a5a6a, u have to pamper all of your amy. I cant even tell how many tvp battles I lost because my 2 groups of tanks were just sieged 2km out of the front line.
I`t would take quite a long to write down all things.. "dragoon pls don`t shoot bug", "reaver march". etc.
BW pathfinding is one of the most dumbest of all games, and it makes BW one of the hardest games to play along with it other things of course.
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The fact that the AI is so hard makes early game all the more critical, less room for error.
I've had plenty of pvt's where one of my goons glitched out on me while fending off a normal FD push. 2 goons against 6 marines, 1 tank and 2 scvs.....that's pretty much game right there....
BW is really fun to watch as an observer, but until you actually played the game yourself, you never really know how hard it is to micromanage your army the way pros do.
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Unit AI was fucking terrible in BW and anyone who tells you otherwise is a revisionist who can't let go of his childhood. Toss had it the worst with goons and scarabs. But god, if a map had something other than clearly defined open areas... fuck me. You could not get your army into good position on maps like Peaks of Beaduku or whatever the shit it was called or any other map that deviated from the macro-style of play that dominated the latter half of BW's popularity.
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i never had any issues with ai in bw (played protoss)
i mean, i know things that could go wrong (like dragoon becoming completely stuck) but i also knew the way to fix it 100% of the time (re-select press S). i have never had units do something that i wasn't aware of why they were doing it. chances are, if you have, you don't know the game well enough.
and through years of playing sc, the ONLY game i remember that i lost due to ai is a pvt a long time ago, where i was pushing out with goons, met with a gundamn rush and 3 of my goons got locked up on the way back. insta-loss. however it was my fault, because at the time i didn't know how to unlock them really quickly, i didn't know what causes them to lock (cancelling attack animation a certain way) and i basically didn't know the game. it was my fault, not the ai's. players like to blame everything other than themselves too much imo. sure, it would be nice to not have to worry about dragoons in such a way, but where do you draw the line between that and 'sure it would be nice to have the ai play the game for me completely'
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An important thing to note is that as much as the AI felt shitty, it never felt random. You could complain about crappy reaver bugs and dragoon clogging, but deep down you knew that if a scarab was pushing into the back of a constantly moving scv, it was going to dud 100% of the time unless the scv stopped or changed directions for the .5 seconds or w/e of impact it needed to detonate; you knew that if the dragoon had been walking alone, it would not have bounced backwards off the rest of your control group. Your units may have gone in the wrong direction when you ordered them around, but they went in the wrong direction consistently, and so when your units messed up the blame always traced back to you. The effect of this is that when you watched two armies clash, you knew that you were actually watching the players and their control, rather than the AI, because it is painfully obvious when someone is just A-moving.
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It's definitely frustrating to deal with the path finding and general unit bugs, like when they get stuck, when you go back to bw after a break or whatever, but once you actually practice, these issues are generally unnoticeable.
On a different note, I think the most frustrating thing in BW is the delay you have to have in between mouse clicks/keyboard presses for the actions to properly register. Anyone know what causes this, or is it just the game itself?
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All those people bitching about the AI are probably people who played the game when they were 12 and were really bad at at it, and now they only know sc2. That argument is seriously exaggerated, maybe E lvl iccup players struggle with that, but even d- players are competent enough to control stuff smoothly.
AhhBoxxah are you talking about latency? Cause if you play on iccup or on bnet with latency changer its pretty smooth.
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On April 19 2011 03:12 DSun wrote:
An important thing to note is that as much as the AI felt shitty, it never felt random. You could complain about crappy reaver bugs and dragoon clogging, but deep down you knew that if a scarab was pushing into the back of a constantly moving scv, it was going to dud 100% of the time unless the scv stopped or changed directions for the .5 seconds or w/e of impact it needed to detonate; you knew that if the dragoon had been walking alone, it would not have bounced backwards off the rest of your control group. Your units may have gone in the wrong direction when you ordered them around, but they went in the wrong direction consistently, and so when your units messed up the blame always traced back to you. The effect of this is that when you watched two armies clash, you knew that you were actually watching the players and their control, rather than the AI, because it is painfully obvious when someone is just A-moving.
This, AI was consistently bad. With some experience, you can tell when AI will screw up, and how to fix it.
On April 19 2011 03:16 AhhBoxxah wrote:
On a different note, I think the most frustrating thing in BW is the delay you have to have in between mouse clicks/keyboard presses for the actions to properly register. Anyone know what causes this, or is it just the game itself?
I dunno, happens to me occasionally in BW, mostly in 1a2a3a. However, I usually spam it twice just to be sure, so it really doesn't bother me. What really irks me is when it happens in DotA too. If I play invoker, there's a 100% chance of keys not registering when I'm invoking. Pisses me off.
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It was and is horrible.
It's not a problem when you pay attention to it.
It is HUGE when you missrallied some gateway/factory and 1 goon/tank is fucking your whole army over.
Yeah.. You call that newb mistake... I call it bad AI.
There are ways around it, but that does not make the AI better.
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On April 19 2011 03:22 Megaliskuu wrote:
All those people bitching about the AI are probably people who played the game when they were 12 and were really bad at at it, and now they only know sc2. That argument is seriously exaggerated, maybe E lvl iccup players struggle with that, but even d- players are competent enough to control stuff smoothly.
AhhBoxxah are you talking about latency? Cause if you play on iccup or on bnet with latency changer its pretty smooth.
just because there's a workaround doesn't mean it wasn't broken as hell
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On April 19 2011 03:22 Megaliskuu wrote:
All those people bitching about the AI are probably people who played the game when they were 12 and were really bad at at it, and now they only know sc2. That argument is seriously exaggerated, maybe E lvl iccup players struggle with that, but even d- players are competent enough to control stuff smoothly.
AhhBoxxah are you talking about latency? Cause if you play on iccup or on bnet with latency changer its pretty smooth.
Yes of course I play on iCCup or with lan latency, but I don't know if it's completely attributed to that, since I still get it playing on super low latency O_O? Like it's really apparent in like mid game zvp or zvt when I macro hatches over and over, like 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh etc, and when I move m&m groups a lot in tvz, like 1 click 2 click 3 click, or 1a click 2a click, I don't know if there's an issue when I do something like 1t2t3t.
On April 19 2011 03:24 buhhy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:12 DSun wrote:
An important thing to note is that as much as the AI felt shitty, it never felt random. You could complain about crappy reaver bugs and dragoon clogging, but deep down you knew that if a scarab was pushing into the back of a constantly moving scv, it was going to dud 100% of the time unless the scv stopped or changed directions for the .5 seconds or w/e of impact it needed to detonate; you knew that if the dragoon had been walking alone, it would not have bounced backwards off the rest of your control group. Your units may have gone in the wrong direction when you ordered them around, but they went in the wrong direction consistently, and so when your units messed up the blame always traced back to you. The effect of this is that when you watched two armies clash, you knew that you were actually watching the players and their control, rather than the AI, because it is painfully obvious when someone is just A-moving. This, AI was consistently bad. With some experience, you can tell when AI will screw up, and how to fix it. Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:16 AhhBoxxah wrote:
On a different note, I think the most frustrating thing in BW is the delay you have to have in between mouse clicks/keyboard presses for the actions to properly register. Anyone know what causes this, or is it just the game itself? I dunno, happens to me occasionally in BW, mostly in 1a2a3a. However, I usually spam it twice just to be sure, so it really doesn't bother me. What really irks me is when it happens in DotA too. If I play invoker, there's a 100% chance of keys not registering when I'm invoking. Pisses me off.
Ah, I just try to press the keys really slowly O_O, or make sure that it registers, because on sc2 it registers all my commands, so perhaps it's not necessarily due to the latency. Perhaps it's my keyboard or something?
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On April 19 2011 03:33 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:22 Megaliskuu wrote:
All those people bitching about the AI are probably people who played the game when they were 12 and were really bad at at it, and now they only know sc2. That argument is seriously exaggerated, maybe E lvl iccup players struggle with that, but even d- players are competent enough to control stuff smoothly.
AhhBoxxah are you talking about latency? Cause if you play on iccup or on bnet with latency changer its pretty smooth. just because there's a workaround doesn't mean it wasn't broken as hell
Better to be broken than to have every single unit in the game move like a school of fish. It's not exactly realism that I'm after, but I do think the bumbling of an army in an RTS is something that adds positive atmosphere to my experience. It just doesn't look right when a whole army is acting like synchronized swimmers, getting 10 from every judge.
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Croatia9509 Posts
On April 19 2011 03:44 AhhBoxxah wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:24 buhhy wrote:On April 19 2011 03:12 DSun wrote:
An important thing to note is that as much as the AI felt shitty, it never felt random. You could complain about crappy reaver bugs and dragoon clogging, but deep down you knew that if a scarab was pushing into the back of a constantly moving scv, it was going to dud 100% of the time unless the scv stopped or changed directions for the .5 seconds or w/e of impact it needed to detonate; you knew that if the dragoon had been walking alone, it would not have bounced backwards off the rest of your control group. Your units may have gone in the wrong direction when you ordered them around, but they went in the wrong direction consistently, and so when your units messed up the blame always traced back to you. The effect of this is that when you watched two armies clash, you knew that you were actually watching the players and their control, rather than the AI, because it is painfully obvious when someone is just A-moving. This, AI was consistently bad. With some experience, you can tell when AI will screw up, and how to fix it. On April 19 2011 03:16 AhhBoxxah wrote:
On a different note, I think the most frustrating thing in BW is the delay you have to have in between mouse clicks/keyboard presses for the actions to properly register. Anyone know what causes this, or is it just the game itself? I dunno, happens to me occasionally in BW, mostly in 1a2a3a. However, I usually spam it twice just to be sure, so it really doesn't bother me. What really irks me is when it happens in DotA too. If I play invoker, there's a 100% chance of keys not registering when I'm invoking. Pisses me off. Ah, I just try to press the keys really slowly O_O, or make sure that it registers, because on sc2 it registers all my commands, so perhaps it's not necessarily due to the latency. Perhaps it's my keyboard or something?
I don't know, but BW registers keys pretty fast to me. Try making 10 Gateways next to each other and make units of each one. See how much delay is between first and last one or if any Gateway didn't register your command.
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Croatia9509 Posts
On April 19 2011 03:33 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:22 Megaliskuu wrote:
All those people bitching about the AI are probably people who played the game when they were 12 and were really bad at at it, and now they only know sc2. That argument is seriously exaggerated, maybe E lvl iccup players struggle with that, but even d- players are competent enough to control stuff smoothly.
AhhBoxxah are you talking about latency? Cause if you play on iccup or on bnet with latency changer its pretty smooth. just because there's a workaround doesn't mean it wasn't broken as hell
What are you saying, we've been playing a broken game all these years which should've been fixed?
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On April 19 2011 04:45 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:33 Hawk wrote:On April 19 2011 03:22 Megaliskuu wrote:
All those people bitching about the AI are probably people who played the game when they were 12 and were really bad at at it, and now they only know sc2. That argument is seriously exaggerated, maybe E lvl iccup players struggle with that, but even d- players are competent enough to control stuff smoothly.
AhhBoxxah are you talking about latency? Cause if you play on iccup or on bnet with latency changer its pretty smooth. just because there's a workaround doesn't mean it wasn't broken as hell What are you saying, we've been playing a broken game all these years which should've been fixed?
pretty much, yeah
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The pathfinding and control in BW is perfect in the sense it pretty much never does something by random. Goons will get confused as fuck if you block their path. Scarabs will dot if they fly too far, and they only do half dmg to units running away from it. A mech army is immobile to begin with in the sense that they're slow and tanks has to siege, but also moving a 200/200 mech army across a bridge or up a ramp will for most people be the worst trafic jam ever. Mastering all this is what's so hard, but when you know how hard it is you'll also begin to appreciate how smooth it all seems when it's under the control of a progamer. You'll also find how it's a crucial element (among many) which can separate players skill-wise.
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People exaggerate constantly. Like about Dragoons particularly. But the thing is anyone who's played BW for any amount of time avoids situations where it comes into question, like attack moving 24 goons up a ramp without micro or across the bridges on Destination. You use these things to your advantage. There is the odd annoying bugging out particularly with neutral buildings; But the people who always bring this up are always low level players who probably never played BW seriously in the first place, it's just something they add to the argument every time.
The pathfinding was never broken except not understanding neutral buildings which it wasn't designed to do; Units bug out if you block their path which they do the same to a lesser extent (helps that it's 3d) in SC2. But it's hardly ever unexpected. I think the only one you could say is an example of broken is Infested Terrans prehaps, cause they have a hesitation to their AI which makes them very hard to use, as if they just put the AI for scourge on a ground unit. The goon stopping attack animation was annoying though to be fair.
To me the SC2 units acting like one giant connected pool of liquid isn't a good thing and looks weird and unnatural, i thought the boasting in videos pre-beta about the Zergling AI wasn't even impressive.. i mean why would it even be difficult to code units to move like that now it's in 3D? Infact it actually looked BAD to me. It looked and still does look horribly unnatural and weird. Units like the Thor instant turning and looking like big goofy toys is even worse imo.
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On April 19 2011 03:16 AhhBoxxah wrote:
It's definitely frustrating to deal with the path finding and general unit bugs, like when they get stuck, when you go back to bw after a break or whatever, but once you actually practice, these issues are generally unnoticeable.
On a different note, I think the most frustrating thing in BW is the delay you have to have in between mouse clicks/keyboard presses for the actions to properly register. Anyone know what causes this, or is it just the game itself?
maybe you're referring to the fact that BW doesn't register key presses when either of the mouse buttons are depressed? so when you 1a click 2a click 3a click, if the click lasts too long it won't register when you pressed 2 to select the next group of units. i read someone say that this is the reason progamers tap the mouse buttons with their fingers starting hovering above the mouse (so the mouse is depressed for as little time as possible)
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People complaining about "bad AI" and "bad pathing" need to play some micro wars.
I guarantee your tune will have changed when you realise the joys of being able to outplay someone by controlling your army better.
And really... another thing that puzzles me is that the pathing doesn't even effect low level play anyway it's only when you start to get competitive that it matters. In which case it just becomes another avenue to outplay your opponent. Extremely enjoyable for both players and spectators.
I'm not saying to go and make every unit in SC2 like Brood War because it's just not going to happen. Control just needs more depth because right now it is excruciatingly boring to control units in SC2.
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Ahh yeah... I know what you mean...
I mean, 1v1 BW?
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It's mostly overblown yeah, but I hate how confused goons get on Bluestorm if you screw up a rally point.
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On one hand, I think the shitty AI in BW helped in creating a mechanical handicap that greatly rewarded more skilled players and may have had a subtle effect in how battles worked out.
Nevertheless, I think it's undeniable that some of the pathfinding AI was shitty. It was decent for it's time, and it takes a bit of a learning curve to get used to, but nothing hides the fact that BW AI would be absolutely unacceptable in a modern RTS. No game reviewer or casual gamer is going to be like "the crappy Dragoon AI is great for separating skill levels." They're just going to think that the pathfinding AI is poor and flawed.
I guess the crappy AI works for a game like BW, but I think it's naive to not call for improvements. I would much rather have my SC2 units go straight from point A to point B instead of being like my Dragoons or Goliaths who go out on grand adventures seeking a Triforce or Holy Grail or the fabled "point B."
That being said, I still agree with people saying that SC2 flocking AI is a bit too much and too unnatural. IMO, it works for Zerglings and possibly other Zerg units, but it feels awkward to watch balls of Stalkers, Thors, or marines travel around like that. It just seems that each individual unit in SC2 has a magnetic attraction to each other when they get close which causes the clumping. It does make the pathfinding much smoother, but I think there should be alternatives to the flocking algorithm that should be better to watch and control.
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There were some cool things about BW pathfinding, like the magic box. If you spread tanks beforehand, and told them to move, they would stay spreaded.
Although instead of pushing units like in SC2, they would try to go around it. If you have too many units rallied at your ramp, they would run around in circles trying to get out.
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While the bad AI worked out fine in the competitive world......it doesn't change the fact that it is TERRIBLE. Adding physical handicaps for the sake of handicaps is a terrible way to balance a game. So, sure, BW was fine because that was pretty much the best the AI could do at the time, but any suggestions of making the SC2 AI just as bad, to add another mechanical difficulty factor is just ludicrous. Leave 1998 AI to 1998.
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EPT
