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Canada11587 Posts
@Aerisky
Well there are some things in the works for Protoss- Nony's Carrier video and Plexa's unit interaction. I very much agree that what made the zealot interesting was the spider mine interaction. And that's partly why I have focused on Terran mech even though I'm a BW Protoss player. Terran mech is part of what made Protoss play exciting (provided you have the right tools to counter mech.) I might come up with a blog on Protoss, but these things take a couple months between idea, coming up with examples, analogies, picture ideas, and counters to the counter-arguments and finally committing to writing it so no guarantees. Also I have a different one I want to write in the mean time that I still need more thought on.
@ZpuX
You're right. I described magic box wrong. I think I've corrected it now and provided a little more reason why it is so good.
@Indrium
I think there are a variety or reasons why mech play (different than simply mech units like the warhound) is difficult to get working. Most of that that is detailed In Defence of Mech. One large problem is the back-stab. Simply changing Overkill by itself probably wouldn't be very good. You need more ways to slow the opponent down because mech play is so immobile and can so easily get out of position.
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Mainly looking at the WoL issues with Tanks v Protoss: Buffing tank damage and balancing it with overkill would probably help vs zealots. However, wouldn't it make blink and charge even stronger? (Overkill splash would further damage your own tanks even further.)
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Im just curious, how long did it take you to write up such an indepth article?
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On September 24 2012 07:40 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Hopefully the devs will see this blog.
a) Overkill is a nerf, hence units with overkill can be stronger than their hypothetical counterpart without overkill (to compensate for the overkill nerf).
b) Overkill does not affect small groups of units as much as large groups of units.
c) Hence balancing around overkill is a buff to small squad attacks and a nerf to deathballs.
ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION
a) With no overkill, every unit deals damage at 100% efficiency. Even in a large deathball, no overkill means every unit is 100% efficient.
b) With overkill, damage efficiency drops steadily as the size of the deathball grows.
c) Hence overkill slows down the growth of power of a deathball.
Point of clarification: I believe that tanks started with significantly more damage in the Beta and were nerfed independently of the smart firing. Smart firing was linked to the supply cost of the tank rather than its damage.
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Overkill would certainly make mech more interesting. Suddenly dropping zealots with WP is viable, spreading units is very rewarding..
But how would you balance it in SC2? Blizzard wants balance across all levels, as most people do. Overkill wouldn't decrease the effectivness of the tank that much at the pro level because pros would still split their shots and position properly as you've pointed out, but at lower levels tanks would be less useful.(note i'm not against overkill because of this, just trying to think like blizzard would)
I would welcome overkill with open arms, but it's a tough thing to balance. Tank's sieged damage has been lowered in the past and that's without overkill, we'd probably have to increase the damage to negate the new targetting mechanic..which would be hard to find the right number.
What's also problematic is that tanks in conjunction with vultures what made mech exciting/viable. Spider mines controlling space was what usually what gave you time to set up proper positions for the tank. Spider-mine might offer a similiar role but it's hard to say at this point.(probably not as it is 2 supply, and tanks already cost 3 supply instead of 2 like in BW)
I'm not sure giving magic box put to use would be good though. One part of what makes SC2 challenging is that everything instantly clumps, you can already partially counter this by a-moving to a distant point - which makes units go more in a straight line not so clumped up.
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United States33665 Posts
I'm pretty sure deathballing/late-game rushing is more a function of resource gathering mechanics & style of present maps
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Blizzard is never gonna make the game less accessible to people, even if it would help prevent the deathball 
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On September 25 2012 03:00 Waxangel wrote:
I'm pretty sure deathballing/late-game rushing is more a function of resource gathering mechanics & style of present maps
While I partially agree with this, I think the OP has a more important point.
Overkill vs smart targetting were 'design choices' which can both be balanced. They've done so by giving giving the smart tanks lower damage per hit. This is NOT a question of balance. At any skill level.
The key is that overkill yields more interesting tactical choices by increasing the value of position. E,g, spreading out is more valuable, zealot bombs and sacrificial units become good tactics, etc.
I fully support this mechanic. Unfortunately, Browder has shown that he is against interesting tactical choices, if he is even aware they exist. The bottom line: we will never see it implemented.
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On September 25 2012 03:00 Waxangel wrote:
I'm pretty sure deathballing/late-game rushing is more a function of resource gathering mechanics & style of present maps
You're wrong.
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Canada11587 Posts
On September 25 2012 03:00 Waxangel wrote:
I'm pretty sure deathballing/late-game rushing is more a function of resource gathering mechanics & style of present maps
Well yes and no. Resource gathering speed/ macro mechanics makes it really easy to remax which is what Barrin's article was all about. And I certainly agree. But Overkill forces the army to spread out once on the field. Like I said, Overkill is not the answer that will get rid of Deathball. But it is something pushes in the right direction.
My main goal was to try and demonstrate that Overkill is not inferior unit ai, but a design choice that has better implications than current tank ai.
Im just curious, how long did it take you to write up such an indepth article?
I'm not sure really because there's a lot of space in between the idea and taking the plunge to actually do it. The original idea was in my head when I wrote the Defence of Mech blog... but I had the Mech Play blog idea back even before staff were warned that featured blogs were coming through.
Then there's a lot of out loud thinking to myself or house mates who will listen  There's also a bit of testing with DM Unit Tester on SC2 to ensure I'm not making a grievous factual error on how SC2 vs BW units behave. Probably a good 3-4 hours on the original 2/3 of the text. Probably an equal amount of time either finding pictures and videos or recreating scenarios and capturing it with fraps (unfortunately I haven't got fraps working with SC2 hence the lack of sc2 screen caps.) Then a lot of revision and formatting. Hard to say really because I had two thirds of the text written a week before I finally finished and added all the pictures plus a few analogies, caveats, and the Movement section.
@yosu
Yes if you just introduced Overkill by itself, protoss would be able to get in too easily... and Collosi range is ridiculous for how much mobility it has. You would definitely need minefields or something else to slow down the Protoss armies so they couldn't just blink in.
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Great writeup. Except two nukes in BW kill anything, including a CC. Probably just a typo. Otherwise agree with everything. You're so smart.
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Canada11587 Posts
Does it? I was sure CC's were tougher and required 3, though after the 2nd it's in the red and could theoretically burn down. I'll have to test that.
Edit.
Yep, I was wrong. Fixed.
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Very good, great write up. It seemed concise enough to me. Some things shouldn't be able to be stated in one sentence.
TL:DR can simply be "overkill leads to more dynamic play, and rewards positioning more than current ai"
You should re-read through your post, there are a few spots where a word is missing. I can infer what you want to say but non-English speakers may have a hard time with the missing prepositions/pronouns or w.e.
Keep up the posts like this, really good stuff.
I was wondering how you feel about splash damage in general and how it can dictate responses. For example tank splash will do friendly fire, but hellion splash does not. To me this makes no sense. A ball of fire coming out of a car would surely hurt anyone around.. It makes sense that muta bounces dont hit friendlies because that's not true splash, but hellions, thor and collosus damage should do damage to friendlies wouldn't you agree? Is there a reason why they don't already do damage to friendlies? Archon splash should also hurt nearby enemies as far as i'm concerned. And fungal should maybe hold zerg in place but not do damage to friendly? Idk a lot of design things in this game don't make sense to me. Not all splash is created equally apparently..
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Epic post very good write up. As a terran player in SC2 who never played broodwar i kinda find its disapointing that blizzard hasnt implemented this. I could really see how it would make tanks so much more then just hitting the segie mode button. Thats what they feel like to me right now besides for A clicking banelings and some high priority units they pretty much require very little thought as to where you position them or how you micro them. I think this would be a very cool thing for blizzard to add to SC2
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GRAND OLD AMERICA16375 Posts
Implementing overkill into SC2 would be an interesting idea, because you would then have to fix certain units that would drastically change play style (looking at you, marauders). Also, Even if Blizzard implemented this, I personally feel that it wouldn't work unless you have vultures in there, which then leads on a slippery slope towards the issue of why not make BW 2.0 vs go back to playing BW...
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Well written and argued. Mech play doesn't feel like it should yet. It'd be interesting to see blizzard take on this.
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Hehe the spread out on the move thing reminds me of Age of Empires and unit formations
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Canada11587 Posts
On September 25 2012 09:42 amazingxkcd wrote:
Implementing overkill into SC2 would be an interesting idea, because you would then have to fix certain units that would drastically change play style (looking at you, marauders). Also, Even if Blizzard implemented this, I personally feel that it wouldn't work unless you have vultures in there, which then leads on a slippery slope towards the issue of why not make BW 2.0 vs go back to playing BW...
I guess it could be seen as a slippery slope. But given that
a) They still have the siege tank
b) They're stated goal was to make mech more viable
c) They're first attempt to engergize mech was to just remake the marauder (warhound)
Then, I think it's fair to describe what made mech play interesting in the first place and where current mech play lacks depth.
On September 25 2012 12:39 Weirdkid wrote:Hehe the spread out on the move thing reminds me of Age of Empires and unit formations
Yes, but preset unit formations are too limiting. They auto spread, but during the battle the units run where they please. Magic box and right click unit spread on long routes are tools that allow constant, precise control. Especially magic box. Between hotkey groups and magic box you basically create your own formations that are much more flexible than any preset unit formation could ever hope to match.
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To be honest, I know you really analyzed the overkill aspect. But when it boils down to it there's one simple and easily identifiable difference between brood war mech and SC2 mech:
Brood War:
Spider mine - 0 supply on the field
Siege tank - 2 supply
SC2:
Widow mine - 2 supply on the field and weaker than brood war mine + more expensive
Siege tank - 3 supply and weaker than brood war tank + more expensive.
That's about it. Regardless of all the analysis on overkill, the main reason brood war mech works is because your army is more supply efficient, cheaper, and even stronger than SC2's counterpart mech.
It boils down to the supply cost.
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EPT
