This is an addendum to my In Defence of Mech. I decided to cut it for brevity and because I felt it was more controversial and I didn't want my main points lost in arguments if people were really hung up on this one part. (I rather expect push back to this idea.) A couple caveats- 1) This is written within the context of changing back to true Mech Play. This argument should be viewed within that argument. If you don't agree with the original argument of what Mech Play is, then this argument will not make sense at all. 2) I don't think so-called smart tank ai causes mob battles any more than adding overkill will automatically get rid of mob battles. But I do think overkill pushes in the right direction. 3) This is not an all or nothing argument where SC2 has 0 and alternatives have 1000. It's more a continuum where SC2 has some, but there could be more
Purpose:
To convince you that so-called SC2 Tank 'smart ai' is actually not as smart as Overkill. If not that, then at least I'd like to contend that neither are 'smarter' per se but rather different design choices with different implications.
Laying the Groundwork
Before we get to the main argument, we need a little common ground. Can we agree that certain unit designs allow or promote/encourage certain behaviours? For instance, baneling splash promotes splitting marines as the ideal response. If the banelings had no splash damage, the Terran player would be much less inclined to to split their marines. Furthermore, the marines speed and manoeuvrability allows the Terran split in a hurry. If marines were slow and sluggish, then it wouldn't be worth it to try and split the marines. You'd be better off firing a little longer until they die. Especially if the marines were given extra hit points.
Another example. The existence of air stacking allows Thor splash to be effective against mutalisks. The existence of splash damage, promotes the behaviour of trying to split up the mutalisks to avoid splash damage. The existence of air magic box allows the mutalisks to execute this behaviour.
So in more general terms, certain unit abilities or unit designs forces a reaction or promotes a certain behaviour. Further unit design on the unit reacting allows the player to react in a competent manner. They have a tool that they can use- air magic box or fast moving marines for example.
The Argument
First what is Overkill? In the case of tanks, if an enemy comes into range tanks, all the tanks that are facing the enemy will fire even if it's too much damage. So if 4 tanks were in range, but only 2 tank shots were needed, all four would fire anyways. However, turret rotation time will stagger the fire, so if the 4th tank was facing the wrong way, 3 tanks would fire and the 4th would now be facing the right way if more units come.
Now right away I can already hear the protests. "We don't want to fight against the computer" "automatic maximized damage is superior to wasting all that extra damage, why do you want to create additional, arbitrary difficulties?"
Automatic Maximized Damage.
My first counter is that it's not so simple as automatic maximized damage is 'smarter' than overkill. Damage output is a trade-off especially when we're dealing with AoE damage. When we're arguing that no overkill = smart ai, it assumes we're still talking about the same unit stats and abilities. We're trading damage to make maximized damage easier. When AoE of is more easily available, then the damage must be reduced unless we want the battle to come down to a couple AoE units.
The easiest thing to point to is the nerfing of damage to both EMP and storms due to smart casting. Tank fire also got nerfed due because of so-called smarter ai.
Ghost Example However, smart-casting on spellcasters is a can of worms I'd rather leave alone. The best example of the trade-off between damage and more easily guaranteed maximum damage is the ghost-nuke.
It's better because it's less controversial. The skill of using ghost-nuke is pretty comparable. So we don't need to have the 'fighting against the computer' or 'takes more/less skill in ______ game.' They both handle the same, but SC2 made the nuke more easily available. BW had the ghost and nuke buried way up the tech tree plus nukes cost 200/200 and 8 supply. It was not easily available, but it brought down the health of any unit to 2/3 of max health or 500 whatever was greater. 2 Nukes could take out a Nexus or an EMP and a nuke could kill it. 2 Nukes could take out any building actually and most only needed one.
one nuke
In comparison, SC2 made the ghost technology much more easily available just by moving the tech down, getting rid of the supply and dropping the cost to 100/100. So suddenly it became much easier to drop nukes and even drop multiple nukes on the battle field. So as AoE can now easily cover the field (due to cost/availability), the damage was subsequently nerfed to 300 (+200 to buildings.) The damage radius may also have been adjusted, but I'm not sure.
couple nukes
So in BW only a BC could withstand a direct hit (with 3 hit point left- 6 with armour upgrades) while in SC2, the BC, Carrier (with 150hp), Archon, Ultra, and Mothership can all withstand a direct hit.
Now I actually like that ghosts and nukes are easier to get in SC2. However, the main point is when it became easier to lay down the AoE on the map, the ability itself changed. It's not so simple as "I want my units to always fire the right amount of damage because that's 'smarter.'
It's a trade-off because now that it's easier to evenly distribute the damage, the damage got nerfed. Not only that, but the cost of the tank and supply went up in SC2. So in order to get this 'awesome tank' that will nearly automatically maximize its damage, we get less damage, they cost more, and we get less of them.
The Tank
Min 150 Gas 100 Supply 2 Damage 70 (75% medium 50% small)
30 Tanks = 60 supply
Min 150 Gas 125 Supply 3 Damage 35 (+15 armoured)
30 Tanks = 90 supply
Not the same tank
We're not even talking about the same units that are supposed to be smarter. It's not a simple 1:1 translation where the only change is the unit is now smarter. There's a chain reaction of changes without overkill, which makes this change more a design choice rather than improving unit ai.
Automation vs Manual
To really hammer home why automation is not inherently better than allowing manual control, I'd draw your attention to combat in traditional MMO's vs FPS (or even FPS RPG's like Mass Effect 2.) If we're going with the idea that every shot hitting every single time is smarter ai, then MMO's combat system is 'smarter' you just have to manage cooldowns and it'll auto hit every time. Even if you're using a gun like Star Wars Old Republic.
SWTOR
However, if you get rid of some of that automation and give the player manual control, then skill shots can exist like in FPS. Not every shot will hit every time, but there's a subsequent increase in player skill that's required to make the hit. Furthermore, the damage is a lot more powerful because not every shot is guaranteed to get maximum damage.
Mass Effect 2: Skill shot fps
And when it comes down to it, if you manually target units with any other unit there will be overkill unless the player chooses the minimum number of units to one shot their target. Aka better unit control rewards the player with the most efficient kills. Why should the tank be any different. The player that is better at positioning tanks will be the one with the most efficient kills.
What is the Difference Really?
Now we're going back to the idea laid out at the beginning- that certain abilities promote/ encourage a certain behaviour. And that other abilities allow the units to execute a desired action.
The problem I have with 'smart-ai tanks' is not so much what it does do as much as it what it doesn't. You do see tanks spread out for a variety of reasons, but they don't force particular reactions or promote a variety of behaviours. Whether the tanks are clumped together or spread apart, there is little easily discernible difference in maximizing damage. The tanks will evenly distribute it's damage to maximum efficiency automatically.
Right away some of you are thinking. Good that's exactly what I want. But remember, as a trade off we're losing some damage. With overkill, we can keep our damage and give increase the value of where tanks are placed. I'm not saying that currently tank placement has no value. Far be it from that. But I'd suggest that we can increase the tanks power as well as increase decision making for tank placement.
With automatic maximized damage, tanks can be spread out (within reason) and clumped together and the damage output remains the more or less the same. This also means, that the opponent can send out all their troops at once or stagger their line and it won't make much obvious difference. The tanks will only fire as much as is needed.
That's what I mean by I have a greater problem with what 'smart-ai' doesn't do. It doesn't force the players to adapt very much to play better.
So what is so interesting about Overkill?
1) More Incentive for Terran to Spread Out With overkill, the opponent can bait your clumped together tanks with one zealot. The entire tank line fires and then the opponent can close the distance to get at the tanks. Therefore, Overkill promotes/ encourages the player to stagger their tanks.
Now the tanks must be spread out to in order to be used to maximize efficiency. However they cannot be too spread out or the opponent can blitzkrieg through a weak part in the line. There then becomes an interesting tension between clumping the tanks too much so that too many shots are wasted and spreading too thin and making the tank line vulnerable to penetration.
i) RED- first salvo from front row ii) BLUE- goliaths coming in from behind iii) GREEN- back tanks unfired due to positioning ready to fire on incoming goliaths
2) Turning Splashed Damage Against There is even greater cause to spread out your tanks with overkill. With no overkill, if you sneak zergling or zealot right up beside the tank, just the right number of tanks will fire and the enemy unit will die. The surrounding tanks will suffer damage from splash, but the bare minimum. With overkill, the same unit dies, but because tons of tanks are fired, the nearby tanks are absolutely obliterated by all the stacked splash damage.
So this further pushes the Terran to spread out tanks to minimize splash damage. Furthermore, it makes it even more imperative to that the Terran throws cannon fodder in front to prevent units from getting next to the tanks because they will get absolutely destroyed. So already we're starting how these changes would further promote further positional play
3) Dropping on Top Tank Lines With overkill, the Terran's opponents are further encouraged to try more drop play. Zealot bombing works because the shuttle gets the zealot over the cannon fodder and when the zealot is dropped next to tank(s) all of the nearby tanks fire at it, destroying the nearby tanks by stacked splashes due to overkill. There are other problems preventing zealot bomb style play- Terran air superiority with marine-Viking, but overkill opens up a greater possibility. It's cute tactics like this that pushes away from ball vs ball or multiple mini-ball concaves.
Dropping zealots out of shuttle to make tanks kill each other.
4) Incentive for Terran Opponent to Spread Out Now is when we really start cutting into the deathball. Before, tank position didn't matter (as much) and Terran opponent's army formations only mattered so much as to minimize splash as best as can be managed. But without overkill, the opponent has less control in dictating the battle through better execution. No matter how the opponent attempts to spread out their units, the tanks will still hit to evenly distribute its AoE damage. There is a difference, but it's a much more subtle difference.
But I don't think that a spectator sport should settle for 'subtle' when we can go for obvious/ blatant skill differences. This is a visual medium and obvious skill is more spectator friendly than subtle only the greats will pick out. There should be subtle shifts for players to gain advantages, but there should also be obvious shifts, where it was clearly evident that better execution allowed the player to win. As opposed to better composition.
So with staggered tanks, an oncoming clumped army (deathball or a concave of miniballs) will be shelled to pieces from the alternating barrages. With increased tank power (and more of them), the Terran player with better positioning, will wreak havoc on the clumped army.
Therefore, this promotes more spread out play from the Terran opponent. To counter better positioning, they need to stagger their own troops. Spread them out. Not just into mini-clumps, but to actually spread them out. Or maybe flank them with fast cannon fodder from one side and then send in the main force in a concave on the other. (Especially with Turret rotation and if Tank rate of fire was slowed.) The Terran opponent, can even bait Tank fire with a couple sacrificial units before sending in the main force.
Hm, this is actually kinda hard to capture on screen cap. But that's because the battle ranges across multiple screens which is rather what people are often pushing for when they complain about SC2 battles.
5) Appeal to Race Distinctives One of the distinctives about Terran Mech Play was there crazy powerful splash damage. Between Siege Tanks and Spider Mines, armies could just melt to smaller Terran merch armies. However, that same crazy powerful splash could be turned against the Terran. Spider Mines could be pulled into the Terran's own army and Tanks' splash could be turned against their own tank lines to wipe themselves out. Overkill was part of the equation that allowed Tank damage to be both the Tanks' best weapon and it's own worst enemy. Losing Overkill loses part of the distinctive of the Terran Mech Play. Sure there's still splash damage that can hurt tanks, but the difference is less extreme and thus minimizes the Terran distinctives.
Overkill is a chain reaction. Tanks need to be staggered/ spread to get maximum damage, this in turn forces their opponent to also spread their troops even more.
Further Tools
There are a couple tools that allows the players to respond better to Overkill.
Group Movement. I'm still unsure why people seem to think SC2 unit clumping, with all the pushing and shoving is superior to alternate solutions. Forget about buggy unit ai. (The dragoon thought it was smaller than it actually was, which is what caused that set of problems.)
Can we agree that giving the player multiple options in moving their troops around is better? For instance, if they had tools that allowed them to spread out a little better, allowed them to clump up, and also to stay in formation relative to the the other units in the group? Why would we want just one of these options?
1) Spread Out on the Move One tool that could be added is when you right clicked your units and the group travels a distance, the troops spread out in a longer line rather than keeping clumped up. This has both an advantage and a disadvantage. The long line, spaces out the units (the zealot conga line) which allows the player to execute their attack better to counter the tanks overkill. With conga line can be run perpendicular to the tank line and then attack moved in so that the troops will spread out once they get amongst the enemy, thus minimizing splash and overkill from the tanks.
i) GREEN- Right click after long distance travel ii) RED- a-move forward to in a spread out line.
The drawback is that the army is more vulnerable on the march- it's more spread out. But this actually gives greater variance between an army on the move and an army set-up, which I think creates a more interesting dynamic. It gives advantage to the player who has set up in position. It also means the army on the march needs to form up form up before attacking. In addition, harassing the army on the march is a little more viable as the units are more spread out.
(I don't like appealing to real life very often because gameplay matters more, but it actually makes more sense that an army on the march is more spread out into long lines than to move in a great big ball. It's more incidental than an actual reason.)
So the army can still gather close together, but we add a second option that allows the units to spread out more. There's also a more significant difference between army moving an army prepared.
2) Magic Box The other tool for more interesting interesting troop movements is to fix ground magic box. This one should just be a no-brainer. (Air already has it, so why not make it work better for ground?)
Ground magic box exists to some extent in SC2, but it seems relatively smaller/ less useful. With magic box, players can clump their units if they want or spread and keep in formation if they want.
It requires skill to use as it depends on where the units are in relation to each other. If the units are too far apart when you select them, they'll clump. If they're too close when you select them, they'll clump. But if you select them within between, they'll move in precise formation without shuffling around. This allows for very controlled, predictable movement. This in turn allows for very precise micro control. (See Bisu versus spider mines- there is no way that's possible if units had no option except to clump, shuffle and shove. But we still keep unit clumping (especially if you select your entire army.) But more than anything it just expands the players options. Maximum Area Selection
Minimum Area Selection
What this means is unlimited selection is still in place so the game is the same difficulty for low level players, but for medium level players and up, there is an even greater benefit to moving small groups around rather than the one big mob (assuming they want to spread their units.) Yes splash may have to be bumped up to compensate, but balance shouldn't get in the way of giving a player better tools.
How does group movement apply to Tanks and overkill?
It's quite simple really. Overkill + more powerful tank damage means that the Terran's opponent encourages their opponent to spread out their troops more. However, this by itself is not of much use if the player does not also have the proper tools in order to spread out. Giving the player 2 methods of spreading out their units (and keep them spread out) as well as keeping the ability to clump allows them to respond exactly they way they want.
Conclusion.
If I haven't convinced you that Overkill is necessarily 'smarter-ai'/ the better choice, then perhaps you can see that it is more a design choice rather than the ai being 'smarter.'
There is a tremendous trade-off when splash damage can be evenly distributed with greater ease. The cost is in damage, price, and supply so that not nearly tanks can be made and the ones that are, aren't as impressive.
I don't think Overkill will solve Deathball attacks per se. But I do think that Overkill forces the Terran to spread out even more which in turn forces their opponent to spread out even more. However, it's not enough to simply promote a certain behaviour if the tools are not in place that will allow the player to respond appropriately. That's where adding a couple extra options in troop movement allows players to spread out their units better.
Overkill was part of what made the Terran race distinctive. Tanks and mines could lay waste to enemy armies with powerful splash damage... or be turned against themselves. There still exists friendly fire damage, but without Overkill, the distinctives are minimized.
TLDR I'm really, really sorry. This was supposed to be a short addendum. Now I can see why I didn't add this to my original blog as it is equally long.
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.
Can't say I agree with the ground magic-box part. It's a part of the game now. I wouldn't really say it's better or worse, but it certainly has advantages, foremost example being godlike marine micro, just flowing like water to adapt to the enemy before quickly clumping up again to wipe out the zerg remnants. As for the removal of overkill, I'm not sure about it. It's definitely a pretty radical change, for sure. The effects, though, would be pretty far-reaching, and as good as people claim BW was, I'm really not into this game turning into a clone of it. Not against the change, though. Just not sure where everything would end up at, and if the game would really be better off for it.
The thing with magic box is it is in addition to how units move. That is even if you never change how units clump it's just additional rules based on the area that you select. All it does it add another option for better micro. Marine micro is awesome, but it's very localized. Magic box allows units in small groups to move exactly how you want them without all the pushing and shoving. Therefore it opens up the possibility for more godlike micro.
Furthermore, if it becomes too easy to micro against banelings... just bump up the splash damage for banelings. Balance right now is a reflection on the limited set of tools SC2 players have to combat unit clumping. (Brute force apm with the units constantly reclumping after they've been told to separate.) If there were a variety of ways to move both clumped and apart (though apart took magic box skills in addition to brute force apm), then the game should be rebalanced around it.
Overkill is certainly a big change, but I don't think this in and of itself is what would break SC2 and turn it into BW. I just see far better benefits because of how Overkill forces both the Terran and the Terran opponent to react based on it. More wide ranging battles, higher value given to good positioning, etc.
Well written, just have a comment on the way you mention magic boxes. It has nothing to do with how you select units or draw the boxes, it's all about the units position in relation to each other. If the units that you have selected are within the magic box they will move in a formation if a command is issued. The part with minimum selection area just comes as an effect because if the command was issued "within" the minimum box and the said units were to move in a formation they would not move at all.
On September 24 2012 07:19 Falling wrote: One of these days I'll figure out how to write concisely...
It's hard to concisely sum up all the things that need fixing in Sc2
But I totally agree with you. Overkill just adds a whole new layer of skill to the game. It forces you to manage your units better, which makes a higher skill ceiling, which makes a better competitive game.
Yet another fantastic read. It would be nice if we also had someone to revive critique and offer suggestions regarding protoss play that we never would have thought of, just as you are doing for Terran mech :O
Overkill is definitely something that helps the game along with regard to making it more interesting. But pros who are used to having tanks attack perfectly may not be so open to the change, as it will make it more difficult. At the same time, people are saying that the SC2 skill ceiling is too low and that pros are getting bored of the game too easily etc etc, so this could be a welcome addition in terms of raising the skill ceiling and making tactics that much more interesting to learn and execute.
This is the first thread I've seen about starcraft 2 changes dumbing down the game that I actually agreed with. I thought it was simply a matter of technology, once we can do something we should not go back, but after reading this I realized your right about overkill. Also, reading this makes me feel more intelligent, nice post.
This differentiates between instant damage units like tank and marines but leaves projectile units such as stalkers, roaches, and hydras intact. IE this would be a nerf to terran units while the other races will stay the same. I'm pretty sure terran is pretty much the only races with instant projectile damage right?
On September 24 2012 07:19 Falling wrote: One of these days I'll figure out how to write concisely...
Please don't. I enjoy this.
As I mostly play PVT tanks aren't featured much, but I enjoyed the matchup in BW when it was more mech play. Do you think no overkill is one of the reasons mech isn't viable TVP, or is that just a bunch of other factors?
@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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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..
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
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...
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.
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.
Lets get rid of watchtowers too cos they are very deathball favourable since your army has vision from just sitting under one and there is no need to split your forces or have scouts further out to spot for you!
I know starcraft 2 could be so much better, it is a great game already, but it could be certainly a lot better then it is now because it has so many obvious design flaws.
There are so many people like you that have good ideas that would move the game in the right direction, but i have my doubt's blizzard will change design things like this.
I don't really agree. The problem with this is that tanks already have a tough enough time in the current matchups and will have a tougher time in HOTS. If this is implemented there would need to be buffs somewhere else, mostly its damage.
Result is that siege lines could end up being tougher to deal with. May sound good, but that goes exactly against what Blizzard have been trying to do in HOTS in TvT. One of the warhounds roles was to reduce the skill required to break siege lines. While it failed to find a unique role it did show their current intend with siege tanks. To make them easier to deal with.
I feel like this is one of a few issues it would be really good to push hard (for an acknowledgement/rebuttal, if nothing else) on the Beta forums while the number of players is still low.
This has always been a problem with me in SC2 and its development team doesn't mind the death ball too much, but it annoys the hell out of me. Obviously if they'd change it they'd need to rework balances of every unit.
Awesome write up, really love it and its predecessor!
Totally desiring a damage buff to siege tank, at least back to beta numbers. The overkill mechanic seems like an amazing way to justify and re-balance the change.
Additionally, I would love to see some sort of change to the high ground mechanic in SC2, a -1 range to low ground units or something. I think reincorporating an actual high ground advantage would also help positional play.
Was also really relieved to hear that other people would support adding new troop movement commands. What BW offered in unit movements was awesome and beautiful, but also archaic. To straight make a game harder from worse ai pathing is a tough argument to make. However, adding mechanics that reward better players would be sweet. Would love to see
-button that deselects one unit from control group -move in formation command (could not a-move in formation)
What would first button do? If you have 10 units you could very very quickly set them in a precise formation, however if you have a huge death ball with all your different units on the same control group it becomes incredibly more inefficient.
Here's hoping someone at Blizzard reads this thread!
On September 25 2012 18:52 aliquis wrote: sumadin you say you dont agree but the problem is you do not understand the point of this post.
The problem is not balance, Starcraft 2 is already more or less a good balanced game.
Its about game design and mechanics, how to make the game more fun, challenging, enjoyable versatile etc.
When i read answers like yours, you say you disagree because this change hurts balance i can only shake my head, its
not primarly about balance hence you completly miss the point.
Extra tough and challenging does not always mean extra fun and versatile. There is typhically a fine balance. Playing wow for a couple of years have taught me that.
The article mentions stuff like magic boxing as "feats of skill" (may not be exact wording). And sure it may look nice, that certain mechanics can be negated by skill. But it is a bloody nightmare balance-wise. How do you adjust for that if mutas were to become a problem? Do you buff the damage, and let bronze zerg lose all their mutas if they fly within 7 range of a thor? Buff the radius?
This is the reason anion pulse-crystals exist. Because archons couldn't deal with mass mutas. Not that the upgrade archieved much.
i've been saying this since the launch of SC2. thank you for writing into words what i never could or even bothered to take the time to. a very well done post!
i think this will also solve terran woes in the sense that they will be forced to lay deeper siege lines - something i've always felt will help them VS infestor play. deeper tank lines means that marines can continue to fall back while zerglings and festors are taking damage from the deeper siege line. if the zerg is a-moving, he clumps on a single tank and continues to take nearly free damage (minus the one tank being targeted by the ling ball). it will force more control out of the zerg player and potentially end the notion that zerg requires next to no micro in a big engagement.
What you are essentially asking is how do you balance skill. And really you can't except to make sure that all sides also have things they can be skillful at. It moves the mentality away from muta's were terrible in that battle, they need a greater buff vs light or armoured to mutas were terrible in that battle, I needed to control them better. (Incidentally, Thor vs Muta is a rather mundane example of skill compared to muta control in the past. It was simply a useful example for my promote behaviour/ allow response argument.)
That's also why I can't entirely agree with avilo's statement. Supply is certainly part of what makes tanks difficult to mass, but simply dropping the supply cost doesn't increase cool unit interactions. There is just more tanks doing more or less the same thing.
And for the bronze league, I don't know if most of the fancy tricks would help them. Macro is still ridiculously powerful in SC2- especially with the rate of income and macro mechanics. They would still have better success winning with the most units the fastest. So if the units are balanced around how well they can be used skillfully, they'll still work fine in the lower leagues a-moving around- you just have to make lots of them. And if they can figure out how to win with the most units the fastest in addition to the extra skill mastery, chances are they're going to be promoted.
Balancing around skill seems like a nightmare because the developers have less control (+15 light damage and the match-ups will swing back to being balanced.) But it is better because it puts balance more into the players' control on how well you played. That does assume that all sides have more skill based micro with their units (the movement changes would be for everyone of course.) But having the RTS equivalent of skill shot vs skill shot is not a bad problem to have. And that's why people are pushing for things like Carrier micro- it's more skill based unit attacks that help the player with the better control.
This article reminds me of why I love BW so much more. If the problems you stated well in the OP were fixed correctly, I would most definitely go back to play SC2 for a very very long time. Fix unit clumping + Fix tanks makes a nearly perfect world. I can deal with the units currently in the game. It's the behaviors as a whole that kills it for me.
To a certain extent you can already see the pull down laterally and a move across to get a spread function. However, its a little harder to do and involves some manual shifting around, so its quite different. If anything I think the AI clumping makes the game harder in a certain way - you fight the AI and try to make it do what you want it to do and not what it wants to do itself. Though this isn't as big a deal at the moment because the splash doesnt punish it in quite the same way.
If anything, making the tanks able to overkill and keeping the clumping would increase the skill required to engage tanks substantially.
After all, you would need to put more effort into keeping the units apart.
nice read. was very interesting. depressing the reddit community is so ridiculously hostile towards these threads (atleast this is actual. good. game discussion.)
Overkill -> screens of blue goo + hydra corpses were the best. I hope the community is slowly convincing modern blizz that they are sitting on a gold mine of unit ai/engine quirks from BW.
Browder already said that making "smart" unit behavior "dumber" (with smart and dumb referring to how good the units are at going exactly where you tell them and fighting effectively when they get there) is out of the question, regardless of whether it would make the game more fun. Straightforward AI is literally more important than fun in the SC2 design concept. Also they've claimed that it's not possible in the SC2 engine to have multiple "hitscan" attacks that will each kill a unit target that same unit because they'll never acquire the same target at the exact same moment
Also I think redesigning or removing the Colossus is at least at important as that stuff you mentioned because that is a very toxic unit concept to the idea of dynamic battles with interesting unit positioning, regardless of how you change the numbers on it.
Well that's kinda the whole point of my blog. Just because it's newer and it's called 'smart' doesn't make it so. Anymore than saying MMO combat is smarter than FPS combat because it hits every time (minus interrupts). I wanted to go beyond the labels and look at the actual implications of the two.
As for the Colossus, it's kinda a chicken and egg problem. Collosus is problematic to Terran positioning, but if people don't understand what mech positional play is, I'm not necessarily sure they will see how harmful the Collosus is to it. But you can definitely find my posts throughout TL adamantly arguing to change the collosus to something else.
Overkill -> screens of blue goo + hydra corpses were the best.
And this is rather the goal in my mind. Because this is immensely satisfying to pros and newbs alike. The pro's will be able to make use of the subtlies of mech play, but low level players will get tank lines that will shell the enemy lines to pieces.
I'll be the devil's advocate here. Tanks as far as I know are the only units with smart targetting. However, rarely in Wings of Liberty do you see a mass of tanks large enough to worry about clumping. It's generally just bio with tank support. In HOTS you have seen some levels of mass tanks but everyone's experimenting and not actually going for serious builds so its not yet known if that many tanks is actually viable. If you have only 1 to 5 tanks though, it's not going to be as important.
On September 24 2012 07:19 Falling wrote: One of these days I'll figure out how to write concisely...
Please don't. I enjoy this.
As I mostly play PVT tanks aren't featured much, but I enjoyed the matchup in BW when it was more mech play. Do you think no overkill is one of the reasons mech isn't viable TVP, or is that just a bunch of other factors?
Both. Mech is not viable in PvT for a bunch of reasons. Tanks are not as strong as mentioned. We don't have a key feature in brood war, the mine, which delayed the Protoss significantly. Hellions are decent against zealots like vultures, but are horrendous against stalkers and pretty much everything else. Vultures in brood war in sufficient numbers could take down goons with mines and such, but hellions tickle stalkers comparatively. There are now many units that just plain counter the tank, like immortals, charge zealots, archons, etc. Tank damage got nerfed as well because of no overkill, and so does even worse against the protoss army. Colossus can take many siege tank shots, unlike the brood war counterpart, the reaver. Tanks are harder to produce, more gas and more supply. Probably over 10 more reasons, but I just can't name them off the top of my head.
Hey, I think this is some really awesome ideas. I'm a zerg player and I have been thinking along theese lines about the siege tank for quite a long time. the way it works today doesn't really feel logical, and I always thought it would be a more interesting unit if it would be more powerful and sacrifice more. Your post is just a much better way of describing what I've already been thinking about. I think a change like this also would give bio/mech more dimensions.
I didn't play BW so I have no experience with how the siege tank worked back then, but what I have seen from BW the maps was alot different. How do you think a change like this would work on the current map pool, or just on maps designed by todays standards? I'm mainly thinking about BW maps seemed alot mor open spaced than curren sc2 maps, and that elevations seems more common in sc2. (I might be totally wrong about that) wouldn't this type of mechanic be very powerful especially in the early midgames on maps with lots of chokes and few attack paths?
I would really like to hear some oppinions about this.
On September 26 2012 14:31 neobowman wrote: I'll be the devil's advocate here. Tanks as far as I know are the only units with smart targetting. However, rarely in Wings of Liberty do you see a mass of tanks large enough to worry about clumping. It's generally just bio with tank support. In HOTS you have seen some levels of mass tanks but everyone's experimenting and not actually going for serious builds so its not yet known if that many tanks is actually viable. If you have only 1 to 5 tanks though, it's not going to be as important.
shrug, tanks being 3 food over 2 food is a pretty big deal in how many you can make. im amazed at sc2 when both players max in 11 minutes and have tiny, insignificant armies. it's also why i feel like carriers have a hard time finding their place. bw players had a REALLY hard time maxing. like in all my watching of BW i can't think of many games where both players max. only time i really see it, is when one player is ahead but can't end it. so he just macros. so both players max in 11 minutes and then what, how to build carriers. you have to sac your army to build them, but then you're vulnerable for quite awhile.
I don't quite know how to respond to this, I don't really like this idea, tanks are fine as they are. They game is fun to watch and play and I believe that while composition is important control and positional strategy are still the major factors in winning games. I don't see the boring death-ball centric games that (according to some) apparently plague the pro-scene, I see exiting nail biting games with interesting strategy choices and great unit control, positional battles where who gets the better engagement can change the tide of a game. I don't think changing the tanks as you said would necessarily improve the game, what I know is that it would drastically change the balance of the game and the way you have to use tanks and I don't see a good reason to go through all that based on a hypothetical benefit that you think would be achieved. No offense and I hope I didn't sound harsh I just see no good reason to make massive changes to the game. I read you posts and understand your points, I just don't agree with them.
Glad to see someone pointing out ways SC2 can be improved without adding some combination of new units. I've all but stopped watching SCII because the vast majority of games are deathball oriented and it's plain boring to watch. I suppose it's a preference thing but I would really like to see some gameplay changes made similar to what you're suggesting.
Thanks for the write-up. Maybe if Blizzard sees this, they might re-consider their approach to the game..
On September 27 2012 00:29 MrF wrote: I don't quite know how to respond to this, I don't really like this idea, tanks are fine as they are. They game is fun to watch and play and I believe that while composition is important control and positional strategy are still the major factors in winning games. I don't see the boring death-ball centric games that (according to some) apparently plague the pro-scene, I see exiting nail biting games with interesting strategy choices and great unit control, positional battles where who gets the better engagement can change the tide of a game. I don't think changing the tanks as you said would necessarily improve the game, what I know is that it would drastically change the balance of the game and the way you have to use tanks and I don't see a good reason to go through all that based on a hypothetical benefit that you think would be achieved. No offense and I hope I didn't sound harsh I just see no good reason to make massive changes to the game. I read you posts and understand your points, I just don't agree with them.
You don't agree ? Sure, that's no problem. Now give arguments to support it. "I don't agree" isn't enoug. Why do you not agree ?
Great read! Since BW was before my RTS-Time i only know tanks the way they are right now. Taking away the "smart-ai" seems like a very good idea to me to promote more positional play and to make the most efficient use of the tank a bit more difficult, aswell as opening more opportunities in engaging set-up tank lines.
But with enabling Overkill for tanks (or any other unit), wouldn´t there be several changes to damage output required to not throw the current balance completely off? As I understand it, the "smart-ai" isn´t a tank-exclusive feature, every unit is "smart" enough to know, when their enemy is about to get destroyed. So what implications has this for example for collossi in pvp? (I don´t know anything about that matchup other than collosi are quite popular) Or how could this affect a ling vs marine battle in the very early game. I think the mechanic in question is, as you stated, a design choice. 2 years passed with people learning the game and the mechanics within. To later on change such an elemental part of one major aspect (who shoots where and when?) could cause a lot of unintended consequences.
It's a trade-off because now that it's easier to evenly distribute the damage, the damage got nerfed. Not only that, but the cost of the tank and supply went up in SC2. So in order to get this 'awesome tank' that will nearly automatically maximize its damage, we get less damage, they cost more, and we get less of them.
This is the point where the logic runs into a real problem.
You are correct that, in making nukes more accessible, the damage of them had to be nerfed. It's obvious from the word "go" that you can't put that much damage on such a low-tech ability. However, you are assuming that the ST's damage was nerfed due to "smart-ai" (which is not AI so much as hit-scan attacks. SC1 STs took a couple of frames between the "shot" and the impact, during which time other Tanks could fire. it's functionally no different than Marines not doing overkill). Unlike the nuke case, it is not obvious and required that STs needed a damage nerf. Indeed, I would argue that STs as they stand are too expensive/do too little damage for their cost.
Much like nukes and Scouts in SC1, they're imbalanced in the wrong direction. It's my belief that we ought to have that damage (or at least, better than what's there now) and hit-scan attacks at the same time.
To really hammer home why automation is not inherently better than allowing manual control, I'd draw your attention to combat in traditional MMO's vs FPS (or even FPS RPG's like Mass Effect 2.) If we're going with the idea that every shot hitting every single time is smarter ai, then MMO's combat system is 'smarter' you just have to manage cooldowns and it'll auto hit every time. Even if you're using a gun like Star Wars Old Republic.
This argument rather misses the point. The reason FPS games do this sort of stuff is because of where the focus of the gameplay in those games is. In a traditional RPG, you generally control a party, not an individual unit. In a traditional RPG, the idea is that, if you want a character to hit something more often, you use the game mechanics to give them a better chance to hit stuff.
It's the difference between an action game and a strategy game: one is intimately controlled, and the other is not.
1) More Incentive for Terran to Spread Out
In SC1, units tended to be more spread out in general, because that's how the AI liked to move. In SC2, tanks naturally cluster together. In SC1, if you just moved your tanks somewhere and sieged them, odds were good that they'd be spread out at least decently on their own. In SC2, you really have to work a lot more for it.
That's putting a lot on the plate of the Terran player. And it's not like Terrans don't already have some of the most involved micro going on.
2) Turning Splashed Damage Against
This is really just #1 in a different way: the Terran is punished more for clustering their tanks than spreading them.
3) Dropping on Top Tank Lines
Again, a restatement of #1 and #2.
4) Incentive for Terran Opponent to Spread Out
Which could be provided by simply making Tanks do more damage or making them cheaper.
5) Appeal to Race Distinctives
This is just a restatement of #1, #2, and #3, just from the perspective of "I want immobile splash damage on a race."
Can we agree that giving the player multiple options in moving their troops around is better? For instance, if they had tools that allowed them to spread out a little better, allowed them to clump up, and also to stay in formation relative to the the other units in the group? Why would we want just one of these options?
This is classic PC-gamer thinking: if we just add more and more options to the interface, it'll get better.
I recall the quote, "It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove."
This argument rather misses the point. The reason FPS games do this sort of stuff is because of where the focus of the gameplay in those games is. In a traditional RPG, you generally control a party, not an individual unit. In a traditional RPG, the idea is that, if you want a character to hit something more often, you use the game mechanics to give them a better chance to hit stuff.
I'm not sure why you are talking about parties in RPG's, I was talking about MMO combat. And specifically comparing it to FPS style gunfighting as found in ME2 (despite it kinda being a RPG) and MMO style gunfighting combat as found in SWTOR which is timing your cooldowns on your x number of abilities but with cover, dodging, and aiming largely absent. scifi Gunfight vs scifi Gunfight. But one has skill shots and won't hit everytime and the other will hit every single time and so removes the skill of aiming/ dodging. The one isn't smarter than the other, but one allows for more skill in movement, aim, and dodging.
It's the difference between an action game and a strategy game: one is intimately controlled, and the other is not.
Actually this comparison was quite deliberate because highlights the key distinction between BW RTS and pretty much every other RTS in existence. And this distinction seems a struggle for many people to see despite things like Day9's frisbee analogy video. (Especially if SC2 was their first RTS or they came from an entirely different RTS franchise. I'm not sure I would've gotten it if I had come straight from Age II.) Despite all the talk that SC is strictly a macro game, a key distintinction is SC tied the RTS genre to intimate control of your units. No it's no as individual as FPS, but it can be down to a handful of units or even one unit. It's almost like what you'd get if mashed together a strategy game and a fighting game.
There are tons of strategy games out there that require varying degrees of control of your units. There is zero execution in Turn-based strategy games like Civilization and there is some execution of skill in older RTS's. But it's largely absent in modern RTS's like Battle for Middle Earth 2 and SupCom2. You just kinda move units around the map and let them do their thing. SC is about unit control and strategy.
Thing is people LOVE marine-split vs banelings and stutter step, but when you turn around and say we should have more of these sort of micro interactions, people balk as though this would suddenly mean bad unit ai and 'fighting against the computer.' The alliance of Strategy + Intimate control of units is what made BW such an exciting spectator sport. Without intimate control, goodbye marine-baneling micro, goodbye stutter step, and we join Battle for Middle Earth 2 and SupCom2 as a strictly strategy game.
Tank nerf is actually it's more likely a combination of things- unit clumping in general, 'smart-ai' and faster rate of fire. But getting damage back for slower shots and overkill is more in line with mech play and allows for a greater variety in play with against Tanks.
But you're wrong to say that BW tanks automatically spread themselves. If you told a hotkeyed group of tanks to seige, they'd seige in the line they were travelling and be packed quite close together. Same with mass lurker burrow. You actually have to manually spread them out for them to be in good position. (It is however possible to get them super close so the units overlap with enough micro.)
As for Terran's having a full plate to micro. Ok fair enough, but that just is a call for more interesting micro options for the other races to up the ante. But I obviously have to limit the scope of my already lengthy blog. I don't see that as very weighty argument against this as I would happily see more micro options go to P an Z.
Yes 1-3 are all dealing with the effects of overkill, but it's different, specific applications of overkill. 5) Is more about how SC had entirely different feel to their races. Mech play, specifically splash damage use or abuse was one of those large distinctives.
This is classic PC-gamer thinking: if we just add more and more options to the interface, it'll get better.
I recall the quote, "It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove."
Ok, but is the option of two sufficient? We're not adding 50 options. Right now you have auto clumped units pushing and shoving and to counteract that you have hotkey groups, and brute force apm to spread your units. All I'm suggesting is to expand the ground magic box (which already exists btw, so we're not adding anything new) so that it actually works for SC2 armies and maybe allow armies on the march to spread out more which can create an interesting tactic in and of itself.
Because I'm not sure what the ultimate conclusion of
"It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove."
is. If I look at SC2's so-called competitors, I can think of a LOT of things that could be removed... spells, macro mechanics, workers, heck even resources and unit producing structures. I don't know where you start or stop using this argument as there isn't much that's necessary to an RTS. So then, in my mind it's more helpful to think: if we are increasing the power of splash damage... then there should be a few useful tools to deal with it and so I listed a couple possible ones that already existed in the same franchise.
Stuff like this seems so simple, yet we cant have it cuz SC2 seems to be locked into what it is. So many design choices seem to just been thrown aside when they were making the game. Its like they thought they were fixing something like a bug. When in reality its a major design choice. This reminds me of the Warcraft 1 Dev Blog, where he talked about limiting control groups not because there was no way to select all the units, but rather they actually put thought into the mechanics of the game.
"Hey man remember overkill in BW?"
Yea I hated that, all my tanks killing one unit
Well lets fix it.
SC2 absolutely needs a pro-mod now. We need to fix these things that are so blantly killing the game's excitement
On September 27 2012 15:16 Falling wrote: Thing is people LOVE marine-split vs banelings and stutter step, but when you turn around and say we should have more of these sort of micro interactions, people balk as though this would suddenly mean bad unit ai and 'fighting against the computer.'
No, people balk because virtually every example that people give of these things from SC1 is a result of bad AI and fighting the interface. If people would come up with ideas that evolve naturally from visible game rules, then there would be a lot less balking.
Marine splitting is a result of the way units move and what Banelings do to Marines. Stutter-step is the result of units that have a low "spin-up" time to fire, a low "spin-down" time after firing, and can instantly shoot in a different direction. None of those things represent fighting the interface; they're just stuff you do with the units.
Look at what you're suggesting. The current pathing is the way it is now because it is the most efficient way to get all of the units from point A to point B. Therefore, any "spread" movement would by definition be less efficient. You're saying you want to break the pathing AI, making it objectively worse.
On September 27 2012 15:16 Falling wrote: But you're wrong to say that BW tanks automatically spread themselves. If you told a hotkeyed group of tanks to seige, they'd seige in the line they were travelling and be packed quite close together. Same with mass lurker burrow. You actually have to manually spread them out for them to be in good position. (It is however possible to get them super close so the units overlap with enough micro.)
How much they are spread or bunch up is relative. SC1 units do not natively bunch up as much as SC2 units do. So SC1 tanks are relatively more likely to be spread out compared to their SC2 counterparts. Even moreso when dealing with multiple control groups.
On September 27 2012 15:16 Falling wrote: Yes 1-3 are all dealing with the effects of overkill, but it's different, specific applications of overkill.
It's the same effect viewed from three different perspectives. The effect is that you need to split your tanks. The perspectives are why you need it and how you get punished for not doing so.
This is classic PC-gamer thinking: if we just add more and more options to the interface, it'll get better.
I recall the quote, "It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove."
Ok, but is the option of two sufficient?
But it's not two. Right now, we have Move, Patrol, Attack/Move, and Hold Position, in addition to unit-specific abilities. You're suggesting that we add something on-top of all of that, some kind of Spread/Attack/Move, or just a toggle switch that makes them spread.
On September 27 2012 15:16 Falling wrote: All I'm suggesting is to expand the ground magic box (which already exists btw, so we're not adding anything new) so that it actually works for SC2 armies and maybe allow armies on the march to spread out more which can create an interesting tactic in and of itself.
My problem is that you're doing this by adding another command to the already existing stack of commands. Your thinking is overly simplistic: units bunch up too much for AoE to be too strong, so let's give people a button to make units not bunch up so much. The correct answer is to do something that feels natural and organic within the game, not give people more and more buttons.
Look at how stutter-step and Marine splitting evolve organically from the rules. That is the kind of thing you should be looking to create, not a magic "fix the problem" button.
On September 27 2012 15:16 Falling wrote: Because I'm not sure what the ultimate conclusion of
"It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove."
is. If I look at SC2's so-called competitors, I can think of a LOT of things that could be removed... spells, macro mechanics, workers, heck even resources and unit producing structures. I don't know where you start or stop using this argument as there isn't much that's necessary to an RTS.
Then you missed the point of the quote. When you take something away, and doing so makes it less perfect, you put it back. When you can't remove anything at all without making it worse, you have achieved perfection.
That's the "ultimate conclusion."
The purpose of the idea is to stop trying to over-complicate things, to not add rules on top of rules on top of rules. The goal is maximum simplicity, to use the fewest rules you can get away with to achieve the goal.
This reminds me of the Warcraft 1 Dev Blog, where he talked about limiting control groups not because there was no way to select all the units, but rather they actually put thought into the mechanics of the game.
Of course, some might argue that they should have put thought into making mechanics that would allow micro while still making unlimited unit selection viable. To put it another way, if you have to make your interface a game design element in order to get people to do what you want, there's something wrong with your game design.
On September 27 2012 22:08 mordek wrote: Wait, where was it said that he wanted a button for Spread/Attack/Move?
When he said, "Can we agree that giving the player multiple options in moving their troops around is better?" You can't give someone "more options" if what you're doing is changing how movement always works. If you change how basic movement works, you don't have the option of the current movement system anymore. You're exchanging one option for another.
"multiple options" implies adding a new move command, not merely changing how the move command works.
On September 27 2012 22:08 mordek wrote: Wait, where was it said that he wanted a button for Spread/Attack/Move?
Absolutely not. A unit spread button would be the worst thing ever. All I'd like to see is the Magic Box system (which already exists in SC2) work better.
Edit And no Nicol it doesn't change how units always move (except the army on the march part.) The default movement is the same (although I'm not a big fan of the pushing and shoving), but we add the condition that if units selected are with a certain distance of each other, but aren't too close they move in formation. So default is normal, magic box applies when you meet the required conditions. Same way it currently works with Mutalisks. And I can't emphasize this enough: this isn't anything new. It is already in the game right now. It just doesn't work very well.
On September 24 2012 08:00 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: as good as people claim BW was, I'm really not into this game turning into a clone of it.
This is a particularly retarded argument (we don't want SC2 to be BW2) which it pains me to see on TL. Save it for the Bnet forums. Nobody is asking for BW2 here.
The argument goes: 1) There were good design choices in BW which created deep strategic gamplay. 2) There are bad design choices in SC2 which do the opposite. Therefore: 3) What can be learnt from BW that could improve SC2?
Why reinvent the wheel? Take what works and improve from there. I think Browder wants SC2 to be different purely for the sake of being different which is a poor mentality to have if you want to make it 'good'.
On September 24 2012 08:00 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: as good as people claim BW was, I'm really not into this game turning into a clone of it.
This is a particularly retarded argument (we don't want SC2 to be BW2) which it pains me to see on TL. Save it for the Bnet forums. Nobody is asking for BW2 here.
Perhaps not in this thread, but you can't deny the number of "replace Colossus with Reaver" and similar posts that exist on TL. If tomorrow, there was a post from Blizzard announcing the replacement of the Colossus with the Reaver, of Roaches with Tier 1 Hydras, of Stalkers&Immortals with Dragoons, of Hellions with Vultures, of Swarm Hosts with Lurkers, of Thors with Goliaths, etc, do you honestly believe that the TL forums would shed a metaphorical tear?
Oh, there'd be quite a bit of anger from SC2-only players, but it would be drowned out by the posts from the SC1 faithful just waiting to get their game back.
It is a stupid argument, certainly. But that doesn't mean there isn't a corn kernel of truth there to be found in the turd of fail.
Personally, as someone who absolutely hated Mech-play in SC1 (my most hated matchup to watch was TvT, with TvP a distant second. But then again, I'm a Zerg player, so...), I'm happy to see it gone. I'm glad to see that Terrans can actually go Bio in many matchups and be successful, that the so-called SK-style Terran play is something that really works in non-TvZ matches. I'm happy that the Siege Tank is not the single God-unit of the Terrans (though I'm not happy that the Marine took its place, nor am I entirely pleased that the ST is so weak).
That doesn't mean I wouldn't mind seeing different styles of play from the Terran than just MMM+. But the kind of positional play from SC1 has a real problem: it is almost inherently degenerative. If you find a way to make positional play work, then you've also found a way to make your army substantially more cost-efficient than your opponent's army. Which now means that getting said army is the most important and powerful thing you could ever do. Thus, TvP involved getting maybe 3 Marines just to survive until you get your Factories up. Then, it's Factory only, with a couple of Vessels along for the ride. That's bad; you're basically saying that over half of the Terran units are superfluous in 2-out-of-3 matchups.
Marine splitting is a result of the way units move and what Banelings do to Marines. Stutter-step is the result of units that have a low "spin-up" time to fire, a low "spin-down" time after firing, and can instantly shoot in a different direction. None of those things represent fighting the interface; they're just stuff you do with the units.
Actually this is exactly what most of the micro options that people would like to see brought back into SC2. The vast majority of the micro tricks were the result of the way units move in addition to low 'spin-up' time to fire, and low 'spin-down' time after firing. What you're describing is very similar to moving shot, and hold position micro. As soon as people hear BW micro, they think buggy dragoon ai as though that were the predominant sort of micro that there was. I'd argue it was the minority.
Look at what you're suggesting. The current pathing is the way it is now because it is the most efficient way to get all of the units from point A to point B. Therefore, any "spread" movement would by definition be less efficient. You're saying you want to break the pathing AI, making it objectively worse.
This assumes that efficient movement is the only goal a player may have. Units should go from point A to point B without adding trouble to the ai, I agree. But the question is how do they go from point A to point B? Is clumped better? Not if I'm running through a series of psionic storms. Not if I'm getting shelled by siege tanks. In this case, clumped is not the most efficient thing I want to be doing. I want to be spreading my units out while moving forwards or back. Magic box allows me to spread efficiently. Point A to Point B is a single purpose goal, but most players have more goals than that if AoE is in play.
re: Tank spread. They'll siege in a clumped line as a opposed to a clumped ball. It's not any sort of spread that a Terran would want although it'll do in a pinch. However, if zealots get into that clumped line, it's lights out. I suppose you could see clumped line as more spread out as clumped ball, but the fact is tanks naturally siege in a less than ideal manner. But in one sense it doesn't matter so much as the Tools suggestion would spread out SC2 tanks a little easier as well.
I don't really see what your major problem is with points 1-3. The entire blog is about overkill so that's naturally what points 1-3 are about. But drop tactics are different then spread zealot lines buffering for dragoons even if they're abusing the same overkill mechanic.
I've already kinda dealt with the 'button' comment. It's spatial selection, not an extra button. It already exists in the game so it's nothing new. It just needs to be better to actually effect the game on a regular basis.
The simplicity rule doesn't go anywhere because we don't agree on what the goal/ end result should be. I say the tiny SC2 magic box loses positional, spread out micro, therefore it should be back because the game loses depth. You say it's not necessary and it's simpler without it. But I think there's gameplay lost rather than superfluous complexity lost. Specifically, magic box gives extremely potent control to the player because the units stay in formation if handled properly. Therefore random movement caused by auto-clumping, pushing and shoving is eliminated and the unit controls become very precise, calculated and controlled.
I'm sure you've seen this posted before, but the reason this works is because the random troop movements have been cut out (this is despite buggy dragoon ai) and the units move as one, spread out and precise. That's a loss of precise control to every unit is SC2 when we don't have that included. It's simpler without it in SC2 I agree, but it's the sort of simplicity such as losing spell-casting, resource collection, or unit producing structures.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't mind seeing different styles of play from the Terran than just MMM+. But the kind of positional play from SC1 has a real problem: it is almost inherently degenerative. If you find a way to make positional play work, then you've also found a way to make your army substantially more cost-efficient than your opponent's army. Which now means that getting said army is the most important and powerful thing you could ever do. Thus, TvP involved getting maybe 3 Marines just to survive until you get your Factories up. Then, it's Factory only, with a couple of Vessels along for the ride. That's bad; you're basically saying that over half of the Terran units are superfluous in 2-out-of-3 matchups.
No, the second bolded statement does not follow from the first. What you are forgetting is that mech CAN be more cost efficient, but not necessarily. Siege up out in the middle, clumped and vulnerable for flanking your army will suddenly be significantly less cost efficient than your opponent.
Moreover, what makes up for in cost efficiency it suffers in mobility. You don't necessarily have to fight straight up, and can go where the mech army is not. Through doing this you can also frequently outmaneuver the army and catch it out of position in a weak and cost-inefficient setup.
Both of the above reasons are part of why even is mech can theoretically be more cost efficient, it isn't necessarily.
Thus, TvP involved getting maybe 3 Marines just to survive until you get your Factories up. Then, it's Factory only, with a couple of Vessels along for the ride. That's bad; you're basically saying that over half of the Terran units are superfluous in 2-out-of-3 matchups.
Your reasoning behind this isn't correct. The only reason you didn't go bio was because bio was worthless. Once storm was out there is nothing you could do. In BW the damage dealt from storm was too powerful and too quick and with the interface you couldn't dodge the way you would need to for it work.
Basically your reasoning based on what you wrote is that you meched in TvP because the army was more cost-efficient/powerful. This is true, but not because mech was positional and therefore stronger, but because marines sucked against storm. Bio was absurdly cost inefficient. Take out storm though and bio would be dramatically more cost efficient then mech in TvP.
This is classic PC-gamer thinking: if we just add more and more options to the interface, it'll get better.
I recall the quote, "It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove."
Ok, but is the option of two sufficient?
But it's not two. Right now, we have Move, Patrol, Attack/Move, and Hold Position, in addition to unit-specific abilities. You're suggesting that we add something on-top of all of that, some kind of Spread/Attack/Move, or just a toggle switch that makes them spread.
On September 27 2012 15:16 Falling wrote: All I'm suggesting is to expand the ground magic box (which already exists btw, so we're not adding anything new) so that it actually works for SC2 armies and maybe allow armies on the march to spread out more which can create an interesting tactic in and of itself.
My problem is that you're doing this by adding another command to the already existing stack of commands. Your thinking is overly simplistic: units bunch up too much for AoE to be too strong, so let's give people a button to make units not bunch up so much. The correct answer is to do something that feels natural and organic within the game, not give people more and more buttons.
Look at how stutter-step and Marine splitting evolve organically from the rules. That is the kind of thing you should be looking to create, not a magic "fix the problem" button.
You're not reading (or understanding) what falling is saying. No where does he mention a new button. He is talking about magic box movement. What this means is that if you (within a certain spacial area, say a 16x16 square) split your units up, box them, and tell them to move they stay in whatever formation you had them in. No buttons, no lights, no gimmicks. This is exactly how sc2 mutalisks currently behave, and Falling is suggesting allowing ground units to do the same.
I especially liked your section on units on the move compared to units prepared in formation. For me it exposes a little-discussed critique of the deathball: when armies of lings and marines flow across the map like water, there almost isn't a difference between units on the move and units prepared in formation.
In terms of unit movement, I still feel that WC3 just about nailed it. No buggy pathing. No units that do all the work for you. Just endless opportunities to out-micro your opponent all game long.
Marine splitting is a result of the way units move and what Banelings do to Marines. Stutter-step is the result of units that have a low "spin-up" time to fire, a low "spin-down" time after firing, and can instantly shoot in a different direction. None of those things represent fighting the interface; they're just stuff you do with the units.
Actually this is exactly what most of the micro options that people would like to see brought back into SC2. The vast majority of the micro tricks were the result of the way units move in addition to low 'spin-up' time to fire, and low 'spin-down' time after firing. What you're describing is very similar to moving shot, and hold position micro. As soon as people hear BW micro, they think buggy dragoon ai as though that were the predominant sort of micro that there was. I'd argue it was the minority.
It's nothing like either of those. Hold-position micro is based on an AI oddity of the "hold position" command. The same goes for "moving shot"; it's due to the oddities in the way certain commands are processed.
Stutter step is based on easily observable rules of the game: spin-up time, spin-down time, and time to turn and shoot. Hold-position micro is not, because it is not reasonable to expect hold position to have some of the effects it does. Just look at SC2: stutter step is still present, yet hold-position micro is not. Why? Because SC2 doesn't have the same AI quirks, but it does have the same basic rules as SC1.
Stutter step is something you find in most RTS games. As different from other games as they are, even LoL and DotA have it. Hold-position micro is found only in SC1 (and possibly WC2; I wouldn't know).
Look at what you're suggesting. The current pathing is the way it is now because it is the most efficient way to get all of the units from point A to point B. Therefore, any "spread" movement would by definition be less efficient. You're saying you want to break the pathing AI, making it objectively worse.
This assumes that efficient movement is the only goal a player may have. Units should go from point A to point B without adding trouble to the ai, I agree. But the question is how do they go from point A to point B? Is clumped better? Not if I'm running through a series of psionic storms. Not if I'm getting shelled by siege tanks. In this case, clumped is not the most efficient thing I want to be doing. I want to be spreading my units out while moving forwards or back. Magic box allows me to spread efficiently. Point A to Point B is a single purpose goal, but most players have more goals than that if AoE is in play.
The player may have multiple goals, but unless you add a new button, there can only be one possible move command. Thus, movement can happen in only one of two ways: the most direct route, or not the most direct route. The player will assume that it will be the most direct route, because he didn't say, "Move here, but whenever you get around to it is fine by me." He said "Move here now." And it is incumbent upon the game to do what the player asked to do. He wants his units to go there as fast as they possibly can.
You're trying to have it both ways with "magic boxing", which is another peculiarity of the AI. I'd rather add another move command than have some magical voodoo that makes units move differently depending on how many are selected and how close they are. At least with the extra button, it's a legitimate feature that's there in the rules, rather than requiring some arcane incantation to achieve.
On September 28 2012 07:44 Falling wrote: I don't really see what your major problem is with points 1-3. The entire blog is about overkill so that's naturally what points 1-3 are about. But drop tactics are different then spread zealot lines buffering for dragoons even if they're abusing the same overkill mechanic.
The problem is that you restate the same point 3 times. It's not the point itself that's the problem. Only your attempt to say that it's three separate points when it's really all just "spread your tanks or pay the price" with different price-tags.
On September 28 2012 07:44 Falling wrote: The simplicity rule doesn't go anywhere because we don't agree on what the goal/ end result should be. I say the tiny SC2 magic box loses positional, spread out micro, therefore it should be back because the game loses depth. You say it's not necessary and it's simpler without it. But I think there's gameplay lost rather than superfluous complexity lost. Specifically, magic box gives extremely potent control to the player because the units stay in formation if handled properly. Therefore random movement caused by auto-clumping, pushing and shoving is eliminated and the unit controls become very precise, calculated and controlled.
And the whole point of the greater simplicity argument is that you should find a way to provide "extremely potent control to the player" without adding new buttons or breaking the engine by putting in arbitrary mechanics that make units move a different way based on how close they happen to be to each other. Only when you have explored the alternatives and not found a solution, then you should do this.
But not a mechanism hidden behind arbitrary nonsense rules like magic boxes. Once you've proven that it is impossible to get the same effect some other way (and thus cannot remove anymore bits without damaging the whole), then you give the player a new button. The feature will have earned a place on the UI.
Alternatively, one could say that move and attack-move could have different move behaviors, with attack-move being considered the more urgent of the two. That would at least put it on the UI. Though I would prefer that it be a special form of move, with some UI to know when you would get the intended effect and when you wouldn't.
Thus, TvP involved getting maybe 3 Marines just to survive until you get your Factories up. Then, it's Factory only, with a couple of Vessels along for the ride. That's bad; you're basically saying that over half of the Terran units are superfluous in 2-out-of-3 matchups.
Your reasoning behind this isn't correct. The only reason you didn't go bio was because bio was worthless. Once storm was out there is nothing you could do. In BW the damage dealt from storm was too powerful and too quick and with the interface you couldn't dodge the way you would need to for it work.
Basically your reasoning based on what you wrote is that you meched in TvP because the army was more cost-efficient/powerful. This is true, but not because mech was positional and therefore stronger, but because marines sucked against storm. Bio was absurdly cost inefficient. Take out storm though and bio would be dramatically more cost efficient then mech in TvP.
That's a fair point; I'd forgotten about how fast Marines die.
Though I do disagree with your last statement. Reavers are plenty effective against Bio. Especially if the Protoss knows he doesn't have storm to rely on and gets more of them than normal. Without Storm and Reavers, yes, Bio would be more cost effective.
Marine splitting is a result of the way units move Move shot is the result of the way units move. It's no more hidden or revealed any way you look at it. Vultures happen to speed up and slow down in different way. And when you figure out that you can attack without slowing down, bam you've got it. The only reason why it seems 'arbitary' is it doesn't currently exist it SC2. If I compared SupCom2 or Battle for Midde Earth 2 unit movement to SC2 marine movement, I would probably consider marine movement rather arbitrary and hidden because nothing is near that responsive with any unit in either of those games. Also, Warcraft II units were pretty unresponsive compared to SC. Yes, SCBW is probably the only RTS in existence that had things like moving shot... and it lasted over a decade as a competitive game. Coincidence? I think not.
I'm actually not at all surprised (now) to learn that Boxer came to SC from arcade fighting games. Or that Artosis's other game that he follows is fighting games. There's a strange overlap in BW between Strategy and Fighting Games that I would never have thought originally (As I come from turn-based strategy games.)
I don't understand your insistence that magic box is voodoo magic. It's already in the game. Right now. Do you think SC2 air magic box is voodoo magic? Do you think the minor form of SC2 ground magic box is voodoo magic?
Why are you wanting another move command when you just said that adding more buttons would be more complicated? Another move command that auto-spreads units (similar to AofE 2's spread formation I presume) is too binary, too lacking in skill and too limiting. The game determines the spread of your units rather than you determining the spread. Spreading in formation takes skill and you can have much more varied formations than a preset ai spread will ever give you... and that's the entire point.
But not a mechanism hidden behind arbitrary nonsense rules like magic boxes.
It's only arbitrary nonsense because you don't like it. It's no more arbitrary than auto unit clumping that pushes and shoves. It's just another way of moving units around the map that already exists. I don't feel like we need to go through this rigorous strip down of the game to determine that magic box is good. It's already demonstrably good as evidenced by any number of BW vods. And auto-clumping is already demonstrably something a SC2 player has to constantly fight against. I see a problem and I see a solution.
breaking the engine by putting in arbitrary mechanics that make units move a different
Your terminology makes it sound so extreme, but there really is no "breaking of the game". It's just adding an extra rule. I mean I guess I could say they broke the engine so that units no longer stay in formation. (Jaedong has specifically complained about the lack of zergling micro- which relied on formation concaves.) But I don't see it as a broken engine so much as different rules.
As for the 1-3 points being basically the same. Maybe I could have listed as 1 a b c? I still think you're nitpicking here. If I took out shuttle zealot bombs, I feel like I'm not showing the range of possibilities. Similar to getting rid of 1 and 2. Drop harass is a distinctly different scenario. We're splitting hairs as far as I'm concerned.
I saw no problem with the structure of your presentation. Definitely not worth picking hairs over.
Improved magic-boxing for ground units is certainly an attractive solution. It's as simple as number-tweaking during balance, really. Far more elegant than most changes to pathing that have been proposed.
One of the big things I think blizzard would bring up if you talked with them about this is how different zerg is in SC2. With broodlords, infested terrans, and soon locusts zerg has a lot of free throw away units we can use to abuse tank friendly fire. On top of that, zerglings move faster now and even zealots have charge, allowing them to get into melee range easier and cause tanks to splash allied units ( and don't forget fungal growth and forcefield to stop you from kiting melee units or splitting to mitigate the splash ). Right now all these things aren't as bad vs tank compositions because of 'smart' fire, but with overkill they become a lot more powerful against tank play.
On September 30 2012 04:58 imJealous wrote: One of the big things I think blizzard would bring up if you talked with them about this is how different zerg is in SC2. With broodlords, infested terrans, and soon locusts zerg has a lot of free throw away units we can use to abuse tank friendly fire. On top of that, zerglings move faster now and even zealots have charge, allowing them to get into melee range easier and cause tanks to splash allied units ( and don't forget fungal growth and forcefield to stop you from kiting melee units or splitting to mitigate the splash ). Right now all these things aren't as bad vs tank compositions because of 'smart' fire, but with overkill they become a lot more powerful against tank play.
The Tank needs some kind of readjustment. I just wonder what approach Blizzard is gonna take.
1) Buff Tanks(Highly doubt it) 2) Nerf Nerf Nerf the new units that counter Tanks(A possibility ) 3) Add a new unit role that eliminates the need to use a Tank(Seems like the direction Blizzard wants to go )