EPT
**NEW**
This has probably passed out of common circulation already, but here is a Condensed Version/ TLDR Version of the blog if you were put off by the length of the original
TLDR Version Spoiled immediately below
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Unit Micro: Beyond Spells
If marine splitting vs banelings and unit kiting is your thing and you'd like to see a wider array of these sorts of micro opportunities, then this thread is for you.
I really appreciate that Blizzard is trying very hard to add more cool, interesting micro options in HotS. However, I wonder how much thought is being given to a more fundamental shift in making regular attack units more microable?
What I mean is it seems in order to make any unit interesting, we need to keep adding more and more spells to the game, which all well and good. But I think there is another solution.
Specifically looking at attack-retreat micro. Otherwise known as hold position micro or in the faster variant moving shot micro. The advantage of this micro is it is extremely fast and opens up new tactical options for players. It's similar to early game stalker vs marine micro only faster.
Not only that, but it is extremely spectator friendly. I would argue that one of the things that made BW such a popular competitive viewing experience was this very odd marriage of solid macro-mechanics of RTS with the twitch control of units that would normally be the domain of Fighting Games.
Microbility
What makes a unit more microable without spells?
1) Burst damage (front loaded damage with time in between shots)
2) Very little space between firing and moving or moving and firing again.
3) Speed
4) lower hitpoints (although with SC2, things die pretty fast, so take or leave this
Some Definitions/ Terms by LaLuSh
Moving Shot
A series of techniques employed to avoid deceleration when firing. Applied in Starcraft using the following techniques:
Attack command:
Right click or a-click on a unit followed by a quick move command to avoid deceleration. If you don’t a-click on a unit or building your units will act like SC2 air units.
Hold position:
Move units towards enemy and press H followed by a move command to avoid deceleration. Allows spreading shots and dealing damage more efficiently as opposed to target firing one single unit and wasting damage.
Patrol command: Allows you to fire from a 90° angle without losing speed. Is frequently employed against scourge.
Moving Shot: When the firing animation is shorter than the built in delay for deceleration.
Gliding Shot: When the firing animation is longer than the built in delay for deceleration.
A series of techniques employed to avoid deceleration when firing. Applied in Starcraft using the following techniques:
Attack command:
Right click or a-click on a unit followed by a quick move command to avoid deceleration. If you don’t a-click on a unit or building your units will act like SC2 air units.
Hold position:
Move units towards enemy and press H followed by a move command to avoid deceleration. Allows spreading shots and dealing damage more efficiently as opposed to target firing one single unit and wasting damage.
Patrol command: Allows you to fire from a 90° angle without losing speed. Is frequently employed against scourge.
Moving Shot: When the firing animation is shorter than the built in delay for deceleration.
Gliding Shot: When the firing animation is longer than the built in delay for deceleration.
Gliding shot is what we currently have which means we have built in sluggishness for unit control. But this sort of attack-retreat micro (whether moving, patrol, or hold position micro) should be almost every ranged unit.
Now the sluggishness may also partially to do with Battlenet latency. If we really want to the competitive scene to be all it can be and if we really want unit micro to be incomparably excellent, then we also need LAN latency. Many of the old micro tricks could not be performed properly even on Battlenet 1.0 because of the slight delay, but needed private servers that had LAN latency (Fish, iCCup, etc)
Video Explanations and Examples
I have two video explanation on how this micro works.
1) Difference between Hellion and Vulture movement
This is moving shot micro. Not what the Phoenix received which basically kept its gliding movement and turned on it's axis to fire backwards.
2) Burst damage, Collosus, Reaver, and Oracle
Oracle is out of date, but the principles of what makes an interesting harass unit still stands.
I was being generous on the Stalker micro (sometimes need to stretch to make SC2 comparisons). There is also an attack delay on the stalker similar to the hellion. I strongly suspect this is an undercurrent issue for a lot of units.
Application: Nony video.
(7:40)
Note how many ways the Reaver can be used: harass, defence, offence. And how it's able to operate independent from the army. Aka, away from Deathball like the Oracle was supposed to do for Protoss.
And if you have time. Nony (aka Liquid Tyler)
A Final Video if you have time. This isn't strictly about burst damage, but on a couple redundant unit designs that effects the deathball situation in SC2. These units will continue to cause problems for any positional unit/ any unit with big damage and restricted movement just because of their design. That is no matter what new units created to break up deathball and push into a positional game, these units will cause problems to said new units.
www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhee
Final Thoughts
I most often hear that the micro of BW was unintentional game 'bugs.' Yet it demonstrably created an awesome viewing experience and allowed skill players cool micro moves. Street Fighter II's combo system was a game design bug, but was incorporated into future games because it was so awesome. Similarly, Quakes strafe-jumping also began as game design oversights, but became incorporated into future games.
I feel like we also had our game changing revolution in BW with twitch control (due to burst damage and fast transition between attacking and moving and moving and attacking.) However, I am afraid we are leaving behind some of our best discoveries. We have some very cool micro opportunities in SC2/HotS beyond spells, but many of them are very sluggish by comparison (Banshee vs Wraith micro, BW muta vs SC2 muta micro. Nony's Carrier video is another good of what we could have example http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=369313) Now if there is better handling, then naturally the damage would have to be adjusted accordingly.
Furthermore, if we really want to see the top results of this sort of micro, we need LAN latency on Battlenet. That's how precise and fast these movements are. And that's what makes it such great skills to play and watch. It's a must for competitive gaming.
I love the variety of spells we get in HotS, but I would like to see how regular attack units can have better attack-retreat handling. With the basic design of the Microbility 4 points, I'm quite certain any so-called a-move unit can become interesting in the hands of skilled players. It's much faster, requires skill and it is VERY obvious micro for spectators (compared to slow back-up/ adjustment for collosus.)
This is the condensed version of my original Blog on Team Liquid:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=377409
I hope this is a sufficient summary of my major points.
Table of Contents
- Many Causes: TL's Thoughts
- Background/Definitions
- Spells/Abilities
- SC and Fighting Games
- The Crux: Microbility
- Redundancy and Tankiness
- Counter-Argument: "Fighting the Interface"
- Categorizing the Old Micro Tricks
- Conclusion
Many Causes: TL's Thoughts
There has been a lot of thought in regards to this and I don't think there is one cause.
The spoilered list has a bunch of threads that you've probably read before, but they're worth glancing over if you have time to see what the community has come up over time.
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Breadth of Gameplay- Barrin
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=321242
I really think there's a strong case to be made that the rate of income combined with the macro mechanics has led to more deathball style play. Maxing out 200/200 by 12-15minutes is insane unless you're playing BGH or probably even Fastes Possible Map.
Unit Interactions-Plexa
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=370905
It's a mistake to think all units/ races need the same thing. As Plexa points out, unit interactions can make a potentially boring unit, very fun. (The collosus does NOT need a set up time like the tank like I've seen suggested in some of the HotS threads.)
Carrier Micro- Liquid-Nony
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=369313
This is the micro we've all been arguing for. MBS should allow us to do more of this sort of micro. This is what that saved apm is supposed to be spent on. Cool unit control.
Game Design: Baseball vs Frisbees - Day9
(This is probably most relevant for my topic.)
Dynamic Unit Movement
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223889
How the units move around the map does impact how wide ranging armies get.
And an excellent follow up
On October 23 2012 02:33 sluggaslamoo wrote:
I've made some progress on this during my time making a mod. What do you guys think?
Only trigger is disable units pushing other units (one command, its a player flag you can switch off). Also lots of trial and error with changing unit radiuses, accel/decel, formation radius, turn rate, etc. This makes em bump into each other a bit forcing them to need to spread out a bit more.
I've made some progress on this during my time making a mod. What do you guys think?
Only trigger is disable units pushing other units (one command, its a player flag you can switch off). Also lots of trial and error with changing unit radiuses, accel/decel, formation radius, turn rate, etc. This makes em bump into each other a bit forcing them to need to spread out a bit more.
Philosophy of Design 2 - EternaLegacy
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=302136
Certain unit spells actually prevent micro. This is most disconcerting when they are low level and prevalent. Late game and rare is a better place for lockdown type spells.
Micro Where Art Thou?- LaLuSh
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121769
Some things are out of date, but it still the best explanation of the difference between moving shot and gliding shot
I'm sure there were more, but these are the significant discussions that stood out in my mind. There was one really old one from 2010 about the Triple threat marauder, immortal, and roach, but I can't find it.
And because I'm a self-aggrandizing, self-promoter...
Mechanics IS Strategy
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=322084
(Although I would probably amend that to say Tactics IS Strategy)
In Defence of Mech
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=360325
Overkill is Anti-Deathball
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=371077
First one thing this blog is NOT.
**This is not balance/ racial whine. I now have 5K posts on TL. Find one where I've cared about balance beyond it being a passing nuisance that will inevitably be patched. (I doubt you can even find that.)**
Background/Definitions:
This came out of a couple debates/arguments I've had or else read with people insisting that Collosi are in fact not A-move units and that the Deathball is so 2010. I specifically had a quite long debate with a fellow viewer of Nony's channel after Nony had left and that got me thinking. Because the basic argument is that there is positioning involved with Collosus and the Protoss army and the Protoss does need to back up their Collosi to avoid damage. Therefore it can't be an A-move unit.
And they're right that the Collosus requires micro. In a RTS, if the unit moves, then unless you are rallying it across the map to your opponents base, then you are doing some sort of micro. So what then do we mean by a-move units?
I would suggest, that perhaps both sides are over-simplifying what A-move means and this is perhaps because it A-move is so often used in racial whine threads. However, I would say A-move has never meant no micro, but that it can mean the absence of the most intensive micro.
As soon as we move from turn-based strategy we are going have a basic level of micro: moving units to certain parts of the map, positioning your troops ideally before the battle and focus firing, retreating wounded units or re-establishing control during battle. I sincerely doubt that people complaining about a-move units think this sort of micro doesn't exist with these units. This is expected micro in any RTS. Sometimes people argue that the so-called BW elitists simply don't understand that SC2 just has a different sort of micro. SC2 micro is all about positioning and spreading out into concaves, etc. But that's exactly the sort of micro that BW, Warcraft 1-3, AoE, etc also had. But with BW there was something more.
So we have a base level amount of micro. Attack-Move is simply that a unit can be sent straight into battle and attack. (Way to go Captain Obvious.) However, we are not arguing there is no micro. The difference is not whether a unit can be a-moved, but whether the unit design most promotes a-move.
For instance, the siege tank in siege mode is not a-move. (It can't even be moved.) But at some points in the game (when they have an overwhelming advantage), a Terran won't even bother to siege their tanks and just a-move in. So a tank can be a-moved, but it is primarily used for non-a-move purposes.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9faDJ.png)
Sometimes, You just go kill him.
So two things with that.
1) There is an overlap between A-move units and units that require more micro (set-up and position for tanks, moving shot for mutalisks)
2) At certain points in the game, the ideal, but most micro intensive may no longer be worth it. You could set up and attack, or you could just push in, take acceptable losses and destroy them quicker. This is important because people are arguing that we need to wait because pro's still haven't perfected the ideal unit positioning pre-battle. And until that happens, we needn't worry about more micro-able options like moving shot. And it's true that pro's are continually getting better, but we also need to look at the cost-benefit of these fine tuned actions. If it's too fine a line, the very elite may do it, but for everyone else, they will just make more units and ignore the fine tuning. It may never happen and the units continue to be a-move.
For example, if we took away splash from tanks. Terrans might still put them in siege mode because they get the ideal damage from any armoured attackers. But chances are the tanks would be kept in tank mode to a-move around (if they were made at all). There is a slight benefit for putting the tank in siege mode, but is the benefit great enough to be worth the player's time? We can always point to little things that pro-gamers are missing that makes their game 'not perfect,' but barring playing like a machine, do the units provide reward enough to something other than be a-moved forward?
Spells/Abilities
Spells/ Abilities are also not a-move in the sense that you can't just move them in to attack and they'll attack automatically. So it's interesting to note that SC2 and HotS actually has more spells and abilities than BW did.
Spoiled are more specific comparisons of spells/ abilities.
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SPELL/Abilities- in the case, I am counting any unit ability that is manually toggle-able (so siege mode counts as spell for Terran in both BW and SC2.) Auto abilities don't count (so Carriers are in both games are considered no-spell.) But abilities that can be automatic or manual do count (managing charge is an important control issue). Workers were counted as no spell for both games. Overlord and Overseer is counted separately as non-spell and spell respectively. Something like Hellion/Hellbat now counts as an ability, but only counts as one same as the Viking or the Tank.
BW has 23 units with no Spell and 16 with Spells
Protoss: 10 no Spell 4 Spell
Terran: 4 no Spell 9 Spell
Zerg: 9 no Spells 3 Spell
WoL has 20 units with no spell and 20 with Spells
//HotS has 20 units with no spell and 26 with Spells
Protoss: 8 no Spell 7 Spell// 9 Spell
Terran: 3 no Spell 7 Spell// 11 Spell
Zerg: 8 no Spell 4 Spell// 6 Spell
You could nitpick individually on which units I've included where, but even still SC2 has overwhelmingly more spells and abilities.
HotS Protoss has twice as many units with spells/ abilities on it than BW Protoss. HotS altogether has 10 more spell casters than BW altogether. Spells are easier to use and even core ground units have spells/ abilities- Zealot and Dragoon-analog (Stalker) both have toggable abilities. Spells are everywhere, so how can SC2 armies still be considered more a-move?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/amQK3.jpg)
Spells and abilities. More than ever.
Furthermore, just looking at BW, Zerg has far fewer units in general and the least number of spells in general (and the Queen was rarely used.) This means that Zerg is massing the most of the same sorts of units. Why then was it the BW Protoss that was considered 1a2a3a?
From my perspective, Blizzard has been continually adding new, 'cool' abilities to all the units in an effort to make them more exciting. Every single early game unit that the Protoss has, has some sort of tricky ability. Zealots- charge, Stalkers- blink, Sentries- FF and Hallucinate.
However, there is a much simpler of way making units more micro-able and less a-movey without having to come up with all these crazy spells... or mundane spells, the Corrupter has it's Corruption spell which is visually pretty meh, but the actual unit is pretty sluggish handling. Similarly, the Thor has it's Strike Cannon which seems to exist solely to get feed-backed and the unit itself is very sluggish to move around.
So what made the BW's so exciting if they didn't have that many spell casters?
SC and Fighting Games:
Or How we Overplayed Macro over Micro
Or How we Overplayed Macro over Micro
"BW is a macro game and WC3 is a micro game." Is often what you would hear and it's true that to win in BW you needed to have really solid macro. Macro is the fundamentals. The dribbling in basketball, the stick handling in hockey. But I think we overplayed macro and short-shifted micro. Micro was just as important to demonstrate skill and extremely important for making it an spectator sport.
Sure people were in awe of NaDa's macro, but they didn't scream that during the game. People screamed for Jaedong's muta micro, for reaver shots, for Jangbi's storms, for Fantasy's vultures. Unit control micro was the slam dunks, the wrist shots, the touchdowns of SC.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5GKCU.jpg)
Vulture control. Something worth cheering for.
One thing to note, most of these units that had crazy micro actually didn't have special spells/ abilities. Or if they did, it wasn't so much the 'spell' that was awe inspiring, but how the unit was handled. (Here is where we're delving into Day9's baseball vs frisbee analogy.)
The micro-ability was something more than just backing up at the right time, or engaging from the right angle.
The micro tricks of Starcraft BW helped avoid Deathballs and A-move as they relied on hit and fade. We've exchanged rapid, twitch micro for a massive light show. We still have the base-line micro and we have some awesome micro tricks (Marine splitting comes to mind.)
Many of these units were almost a game unto themselves, with special moves that needed certain button combos (Mutalisk micro). In retrospect it comes as no surprise that Boxer actually came from arcade fighting games into Starcraft. Similarly, the other competitive game Artosis likes to watch is fighting games. Now that's anecdotal, but I think there's an an interesting overlap between BW unit's handling and fighting game's twitch control.
And I think this is unique to BW (and to some extent SC2.) I came from turn-based strategy and so this is not something I would have naturally thought necessary in an RTS. But BW is the one RTS that has both the fundamentals of economy management and this highly spectator friendly twitch control normally found in something like fighting games.
The micro tricks, I would almost call Micro Plus. It's in addition to the normal micro found in most RTS's. It's more than forming a concave and backing up when hit points are low. It's even more than filling the entire screen with spells (which can get really clustered.)
The Crux: Micro-ability
At it's core, pretty much any non-spell micro is simply attack, then retreat. Most of the attack-retreat micro is pretty much iterations of the same sort of micro. Stutter-step, moving shot, reaver micro, carrier micro, etc. It's just fire off a shot and retreat out of range from the returning shot.
Blink micro kinda uses this idea, but because blink is on a cool down, stalkers suffer a lot of damage in between. The difference between blink stalker and attack-retreat micro is simple attack-retreat micro requires movement in between ever shot to be effective (early game Stalker vs Marine micro). It's very intensive and requires far more speed to pull off properly.
There's a few things that I would say are necessary for the Micro Plus
1) Burst damage (Front loaded damage, time in between shots)
2) Speed
3) Speed between attacking and moving and moving and attacking
4) Relatively low hit points. (Although with how fast things die in SC2, this point might be moot.)
Based on these four things, I'm pretty sure we could create any number of new units that would have good micro-able potential.
Comparison: Vultures and Hellions
Video Explanation by Yours Truly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuQKRYbs04g
Now I should say, it's not necessary that every unit has as rapid a response as vulture micro, but the fact that we have no unit with this sort of micro is, I think, a bad thing.
A-Move by Design: The Collosus, Oracle, and Reaver
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9_ZIBOlydA
I was being generous on the Stalker micro (sometimes need to stretch to make SC2 comparisons). There is also an attack delay on the stalker similar to the hellion. I strongly suspect this is an undercurrent problem in a lot of units.
More indepth explanation of Reaver micro and directional shot: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Reaver_Drop
Follow up vids:
Nony: Reavers in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXFeHfvVVYI#t=7m40s
(7:40)
Note how many ways the Reaver can be used: harass, defence, offence. And how it's able to operate independent from the army. Aka, away from Deathball like the Oracle was supposed to do for Protoss.
Morrow: Collosus Micro
Morrow shows there is some sort of synergy with the warp-prism, but I'm doubtful it will ever become standard due to the Collosus design/ cost. But to be entirely fair, I am adding this counter example.
So because the Collosi's attack rate is so fast, the attack animation is so long I would say the Collosi design promotes a-moving. To that list we could throw in Corrupters, Vikings, Thors, Broodlords, Carriers, Tempest. It's not that they require no micro (Need to spread those broodlords.) But they either don't have discernible burst damage, or their attacks require them to come to a complete halt to shoot or they are very sluggish to move around.
For instance, the Thor is very sluggish in turning around and moving. That means attack-retreat is not as useful and not as impressive.
Now having said that, not every unit needs to have the crazy micro options. Guardians were in BW after all. But we certainly need more than we currently have.
Redundancy and Tankiness
One further thing that leads to A-move armies is a glut in redundant, tanky units.
Redundant Units
One thing I forgot to mention is that people (including myself) were in a big outcry about the Warhound being too similar to existing units. This is the same problem as the Warhound, but this goes back to the first Beta.
Baller's hydraroach may be a joke, but there is some truth to it. They basically took the hydra and split it into two units. At this point I would just as soon throw out both the Hydralisk and the Roach and start over entirely with a brand new 1 supply ranged, low health, but fast micro-able unit.
Or to show it pictorially:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aEguW.png)
(This before I decided to make a video on it)
The other armies (with more of the units. Spoiled for space)
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gqC3y.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CMFgf.png)
This is of course a simplistic comparison and a bit tongue-in-cheek. But the main point is not so much whether they do the same duty from BW to SC2, but how radically different the units are one to the other... except the Triple Tanky units.
If you lose to roaches, you didn't macro correctly. There is nothing tricky about roaches.
Day9 (Can't remember which Daily.) The Inevitable Protest/ Counter-Argument
So now that we've gotten to BW micro tricks, I can already hear the hue and cry. "We want to fight people, we don't want to fight the game! You have to break the AI for the micro tricks to work They were just game bugs."
As to the last, just because it was a bug, doesn't mean it is bad. Here we go back to the Fighting Games. In Street Fighter 2, a bug allowed players to combine several attack with no time to recover if time right. Capcom recognized the importance of the combo and programmed it into their next games. Or Strafe-jumping in Quake. That also developed as a bug, but the skill mastery of strafe-jumping led developers to specifically program it in to their next games. Starcraft under Blizzard had our own bug revolution that led to awesome skill masteries, but I feel like we're leaving behind the revolutionary game play.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2AZNT.jpg)
Combos started as a bug, but revolutionized fighting games
Bugs is a bit of a dirty word and I'm not sure it necessarily is as all encompassing of the micro tricks that was available.
Patrick Wyatt the lead developer for Warcraft 1 and 2 and Starcraft has a Blog where he has been describing the development of the old Blizzard games. He's been answering a questions in the comments and I got mine answered where I specifically asked him about the micro tricks/ bugs.
Spoiled for space
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Me
Awesome read although not being a programmer, certain parts go over my head 
I wonder, are you familiar with "move-shot micro" such as the attack-retreat micro using the patrol command with the vulture? And if so was this intentional design or incidental unit behaviour due to how they were programmed? (Hold command works also for a bunch units including dragoons, un-sieged tanks, mutalisks, etc.)
Because there are so many crazy things that keeps SC awesome even 14 years later.
I wonder, are you familiar with "move-shot micro" such as the attack-retreat micro using the patrol command with the vulture? And if so was this intentional design or incidental unit behaviour due to how they were programmed? (Hold command works also for a bunch units including dragoons, un-sieged tanks, mutalisks, etc.)
Because there are so many crazy things that keeps SC awesome even 14 years later.
Patrick Wyatt
There was a lot of emergent behavior (like vulture micro) that players discovered over the course of years; most of it was because -- in the rush to finish the game -- many edge cases weren't discovered by the design, programming and test teams.
My favorite discovery by players was the "Korean eraser", where Terrans would irradiate a flying building and use it to wipe Zerg units off the map; it wasn't something we had anticipated.
Another boo-boo was that, with careful timing, it was possible for a Terran player to land a Command Center much closer to resources than should have been possible, enabling faster harvesting, which made the Terrans unstoppable in the early game until patched.
None of the many "features" that were eventually discovered were intentional.
I think emergent behaviour is a perhaps better than bugs. Unintended consequences perhaps, but there were some that were patching out (CC landing really close to minerals) and others that developed gameplay.
Which leads me to the 'fighting against the AI' argument. I want to break down the bugs/ micro trick in the game into several categories. Because it seems to me, people conflate all the micro tricks into one category. (They're called bugs, therefore they are bad.)
The micro tricks we're interested in is not extra clicking for the sake of clicking, but Micro Plus, the extra moves, the movement combos. What we don't want is the category of 'bugs that hinder or get in the way of what I'm trying to do."
Categorizing the Old Micro Tricks
For the next section I define Fighting the Game as: try to move unit--> unit won't move
OR somehow the normal movement is hindered. (aka sporadic dragoon freak-out.)
This list is not exhaustive, but I hope it is comprehensive enough.
Tier 0: Movement Hindering
Dragoon bugginess. Freezing/ frantic movement
Goliaths (same as Dragoons, but to less extent)
Units getting stuck between buildings
Building exits blocked
Thoughts: No good. No-one wants these in SC2.
The cause of the dragoon freak outs according to Patrick Wyatt
Because Dragoons were larger than other units they needed
to find wider paths that weren't obstructed by terrain or other game
units.
to find wider paths that weren't obstructed by terrain or other game
units.
But this seems to be the level of bugs that people always get hung up on. None of the micro tricks actually fall into this camp.
Tier 1: Attacks with Timers
Reaver scarab (random duds)
Mine chase (sometimes chase units over long distances)
Example
Thoughts: I can see why people wouldn't want it. On the surface, this looks like random duds and this could be considered frustrating and some people are adamantly against anything random. In reality it's not random. The scarab tries to fit through spaces between structures and then must go around. The entire scarab is on a timer, so if it doesn't reach it's target in time it will dud. I (as a Protoss player) actually think it's good. It allows the Reaver to be really powerful, but it won't hit 100% of the time (balance). But there's something really exciting about the unknown. Spectators wait with baited breath to see if it will shoot for maximum effect or whether through clever building dodging or pulling units away fast enough it will dud. The fact that you hear cheers, screams, and groans when the unit is in play should tell you it's doing something right.
Here were some of the ways of either ensuring the scarab hit or else running the timer out so it dudded.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OgEuy.png)
1) If buildings/ mineral lines were in the way, it would be more likely to dud.
2) If the workers were pulled perpendicular to the reaver, it would be more likely to hit
3) If the workers were pulled away from the reaver, it was less likely to hit
4) An entire thread devoted to it: [G] TvP Deterministically Dodge Scarabs.
Both players know this information so these limitations actually creates targets and goals. It became a more more directional attack, adding a layer of decision making on the part of both players. (Where am I going to land the reaver so as to get maximum effect vs where is the best way to run beyond a non-directional away.) And there was enough damage to make the reaver worth it even if it dudded on occasion.
But if it duds too often it would be frustrating, but just often enough to make the spectators lean forward? Priceless. I'd vote yes, but I suspect most would vote no.
Tier 2: Hopping Over Walls (some random)
Bugging workers over mineral lines
Bugging military units over mineral lines
Bugging units over stacked buildings to get up ramps
Examples
My video demonstrating some of the above micro tricks
Further examples
Sliding Through Minerals
Thoughts: This is actually exciting to see and adds new possible maps. It doesn't effect the unit handling any way outside of giving it an extra ability to hop over the mineral lines. (Can't possibly be argued to be movement hindering as SC2 units can't currently do this at all.) Again, the anti-random people would hate the random part. The randomness could be cut out, but I'd suggest part of what it makes it works is that it's not a guaranteed thing and you can't get an entire armies over.
I was going to say that it could problems with balance, but as no map actually has mineral walls where this would be an issue, it actually wouldn't change much. But it would give map makers something to play with. I think it's exciting, but I could see why people wouldn't want it.
For reference:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Outsider
Tier 3: Stacking
Worker Drill (see above video)
Mutalisk Stacking
Thoughts: No reason to not have these things. There's already a precedent for using minerals to perform micro tricks. It also happens to be called the Worker Drill:
SC2 Drone Drill
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=261179¤tpage=5#83)
But it might not anymore? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=261179¤tpage=14
Mutalisk- the stacking in SC2 isn't quite there yet. The grouped units don't quite move like a cohesive whole that get out line occasionally. Each mutalisk still seems quite independent of the other and therefore there is less precise control.
I should also add that Muta's weren't the only ones that could be stacked so that they could be microed as (nearly) one unit. Corsairs and wraiths could also do the same if you trapped a worker or something else in the same hotkey group as the air unit.
Tier 4: Unit Control
Hold Position Micro (almost any ranged BW unit)
Carrier Micro (see Nony's blog)
Reaver-Shuttle Micro (Colossus, Oracle, Reaver video)
Scourge vs Air unit micro
Move Shot (Mutalisk, Vulture, Wraith)
Thoughts: When people are asking for more micro tricks from BW... it's this level and maybe Tier 3. None of these tricks actually interfere with your ability to A-move across the map. It doesn't hinder movement, stop movement, cause the unit to freak out or any of things. It's the equivalent of the combos in the Fighting Game. The skilled can perfect it, but it's rewarding enough that lower level players will also try it. (A lot of these tricks should be filtering down to Platinum I should think- they just can't do both macro and the crazy micro at the same time.) We probably need better latency to get a lot of these things working however.
We made a big stink about this back in Beta and got the Phoenix. The Phoenix is not moving shot it just rotates on an axis and fires backwards. Furthermore, these sorts of micro tricks should be applied to almost every regular ranged attack unit in SC2, not just experiment on the Phoenix (and get it wrong.)
Some good Definitions provided by LaLuSh in the Oh, Micro Where Art Thou?
Spoiled for space
+ Show Spoiler +
Moving Shot
A series of techniques employed to avoid deceleration when firing. Applied in Starcraft using the following techniques:
Attack command:
Right click or a-click on a unit followed by a quick move command to avoid deceleration. If you don’t a-click on a unit or building your units will act like SC2 air units.
Hold position:
Move units towards enemy and press H followed by a move command to avoid deceleration. Allows spreading shots and dealing damage more efficiently as opposed to target firing one single unit and wasting damage.
Patrol command: Allows you to fire from a 90° angle without losing speed. Is frequently employed against scourge.
Moving Shot: When the firing animation is shorter than the built in delay for deceleration.
Gliding Shot: When the firing animation is longer than the built in delay for deceleration.
But I can NOT emphasize this enough. These sorts of micro tricks do NOT effect normal pathing.
Dragoon hold position also shows up here, but note that hold position micro is independent of the dragoon thinking it was smaller than it actually was. That Tier 0 bugginess hindered dragoon functionality. Hold position micro increased its functionality. (I'm sure you've already seen Bisu's dragoon micro linked countless times.)
God Tier: Chinese Triangle
Chinese Triangle: Mutalisk vs Scourge
Example:
Thoughts: I still can't do this with any consistency. I guess it should be under Tier 4, but it's so freaking hard.
Conclusion:
Again, I don't consider this THE solution to solving a-moving units. I really think it's a multiple cause problem. But I suspect it is part of the solution.
A-move units does not mean units entirely devoid of micro. There is always a base level of micro that any RTS has. The sort of positioning and concave army battles in SC2 also existed in BW and countless other RTS's. But there was something more that created the tremendous excitement for spectators and were cools skill for players to master.
Beyond adding spells to every single unit, the simplest method making armies generally and the collosus specifically less a-move-y is to focus on
1) burst damage
2) speed between difference between attacking and moving again or moving and then attacking.
3) speed in general
4) low hit points (depending on rate of fire)
The micro tricks of BW may have been unintended. There were genuine, gameplay hindering bugs. Nobody want those. But there were also emergent behaviours that were awesome to behold. Street Fighter II had their combo systems develop from bugs and Capcom developed it as part of regular gameplay. Quake also had their strafe-jumping orginate from game bugs. BW experienced a similar gameplay revolution through bugs, but I'm afraid we're largely ignoring a significant part of what made SC such a successful competitive game.
Competitive BW is an odd marriage between huge economy management and unit micro control normally reserved for something like a Fighting Game. The macro provided BW a firm foundation as an RTS and the micro a spectacular viewing experience. Spectators were cheering for more than a big light show with explosion filling the entire screen. They cheered for the players' mastered skill of twitch control units.
There. 5000th post done. And so after a massive slow down I'm back to moderating on TL, so watch out.
edit
tldr.
Watch the videos posted. 4 of them I made specifically for this article. The other ones are decent examples of what is being talked about.
Outtakes:
+ Show Spoiler +
Mutalisk... there's a lot video examples out there. I tried to make a video explaining the difference between BW and SC2 muta micro. But while I can see and feel the difference, I couldn't figure out how to visually break it out down for a video
But here is some partial thoughts:
Two additional points
1) Regardless of what you think of either my BW or SC2 muta micro, it is simply the case that you never see equivalent muta micro where they move in. The micro you see it a much slower, lazy sort of attack back and forth.
2) Balance Concern- when this was argued awhile back, people were afraid of muta's one shotting CC's with 30 muta. To me that's immediately another argument to for limited unit selection. But barring that (because it's unlikely to get traction) the best work around solution I can think of is to make it so that 2-x units (let's say 2-11) will stack properly to be microed as nearly one unit. If you have more than x muta's selected, they unstack thus becoming unwieldy to micro.
