Because units are so unresponsive there are a lot of micro situations that aren't even worth attempting.
Phoenix vs mutas, weak stalkers vs marines, hellions vs roaches come to mind.

IIRC there is a minimum fixed latency on every command in multiplayer mode. I want to say its 250ms, I think it was at one point during the WoL beta it changed between 500ms, 250ms, and 125ms. In fighting game terms that's 30 frames, 15 frames, and ~8 frames of input lag.

Try microing stalkers vs ai roaches in single player then try again in multiplayer. Even though it is just you vs AI in both situations the difference is night and day.

Falling

Canada11524 Posts

October 24 2012 21:17 GMT

#63

That actually doesn't surprise me. I seem to recall from my TL lurking days that people didn't advise muta micro on Battlenet 1.0 because the latency made it much more likely to mess up. I believe it was strictly on private servers with LAN latency or else LAN latency that the most intensive micro could be performed with regular degrees of success. (I could be remembering wrong as it must have been a 2007 or 2008 thread.)

But for SC2, simply out of the gate there is a limiting factor on the micro already available.

archonOOid

1983 Posts

October 25 2012 00:59 GMT

#64

Does untapped micro exist in sc2 and in particular god micro? The first thing I can come up with is roach burrow/unburrow micro which is apparent if you play vs insane AI bots in sc2. The limiting factor is off course apm and you could actually calculate the necessary apm threshold for certain Unit v Unit fights. If you know the in-game factors such as movements, attack speed and turning rate you can theoretically calculate the aftermath in UvU fights with a set apm. To be able to replicate in-game battles with an equal or greater than X apm is a different thing which require practice and talent. Physical factors (Human machine interface) such as frame rate and latency adds a barrier for certain battle micro. It would be neat to see a list about what apm is required to execute certain battle micro. It would then be possible to use battle mirco stats for balance and skill cap considerations.

vOdToasT

Sweden2870 Posts

October 25 2012 05:02 GMT

#65

On October 25 2012 09:59 archonOOid wrote:
Does untapped micro exist in sc2 and in particular god micro? The first thing I can come up with is roach burrow/unburrow micro which is apparent if you play vs insane AI bots in sc2. The limiting factor is off course apm and you could actually calculate the necessary apm threshold for certain Unit v Unit fights. If you know the in-game factors such as movements, attack speed and turning rate you can theoretically calculate the aftermath in UvU fights with a set apm. To be able to replicate in-game battles with an equal or greater than X apm is a different thing which require practice and talent. Physical factors (Human machine interface) such as frame rate and latency adds a barrier for certain battle micro. It would be neat to see a list about what apm is required to execute certain battle micro. It would then be possible to use battle mirco stats for balance and skill cap considerations.

Who cares if you can burrow some roaches... that's not interesting. What's interesting is when I do something, you react to it, I react to your reaction, and so on forever. When you have that, you have a dance between the two players. Like a simple PvP battle in which both sides have 16 dragoons, 2 reavers, and a shuttle. That battle has an infinite skill ceiling. INFINITE.

Marti

552 Posts

October 26 2012 00:46 GMT

#66

Man you've been posting really high quality blogs lately, i would've loved to see them being posted maybe 1 year ago, and i'd love to see this being crossposted on blizz forums and possibly reddit

Falling

Canada11524 Posts

October 26 2012 01:47 GMT

#67

I can't on Beta forums. But posting on Battlenet forums is kinda frustrating because I have to strip out all my pictures and videos. I did it once for my In Defence of Mech, but it's easy to get buried on Battlenet.

Edit. Actually I can now post on Beta forums

But stripping if of pictures and videos would be irritating.

Marti

552 Posts

October 26 2012 10:44 GMT

#68

On October 26 2012 10:47 Falling wrote:
I can't on Beta forums. But posting on Battlenet forums is kinda frustrating because I have to strip out all my pictures and videos. I did it once for my In Defence of Mech, but it's easy to get buried on Battlenet.

Edit. Actually I can now post on Beta forums

But stripping if of pictures and videos would be irritating.

You can't post youtube links on the Bnet forums ? Obviously it wouldn't be embedded but a simple link people could click maybe ? Having said that tho it's not like at blizz cares ... I mean they don't listen and even if they did ... well we've seen how they gave us "moving shot" with the phoenix ... and they come out and say they're surprised to see terran splitting marines against banes when BW pros have been splitting mnm against lurkers for years ...

Falling

Canada11524 Posts

October 27 2012 16:34 GMT

#69

Well for better or for worse, I made a condensed version and posted on Beta forums. I've also included this version in the OP (spoilered of course) in case people stumble across this and find the original appallingly long. Also have added a table of contents.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7004451239?page=1#0

edit.
I have also corrected the Scarab-Reaver section. That might have made the mine behaviour in a different category, but at this point w/e.

LaLuSh

Sweden2358 Posts

November 03 2012 21:37 GMT

#70

I've been trying to pin point what's different about unit control for a long time. I've probably made some not 100% correct claims in trying to figure it out previously. For example, I myself don't think it completely necessary to have different definitions of "gliding shot" and "moving shot" anymore. Units glide in both games, and behave essentially the same given the same behaviors, and given they face and travel directly towards their target upon firing. The only definition necessary in my opinion, is the one in the two paragraphs below.

After 2 years what I can say is: The only fundamental difference between SC2 and BW unit control seems to be that SC2 air units rotate around their axis to "lock on" to their targets while still gliding in their original direction, whereas BW air units must face and travel towards their target before being allowed to fire. You can see it in the chinese god tier muta micro; the mutas have to fully turn around. They very briefly travel toward the scourge before firing and turning back.

SC2 attack conditions: Facing target
BW attack conditions: Facing and travelling toward target.

The rest all comes down to attack animations, turn speeds, acceleration etc. All of which can be emulated through the SC2 editor. It's just been Blizzard's choice to design immobile and clumsy air units with long animations and relatively slower turn speeds.

The cases where you are most likely to fuck up moving shot micro in SC2, is when you are not perfectly aligned with the target you're firing at. Why? Because the air units are rotating around their axis while gliding in a slightly different direction than they're facing. Before they can be "snapped out" of their movement in a fluid manner, they must first rotate back to the direction they were originally gliding towards. It's noticeable in your SC2 muta micro video. The instances where the mutas are the most non responsive and pause the most before acting out your next move command, is when they were not perfectly aligned with their target before firing.

People use this feature the most when microing, say, banshees. Move towards a direction you want to be travelling towards, fire the shot, issue a move command in the same direction as previously (the same direction you'll be gliding towards). And the banshee almost has time to rotate back before slowing down.

You will notice this when vikings are microed as well. If they travel sidewards relative to their target. They can sometimes rotate back in time to the direction they were travelling towards and make it look like a decent moving shot. Conversely, if they are travelling in the opposite direction of their target before being told to fire, they will never have enough time to rotate back before having slowed down to a stop.

MavercKs SCBW mod has been somewhat succesful in removing attack animations, increasing turn speed and acceleration. I've been meaning to make a video showcasing it. But busy with an exam period right now. Cheers, nice blogs. Your next one deserves to be posted in the forums, don't be modest man.

Crownlol

United States3726 Posts

October 16 2013 17:42 GMT

#71

Just came here from the link in the Balance Map thread.

I wish I'd seen this ages ago, as it is a well-thought out and presented thread. My disagreement comes as a randomness hater, however. There needs to be as little randomness as possible, with the only exception being critical hit rating in a game that supports it.

I do, however, agree that glitches can be the very source of high-skilled play. The best example is the Super Smash Bros. series. While unknown to casual players in the series, Super Smash Bros Melee is one of the most micro-intensive and precise game ever played competitively. One of the things that enabled this level of play is something that was a glitch in an earlier game, but was a somewhat difficult maneuver to pull off. This glitch was adapted to intentionally be part of the next installment, and balanced so that it affected all characters equally (L-canceling, if you're wondering).

There is no reason a glitch that allows for additional skill ceiling should not be adapted into a game. In your example, that glitch could be mineral jumping with army units. As long as it is smoothed out (not random) and affects all units (or at least all types- Ling, 'Rine, and 'Lot can perform it equally, if controlled correctly) I see no reason not to increase a game's micro ceiling.