EPTBroodwar and Starcraft 2 - Pathing - Page 5
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traceurling
United States1240 Posts
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DinoToss
Poland507 Posts
On September 20 2013 04:40 lolfail9001 wrote: Where he blocked his ramp? all he did is robotic a-moves to whereever he wanted. Screenshot just showed what it ended up with. | ||
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playnice
Malaysia302 Posts
SC2 is guilty of overcoming the technical challenges that plagued BW, and it did so with flying colors. It also a completed a checklist of features that would in theory created the ultimate RTS game. Hindsight is 20-20, and seeing that it took 3 years for this piece to appear in TL, it was impossible to have foreseen the diminishing effect it had on micro vs non microed engagement within the game. I have something to add onto the reference with fighting games. Combos came into place when SF2's "cancel move" bug was discovered, similar to how pathing bug contributed to BW's. The developers in Capcom recognizes the impact it had on the game and the bug was later implemented in all subsequent iterations of SF. One might think that Blizzard could have done the same, but it would not have been a clever move to just imitate the pathing behavior in SC2, since even for it's accidental brilliance, it is frustrating for a newcomer to play with, and for those unfamiliar to the BW pro scene it would be impossible to even comprehend that such an obvious bug would make it to the final build by today's standards. On the other hand, a superior pathing system in theory should result in more reward to a player with precise control, and so there was no real motivation to "sabotage" it. Though there is no doubt that both are different games, SC2 should attempt to bring both grand strategy and real time action together into the game, without sacrificing one over the other. Just to throw ideas out there, imagine unit posturing if there is more variety to unit speed instead of the blanket 2.25 that we now have, the deathball would have been more likely to be broken apart, and rallying units will present more openings for an ambush. Would an even speedier burrowed roach movement result in more efficient trades if burrow micro is used? Instead of Bio Hellbats, would faster transformation animation result in more mid engagement transformations that are meaningful? These are what I felt were the missed opportunity of HoTS. Having said that, even now the game is still evolving, and they are still untapped potential that is present within the game due to the precise nature of the controls. What we are seeing today could simply be a reflection of the skill ceiling of the present crop of top progammers, and there might be more Rain and Life ahead to shows us much more about SC2 that we think we know. | ||
Spazer
Canada8035 Posts
On September 20 2013 04:40 lolfail9001 wrote: Where he blocked his ramp? all he did is robotic a-moves to whereever he wanted. Screenshot just showed what it ended up with. The paragraph leading up to the picture was describing how the improved interface of sc2 would prevent such an occurrence. However, what caused the blockage was not buggy pathing - it was the fact that Jaedong had set those drones on hold position and subsequently forgotten about them. There is no a-moving involved. In that sense, the picture isn't a good illustration of how BW handled ramp pathing. There are many other examples that would've been suited for that. | ||
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Rustug
1488 Posts
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Grumbels
Netherlands7032 Posts
On September 20 2013 04:53 playnice wrote: The game is still evolving, and there still is untapped potential that is present within the game due to the precise nature of the controls. What we are seeing today could simply be a reflection of the skill ceiling of the present crop of top progamers, and there might be more Rain and Life ahead to shows us much more about SC2 that we think we know. All new Korean pro gaming talent is headed into the direction of LoL. The pros that you are seeing doing well in 2013/2014 will be the ones that will dominate the scene until the game is dead or they retire. | ||
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GrazerRinge
999 Posts
I loved the simple and yet accurate explanation about technical aspects of these two rts gems. Imo just from gameplay and tactical level & unit usage, it would be like this (just my 2c): Wc3: micro heavy, macro light Scbw: micro heavy, macro normal/heavy Sc2: micro normal, macro heavy Ofc still tactical play is very important in every game, just the way it is executed is differenent in each game Also i want to mention that there are mentionable differences how spells and some units are designed in bw and sc2: In bw, a spell does ONE thing doing dmg, providing shield etc, but in sc2, there are many skills and even units that has multifunctionality combining default attack with passive skill e.g.: fungal(dmg + immobile), marauder with concussive, medivac (transport, heal and now boost), mines (free burrow+free charge although huge splash dmg), zealot charge. I dont want to prove that which game is better or worse, just that people should be aware of the major design differnces between bw and sc2. | ||
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lolfail9001
Russian Federation40190 Posts
On September 20 2013 04:54 Spazer wrote: The paragraph leading up to the picture was describing how the improved interface of sc2 would prevent such an occurrence. However, what caused the blockage was not buggy pathing - it was the fact that Jaedong had set those drones on hold position and subsequently forgotten about them. There is no a-moving involved. In that sense, the picture isn't a good illustration of how BW handled ramp pathing. There are many other examples that would've been suited for that. Oh wait, Jaedong actually had those drones on hold position there? What the hell O_o. Though i believe there was a gif that showed climbing up the ramp too. Someone posted it in Flying retirement thread. | ||
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purakushi
United States3302 Posts
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warblob004
United States198 Posts
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synackSA
South Africa2 Posts
I only recently started watching SC2 and I LOVE the positional play of the game, I enjoy that micro that can happen in SC2 in battles, but it's nothing like what you've described of BW. I love the fact that you need to be aware of the WHOLE map and not just whats going on in front of you, because, as you said, if you miss something, you're possibly going to fall behind. It was a very good post and I really enjoyed reading it. | ||
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cchily13
70 Posts
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Deleted User 97295
1137 Posts
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Gendo
United Kingdom216 Posts
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Mzimzim
United States221 Posts
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
On September 20 2013 03:25 LaLuSh wrote: Interesting and I agree pathing and limitations played a huge part to make Brood War what it was. When I re-watch BW VODs today I often notice how slow players were at re-inforcing attacks. And how zerg players many times would not be attackign with their entire armies. Often a huge chunk of it would stand idle with all the newly hatched units. I keep thinking: "If this was SC2 UI and pathing, the defending player would die to the reinforcements". You start to realize how hard it is to actually recreate BW-like gameplay in a different, more modern, engine. Especially for a game that shares a lot of the design parameters of its predecessor (200 supply cap, roughly the same size maps, roughly the same income rates and many of the same units). What the designers of SC2 did well I think was to make the game more fast paced. Because to attain the same level of depth in a mechanically less challening game -- you must introduce something in order to put players under more stress. But where they botched SC2's design I think was in uncritically copying all those other design parameters from Brood War while simultaneously changing the pace of the game. They changed the economy. They changed how fast the economy developed. They changed pathing. They made the game feel more fast paced. They made all these changes, but they made them without putting any real thought as to whether they would still fit within a 200 supply game or within the same size/scale map designs. There's a lot of untapped potential in SC2. Even with its current pathing. In that I very much include the microability of units. Just last week I realized a peculiar quirk of how Blizzard have designed air units in SC2. Air units will only glide if they are perfectly separated when ordered to fire! If they in any way overlap (in their separation radius, that thing that repels them from clumping together), all the units that overlap will come to an immediate halt when ordered to fire! The most evident way of spotting this phenomenon in pro games is in viking micro vs colossus. When players fire backwards with 4-6 perfectly separated vikings, they will keep their gliding motion while firing. But when the vikings are clumped before firing, they just halt at a stand still and fire. De-stacking is made to take precedence over gliding in SC2 engine. If this was just an isolated example of lack of attention to detail I'd be more accepting of Blizzard. But really it's a pattern in SC2's entire design. Even with SC2's pathfinding, there were a lot of things they could have done differently in SC2. They could have made units bigger or decreased the range of ranged units. That would have lessened the lethality of massed clumps of ranged units. They could have strengthened positional play by introducing more units like siege tanks, lurkers and widow mines. They could have reduced the dps of all the mobile, fast moving units that all of SC2's most dominant compositions rely on. Like another poster said, they could have given melee units a pause before they attack, meaning they have to get in front of a retreating unit before they could do damage. They could have reduced to speed of ranged units to compensate. To this day, I never understood why they kept insisting that SC2 is different from BW but kept things such as the 200 supply cap and the standard number of minerals inside a base roughly the same while the rest of the game changed. I would like to compare this to the AH in Diablo 3. It had its advantages and disadvantages. It had its proponents and its detractors. It made trading easier, faster and far more efficient compared to trading in Diablo 1 and 2. But it also killed a lot of the magic of playing the Diablo series in the first place. Ultimately, Blizzard just wasn't able to make it work. The new pathfinding is here to stay. But there are still many other variables Blizzard could have tinkered with to bring back the tactical battles that we loved from BW. They might have to start by toning down the dps of huge clumps of ranged units. | ||
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SmoKim
Denmark10305 Posts
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synackSA
South Africa2 Posts
On September 20 2013 06:19 andrewlt wrote: The new pathfinding is here to stay. But there are still many other variables Blizzard could have tinkered with to bring back the tactical battles that we loved from BW. They might have to start by toning down the dps of huge clumps of ranged units. You're missing the point of the post. He's saying they're very different games that appeal to very different people. I like the way SC2 is and I would be very sad if it was just a BW clone with better graphics. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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scsnow
Slovenia515 Posts
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