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On March 16 2010 17:57 Wolfpox wrote:
The only "problem" with a chance to miss is that it's nearly impossible to make this visually intuitive.
Unless you want a big "MISS!" to pop over unit's heads like some old RPG, you will simply see a unit shooting "normally", but not killing anything like normal. This confused me while I played SC1 in single player mode.
My suggestion? Cause the projectiles to actually fire off-course slightly when the miss, creating a visual representation that spectators and players will have a better chance understanding.
They do? You can see where the projectile lands by a tank/marine/hydra, and if it's a dragoon you actually see it miss like what you're saying...?
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haha, very smart title
Miss chance is definitely the best thing to do, why remove something that worked perfectly.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
This article looks strangely familiar...
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On March 16 2010 13:21 Daigomi wrote:Having a game that is not perfectly predictable is bad.Bad for who or what? It is definitely not bad for the spectators. Few things in Starcraft are more epic than watching a mine dissolve in a puddle of blue goo, or seeing a scarab come so close to obliterating a stream of peons before harmlessly fizzling out. Unpredictability makes professional gaming more exciting for another reason too: If games were decided purely on skill, Flash and Jaedong would be expected to win all their games and there would be no enjoyment in watching them play. However, when there is a bit of unpredictability, then upsets can happen, making the games more exciting to watch for everyone. <img class="imgborder" src="http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/sc2b/sc2b_missingthepoint_scarab.jpg" />
<em>Will it? Won't it? The Broodwar Protoss user's eternal dilemma.</em>
Okay, correct me if I'm wrong but, you are suggesting that Blizzard make games more unpredictable so that games can be more 'wet and wild' and enjoyable for spectators? I'll agree that unpredictability is good for spectators, but I don't agree that you should be putting the spectators over the players of the game.
Sure, it's exciting for spectators to watch a Scarab's inferior AI skip around someone's probe line, but it isn't fun, especially for the Reaver holder, not knowing if the Scarab will do what it's INTENDED to do in the first place.
Should the Scarab have that sort of random chance and just have better AI?
We could make every unit have 1% unreliability of not doing what it's supposed to be doing. Both players have it so it shouldn't change the outcome of the game that much. It's more fun for spectators to watch, yes. It won't turn the tides of the game, yes. Should it be implemented into the game? Of course not!
The results should be in the player's control and the more of these random factors you add the less the player is in actual control of the game, even if only a small percentage.
I've seen so many complaints about Warcraft % chance to hit and Starcraft start locations it's laughable.
Players should be awarded or penalized by some random factor. They should both have the same opportunities, but their CHOICES is what affects the results. It is especially important when players are of equal skill level.
On March 16 2010 13:21 Daigomi wrote:
Professional players would prefer no miss chance.
The idea here is that no professional player would like to have unpredictability in their chosen career. Unfortunately, almost every sport in the world has unpredictability included, from a strong wind on a day of golf to the deflected goal in soccer. All sports have unpredictable factors included, and they are simply part of the job description. In fact, the ability to cope with unpredictable factors is often what distinguishes champions from average players. This point is supported by the fact that many of the best Starcraft players have stated that they would prefer the miss-rate mechanic over a damage-reduction mechanic.
Just because unpredictability is there, doesn't mean we shouldn't try to keep it to a minimum. We should level the playing field as much as possible.
If you were playing a game of golf and your opponent had zero wind on his shot, and right when you step up you have a short burst of strong wind, you'd have to be an idiot to play at that point, none the less be FORCED to play on a different circumstance than your opponent. It's only rational to wait until you have the same chances (or better) as your opponent.
The more you affect the winning result with randomness / chance / luck / even with a small percent, is exactly how much the player isn't in control of the outcome.
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A limited amount of unpredictability is always fun to experience.
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"The more you affect the winning result with randomness / chance / luck / even with a small percent, is exactly how much the player isn't in control of the outcome."
While I agree with what you have said here my good admiral it would be obvious that despite the shortcomings of this mechanic, it is still useful because it discourages a low to high ground attack, which DOES make the game more interesting, it would be good if blizzard could implement a different way to make it so. However it should be noted especially here that much of the game is/ was made around a miss mechanic in sc1. Certain tech of each race could deal with the problem of high ground, making the game more interesting and versatile, carriers for protoss siege tanks for terran and guardians/Mutarapes for zerg, if the game doesn't have a miss mechanic then position means NOTHING and we all might as well play on fastest.
Also disagree on the misconceptions there, I don't know what math you pulled out of your ass for this one but 25% miss chance is based on uh CHANCE so that would mean its unpredictable not like 1 scout=stove scout=cooking=women=money=math=starcraft=1 in a million miss chance
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Wow. Very good (and clear and understandable) post. I enjoyed reading every second of it.
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removing the sc1 style high ground advantage was one of blizzards most stupid ideas ever, along with (not sc)+ Show Spoiler +making naxx the entry instance in wotlk
I hope something gets done about it
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Russian Federation1612 Posts
Totally agree with author. SC1 mechanic is the best
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I agree completely with the article. I am still slightly in favour of damage reduction over miss chance, but it has nothing to do with randomness, but because it may make the choice of attack or armour upgrade more interesting. I don't think much depth would be added by having miss chance over damage reduction because of the number of shots fired upwards will be pretty high, even in small battles.
But the important message of this article is that the game needs to have more tactical depth so that small armies can hold off big armies if used right. I think that needs to be made clear, because the news post and comments make it seem like the community is divided on this when really we all agree on the same basic idea. We're just squabbling about whether Obi wan should always cut off Anakin's legs or if he should do it 99.9% of the time. At the moment he only does it 50% of the time.
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I'm definitely for reviving the exact mechanics from SC1. So when you're attacked by an enemy unit on higher ground, it is revealed for a while, and ranged units have a 30% chance to miss when targeting enemy units on high ground.
Some rules work well as they are and changing them just because something must be changed is stupid. I don't think any other alternatives would lead to the longed for result.
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It's hard to disagree with this. There's literally no good argument against it.
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I have to disagree with the op on a point.
You can miss ten shots in a row.
If the miss chance of a single shot is 25%, then the chances of missing 10 shots in a row is roughly 0.0001%, or one in a million. To put this into context, if you buy fifteen lottery tickets, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than missing 10 shots in a row. The odds start looking a bit better at five shots in a row, which has a roughly one in a thousand chance of occurring. So it is conceivable that, over the course of a few games, you will at some point have five dragoons attacking who all miss the same shot. Will five dragoons missing the same shot be game changing? Probably not, as we will see in the next misconception.
this simply does not make sense. Winning the lottery has a worst % but it happens! You can't discuss the point "you can miss 10 times in a row" with "it has little chance" because if you make a 25% of missing you can actually miss 10 time in a row-.-
My alternative:
Remove damage type bonus if you are attacking an enemy on higher ground. These would mean that some natural counters (eg immortals->roach) have to be played more carefully.
Another example could be a colossous escaping from enemy on a higher ground to remove bonus damage.
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Interesting, I wasn't really sold on this idea at all before this article, and probably because I didn't quite understand the problem. I don't agree with everything you said, but overall I will definitely keep this in mind when watching replays in the future.
I think the most interesting part was how it affects the teching-aspect. I kind of like the fast-paced games of Sc2, but I feel that in the long run people will probably get bored with it. :/
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Netherlands19133 Posts
Excellent article. Thanks!
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On March 16 2010 20:27 LuDwig- wrote:I have to disagree with the op on a point. Show nested quote +You can miss ten shots in a row.
If the miss chance of a single shot is 25%, then the chances of missing 10 shots in a row is roughly 0.0001%, or one in a million. To put this into context, if you buy fifteen lottery tickets, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than missing 10 shots in a row. The odds start looking a bit better at five shots in a row, which has a roughly one in a thousand chance of occurring. So it is conceivable that, over the course of a few games, you will at some point have five dragoons attacking who all miss the same shot. Will five dragoons missing the same shot be game changing? Probably not, as we will see in the next misconception. this simply does not make sense. Winning the lottery has a worst % but it happens! You can't discuss the point "you can miss 10 times in a row" with "it has little chance" because if you make a 25% of missing you can actually miss 10 time in a row-.- My alternative: Remove damage type bonus if you are attacking an enemy on higher ground. These would mean that some natural counters (eg immortals->roach) have to be played more carefully. Another example could be a colossous escaping from enemy on a higher ground to remove bonus damage.
come on wtf
"Yeah lets not implement this because X has a one in a million chance to happen
are you freakin serious?
How does anything he write there not make sense? Yes its possible, he doesnt say its not, he just says that its an invalid argument because you shouldnt care about it since it has a one in a million chance of happening
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Speed reduction also isn't the same as miss chance on average, because of the first shot advantage. With miss chance you'll kill less enemies and reduce their damage output by a lower amount in your first volley, while with attack speed reduction units with slower but more powerful attacks will be better than units with weaker and faster attacks(and if you add an aditional delay of 50% of normal attack time before the first shot, the advantage will just change sides and the whole thing will feel even more akward).
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To me this article seemed full of holes, bias and exaggerations =[
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In the way the replays work (the game is re-played with player's inputs), is really viable to have randomness in the game? (I don't know much about programming).
I don't really like the idea of %miss. I prefer +1 range for the higher ground's units, for example.
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EPT
