[SC2B] Missing the Point - Page 8

On March 16 2010 14:02 Ronald_McD wrote:


StarCraft 1 had a great high ground advantage. I've hated SC2's high ground line of sight bullshit right from the start.

On March 17 2010 06:18 Louder wrote:
high ground still fails to provide any tactical advantage in most situations, though it should do so.

At this point in SC2, it is INCREDIBLY difficult to defend with a lesser force. If you don't have as many units as your opponent, you simply lose an engagement no matter what, even if you're the one defending. This narrows down the possible openings/strategies/build orders you can perform to a very slim amount. In SC1, part of the genius that top players had were cutting as many corners as possible in their builds and army sizes earlier on to gain an advantage. Things such as fast teching, fast harassment, and fast expanding relied entirely on cutting corners with your army size based on the knowledge that you could just barely defend with a lesser force, because you had the defender's advantage. If you try to cut ANY corners with your army size in SC2 at this point, you will lose 9 out of 10 times if he attacks, because he just has more stuff than you. It makes the game a lot more linear in terms of what you can and can't do, and doesn't open up experimentation or risky corner-cutting at all. You're forced to pump out units all game right from the start, because if you don't, you lose. It puts a huge strain on trying to do any other sort of strategy early on, like teching or harassing, because the investment into those things will surely cut your army size that you could have spent that money on, and once your opponent attacks, you will lose.

On March 17 2010 02:39 mnofstl007 wrote:
I like the speed reduction tho it doesnt make much sense in realization,
Marine A "Why are we shooting so slow?"
Marine B "Because they are standing on the high ground"
Marine A "And that affects my ability to pull the trigger and reload?"
Marine B "Apparently"

On March 17 2010 11:00 Conquest101 wrote:
What's with all these lurkers coming out to dispute the math? Way to "miss the point". What you should be taking away from that example is the fact that, with damage reduction, in many cases, there is NO effect because many units overkill their targets as it is. So some units would be greatly affected and some much less so, or not at all. With the miss chance, it doesn't matter if it takes a particular unit 4 hits or 3 hits, or 11 hits or whatever to kill another unit. The distinction that's important here is that ALL units are affected proportionally by miss chance.

On March 17 2010 09:32 Angra wrote:
At this point in SC2, it is INCREDIBLY difficult to defend with a lesser force. If you don't have as many units as your opponent, you simply lose an engagement no matter what, even if you're the one defending. This narrows down the possible openings/strategies/build orders you can perform to a very slim amount. In SC1, part of the genius that top players had were cutting as many corners as possible in their builds and army sizes earlier on to gain an advantage. Things such as fast teching, fast harassment, and fast expanding relied entirely on cutting corners with your army size based on the knowledge that you could just barely defend with a lesser force, because you had the defender's advantage. If you try to cut ANY corners with your army size in SC2 at this point, you will lose 9 out of 10 times if he attacks, because he just has more stuff than you. It makes the game a lot more linear in terms of what you can and can't do, and doesn't open up experimentation or risky corner-cutting at all. You're forced to pump out units all game right from the start, because if you don't, you lose. It puts a huge strain on trying to do any other sort of strategy early on, like teching or harassing, because the investment into those things will surely cut your army size that you could have spent that money on, and once your opponent attacks, you will lose.

On March 17 2010 12:11 fmagrave wrote:


Over the long run, there is no difference in the number of hits required in both a chance miss system and a percent damage reduction system. the only difference is that one has a spread, whereas the other is a constant effect (and thus has no variability/sd/spread).

PS I did not "miss the point". Arguing against one of the claims presented to support an assertion is a legitimate dispute. I agree with the overall notion that there needs to be some greater high ground advantage. I'm just pointing that the assertion that a chance system takes more hits to kill a unit than a flat percentage decrease is simply not true. These two are the same except one has luck associated with it and the other does not.

On March 17 2010 12:53 Conquest101 wrote:
No, there is a difference. Going with the siege tank example.
33% miss: Three shots kill a marine (on average).
33% less damage: Two shots kill a marine (23 * 2 = 46).
I don't care to do the math, but even if 33% miss does not result exactly in 3 shots on average, it certainly does not result in 2 shots on average, which would be the necessary result to match damage reduction in this case. Even if, as you say, the 50% miss example is not correct, my guess would be that there are plenty of other unit "matchups" that WOULD result in the above scenario.

The thing is, the example doesn't matter. It's unfortunate that his math was wrong, but it doesn't change anything. The point Daigomi was trying to make was:

"Because units do more damage than is needed, damage reduction can have little to no impact on the number of shots required to kill a unit. On the other hand, with the miss-dynamic, the number of shots required to kill a unit increases proportionately with the chance to miss."

One effect varies by unit (omg variability). One doesn't. This still remains true.