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I would like to see a few of the mechanics from SC2 that add distinction to the races come back.
For example: Protoss Fast Shield Regen. Shields are much weaker in starbow than they are in SC2 as they take full damage from everything, so I don't think the regen would change much of the metagame, but it gives shields a little something extra that makes them more than just fake hp.
Zerg Broodlings in buildings: I also think this would be a nice one to bring back. My take would be if there is any indication that zerg has any early game issues than this is one way to smooth that out. While I agree that the broodlord is overkill, having a small group of broodlings come out of buildings is not that bad and does add some more uniqueness to the zerg.
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I don't think adding in quirks is necessary to show rice uniqueness. I think it's better to just focus on keeping the gameplay between each race different. Terran being the most versatile and mechanics heavy, Protoss being very powerful, expensive, and focusing so much on unit compositions, and Zerg being cheap, weak, but comes aplenty (and I find Zerg units waaay too strong in Starbow).
I do like the faster Shield Regen, though. Perhaps add in Shield Battery? :D
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I was also curious what people thought of the Reaver's damage?
The Starbow Reaver does 80 per scarab, 100 with the upgrade. SC did 100, 125 with upgrade.
What I've noticed in a lot of the games I've seen is that the reaver's mineral line harrasment is as good as ever, as the difference in damage doesn't really mean anything when your attacking drones.
However, the main army potential of the reaver seems weaker than in SC, especially against hydra lines. The hydra attacking a reaver line in SC could be devastated by a few good shots, whereas in Starbow I have consistently seen hydras overrun reavers with only few losses.
On the other hand, perhaps its the price to pay for better scarab AI, what are your thoughts?
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On January 25 2014 09:03 NukeD wrote:
Can you make those dots invisible?
Of course :-) Its just so you can see what is going on.
On January 25 2014 08:53 JohnnyZerg wrote:
Nice work, What do you think if you disable the ability to push the units, as on bw?
Tried making the blockers unpushable. Lots of problems coming that way.
On January 26 2014 06:31 Grumbels wrote:
I'm not so sure about the timed life of the blockers though. I feel like a perfect solution will appropriately update based on context instead of having a catch-all rule of four second timed life. However, realistically it's viking transform, nydus worms, drops, blink, burrow, cliff jump, stim pack, abduct, zealot charge(in sc2) that would all require specific blocker units/triggers, so maybe that's too clumsy?
Yes the present mechanism is about the least elegant method you can think of. But having a timed life on the blocker units sidesteps a lot of issues and my philosophy is usually to get things to work quickly so you can tests it.
An alternative implementation need not actually contain so many special cases. If we could enable each unit to keep track of its blocker unit then we could just have it summon or recreate it when it is lost for some reason or another. Also currently the blocker units have a move speed of 20, so stim and zealot charge are no problem. Blocker units ignore terrain so cliff jumps require no special treatment. What I do foresee as a problem is blink and abduct. In my mind I already see the blockers plowing a path through the unit formation to rejoin with their abducted unit.
I have talked with december about this and a big concern of his was performance. I had not thought about this at all. We are creating new units every 4 seconds and also every 0.5 seconds every unit checks if there are other units in a radius of 1 around it. That is far from efficient. But i feel like the big ressource hogs are unit graphics (we dont add to that, so we have that going for us) and unit collision which might turn out to be a problem, since we are effectively doubling the unit count. We played some 1v1s and even on decembers shitty laptop there was no big problem, but the real test are 4v4s. Even without the blockers, my pc has problems.
There is a test map coming up, then we will know more.
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Let's say a group of stalkers would blink over a row of marines and mysteriously it would seem like the marines are pushed out of the way by invisible units as the blockers make their way through. If you keep something like that in the game next thing you know there will be a Starcrafts video about it.
Why did you change the movement speed though? I thought you mentioned it was 2.3 at first.
I would like to see video without the white dots, and comparisons to troupe movement without your triggers. It's easier to judge that way I suppose.
It's a very interesting initiative in any case, I hope that if your implementation works perfectly that Starbow is still at a place where they could add something like that to the game.
Also, about performance, are you aware of this sort of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation ? If you're worried about performance you should do such a type of analysis and this might assuage decemberscalm because at least you will have confidence that the performance won't completely go to hell in late-game or in team games.
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On January 26 2014 21:31 Grumbels wrote:Let's say a group of stalkers would blink over a row of marines and mysteriously it would seem like the marines are pushed out of the way by invisible units as the blockers make their way through. If you keep something like that in the game next thing you know there will be a Starcrafts video about it. Why did you change the movement speed though? I thought you mentioned it was 2.3 at first. I would like to see video without the white dots, and comparisons to troupe movement without your triggers. It's easier to judge that way I suppose. It's a very interesting initiative in any case, I hope that if your implementation works perfectly that Starbow is still at a place where they could add something like that to the game. Also, about performance, are you aware of this sort of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation ? If you're worried about performance you should do such a type of analysis and this might assuage decemberscalm because at least you will have confidence that the performance won't completely go to hell in late-game or in team games.
A starcrafts video about this would be awesome though :D
Blocker units need to be faster than the unit they are following or they get left behind. Choosing a speed close to the followed unit makes the splitting a tad smoother, its very subtly thought. 2.3 works well for marines but not for fastr units. I tried to make the blockers copy the movementspeed and collision size of their creator but i didn't find a way. Doesn't mean its not possible, I have only about 4 days of experience with the data editor. For the moment, movespeed 20 is good enough.
I have a replay between Hider and Dirtybag with invisible blockers but im not sure if I should be uploading it without their consent. You can try it out yourself. Search for "spread out movement fighting spirit" (i think i have put in a typo so perhaps leave one of the keywords out if you don't find anything) on eu. Or meet me in the starbow channel this evening and I can show you if your'd like.
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Unit test map "Starbow Tester 2.0" Updated!
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On January 26 2014 20:44 AnteZ wrote:Of course :-) Its just so you can see what is going on. Show nested quote +On January 26 2014 06:31 Grumbels wrote:
I'm not so sure about the timed life of the blockers though. I feel like a perfect solution will appropriately update based on context instead of having a catch-all rule of four second timed life. However, realistically it's viking transform, nydus worms, drops, blink, burrow, cliff jump, stim pack, abduct, zealot charge(in sc2) that would all require specific blocker units/triggers, so maybe that's too clumsy? I have talked with december about this and a big concern of his was performance. I had not thought about this at all. We are creating new units every 4 seconds and also every 0.5 seconds every unit checks if there are other units in a radius of 1 around it. That is far from efficient. But i feel like the big ressource hogs are unit graphics (we dont add to that, so we have that going for us) and unit collision which might turn out to be a problem, since we are effectively doubling the unit count. We played some 1v1s and even on decembers shitty laptop there was no big problem, but the real test are 4v4s. Even without the blockers, my pc has problems. There is a test map coming up, then we will know more.
Thank you for your work, you are awesome!
Also please dont drop this thing, something DEFINITELY needs to be done about pathing and I think your solution is the best so far. I would also like if you could upload a video of a game without the dots.
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On January 26 2014 22:47 AnteZ wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2014 21:31 Grumbels wrote:Let's say a group of stalkers would blink over a row of marines and mysteriously it would seem like the marines are pushed out of the way by invisible units as the blockers make their way through. If you keep something like that in the game next thing you know there will be a Starcrafts video about it. Why did you change the movement speed though? I thought you mentioned it was 2.3 at first. I would like to see video without the white dots, and comparisons to troupe movement without your triggers. It's easier to judge that way I suppose. It's a very interesting initiative in any case, I hope that if your implementation works perfectly that Starbow is still at a place where they could add something like that to the game. Also, about performance, are you aware of this sort of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation ? If you're worried about performance you should do such a type of analysis and this might assuage decemberscalm because at least you will have confidence that the performance won't completely go to hell in late-game or in team games. A starcrafts video about this would be awesome though :D Blocker units need to be faster than the unit they are following or they get left behind. Choosing a speed close to the followed unit makes the splitting a tad smoother, its very subtly thought. 2.3 works well for marines but not for fastr units. I tried to make the blockers copy the movementspeed and collision size of their creator but i didn't find a way. Doesn't mean its not possible, I have only about 4 days of experience with the data editor. For the moment, movespeed 20 is good enough. I have a replay between Hider and Dirtybag with invisible blockers but im not sure if I should be uploading it without their consent. You can try it out yourself. Search for "spread out movement fighting spirit" (i think i have put in a typo so perhaps leave one of the keywords out if you don't find anything) on eu. Or meet me in the starbow channel this evening and I can show you if your'd like.
I tried the editor a bit and I'm not sure there is a good way to change unit collision size, because the game seems to treat it as read-only for the purpose of accessing it through triggers. I think the only way is to replace it with a newly created unit that has the desired size. Adjusting movement speed seems fairly trivial though, or at least, there are triggers to set a unit's movement speed.
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Antez your pathing system makes armies look waaaay more appealing while on the move - in SB right now they still clump up and it looks pretty stupid.
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On January 27 2014 04:41 Qwyn wrote:
Antez your pathing system makes armies look waaaay more appealing while on the move - in SB right now they still clump up and it looks pretty stupid.
Yes, I think we are going to make a test map with it.
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On January 14 2014 08:29 murphs wrote:
Glad you're enjoying it wheat.
Personally I was drifting away from SC2 since the release of hots. While hots is better than wings, it wasn't enough of an improvement. It's very difficult to remain interested in a game when all that holds you is some glimmer of hope that Blizzard will see the light and make the big changes that need to happen.
David Kim's balance post last week was the last straw. In a game with such deeply rooted design issues this guy hops on to the forums to let everyone know that winrates are near the 50% mark and therefore his job is done until a month later where he will do the exact same thing. Hopeless.
As if by divine intervention I discover Starbow this weekend past. I am playing it and enjoying it immensely. I don't care about the balance issues that may exist. Balance is a luxury we can afford to discuss when the fundamentals are solid and the game is fun. Starbow is FUN.
SC2 is dead to me now. I'm not waiting for Blizzard to fix the game because it won't happen. I'll be playing this instead.
Winrates are not the issue. Game design is the issue.
I find it flabbergasting that he's even considering a buff to Hydralisks. Slashing their gas cost by 50% is only going to lead to some ridiculous all-in timings and could break the game to the same degree as the Queen buff did in Wings.
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On January 27 2014 05:12 Xiphias wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2014 04:41 Qwyn wrote:
Antez your pathing system makes armies look waaaay more appealing while on the move - in SB right now they still clump up and it looks pretty stupid. Yes, I think we are going to make a test map with it.
There's already a test map, isn't there?
I tried some games on it and sometimes there is slight twitching of units that looks a bit odd, but I think it still looks better than the idle spreading in Starbow right now. If there can be a clean implementation this pathfinding system has my vote.
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Well, yes but it is a bit bugged when it comes to Starbow (no hive tech for zerg etc...) but you don't really need that to test units moving I guess 
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Ok this might be jumping the gun - but if you do decide to implement this style of pathing system, then you might consider unerfing + buffing the radius of AOE spells, xO - of course, is jumping the gun a bit as it would have to be tested. What's the name of the test map that SB has implemented?
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On January 27 2014 05:49 Qwyn wrote:
Ok this might be jumping the gun - but if you do decide to implement this style of pathing system, then you might consider unerfing + buffing the radius of AOE spells, xO - of course, is jumping the gun a bit as it would have to be tested. What's the name of the test map that SB has implemented?
I don't know if it's on NA, but the one I played on Europe was called "spread out movement Starbow" or something like that.
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On January 27 2014 05:51 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2014 05:49 Qwyn wrote:
Ok this might be jumping the gun - but if you do decide to implement this style of pathing system, then you might consider unerfing + buffing the radius of AOE spells, xO - of course, is jumping the gun a bit as it would have to be tested. What's the name of the test map that SB has implemented? I don't know if it's on NA, but the one I played on Europe was called "spread out movement Starbow" or something like that.
Yeah not on NA yet from what I searched. Here's hoping that the SB dev team plays with it and uploads a map  .
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I think it's hilarious that Blizzard's pathfinding system is both so good and so bad that it might function best with invisible blocking units mixed in.
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On January 26 2014 10:43 NapkinBox wrote:
I don't think adding in quirks is necessary to show rice uniqueness. I think it's better to just focus on keeping the gameplay between each race different. Terran being the most versatile and mechanics heavy, Protoss being very powerful, expensive, and focusing so much on unit compositions, and Zerg being cheap, weak, but comes aplenty (and I find Zerg units waaay too strong in Starbow).
I do like the faster Shield Regen, though. Perhaps add in Shield Battery? :D
Out of curiosity, did you play more Brood War or SC2?
I only ask because I think SC2 really did the zerg a disservice design wise. In Brood War, yes some zerg units were weak (zergling, hydra, and kind of muta), but zerg had plenty of strong units too (lurker, ultra, guardian). SC2 zerg has no equivalent to the lurker (a unit that really dominates in the mid game) and the ultra (a unit that really dominates in the late game). So, terrans and protoss don't ever REALLY feel threatened letting zergs take that map and a huge economy advantage in SC2 as long as they can get the perfect deathball that can crush zerg in a 200/200 fight.
I loved that in Brood War, terrans and protoss had a lot of pressure to push out at the right timings in order to stop the zerg from becoming an unstoppable force. This created a lot of battles throughout the match, because toss and terran couldn't just turtle on 3 bases, and zergs couldn't be 100% passive, because they couldn't let terrans and toss take 4ths and 5ths without contesting them.
I personally think having the zerg being 99% weak units like in sc2 is a big design mistake for the reasons stated above. 200/200 zerg should be a very scary thing for toss and terran to deal with -- so that harassment or pushes become a must.
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On January 27 2014 16:36 Beef Noodles wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2014 10:43 NapkinBox wrote:
I don't think adding in quirks is necessary to show rice uniqueness. I think it's better to just focus on keeping the gameplay between each race different. Terran being the most versatile and mechanics heavy, Protoss being very powerful, expensive, and focusing so much on unit compositions, and Zerg being cheap, weak, but comes aplenty (and I find Zerg units waaay too strong in Starbow).
I do like the faster Shield Regen, though. Perhaps add in Shield Battery? :D Out of curiosity, did you play more Brood War or SC2? I only ask because I think SC2 really did the zerg a disservice design wise. In Brood War, yes some zerg units were weak (zergling, hydra, and kind of muta), but zerg had plenty of strong units too (lurker, ultra, guardian). SC2 zerg has no equivalent to the lurker (a unit that really dominates in the mid game) and the ultra (a unit that really dominates in the late game). So, terrans and protoss don't ever REALLY feel threatened letting zergs take that map and a huge economy advantage in SC2 as long as they can get the perfect deathball that can crush zerg in a 200/200 fight. I loved that in Brood War, terrans and protoss had a lot of pressure to push out at the right timings in order to stop the zerg from becoming an unstoppable force. This created a lot of battles throughout the match, because toss and terran couldn't just turtle on 3 bases, and zergs couldn't be 100% passive, because they couldn't let terrans and toss take 4ths and 5ths without contesting them. I personally think having the zerg being 99% weak units like in sc2 is a big design mistake for the reasons stated above. 200/200 zerg should be a very scary thing for toss and terran to deal with -- so that harassment or pushes become a must.
Well I always considered the units like the zerglings, hydras, etc. as the "core" Zerg units as they are weak but are strong in higher numbers. Then, there are the much stronger support units that will help make the core units even more powerful and cost-efficient like the lurkers, defilers, etc. It just feels like in Starbow, those core zerg units are just much stronger all around to the point where their critical mass hits harder than the others races, even without those support units.
I played more SC2, btw. I played a couple weeks of BW when I took a short break from SC2 and god DAMN how fucking fun I was having with Zerg. Nothing feels better than trying to engage a huge Terran army and tank line with Defilers, Ultras, Lurkers, and Lings.
...Then there's those moments where you're pretty damn sure you made hundreds of units but you have no idea where they are.
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