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Math on Widow Mines -- How STLife Dodged the Shots - Page 8

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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JtoK
Profile Joined December 2011
Germany232 Posts
March 20 2013 03:43 GMT
#141
Blizzard should fix this. Because its getting easier and easier to counter widow mines: 1. oracle+envision+phoenix+liftup 2. swarm hosts 3. micro with 1 ling/muta/roach/marine/zealot ahead etc.
Al Bundy
Profile Joined April 2010
7257 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-20 04:07:37
March 20 2013 04:06 GMT
#142
Mmh that's very interesting. I watched Life vs Flash and as a spectator I was really confused by what happened. The widow mines' behavior seemed quite erratic indeed, almost random.
So is the widow mine working as intended? I'm sure that Blizzard did some intense testing prior to releasing this unit so there is a good chance they are aware of this behavior.
o choro é livre
blacksheepwall
Profile Joined June 2011
China1530 Posts
March 20 2013 04:13 GMT
#143
This is awesome. Thanks for figuring this out.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ // </3 Taeja
Deezl
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States355 Posts
March 20 2013 04:18 GMT
#144
Counter to mines = trampling them with lings.

Who would have thought?

I think for T, positioning marines within the mine radius -- enough to kill small groups of lings, but not enough to care if the mine wipes them out -- is going to be key.
Three hundred lives of men I have walked this world, and now I have no time.
Ahli
Profile Joined May 2012
Germany355 Posts
March 20 2013 04:28 GMT
#145
OP is still using radius 5 instead of 5.5 [ = 5 ability range + 0.5 burrowed unit radius]. May you fix your math with the correct radius?
AhliSC2@Twitter - GameHeart Observer UI - "HomeStoryCup XX" extension mod fixes WCS GameHeart's small bugs, adds a lot of new features -
Rainling
Profile Joined June 2011
United States456 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-20 05:01:12
March 20 2013 04:59 GMT
#146
On March 20 2013 12:43 JtoK wrote:
Blizzard should fix this. Because its getting easier and easier to counter widow mines: 1. oracle+envision+phoenix+liftup 2. swarm hosts 3. micro with 1 ling/muta/roach/marine/zealot ahead etc.

All of these scenarios will be prevented if your army is present over the widow mines, killing the enemy units and preventing the widow mines from firing before 1.5 seconds pass. I'm pretty sure widow mines are most useful when they are there to give aoe support to your army, not burrowed alone in key locations around the map like burrowed banelings. That's how Flash used them, anyway.
MrMedic
Profile Joined November 2010
Canada452 Posts
March 20 2013 05:09 GMT
#147
Wow, thanks for the math and everything quite helpful!
papaz
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden4149 Posts
March 20 2013 08:11 GMT
#148
This is surely not working as intended.

This community might love things like this because it "raises skill level" but you don't design a game having it work like this.

Imagine a random player (which of course doesn't play the game to become pro but just for fun/relaxing) coming to bnet forums thinking he has found a bug saying "hey, I made these widow mines in this game but they didn't fire. Must be a bug".

And then a blue comes over with: "Well kid, thing is if you take this formula, consider these mechanics and then apply this to your situation it obvious that everything is just working as intended".

Sorry to burst everyones bubble, but this will be fixed just like mining tricks and all have been fixed.
Nerfed
Profile Joined May 2010
Russian Federation1132 Posts
March 20 2013 08:11 GMT
#149
Oh nice thread, thanks.
MilesTeg
Profile Joined September 2010
France1271 Posts
March 20 2013 08:26 GMT
#150
On March 20 2013 07:56 berf wrote:
OP's explanation is bullshit.
[image loading]
1 Finishes burrowing once the zerglings are well past, fires on a Corruptor.
2 Remains on cooldown till Life's entire army is past, fires on a Corruptor like 20 seconds after the fight.
3 First mine to fire. Fires on the front of the zergling pack as it goes past. Takes Life from 194 to 190 supply (8 zerglings killed).
4 Second mine to fire. Fires on the front of the zergling pack a second or so after 3. Takes Life from 190 to 179 supply (22 zerglings killed).
5 Gets boxed with Flash's marines temporarily and moves back a bit. Eventually burrows once the zerglings are past and fires on a trailing pack of 4 banelings. Looks like it kills 2 banelings.

Stolen from http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1alusb/math_on_widow_mines_how_stlife_dodged_the_shots/c8yqu9c


Yeah that's what I suspected. The information isn't wrong but it has NOTHING to do with what happened in Flash vs Life.
MilesTeg
Profile Joined September 2010
France1271 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-20 08:30:03
March 20 2013 08:29 GMT
#151
On March 20 2013 17:11 papaz wrote:
This is surely not working as intended.

This community might love things like this because it "raises skill level" but you don't design a game having it work like this.

Imagine a random player (which of course doesn't play the game to become pro but just for fun/relaxing) coming to bnet forums thinking he has found a bug saying "hey, I made these widow mines in this game but they didn't fire. Must be a bug".

And then a blue comes over with: "Well kid, thing is if you take this formula, consider these mechanics and then apply this to your situation it obvious that everything is just working as intended".

Sorry to burst everyones bubble, but this will be fixed just like mining tricks and all have been fixed.


?

This has nothing to do with the formula, OP was just just trying to calculate the effective range. There's nothing complicated about it, I don't think you understand.

And yes it's certainly working as intended.
Wildmoon
Profile Joined December 2011
Thailand4189 Posts
March 20 2013 08:37 GMT
#152
On March 20 2013 17:11 papaz wrote:
This is surely not working as intended.

This community might love things like this because it "raises skill level" but you don't design a game having it work like this.

Imagine a random player (which of course doesn't play the game to become pro but just for fun/relaxing) coming to bnet forums thinking he has found a bug saying "hey, I made these widow mines in this game but they didn't fire. Must be a bug".

And then a blue comes over with: "Well kid, thing is if you take this formula, consider these mechanics and then apply this to your situation it obvious that everything is just working as intended".

Sorry to burst everyones bubble, but this will be fixed just like mining tricks and all have been fixed.


There's no bug about it... if it's out of range it won't fire. That's it.
Aerisky
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
United States12129 Posts
March 20 2013 08:45 GMT
#153
This is actually freaking gigantic news. Wow. Unbelievably awesome analysis and breakdown.
Jim while Johnny had had had had had had had; had had had had the better effect on the teacher.
Rainling
Profile Joined June 2011
United States456 Posts
March 20 2013 08:47 GMT
#154
On March 20 2013 17:11 papaz wrote:
This is surely not working as intended.

This community might love things like this because it "raises skill level" but you don't design a game having it work like this.

Imagine a random player (which of course doesn't play the game to become pro but just for fun/relaxing) coming to bnet forums thinking he has found a bug saying "hey, I made these widow mines in this game but they didn't fire. Must be a bug".

And then a blue comes over with: "Well kid, thing is if you take this formula, consider these mechanics and then apply this to your situation it obvious that everything is just working as intended".

Sorry to burst everyones bubble, but this will be fixed just like mining tricks and all have been fixed.

You think widow mines taking 1.5 seconds after acquiring after a target to fire, and being visible while the target is acquired, is an error? I'm sure Blizzard knew what they were doing when they programmed this unit. The widow mine not firing if a unit is out of its attack range when it attacks? Also working as intended, I'm fairly certain. There isn't a unit in the game that can attack a unit outside of its attack range.

The only possible unintentional mechanic of the widow mine, imo, is being able to reacquire targets via right clicking.
Markwerf
Profile Joined March 2010
Netherlands3728 Posts
March 20 2013 08:47 GMT
#155
the mechanism leads to cool micro tricks possibly but I also think it's a bit confusing and random.
On the one hand this makes mines much weaker against fast units which is an interesting interaction, making lings still do well against them for example. On the other hand it makes them a bit random as the retargeting is quite random and near impossible to control. You can get lucky that the retargeting targets the middle of the pack and kills 20 lings or that it retargets to far away and you don't even get to fire.
Rannasha
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Netherlands2398 Posts
March 20 2013 08:54 GMT
#156
On March 20 2013 17:47 Markwerf wrote:
On the other hand it makes them a bit random as the retargeting is quite random and near impossible to control. You can get lucky that the retargeting targets the middle of the pack and kills 20 lings or that it retargets to far away and you don't even get to fire.


There's nothing random about the (re)targeting. Mines (and other attacking units) will always pick, among the targets with the highest target priority (attacking units have prio over mining workers for example), the closest target. So if a pack of lings is near a mine, the mine will target the closest ling.

There's another thread somewhere where there's a method laid out that allows players to retarget the mines manually.
Such flammable little insects!
Disastorm
Profile Joined January 2008
United States922 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-20 08:58:11
March 20 2013 08:57 GMT
#157
On March 20 2013 07:38 DonFonzy wrote:
So in the last game of Flash vs Life when life just rolled right through the mine field, how should the mines has been laid out to rip apart lifes forces?
Essentially how does the ideal mine field look in that kind of scenario?


The best way is to just fight the zerg army where the mines are instead of laying mines in random locations. However, according to the calculations, the initial unit can't run past the full diameter, so essentially if you lay mines in a straight line so that there really isn't any part of the radiuses where the zerg can run by only a chord instead of the full diameter it should guarantee a firing.
"Don't worry so much man. There won't be any more zergs left to QQ. Lots of QQ about TvT is incoming though I bet." - Vrok 9/21/10
Ribbon
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States5278 Posts
March 20 2013 09:11 GMT
#158
Wow, Widow Mines are a lot more micro intensive than I thought. I kind of don't want Blizzard to fix this, just let it pan out and see what happens.
papaz
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden4149 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-20 09:19:59
March 20 2013 09:15 GMT
#159
On March 20 2013 17:47 Rainling wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 20 2013 17:11 papaz wrote:
This is surely not working as intended.

This community might love things like this because it "raises skill level" but you don't design a game having it work like this.

Imagine a random player (which of course doesn't play the game to become pro but just for fun/relaxing) coming to bnet forums thinking he has found a bug saying "hey, I made these widow mines in this game but they didn't fire. Must be a bug".

And then a blue comes over with: "Well kid, thing is if you take this formula, consider these mechanics and then apply this to your situation it obvious that everything is just working as intended".

Sorry to burst everyones bubble, but this will be fixed just like mining tricks and all have been fixed.

You think widow mines taking 1.5 seconds after acquiring after a target to fire, and being visible while the target is acquired, is an error? I'm sure Blizzard knew what they were doing when they programmed this unit. The widow mine not firing if a unit is out of its attack range when it attacks? Also working as intended, I'm fairly certain. There isn't a unit in the game that can attack a unit outside of its attack range.

The only possible unintentional mechanic of the widow mine, imo, is being able to reacquire targets via right clicking.


If only I had a dollar everytime a developer "knows what they were doing and could anticipate how it would turn out" I would never have to work again.

Can we agree that this "mechanic" that you can actually run across widow mines without triggering them is kinda of a big thing in the game?

It's not just a "small" cute feature.

So you are designing a game. You are showing off your new units to the public. You demonstrate the unit for your audience "here is a mine, the purpose of this is some aoe effect, area control and look how it works in the battle".

Now if Blizzard anticipated that "hey, remember that even if this units is a mine there are cute things you can do so that it doesn't fire at all" you don't think this woud be mentioned AT ALL? They just go silently about a freaking unit that is supposed to blow up stuff can be DISREGARDED if you work out its "mechanics"?

It's just some "easter egg" that just got discovered by the community?

I know these subjects are sensitive here at TL because of the hardocre nature of many of the players/people here but here is the simplest way I can say this: This is a mine, the purpose of the mine is to blow up stuff. Blizzard adds different timers to it to balance out how it works. The timer could be there so that when you discover it you can run away, or you can have time to "gun it down" before it blows up.

It's certainly not there so that you can abuse the "lock on to target" and "relock on to target" indefinetely so that it NEVER EVER goes off if you are good enough.

If that was intended you bet Blizzard would have mentioned this when presenting this new unit. Like I said, this isn't just a tiny thing that got discovered. It's freaking HUGE.
Defacer
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada5052 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-03-20 09:27:29
March 20 2013 09:26 GMT
#160
It's not exactly the most intuitive or spectator-friendly mechanic ever (exploiting am invisible 1.5 sec delay within a radius), but it's definitely a cool design for highly skilled players to exploit.

It would be neat if the target unit was highlighted in that 1.5 second widow (like hunter-seeker) so spectators can marvel at sick dodging or manual targetting of mines.


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