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On October 05 2012 22:26 Alex1Sun wrote:Could you please elaborate how exactly would you change it? Just reverting strictly to BW doesn't seem feasible. What exact changes would you introduce? Also since death balls are so effective, don't you think that pros would find a way to clump units manually even if the patching was different?
Dynamic unit movement.
Offcourse pros would find a way, but at least it would require some effort and skill to do. I'd also buff overall AoE as a result of that.
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Terran
- Buff siege tank damage and nerf transformation speed
- More space control options/Positional benifits
Protoss
- Better Aoe (wouldn't mind reaver)
- alternative small Aoe on tempest
- Defensive specialist from warpgate and/or
nerf FF range to 4-6 increase duration by minimally
this makes FF not an offensive tool (can't split armies)
Zerg
- Additional counter attack options (punish deathballs more directly)
- Dark swarm (small armies could more easily hold a position)
- New Aoe/positional based zerg unit/ability
General
A mild high-ground advantage to make defending slightly easier
say a -1/2 range to low-ground armies
If you want to make this more noticeable
Add a +1/2 range to high-ground armies as well
I don't think changing pathing is the right option.
It seems more effective, to me, to just alter the
current unit comps mildly. To prevent just grouping
give units more power for slower movement, or
give them strange movement styles. So you have to
keep watch over your whole army to keep them
together just changing pathing would make pros
work a bit harder to keep deathballs. Adding new
challenges would make raiding parties or sniping
units who are out of position more common and
allow for cool new strategies ,by just adjusting
movement styles. By this I mean unique movement
like reapers or blink stalkers but more limited like
a unit that can only go down cliffs or a leap
mechanic to jump past a wall-in but not over a cliff.
Or just making units like the reaver or hightemplar
something slow but important that you have to guard
but cant make it just straight across the map to
allow for counter attacks/sniping ect
If you find a problem or issue with my logic please adress it also
I would like alternatives and feedback 
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Overkill.
a) With no overkill, every unit deals damage at 100% efficiency. Even in a large deathball, no overkill means every unit is 100% efficient.
b) With overkill, damage efficiency drops steadily as the size of the deathball grows.
c) Hence overkill slows down the growth of power of a deathball.
ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION
a) Overkill is a nerf, hence units with overkill can be stronger than their hypothetical counterpart without overkill (to compensate for the overkill nerf).
b) Overkill does not affect small groups of units as much as large groups of units.
c) Hence balancing around overkill is a buff to small squad attacks and a nerf to deathballs.
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Siege tank damage was nerfed post launch. Colossi damage was nerfed pre launch. Blizzard is jacking you around.
On topic: additionally to many other suggestions, an improved targeting AI might help. I can't access replays and videos right now, but had the impression, that colossi are often targeting the nearest, single unit. I assume, that the AI can be programmed to maximize the damage against groups of units, thus aiming at the damage-maximizing centre of a lump.
Another high ground mechanic is also required. But this time, it should be deterministic with not random chance involved. +1 range would also be decent.
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On October 05 2012 16:27 Stow.Wif wrote:
Edit: I should also add that I like the unit pathing of Wol a lot, it adds micro for splitting against AOE
This is a problem and a shifting of micro. In BW you had to micro as the ATTACKER and in SC2 the only one needing to micro is the DEFENDER and that is bad, because it makes the defender weaker instead of making the attackers job harder.
In BW you had to time your Zergling (multiple groups) + Dark Swarm correctly to be effective with your attack; in SC2 you basically rightclick your group of Banelings and watch the defender break his fingers while trying to split the Marines. Personally I HATE this change, but we all know the reasons for it: unlimited unit selection and "perfect" unit movement with "no unit size". It is the "improvement of technology", but I dont think that is the correct POV when it comes to making the game fun. It should be an accomplishment to overcome a thoroughly entrenched siege line as a Zerg and not just "build X+safety overlap Banelings plus some other stuff and rightclick to win".
Sooo ... do you REALLY prefer the SC2 way or would you rather have the attacker requiring more micro?
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On October 05 2012 22:35 SC2John wrote:
I have been going on and on about space control in many topics over the past week. I'm 100% positive that the main issue with SC2 is the fact that space control takes a lot of units; there is no way to defend an area against a maxed army unless you yourself have a maxed army.
But unit clumping is a huge part of why space control takes such a lot of units in SC2. The more oily-slippery and compact an army is, the narrower the choke has to be for a smaller, entrenched defensive force to enjoy an enduring advantage over a larger, advancing force.
If you watch a BW game and an SC2 game and just look at armies traversing ramps, you'll see an order of magnitude more units flowing up a ramp simultaneously in SC2. That means that instead of a 50 unit force drip-feeding itself to a 10-unit defensive emplacement 5 units at a time, it's just BAM: all 50 units up the ramp and in your face before more than a couple of volleys have been exchanged.
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On October 06 2012 00:21 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2012 22:35 SC2John wrote:
I have been going on and on about space control in many topics over the past week. I'm 100% positive that the main issue with SC2 is the fact that space control takes a lot of units; there is no way to defend an area against a maxed army unless you yourself have a maxed army. But unit clumping is a huge part of why space control takes such a lot of units in SC2. The more oily-slippery and compact an army is, the narrower the choke has to be for a smaller, entrenched defensive force to enjoy an enduring advantage over a larger, advancing force. If you watch a BW game and an SC2 game and just look at armies traversing ramps, you'll see an order of magnitude more units flowing up a ramp simultaneously in SC2. That means that instead of a 50 unit force drip-feeding itself to a 10-unit defensive emplacement 5 units at a time, it's just BAM: all 50 units up the ramp and in your face before more than a couple of volleys have been exchanged.
Thats exactly why many people have been suggesting changes to the unit movement, the AoE damage (and area), the maximum number of units in a control group and the whole unit reproduction method (no point investing in tanks if your zerg opponent can reproduce any of his units much faster than you can after an "even" battle where both sides lost everything).
Unit clumping is the core reason why space control is impossible in SC2 and once upon a time we had a map called "Steppes of War". This map was tiny, but the Siege Tank was balanced on it. Sadly the current HotS beta maps look only a little bit bigger than Steppes and that doesnt even bode well for the balance of the new units ... which are mostly going to be played on bigger GSL maps I assume.
Tight balls of units also made defensive structures MUCH weaker. Protoss and Zerg dont really have a "space control unit", because there is no Lurker and the Colossus has been nerfed to calm down the deathball junkies who would otherwise cry "OP OP OP". So we come back to the terrible terrible thing of clumping units and the impossible unit movement. If you have seen the dynamic unit movement thread and the video it is clear that it is possible to give the players choice without going back to the clunky BW movements, but Blizzard so far has refrained from listening.
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In the specific case of tanks a different approach over say buffing damage / splash / fire rate etc to improve territory control / force deathball splits is the following.
A B C
X Y Z
-Tank-
If xyz are marines / lings zealots whatever 1 thing is for certain. If target priority is equal for ABCXYZ... the front row (xyz) will always get hit before the back row (abc). For simplicity lets say Y gets hit first. The tank shot will deal full damage to Y, most of the time X B Z (the ones 90 degrees off the point of impact) will take around 50%. A and C (the ones 45 degrees off the point of impact) will take around 25%.
The problem with this is the fact that a huge portion of the siege tank aoe damage is not being utilized AT ALL. units in the front always get hit unless target fired by you, due to having other more important things at the time target firing is not always possible.
What if instead of just buffing damage, fire rate or siege time of tanks you give them a piercing shot that deals full damage in a line to Y and B, 50% to X Z (90 degrees), and 25% to A and B.
You now deal a stupid amount of damage to units trying to advance in narrow terrain or if the opponent doesn't bother to pre-split some units in front to take the first shot while he advances, at the same time vs an opponent that creates a huge concave to attack into you utilizing the fact that you are on open terrain only receives a small penalty.
Obviously this might force you to nerf the damage if it became to strong or promoted extreme turtle games but changing the numbers is not the only way to look at it.
If for example this proved to be too strong in the specific case of a tank they could try applying it to void rays, tempests or whatever unit requires a boost. (those 2 just came to mind cause the effect of an energy beam / gigantic ball of energy piercing stuff would be "cool" and I personally consider voidrays one of the coolest units in the game that failed miserably at being useful outside of cheese).
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DPS density is the core issue, or written another way, DPS/Surface Area. You either tackle ways of lowering the DPS, lower range, over kill, AoE that kills the DPS indirectly, or you lower the operable surface area, pathing, unit range, or physical space occupancy. Any other changes wouldn't have an effect really unless they lower that ratio down for all 3 races. SC2 is just a lot cleaner and smoother, so you get these unnaturally fluid army dynamics. We've hit the uncanny valley of army simulations, so now we need artificial blemishes to make it more interesting and aesthetic.
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The best way to eliminate a death ball is reset the AI to only selecting 12 units per hotkey.
You can change the units all you want, but letting them all ball up and just go 1a is going to keep death balls active.
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All the people suggesting limiting selection size or control group size are being silly. That will increase the mechanical difficulty of utilizing a deathball, but as long as the keeping all your units together in one place is ideal, that is what players will do. Even if we make it more difficult to execute. The only way to solve the deathball problem is to make deathballs suboptimal, such that you gain an advantage by doing something else.
Regarding the diminishing returns point from earlier, Alex1Sun is absolutely right that units with longer ranges are more effective in larger groups. Short range units, and especially melee units, suffer more serious diminishing returns as the localized unit count rises. Note that in Brood War, there were relatively few long range units, and those units had very serious drawbacks. The Siege Tank is immobile when sieged in return for its range and firepower. The Reaver can hardly move at all without a shuttle, and is best used for harassment, not en masse as a group. And the Guardian is relatively weak in a main combat situation. These units don't make for strong deathballs, despite their range. By contrast, units like Colossi and Broodlords are excellent in a main combat situation, and their low unit count (small surface area), high damage, and other features, such as mobility, cliff walk, spawning broodlings, etc. make them powerful and survivable in numbers on a main combat footing, unlike Reavers.
And to address the number of units issue in greater detail, there is a serious problem of fungibility of forces if your army is composed of big units. Higher supply costs means you have fewer options for how you determine your composition, and fewer choices about their distribution over an area. Suppose a zerg is building mutalisks, and the terran goes for thors to respond. Each Thor is a large investment, with a long wait before it is finished. And each Thor functions at 100% capability until its HP reaches zero, at which point its strength is zero. Compare this with a 2 supply goliath. You can build three of them for the same supply cost as one thor. This gives you options for how to distribute your supply that the thor does not. You might choose to build two goliaths and an additional tank (2 supply in BW) rather than go for three goliaths.
Sidenote on purchase economies + Show Spoiler +Purchase economies like Starcraft where you pay for units up front, and wait for them to complete, are most applicable to small purchases that must be made more frequently. As units become more expensive, the large upfront investment and long wait time becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. Expensive unit designs should be avoided with purchase economies, as they are problematic. If they only make cost, they will never be built due to their greatly reduced efficiency of production compared to constant production of smaller units with the same resources. And if they outperform smaller units for cost by too much, then they obsolete smaller units completely.
As an illustrative example, compare the marine to the battlecruiser. A battlecruiser costs 400 minerals and 300 gas, a large upfront cost. A marine only costs 50 minerals, a small upfront cost. To build a BC you must wait until you have all those resources, spend them, and wait for the production to finish. With the marine, you can start production with only 50 minerals in the bank, and start another marine with 50 more minerals, etc. etc. And you get a return on your investment in more regular increments as each individual marine is produced. For BC's, your return is zero until the longer build time is completely finished. The marine is simply a much more efficient unit to produce under SC2's economic paradigm. This same effect holds true for all small, cheap units compared to large, expensive units. And this is part of the reason why SC2 is having problems with big units like Thors, Colossi, Ultralisks, Broodlords, Motherships, etc.
Furthermore, once you have three units, such as three goliaths instead of the one thor on the board, you can distribute them. You can keep the three goliaths together, or split them up to different areas of the board, such as different areas of your base to deflect mutalisk harassment. There is no way to split up a thor- it is impossible. Even worse, if you lose the one thor, you lose a larger chunk of strength than if you lose one goliath. And it is not possible to split up a thor. So, because each thor represents a larger investment and chunk of your supply which is not negated unless it is totally destroyed, you are incentivized to keep all your thors together so they mutually protect each other. Cheaper, weaker goliaths benefit from this same process too, of course. But when they fight they will suffer more casualties, with a more continuous effectiveness dropoff. Rather than a thor going from full strength to zero instantly, you lose one goliath, then the second, and then the third. Apply this to a large army and this continuous-strength-loss-with-damage factor makes a tremendous difference in battle.
Smaller, cheaper, weaker units (such as marines) when used in groups will sustain casualties in battle, even if they win decisively. This weakens the army, and the units must then be replaced to bring it back up to strength. Larger units means wider variance in casualty figures for any particular battle. A force of thors that has sustained serious damage, but no actual casualties is still basically 100% effective. This becomes a serious issue when these larger units are like Colossi, which have a relatively noncontinuous strength dropoff, more like Thors, and which counter units which do have a more continuous strength dropoff with damage. Imagine a micro-Colossus which costs 2 supply, with suitably less power such that three of them is as strong as an SC2 Colossus. This micro-Colossus would be a vastly more interesting unit just due to the greater numbers, greater fungibility of production, army distribution over space, and casualties sustained during battle.
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Do you remember all the way back in sc2 beta and alpha when storm, seige tanks, seeker missle and fungal were super powerful?
why did they get nerfed?
1. The pathing system and unlimited unit selection makes your entire army naturally clump up making these spells super effective.
2. Players prefer to play with death balls, as dustin browder stated himself in the mlg interview, this is the easiest way to play.
so naturally aoe spells were super nerfed since probably everyone in their testing had all their units in a ball, but now we have the problem that its super boring to watch as a viewer.
They probably wanted the colossus to be less retarded and let them walk over ground armies and have no collision, making them super micro unintensive. If you refer to Dustin's recent battlenet post or the user "rock", he does not intend to limit unit selection for the pure reason of the game being noob friendly, which is probably why we have units like the collosus too.
go figure.
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United States4883 Posts
On October 06 2012 00:21 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2012 22:35 SC2John wrote:
I have been going on and on about space control in many topics over the past week. I'm 100% positive that the main issue with SC2 is the fact that space control takes a lot of units; there is no way to defend an area against a maxed army unless you yourself have a maxed army. But unit clumping is a huge part of why space control takes such a lot of units in SC2. The more oily-slippery and compact an army is, the narrower the choke has to be for a smaller, entrenched defensive force to enjoy an enduring advantage over a larger, advancing force. If you watch a BW game and an SC2 game and just look at armies traversing ramps, you'll see an order of magnitude more units flowing up a ramp simultaneously in SC2. That means that instead of a 50 unit force drip-feeding itself to a 10-unit defensive emplacement 5 units at a time, it's just BAM: all 50 units up the ramp and in your face before more than a couple of volleys have been exchanged.
I actually like this counter argument quite a bit. You have a valid point that everything in SC2 gets to its target too quickly. However, I think I stand by my argument that improved AoE (whether by increasing damage, range, splash damage, or some mix of the 3) deals with this problem well. I don't see unit clumping as a problem, just how the game is designed; I feel like changes can easily be made around it to make the fact that units clump and move through chokes quickly not important.
More effective AoE = more dead units = you have to COMMIT in order to break a defensive area.
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On October 05 2012 22:48 puissance wrote:Show nested quote +I have been going on and on about space control in many topics over the past week. I'm 100% positive that the main issue with SC2 is the fact that space control takes a lot of units I second this, also I dont know if it has been brought up, but highground advantage is another point which allows few units to hold key positions. E.g. 1-2 Tanks + Mines behind Supply Depots or some Spines, Lurker and a Defiler (or even just the Nydus and 2 Lurker).
Thank you, puissance. Adding to the pool. I think that it's a nice option heavily linked to space control.
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On October 05 2012 23:26 SarcasmMonster wrote:
Overkill.
a) With no overkill, every unit deals damage at 100% efficiency. Even in a large deathball, no overkill means every unit is 100% efficient.
b) With overkill, damage efficiency drops steadily as the size of the deathball grows.
c) Hence overkill slows down the growth of power of a deathball.
ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION
a) Overkill is a nerf, hence units with overkill can be stronger than their hypothetical counterpart without overkill (to compensate for the overkill nerf).
b) Overkill does not affect small groups of units as much as large groups of units.
c) Hence balancing around overkill is a buff to small squad attacks and a nerf to deathballs.
Thanks! That's actually something I didn't think about at all. I suppose you could potentially introduce overkill for all units. I doubt that Blizzard will follow this path, but I'll add it to the pool
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I think a change that has been hinted at in this thread but not fully developed is the importance of positioning.
If positioning drastically changes the course of battles, then it is extremely feasible to engage a deathball with your small army in the right place and win. This would require :
-Real highground advantage (i'm advocating +2 range personally, other solutions can work)
-Real choke use (And i'd advocate larger unit collision, so that it's harder to go through a choke while sustaining defender fire)
-Preventing air units from seeing past sight blockers (trees, smoke) so that they play a role in lategame too.
Those changes would have three positive side effects :
-First, they would allow to make maps more unique by giving more importance to the architecture and map features ;
-Second, they would make comebacks a lot more feasible than what they are now, something i feel the game needs - comebacks are exciting, comebacks are epic, they keep you watching even when a side is down 50 supply because you know something amazing might happen.
-Finally, by making more strategic plays possible, they would make the game more interesting for mechanically deficient players like me or about anyone not high masters or GM and add more skill in the competition between those latter people.
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On October 06 2012 08:45 MasterCynical wrote:
Do you remember all the way back in sc2 beta and alpha when storm, seige tanks, seeker missle and fungal were super powerful?
No. In early beta, nobody used Infestors or Templar tech. It took a long time to learn. I don't think I saw a single Archon during the entire beta. You may have a point with Siege tanks, but remember that the map pool heavily favored them in those days.
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You'd have to rebalance the whole game. What you need to do is make attacking with small task forces more rewarding. That means forcing players to spread their defenses more thinly over more bases and having those bases more exposed so they're easier to attack. Currently, all the modern maps are designed so that you can hold 3 bases with forcefields because that's a requirement for game balance in WoL. That layout makes it easy to defend 3 bases with one army without worrying too much about splitting forces or attacks from multiple angles. You could open the maps up more, but Protoss would be underpowered.
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Then isn't it a great time to do so ?
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AREA OF EFFECT damage is the key to get rid of death ball, or just fix the path, but of course they are to lazy to do this...
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EPT
