[D] What changes could help with death balls? - Page 4

On October 09 2012 05:29 benzcity07 wrote:
Really love the attention brought to this thread, definitely think a better high ground advantage mechanic is necessary. If this happens then hopefully comes units and balances that can take advantage of it (ie tank buff). And finally hopefully opens up the options map makers have, ideally shifting towards the requirement to take more expansions than just 2 or 3 in a single game.

On October 09 2012 14:45 XenoX101 wrote:
The unit pathing suggestion is a bad idea. That's basically asking the game to move your units in an illogical manner, because the units will no longer be trying to move precisely to the point you click, but only to the general area of the destination; I can only see this causing frustration among players about their units not going precisely where they want to go.

If you really want to change the way units path in a predictable manner, then just let the player draw a line with the attack move command that scales the units existing position against the line. This way players can choose between a small or large amount of spread simply by drawing a small or large line. Obviously this reduces the skill gap of spreading your units, but that is no different than the unit pathing suggestion. Also as a reminder you can still get a good spread of units by box selecting small groups of units and attack moving in a shape that mimics this kind of line; though it is obviously less effective and precise, it does require considerably more micro and thought in how your units are going to line up than any unit pathing automation suggestions. Here's a picture of what I mean by all this.

On October 09 2012 14:45 XenoX101 wrote:
The unit pathing suggestion is a bad idea. That's basically asking the game to move your units in an illogical manner, because the units will no longer be trying to move precisely to the point you click, but only to the general area of the destination; I can only see this causing frustration among players about their units not going precisely where they want to go.

If you really want to change the way units path in a predictable manner, then just let the player draw a line with the attack move command that scales the units existing position against the line. This way players can choose between a small or large amount of spread simply by drawing a small or large line. Obviously this reduces the skill gap of spreading your units, but that is no different than the unit pathing suggestion. Also as a reminder you can still get a good spread of units by box selecting small groups of units and attack moving in a shape that mimics this kind of line; though it is obviously less effective and precise, it does require considerably more micro and thought in how your units are going to line up than any unit pathing automation suggestions. Here's a picture of what I mean by all this.

On October 09 2012 19:43 NATO wrote:
As is indicated in the highest thing in the poll, the new widow mine is doing surprisingly well in at least partially fixing the deathball problem. Though once colossus are out it kind of becomes worthless.

Really the best change would just be replacing the colossus with something. Reaver is the obvious answer, but Blizzard has shown they can actually add back the mechanics needed in new ways (i.e., swarm host and the new widow mine are surprisingly dynamic units).

On October 09 2012 14:45 XenoX101 wrote:
The unit pathing suggestion is a bad idea. That's basically asking the game to move your units in an illogical manner, because the units will no longer be trying to move precisely to the point you click, but only to the general area of the destination; I can only see this causing frustration among players about their units not going precisely where they want to go.

If you really want to change the way units path in a predictable manner, then just let the player draw a line with the attack move command that scales the units existing position against the line. This way players can choose between a small or large amount of spread simply by drawing a small or large line. Obviously this reduces the skill gap of spreading your units, but that is no different than the unit pathing suggestion. Also as a reminder you can still get a good spread of units by box selecting small groups of units and attack moving in a shape that mimics this kind of line; though it is obviously less effective and precise, it does require considerably more micro and thought in how your units are going to line up than any unit pathing automation suggestions. Here's a picture of what I mean by all this.

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 15 2012 18:57 Don.681 wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

Linking the video so everyone sees. Much better unit movement if the game setting "Formation Diameter" is set to 50.

Yes! This is not a mod, just one setting in the game!
Easily put in one patch and just as easily reverted. Might not even need a patch download!

If you like it, +1 and request for sticky this Bnet Thread.

On October 16 2012 04:47 Holy_AT wrote:
The question remains for what kind of players do you want to avoid the deathball syndrome ?

* If you want to void it for the casual gamer, meaning lowmasters to bronce, just let the camera zoom out more so these people have an easier strategic view.
* Increase the sight range and make offensive and defensive scouting easier.
* Armies have to have the options to retreat faster from a battle. So you can fait an attack somewhere while attacking with a smaller amount of units somewhere else.

The distance between bases has to increase (in correspondance with the scouting options).
Have you ever seen a terran building a forward base meaning production facilities to feinforce his army faster ?
No because the distances are to small to even matter.

More supplier, greater distances between bases, lesser chokes and more open ares between the bases and better scouting options would decrease the deathball likelyness in my opinion.
If you have a small map where you just need to scroll half a screen or a screnn to the side to be in your second base, that encourages a huge deathball that just sweeps to all your bases.
Spacial control is only important if there is really space to beginn with.

On October 15 2012 22:54 bokeevboke wrote:
I was in the process of creating this topic (death ball problem) for week now. Seems I wasted my time I'll just summarize it here.

More or less I don't think the problem is the deathball itself, rather what forces us to use deathball. Answer being very simple: There is no workaround to deathball in sc2, the only answer to deathball is a bigger deathball or lose the game.
Everyone agrees on that.

My opinion OP's suggestions:
+ Show Spoiler +

Before I throw my theory at you, lets break down deathball. What makes deathball a DEATHBALL? Here are factors:
1. Its invincible, it can't be weakened by anything, except another deathball (which is by far our problem).
2. It doesn't need sustain. Simply put when you get your 200/200 army with 3/3 upgrades you don't care if you have any income. you can walk over entire map and kill everything the enemy has.

In the above listing factor 1 greatly contributes to factor 2. So we can narrow it down to one problem: INVINCIBILITY. Its very simple, once you get some sort of deathball (say 4 colossi+gateway units) you don't take any damage unless opponet throws same amount of units at you.
Now imagine this: what if opponent could wear your ball down, with less but frequent attacking army (Everytime he attacks, he kills some gateway units). Obviously your ball weakens and you need too pour some fresh blood in it, therefore you need a healthy economy. What if, the opponent who was wearing down your deathball was dropping in to your base and killing workers same time. You lose. This is pretty much all we need, make balls less invincible and it should require sustain.

So one and only problem is: why balls can't be weakened by constantly attacking forces in todays' sc2??? Because they kill stuff too fast. Everything you throw at the ball gets vaporized in seconds with no damage done. Simply put, balls have too much damage output a.k.a Terrible damage syndrome (the term we used to use back in the days). But seriously when you think of terrible damage output all problems start to make sense: You can't fight enemy ball if you have less supply army, if you do you outright lose the game, because your damage to ball is minimal. Hence you have to keep your army together all the time. And only option is ball to ball fight.

If you look through SC2 patching history damage has always been nerfed, you can see the pattern, but maybe its only tip of the iceberg, did we nerf them enough? All we know is we found some balance between units, but they still do too much damage to each other. Blizzard just left it there.

TL DR
My solution is to lessen overall damage of all units, so that:
Death balls won't be invincible, and can be weakened with lesser forces.
Harassing economy will be more impactful, since deathballs will require sustain.
Big fights are microable, and positioning is very much relevant.
Breaking up your army and attacking multiple locations will be much better option, since attacking with a single ball could be inefficient, ball will be weakened and slowed down by constant skirmishes.