EPTThe question here is whether the difficulty of keeping units spread is good difficulty that separates good players from great players or whether it's frustrating difficulty where the units just don't do what you're telling them to do and you lose interest in the game.
No fix to clumpy unit movement - Page 2
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kcdc
United States2311 Posts
The question here is whether the difficulty of keeping units spread is good difficulty that separates good players from great players or whether it's frustrating difficulty where the units just don't do what you're telling them to do and you lose interest in the game. | ||
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Seiniyta
Belgium1815 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:26 kcdc wrote: It's very difficult to keep units spread. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I know it'd make gameplay a lot easier if my templar would stay spread after I spread them, but the fact that I can't keep them apart as I move around the map is a key difference between my PvT and, for example, Parting's PvT. The question here is whether the difficulty of keeping units spread is good difficulty that separates good players from great players or whether it's frustrating difficulty where the units just don't do what you're telling them to do and you lose interest in the game. Honestly, I think SC2 is actually better in that regard then BW. Because units clump up more it will be the players with insane control that can spread their units properly in the heat of battle. Though for that I do think that AOE spells need to be more powerful. | ||
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nixi
Sweden39 Posts
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SarcasmMonster
3136 Posts
1. Will this improve watchability if the units clump less? - For me, this is an undeniable yes. This looks awful. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9ecOm.jpg) 2. Will this improve playability if the units clump less? - This one is more arguable. I would say yes, but others will argue that splitting your ball during the battle is good. | ||
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Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
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ElMeanYo
United States1032 Posts
Yes I have, and moving groups of units up a ramp in that game was frustrating. I wouldn't want to go back to that anymore than I would want to have only 12 units per control group. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:26 kcdc wrote: It's very difficult to keep units spread. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I know it'd make gameplay a lot easier if my templar would stay spread after I spread them, but the fact that I can't keep them apart as I move around the map is a key difference between my PvT and, for example, Parting's PvT. The question here is whether the difficulty of keeping units spread is good difficulty that separates good players from great players or whether it's frustrating difficulty where the units just don't do what you're telling them to do and you lose interest in the game. Undeniably there are situations where skill-intensive manual unit spreading is a good thing. On the other hand, in the vast majority of battles, the clumping is a dominating benefit for basic dynamics (local DPS). If units don't automatically clump, there are a lot more opportunities to affect the course of a battle with good unit control. You might lose a few situations where being able to spread well wins you a lot of value, which shouldn't be ignored, but I think the gain outweighs it. And it doesn't have to be one way or the other. You could easily just put a slider bar into the options menu that says "1-10 soft collision radius" so a player gets to choose how much their units clump, although I think this would quickly elucidate that clumping is better than not clumping. So from a spectator standpoint the strongest option would be a fixed larger soft collision radius. (You can still clump your units in this situation, and even move them with the current SC2 pathing, but it would require APM and concentration to organize the units into a tighter formation... just like in BW.) | ||
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two_sheds
Croatia104 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:29 Seiniyta wrote: Honestly, I think SC2 is actually better in that regard then BW. Because units clump up more it will be the players with insane control that can spread their units properly in the heat of battle. Though for that I do think that AOE spells need to be more powerful. All that insane spreading would still exist with these new settings too (nobody would want a siege splash in the face, just like they don't want it now). Only the games would be much easier and enjoyable to watch. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:36 ElMeanYo wrote: Yes I have, and moving groups of units up a ramp in that game was frustrating. I wouldn't want to go back to that anymore than I would want to have only 12 units per control group. It also fundamentally changes the nature of terrain and positioning when a small ramp actually affects how long it takes to move troops. Are you saying that apart from the annoyance factor, this doesn't make a better and more interesting game, especially for competition? On October 24 2012 02:29 Seiniyta wrote: Honestly, I think SC2 is actually better in that regard then BW. Because units clump up more it will be the players with insane control that can spread their units properly in the heat of battle. Though for that I do think that AOE spells need to be more powerful. This isn't true. Read my first page post with the example about roaches. | ||
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hiimjimmeh
United States11 Posts
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Evangelist
1246 Posts
Of course, you're so obsessed with making this into BW, you don't understand that BW had its pathing/hitboxes precisely because it was poorly coded. Face it. You aren't getting it. It also fundamentally changes the nature of terrain and positioning when a small ramp actually affects how long it takes to move troops. Are you saying that the apart from the annoyance factor, this doesn't make a better and more interesting game, especially for competition? It doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It's artificial difficulty. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:43 Evangelist wrote: So basically they found what every single person with any common sense already knew and figured out it made not a jot of difference. Of course, you're so obsessed with making this into BW, you don't understand that BW had its pathing/hitboxes precisely because it was poorly coded. Face it. You aren't getting it. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It's artificial difficulty. The difficulty of it is not the point of the discussion. It creates vastly different battle dynamics. If you know me at all, you know I support all the UI improvements of SC2. This isn't about whether your units do what you ask them to do, it's about what they are capable of. | ||
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neggro
United States591 Posts
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Fenris420
Sweden213 Posts
On October 24 2012 01:53 WinterNightz wrote: That vulture video looks great, but what exact changes were made in it? (it looks a lot better than the second video). One of the things I have yet to see implemented in any of these videos is actually altering how a unit looks for a path. When a unit looks for a path from A to B in SC2, no allied units are considered obstacles unless they are on hold-position. In BW, every allied unit, whether moving or still, is considered an obstacle that you have to walk around. So you send an entire squad of units, and they all take steps around/away from eachother until they have a short path in front of them leading directly to the target position. Anyways... if I had more time and understood the galaxy editor, I would put that into place. Basically all you have to do is attribute the "hold-position" command to every unit, even while it's moving, so that other units can't simply push it out of the way. (another big part is the fact that units in brood war took discrete steps, unless you gave them only a couple of pixels to move). I think overall, the new sc2 movement just does what BW pathfinding and colission wanted to but couldn't. Each move command issued would yield slightly wonky results when combined with other non static objects. Or even static objects in the case of dragoons. Now people want the old, worse, behaviour back. I find that sort of amusing. One simple fix of course would be to just make a bounding box for each unit that is used for pathing and pathing collision with other units but not for damage calculations with splash or collision with terrain. That bounding box could be much larger than the unit itself and thus there is a minimum distance maintained to other units at all times. Another would be to make the units currently selected into a group, where each unit is assigned a displacement from the center of the selected group and the selection itself has a location on the map. Then you move the selection with move commands and the selection in turn moves the units, while maintaining the same displacement as long as the path is not obstructed. Still, I am not sure what this kind of solution would actually do. | ||
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Tamburlaine
Canada288 Posts
This is The Big Thing I've wanted to see change for ages now, and Heart of the Swarm/Legacy of the Void seem like the only real chances to see that change. Disheartening. | ||
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two_sheds
Croatia104 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:43 Evangelist wrote: So basically they found what every single person with any common sense already knew and figured out it made not a jot of difference. Of course, you're so obsessed with making this into BW, you don't understand that BW had its pathing/hitboxes precisely because it was poorly coded. Face it. You aren't getting it. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It's artificial difficulty. What's wrong with artificial difficulty ? Great things have come out of this poor coding and bugs in BW, as Falling explains it nicely in his today's blog. Great post by Falling: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=377409 | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:47 Fenris420 wrote: I think overall, the new sc2 movement just does what BW pathfinding and colission wanted to but couldn't. Each move command issued would yield slightly wonky results when combined with other non static objects. Or even static objects in the case of dragoons. Now people want the old, worse, behaviour back. I find that sort of amusing. One simple fix of course would be to just make a bounding box for each unit that is used for pathing and pathing collision with other units but not for damage calculations with splash or collision with terrain. That bounding box could be much larger than the unit itself and thus there is a minimum distance maintained to other units at all times. Another would be to make the units currently selected into a group, where each unit is assigned a displacement from the center of the selected group and the selection itself has a location on the map. Then you move the selection with move commands and the selection in turn moves the units, while maintaining the same displacement as long as the path is not obstructed. Still, I am not sure what this kind of solution would actually do. This is the "soft collision radius". Enlarging it (but not the unit -- aka hard collision radius), combined with the pathing style of SC2, would give you basically all the benefits of BW and a lot less of the headache. | ||
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Grummler
Germany743 Posts
BW: No SC2: Yes OMG, SC2 too easy, broken game! autosplit BW: Yes SC2: No OMG, SC2 too difficult, broken game! Its the same with charge for zealots and burrow charge for ultras. There was a time when everyone cried how stupid autocast on charge is since it makes "micro utterly useless". So we get burrow charge which requires micro and people complain that it is not viable since "you have to click every single time you want to use it". The quotes are real quotes frome TL members. Sometimes i feel bad for dustin. | ||
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SarcasmMonster
3136 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:57 Grummler wrote: automine BW: No SC2: Yes OMG, SC2 too easy, broken game! autosplit BW: Yes SC2: No OMG, SC2 soo difficult, broken game! ?? profit Not really asking for an auto split. We want units to space out more, and probably increase AOE radius and/or damage to compensate. You still have to manually split to minimize splash damage. | ||
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Evangelist
1246 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:53 two_sheds wrote: What's wrong with artificial difficulty ? Great things have come out of this poor coding and bugs in BW, as Falling explains it nicely in his today's blog. Great post by Falling: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=377409 Artificial difficulty ie. fighting against the interface is not only counterintuitive to game design but also detrimental to the game in the long term. Yes, BW was an amazing competitive game after 5 or 6 years, but it is not in todays market nor is it competing with todays games. You would have gotten no one playing SC2 if they all thought it was BW2. Thankfully, it isn't. Which is wonderful for players like me who finally got to enjoy a proper multiplayer RTS designed by people who knew what they were doing - not designed by people obsessed with the past. This thread reminds me of the kind of people who see a scientific discovery and decide to just ignore it because "their way is better". Well it ain't. The point of attack move behaviour is to be predictable. At the moment it IS predictable. Your way would ensure it wasn't. In fact, attack moving up a cliff would result in exactly the same behaviour and would make it even easier to hold cliffs that it already is. Then again, we're talking about a community convinced that the problem with the colossus is that it doesn't have a buggy attack that flies around randomly and hits some random unit for infinite damage, not the fact it is basically designed to kill concaves - a point not a single person besides myself brings up. | ||
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