No fix to clumpy unit movement - Page 6

On October 24 2012 03:00 Evangelist wrote:


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.

On October 24 2012 12:55 Patate wrote:


Speaking of mines, why are widow mines not friendly-fire enabled?

On October 24 2012 12:13 boomudead1 wrote:
its not like this only buff T. zerg raised the skill cap because they can now split banelings so they dont all die to 1 tank shot. b4. they wud clump up. how many times do we see a bunch of lings just all die in 1 take volley. how many lings wud survive the initial charge if theyre pre split? tank wouldnt do shit. also muta are already magic boxed. flying units wont insta die to 2 thor shots when all clumped up. marine has low dps when theyre separated too. its not all about marine splitting against banelings. it would take marine longer to travel across the map than it is for Z. its just that the way blizz designed the game to be a deathball. they dont wanna ruin that. since theyve been balancing it for ever. that would means more work for them.
for toss. if unit doesnt clump up that mean less dps. blizz can always work with aoe. they just dont wanna do all those work over

On October 24 2012 12:30 NewSunshine wrote:
What Blizzard is trying to do is make deathballs usable, but make it so that there are much better ways to utilize your units, nearly every new unit in HotS is being developed with this philosophy. Instead of attacking it head on by changing the pathing outright, thus making it a non-issue for everyone, they're providing attractive alternatives to the deathball, that don't require your units to split but encouraging you to do it yourself. If they succeed, then what we'll have is something akin to the old BW pathing: something that doesn't come easy to non-pros, and is vital to succeed in pro-level play. The big difference is, it's more accessible to new players, as it's more intuitive, and it's easier to appreciate the skill involved with precise micro(the E factor, if you wanna go there), thereby accomplishing 2 of Blizzard's main goals with this game as opposed to BW.

On October 24 2012 13:13 NukeD wrote:
Sad to see lead game designer is infact one of those idiots who say big ball more split more micro herp derp. How fucking hard is it too grasp that not clumped up armies actually encourage micro, if you buff aoe ofcourse.

On October 24 2012 04:59 PitBoo wrote:


Im new, i'm not sure how things work here, lol. But i'm not sure if Blizzard devs read TL. I've only seen them taking tips from the Bnet forun.

On October 24 2012 05:00 Antylamon wrote:

Nevertheless, it should be posted on BNet.

Not because Blizz is a bunch of "idiots who can't balance or design anything," but because they haven't explored every option yet. If I'm interpreting what Browder said correctly, they ran some tests on it with different variables, but only with the map in the video. If they try different methods of breaking up deathballs, then they might like it.

On October 24 2012 13:46 EatThePath wrote:

I like this description, and I hope it works out this way, but I think it's backwards -- fighting the fundamentals of the genre itself.

Engagement dynamics are governed by local DPS density. This is the source of much of the depth in RTS games. Higher DPS density is inherently rewarded because you are dealing concentrated damage. It's like focus fire happening automatically, in analogy. Usually there are lots of factors that mitigate this basic strength to make the game more interesting, many of which make use of the ability of units to reposition to avoid high enemy DPS and to increase your own local DPS. The most typical dynamic is pursuing an engagement with units in a high DPS area while retreating from your opponent's high DPS area. In the simplest way, a flank does this automatically, but there are lots of other formations you could imagine, and the complexity of situations quickly develops once you have units with different stats and abilities.

Let's imagine extreme cases to illustrate the point I'm making. What if units didn't collide at all. One of the above "mitigating factors" is the banal fact that units can't take up the same space, but lets get rid of that. 12 marines vs 12 marines, go. Well... the only strategy will ever be stacking your marines perfectly on top of one another and then walking straight at the enemy and target firing the top of the stack. If you do anything else, like try to make an arc, you will quickly lose out on the local DPS front. Pull micro just means you've lost local DPS. Retreat can only lose local DPS in a similar way.

What if units did collide as normal, and their collision barrier was twice their actual size, but you could place them close together with attention. But while in transit and unattended at their destination, they would be somewhat spread out. 12 marines vs 12 marines, go. This looks completely different. Attacking is now a lot harder; the system has inherent defenders advantage. Attacking units have to move into position, which reduces their local DPS. Just to attack on even footing, you have to arrange an elaborate position and synchronize the arrival of your units, otherwise you'll be suffering from a DPS deficit (despite mirror armies!) from the outset. And no matter what formation you take, the defender can adjust to demand further actions on your part. And so on and so on, but the defender always has the upper hand.

Which one sounds more like SC2? Which one sounds more interesting?

You can get a lot of desirable dynamics just by changing basic unit properties, you don't have to resort to AoE effects and special abilities. I would gladly go into even more depth but I think this makes the point sufficiently for now. I'll just add that the latter example demands constant attention and unit control in an engagement, while the other is almost maximized efficiency with an a-move.

On October 24 2012 13:46 EatThePath wrote:

I like this description, and I hope it works out this way, but I think it's backwards -- fighting the fundamentals of the genre itself.

Engagement dynamics are governed by local DPS density. This is the source of much of the depth in RTS games. Higher DPS density is inherently rewarded because you are dealing concentrated damage. It's like focus fire happening automatically, in analogy. Usually there are lots of factors that mitigate this basic strength to make the game more interesting, many of which make use of the ability of units to reposition to avoid high enemy DPS and to increase your own local DPS. The most typical dynamic is pursuing an engagement with units in a high DPS area while retreating from your opponent's high DPS area. In the simplest way, a flank does this automatically, but there are lots of other formations you could imagine, and the complexity of situations quickly develops once you have units with different stats and abilities.

Let's imagine extreme cases to illustrate the point I'm making. What if units didn't collide at all. One of the above "mitigating factors" is the banal fact that units can't take up the same space, but lets get rid of that. 12 marines vs 12 marines, go. Well... the only strategy will ever be stacking your marines perfectly on top of one another and then walking straight at the enemy and target firing the top of the stack. If you do anything else, like try to make an arc, you will quickly lose out on the local DPS front. Pull micro just means you've lost local DPS. Retreat can only lose local DPS in a similar way.

What if units did collide as normal, and their collision barrier was twice their actual size, but you could place them close together with attention. But while in transit and unattended at their destination, they would be somewhat spread out. 12 marines vs 12 marines, go. This looks completely different. Attacking is now a lot harder; the system has inherent defenders advantage. Attacking units have to move into position, which reduces their local DPS. Just to attack on even footing, you have to arrange an elaborate position and synchronize the arrival of your units, otherwise you'll be suffering from a DPS deficit (despite mirror armies!) from the outset. And no matter what formation you take, the defender can adjust to demand further actions on your part. And so on and so on, but the defender always has the upper hand.

Which one sounds more like SC2? Which one sounds more interesting?

You can get a lot of desirable dynamics just by changing basic unit properties, you don't have to resort to AoE effects and special abilities. I would gladly go into even more depth but I think this makes the point sufficiently for now. I'll just add that the latter example demands constant attention and unit control in an engagement, while the other is almost maximized efficiency with an a-move.

On October 24 2012 05:44 Probe1 wrote:
I have difficulty believing Blizzard and especially Dustin Browder will ever actually listen to the community.

Which problem are we trying to solve here?

A) Pros can't split their units so esports looks bad.
B) Ladder players can't split their units and it should be easier to split your units.

If "A" then I would say the problem is solved. They should split their units. Pros who do so will win games, Pros who do not will lose games. Should we make the game easier for Pros? The impression I have gotten from the community and the Pros themselves on this subject is a resounding "No."

If "B" then I'm not sure we want to solve this? If it's a game of skill, then you need to learn to split your units. In Broodwar you had to learn to move your units. With a limited unit selection it was difficult to move a large army. Now it is easy to move your army, but harder to use them correctly in a big fight.

Sounds like a better experience for a newer user to me? It's certainly what I would want as a player. If I'm going to be challenged I don't want it to be "how can I get my units into the fight." I would rather it be "my units got to the fight, how do I optimize their positions."

On October 24 2012 03:00 Evangelist wrote:


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.