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Battle.net thread: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7710222005#1
Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/174172/another_look_at_high_ground_advantage_analysis_of/
Hello! I'm Gfire from the ESV Mapmaking Team. I’ve decided to write this post about high ground advantage and how I think changing the high ground mechanics in SC2 could be something worth considering.
Introduction:
In Starcraft 2, the high ground advantage is all about vision. The advantage of being on high ground is that you can’t be shot at without the opponent having vision (for ground units). Then when they get vision, the advantage disappears and it’s a fair fight.
For details, you can see this: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/High_Ground_and_Low_Ground
Now, in contrast, the system in Starcraft 1 was somewhat different. If a unit attacked from the highground, it was revealed briefly so it could be shot at from the low ground. However, whether you had vision or not, there was another advantage the units on high ground had. When you shot up from low ground, there was a chance that your attack would miss completely.
More details here: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Terrain_Features#High_Ground
So you can see there are some major differences. I’m now going to provide a few quotes from the early development of SC2 relating to terrain advantages.
"landscape will also play a much bigger role in Multiplayer, using terrain to gain strategic and combat advantage will be just as important."
(http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=92932http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=92932)
"Terrain plays a more important role now, as it offers more tactical possibilities ... For example, it's now [even] more beneficial to place troops on high ground."
"You cannot see them from low ground. At least as long as you do not use spotters, flyers or special talents, like the Terran scan. This can be a huge advantage, especially for Terran with their mighty Siege Tanks: As long as the enemy does not reveal them, they can blow him into pieces without resistance. Zerg profit the least from height advantage, since their ground range units do not fire very far. But with the Overlord and the Overseer they field two very good spotters. Apart from this, height differences have no effect. In SCI, there was a chance that units on the lowground would miss enemies on high ground. We removed this percentage since we do not like chance elements. The players ought to know exactly what advantage they have. And how to counter it."
(http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft/news/9889-interview-with-dustin-browder)
In these interviews Dustin Browder compares SC2 to SC1 and explains that the intention of the current mechanic is to actually be stronger than that of SC1. However, it turns out players almost always have spotters to see the high ground. It’s arguably even easier to spot the high ground in HotS.
I propose that we take another look at the high ground advantage in SC2 while we’re in beta. It’s the sort of change that can’t just be tweaked or balanced later on in the polishing stages of the game, but needs to be explored during a time like this. While I don’t know that altering the terrain mechanics is necessarily the best thing for the game, I strongly believe that it’s something that should be tried out, and I would love to see it in HotS beta.
Core effects on gameplay:
The current system doesn’t give a very consistent positional advantage. It’s very easy to negate. If you get any vision then all your units can fire with 100% efficiency. This makes it pretty poor at stopping rushes (all you have to do is pop one unit up the ramp,) and even poorer at give armies strong control points in the mid to late game.
The system was designed (according to Blizzard,) to start out strong but then eventually disappear. This sounded like a good thing to me at first, weakening rushing but not encouraging turtling later on. However, with the way SC2 has developed, I no longer agree with that.
Most matchups don’t require any sort of high ground advantage to work. Most games you see players taking expansions just fine before the earliest aggression comes, even with a flat choke at the natural. The main thing high ground is good for is preventing blink and warp-ins into the main, which is unrelated to the high ground advantage and would have worked the same way whether we had BW- or SC2-style high ground. It also doesn’t even really apply in HotS. The high ground advantage itself is very weak in HotS.
The current high ground system doesn’t do much to help with the deathball problem. Rushes aside, in the mid and late game there's not enough ability for a player to use positioning to do alright in a battle even with a smaller army.
A bigger army has a very strong advantage in SC2 for a few reasons. In SC2, with unlimited unit selection, the army doesn’t get a whole lot harder to manage as it gets bigger, unless you are splitting it up. Your unit’s efficiency also stays pretty high even with a huge army all together, because, with the smooth pathing in SC2, the long ranges and small unit sizes, it’s easy to get most of your units in range even if there are a lot.
We could partially fix this by adjusting unit sizes or ranges and potentially altering the way pathing works or limiting the number of units you can select, but this post is about using high ground advantage as a partial solution.
A real high ground advantage allows the player with better positioning to gain an advantage even when both armies are the same size, or even they player has a smaller army. There are various situations where this is possible, like early game with luck and rushing and not enough apm requirements to reward the better player at a high level, mid game when racial asymmetry comes into effect or there is a slight mistake or misread or miscalculation by one player, or if one player is going all-in and thus has a big army, or late game when both players are maxed and have their deathballs.
In addition, it also allows a smaller army to defend a space from a bigger army, allowing you to defend a spot with some of your army while splitting off other parts, meaning that deathball play is less frequently the best way to play and splitting your units up is on average better.
A high ground advantage also gives an increased defenders advantage where the map makers allow it so even if you lose an engagement in the middle of the map (possibly due to the high ground advantage your opponent had,) you will still be able to defend more easily when their army gets to your door, allowing for more back and forth gameplay.
Map Design:
I’d like to point out a thread on this subject made by Barrin on TL:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330085
It’s a good thread and I’d recommend reading some of it.
Now as a map maker, I tend to try to utilize smaller choke points in contrast with open spaces in order to create these control points where an army can have a defensive advantage, even once the opponent has spotters. You can sometimes use watchtowers, too, but only from time to time.
It would be incredibly helpful to be able to use high ground independently from choke points or watchtowers tin order to the increase the amount of variety and control within map making. The amount of possibilities goes way up and we can fine tune maps way more to prevent unwanted strategies or encourage all sorts of (new) awesome strategies. Players will be able to further use terrain to their advantage when you have separate choke point usage and high ground usage. There could be a lot of depth introduced.
One major problem with using choke points for a positional advantage is that it doesn’t always help the defender. Depending on the compositions, it can do more harm than good. A tight choke allows tanks to shoot at you from across it, but you have to funnel down the choke to engage them unless you can get some kind of flank. Force Fields can also utilize tighter areas more even if it’s the attacker who’s using them.
Skill:
There are a few other things I wanted to mention related to comebacks and the skill of the players, and high ground advantage in general.
There's a potential downside to it I thought of. When a player has the ability to engage with a huge advantage like this, it could end up creating 1-sided battles where the low-ground player, who gets caught in a bad spot, loses the battle. The game might need to be more forgiving of bad engagements in order for a high ground advantage to work out. Since it's very clear that engaging up a ramp is a bad thing though (compared to some poor engagements you could take on flat ground,) I don't think players will be making those mistakes too much so long as they are patient.
I think having spaces that you just can't get up no matter how skilled you are or (especially) how ahead you are can actually be a good thing, so long as you can only create these spaces at key locations on the map (map makers control how strong it can be to prevent super turtling.)
Conclusion:
I hope I’ve brought up enough here to explain why high ground advantage should at least be worth a shot in beta. I hope that it won’t be out of the realm of possibility just because it’s too close to release, or there’s not enough time to test it with proper maps, since the current map pool wasn’t designed for it. Of course if it’s an excuse to replace the currents maps with better ones… well, I’m all for that.
I don’t think doing something more like BW (an actual disadvantage when shooting at higher ground,) would be too confusing for players… I think the current system is just as hard to learn about, and much more frustrating to deal with. Much like all the other complex things in the game, if you make it clear to newer players and explain to them the way it works (the numbers,) then I think it would be just fine.
As far as the exact implementation, I’m not sure what’s best. In BW there was a chance to miss. This is interesting because it’s a bit hard to predict, and it’s also simple since it keeps all the actual damage the same if the ability does hit. On the other hand, it could be confusing or unclear if there’s not a good visual representation of a miss, and many people also feel that that amount of randomness doesn’t belong in SC2. A partial damage decrease, such as cutting damage in half for units shooting up cliffs, might be better. Whether or not the inability to fire up cliffs even if you are shot at is maintained, I don’t really think is important. Since we’re used to it, I imagined a change involving introducing a defensive advantage even with vision, but keeping the same setup without vision. However air units already work the way that all units did in SC1, so maybe that’s simpler.
I’ll end this here before I ramble on any longer. Thanks everyone for reading!
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As long as the enemy does not reveal them, they can blow him into pieces without resistance. Zerg profit the least from height advantage, since their ground range units do not fire very far. But with the Overlord and the Overseer they field two very good spotters
You have a good point here about it being easy to spot high advantage. He even admits it here, saying that Zerg has two good spotters, both of which are not very valuable nor hard to get.
Like you say, I am one of those who do not feel a chance factor belongs in SC2. However, what they could do is something similar to the semi-random system in WC3, in which it wasn't pure random (AKA it would be pretty consistent over small sample sets), or make it even less random by making it something like "miss every Xth attack". But beyond that, I can't think of anything that Blizzard and I would both like.
Skill:
I think you may need some clarification here, I don't really see your point. So I get that you like for there to be some forgiveness and comeback ability.
When a player has the ability to engage with a huge advantage like this, it could end up creating 1-sided battles where the low-ground player, who gets caught in a bad spot, loses the battle. It's important, for this to work, to give the player the opportunity to retreat from a bad position.
But then... you say that it can create 1 sided battles. You say it's important "for this to work", for what to work? Do you want or not want them to retreat, to have abilities like time warp to stop them from retreating or to help them escape? Make it unforgiveable to run into a bad spot, but overall make games be more forgiveable via comebacks through running into bad spots?
I would like to see what you mean here, can you elaborate?
I believe Blizz is most likely still open (as usual) on this topic as long as there is a good solution, but I can't think of anything else. Maybe something like an increase in armor? A decrease % in damage was also suggested on Bnet, but that can cause complications like decimals and such (IIRC there are decimal damages in the game already though, with things like Mutalisk attack bounce and such -- maybe this would be best).
If anything I think a % decrease would be best, and a very small one of course, since small differences end up causing a big difference in the result.
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I'm all for more back and fourth and forgiving gameplay.
As for the implementation and clarity, it's always possible to put a "miss" graphic just like the xp number on top of the units. Damage reduction sounds good too.
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On January 23 2013 16:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +When a player has the ability to engage with a huge advantage like this, it could end up creating 1-sided battles where the low-ground player, who gets caught in a bad spot, loses the battle. It's important, for this to work, to give the player the opportunity to retreat from a bad position. But then... you say that it can create 1 sided battles. You say it's important "for this to work", for what to work? Do you want or not want them to retreat, to have abilities like time warp to stop them from retreating or to help them escape? Make it unforgiveable to run into a bad spot, but overall make games be more forgiveable via comebacks through running into bad spots? I would like to see what you mean here, can you elaborate?
Ah... Yeah.
What I mean is... When you introduce a high ground advantage, it has the potential downside of creating very one-sided battles. A single bad engagement could cost you the game even more than it already does. I do want players to be able to retreat more, for sure.
The reason it's vague is probably because I don't actually know... I think it's something that would need testing to know how it would work out exactly. Would we see terrible games where one player tries to rush up a ramp and get's slaughtered? Or would it be an improvement? I tend to think players, at least at a high level, will know better than that, even if they don't know all the best ways to engage otherwise.
I'll try to clarify it a bit.
Edit: I rewrote that part to hopefully be more clear. Is that better?
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Ah, I see. And yes, it is very clear now!
That is definitely interesting. I think it's worth trying out -- like you say, it's sorta obvious not to engage up hill especially if there is new disadvantage to that. Meanwhile, holding ground (as long as the map is made well and doesn't simply allow super turtling) can make games more dynamic by simply adding more to keep in mind of while playing a game. It can also increase defender's advantage in general, which seems to be lacking in the lategame after major battles, causing games to end shortly after a brief period of action starting from when they get their 3rd/4th bases. It could also allow players to be more aggressive early on, which seems very passive and stale recently, by claiming key positions on the map to do things such as limit the opponent's expanding or force him to expand a certain unfavorable direction.
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Right now play SC2 after min 5 (after early scouting) its like playing a flat game. Every race moves around with a unit that denies high ground (overseers, observers, medivacs/vikings). Thats why since early WOL stages high ground have very little inpact in SC2 gameplay.
We need something diferent (boost armor or boost damage vs low ground).
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I completely agree. I think high ground advantage and its contribution to defender's advantage is part of the reason Brood War is a great game. When it's possible to defend against a larger force with a smaller force in certain positions, it is more beneficial to invest more units into harassment and counterattacks, and as you said, deathball play is less prevalent.
IMO anything that increases defender's advantage in Starcraft 2 is a good thing. I think a percent reduction in damage taken by high ground units from low ground attacks would be a good solution. If instead damage dealt by low ground units was reduced by a constant percent, the proportion of damage taken by higher ground units from lower ground units would vary depending on armor of higher value units and damage of lower ground attacks.
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On January 23 2013 16:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
I believe Blizz is most likely still open (as usual) on this topic as long as there is a good solution, but I can't think of anything else. Maybe something like an increase in armor? A decrease % in damage was also suggested on Bnet, but that can cause complications like decimals and such (IIRC there are decimal damages in the game already though, with things like Mutalisk attack bounce and such -- maybe this would be best).
Try -1 range to units shooting from the low ground. Maybe that helps and has no decimal issues
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I think a vision and/or attack range bonus for units shooting down cliffs or a penalty for units shooting up would make sense both logically and game-play wise.
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On January 23 2013 18:32 submarine wrote:
I think a vision and/or attack range bonus for units shooting down cliffs or a penalty for units shooting up would make sense both logically and game-play wise.
Good point. An attack range bonus and penalty attacking lower ground and higher ground would be logical. You can't throw an object as far uphill as you can throw it downhill before it hits the ground. This would give high ground units a large advantage without being luck-based or disproportionately affecting some units more than others. I like this idea more than the Brood War solution.
The main difficulty I can think of is keeping attack range changes proportional to the attack range of the affected unit. For this to work, units would need to have decimal attack ranges. I think a proportional change is needed because a fixed change in range across all ranged units would have large effects on low-range units but relatively small effects on high range units. If decimal attack ranges are possible in Starcraft 2, then a percentage reduction of attack range while attacking higher ground units and percentage increase of attack range while attacking lower ground units would be a great solution.
I disagree about the vision range bonus and penalty ideas. A vision penalty for units shooting up cliffs wouldn't make much of a difference, because units can't see up cliffs anyway. A vision bonus for units shooting down cliffs would be awkward to implement, because the radius of vision would only be larger in lower ground areas.
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I like the play with the Vision and also that Terran is able to deny it, while the other races have spells that ignores it. So I think it should really stay ingame. But it would have been interesting if they tested some additional advantage in Beta. I like comebacks. But the defenders advantage with the vision usually helps the stronger army.
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I agree it would be interesting to try some variation of this in beta
Subtracting damage (either -1 or -%) from each attack from lowground seems simple enough, but would affect some races / compositions more than others. Same for adding damage to highground, but reversed.
Either solution would affect high attack rate units like marines more than slow high damage units (e.g. stalker, immortal, marauder, tank). derrr
As mentioned above a flat range reduction on lowground will adversely affect short range units (i.e. zerg).
I think it needs testing. Obviously the above balance issues could be worked with, maybe by giving damage bonus to high-ground that is balanced for different units to give similar dps boost across races.
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As much as i think high ground advantage should be here i can only agree with not having chance bound elements in the game. They got enough experience from Wow on miss systems to be the better knowing here about this.
I think the proper direction would be range. It is a more simple solution. Units shooting uphill loses 1 range. It shouldn't go the other way around because it may cause problems with chasing units down and suddenly losing the ability to shoot as you both move down. Should only be hindering the offensive abilities of the one attacking uphill really.
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I can guarantee they won't change high ground this late into development, there's less than two months until release.
But for our mods, obviously the solution is to miss once every x attacks, this does not disadvantage say Marines vs. high armor enemy units the way a percentage would.
It would slightly disadvantage units with a very slow firing rate, like Siege Tanks, but that's not a problem because splash is not supposed to be affected in any way, only the main target damage.
I would also propose the reintroduction of terrain cover from BW, it doesn't block pathing or sight like a cliffside does but it creates a high ground advantage effect that works against any terrain height and even against air units.
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Great post. I 100% agree with you.
I hope Blizzard reads this.
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Why not just use a damage reducer instead of a % chance to hit, to completely remove the randomness?
I do agree with browder, anything that is random does not have a place in a strategy game.
But the high ground advantage is not enough in its current state in SC2.
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I concur. A high ground advantage similar to BW must return. Perhaps making it more strategic than a random hit or miss.
Let's say units closest to the cliff do about 85% damage, units a bit further away do 70% and the ones furthest away could do 50%. This would affect positions a lot.
Edit: In my experience, you can't really see what's atop the cliff if you're standing very close to it. The further away you are from the cliff, the clearer you can see the cliff top. So perhaps the high ground advantage I mentioned should be done the other way round, closer units aren't able to see clearly what's on top, but units further away can.
What do you guys think?
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WarCraft 3 is a thousand steps ahead of sc2 when it comes to highground : 33 % miss chance handicap for the unit standing on the lowground.That's an awesome defender's advantage that should be implemented in sc2, it would cut a lot of the bullcrap 1base/2base all-in viability.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On January 23 2013 21:30 Steglich wrote:
Why not just use a damage reducer instead of a % chance to hit, to completely remove the randomness?
I do agree with browder, anything that is random does not have a place in a strategy game.
But the high ground advantage is not enough in its current state in SC2.
Actually, I think having some randomness, especially in attacking highground is really good for strategy.
It adds to the :"Do I or don't I" attack into this position kind of thing.
Warcraft 3 system would be good though. The current High Ground Advantage isn't really an advantage at all after about 5 minutes.
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Sounds good to me. It's one of those things that can help vs the luck based factor of a build order loss. I hate it when people lose/win just because he couldn't find the tech building that's gonna screw him over. I think positional and high ground usage could broaden the player skill at the pro level too.
Besides, there's no reason why it shouldn't be tested in beta? That's partially what beta is for.
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Actually, I think having some randomness, especially in attacking highground is really good for strategy.
It adds to the :"Do I or don't I" attack into this position kind of thing.
Warcraft 3 system would be good though. The current High Ground Advantage isn't really an advantage at all after about 5 minutes.
Yes, I think there are so many areas where Warcraft 3 is still more ahead than Starcraft 2, mostly because the designers has almost exclusively looked on SC:BW for inspiration, Warcraft 3 has been very much neglected.
In WC3 there even was a system so that when you've missed on high ground, meaning unfavourable for you, it will be even harder to miss on the next attack and on executive attacks it almost becomes impossible to not hit on high ground.
However I think this only works for a game that already has so much random stuff in the game, it kinda balances out, since larger scales statistics on randomness will always kinda even out in the end.
Try -1 range to units shooting from the low ground. Maybe that helps and has no decimal issues
I think this is the best idea yet, I've seen it in other threads aswell, maybe even give units on high ground a +1 range, if the advantage isn't strong enough. This along with the needed vision to fight high ground, I think would create some very interesting strategical scenarios.
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I would like to see this change with a percentage of the damage cut.
I think it would promote more harassment and macro at the same time through the new meta that would evolve.
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I really dislike random factors in RTS game.
A non chance based damage would let a progamer make his decisions more clearly and can predict the outcome a bit better.
I think in SC2, the only chance where I really had good high ground advantage is the ability to hit good fungals and make a come back.
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No. Attacks hitting or missing based on luck are BS and should not be implemented in SC. It would only encourage turtling even more, and units with a low range attack (basically all of zerg's viable units except the Hydra) wouldn't really benefit from this. Siege tanks and Colossi would benefit the most.
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Another simple idea : lower the sight range of flying units over high ground when they are on the low ground.
This would prevent the flying units to be safe from the units on the high ground and allow the high ground player to snipe the units giving vision. This would not solve the problem of scans (if it is a problem)
I have to say that I like a lot how high ground advantage is a vision advantage in SC2, but I dislike that in the later part of the game this advantage is not a concern anymore due to the number of flying units in each composition.
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On January 23 2013 23:40 Henk wrote:
No. Attacks hitting or missing based on luck are BS and should not be implemented in SC. It would only encourage turtling even more, and units with a low range attack (basically all of zerg's viable units except the Hydra) wouldn't really benefit from this. Siege tanks and Colossi would benefit the most.
It wont encourage turtling because if someone plays too defensive waiting to be attacked on a high ground position the other player can get map control, better economy, better tech. Also drops, nydus or small distracting attacks would become more important.
Nobody is going to throw a deathball to another deathball in a defensive position with new high ground mechanics.
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Do a -1 upgrade for attacking high ground. Say the attackers have no upgrades, subtract what +1 upgrade would give from the attack. This would be huge for units like marines where their mass helps to create their damage potential. I don't know how this could be coded, but I imagine it's possible one way or another.
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Warcraft 3 has a brilliant "luck" system where the more often a unit misses the higher its chance of hitting gets. Basically, this is how its Pseudo Random Distribution works:
Rather than using a static percentage, the probability is first set to a small initial value, then gradually increased with each consecutive attack for which the modifier does not occur. The probability then drops back to the initial value when the attack modifier does apply. As a result, attack modifiers tend to occur non-consecutively and at more regular intervals.
That means that an effect with a 25% chance to occur actually only has a 8.5% chance to occur on 1st hit. Then the 2nd hit has a 17% chance, the third 25.5% and so on. Eventually the probability hits 100% and is guaranteed. But once the effect triggers the chance is reset to 8.5%. Overall this averages out to ~25% but it’s less likely to happen multiple times in a row, or to not happen for an extremely long time.
It's kinda sad to still see people who don't know how Warcraft 3 handled things because in my opinion it still does a ton of mechanics better than SC2 even now. Of course you can still argue there should be no randomness in SC2 at all, that's fine, but saying WC3 was overly based on luck is just wrong.
And another thing - why limit terrain (dis)advantage to cliffs? Dawn of War let mappers define areas of cover, including for example "negative cover" which slowed units and made them take more damage. Something along those lines could definitely be explored in SC2 as well.
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It doesn't *have* to be high ground--but there definitely has to be terrain advantages for things other than looking around the map.
And say we *cant* be allowed to have any other terrain advantage than SC2's vision rules--then fucking follow through with that. Add an extra 100min/100gas to all units that can spot high ground (other than overlords), then reduce their vision so you need them to almost be on top of the cliff to see what's up there.
If you want sight restrictions to be a terrain advantage--let it be a fucking advantage. Make it costly to spot up cliffs, make it easy to snipe flying units trying to spot up the cliff, make it so that you can't simply bring medivacs with your bioball and suddenly there is no cliff limitations.
And this is true for any terrain advantage we put into any game--it's not simply adding tha feature to the game, but also incorporating that feature as part of the design parameters of the game as well.
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On January 23 2013 19:51 lodro wrote:
I agree it would be interesting to try some variation of this in beta
Subtracting damage (either -1 or -%) from each attack from lowground seems simple enough, but would affect some races / compositions more than others. Same for adding damage to highground, but reversed.
Either solution would affect high attack rate units like marines more than slow high damage units (e.g. stalker, immortal, marauder, tank). derrr
As mentioned above a flat range reduction on lowground will adversely affect short range units (i.e. zerg).
I think it needs testing. Obviously the above balance issues could be worked with, maybe by giving damage bonus to high-ground that is balanced for different units to give similar dps boost across races.
Pretty simple to solve. Each unit should have a low ground penalty that reduces their overall DPS by X%. So every unit could lose 5% of their DPS or whatever. This could be done by reducing both attack speed and damage and varying amounts for each unit.
As you said, Marines would lose far more than a Siege Tank from a simple -1 or a % decrease, but when you consider overall DPS then it can be done easily.
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Starcraft II definitely needs some sort of high ground advantage, the current solution just doesn't cut it. More ability to use terrain to your favor would increase the skillcap a great deal, and most importantly it would increase the defenders advantage which would lead to less insta GG scenarios after losing a fight.
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Great read. I would definitely be interested in this idea. Might be a little easier to hold thirds against roaches ^^
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Stronger ranged and longranged units. Sounds alot like "better deathballs", to be quite honest. Though it would also allow for interesting Terrain features.
I don't think that lack of highground advantage is "holding positional play back". I rather believe it is an economical issue that allows players to overrun a well-positioned army with freshly generated units, which makes bigger positional play weak. You simply cannot stay in locations for a long time. Your opponent will simply create as many units as your army has in just 1min...
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On January 24 2013 00:49 Trotim wrote:
Warcraft 3 has a brilliant "luck" system where the more often a unit misses the higher its chance of hitting gets. Basically, this is how its Pseudo Random Distribution works:
Rather than using a static percentage, the probability is first set to a small initial value, then gradually increased with each consecutive attack for which the modifier does not occur. The probability then drops back to the initial value when the attack modifier does apply. As a result, attack modifiers tend to occur non-consecutively and at more regular intervals.
That means that an effect with a 25% chance to occur actually only has a 8.5% chance to occur on 1st hit. Then the 2nd hit has a 17% chance, the third 25.5% and so on. Eventually the probability hits 100% and is guaranteed. But once the effect triggers the chance is reset to 8.5%. Overall this averages out to ~25% but it’s less likely to happen multiple times in a row, or to not happen for an extremely long time.
It's kinda sad to still see people who don't know how Warcraft 3 handled things because in my opinion it still does a ton of mechanics better than SC2 even now. Of course you can still argue there should be no randomness in SC2 at all, that's fine, but saying WC3 was overly based on luck is just wrong.
And another thing - why limit terrain (dis)advantage to cliffs? Dawn of War let mappers define areas of cover, including for example "negative cover" which slowed units and made them take more damage. Something along those lines could definitely be explored in SC2 as well.
I like this idea, but replacing the miss rate, with a slightly lower damage output. So rather then have a 25% chance of missing, you have a 25% chance of doing 70% damage. Having a unit completely miss its target is a little too random.
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On January 24 2013 02:02 nottapro wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 00:49 Trotim wrote:
Warcraft 3 has a brilliant "luck" system where the more often a unit misses the higher its chance of hitting gets. Basically, this is how its Pseudo Random Distribution works:
Rather than using a static percentage, the probability is first set to a small initial value, then gradually increased with each consecutive attack for which the modifier does not occur. The probability then drops back to the initial value when the attack modifier does apply. As a result, attack modifiers tend to occur non-consecutively and at more regular intervals.
That means that an effect with a 25% chance to occur actually only has a 8.5% chance to occur on 1st hit. Then the 2nd hit has a 17% chance, the third 25.5% and so on. Eventually the probability hits 100% and is guaranteed. But once the effect triggers the chance is reset to 8.5%. Overall this averages out to ~25% but it’s less likely to happen multiple times in a row, or to not happen for an extremely long time.
It's kinda sad to still see people who don't know how Warcraft 3 handled things because in my opinion it still does a ton of mechanics better than SC2 even now. Of course you can still argue there should be no randomness in SC2 at all, that's fine, but saying WC3 was overly based on luck is just wrong.
And another thing - why limit terrain (dis)advantage to cliffs? Dawn of War let mappers define areas of cover, including for example "negative cover" which slowed units and made them take more damage. Something along those lines could definitely be explored in SC2 as well. I like this idea, but replacing the miss rate, with a slightly lower damage output. So rather then have a 25% chance of missing, you have a 25% chance of doing 70% damage. Having a unit completely miss its target is a little too random.
The problem with 70% of damage or something is that most damages like the marine is 5 or something and so its hard to give the same advantage to all units. A miss percentage would be equal for all units though.
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I feel like if blizzard were to buff high ground, zerg would have to recieve some sort of advantage for taking the high ground. Maybe a speed bonus for moving down a ramp for an ambush.
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I completely agree and wanted to write sth like this for a long time now, thx Gfire 
Ramps are mostly just chokes, the highground/lowground part really doesn't matter all that much past earlygame.
This is very limiting for map design, chokes can be good for either side of the choke, highground is only good for the army on the highground. Also some units/abilities (forcefield) can abuse chokes a lot.
I would just love to make meaningful terrain without using chokes, and thats what a good highground advantage would be perfect for.
More cost efficient defense of certain points with the added highground advantage would also discourage deathball play and make more spread out base design possible.
edit: And I wouldn't mind a miss chance. I don't think this would make it so random that it significantly lowers the chance for the better player to win.
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It's funny how people are bringing up points that everyone mentioned before sc2 came out. I hope they seriously look at high ground properly this time.
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It's very erroneous to say that having a chance to miss is when firing uphill is "random." In War3, where there was more emphasis placed on the efficacy of individual units, "random" could be a word that might be closer to the truth, but in SC2 units generally make many more attacks over the course of their lifetime so it doesn't really apply. Here are a few reasons:
If your miss rate of firing uphill is 25% in SC2, you are going to experience roughly a 25% reduction in damage done over the course of a game if all of your units only ever fire uphill. Extrapolate that a little bit, and the real % of damage reduction is less than 25% because you're not, in fact, always firing uphill.
There is no need to nerf damage done when firing uphill; overall damage is already nerfed if a chance to miss when firing uphill exists.
Say that in the early game a stalker fires uphill at a pack of 3 marines who are fleeing back to their natural, is targetting a marine who has 5 hps, and misses. That is an isolated random event, but it's not "random" in terms of the game's flow. It's really a small piece in the overall game that translates to damage reduction imposed on a player who fires uphill. Going into the game, both players are aware of the penalty and what the effects of the penalty are; there's no surprise involved.
I am also in favor of a high ground penalty; I think it solves a lot of awkwardness about the game. These were just my points about the "randomness" of firing uphill. It bugs me when people characterize firing uphill as random, when it's really only random in the most base sense of the word.
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I made a similar topic yesterday morning, but it didnt seem to get much attention at all. Hope you get some more notice, as it stands maps are just chokes everywhere.
if you want to see the arguements i made, though it can be TLDR'd to saying ramps = chokes
+ Show Spoiler +http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7708811684
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It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed.
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Canada11349 Posts
I am very much in favour of this. The terrain has been levelled and there isn't near the positional advantage that Blizzard said they were shooting for. (Great quotes by the way.)
I think the 'random' concern is overblown and wouldn't mind a similar miss chance like BW. But I would happily adopt the WC3 version or a reduced damage version. Something so that units can use terrain to cost-effectivelyhold off larger groups. Combine this with changing the economics to encourage more expanding and I think you would get more smaller unit groups pushing out to take expansions because they can hold off a similar sized army. Without it, you might as well fold everything into your main army and avoid losing a handful of units for free.
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actually, high ground makes it super easy to defend any kind of pushes and give a high advantice in fact of vision parts you have to "go trough" etc, its so huge that some maps the high ground expansion makes it easy to go superfast 3base
making even more would make the game STOP it would be no attack for 30 minutes.... if you want that ...
i disagree in all what you say sry but unusable on level higher then diamond
ps: in fact of tanks etc it would also not make alot "sense" that i am worse shooting from ground only in fact of range and using range would make every attack useless in this game
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What about if shooting up cost you 1 range? So Marines would be effectively range 4 if attacking the high ground. This would reduce their dps density and add a consistent disadvantage to attacking high ground, without relying on randomness
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On January 24 2013 02:25 arcHoniC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 02:02 nottapro wrote:On January 24 2013 00:49 Trotim wrote:
Warcraft 3 has a brilliant "luck" system where the more often a unit misses the higher its chance of hitting gets. Basically, this is how its Pseudo Random Distribution works:
Rather than using a static percentage, the probability is first set to a small initial value, then gradually increased with each consecutive attack for which the modifier does not occur. The probability then drops back to the initial value when the attack modifier does apply. As a result, attack modifiers tend to occur non-consecutively and at more regular intervals.
That means that an effect with a 25% chance to occur actually only has a 8.5% chance to occur on 1st hit. Then the 2nd hit has a 17% chance, the third 25.5% and so on. Eventually the probability hits 100% and is guaranteed. But once the effect triggers the chance is reset to 8.5%. Overall this averages out to ~25% but it’s less likely to happen multiple times in a row, or to not happen for an extremely long time.
It's kinda sad to still see people who don't know how Warcraft 3 handled things because in my opinion it still does a ton of mechanics better than SC2 even now. Of course you can still argue there should be no randomness in SC2 at all, that's fine, but saying WC3 was overly based on luck is just wrong.
And another thing - why limit terrain (dis)advantage to cliffs? Dawn of War let mappers define areas of cover, including for example "negative cover" which slowed units and made them take more damage. Something along those lines could definitely be explored in SC2 as well. I like this idea, but replacing the miss rate, with a slightly lower damage output. So rather then have a 25% chance of missing, you have a 25% chance of doing 70% damage. Having a unit completely miss its target is a little too random. The problem with 70% of damage or something is that most damages like the marine is 5 or something and so its hard to give the same advantage to all units. A miss percentage would be equal for all units though.
I am not following you.
The way I am proposing is both. But rather then a miss percentage being no damage, its a reduction in damage. So a marine has a say 30% chance of say 50% reduced damage.
Currently. With no high ground advantage. Marine fires 10 shots, all hit at the same damage.
Total Damage: 10 * 5 = 50 damage
Second proposal a flat miss rate. Lets say that is a 30% chance of missing.
His first 7 would be 5 damage, his normal dps. Then 3 shots would be 0 damage, a complete miss.
Total Damge: 7 x 5 + 3 x 0 = 35 damage
This has the problem that people might micro but technically no bullets were fired so their micro was wasted energy. Too frustrating.
Third proposal a flat percentage rate. Lets say 70% damage reduction.
All shots hit, 5 damage is reduced to 3.5.
Total Damage: 10 x 3.5 = 35 damage
All your units are at the same lowered damage during the entire engagement, there is no illusion of miss rate, its just a flat damage reduction with no fluctuations. Advantage, very predictable and easy to calculate, you would ALWAYS need 10 marines to come out even attacking 7 which are on highground, disadvantage, a flat rates give no fluctuating advantage to larger armys, meaing that high ground is always more favorable then larger armys.
My proposal
Flat miss rate is replaced with damage reduction.
He fires 10 shots. 7 Hit at 5 damage, his normal dps. Then 3 shots would be reduced say by 50% damage = 2.5.
(values are for example purposes only)
Total damage: (7 x 5) + (3 * 2.5) = 42.5
This is the best of both worlds, all your shots hit, but damage rate fluctuates, maintaining the illusion of missed shots while not sacrificing micro or flattening the percentage of damage done over time.
So sometimes 10 units will completely destroy 7 marines, or sometimes they will come out even. The larger army at the bottom, won't have its micro canceled, the engagement is somewhat predictable, but larger armys still have a fluctuating advantage, making it a risk for both sides to chose to engage.
See previous quotes to see how this system is implemented properly imitating the Warcraft 3 code.
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On January 23 2013 23:50 drkcid wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2013 23:40 Henk wrote:
No. Attacks hitting or missing based on luck are BS and should not be implemented in SC. It would only encourage turtling even more, and units with a low range attack (basically all of zerg's viable units except the Hydra) wouldn't really benefit from this. Siege tanks and Colossi would benefit the most. It wont encourage turtling because if someone plays too defensive waiting to be attacked on a high ground position the other player can get map control, better economy, better tech. Also drops, nydus or small distracting attacks would become more important. Nobody is going to throw a deathball to another deathball in a defensive position with new high ground mechanics.
Isn't that the definition of turtling?
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In my opinion, randomness is the default solution. It's not great, but it would get the job done fairly simply, and fixed-probability randomness with clear results is acceptable over enough iterations.
Damage increase/decrease for high/low ground is a very poor solution, as it greatly influences unit interactions inconsistently across the board. Flat damage massively affects ranged units with low individual damage. Proportional damage wrecks unit interactions wholesale.
A flat range increase is a mediocre solution because it benefits short range units disproportionately. A unit with 3 range will have its range increased to 4, while a unit with 13 range will have its range only increased to 14. It's workable, but it also changes unit interactions to favor ranged units with short ranges, which are already very good units due to how efficiently they distribute their damage.
I think the best solution is a proportional range increase. Say, 10% increase for firing down from high ground, and a 10% range penalty for firing up into high ground, which stacks with multiple levels' height difference. For units with short range, if they are fighting other shorter-range units, this conveys an equally large advantage that it provides to longer-range units fighting other longer-range units. Furthermore, by not improving their vision, this increases the need for spotters not to fire up into the high ground, but to fire down from the high ground as well.
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Okay i like to bring up a point to this "WC3 did it right! thing"
Take a look at the ladder maps from WC3 TFT: http://classic.battle.net/war3/maps/war3xmappictures.shtml
It is not what you should look for, it is what you shouldn't look for: Ramps.
In general maps in WC3 were mostly flat and most maps would never allow use of this high ground advantage. You may say that this is because of it is a different game and such but reality of the situration was that maps that allows High ground advantage on the WC3 ladder are about as common as gold bases on the SC2 ladder. If i recall
I don't know if there once was a time in WC3 where ramps was more used but it seems to be that it was very rarely used.
It can't be that rarely used in SC2 through. High ground and vision are an essential part of mapmaking in SC2. So i would say Blizzard is right in being careful with a system that was so underused in their previous title.
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On January 24 2013 03:20 Warpath wrote:I made a similar topic yesterday morning, but it didnt seem to get much attention at all. Hope you get some more notice, as it stands maps are just chokes everywhere. if you want to see the arguements i made, though it can be TLDR'd to saying ramps = chokes + Show Spoiler +http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7708811684
Ah. I've been sitting on this post for a while... Funny the timing would work out this way. I'll give your thread a read.
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I don't know if I agree. Brood War has several differences with SC2 that influence positional play, it might be that if you only introduce high ground advantages you might run into some problems that can only be solved by making even further changes. At this point you're looking at a major overhaul to the game, which I would be in favor of, but it's not ever going to happen. It's nice to make these posts, but it's mostly an exercise in futility.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
Oh wow I agree with this thread so much, it would allow for smaller armies to be used to hold areas and create so many new options in both builds and map making.
Just imagine being able to use like 5 tanks and a siege turret to hold several different high ground points on the map, ahh I can dream at least ^^
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A range decrease seems reasonable, maybe a damage reduction can be better. That said, some extra balances should be made to keep early pressure and all-ins viable as I'm supporting this change mainly for mid-late game battles rather than early game.
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first of all : imo i dont think there is much need for defender advantage , is alredy hard to punish zerg 3 base or terran 3 fast cc if you open 1 gate expand or ffe as protoss .
adding stuff like : has X% chance to miss , is DUMB . you cant be seriously with having a % to do something if we want that sc2 to be taken as a serious sport/esport . all random chances were removed from sc2 , why should we bring them back ? defender advantage is already big and is hard to punish greedie play in sc2 atm .
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On January 24 2013 06:20 xsnac wrote:
first of all : imo i dont think there is much need for defender advantage , is alredy hard to punish zerg 3 base or terran 3 fast cc if you open 1 gate expand or ffe as protoss .
adding stuff like : has X% chance to miss , is DUMB . you cant be seriously with having a % to do something if we want that sc2 to be taken as a serious sport/esport . all random chances were removed from sc2 , why should we bring them back ? defender advantage is already big and is hard to punish greedie play in sc2 atm .
Yes because BW was never considered a serious esport.
Defender's advantage in SC2 is basically 0, so I'm not quite sure what you're on about.
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Lowered range against high ground units (or extended range for units on high ground) would be cool, but i have no idea how that'd get balanced as it helps terran a lot more then Protoss or Zerg.
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On January 24 2013 04:00 nottapro wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 02:25 arcHoniC wrote:On January 24 2013 02:02 nottapro wrote:On January 24 2013 00:49 Trotim wrote:
Warcraft 3 has a brilliant "luck" system where the more often a unit misses the higher its chance of hitting gets. Basically, this is how its Pseudo Random Distribution works:
Rather than using a static percentage, the probability is first set to a small initial value, then gradually increased with each consecutive attack for which the modifier does not occur. The probability then drops back to the initial value when the attack modifier does apply. As a result, attack modifiers tend to occur non-consecutively and at more regular intervals.
That means that an effect with a 25% chance to occur actually only has a 8.5% chance to occur on 1st hit. Then the 2nd hit has a 17% chance, the third 25.5% and so on. Eventually the probability hits 100% and is guaranteed. But once the effect triggers the chance is reset to 8.5%. Overall this averages out to ~25% but it’s less likely to happen multiple times in a row, or to not happen for an extremely long time.
It's kinda sad to still see people who don't know how Warcraft 3 handled things because in my opinion it still does a ton of mechanics better than SC2 even now. Of course you can still argue there should be no randomness in SC2 at all, that's fine, but saying WC3 was overly based on luck is just wrong.
And another thing - why limit terrain (dis)advantage to cliffs? Dawn of War let mappers define areas of cover, including for example "negative cover" which slowed units and made them take more damage. Something along those lines could definitely be explored in SC2 as well. I like this idea, but replacing the miss rate, with a slightly lower damage output. So rather then have a 25% chance of missing, you have a 25% chance of doing 70% damage. Having a unit completely miss its target is a little too random. The problem with 70% of damage or something is that most damages like the marine is 5 or something and so its hard to give the same advantage to all units. A miss percentage would be equal for all units though. I am not following you. The way I am proposing is both. But rather then a miss percentage being no damage, its a reduction in damage. So a marine has a say 30% chance of say 50% reduced damage. Currently. With no high ground advantage. Marine fires 10 shots, all hit at the same damage. Total Damage: 10 * 5 = 50 damage Second proposal a flat miss rate. Lets say that is a 30% chance of missing. His first 7 would be 5 damage, his normal dps. Then 3 shots would be 0 damage, a complete miss. Total Damge: 7 x 5 + 3 x 0 = 35 damage This has the problem that people might micro but technically no bullets were fired so their micro was wasted energy. Too frustrating. Third proposal a flat percentage rate. Lets say 70% damage reduction. All shots hit, 5 damage is reduced to 3.5. Total Damage: 10 x 3.5 = 35 damage All your units are at the same lowered damage during the entire engagement, there is no illusion of miss rate, its just a flat damage reduction with no fluctuations. Advantage, very predictable and easy to calculate, you would ALWAYS need 10 marines to come out even attacking 7 which are on highground, disadvantage, a flat rates give no fluctuating advantage to larger armys, meaing that high ground is always more favorable then larger armys. My proposal Flat miss rate is replaced with damage reduction. He fires 10 shots. 7 Hit at 5 damage, his normal dps. Then 3 shots would be reduced say by 50% damage = 2.5. (values are for example purposes only) Total damage: (7 x 5) + (3 * 2.5) = 42.5 This is the best of both worlds, all your shots hit, but damage rate fluctuates, maintaining the illusion of missed shots while not sacrificing micro or flattening the percentage of damage done over time. So sometimes 10 units will completely destroy 7 marines, or sometimes they will come out even. The larger army at the bottom, won't have its micro canceled, the engagement is somewhat predictable, but larger armys still have a fluctuating advantage, making it a risk for both sides to chose to engage. See previous quotes to see how this system is implemented properly imitating the Warcraft 3 code.
Atleast mention the problem with armor in your calculation and then say that the damage reduction would have to be applied after the armor would have been subtracted hehe.
But nothing beats the miss chance. Games before decided they are better for a reason. And Sc2 has random burrow times, so it isn't random free anyway.
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On January 24 2013 03:56 awesomoecalypse wrote:
What about if shooting up cost you 1 range? So Marines would be effectively range 4 if attacking the high ground. This would reduce their dps density and add a consistent disadvantage to attacking high ground, without relying on randomness
I like that idea. Quite subtle, and no luck involved.
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I'd rather they fix things like this, resource gathering, and how armies move/engage, and rebalance the game, than toss in all the silly oracles or swarm hosts they can clumsily jam in.
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On January 23 2013 16:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +As long as the enemy does not reveal them, they can blow him into pieces without resistance. Zerg profit the least from height advantage, since their ground range units do not fire very far. But with the Overlord and the Overseer they field two very good spotters You have a good point here about it being easy to spot high advantage. He even admits it here, saying that Zerg has two good spotters, both of which are not very valuable nor hard to get. Like you say, I am one of those who do not feel a chance factor belongs in SC2. However, what they could do is something similar to the semi-random system in WC3, in which it wasn't pure random (AKA it would be pretty consistent over small sample sets), or make it even less random by making it something like "miss every Xth attack". But beyond that, I can't think of anything that Blizzard and I would both like. Skill: I think you may need some clarification here, I don't really see your point. So I get that you like for there to be some forgiveness and comeback ability. Show nested quote +When a player has the ability to engage with a huge advantage like this, it could end up creating 1-sided battles where the low-ground player, who gets caught in a bad spot, loses the battle. It's important, for this to work, to give the player the opportunity to retreat from a bad position. But then... you say that it can create 1 sided battles. You say it's important "for this to work", for what to work? Do you want or not want them to retreat, to have abilities like time warp to stop them from retreating or to help them escape? Make it unforgiveable to run into a bad spot, but overall make games be more forgiveable via comebacks through running into bad spots? I would like to see what you mean here, can you elaborate? I believe Blizz is most likely still open (as usual) on this topic as long as there is a good solution, but I can't think of anything else. Maybe something like an increase in armor? A decrease % in damage was also suggested on Bnet, but that can cause complications like decimals and such (IIRC there are decimal damages in the game already though, with things like Mutalisk attack bounce and such -- maybe this would be best). If anything I think a % decrease would be best, and a very small one of course, since small differences end up causing a big difference in the result.
People talk about chance then forget about the fog of war, it's one of the biggest randomizing factors in the entire game....
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On January 24 2013 08:51 Serpico wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2013 16:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:As long as the enemy does not reveal them, they can blow him into pieces without resistance. Zerg profit the least from height advantage, since their ground range units do not fire very far. But with the Overlord and the Overseer they field two very good spotters You have a good point here about it being easy to spot high advantage. He even admits it here, saying that Zerg has two good spotters, both of which are not very valuable nor hard to get. Like you say, I am one of those who do not feel a chance factor belongs in SC2. However, what they could do is something similar to the semi-random system in WC3, in which it wasn't pure random (AKA it would be pretty consistent over small sample sets), or make it even less random by making it something like "miss every Xth attack". But beyond that, I can't think of anything that Blizzard and I would both like. Skill: I think you may need some clarification here, I don't really see your point. So I get that you like for there to be some forgiveness and comeback ability. When a player has the ability to engage with a huge advantage like this, it could end up creating 1-sided battles where the low-ground player, who gets caught in a bad spot, loses the battle. It's important, for this to work, to give the player the opportunity to retreat from a bad position. But then... you say that it can create 1 sided battles. You say it's important "for this to work", for what to work? Do you want or not want them to retreat, to have abilities like time warp to stop them from retreating or to help them escape? Make it unforgiveable to run into a bad spot, but overall make games be more forgiveable via comebacks through running into bad spots? I would like to see what you mean here, can you elaborate? I believe Blizz is most likely still open (as usual) on this topic as long as there is a good solution, but I can't think of anything else. Maybe something like an increase in armor? A decrease % in damage was also suggested on Bnet, but that can cause complications like decimals and such (IIRC there are decimal damages in the game already though, with things like Mutalisk attack bounce and such -- maybe this would be best). If anything I think a % decrease would be best, and a very small one of course, since small differences end up causing a big difference in the result. People talk about chance then forget about the fog of war, it's one of the biggest randomizing factors in the entire game....
Fog of war in and of itself is not random no more than hotkeys are random.
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On January 24 2013 08:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 08:51 Serpico wrote:On January 23 2013 16:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:As long as the enemy does not reveal them, they can blow him into pieces without resistance. Zerg profit the least from height advantage, since their ground range units do not fire very far. But with the Overlord and the Overseer they field two very good spotters You have a good point here about it being easy to spot high advantage. He even admits it here, saying that Zerg has two good spotters, both of which are not very valuable nor hard to get. Like you say, I am one of those who do not feel a chance factor belongs in SC2. However, what they could do is something similar to the semi-random system in WC3, in which it wasn't pure random (AKA it would be pretty consistent over small sample sets), or make it even less random by making it something like "miss every Xth attack". But beyond that, I can't think of anything that Blizzard and I would both like. Skill: I think you may need some clarification here, I don't really see your point. So I get that you like for there to be some forgiveness and comeback ability. When a player has the ability to engage with a huge advantage like this, it could end up creating 1-sided battles where the low-ground player, who gets caught in a bad spot, loses the battle. It's important, for this to work, to give the player the opportunity to retreat from a bad position. But then... you say that it can create 1 sided battles. You say it's important "for this to work", for what to work? Do you want or not want them to retreat, to have abilities like time warp to stop them from retreating or to help them escape? Make it unforgiveable to run into a bad spot, but overall make games be more forgiveable via comebacks through running into bad spots? I would like to see what you mean here, can you elaborate? I believe Blizz is most likely still open (as usual) on this topic as long as there is a good solution, but I can't think of anything else. Maybe something like an increase in armor? A decrease % in damage was also suggested on Bnet, but that can cause complications like decimals and such (IIRC there are decimal damages in the game already though, with things like Mutalisk attack bounce and such -- maybe this would be best). If anything I think a % decrease would be best, and a very small one of course, since small differences end up causing a big difference in the result. People talk about chance then forget about the fog of war, it's one of the biggest randomizing factors in the entire game.... Fog of war in and of itself is not random no more than hotkeys are random.
It creates a lack of information and an entire environment where crazy stuff happens, people act like the game is some neatly packaged machine with no ability for chance. It creates randomness because it creates uncertainty. You as a player cannot possibly know what will happen because of it. People argue against a chance to miss because they don't know exactly what will happen in a certain scenario when another unit has high ground. It's hypocritical. The BW highground mechanic actually created positional play and made maps feel varied in height, now SC 2 maps are completely flat with very little regard to terrain. People arguing against a mechanic that has already been shown to work better, it's actually kind of funny.
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On January 24 2013 08:57 Serpico wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 08:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 24 2013 08:51 Serpico wrote:On January 23 2013 16:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:As long as the enemy does not reveal them, they can blow him into pieces without resistance. Zerg profit the least from height advantage, since their ground range units do not fire very far. But with the Overlord and the Overseer they field two very good spotters You have a good point here about it being easy to spot high advantage. He even admits it here, saying that Zerg has two good spotters, both of which are not very valuable nor hard to get. Like you say, I am one of those who do not feel a chance factor belongs in SC2. However, what they could do is something similar to the semi-random system in WC3, in which it wasn't pure random (AKA it would be pretty consistent over small sample sets), or make it even less random by making it something like "miss every Xth attack". But beyond that, I can't think of anything that Blizzard and I would both like. Skill: I think you may need some clarification here, I don't really see your point. So I get that you like for there to be some forgiveness and comeback ability. When a player has the ability to engage with a huge advantage like this, it could end up creating 1-sided battles where the low-ground player, who gets caught in a bad spot, loses the battle. It's important, for this to work, to give the player the opportunity to retreat from a bad position. But then... you say that it can create 1 sided battles. You say it's important "for this to work", for what to work? Do you want or not want them to retreat, to have abilities like time warp to stop them from retreating or to help them escape? Make it unforgiveable to run into a bad spot, but overall make games be more forgiveable via comebacks through running into bad spots? I would like to see what you mean here, can you elaborate? I believe Blizz is most likely still open (as usual) on this topic as long as there is a good solution, but I can't think of anything else. Maybe something like an increase in armor? A decrease % in damage was also suggested on Bnet, but that can cause complications like decimals and such (IIRC there are decimal damages in the game already though, with things like Mutalisk attack bounce and such -- maybe this would be best). If anything I think a % decrease would be best, and a very small one of course, since small differences end up causing a big difference in the result. People talk about chance then forget about the fog of war, it's one of the biggest randomizing factors in the entire game.... Fog of war in and of itself is not random no more than hotkeys are random. It creates a lack of information and an entire environment where crazy stuff happens, people act like the game is some neatly packaged machine with no ability for chance. It creates randomness because it creates uncertainty. You as a player cannot possibly know what will happen because of it. People argue against a chance to miss because they don't know exactly what will happen in a certain scenario when another unit has high ground. It's hypocritical. The BW highground mechanic actually created positional play and made maps feel varied in height, now SC 2 maps are completely flat with very little regard to terrain. People arguing against a mechanic that has already been shown to work better, it's actually kind of funny.
Fog of war is a null state. YOu either see it, or you don't. That is not random. Random would be there is sometimes fog of war, and sometimes there isn't. moving a unit to a dark patch might reveal what's there, or it doesn't. That is random.
As is, fog of war is an on/off function.
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United States4883 Posts
On January 23 2013 22:00 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2013 21:30 Steglich wrote:
Why not just use a damage reducer instead of a % chance to hit, to completely remove the randomness?
I do agree with browder, anything that is random does not have a place in a strategy game.
But the high ground advantage is not enough in its current state in SC2. Actually, I think having some randomness, especially in attacking highground is really good for strategy. It adds to the :"Do I or don't I" attack into this position kind of thing. Warcraft 3 system would be good though. The current High Ground Advantage isn't really an advantage at all after about 5 minutes.
I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. The percent chance is random in very small groups of units, but in the larger scheme of things, SC2 is a macro game, and if you have enough to bust up the ramp, you do; no amount of high ground "chance" can change the fact that 100 supply of army moving up a ramp should win against a few siege tanks.
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United States4883 Posts
On January 24 2013 03:48 CoR wrote:
actually, high ground makes it super easy to defend any kind of pushes and give a high advantice in fact of vision parts you have to "go trough" etc, its so huge that some maps the high ground expansion makes it easy to go superfast 3base
making even more would make the game STOP it would be no attack for 30 minutes.... if you want that ...
i disagree in all what you say sry but unusable on level higher then diamond
ps: in fact of tanks etc it would also not make alot "sense" that i am worse shooting from ground only in fact of range and using range would make every attack useless in this game
Maps can easily be changed, you know. The maps we have today are a result of the failed "highground advantage", protoss's over-reliance on force fields, and zerg's need for 3-base play.
With a good highground advantage, placing a 3rd expansion on the bottom level of the map encourages low ground areas to be contested, while other raised areas and cliffs can be useful for defending space. This encourages positional play over having to babysit your base, yeah?
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I think a cool high ground advantage would be that forces climbing a ramp will be slower, thus making it harder to charge up into a fortified position while not adding random numbers or uneven values. Simply something like 50% slow will make a great high ground advantage!
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On January 24 2013 10:11 moskonia wrote:
I think a cool high ground advantage would be that forces climbing a ramp will be slower, thus making it harder to charge up into a fortified position while not adding random numbers or uneven values. Simply something like 50% slow will make a great high ground advantage!
I'm not even sure that's the issue, the fact of the matter is as soon as one unit gets up the ramp, the entire army of his can shoot yours, thus negating the point of the ramp :p
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On January 24 2013 10:20 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 10:11 moskonia wrote:
I think a cool high ground advantage would be that forces climbing a ramp will be slower, thus making it harder to charge up into a fortified position while not adding random numbers or uneven values. Simply something like 50% slow will make a great high ground advantage! I'm not even sure that's the issue, the fact of the matter is as soon as one unit gets up the ramp, the entire army of his can shoot yours, thus negating the point of the ramp :p
Well, you can kill that unit? Doing so will force the halt of all fire for a short period of time. I already had a few situations where I came with blink stalkers and tried to charge up the ramp while doing blink micro, but due to the current high ground mechanic I kept losing vision whenever I blinked the only unit left on the high ground.
I think the current dynamic is pretty decent in most situations, but making the climb slower will make the advantage more clear since charging up a ramp will take more time - you will take more damage in the mean time. Of course there will still be situations like blinking onto the high ground or colossi, but these are much harder to fix.
Another advantage to my idea is that it will make it possible for map makers to use the terrain to slow down an army much better than before, for example on cloud kingdom since you need to go through the ramps you will be slower, so it gives more tools to the map maker while not ruining the game like other suggestions (a 50% miss chance will require a many changes to abilities and stats for it to to be balanced, while a slow will require very small adjustments if any).
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i think the problems of high ground advantage listed above is a problem caused by the maps
and to be honest i don't think it needs to be stronger from a zerg point of view
terran and protoss can get high ground vision fast enough with observer/hallucination and medivac/scans
drop and blink play makes it easy enough to get to the high ground
as a zerg, stronger high ground advantage is just a indirect nerf which i don't think is needed now
and really, everyone is playing greedy and turtle enough
chokes are already a strong enough defensive tool (not to mention it could be an very aggresive tool combined with FF)
we don't really need a stronger defender's advantage
what we should be encouraging now is more dynamic and aggressive play
again as a zerg i don't really like high grounds especially when they all come in the form of cliffs and chokes
what i would like to see is large open area with a height difference that as the battle go on both sides are changing position, fighting for vision and better concave, more sniping of the opponents spotter sort of like fights with cloaked units
spell casters trying to cast spell to force movements instead of stop movements, herd the opponent into an awkward position
(somewhat like the center of antiga shipyard functions......just why the heck does they have to make 4 chokes?? with a few FF it just makes fighting up there impossible)
this is the kind of effect i think high ground should have in a battle, but now with so many chokes which make high grounds irrevelent(chokes are a much more powerful tarrain) and Xel'Naga towers to gain vision, the use of high grounds are so small
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On January 24 2013 10:11 moskonia wrote:
I think a cool high ground advantage would be that forces climbing a ramp will be slower, thus making it harder to charge up into a fortified position while not adding random numbers or uneven values. Simply something like 50% slow will make a great high ground advantage!
i like this one better than 50% miss
tho 50% slow might be too much??
anyways i prefer this + open field height difference
this will make the difference significant enough but not impossible be beat with a stronger army
i can see it will be very interesting in a TvZ where tanks are on high grounds and zerg trying to overwhelm from all sides
and sure to the protoss's advantage we can add some obstacles to work with FFs, but just pls make it "few obstacles" but not "few passages"
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On January 24 2013 10:59 fish83814 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 10:11 moskonia wrote:
I think a cool high ground advantage would be that forces climbing a ramp will be slower, thus making it harder to charge up into a fortified position while not adding random numbers or uneven values. Simply something like 50% slow will make a great high ground advantage! i like this one better than 50% miss tho 50% slow might be too much?? anyways i prefer this + open field height difference this will make the difference significant enough but not impossible be beat with a stronger army i can see it will be very interesting in a TvZ where tanks are on high grounds and zerg trying to overwhelm from all sides and sure to the protoss's advantage we can add some obstacles to work with FFs, but just pls make it "few obstacles" but not "few passages"
Numbers can be tweaked of course, 50% is only an example, but the important part is that every race benefits from this, unlike other solutions which favors Terran most and Zerg least.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina261 Posts
I have to point out one thing that should NEVER be implemented in Starcraft II and that is RNG (Random Number Generator). This is a term widely known by the MMORPG community, and since we all here played at least one RPG game, RNG=critical chance. There should be no "maybe it misses", like a Stalker taking out a 2 HP Siege Tank on the high ground and it misses its shot.
Might as well give an upgrade that Zerglings have a chance to deal x2 damage (a critical strike) or any other random thing. This just does not belong in any competitive play, any RNG is bad and should be avoided at all costs in strategy games such as Starcraft II.
I was a Gladiator (not a huge achievement but serves my argument) in WoW and I hated every aspect of RNG involved in that game. From my Mage's shatter not critting at all, or a random crit that kills me, same goes for DAoC, when someone resists a CC, or even worse, an instant CC (which had, at that time, 8+ minutes cooldown, some even 30 minutes).
Just keep RNG out of Starcraft II.
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On January 23 2013 21:30 Steglich wrote:
Why not just use a damage reducer instead of a % chance to hit, to completely remove the randomness?
I do agree with browder, anything that is random does not have a place in a strategy game.
But the high ground advantage is not enough in its current state in SC2.
Technically, most RTS already have a random element due to the "Fog of War" mechanic.
Also "ironically" (or you'd think because these games have more RNG than SC has), both Dota and WarCraft III have more consistent top teams/players than SC2 has.
SC2 has a much more random element than both Dota and WC3 due to how the game works.
In SC2, the game has way too many potential for game changing mistakes.
Caught out of position one time with your big death ball in SC2? You lose!
Build order disadvantage in SC2? You lose more often than a BO disadvantage in BW and WC3.
SC2 is way too random, way too fast, and way too chaotic compared to other games. It needs something to lessen that and make it more gradual like BW and WC3.
Here are the main problems with SC2 and why it's more random and why mistakes are more game changing:
1. Everything involves a big death ball, and (for most matchups) usually involves one big fight, and once that fight is done, the game is decided and over.
They need to change this so the game is more gradual. In BW, battles happened everywhere and it was viable to split up armies.
2. Something that makes the above more problematic (the deathball problem) is the fact that there are things like Fungal, Force Fields, Concussive Shells, etc.
You are caught out of position once against an opponent with those things, you lose.
3. Finally, units are a lot more stronger and things die faster in SC2. Not only that, nearly every unit takes up more supply than their BW counterpart (Hydralisks for example). (So that means fewer units means more space for the units to form a deathball that can all be melted in seconds.) In BW, things did die fast but due to the lack of "death balls" (units were spread out everywhere and battles happened everywhere), it meant that battles took a lot longer than they do in SC2.
In SC2, there are a few units that do damage and they do it much faster than their BW counterpart. Marauders, Colossus, and Banelings can deal a ton of damage and really quickly too (compared to anything BW has).
Though, the above is only a problem due to issue #1.
Anyway, the point is that SC2 is more random because things like being caught out of position one time or a BO disadvantage changes the game way more than in BW or WC3.
I wouldn't call SC2 a more "unforgiving game", it would imply the player has the capability to avoid said "unforgiving situation" in the first place. Being caught out of position due to Fog of War or BO advantages are practically unavoidable things that will eventually happen to anyone in SC2. I call SC2 a more random game (yes, it has a worse connotation than "unforgiving" but it really needs that to be called "more random" to really describe what the problem with SC2 is). The consequences of said randomness should be toned down in SC2.
Again, WC3 and Dota (both games full of RNG, even the damage done is random - most units do something like 10-20 damage instead of just a consistent 15 damage, for example) have more consistent top players than in SC2, and the reason is the games are more gradual and actually have much less random game changing stuff than SC2 has.
Edit - In SC2, you can lose the entire game due to one bad fungal, one bad set of force fields, and being caught out of position against marauders (slow). In BW, while the spells were way more stronger (storm doing 120 damage and having a bigger radius [in SC2, it's 80 damage and smaller radius], Plague dealing up to 300 damage to everything, including structures), the way armies battled (which again, involved battles generally throughout the entire map, instead of just one small area) meant that these spells were far less game changing than in SC2.
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I think something like a 20%-50% damage reduction when ranged units attack the high ground is worth testing.
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I'm not sure that SC2 really needs stronger defender's advantage, for the following reasons:
1) Defenders are already winning the metagame over attackers. 1-base builds and cheeses are extremely rare. 2nd bases are extremely easy to hold. 3rd bases are mostly safe. The WoL metagame has evolved to where Zerg and Toss players tech up very quickly to their endgame tech (BLs, Colossi), and the pros are adapting to fend off counter-timing attacks such as immortal/sentry all-ins.
2) SC2 has more mechanics that bypass high ground. Stalkers Blink uphill. Banelings roll right up the ramp. Colossi are still firing "downhill" against someone on high ground. A strong high ground mechanic would make it very difficult for Terrans to attack uphill, without affecting Blink or baneling bust all-ins. (let alone BLs, colossi, or skytoss)
3) SC2 has a much higher penalty for failed attacks: This is the big one, and it's due to the much more efficient economy in SC2. The attacker already sacrificed some of his economy to make units. When an attack fails, he's now down units AND economy. The successful defender out-econs and out-techs the attacker very rapidly. (As opposed to BW, where economy cannot be maxed out so easily so the defender doesn't have as big of an econ advantage)
That is why so many SC2 attacks are all-in; if you lose a bunch of units attacking it is very difficult to come back. Not because your defense is weak, but because your economy is weak. Increasing the defender's advantage would further penalize aggressive attacking.
Honestly if we want to encourage multi-pronged attacking and discourage 200/200 deathballs, what we need is a reversion to BW-style mineral economics. There needs to be diminishing returns between 1 SCV/patch, 2 SCV/patch and 3+ SCV/patch. This would nerf the exponential economic increase where cutting a few workers early means you are irrevocably behind on econ unless you can do a ton of damage.
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On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed.
Exactly.
And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas.
No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay.
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Russian Federation221 Posts
On January 24 2013 03:48 CoR wrote:
actually, high ground makes it super easy to defend any kind of pushes and give a high advantice in fact of vision parts you have to "go trough" etc, its so huge that some maps the high ground expansion makes it easy to go superfast 3base
making even more would make the game STOP it would be no attack for 30 minutes.... if you want that ...
i disagree in all what you say sry but unusable on level higher then diamond
ps: in fact of tanks etc it would also not make alot "sense" that i am worse shooting from ground only in fact of range and using range would make every attack useless in this game
Do you seriously think that progamers will just sit with 10000 gas and 10000 minerals for 30 minutes without doing anything?
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Russian Federation221 Posts
On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay.
It's definitely not up to mapmakers.
A very very good mapmaker SUPEROUMAN tried his best to create exciting maps using current game mechanics and eventualy he got disappointed that because of game mechanics of SC2 maps don't influence gameplay that much.
Here is the link on his post
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6713481997?page=1#0
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On January 24 2013 16:18 MikeMM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay. It's definitely not up to mapmakers. A very very good mapmaker SUPEROUMAN tried his best to create exciting maps using current game mechanics and eventualy he got disappointed that because of game mechanics of SC2 maps don't influence gameplay that much. Here is the link on his post http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6713481997?page=1#0
Well, he made good maps, but I never saw him trying to implement any new forms of ground advantage in his maps. Again, it doesn't even have to be high-ground advantage. A lot of things can serve similar purpose.
For comparison look at some BW maps: static disruption webs, static dark swarms, lots of interesting features. SC2 editor easily allows such things and more.
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On January 24 2013 08:57 Serpico wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 08:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 24 2013 08:51 Serpico wrote:On January 23 2013 16:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:As long as the enemy does not reveal them, they can blow him into pieces without resistance. Zerg profit the least from height advantage, since their ground range units do not fire very far. But with the Overlord and the Overseer they field two very good spotters You have a good point here about it being easy to spot high advantage. He even admits it here, saying that Zerg has two good spotters, both of which are not very valuable nor hard to get. Like you say, I am one of those who do not feel a chance factor belongs in SC2. However, what they could do is something similar to the semi-random system in WC3, in which it wasn't pure random (AKA it would be pretty consistent over small sample sets), or make it even less random by making it something like "miss every Xth attack". But beyond that, I can't think of anything that Blizzard and I would both like. Skill: I think you may need some clarification here, I don't really see your point. So I get that you like for there to be some forgiveness and comeback ability. When a player has the ability to engage with a huge advantage like this, it could end up creating 1-sided battles where the low-ground player, who gets caught in a bad spot, loses the battle. It's important, for this to work, to give the player the opportunity to retreat from a bad position. But then... you say that it can create 1 sided battles. You say it's important "for this to work", for what to work? Do you want or not want them to retreat, to have abilities like time warp to stop them from retreating or to help them escape? Make it unforgiveable to run into a bad spot, but overall make games be more forgiveable via comebacks through running into bad spots? I would like to see what you mean here, can you elaborate? I believe Blizz is most likely still open (as usual) on this topic as long as there is a good solution, but I can't think of anything else. Maybe something like an increase in armor? A decrease % in damage was also suggested on Bnet, but that can cause complications like decimals and such (IIRC there are decimal damages in the game already though, with things like Mutalisk attack bounce and such -- maybe this would be best). If anything I think a % decrease would be best, and a very small one of course, since small differences end up causing a big difference in the result. People talk about chance then forget about the fog of war, it's one of the biggest randomizing factors in the entire game.... Fog of war in and of itself is not random no more than hotkeys are random. It creates a lack of information and an entire environment where crazy stuff happens, people act like the game is some neatly packaged machine with no ability for chance. It creates randomness because it creates uncertainty. You as a player cannot possibly know what will happen because of it. People argue against a chance to miss because they don't know exactly what will happen in a certain scenario when another unit has high ground. It's hypocritical. The BW highground mechanic actually created positional play and made maps feel varied in height, now SC 2 maps are completely flat with very little regard to terrain. People arguing against a mechanic that has already been shown to work better, it's actually kind of funny.
That is not random. That simply describes a game with incomplete information.
Even more the game allows you to "temporarily complete" your information by going through the fog
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Canada11349 Posts
@Alex
Yeah, but a lot of those things are kinda gimmicky and most standard maps didn't include those things. High ground advantage is pretty foundational as to how the game is played and how maps can be designed. Simply putting a long open ridge across a map can make a difference instead needing to rely solely on chokes and cliffwalk and not cliff-walkable. (Think Heartbreak Ridge.)
Slowing units down trying to get up narrow ramps I think would also help as it attacking units are under fire for longer. But if you just change high ground and nothing else, I think you will get a turtley game. You also need to mess with the resource intake to give incentive to expand more than three bases to get maxed armies.
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On January 24 2013 14:49 Piousflea wrote:
I'm not sure that SC2 really needs stronger defender's advantage, for the following reasons:
1) Defenders are already winning the metagame over attackers. 1-base builds and cheeses are extremely rare. 2nd bases are extremely easy to hold. 3rd bases are mostly safe. The WoL metagame has evolved to where Zerg and Toss players tech up very quickly to their endgame tech (BLs, Colossi), and the pros are adapting to fend off counter-timing attacks such as immortal/sentry all-ins.
2) SC2 has more mechanics that bypass high ground. Stalkers Blink uphill. Banelings roll right up the ramp. Colossi are still firing "downhill" against someone on high ground. A strong high ground mechanic would make it very difficult for Terrans to attack uphill, without affecting Blink or baneling bust all-ins. (let alone BLs, colossi, or skytoss)
3) SC2 has a much higher penalty for failed attacks: This is the big one, and it's due to the much more efficient economy in SC2. The attacker already sacrificed some of his economy to make units. When an attack fails, he's now down units AND economy. The successful defender out-econs and out-techs the attacker very rapidly. (As opposed to BW, where economy cannot be maxed out so easily so the defender doesn't have as big of an econ advantage)
That is why so many SC2 attacks are all-in; if you lose a bunch of units attacking it is very difficult to come back. Not because your defense is weak, but because your economy is weak. Increasing the defender's advantage would further penalize aggressive attacking.
Honestly if we want to encourage multi-pronged attacking and discourage 200/200 deathballs, what we need is a reversion to BW-style mineral economics. There needs to be diminishing returns between 1 SCV/patch, 2 SCV/patch and 3+ SCV/patch. This would nerf the exponential economic increase where cutting a few workers early means you are irrevocably behind on econ unless you can do a ton of damage.
The illusion of a strong defender's advantage is primarily only due to the close proximity of bases, especially the first 3. This doesn't necessarily make it easy to defend, it just makes it easy to turtle, which is boring. With a real defender's advantage, bases could be more spread out, which encourages more army movement, map control, and sending small squads to harass far-away expansions.
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On January 24 2013 14:49 Piousflea wrote:
I'm not sure that SC2 really needs stronger defender's advantage, for the following reasons:
1) Defenders are already winning the metagame over attackers. 1-base builds and cheeses are extremely rare. 2nd bases are extremely easy to hold. 3rd bases are mostly safe. The WoL metagame has evolved to where Zerg and Toss players tech up very quickly to their endgame tech (BLs, Colossi), and the pros are adapting to fend off counter-timing attacks such as immortal/sentry all-ins.
2) SC2 has more mechanics that bypass high ground. Stalkers Blink uphill. Banelings roll right up the ramp. Colossi are still firing "downhill" against someone on high ground. A strong high ground mechanic would make it very difficult for Terrans to attack uphill, without affecting Blink or baneling bust all-ins. (let alone BLs, colossi, or skytoss)
3) SC2 has a much higher penalty for failed attacks: This is the big one, and it's due to the much more efficient economy in SC2. The attacker already sacrificed some of his economy to make units. When an attack fails, he's now down units AND economy. The successful defender out-econs and out-techs the attacker very rapidly. (As opposed to BW, where economy cannot be maxed out so easily so the defender doesn't have as big of an econ advantage)
1) Defenders have advantage right now thanks to the choke points, not by a high ground advantage. (Especially when air units or detectors come in combat ).
2) A strong high ground advantage will give more sense to units like blik stalkers, colosus, reapers and drops, but instead throw them into the main army, players will be forced to search weak spots along the map.
3) Players will be screwed if they throw a deadth-ball into another deadth-ball in high ground (defensive position) An army in a defensive position have advantage only in that position, so players will be forced to play in a diferent way to avoid engage well placed armies (side attacks, drop play).
But right now its only theory.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay.
If there is no mechanic for map makers to use how can they base terrain around that mechanic?
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I always wonder why peopel don't consider a +1 armor / attack bonus for the highground or -1 on the low ground. It's a very clear non-chance based bonus. Is it just that it would be too much of a advantage? Just as far as being clear / non-chancy, saying you have a bonus to your attack on the high ground seems straight forward enough.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On January 24 2013 20:28 IndyO wrote:
I always wonder why peopel don't consider a +1 armor / attack bonus for the highground or -1 on the low ground. It's a very clear non-chance based bonus. Is it just that it would be too much of a advantage? Just as far as being clear / non-chancy, saying you have a bonus to your attack on the high ground seems straight forward enough.
Because armour effects different attacks in different ways.
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United States4883 Posts
On January 24 2013 20:11 Targe wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay. If there is no mechanic for map makers to use how can they base terrain around that mechanic?
Two posts later, following the same question:
On January 24 2013 16:28 Alex1Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 16:18 MikeMM wrote:On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay. It's definitely not up to mapmakers. A very very good mapmaker SUPEROUMAN tried his best to create exciting maps using current game mechanics and eventualy he got disappointed that because of game mechanics of SC2 maps don't influence gameplay that much. Here is the link on his post http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6713481997?page=1#0 Well, he made good maps, but I never saw him trying to implement any new forms of ground advantage in his maps. Again, it doesn't even have to be high-ground advantage. A lot of things can serve similar purpose. For comparison look at some BW maps: static disruption webs, static dark swarms, lots of interesting features. SC2 editor easily allows such things and more.
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On January 24 2013 21:08 Targe wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:28 IndyO wrote:
I always wonder why peopel don't consider a +1 armor / attack bonus for the highground or -1 on the low ground. It's a very clear non-chance based bonus. Is it just that it would be too much of a advantage? Just as far as being clear / non-chancy, saying you have a bonus to your attack on the high ground seems straight forward enough. Because armour effects different attacks in different ways.
What about range then? Makes sence that short range units would be more affected than longer ranged units.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On January 24 2013 22:39 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 20:11 Targe wrote:On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay. If there is no mechanic for map makers to use how can they base terrain around that mechanic? Two posts later, following the same question: Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 16:28 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 16:18 MikeMM wrote:On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay. It's definitely not up to mapmakers. A very very good mapmaker SUPEROUMAN tried his best to create exciting maps using current game mechanics and eventualy he got disappointed that because of game mechanics of SC2 maps don't influence gameplay that much. Here is the link on his post http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6713481997?page=1#0 Well, he made good maps, but I never saw him trying to implement any new forms of ground advantage in his maps. Again, it doesn't even have to be high-ground advantage. A lot of things can serve similar purpose. For comparison look at some BW maps: static disruption webs, static dark swarms, lots of interesting features. SC2 editor easily allows such things and more.
Oh wow, I expect SPL will be using stuff like that when they introduce new maps then!
On January 24 2013 22:45 Sumadin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 21:08 Targe wrote:On January 24 2013 20:28 IndyO wrote:
I always wonder why peopel don't consider a +1 armor / attack bonus for the highground or -1 on the low ground. It's a very clear non-chance based bonus. Is it just that it would be too much of a advantage? Just as far as being clear / non-chancy, saying you have a bonus to your attack on the high ground seems straight forward enough. Because armour effects different attacks in different ways. What about range then? Makes sence that short range units would be more affected than longer ranged units.
Range is definitely a possible choice, then again a random chance to miss isn't that bad tbh, it worked in BW so I would think it would work in SC2 as well, you're never really going to be in the situation where the randomness will effect anything as army sizes in SC2 are much higher.
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Since in SC2 a melee map is any map we choose to call one, why not implant some cool features such as slow zones, heal pads (already exist in HOTS) and other ground advantage stuff.
Personally I want to hear more feedback on the whole - climbing ramps make you slow, which affects both small and large armies while being pretty realistic. I think this idea is better then random stuff or uneven stuff like damage and range.nerfs while attacking onto a high ground, since it also affects melee units.
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First for the people who say that the effects of random chance "average out," this isn't always true. Consider a group of marines with 2 tanks attacking into a high ground position in TvZ. There will be great variance in how the battle turns out based on the initial target firing of the tanks on banelings. The rest of the battle is greatly dependent on whether these initial tank shots hit the banelings.
For people worried about decimals for a flat % damage decrease, if the game internally stores health as integers and not floats, then all they need to do is internally multiply all health, damage, and modifiers by 3 (or 4 or whatever base of fraction you want to use). They can still display rounded or truncated health, and I think it completely preserves the integrity of the game.
The biggest question for the flat % damage decrease is whether to add in the effects before or after other damage modifiers. I feel like after is more appropriate, so it will keep the effects of armor more uniform.
Edit: Also, I wouldn't get your hopes up about Blizzard testing these changes in HOTS or LOTV. It would completely change the base balance of the game (that is, WOL). Many of the basic units have already been (at least for the most part) balanced against each other in WoL. Doing this would throw everything out of balance I guess, and they would be starting over from scratch whenever they implement it.
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I understand DB's point about elements of chance and think it's a good one, but there are non-chance elements that could be incorporated into the game that still grant a high ground advantage while making sure both players know what's going on. For instance, reduced range or a set damage penalty against high ground. I really would like to see it improved upon.
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On January 24 2013 13:07 ysnake wrote:
I have to point out one thing that should NEVER be implemented in Starcraft II and that is RNG (Random Number Generator). This is a term widely known by the MMORPG community, and since we all here played at least one RPG game, RNG=critical chance. There should be no "maybe it misses", like a Stalker taking out a 2 HP Siege Tank on the high ground and it misses its shot.
Might as well give an upgrade that Zerglings have a chance to deal x2 damage (a critical strike) or any other random thing. This just does not belong in any competitive play, any RNG is bad and should be avoided at all costs in strategy games such as Starcraft II.
I was a Gladiator (not a huge achievement but serves my argument) in WoW and I hated every aspect of RNG involved in that game. From my Mage's shatter not critting at all, or a random crit that kills me, same goes for DAoC, when someone resists a CC, or even worse, an instant CC (which had, at that time, 8+ minutes cooldown, some even 30 minutes).
Just keep RNG out of Starcraft II.
Well, a) it's too late for that. Every unit has a random initial firing delay. Burrow has a random initial delay. Spawn positions can be random.
But b) Broodwar had a random miss chance as well so it's not really a solid argument "against esports" or whatever.
c) The examples you cite are 1v1 combat whereas in SC2 armies tend to be larger so it's a bit more probable chances will average out over the course of a game, and
d) in your examples there's no way for the players to influence their luck whereas in SC2 the risk of firing up a cliff is well-known and a conscious decision. You can avoid getting into the situation
Again, not saying randomness is bound to be good for SC2. Just saying having this absolute a stance against any sort of randomness is a bit closed-minded.
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In regard to my previous post above, I may have been a little premature. I realized that I may not correctly understand how hit chance works with AoE for something like a siege tank. Is the hit chance applied before doing AoE (that is once for all units under area) or is it applied to each unit in the area of effect individually?
I was assuming the former case, but I think that for the latter case my example still stands as random hit chance != flat % damage reduction. That is, suppose there is only one siege tank and it takes one volley to kill banelings. With the latter case for hit chance, about half of the banelings remain. For flat damage % reduction, all banelings are at half health. Even though they are at half health, they still have the potential to do the same damage because they are suicide units. Of course, its now easier for the marines to shoot them down, but it seems to me that the equivalence of the outcomes isn't necessarily true. It would need some testing.
Edit: But then my example is messing up AoE anyways, so I don't know. My main point is that something like banelings do their damage on suicide, so reducing their life by 1/2 doesn't necessarily reduce the damage they will do over their lifetime by 1/2.
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On January 25 2013 00:58 KillingVector wrote:
In regard to my previous post above, I may have been a little premature. I realized that I may not correctly understand how hit chance works with AoE for something like a siege tank. Is the hit chance applied before doing AoE (that is once for all units under area) or is it applied to each unit in the area of effect individually?
I was assuming the former case, but I think that for the latter case my example still stands as random hit chance != flat % damage reduction. That is, suppose there is only one siege tank and it takes one volley to kill banelings. With the latter case for hit chance, about half of the banelings remain. For flat damage % reduction, all banelings are at half health. Even though they are at half health, they still have the potential to do the same damage because they are suicide units. Of course, its now easier for the marines to shoot them down, but it seems to me that the equivalence of the outcomes isn't necessarily true. It would need some testing.
Edit: But then my example is messing up AoE anyways, so I don't know. My main point is that something like banelings do their damage on suicide, so reducing their life by 1/2 doesn't necessarily reduce the damage they will do over their lifetime by 1/2.
High ground AoE never missed in BW. It makes sense because once a bomb explodes, it's shrapnel flies in all directions and does end up hitting everyone around it. So, if a tank shell missed a direct hit on a dragoon, it won't do full 70 damage, but since it explodes anyway the shrapnel from it flies in all directions would do full AoE damage which was 35.
Real science applied in a virtual game.
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If you introduce high ground advantage then you have to change the maps, then the balance, and at that point Blizzard needs to be fully on board. This change is not going to happen, I'd suggest for people to focus their efforts in other directions. In fact, all fundamental changes to the game - including economy, macro mechanics, pathfinding, high ground advantage, improved positional play, MBS/AM/SC, moving shot - are never going to be implemented, no matter how much the community wants it to happen.
If you want to make a positive contribution then you should probably brainstorm map features that can be implemented right now by GSL map makers and such.
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On January 25 2013 03:49 Grumbels wrote:
If you introduce high ground advantage then you have to change the maps, then the balance, and at that point Blizzard needs to be fully on board. This change is not going to happen, I'd suggest for people to focus their efforts in other directions. In fact, all fundamental changes to the game - including economy, macro mechanics, pathfinding, high ground advantage, improved positional play, MBS/AM/SC, moving shot - are never going to be implemented, no matter how much the community wants it to happen.
If you want to make a positive contribution then you should probably brainstorm map features that can be implemented right now by GSL map makers and such.
What are you talking about? High ground advtange in SC has been this way for over a decade. Also, I want Blizzard to focus on this as well, because this is one of the "other directions" you speak of.
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On January 25 2013 03:49 Grumbels wrote:
If you introduce high ground advantage then you have to change the maps, then the balance, and at that point Blizzard needs to be fully on board. This change is not going to happen, I'd suggest for people to focus their efforts in other directions. In fact, all fundamental changes to the game - including economy, macro mechanics, pathfinding, high ground advantage, improved positional play, MBS/AM/SC, moving shot - are never going to be implemented, no matter how much the community wants it to happen.
If you want to make a positive contribution then you should probably brainstorm map features that can be implemented right now by GSL map makers and such.
I personally wouldn't mind more islands
Actual islands too--not just walled off by destructible rocks.
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On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it?
To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks. Who doesn't like to watch continuous clever harassment that requires micro and is actually properly planned.
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On January 25 2013 04:20 Unshapely wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it? To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks.
Well, we don't need "terrain advantage" for that--they could just buff midgame defences so that it's almost impossible to win an outright frontal assault forcing a need for more sideways attacks.
For example, if Planetary Fortresses were given a bigger AoE radius and scaled with mech upgrades--breaking through a lategame terran wall would be almost impossible forcing less frontal attacks.
Or what if the Dark Shrine had cannon upgrades that increased cannon range and gave cannons hardened armor?
It's already impossible to break through spine walls supported by Infestors forcing lots of harass play XvZ games.
Etc...
Terrain advantages need to have a very specific reason for existing that can't be solved by simply buffing turrets and cannons.
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Btw: wouldnt it be much more interesting to just have more options in mapdesigning with many small terrainfeatures, instead of a highground advantage that would be always connected to each and every heigth difference?
Like
1way sightblockers
Areas with certain advantages (like a fog that gives or takes away while you stand in it)
Periodic opening gates or elevators
Complete sightblockers (not even air gives vision)
Sure, some stuff might be confusing at first, but most of that stuff could be selectanle to a certain degree, allowing you to read its effect.
It would allow mapmakers to actually deploy positionsl advantages, without the need to mess with the genetal balance to adapt to everything suddenly being different.
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One issue with high ground % chance to miss that didn't exist in BW is smart targeting. Anything with smart targeting such as marines may spread out their damage in a way that is less optimal than just regular targeting. Of course this depends on how it is implemented and how the smart targeting is implemented. If the smart targeting is done at the same time as the rolling for each missed shot, then it can be avoided. Although, frankly it doesn't make much sense that they can change who their shooting at based on the fact that the guy next to them missed.
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On January 25 2013 04:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 04:20 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it? To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks. Well, we don't need "terrain advantage" for that--they could just buff midgame defences so that it's almost impossible to win an outright frontal assault forcing a need for more sideways attacks. For example, if Planetary Fortresses were given a bigger AoE radius and scaled with mech upgrades--breaking through a lategame terran wall would be almost impossible forcing less frontal attacks. Or what if the Dark Shrine had cannon upgrades that increased cannon range and gave cannons hardened armor? It's already impossible to break through spine walls supported by Infestors forcing lots of harass play XvZ games. Etc... Terrain advantages need to have a very specific reason for existing that can't be solved by simply buffing turrets and cannons.
I guess you've never played BW? Buildings, stationary defense, etc. always had 100% hit chance. Your shots only missed on units that could move, like marines, dragoons, etc. Your entire argument is moot. High ground advantage won't affect Planetary or Spine.
Also, running up your entire army to a Spine Crawler Wall or Planetary Fortress should be difficult. That's why the player should think, look for an exploit, and then attack. You shouldn't blindly run all of your army straight up and expect to win. Do a traditional Bisu style dark templar drop, or savior style battlefield management.
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On January 25 2013 03:29 Unshapely wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 00:58 KillingVector wrote:
In regard to my previous post above, I may have been a little premature. I realized that I may not correctly understand how hit chance works with AoE for something like a siege tank. Is the hit chance applied before doing AoE (that is once for all units under area) or is it applied to each unit in the area of effect individually?
I was assuming the former case, but I think that for the latter case my example still stands as random hit chance != flat % damage reduction. That is, suppose there is only one siege tank and it takes one volley to kill banelings. With the latter case for hit chance, about half of the banelings remain. For flat damage % reduction, all banelings are at half health. Even though they are at half health, they still have the potential to do the same damage because they are suicide units. Of course, its now easier for the marines to shoot them down, but it seems to me that the equivalence of the outcomes isn't necessarily true. It would need some testing.
Edit: But then my example is messing up AoE anyways, so I don't know. My main point is that something like banelings do their damage on suicide, so reducing their life by 1/2 doesn't necessarily reduce the damage they will do over their lifetime by 1/2. High ground AoE never missed in BW. It makes sense because once a bomb explodes, it's shrapnel flies in all directions and does end up hitting everyone around it. So, if a tank shell missed a direct hit on a dragoon, it won't do full 70 damage, but since it explodes anyway the shrapnel from it flies in all directions would do full AoE damage which was 35. Real science applied in a virtual game.
Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that it was for all damage. My mistake.
My main point though is that the baneling's damage comes from only one suicide attack. If under the current Sc2 mechanics, a defending baneling dies, but under the new damage reduction it makes it through with say 5 health, it still does the same amount of damage. Of course, it matters how many units it hits.
That is, say the low ground marines have a reduction in damage of 1/3. Against any other unit, that means on average the defending unit is alive 50% longer to deal damage. Its like the unit is 50% stronger/better. The baneling though only has to close the gap and then it deals as much damage as it will ever do. A couple more surviving banelings could be much more than a 50% increase in damage. A 5 health baneling does just as much damage as a full health baneling.
Maybe the banelings that survive won't hit as many marines, because they die too soon. Maybe the geometry of the ramp prevents any of this from being an issue. It needs testing. I'm just not sure on paper how this all works with suicide units.
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On January 25 2013 04:58 KillingVector wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 03:29 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 00:58 KillingVector wrote:
In regard to my previous post above, I may have been a little premature. I realized that I may not correctly understand how hit chance works with AoE for something like a siege tank. Is the hit chance applied before doing AoE (that is once for all units under area) or is it applied to each unit in the area of effect individually?
I was assuming the former case, but I think that for the latter case my example still stands as random hit chance != flat % damage reduction. That is, suppose there is only one siege tank and it takes one volley to kill banelings. With the latter case for hit chance, about half of the banelings remain. For flat damage % reduction, all banelings are at half health. Even though they are at half health, they still have the potential to do the same damage because they are suicide units. Of course, its now easier for the marines to shoot them down, but it seems to me that the equivalence of the outcomes isn't necessarily true. It would need some testing.
Edit: But then my example is messing up AoE anyways, so I don't know. My main point is that something like banelings do their damage on suicide, so reducing their life by 1/2 doesn't necessarily reduce the damage they will do over their lifetime by 1/2. High ground AoE never missed in BW. It makes sense because once a bomb explodes, it's shrapnel flies in all directions and does end up hitting everyone around it. So, if a tank shell missed a direct hit on a dragoon, it won't do full 70 damage, but since it explodes anyway the shrapnel from it flies in all directions would do full AoE damage which was 35. Real science applied in a virtual game. Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that it was for all damage. My mistake. My main point though is that the baneling's damage comes from only one suicide attack. If under the current Sc2 mechanics, a defending baneling dies, but under the new damage reduction it makes it through with say 5 health, it still does the same amount of damage. Of course, it matters how many units it hits. That is, say the low ground marines have a reduction in damage of 1/3. Against any other unit, that means on average the defending unit is alive 50% longer to deal damage. Its like the unit is 50% stronger/better. The baneling though only has to close the gap and then it deals as much damage as it will ever do. A couple more surviving banelings could be much more than a 50% increase in damage. A 5 health baneling does just as much damage as a full health baneling. Maybe the banelings that survive won't hit as many marines, because they die too soon. Maybe the geometry of the ramp prevents any of this from being an issue. It needs testing. I'm just not sure on paper how this all works with suicide units.
Deleted. I can't read.
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On January 25 2013 05:07 Unshapely wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 04:58 KillingVector wrote:On January 25 2013 03:29 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 00:58 KillingVector wrote:
In regard to my previous post above, I may have been a little premature. I realized that I may not correctly understand how hit chance works with AoE for something like a siege tank. Is the hit chance applied before doing AoE (that is once for all units under area) or is it applied to each unit in the area of effect individually?
I was assuming the former case, but I think that for the latter case my example still stands as random hit chance != flat % damage reduction. That is, suppose there is only one siege tank and it takes one volley to kill banelings. With the latter case for hit chance, about half of the banelings remain. For flat damage % reduction, all banelings are at half health. Even though they are at half health, they still have the potential to do the same damage because they are suicide units. Of course, its now easier for the marines to shoot them down, but it seems to me that the equivalence of the outcomes isn't necessarily true. It would need some testing.
Edit: But then my example is messing up AoE anyways, so I don't know. My main point is that something like banelings do their damage on suicide, so reducing their life by 1/2 doesn't necessarily reduce the damage they will do over their lifetime by 1/2. High ground AoE never missed in BW. It makes sense because once a bomb explodes, it's shrapnel flies in all directions and does end up hitting everyone around it. So, if a tank shell missed a direct hit on a dragoon, it won't do full 70 damage, but since it explodes anyway the shrapnel from it flies in all directions would do full AoE damage which was 35. Real science applied in a virtual game. Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that it was for all damage. My mistake. My main point though is that the baneling's damage comes from only one suicide attack. If under the current Sc2 mechanics, a defending baneling dies, but under the new damage reduction it makes it through with say 5 health, it still does the same amount of damage. Of course, it matters how many units it hits. That is, say the low ground marines have a reduction in damage of 1/3. Against any other unit, that means on average the defending unit is alive 50% longer to deal damage. Its like the unit is 50% stronger/better. The baneling though only has to close the gap and then it deals as much damage as it will ever do. A couple more surviving banelings could be much more than a 50% increase in damage. A 5 health baneling does just as much damage as a full health baneling. Maybe the banelings that survive won't hit as many marines, because they die too soon. Maybe the geometry of the ramp prevents any of this from being an issue. It needs testing. I'm just not sure on paper how this all works with suicide units. Actually, banelings are sort of melee attack units. They don't fire any long distance projectile that can miss. If you touch the marine with your baneling, then it should do full damage, doesn't matter if your bane was on low gronud and marine on high ground. High ground advantage shouldn't really apply to banelings.
I am very well aware of that -_-
My point is that applying a chance to miss % to suicide units such as banelings can have large variance on game outcomes. People who dismiss it as "averaging" out (or more appropriately the law of large numbers) are ignoring the fact that one more baneling connecting could make a huge difference for which the rest of the game is highly dependent. (Sc isn't really a series of independent trials)
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On January 25 2013 05:21 KillingVector wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:07 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:58 KillingVector wrote:On January 25 2013 03:29 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 00:58 KillingVector wrote:
In regard to my previous post above, I may have been a little premature. I realized that I may not correctly understand how hit chance works with AoE for something like a siege tank. Is the hit chance applied before doing AoE (that is once for all units under area) or is it applied to each unit in the area of effect individually?
I was assuming the former case, but I think that for the latter case my example still stands as random hit chance != flat % damage reduction. That is, suppose there is only one siege tank and it takes one volley to kill banelings. With the latter case for hit chance, about half of the banelings remain. For flat damage % reduction, all banelings are at half health. Even though they are at half health, they still have the potential to do the same damage because they are suicide units. Of course, its now easier for the marines to shoot them down, but it seems to me that the equivalence of the outcomes isn't necessarily true. It would need some testing.
Edit: But then my example is messing up AoE anyways, so I don't know. My main point is that something like banelings do their damage on suicide, so reducing their life by 1/2 doesn't necessarily reduce the damage they will do over their lifetime by 1/2. High ground AoE never missed in BW. It makes sense because once a bomb explodes, it's shrapnel flies in all directions and does end up hitting everyone around it. So, if a tank shell missed a direct hit on a dragoon, it won't do full 70 damage, but since it explodes anyway the shrapnel from it flies in all directions would do full AoE damage which was 35. Real science applied in a virtual game. Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that it was for all damage. My mistake. My main point though is that the baneling's damage comes from only one suicide attack. If under the current Sc2 mechanics, a defending baneling dies, but under the new damage reduction it makes it through with say 5 health, it still does the same amount of damage. Of course, it matters how many units it hits. That is, say the low ground marines have a reduction in damage of 1/3. Against any other unit, that means on average the defending unit is alive 50% longer to deal damage. Its like the unit is 50% stronger/better. The baneling though only has to close the gap and then it deals as much damage as it will ever do. A couple more surviving banelings could be much more than a 50% increase in damage. A 5 health baneling does just as much damage as a full health baneling. Maybe the banelings that survive won't hit as many marines, because they die too soon. Maybe the geometry of the ramp prevents any of this from being an issue. It needs testing. I'm just not sure on paper how this all works with suicide units. Actually, banelings are sort of melee attack units. They don't fire any long distance projectile that can miss. If you touch the marine with your baneling, then it should do full damage, doesn't matter if your bane was on low gronud and marine on high ground. High ground advantage shouldn't really apply to banelings. I am very well aware of that -_- My point is that applying a chance to miss % to suicide units such as banelings can have large variance on game outcomes. People who dismiss it as "averaging" out (or more appropriately the law of large numbers) are ignoring the fact that one more baneling connecting could make a huge difference for which the rest of the game is highly dependent. (Sc isn't really a series of independent trials)
Ah sorry, I misread your post.
Well, to speak for lower leagues, this could be a bit of a problem. Let me analyse.
Here is what I think is possible: A group of marines trying to go up the ramp for harassment, but banelings are near the ramp, let's say behind the queens. The marines try to move to the ramp because the queen isn't taking much damage. The zerg sees this and moves the banelings to the front, the terran reacts and retreats with stim boosting the running speed, and simultaneously tries to return fire while backing off (The kind of micro displayed by MKP in several GSL tournaments).
Hmm.... no matter how hard I think, the Zerg is always winning, unless the terran builds a Medivac and does a drop. One tactic that comes to mind is to lure the banelings to low ground by feigning an attack, but backing off with stim once the banelings are on the low ground or ramp, leaving them vulnerable.
Perhaps we'll see an early tank build with this, since a tank nullifies all banelings. Needs to be tested!
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On January 25 2013 04:43 Unshapely wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 04:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:20 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it? To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks. Well, we don't need "terrain advantage" for that--they could just buff midgame defences so that it's almost impossible to win an outright frontal assault forcing a need for more sideways attacks. For example, if Planetary Fortresses were given a bigger AoE radius and scaled with mech upgrades--breaking through a lategame terran wall would be almost impossible forcing less frontal attacks. Or what if the Dark Shrine had cannon upgrades that increased cannon range and gave cannons hardened armor? It's already impossible to break through spine walls supported by Infestors forcing lots of harass play XvZ games. Etc... Terrain advantages need to have a very specific reason for existing that can't be solved by simply buffing turrets and cannons. I guess you've never played BW? Buildings, stationary defense, etc. always had 100% hit chance. Your shots only missed on units that could move, like marines, dragoons, etc. Your entire argument is moot. High ground advantage won't affect Planetary or Spine. Also, running up your entire army to a Spine Crawler Wall or Planetary Fortress should be difficult. That's why the player should think, look for an exploit, and then attack. You shouldn't blindly run all of your army straight up and expect to win. Do a traditional Bisu style dark templar drop, or savior style battlefield management.
I guess you didn't read my post?
If the goal is purely to encourage harass and less frontal assaults--that doesn't have to be terrain. Buffing defenses does the same thing.
There needs to be a better and more specific reason why it is terrain that have to be buffed.
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On January 25 2013 06:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 04:43 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:20 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it? To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks. Well, we don't need "terrain advantage" for that--they could just buff midgame defences so that it's almost impossible to win an outright frontal assault forcing a need for more sideways attacks. For example, if Planetary Fortresses were given a bigger AoE radius and scaled with mech upgrades--breaking through a lategame terran wall would be almost impossible forcing less frontal attacks. Or what if the Dark Shrine had cannon upgrades that increased cannon range and gave cannons hardened armor? It's already impossible to break through spine walls supported by Infestors forcing lots of harass play XvZ games. Etc... Terrain advantages need to have a very specific reason for existing that can't be solved by simply buffing turrets and cannons. I guess you've never played BW? Buildings, stationary defense, etc. always had 100% hit chance. Your shots only missed on units that could move, like marines, dragoons, etc. Your entire argument is moot. High ground advantage won't affect Planetary or Spine. Also, running up your entire army to a Spine Crawler Wall or Planetary Fortress should be difficult. That's why the player should think, look for an exploit, and then attack. You shouldn't blindly run all of your army straight up and expect to win. Do a traditional Bisu style dark templar drop, or savior style battlefield management. I guess you didn't read my post? If the goal is purely to encourage harass and less frontal assaults--that doesn't have to be terrain. Buffing defenses does the same thing. There needs to be a better and more specific reason why it is terrain that have to be buffed.
This is a point worth emphasizing. There are more ways to create a defenders advantage than just to implement a high ground advantage. In BW the reason why defenders could defend the way they did was not purely based upon the high ground advantage, rather it was the defensive units that players had access to. Ultra-boss PsiStorm, 2 supply tanks, Lurkers, etc.
I think the idea of fortification is key to strategy in RTS, so I am all for the implementation of the ability to truly fortify area. Terran already has bunkers, PF's, and siege tanks. Perhaps the neosteel frame upgrade should give bunkers and PF's +100 and +200 HP respectively or something. Terran doesn't need huge tweaks for actual fortification to be practical.
I think that spine walls are already pretty good at fortifying things.
Protoss is alright at fortification. I would like to see them be perhaps a bit better, whether it is introducing an upgrade for cannons or giving them a defensive unit other than the sentry. I think that a lot of the whole "Protoss deathball" playstyle comes from the fact that Protoss' one good defensive tool is warp in, so they feel very uneasy when they are moving up to four bases or more.
All that being said I must admit I am biased towards buffing fortification as a Terran players that uses PF's and bunkers like Paula Dean uses butter and mayonnaise.
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On January 25 2013 06:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 04:43 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:20 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it? To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks. Well, we don't need "terrain advantage" for that--they could just buff midgame defences so that it's almost impossible to win an outright frontal assault forcing a need for more sideways attacks. For example, if Planetary Fortresses were given a bigger AoE radius and scaled with mech upgrades--breaking through a lategame terran wall would be almost impossible forcing less frontal attacks. Or what if the Dark Shrine had cannon upgrades that increased cannon range and gave cannons hardened armor? It's already impossible to break through spine walls supported by Infestors forcing lots of harass play XvZ games. Etc... Terrain advantages need to have a very specific reason for existing that can't be solved by simply buffing turrets and cannons. I guess you've never played BW? Buildings, stationary defense, etc. always had 100% hit chance. Your shots only missed on units that could move, like marines, dragoons, etc. Your entire argument is moot. High ground advantage won't affect Planetary or Spine. Also, running up your entire army to a Spine Crawler Wall or Planetary Fortress should be difficult. That's why the player should think, look for an exploit, and then attack. You shouldn't blindly run all of your army straight up and expect to win. Do a traditional Bisu style dark templar drop, or savior style battlefield management. I guess you didn't read my post? If the goal is purely to encourage harass and less frontal assaults--that doesn't have to be terrain. Buffing defenses does the same thing. There needs to be a better and more specific reason why it is terrain that have to be buffed.
Good point, someone had to ask this. I'll list my points. Firstly, it's not purely to encourage harass, but also to induce the player to think strategically, something that changes from map to map. Increasing the potency of base defenses does not achieve the same result, because you can build base defenses anywhere across the map, wherever you have creep, protoss matrix, etc. High ground cannot exist everywhere in contrast to low ground. Changing terrain allows for a greater diversity of positional play, and greater importance to certain locations at map. The mapmaker can decide which points of the map to emphasize.
For example, if I increase base defense, then it doesn't matter if units are on high ground or low ground, my defense will remain strong. But if there is high ground and low ground, then a player can decide where to position his units to efficiently engage units on high/low ground, or perform a drop to make things even. Have you every played on maps like Katrina and Tau Cross? The high ground on Tau cross was so useful to strategically take out the zerg's vespene geyser at the middle expansion, but it was risky because of mutalisks and the spell plague.
It's too simple to say that base defense gets you the same positional play and result, because it doesn't. Let me tell you again, high ground changes with every map, base defense doesn't. This is one reason why it should come back, and it also induces the player to actually consider which part of the map to give more emphasis, and think and plan things out.
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I think it has to do with three concepts: 1. the ability to trade units despite being outnumbered; 2. the wish for terrain and positioning to matter; and 3. defender's advantage.
High ground advantage is a bonus for all three of these, but I think the problem is that these concepts are fairly fundamental to the way the game plays out and the current maps and units are created around it, so making them more prominently felt won't necessarily improve gameplay. Some examples: the colossus will now be incredibly strong because it is quite mobile and a colossus-based army can easily take a strong position on high ground somewhere. All maps will have to be changed, for instance Cloud Kingdom now has an impossible to take fourth base, but in many maps the third base will be quite difficult to attack; you could change the maps to be more spread out, but that will have balance repercussions, .
Another thing that's important to mention is that - let's suppose that Blizzard wants to increase positional play - introducing a high ground advantage is a dangerous step that will complicate many existing dynamics. Blizzard also has the option to introduce units that will reward positional play more, as they're doing in Heart of the Swarm. It's smaller scale and more controlled, so the results are more predictable.
Many of the suggestions about things like economy, positional advantages, micro etc. I agree with, but it essentially turns SC2 into a different game and Blizzard is just never going to make those changes. If they had intended to, they would have done so a year ago, it's far too late at this point. We'll have to accept that this is the game we're going to get, with some improvements to balance and a couple of unit dynamics. Outside of unit design, there will be no fundamental changes.
I know it's fun to brainstorm about these things and it can be frustrating that Blizzard has been so conservative, but I think it's still important to realize that this discussion will be pointless if we address it to Blizzard. The only suggestions that Blizzard will listen to are about unit changes. It's also possible to have map features introduced by map makers, which is one area where the community does have some power, so maybe that's a fruitful area of discussion too.
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On January 25 2013 06:43 Unshapely wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:43 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:20 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it? To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks. Well, we don't need "terrain advantage" for that--they could just buff midgame defences so that it's almost impossible to win an outright frontal assault forcing a need for more sideways attacks. For example, if Planetary Fortresses were given a bigger AoE radius and scaled with mech upgrades--breaking through a lategame terran wall would be almost impossible forcing less frontal attacks. Or what if the Dark Shrine had cannon upgrades that increased cannon range and gave cannons hardened armor? It's already impossible to break through spine walls supported by Infestors forcing lots of harass play XvZ games. Etc... Terrain advantages need to have a very specific reason for existing that can't be solved by simply buffing turrets and cannons. I guess you've never played BW? Buildings, stationary defense, etc. always had 100% hit chance. Your shots only missed on units that could move, like marines, dragoons, etc. Your entire argument is moot. High ground advantage won't affect Planetary or Spine. Also, running up your entire army to a Spine Crawler Wall or Planetary Fortress should be difficult. That's why the player should think, look for an exploit, and then attack. You shouldn't blindly run all of your army straight up and expect to win. Do a traditional Bisu style dark templar drop, or savior style battlefield management. I guess you didn't read my post? If the goal is purely to encourage harass and less frontal assaults--that doesn't have to be terrain. Buffing defenses does the same thing. There needs to be a better and more specific reason why it is terrain that have to be buffed. Good point, someone had to ask this. I'll list my points. Firstly, it's not purely to encourage harass, but also to induce the player to think strategically, something that changes from map to map. Increasing the potency of base defenses does not achieve the same result, because you can build base defenses anywhere across the map, wherever you have creep, protoss matrix, etc. High ground cannot exist everywhere in contrast to low ground. Changing terrain allows for a greater diversity of positional play, and greater importance to certain locations at map. The mapmaker can decide which points of the map to emphasize. For example, if I increase base defense, then it doesn't matter if units are on high ground or low ground, my defense will remain strong. But if there is high ground and low ground, then a player can decide where to position his units to efficiently engage units on high/low ground, or perform a drop to make things even. Have you every played on maps like Katrina and Tau Cross? The high ground on Tau cross was so useful to strategically take out the zerg's vespene geyser at the middle expansion, but it was risky because of mutalisks and the spell plague. It's too simple to say that base defense gets you the same positional play and result, because it doesn't. Let me tell you again, high ground changes with every map, base defense doesn't. This is one reason why it should come back, and it also induces the player to actually consider which part of the map to give more emphasis, and think and plan things out.
It sounds like the goal is to create terrain that encourages tactical play--as it sounds like what you're asking for is not so much "defensiveness" but more-so the ability for small packs of troops to be efficient enough at an attack (or stall tactic) to be worth risking. (similar to marines shooting from the back of a mineral line, or Sentries blocking off a choke during attacks/defense)
Is this closer to what is being looked for?
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I don't see why Blizzard would hesitate.
It shouldn't affect existing maps too much, because the advantage isn't that huge. It will encourage much more map awareness, especially on Cloud Kingdom. If you spot the enemy army moving to the 4th base via high ground then you can station extra units for a defensive stance beforehand. Not knowing when your opponent was going for the attack on 4th base would of course cost you the expansion.
People here are discussing as if high ground would grant near invincibility, whereas it only grants a 1/3rd miss chance for units that aren't on the same or higher level. Give it a chance people. You guys are shutting down the idea before Blizzard has even given their official word on it. Why such resistance to change, dear community?
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On January 25 2013 06:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:43 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 06:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:43 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:20 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it? To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks. Well, we don't need "terrain advantage" for that--they could just buff midgame defences so that it's almost impossible to win an outright frontal assault forcing a need for more sideways attacks. For example, if Planetary Fortresses were given a bigger AoE radius and scaled with mech upgrades--breaking through a lategame terran wall would be almost impossible forcing less frontal attacks. Or what if the Dark Shrine had cannon upgrades that increased cannon range and gave cannons hardened armor? It's already impossible to break through spine walls supported by Infestors forcing lots of harass play XvZ games. Etc... Terrain advantages need to have a very specific reason for existing that can't be solved by simply buffing turrets and cannons. I guess you've never played BW? Buildings, stationary defense, etc. always had 100% hit chance. Your shots only missed on units that could move, like marines, dragoons, etc. Your entire argument is moot. High ground advantage won't affect Planetary or Spine. Also, running up your entire army to a Spine Crawler Wall or Planetary Fortress should be difficult. That's why the player should think, look for an exploit, and then attack. You shouldn't blindly run all of your army straight up and expect to win. Do a traditional Bisu style dark templar drop, or savior style battlefield management. I guess you didn't read my post? If the goal is purely to encourage harass and less frontal assaults--that doesn't have to be terrain. Buffing defenses does the same thing. There needs to be a better and more specific reason why it is terrain that have to be buffed. Good point, someone had to ask this. I'll list my points. Firstly, it's not purely to encourage harass, but also to induce the player to think strategically, something that changes from map to map. Increasing the potency of base defenses does not achieve the same result, because you can build base defenses anywhere across the map, wherever you have creep, protoss matrix, etc. High ground cannot exist everywhere in contrast to low ground. Changing terrain allows for a greater diversity of positional play, and greater importance to certain locations at map. The mapmaker can decide which points of the map to emphasize. For example, if I increase base defense, then it doesn't matter if units are on high ground or low ground, my defense will remain strong. But if there is high ground and low ground, then a player can decide where to position his units to efficiently engage units on high/low ground, or perform a drop to make things even. Have you every played on maps like Katrina and Tau Cross? The high ground on Tau cross was so useful to strategically take out the zerg's vespene geyser at the middle expansion, but it was risky because of mutalisks and the spell plague. It's too simple to say that base defense gets you the same positional play and result, because it doesn't. Let me tell you again, high ground changes with every map, base defense doesn't. This is one reason why it should come back, and it also induces the player to actually consider which part of the map to give more emphasis, and think and plan things out. It sounds like the goal is to create terrain that encourages tactical play--as it sounds like what you're asking for is not so much "defensiveness" but more-so the ability for small packs of troops to be efficient enough at an attack (or stall tactic) to be worth risking. (similar to marines shooting from the back of a mineral line, or Sentries blocking off a choke during attacks/defense) Is this closer to what is being looked for?
Yes, a terrain that encourages tactical play - that changes from map to map.
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On January 25 2013 07:02 Unshapely wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 06:51 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 06:43 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 06:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:43 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:27 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 25 2013 04:20 Unshapely wrote:On January 25 2013 04:11 Scrubwave wrote:
I get and agree that current high ground "advantage" is stupid but what makes you think blizzard will consider any changes to it? To make the game more interesting, and encourage strategic advances towards enemy base? Games will be more about harassment rather than full-scale frontal attacks. Well, we don't need "terrain advantage" for that--they could just buff midgame defences so that it's almost impossible to win an outright frontal assault forcing a need for more sideways attacks. For example, if Planetary Fortresses were given a bigger AoE radius and scaled with mech upgrades--breaking through a lategame terran wall would be almost impossible forcing less frontal attacks. Or what if the Dark Shrine had cannon upgrades that increased cannon range and gave cannons hardened armor? It's already impossible to break through spine walls supported by Infestors forcing lots of harass play XvZ games. Etc... Terrain advantages need to have a very specific reason for existing that can't be solved by simply buffing turrets and cannons. I guess you've never played BW? Buildings, stationary defense, etc. always had 100% hit chance. Your shots only missed on units that could move, like marines, dragoons, etc. Your entire argument is moot. High ground advantage won't affect Planetary or Spine. Also, running up your entire army to a Spine Crawler Wall or Planetary Fortress should be difficult. That's why the player should think, look for an exploit, and then attack. You shouldn't blindly run all of your army straight up and expect to win. Do a traditional Bisu style dark templar drop, or savior style battlefield management. I guess you didn't read my post? If the goal is purely to encourage harass and less frontal assaults--that doesn't have to be terrain. Buffing defenses does the same thing. There needs to be a better and more specific reason why it is terrain that have to be buffed. Good point, someone had to ask this. I'll list my points. Firstly, it's not purely to encourage harass, but also to induce the player to think strategically, something that changes from map to map. Increasing the potency of base defenses does not achieve the same result, because you can build base defenses anywhere across the map, wherever you have creep, protoss matrix, etc. High ground cannot exist everywhere in contrast to low ground. Changing terrain allows for a greater diversity of positional play, and greater importance to certain locations at map. The mapmaker can decide which points of the map to emphasize. For example, if I increase base defense, then it doesn't matter if units are on high ground or low ground, my defense will remain strong. But if there is high ground and low ground, then a player can decide where to position his units to efficiently engage units on high/low ground, or perform a drop to make things even. Have you every played on maps like Katrina and Tau Cross? The high ground on Tau cross was so useful to strategically take out the zerg's vespene geyser at the middle expansion, but it was risky because of mutalisks and the spell plague. It's too simple to say that base defense gets you the same positional play and result, because it doesn't. Let me tell you again, high ground changes with every map, base defense doesn't. This is one reason why it should come back, and it also induces the player to actually consider which part of the map to give more emphasis, and think and plan things out. It sounds like the goal is to create terrain that encourages tactical play--as it sounds like what you're asking for is not so much "defensiveness" but more-so the ability for small packs of troops to be efficient enough at an attack (or stall tactic) to be worth risking. (similar to marines shooting from the back of a mineral line, or Sentries blocking off a choke during attacks/defense) Is this closer to what is being looked for? Yes, a terrain that encourages tactical play - that changes from map to map. Of course, I loved this in BW, and wouldn't hate in SC2.
So before we talk about what advantage to add--why don't we talk about what types of tactical plays do we want to encourage. For example, how small a force can something be and how big of an army should it be able to fight? How lopsided should a fight be when two armies fight but there is terrain advantage? What can we do to get those results *now* or at least similar results.
For example, more tight chokes would allow 1-2 Sentries to hold off large scale ground attacks.
Longer chokes would allow tanks to better defend areas.
larger line of sight walls would allow army positioning to be more important in a supposedly "large open space"
More open cliffs behind mineral patches to allow marines/hydras/stalkers to shoot down and harass.
More islands (both floating in space islands or simply high ground islands)
More time sensitive structures/features (like temporary towers, temporary walls, or even temporary bridges)
Once we've played with what is available (actually play with them and not simply whine that my A-moved deathball died in the middle of the map to colossus Kulas Ravine style) then maybe we can actually start discussing what *type* of new terrain feature should be made available.
And that's not counting things we can already add to terrain just with the editor. Malicious terrain like lava, persistent spells (everything from a "storm" area to a "guardian shield" area), variant resources available at expansions (mineral only, gas only, low patch count, etc..)
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I dont have much to add, but I agree totally with increasing the benefits of high ground. Having the ability for small armies to stop much larger ones because of terrain suddenly adds such a great deal of strategy. All of a sudden if your army gets caught in a bad spot because there are burrowed units on top of that ramp and lings barring your retreat you can easily swing the tide of battle. It could mean the difference between good and great players by how good their map knowledge and scouting can be during games. I like the idea that players can more easily mount big comebacks by pulling off some kind of special moves and deep, well thought out strategies. One of the things I've always liked about SC2 was in that the strategy was so deep I could apply things like the Art of War to actually improve upon battle tactics and strategy.
Anything to make the gameplay & strategy deeper, and reward more skilled players is a plus. Im only posting in hopes that someone from Blizzard reads and can do something while we are still in beta.
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On January 25 2013 08:50 vicml21 wrote:
I dont have much to add, but I agree totally with increasing the benefits of high ground. Having the ability for small armies to stop much larger ones because of terrain suddenly adds such a great deal of strategy. All of a sudden if your army gets caught in a bad spot because there are burrowed units on top of that ramp and lings barring your retreat you can easily swing the tide of battle. It could mean the difference between good and great players by how good their map knowledge and scouting can be during games. I like the idea that players can more easily mount big comebacks by pulling off some kind of special moves and deep, well thought out strategies. One of the things I've always liked about SC2 was in that the strategy was so deep I could apply things like the Art of War to actually improve upon battle tactics and strategy.
Anything to make the gameplay & strategy deeper, and reward more skilled players is a plus. Im only posting in hopes that someone from Blizzard reads and can do something while we are still in beta.
In defense of Blizzard (not that I don't want terrain changes) but adding high ground advantage is not what will make SC2 more Sun Tzu-ish.
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On January 24 2013 23:12 Targe wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2013 22:39 SC2John wrote:On January 24 2013 20:11 Targe wrote:On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay. If there is no mechanic for map makers to use how can they base terrain around that mechanic? Two posts later, following the same question: On January 24 2013 16:28 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 16:18 MikeMM wrote:On January 24 2013 15:50 Alex1Sun wrote:On January 24 2013 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:
It doesn't have to be high ground--trying to put the focus purely on high ground will cause blizz to simply think "well this isn't BW"
What's needed is terrain relevance on a pound-per-pound basis. A terrain difference where two equal units are no longer equal because of terrain.
Chokes only affect large numbers of units
Vision is an on/off function
What's needed is something to make it so that when one stalker fights another without micro--the one in the better terrain wins. I don't care if it's low ground advantage or tree advantage or fog or whatever--but it's needed. Exactly. And I also feel it's up to mapmakers to introduce such areas. No need to change basic game mechanics, just add a few maps with different ground advantage zones and see which ones add interesting and balanced gameplay. It's definitely not up to mapmakers. A very very good mapmaker SUPEROUMAN tried his best to create exciting maps using current game mechanics and eventualy he got disappointed that because of game mechanics of SC2 maps don't influence gameplay that much. Here is the link on his post http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6713481997?page=1#0 Well, he made good maps, but I never saw him trying to implement any new forms of ground advantage in his maps. Again, it doesn't even have to be high-ground advantage. A lot of things can serve similar purpose. For comparison look at some BW maps: static disruption webs, static dark swarms, lots of interesting features. SC2 editor easily allows such things and more. Oh wow, I expect SPL will be using stuff like that when they introduce new maps then!
I really hope it will become the case soon!
There is so much potential in mapmaking and new exciting forms of ground advantage even with current game mechanics!
Why is nobody trying it? It can make the game so much better!
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There is no incentive or reason that Blizzard should add any core mechanics to the game that cannot be clearly shown or explained in a combat situation.
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Agreed. High ground advantage definitely needs to be more significant.
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It would be incredibly helpful to be able to use high ground independently from choke points or watchtowers tin order to the increase the amount of variety and control within map making. The amount of possibilities goes way up and we can fine tune maps way more to prevent unwanted strategies or encourage all sorts of (new) awesome strategies. Players will be able to further use terrain to their advantage when you have separate choke point usage and high ground usage. There could be a lot of depth introduced.
One major problem with using choke points for a positional advantage is that it doesn’t always help the defender. Depending on the compositions, it can do more harm than good. A tight choke allows tanks to shoot at you from across it, but you have to funnel down the choke to engage them unless you can get some kind of flank. Force Fields can also utilize tighter areas more even if it’s the attacker who’s using them.
This is reason enough in itself.
I see a lot of people suggesting ideas that have to do with map design (chokes). You must realize that we've tried basically everything in WoL and there are simply limits to what's it's possible to have in a map without creating a broken matchup. Position in SC2 is only a matter of time-between-locations and openness, and those things exactly are constrained by balance considerations like "too far for creep" or "too easy to win with forcefield". As Gfire has pointed out, having a tool decoupled from routes themselves would explode the depth of possibilities in map design, let alone in gameplay.
Using custom map features is fine, but there hasn't been a single map yet used in tournaments with anything like a "guardian shield area". If we can have high ground advantage, that will always provide a useful tool for sculpting positional dynamics. Why not have one versatile mechanic to master instead of multiple oddball ones that have much more potential for confusion?
I also want to point out that there's no reason we can't use both vision -and- some other mechanic for high ground at the same time.
Personally, I doubt this will be addressed in HotS, beta or otherwise, but player comprehension should not be an impediment we need to worry about. Explaining any chosen high ground advantage mechanic would be eminently feasible within the paradigm the game already uses for demonstrating its rules. All you need is a campaign mission highlighting how it works, and a blurb in the multiplayer tutorial / help screen. "It doesn't make immediate sense" shouldn't be a barrier in a game like Starcraft where there is an expectation of complexity, and I'm not sure that statement is even true for most people. There are idiosyncrasies in the current mechanic anyway, like air units can be seen when attacking, and therefore the colossus can't attack from high ground without revealing itself.
Lastly, while I like the idea of high ground advantage for situations where there is a cliff between the enemies, I don't think it does enough to help in underdog engagements on a wide ramp, as in BW. Because it's so easy to move all your guys into firing position (as mentioned in the OP about pathing), most of the time a smaller force won't be able to use a high ground advantage long enough for it to pay off when the aggressor can just move onto the high ground. However, it does widen the currently very narrow window of a difference of forces that can be overcome, which may be good enough.
I don't think it can do any harm, and it would only make the game deeper.
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I really like your post, and I agree with most everything your saying, but I fear it's a little late at this point to try and implement something like this (release is right around the corner). The changes to the entire foundation of the game could be dramatic and unforeseen. This is something that should have been tried around the initial release of Beta.
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What about something very simple, like a 10% decrease in attack speed when shooting up a cliff? This affects all unit DPS evenly, doesn't discriminate against Zerg with its low ranged units, doesn't hurt low damage units disproportionately, doesn't open up any crappy chance elements.
This would do a lot of good things to the gameplay.
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Canada11349 Posts
On January 26 2013 01:33 Obamanation666 wrote:
I really like your post, and I agree with most everything your saying, but I fear it's a little late at this point to try and implement something like this (release is right around the corner). The changes to the entire foundation of the game could be dramatic and unforeseen. This is something that should have been tried around the initial release of Beta.
Maybe. But if not Beta, then it will be never short of SC3. If anything Blizzard has been too conservative with their changes.
Without high ground, you actually lose irreplaceable strategy. The skilled and intelligent player is able to make use of terrain advantages for great effect. Without it, you play on a flat fields hemmed in by a maze of walls. Without it, there are less opportunities for players to demonstrate skill beyond massing troops and making good concaves. Remember in 2010 with Boxer siege tank placements? High ground encourages that sort of thinking.
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On January 26 2013 03:54 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 01:33 Obamanation666 wrote:
I really like your post, and I agree with most everything your saying, but I fear it's a little late at this point to try and implement something like this (release is right around the corner). The changes to the entire foundation of the game could be dramatic and unforeseen. This is something that should have been tried around the initial release of Beta. Maybe. But if not Beta, then it will be never short of SC3. If anything Blizzard has been too conservative with their changes. Without high ground, you actually lose irreplaceable strategy. The skilled and intelligent player is able to make use of terrain advantages for great effect. Without it, you play on a flat fields hemmed in by a maze of walls. Without it, there are less opportunities for players to demonstrate skill beyond massing troops and making good concaves. Remember in 2010 with Boxer siege tank placements? High ground encourages that sort of thinking.
Lets take in the facts.
1.) Blizzard will, most likely, never add these kinds of things into the game. Period.
2.) We have a map editor that *can* put similar effects into the game.
3.) When we changed Blizz maps for tournaments, Blizz followed.
4.) The responsibility is not for Blizzard to just add in stuff that they already said they won't add in, but in the Map Makers and TOURNAMENT ORGANIZERS (Like GSL, SPL, MLG, etc...) to implement those new maps and show that they work.
When we have done things like that in the past (such as rocks on thirds, chokes on thirds, larger maps, etc...) we as a community were more successful with showing what works than simply asking for what works. Will what we input be silly looking at first? (such as depots at the bottom of the ramp) Yes! When Blizzard decides its a good idea will they make it look cleaner? (like flat rocks at the bottom of ramps instead of Depots in HotS) YES.
Show that the game will play better (albeit uglier) and Blizzard *will* follow suit.
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On January 26 2013 04:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 03:54 Falling wrote:On January 26 2013 01:33 Obamanation666 wrote:
I really like your post, and I agree with most everything your saying, but I fear it's a little late at this point to try and implement something like this (release is right around the corner). The changes to the entire foundation of the game could be dramatic and unforeseen. This is something that should have been tried around the initial release of Beta. Maybe. But if not Beta, then it will be never short of SC3. If anything Blizzard has been too conservative with their changes. Without high ground, you actually lose irreplaceable strategy. The skilled and intelligent player is able to make use of terrain advantages for great effect. Without it, you play on a flat fields hemmed in by a maze of walls. Without it, there are less opportunities for players to demonstrate skill beyond massing troops and making good concaves. Remember in 2010 with Boxer siege tank placements? High ground encourages that sort of thinking. Lets take in the facts. 1.) Blizzard will, most likely, never add these kinds of things into the game. Period. 2.) We have a map editor that *can* put similar effects into the game. 3.) When we changed Blizz maps for tournaments, Blizz followed. 4.) The responsibility is not for Blizzard to just add in stuff that they already said they won't add in, but in the Map Makers and TOURNAMENT ORGANIZERS (Like GSL, SPL, MLG, etc...) to implement those new maps and show that they work. When we have done things like that in the past (such as rocks on thirds, chokes on thirds, larger maps, etc...) we as a community were more successful with showing what works than simply asking for what works. Will what we input be silly looking at first? (such as depots at the bottom of the ramp) Yes! When Blizzard decides its a good idea will they make it look cleaner? (like flat rocks at the bottom of ramps instead of Depots in HotS) YES. Show that the game will play better (albeit uglier) and Blizzard *will* follow suit.
Yes, most likely this is the way it will have to go. So we should at least ask Blizzard for the ability to put different high ground effects into custom maps via the editor instead of resorting to mods.
Edit: It certainly isn't too late into the Beta for Blizzard to add another functionality that by default isn't used. This should be done in the beta, because it will probably involve altering the flow of the program in some minor way, which is much less likely to happen after the beta.
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On January 26 2013 04:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 03:54 Falling wrote:On January 26 2013 01:33 Obamanation666 wrote:
I really like your post, and I agree with most everything your saying, but I fear it's a little late at this point to try and implement something like this (release is right around the corner). The changes to the entire foundation of the game could be dramatic and unforeseen. This is something that should have been tried around the initial release of Beta. Maybe. But if not Beta, then it will be never short of SC3. If anything Blizzard has been too conservative with their changes. Without high ground, you actually lose irreplaceable strategy. The skilled and intelligent player is able to make use of terrain advantages for great effect. Without it, you play on a flat fields hemmed in by a maze of walls. Without it, there are less opportunities for players to demonstrate skill beyond massing troops and making good concaves. Remember in 2010 with Boxer siege tank placements? High ground encourages that sort of thinking. Lets take in the facts. 1.) Blizzard will, most likely, never add these kinds of things into the game. Period. 2.) We have a map editor that *can* put similar effects into the game. 3.) When we changed Blizz maps for tournaments, Blizz followed. 4.) The responsibility is not for Blizzard to just add in stuff that they already said they won't add in, but in the Map Makers and TOURNAMENT ORGANIZERS (Like GSL, SPL, MLG, etc...) to implement those new maps and show that they work. When we have done things like that in the past (such as rocks on thirds, chokes on thirds, larger maps, etc...) we as a community were more successful with showing what works than simply asking for what works. Will what we input be silly looking at first? (such as depots at the bottom of the ramp) Yes! When Blizzard decides its a good idea will they make it look cleaner? (like flat rocks at the bottom of ramps instead of Depots in HotS) YES. Show that the game will play better (albeit uglier) and Blizzard *will* follow suit.
Source for #1 please.
Adding high ground advantage is more than being a custom map. You're actually changing the mechanics of something that exists already on other maps. This is more of a pro-mod, something like OneGoal and Starbow. Major tournaments won't use something like that, will they?
They might, however, use other types of terrain advantages which are new features and unrelated to high ground. Then Blizzard might realize they need terrain features and add high ground advantage, which would be sort of a ladder-friendly and good base terrain advantage.
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On January 26 2013 05:02 Gfire wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 04:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 26 2013 03:54 Falling wrote:On January 26 2013 01:33 Obamanation666 wrote:
I really like your post, and I agree with most everything your saying, but I fear it's a little late at this point to try and implement something like this (release is right around the corner). The changes to the entire foundation of the game could be dramatic and unforeseen. This is something that should have been tried around the initial release of Beta. Maybe. But if not Beta, then it will be never short of SC3. If anything Blizzard has been too conservative with their changes. Without high ground, you actually lose irreplaceable strategy. The skilled and intelligent player is able to make use of terrain advantages for great effect. Without it, you play on a flat fields hemmed in by a maze of walls. Without it, there are less opportunities for players to demonstrate skill beyond massing troops and making good concaves. Remember in 2010 with Boxer siege tank placements? High ground encourages that sort of thinking. Lets take in the facts. 1.) Blizzard will, most likely, never add these kinds of things into the game. Period. 2.) We have a map editor that *can* put similar effects into the game. 3.) When we changed Blizz maps for tournaments, Blizz followed. 4.) The responsibility is not for Blizzard to just add in stuff that they already said they won't add in, but in the Map Makers and TOURNAMENT ORGANIZERS (Like GSL, SPL, MLG, etc...) to implement those new maps and show that they work. When we have done things like that in the past (such as rocks on thirds, chokes on thirds, larger maps, etc...) we as a community were more successful with showing what works than simply asking for what works. Will what we input be silly looking at first? (such as depots at the bottom of the ramp) Yes! When Blizzard decides its a good idea will they make it look cleaner? (like flat rocks at the bottom of ramps instead of Depots in HotS) YES. Show that the game will play better (albeit uglier) and Blizzard *will* follow suit. Source for #1 please. Adding high ground advantage is more than being a custom map. You're actually changing the mechanics of something that exists already on other maps. This is more of a pro-mod, something like OneGoal and Starbow. Major tournaments won't use something like that, will they? They might, however, use other types of terrain advantages which are new features and unrelated to high ground. Then Blizzard might realize they need terrain features and add high ground advantage, which would be sort of a ladder-friendly and good base terrain advantage.
They don't have to be mods--permanent area buffs based on unit location is already present without mods. It *will* look ugly, it *will* look silly and it *hopefully* will produce the dynamic gameplay we want the game to have. Better gameplay leads to better tournament use, better tournament use means more widespread adoption, better widespread adoption will force blizzard's hand.
If we have to put healing wells, "invisible" armor bonuses, permanent spells, actual coded trigger effects, etc... then let's!
We wouldn't need mods, we wouldn't need ad-ons. We would simply make a custom map to play on like we already do--and if it gets widespread it will force Blizzard's hand.
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On January 26 2013 05:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 05:02 Gfire wrote:On January 26 2013 04:38 Thieving Magpie wrote:On January 26 2013 03:54 Falling wrote:On January 26 2013 01:33 Obamanation666 wrote:
I really like your post, and I agree with most everything your saying, but I fear it's a little late at this point to try and implement something like this (release is right around the corner). The changes to the entire foundation of the game could be dramatic and unforeseen. This is something that should have been tried around the initial release of Beta. Maybe. But if not Beta, then it will be never short of SC3. If anything Blizzard has been too conservative with their changes. Without high ground, you actually lose irreplaceable strategy. The skilled and intelligent player is able to make use of terrain advantages for great effect. Without it, you play on a flat fields hemmed in by a maze of walls. Without it, there are less opportunities for players to demonstrate skill beyond massing troops and making good concaves. Remember in 2010 with Boxer siege tank placements? High ground encourages that sort of thinking. Lets take in the facts. 1.) Blizzard will, most likely, never add these kinds of things into the game. Period. 2.) We have a map editor that *can* put similar effects into the game. 3.) When we changed Blizz maps for tournaments, Blizz followed. 4.) The responsibility is not for Blizzard to just add in stuff that they already said they won't add in, but in the Map Makers and TOURNAMENT ORGANIZERS (Like GSL, SPL, MLG, etc...) to implement those new maps and show that they work. When we have done things like that in the past (such as rocks on thirds, chokes on thirds, larger maps, etc...) we as a community were more successful with showing what works than simply asking for what works. Will what we input be silly looking at first? (such as depots at the bottom of the ramp) Yes! When Blizzard decides its a good idea will they make it look cleaner? (like flat rocks at the bottom of ramps instead of Depots in HotS) YES. Show that the game will play better (albeit uglier) and Blizzard *will* follow suit. Source for #1 please. Adding high ground advantage is more than being a custom map. You're actually changing the mechanics of something that exists already on other maps. This is more of a pro-mod, something like OneGoal and Starbow. Major tournaments won't use something like that, will they? They might, however, use other types of terrain advantages which are new features and unrelated to high ground. Then Blizzard might realize they need terrain features and add high ground advantage, which would be sort of a ladder-friendly and good base terrain advantage. They don't have to be mods--permanent area buffs based on unit location is already present without mods. It *will* look ugly, it *will* look silly and it *hopefully* will produce the dynamic gameplay we want the game to have. Better gameplay leads to better tournament use, better tournament use means more widespread adoption, better widespread adoption will force blizzard's hand. If we have to put healing wells, "invisible" armor bonuses, permanent spells, actual coded trigger effects, etc... then let's! We wouldn't need mods, we wouldn't need ad-ons. We would simply make a custom map to play on like we already do--and if it gets widespread it will force Blizzard's hand.
Widespread, that's the difficulty. I'm not sure how much you follow mapmaking, but it's been a disheartening slog since forever.
Without much attention consistent attention from the community, it's like we're doing it for our own amusement and enlightenment. TLMC was the only exception. Would a map with neutral disruption web win a new TLMC? Not unless it's fundamentally a good map anyway, which is what we concentrate on typically.
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On January 26 2013 07:28 Barrin wrote:By the way I've been citing a a stronger high ground mechanic as the best way to make mapmaking more interesting/rewarding. If you can't give us attention can you at least give us a high ground mechanic, PLEASE 
I really wish reduced mineral patches took off...
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EPT
