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Dynamic Unit Movements, Your Thoughts? - Page 10

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Lobotomist
Profile Joined May 2010
United States1541 Posts
May 17 2011 07:33 GMT
#181
balancing around a unit de-clumping change would really not be that difficult, splash units/abilities can of course be buffed.
Teching to hive too quickly isn't just a risk: it's an ultrarisk
mardi
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States1164 Posts
May 17 2011 07:36 GMT
#182
I wouldn't mind this change. I actually prefer the way units moved around as groups in BW. I'm not a big fan of the massive balls of units in sc2.
mell0w
Profile Joined September 2010
United States102 Posts
May 17 2011 07:42 GMT
#183
I never much cared for the blob-grouping function added in SC-II; it almost seems counter intuitive for a real-time strategy game and makes it that much harder to micro your units around. Don't misunderstand either by saying, "harder requires more skill; they just raised the skill ceiling". No they didn't. Had they opted for a unit formation option like in WC3 I would be inclined to agree with such a sentiment, but considering the bio-ball is a standard built-in function such an argument is rather moot.
phodacbiet
Profile Joined August 2010
United States1740 Posts
May 17 2011 07:46 GMT
#184
this would make sc2 more interesting to watch because it wouldnt just be blob vs blob and the bigger blob wins
kuroshiro
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom378 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-17 07:48:52
May 17 2011 07:48 GMT
#185
Is there a way to accomplish this type of movement for general units using the magic box technique? I know it's not particularly practical to do it all the time but I'm just curious.

If you can scatter your units about using the standard 'patrol' technique or simply manually then blizzard could just add a 'move in current formation' button in order to simulate the effect. I know that's some pretty extreme hand-holding but it's more or less in line with what they've been doing so far (i.e. making a complicated technique into something anyone can do).

My main concern about this idea would be that it could over-complicate the interface to have a toggle over formation/not-formation movement.
I am you, and you are me.
Darkstar_X
Profile Joined May 2010
United States197 Posts
May 17 2011 07:56 GMT
#186
An easier way to make all battles take longer is to decrease all attack speeds by 10%. This keeps everything similarly balanced except melee which become a bit stronger. Throwing out the games pathfinding engine is an extremely dumb idea, and will never happen. Instead, units could be made to hold relative position to each other on a single move command, like flying units do, instead of a complete overhaul. Still, it seems a pointless change with far reaching effects that aren't worth the trouble.
FlaminGinjaNinja
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United Kingdom879 Posts
May 17 2011 08:04 GMT
#187
Excellent idea! Although as a zerg player i can see the other two races complaining about how if this change is implemented zerg will be over powered and overwhelm siege lings and the (spreed out) death ball. The only way ZvZ will be affected is with banelings becoming less affective and getting concaves easier.

While this would be brilliant to implement i don't think it will happen (though id love to be proved wrong). It will most of the players and making watching games much more enjoyable but Blizzard tend to look at the top level of play before anything else when it comes to changing something in the game
GinjaNinja.661 EU I'd like to thank my sh*t keyyboard for always messing up my 'Y's
Morphs
Profile Joined July 2010
Netherlands645 Posts
May 17 2011 08:11 GMT
#188
Everyone will agree that the second picture looks WAY better with the units spread out. All those balls just look so tiny and clumped up. And it's so hard to tell what units are there.

However, SC2 is currently designed around the tight ball-thing.

Imagine 100 zerglings running around spread out. I can't imagine what a runby into someones base would be liek.
Naphal
Profile Joined December 2010
Germany2099 Posts
May 17 2011 08:11 GMT
#189
this looks way better!

ofc we would need a buff for the splash units, because for example marines are split by default, and somehow i feel the zergling would have too much surface area ( you could run them between the units, which would make nearly any composition apart from pure zealot melt)
Horse...falcon
Profile Joined December 2010
United States1851 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-17 08:23:47
May 17 2011 08:20 GMT
#190
This is something I've thought about too since rewatching the original Zerg reveal trailer

Watch this part at 1 minute 6 seconds.


Doesn't that battle look so much more epic than most of the battles in SC2? Brood war felt so much larger in scope. That's one of the most disappointing parts of the single player too, everything seems shrunk down and squeezed together to a miniature scale.


:edit: To be fair there's probably 300 food worth of zerg in that clip. The game would be very very different if units did not naturally clump together.
Artosis: "From horsssse....falcon"
Sufficiency
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada23833 Posts
May 17 2011 08:22 GMT
#191
I think this is likely included in an expansion pack.
https://twitter.com/SufficientStats
Highways
Profile Joined July 2005
Australia6111 Posts
May 17 2011 08:52 GMT
#192
OMG they should do this change, it is visually way better and makes cool micro moves possible.

Maybe for Heart of the Swarm.
#1 Terran hater
LastWish
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
2015 Posts
May 17 2011 09:27 GMT
#193
Just wanted to say I totally like this.
It would make definitely everything better, the sooner they implement it the better.
- It's all just treason - They bring me down with their lies - Don't know the reason - My life is fire and ice -
Creationism
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
China505 Posts
May 17 2011 09:34 GMT
#194
On May 17 2011 17:20 Horse...falcon wrote:
This is something I've thought about too since rewatching the original Zerg reveal trailer

Watch this part at 1 minute 6 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrndTcwWgYo#t=01m06s

Doesn't that battle look so much more epic than most of the battles in SC2? Brood war felt so much larger in scope. That's one of the most disappointing parts of the single player too, everything seems shrunk down and squeezed together to a miniature scale.


:edit: To be fair there's probably 300 food worth of zerg in that clip. The game would be very very different if units did not naturally clump together.

That video hit the nail on the head. It really sums up why SC2 is just not as big a visual treat as it seemed to be back when we were getting sneak peaks.
The hoi polloi is the plague upon the world.
NicolBolas
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States1388 Posts
May 17 2011 09:37 GMT
#195
If you watch SCBW games, units don't push each other around, so the space around each unit is always changning, and this results in a dynamic movement.
If you only move with one control group, units show the same dynamic movement.


There's nothing more "dynamic" with this than with SC2's standard pathing. Neither is more "dynamic" than the other.

1. (the most important) Unit movements become more dynamic.
Even if you hotkey them separately, those small groups will move like a clump of jelly anyways. It doesn't look natural, and your army looks smaller than it actually is.


No, having them spread out makes your army look bigger than it actually is. Your army is the size of their collective collision area. No more, no less.

Everything else here is a value judgement.

2. It's easier to tell the difference between units.
SCBW is in 2-d and it uses less colours, while SC2 is 3-d and uses a variety of colours. So it's easier to differentiate units in SCBW. You can tell this by playing SC2 in the lowest graphic settings.
The lowest graphic setting allows you to tell the difference between units and the difference between units and map tiles much more effectively.


You seem to be sabotaging your own argument. You say that the lowest graphics setting makes it easier to see the different between units. But the lowest graphics settings does not change the units pathing. So "clumped" units would be perfectly distinguishable if the higher graphics settings didn't do things that made it hard to tell units apart. Therefore, you're saying that you don't need to change pathfinding; you need to get Blizzard to adjust the higher graphics levels to make units more visually distinct.

This is something blizzard should definitely just try out on the PTR.


You, like many other people, seem to be under the impression that "clumping" is just something that can be taken away. That there's some line of code that they can just excise and presto, units don't "clump" anymore.

What you call "clumping" is not something that was deliberately engineered into the game. It is no more deliberately engineered than Muta-stacking or Patrol-micro were deliberately engineered into SC1. "Clumping" is the ultimate and inevitable result of having better pathing.

Units go in the most direct path to the designated target. If you tell a large group of units that are relatively close where to go, then they will all go together. As a single group. Because that's the fastest, most optimal way for all of those units to do what the player told them to do.

What people are asking for is nothing less than for Blizzard to break pathfinding. You want to take the excellent pathfinding in SC2 and break it so that units do not take the optimal path.

Breaking pathfinding would have far reaching implications. Units will, by "design", not go where you tell them to. This could lead to any number of unpleasant emergent properties for unit pathing. Maybe Stalkers start acting like Dragoons from SC1, which is not even remotely like a good thing. If you try to get two Thors down a ramp, will they get stuck on each other and neither be able to progress?

What you are asking for is not a simple or trivial thing. It is not something you just do. It fundamentally changes everything. Not just unit balance, but everything.

I personally don't know if this would make SC2's overall gameplay better or not. But I do know this: if it is possible for pathfinding to be too good, if it is possible for the game to do what the player told it to too well, then StarCraft-style RTS gameplay is, as a whole, fundamentally broken. If the only way to make good gameplay is to break the interface, then something is dreadfully wrong with StarCraft-style RTS games.
So you know, cats are interesting. They are kind of like girls. If they come up and talk to you, it's great. But if you try to talk to them, it doesn't always go so well. - Shigeru Miyamoto
xza
Profile Joined November 2010
Singapore1600 Posts
May 17 2011 09:40 GMT
#196
On May 17 2011 17:20 Horse...falcon wrote:
This is something I've thought about too since rewatching the original Zerg reveal trailer

Watch this part at 1 minute 6 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrndTcwWgYo#t=01m06s

Doesn't that battle look so much more epic than most of the battles in SC2? Brood war felt so much larger in scope. That's one of the most disappointing parts of the single player too, everything seems shrunk down and squeezed together to a miniature scale.


:edit: To be fair there's probably 300 food worth of zerg in that clip. The game would be very very different if units did not naturally clump together.


yup that was what I was expecting months before sc2 came up and I wanted to play the zerg so badly to have a huge swarm like that!
"What a terrible final. This is why BO3s are horrible. Seriously MKP vs Moon in a final and having it BO3 is like having Mila Kunis naked in your bed and all she'll give you is a HJ with her PJs on. Pffffffffffffffftt." -greatZERG
GhostFall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States830 Posts
May 17 2011 09:40 GMT
#197
great idea for an expansion and a massive balance shift. not a good idea for a simple patch
lololol
Profile Joined February 2006
5198 Posts
May 17 2011 10:57 GMT
#198
Where do I sign?
I'll call Nada.
shell
Profile Joined October 2010
Portugal2722 Posts
May 17 2011 11:09 GMT
#199
I think SC2 will evolve so much that any pro players will splitt is army so good and fast that the blob feel we see now wont happen that much.

It's stupid to want to dumb the game so that it feels "better" imo, the players have to do it themselves.. we all have seen the blob versus a better concave and the better position wins almost all of the time especially versus stron AoE units like colossus, tanks, EMP, storms and fungal..

it will be a matter of spread or die..

If the marines behave like that and zerglings how could a tank ever be efective?

How could anyone stop a muta ball for instance? if thors can't do it nothing will..and you always have the matchboxing that negates the AoE of thors but it's a skill not all can do or atleast do it all the time..

I feel the blob thing is because players are being lazy in their army disposition imo and i feel a crap load of bug type aliens (zerg) should move like that.. everytime i see 30 roaches move in a ball i think it's right.. it's a insect type of thing.. and marines beside the tanks is also right

The only problem is the protoss that mass gateway units beside the colossus but fungal will negate it a bit and also the EMP and ghost buff because protoss players simply can't have them like that or they will loose and that's it!

improve or die!
BENFICA || Besties: idra, Stephano, Nestea, Jaedong, Serral, Jinro, Scarlett || Zerg <3
funk100
Profile Joined May 2010
United Kingdom172 Posts
May 17 2011 11:19 GMT
#200
another point in favour of "Dynamic" movements is the increase in volitility in the game. let me explain, less clumping means more seige damage and area to compensate for there being less units. What this does is produce micro situations where having your units spread out is worth a lot more (units can still clump with dynamic movement) as getting a bad tank shot will severely hurt your troops.
after every post "oh god I hope i've made sence"
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