On December 29 2011 12:07 Leviance wrote: The first true SC2 bonjwa will actually train and be able to de-clump his units, everyone is gonna be shocked how one-sided battles will go in his favour. I don't get how even now, a year after release, the majority of the pros (Koreans included) only use 1-2 hotkeys for their armies. The best Zergs in the world still run all their lings clumped into a siege line instead of separating a few at the start to completely negate splash, Collossi attacks are still devastating because everyone is too lazy to split intelligently so that most of the splash is avoided, far too often a group of 4-6 templars get hit by ONE emp because lazy players (pros!!!) keep them so vulnerably together. The new UI allows for being more lazy, and the pros atm are showing just that: being lazy (on their level) I know it'd be fucking hard to constantly de-clump and so on, but that's exactly the work a wannabe-bonjwa has to do, if it wasn't hard as shit, everyone could do it. But right now everyone (GSL winners included) just keeps suffering from the 1-2 control group syndrome and the many disadvantages that come with it. frustrating to watch, but leaves hope for Jaedong, Flash etc. switching and showing the rest how it's done.
Well, the problem is that SC2 leaves a very little room for a mistake in your game and limits strategies that can be deployed to win the match because of the power of one giant death ball. I don't believe that successful unclumped units will always hard counter a giant death ball (I've seen it many times especially in PvZ). The problem is that if you lose a center battle in SC2, all of certain you are really far behind because it's that much harder to stop the remaining death ball. There is not much of a way to "buy time" after you lose a center battle.
It is very much true that there is not much of a way to buy time after you lose a center battle, that's why you have to win it or at least trade equally. And players will fight more efficiently if they start to minimize the splash, minimize the effectiveness of opponent's spells and get your fucking basic army positioning right - god I hate watching GSL where zealots are stuck behind stalkers and don't get to the enemy while 5 templars are emp'd at once and half of the death ball is already destroyed by siege splash....it still happens all the fucking time because it is so convenient to just put everything in one control group. I'm convinced better army control would make the game AS IT IS RIGHT NOW feel ten times more exciting suddenly. Another factor of why the first big battle often decides the outcome of the game is because players have the whole army in one control group and therefore either overcommits everything into death or tries to run away with everything at once and in the same fucking direction resulting in just getting raped bit by bit.
Two things.
1) You can't always maintain your army composition the way you want it to because the game clumps all your units so easy and everytime your army 1a moves. The only way this can be done is if your entire focus is on your army movement all the time. But it doesn't work like that. The game requires you to a great deal of multitasking - building supplies, controlling workers...etc. The game must allow some room for mistakes and allow other players to get back in with clever use of strategy (this is a RTS, you know) or else the outcome becomes too random.
2) The one center battle must not decide the complete outcome of the game, or else the game becomes too dull and stale. This game cannot be all about one giant battle. It has to be about overall game play and strategy vs strategy, not micro vs micro.
1) In BW you couldn't even 1a move your army, why would it suddenly be too hard in SC2 to group all your zealots in 1, stalkers in 2 etc.? And you still had all the stuff you mentioned to do. That's how Code S players stood out from the rest.
Me as more of a Starcraft watcher than player, think that it looks ugly and boring. I found it more entertaining back in BW when the whole screen was filled with units and having a 200/200 army was something impressive to look at. While now in sc2 its just a big boring blob, everytime, with every race, even with 200/200.
On December 29 2011 12:10 SkimGuy wrote: Bad for the game since it reduces the skill cap as ball armies require significantly less micro while army maneuvering/positioning is less rewarding
It actually rises the skill cap, but nobody has noticed yet because no one is consistently trying to de-clump in battles and use more than 2 control groups for his army. If a death ball a-moved into a perfectly de-clumped and microed army the death ball would melt and leave you O_O
stop. this is nonsense.
the reason why clumped up units are SO good is because the concentration of units provide maximum firepower at a given point and time. Take for example a group of marines that are tightly packed together. More marines can fire at a given target because everyone is in range to fire their gun. On the other hand we de-clump them so that an invisible marine stands between every marine. This increases the firing range at which some marines can or cannot fire because of their distance apart. Thus, decreasing their DPS at that given time.
If you still don't get it, why do you think force fields are used and why do you think they are so powerful in this game? Because it spreads apart the enemy force so that half the force is holding their dicks and the other half is pew pewing.
Of course your marine example is right. I apologize that I have spoken too generally. It of course depends on what units are actually used against each other and in the situation where you want to maximize your damage output it's beneficial to clump marines, not if you face for example templars or banes though. My general complaint is that pros currently don't do everything they could do to work against the auto-clumping in situations in which it would be very useful and have still poor army control in general. This can not be applied to all situations, again, sorry for my over-generalization.
no worries, and I do understand what you are saying about unit splitting micro.
I don't like the clumping. Mainly because it makes it almost impossible to come back from behind to have a chance of winning the game. In BW, there was more of a chance that, even if behind, you could win a skirmish due to the fact that the whole army was not engaging at once and the player had to use a little more strategy, unit position, etc. This meant that you could possibly change the tide of the game. Now, it is just ball vs. ball and the fact that you can put infinity units on 1 hot key exasperates the situation.
I know this is besides the point, but it also makes it much more unrealistic. Imagine a group of 20 real marines tightly clumped in a ball stutter stepping and hitting the target with every shot fired. Ridiculous, IMHO. Anyone who has fired a gun knows its more likely they would be dying of friendly fire at every shot.
On December 29 2011 12:07 Leviance wrote: The first true SC2 bonjwa will actually train and be able to de-clump his units, everyone is gonna be shocked how one-sided battles will go in his favour. I don't get how even now, a year after release, the majority of the pros (Koreans included) only use 1-2 hotkeys for their armies. The best Zergs in the world still run all their lings clumped into a siege line instead of separating a few at the start to completely negate splash, Collossi attacks are still devastating because everyone is too lazy to split intelligently so that most of the splash is avoided, far too often a group of 4-6 templars get hit by ONE emp because lazy players (pros!!!) keep them so vulnerably together. The new UI allows for being more lazy, and the pros atm are showing just that: being lazy (on their level) I know it'd be fucking hard to constantly de-clump and so on, but that's exactly the work a wannabe-bonjwa has to do, if it wasn't hard as shit, everyone could do it. But right now everyone (GSL winners included) just keeps suffering from the 1-2 control group syndromfoe and the many disadvantages that come with it. frustrating to watch, but leaves hope for Jaedong, Flash etc. switching and showing the rest how it's done.
do you really think with so much at stake and practicing 10+ hours a day that the only reason pros don't spread their armies is because they're lazy?
Not lazy, but not good enough. For instance, one of the latest defensive techniques in TvP in holding early allins is a concave formation with bunkers protecting the centre of the army. This is more effective than the previous technique of making many bunkers. This concave technique only really came to about 3 months ago, showing that many pros don't have the skill to implement many advanced formations.
but if it were effective players would still be implementing formations to try make their armies more effective (even if by just a little bit), then some players would be better at it than others and they would win the battle
The best players already are. That's why we saw so many "bad" games in the gsl up-and-downs. Many of the mediocre pros are not good enough but the best pros produce great games.
I thought blizzard said they didnt want to add in difficulty due to the engine...units clumping naturally is just that. You move your units even a little and it undoes all your micro and becomes ridiculous to sustain really for any long period of time especially for zerg which has to be constantly moving across the map since it has few space controlling units it can just sit in one spot and forget.
On December 29 2011 11:52 jellyjello wrote: Slow day at work and looks like most of exciting drama here have died down too, so here is a question for everyone to ponder and chip in: What is everyone's opinion on how SC2 units clump tightly together?
There is a pretty good debate over at PlayXP on this for those who understand Korean. Click here
Some argue that this is an intended design mechanism by Blizzard while others say that it's a design flaw. But, most agree that this unit clumping limits the strategic part of this game because of the impact of one giant death ball. (Maybe someone is willing to translate some key points... I'll admit that I'm way too lazy )
Some are even saying that the success of SC2 lies on how Blizzard deals with this unit clumping issue with their next expansion.
I personally think that units are clumping too tight and unrealistically, and I agree that it's not good for the game to develop on its own like how BW did.
So, what does everyone think?
On December 29 2011 11:54 PhiliBiRD wrote: its intended because it forces micro, otherwise the game would be even easier. and ive never heard much about this ever being an issue o_O. seems fine to me
I'm not sure if clumping forces more micro per se. In certain situations a tightly packed clump of units is more powerful than units being spread out-- terran bio vs. melee for eg. or in certain cases of bio or a group of stalkers etc. vs. a very widely, loosely spread arc, having a tight clump attack into a loose arc will force partial focus fire if parts of the arc are out of range of the ball, especially if the range of units in the ball is greater (i.e. if for some reason someone spread out roaches in such a fashion).
Obviously it is disadvantageous in any type of splash situation, and arcs are generally better in many engagements because it maximizes the surface area and thus dps.
It's true that unit clumping forces micro in certain situations, but it also reduces micro requirements for an optimum engagement in others. This is probably why you see people complaining about terran stutter step micro. Especially in early game, with small army sizes and the types of units that are out, its a pretty optimum army configuration in the vast majority of micro situations (except I guess vs stalkers before conc is out)
On December 29 2011 12:10 SkimGuy wrote: Bad for the game since it reduces the skill cap as ball armies require significantly less micro while army maneuvering/positioning is less rewarding
It actually rises the skill cap, but nobody has noticed yet because no one is consistently trying to de-clump in battles and use more than 2 control groups for his army. If a death ball a-moved into a perfectly de-clumped and microed army the death ball would melt and leave you O_O
stop. this is nonsense.
the reason why clumped up units are SO good is because the concentration of units provide maximum firepower at a given point and time. Take for example a group of marines that are tightly packed together. More marines can fire at a given target because everyone is in range to fire their gun. On the other hand we de-clump them so that an invisible marine stands between every marine. This increases the firing range at which some marines can or cannot fire because of their distance apart. Thus, decreasing their DPS at that given time.
If you still don't get it, why do you think force fields are used and why do you think they are so powerful in this game? Because it spreads apart the enemy force so that half the force is holding their dicks and the other half is pew pewing.
Of course your marine example is right. I apologize that I have spoken too generally. It of course depends on what units are actually used against each other and in the situation where you want to maximize your damage output it's beneficial to clump marines, not if you face for example templars or banes though. My general complaint is that pros currently don't do everything they could do to work against the auto-clumping in situations in which it would be very useful and have still poor army control in general. This can not be applied to all situations, again, sorry for my over-generalization.
I really don't agree with that statement. Do they split their units in more than 1 group to spead out? Most don't seem to do. Do you realize why though? It's because they need to manually select their units and de-clump them anyway.
Why would you waste control groups on clumping, when you need to do a lot more spreading than simply the 4-6 that you have available to you via control groups? As a terran, especially in TvP, I see terrans all the time make 3-4 balls of units before fights so concave is achieved faster. It is literally a must in TvP to micro the crap out of all your bio, ball formation simply isn't an option.
So I ask you, if you have all your units in the same battle, what will splitting your army into more control groups exactly do, when you have to micro fewer units than ~20%(if we assume 5 control groups of units) at a time?
As I see it, you are much better off spending your control groups on other things(such as hts/ghosts/infestors etc on a separate control group from your basic combat units) and just be awesome at manual selection + micro.
I think it's a symptom of subpar play more than anything. I'm waiting for some future gosu to expose the 'death ball style' for the rubbish that it is. Unfortunately players seem to embrace it. It feels lazy. Perhaps i should be directing my ire toward the designers, but i feel the players are at fault here. I guess if it wasn't so effective they wouldn't do it. But i'm not gonna blame Blizzard for marine SCV all ins too.
As an example i see so often players sending ther entire armies into the base to defend a drop. Such play should be exposed more often but it isn't. I think the skill level here isn't where it needs to be, and players are getting away with things they shouldn't.
It makes the deathball stronger as the game automatically allows for tight clumped formations , meaning all units can fire at the same time, as opposed to if units were forced to spread out more and only having a portion of your army fight.
Clumped armies is actually a GOOD thing and should be a skill to pull off properly. Having units clump by default dumbs down the game down as it allows everyone to engage in perfect engagements, take this away and micro and army management would allow for another area where players can outplay their opponent with better engagements.
In terms of spells its good and bad, aoe could hurt more, but it can also help you use forcefield more effectively.
On December 29 2011 12:10 SkimGuy wrote: Bad for the game since it reduces the skill cap as ball armies require significantly less micro while army maneuvering/positioning is less rewarding
It actually rises the skill cap, but nobody has noticed yet because no one is consistently trying to de-clump in battles and use more than 2 control groups for his army. If a death ball a-moved into a perfectly de-clumped and microed army the death ball would melt and leave you O_O
stop. this is nonsense.
the reason why clumped up units are SO good is because the concentration of units provide maximum firepower at a given point and time. Take for example a group of marines that are tightly packed together. More marines can fire at a given target because everyone is in range to fire their gun. On the other hand we de-clump them so that an invisible marine stands between every marine. This increases the firing range at which some marines can or cannot fire because of their distance apart. Thus, decreasing their DPS at that given time.
If you still don't get it, why do you think force fields are used and why do you think they are so powerful in this game? Because it spreads apart the enemy force so that half the force is holding their dicks and the other half is pew pewing.
Of course your marine example is right. I apologize that I have spoken too generally. It of course depends on what units are actually used against each other and in the situation where you want to maximize your damage output it's beneficial to clump marines, not if you face for example templars or banes though. My general complaint is that pros currently don't do everything they could do to work against the auto-clumping in situations in which it would be very useful and have still poor army control in general. This can not be applied to all situations, again, sorry for my over-generalization.
I really don't agree with that statement. Do they split their units in more than 1 group to spead out? Most don't seem to do. Do you realize why though? It's because they need to manually select their units and de-clump them anyway.
Why would you waste control groups on clumping, when you need to do a lot more spreading than simply the 4-6 that you have available to you via control groups? As a terran, especially in TvP, I see terrans all the time make 3-4 balls of units before fights so concave is achieved faster. It is literally a must in TvP to micro the crap out of all your bio, ball formation simply isn't an option.
So I ask you, if you have all your units in the same battle, what will splitting your army into more control groups exactly do, when you have to micro fewer units than ~20%(if we assume 5 control groups of units) at a time?
As I see it, you are much better off spending your control groups on other things(such as hts/ghosts/infestors etc on a separate control group from your basic combat units) and just be awesome at manual selection + micro.
Wait wait, de-clumping micro and using more control groups for your army are two whole different things. I don't mean using more CGs would lead to better splitting micro. It leads to better army control. Two separate things.
Blizzard can fix this easily, but they don't want too. They believe this is a much better design. Only way to at least make them put it in HotS beta is if we get a massive bnet thread (think this is how paid name change came to WoW) or protest outside Blizzard HQ lol.
Unit clumping is good. An army should stay in the formation that maximises its fighting ability. What blizzard should do is give disincentive to clump units, for example, with aoe, so it becomes a skill to manage a spread formation. Also, another thing to note is that currently, a concave formation is stronger than a ball.
This. Having units' baseline ai be fucking retarded ala Dragoons is silly--units should have a baseline level of effectiveness, that can then be increased exponentially with good micro. Clumps are not a horrible formation the way "walk randomly all over the map" the way Goons did was, and in a few cases clumping can be optimal. But in most cases, concaves and spreading will greatly increase army effectiveness.
The ideal should be "easy to learn, hard to master", and thats what I feel unit clumping does. Even a complete noob won't have units that act like drunken retards, but even a pro will struggle to spread and control their army in a way that gets the absolute maximum effectiveness out of them.
Unit clumping is good. An army should stay in the formation that maximises its fighting ability. What blizzard should do is give disincentive to clump units, for example, with aoe, so it becomes a skill to manage a spread formation. Also, another thing to note is that currently, a concave formation is stronger than a ball.
This. Having units' baseline ai be fucking retarded ala Dragoons is silly--units should have a baseline level of effectiveness, that can then be increased exponentially with good micro. Clumps are not a horrible formation the way "walk randomly all over the map" the way Goons did was, and in a few cases clumping can be optimal. But in most cases, concaves and spreading will greatly increase army effectiveness.
The ideal should be "easy to learn, hard to master", and thats what I feel unit clumping does. Even a complete noob won't have units that act like drunken retards, but even a pro will struggle to spread and control their army in a way that gets the absolute maximum effectiveness out of them.
I'll give you a BW example that explains why clumping is Bad
This example is the Progamer Fantasy - Jung Myung Hoon
Most of you know this guy as a guy who loves to abuse vultures, but a lot less known is that is worst match-up is TvZ - Why you ask? It is because he isn't as good as other Terrans using SK Terran builds - Which require a lot of micro for your marines, medics and science vessels. A lot of other terrans can micro their MM better than Fantasy can (although Fantasy does use mech somewhat successfully xd) but he's obviously not as skilled in microing infantry.
Why is this important you ask? Lets say hypothetically Fantasy and a bunch of other S-class progamers switched over. Do we want a player like Fantasy and Flash for example, to be on the same skill level due to unit clumping? I certainly hope not.
Or take another example - Stork. He's a solid player but has undoubtedly good dragoon control. Wouldn't you want to see a player like Stork win a game because of his better micro of his goons over another lesser skilled protoss player? It's little things like these that make the pathing so much more intricate in BW - You had to know it all and be able to execute in order to be considered the best of the best.
if units didnt clump..it wud be RIP infestors and RIP destiny.... also I think RIP archons.... but unit clumping is somewhat good somewhat bad..its a two edged sword..on one hand it necessitates good micro skills.. on the other hand..physics wise and space distribution wise, units can never clump...vikings clumping wud lead to their own crash!! in real life
On December 29 2011 13:00 Lavi wrote: It's Horrible. It looks aesthetically bad.
It makes the deathball stronger as the game automatically allows for tight clumped formations , meaning all units can fire at the same time, as opposed to if units were forced to spread out more and only having a portion of your army fight.
Being able to clump units tighter should be a skill not something automatic as it maximizes the most amount of units attacking at once.
In terms of spells its good and bad, aoe could hurt more, but it can also help you use forcefield more effectively.
auto clumping does make a deathball with splash stronger, but it makes a deathball without splash vs. another army with similar range weaker, rewarding micro that spreads out units.
Everything firing at the same time cuts both ways-- all other things being equal, in a ranged vs. ranged situation, a perfectly well placed arc will beat a ball every time since all of the arc units will fire at some of the ball units as the ball moves into position.
So in Broodwar you couldn't actually control your Dragoon. It was like a retarded child. The reaver attack was glitched as fuck. Units came out of the same corner of the building so they'd get stuck if you didn't place them correctly. Not many people complained.
In Starcraft 2, units clump up in a ball and all you have to do is make two boxes and click twice. People freak out.
On December 29 2011 13:07 Kluey wrote: So in Broodwar you couldn't actually control your Dragoon. It was like a retarded child. The reaver attack was glitched as fuck. Units came out of the same corner of the building so they'd get stuck if you didn't place them correctly. Not many people complained.
In Starcraft 2, units clump up in a ball and all you have to do is make two boxes and click twice. People freak out.
EPT
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