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On December 29 2011 15:47 SilverLeagueElite wrote:
Easy solution: Force players to micro and spread their units against strong aoe spells.
Problem: People bitch and moan about aoe spells when their death ball gets wrecked.
Aoe gets nerfed. Clumped deathballs persist. Quite a vicious circle we've got going on.
good idea.
make AOE stronger and force the babies to split their armies.
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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.
You're right. I am disappointed. But it's only been 1 year ish. So I think what will happen is that eventually, like you say, someone will break out among the others because he isn't lazy and micros well. Eventually people will (hopefully!) start needing to do that to keep up. Either that or just the players now aren't quite capable of doing that along with staying on top of macro and such, and a new wave of better players will rise up, and the old players (now) will phase out. Sort of like in BW. Players got better and better.
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On December 29 2011 16:06 emc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2011 15:47 SilverLeagueElite wrote:
Easy solution: Force players to micro and spread their units against strong aoe spells.
Problem: People bitch and moan about aoe spells when their death ball gets wrecked.
Aoe gets nerfed. Clumped deathballs persist. Quite a vicious circle we've got going on. good idea. make AOE stronger and force the babies to split their armies.
As soon as all the abilities that limit in-battle micro are gone, that would be an idea.
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They have to clump up cuz in SCII the screen solutions are much bigger => harder to select a single unit like BW.
Secondly would you imagine how could you control a bunch of lings and banelings with fewer hotkeys?
Overall the skill caps of SC2 has risen a lot more. They need to micro and spread out more to avoid splash damage and spell casters.
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Doesn't look as good aesthetically, but I have no problems with it balance-wise. Much more interesting and entertaining to watch battles in BW.
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I do no believe that unit clumping should change, I prefer not having to fight the "UI' And rather make correct descions and fight the opponent. In SC2 I feel that I win games because of descions more than micro. I think it is one of the reasons that i enjoy playing zerg the most, the mechanics are not overly impossible to master (although i have not managed it yet), but the feel of crushing your opponent when you out think them with things like baneling land mines and nydus play/ling runby's is a thing of beauty in my mind. I can understand why people want the unit size changed but why would you not go watch broodwar for the broodwar feel? Starcraft 2 has its own unique feel going for it at the moment and changing this to drastically would alienate a huge population of the player base.
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Canada11497 Posts
I was thinking what a nothing response, but my goodness. Those pictures. The spread out units actually makes SC2 armies look cool. Unit clumping has really not much to do with balance and everything to do with making the game look good visually. However, spread out units actually provides better options in my opinion.
I think we can get rid of unit clumping without the fritzed out dragoons. But visually and competitively, I think I'd take fritzed out dragoons over players always fighting deathballs. Even simply moving armies across the map is visually unappealing with unit clumping. And pro's will NEVER spread out units in long transit. It's just a waste of time.
There are two things that are balanced, but have resulted in substantial nerfing and therefore nerfing of mastery/ player ability. Unit clumping and smart casting. When you combine those two, what you have is every unit is guaranteed (almost) to hit every single time. Deathball with protoss works because it is maximum DPS over least amount of surface area. Unit clumping is the main thing, but collosi is just the icing on the top. It's not imba, because Blizzard has balanced it based on it.
But the damage of the stalkers and the collosi has to be based on the premise that they are all going to be in a ball and will absolutely wreck anything that touches it. Every hit, hits everytime. Vs spread out troops in BW. You had some control groups attacking while others were moving in position. The ball is still present (Terran deathball.) But because it was much harder it was balanced on the idea that not all units would be firing at the exact same time. Tanks would overkill and be inefficient unless you spread them out. Because of this inefficiency, individual units to be more powerful. I don't think this will change anytime soon because it will always be the most efficient ball of firepower.
Same thing with smart casting. Psionic storm and emp HAVE to be balanced on the idea that the player can hold t down and spam click and cover the entire field with storms. And it has to be balanced based on the idea that units clump very easily. What this results in is extremely weak AoE compared to its BW counterpart- storm, tanks splash. (Another poster said something to this effect.) Because BW was balanced on the idea that you probably wouldn't get every single storm off and tanks will over kill. This allows individual spells and AoE to be more powerful.
How does the SC2 nerf mastery then? While BW is balanced on the idea that not every single storm, suddenly you have someone like Jangbi that can throw a ton of them down and kill off a tank force. It's freaking hard, but it's also freaking awesome because it is freaking hard. In addition, it's awesome because it's so visually amazing- things die like crazy.
Back to unit clumping. You get some like Bisu who can micro his dragoons that don't normally fire all at once, but if he can micro more into position, he gains an advantage. A very powerful advantage because the units are allowed to be individually powerful because it's assumed they won't all be firing at once. And it's very visual. The difference between a moving dragoons in and Bisu dragoon micro is insane. Battles also take longer because not everything is firing at the same time.
I just think a lot of abilities get nerfed and the game becomes not imbalanced, but bland rather.
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Russian Federation164 Posts
Clumping is fine, otherwise Protoss loses lots of T3 DPS.
:tosstrollface:
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On December 29 2011 11:58 leo23 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2011 11:56 DibujEx wrote: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 gotta say, In BW they didnt clump up.. and it was So much hard than SCII to micro... harder to micro because the units were retarded (dragoon)
I read this a lot and I dont know where this came from. Every person with IQ over 60 after 20-30 games could understand the specifics of the dragoon`s movement.
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clumping is good. that would eliminate marine splitting, which i think is one of the most fun parts of the game.
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On December 29 2011 12:49 jellyjello wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2011 12:43 Flamingo777 wrote:
I don't think it's intended, but rather the result, or side-effect of Blizzard's pathing decision toward having units surround their targeted opponents, which as a result involves "clumping". Agree, but also think about how the game went from 2D to 3D which adds to the clumping as well.
SC2 is not 3D, its fancy 2D.
all internal engine treatment is as if the map was flat, the proof of this is that you cannot make a bridge in the editor such that it is possible to pass the bridge on the top and also be able to pass below it.
the only reason that sc2 looks like its 3D is because different units (such as air units) have their models rendered above where they are supposed to be, the way it looks has no internal effect on anything.
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Canada11497 Posts
On December 29 2011 17:05 kofman wrote:
clumping is good. that would eliminate marine splitting, which i think is one of the most fun parts of the game.
Actually an easy fix. Just make the baneling splash bigger. And it's allowed to be bigger, because the marines are probably more spread out. However, if the Terran player, did manage to manually clump his marines together through sheer micro skill, then the newly improved baneling splash is all the more epic. Spread out units that can be brought together through micro allows more powerful OH MY GOODNESS moments.
Inefficient troop movement/ dps that has no solution is frustrating (SupCom2). Inefficient troop movement/ dps that can be overcome by micro skills is awesome because there are more tools available to do more things. And the results are more impressive because the abilities are balanced without the idea that Jangbi is going to pull some sick micro every single game. Flashes of genius rather than carpet bombing every. single. game.
I also wonder if better muta micro would be possible with more spread out units. The entire idea of muta micro is that you could catch units by themselves. For all this talk about better ui will allows us more time to do more things... muta micro has been pretty paltry compared to what can be done with BW. (I suspect game mechanics are more at fault though.)
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It kinda depends on the matchup. I feel like the vP matchups suffer because Protoss units tend to do better while clumped, as there aoe isn't particularly threatening to them (emp and fungal compared to banelings vs marines or thors vs clumped mutas) This definitely promotes "deathball" style play vs as (and against) Protoss, which I would say is a bad thing. In other matchups though, the natural clumping can raise the skill cap. If there were less/no natural clumping the damage marines take from banelings would be much more uniform, and the payoff for splitting well would be lower.
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On December 29 2011 16:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +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. You're right. I am disappointed. But it's only been 1 year ish. So I think what will happen is that eventually, like you say, someone will break out among the others because he isn't lazy and micros well. Eventually people will (hopefully!) start needing to do that to keep up. Either that or just the players now aren't quite capable of doing that along with staying on top of macro and such, and a new wave of better players will rise up, and the old players (now) will phase out. Sort of like in BW. Players got better and better.
You two summed up how I feel about it.
The default clumping of units is bad for both the player and the spectator, but adds de-clumping as a skill good players will eventually need to develop. When pros all begin to de-clump, it will benefit both the player and the spectator.
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Making clumping less tight and buff storm. that way marine balls arent as good
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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.
This is my opinion exactly. Too many things can be done better...hell consider this. ZvP. Muta into baneling drops on the toss deathball. Get overlord drop and speed early so that you can drop lings out with your muta harass at all bases and get probe kills and make mutas harder to deal with. This could be ZvT too. Why don't zergs drop lings so they get a perfect surround always? It's all kinda silly. And blizz does balance by pros skill...which isnt tip top of the game
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Bad for the game because it's a pain to balance.
AOE in bw was largely dependent on units clumping up, when a reaver is dropped in an scv line for example. In SC2 you have brain dead stuff like hellions.
Bad for the game because it makes spectating a battle very difficult.
It really takes you out of the experience, when you just have to wait until the battle is over for you to grasp the outcome. In BW you watched most of the fight in real time, and could concentrate on an individual units life/death.
Bad for the game because just like terrible unit pathing in BW. It's just a tedious thing to micro a large army. I don't really see the skill in it, since you're just fighting a bad design to begin with. Even without unit clumping it would still require micro to separate your units, but it would be easier to select them when they're spaced out. Yes mechanics that require micro skill are welcome, however this one is just lazy.
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On December 29 2011 15:57 HowardRoark wrote:
It is bad, but somehow Blizzard actively works against the breaking of death balls: First they nerf Fungal that really punished the a-moving Protoss ball, and then they nerf the area of EMP that also punished the clumped Protoss ball. I think the ball and clumpyness really turns to the bizarre when you have Voidrays _inside_ of Colossus that are standing on the heads of Stalkers, Sentries, Zealots. All of these that basically has the same speed aswell. Throw in some tempests aswell for good non punishable splash.
You can add the tempest to the deathball clutterfuck if it makes the final cut.
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On December 29 2011 14:31 OopsOopsBaby wrote:![[image loading]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--KUABj6XNUc/TckOxQ4kmpI/AAAAAAAAAQU/8odJ6Cd0AfM/s640/1.JPG) self explanatory pic.
Hahaha, classic 100 supply army on 1 hotkey, taking up the total area of 1 gateway.
Whether or not it requires skill to spread or micro, SC2 unit clumping looks like shit and is incredibly unrealistic how units stand on top of each other and push others out of the way.
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On December 29 2011 15:29 WCX wrote:
dustin browder already answered the question about clumping in various interviews at several different points in time. it is basically a result of sc2's improved pathfinding, and it's not going away. to paraphrase him, blizz has no intentions of gimping their pathfinding just so it can unclump units.
In that same interview, which is linked in this thread, he also states that they are looking into other alternatives to address it so they might be working on something still... though its been a long time so if HOT's doesn't address it, it probably means they haven't come up with anything.
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EPT
