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On January 07 2012 22:58 norterrible wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2012 22:55 Lavi wrote:On January 07 2012 21:34 Daemonic-Force wrote:
Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2. while that is true about unit selection that has nothing to do with clumping and formation movement. In bw you can spread out units and walk spaced out from point a to point b, whereas sc2 they will clump to a little ball automatically regardless if you have 12 units selected or 50. Isn't that what magic boxing is for? Or am I missing something.
Magic box does apply to ground in SC2, but it is very small. I did some testing to verify this and it's only about 5 marauders in length. With forces of any real size it just doesn't apply.
Not just that, but SC2 is much smarter pathfinding, and units themselves simply get tighter to each other, so you end up with more compact balls of units. Not that this itself is a bad thing, but it certainly accentuates the clumping that naturally occurs with reasonably sized forces.
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I agree completely. I have been watching a lot of BW lately and I notice how freaking long and nice the games last. Very rarely game ends in an attack or it is decided between two balls of death. The fact that the units don't clump as well readily in BW contributes to that a lot, because one can always pull back easily without getting obliterated by first few volleys by the opponent's army.
The games last much longer and it is much harder for a player to exert their dominance, so the whole game becomes more meaningful. Harrassment, army movement all over the map, and big battles really looking big instead of two balls merging together, makes it much more enjoyable than most of SC2 games. I think Blizzard should at least bring back limited unit selection, limiting it to 30 or something.
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On January 07 2012 22:16 EternaLLegacy wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2012 21:34 Daemonic-Force wrote:
Regarding your Unit Clumping and Formation Movement, just because you can select a vast amount of units at the same time does not prohibit you from moving your troops in 12 unit blocks.
In fact, if you feel it advantageous to spend your apm in such a manner, then there is nothing stopping you. I recall several instances, usually at the top of ramps, where players spread out units for defence or spread vs EMP or other AoE attacks.
The only difference is that BW forced you to move in 12 unit blocks. The option is not removed in SC2. It is not advantageous to move units in groups of 12 as compared to 1 giant block. The point is that the constraint creates increasing complexity in army movements because it is not possible to keep all your units together in a big ball of doom as your army size grows. It's about creating a layer of decision making for the player.
In that case, the added complexity is artificial, and does not relate to the strategy or tactics engaged - it would be like forcing you to click twice on your units to select them. It becomes busy work, that is merely taxing the APM spam, rather then checking the tactical and strategical choices that are made by the players.
On January 07 2012 22:55 Lavi wrote:
while that is true about unit selection that has nothing to do with clumping and formation movement.
In bw you can spread out units and walk spaced out from point a to point b, whereas sc2 they will clump to a little ball automatically regardless if you have 12 units selected or 50.
Actually, in BW, the units did clump up if they were too far apart when ordered to move and so magic boxing was used then too. One example that springs to mind is High Templar. Since there was no smart casting (so all Templar cast storm at once if they were all selected) one way to avoid storm stacking was to manually spread out the Templar so that they were in a magic box formation. However, if they were outside the maximum distance that they could be separated, they would clump up. Again, if you don't want your units to clump up, there is nothing stopping you manually spreading them like you had to (when moving) in BW.
What I mean is that in BW, what you would do is grab 12 units and move them, grab the next 12 and move them a bit next to the last 12, and so on - so at the end of your move you had a line. You can still do that now - and have your units in a formation at the end, in SC2 - its just that you also have the option of grabbing all of your units at once. If you still want the formation, you now have the option of moving all of your units at once, and separating them at the destination or moving them BW style - small groups at a time.
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The only thing here I could get behind would be changes to the way high ground works, which would have a large positive impact on the game IMO. However there is a better article about that here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=116142
In a thread that is getting on for 2 years old.
I also tried to find anything from Blizzard about the high ground mechanic, all I could come up with was this:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121072
under Fansite Q&A Session Recap is:
"High ground mechanic: They like how it is now. According to Dustin Browder, it gives a clear advantage at first and then it eventually disappears."
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aren't there like fifty different threads about the whole "oh SC2 is so different/terrible compared to BW!!" thought process?
SC2 and BW are 2 different games, so don't try to compare them. you don't have to play SC2, nobody's forcing you to play. hell, i chose to stop playing BW. go play BW if you want only 12 units in a control group.
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On January 08 2012 01:13 aviator116 wrote:
aren't there like fifty different threads about the whole "oh SC2 is so different/terrible compared to BW!!" thought process?
SC2 and BW are 2 different games, so don't try to compare them. you don't have to play SC2, nobody's forcing you to play. hell, i chose to stop playing BW. go play BW if you want only 12 units in a control group.
I agree, unit selection is fine, but still SC2 could be better with less unit clumping and more high ground advantage. Also more area control and micro-able units. Anyone who watched enough BW understands that SC2 looking more like BW is a good thing for SC2. Hell even the best SC2 games resemble to the BW style of play... Yeah it's a good game as it is, but if you know it could be better, why not support it?
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Intelligents thread with solid arguments leads to stupid comments later on
I love to read this kind of article, but the comments just ruin everything xD
Why nobody make an article about SC2 Mechanics I would really like to read that ( not sarcasm)
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On January 08 2012 01:13 aviator116 wrote:
aren't there like fifty different threads about the whole "oh SC2 is so different/terrible compared to BW!!" thought process?
SC2 and BW are 2 different games, so don't try to compare them. you don't have to play SC2, nobody's forcing you to play. hell, i chose to stop playing BW. go play BW if you want only 12 units in a control group.
What a pointless and unnecessary post.
Nice explanation of the differences in BW and SC2 mechanics - really helps people understand how SC2 has possibly oversimplified ideas in the name of streamlining.
What I wonder is what can replace these mechanics? Or do you just bring back the BW versions?
The way I see it, if you brought back limited unit selection, the major race you'd want to be affected is protoss as zerg/terran usually have great incentives to de-ball (flanks, splits/spreads, surrounds, etc.). The issue is that for protoss to really be affected, control groups would have to be smaller than Blizzard would probably like. A casual zerg player might be okay with 30 or 40 units per control group, but for the protoss that'd be a 120 supply army. Where would you draw the line? Or would the selection limits be different for each race? Weird situation.
Similarly, what do you do to rework the high ground mechanic? High ground is actually in a nice place right now - layering the BW mechanic on top would probably be too strong, and removing SC2's current mechanic would fundamentally alter the game. People also might be uncomfortable with attacks missing.
Dynamic unit movement really just needs to be in SC2 though IMO. It simply makes the game more interesting, though the rebalancing and tuning that'd be needed after it was implemented would be huge. Things like unit model sizes might even need to be reworked, a pretty daunting concept.
Regardless something really needs to change to fix the ball against ball antics of TvP, PvP and even ZvP. The removal of these mechanics really changed the 'manliest' race into something ghastly to watch (and frustrating to play).
On January 08 2012 01:48 therockmanxx wrote:
Intelligents thread with solid arguments leads to stupid comments later on
I love to read this kind of article, but the comments just ruin everything xD
Why nobody make an article about SC2 Mechanics I would really like to read that ( not sarcasm)
Because there aren't any
I kid. I've read too many idra posts.
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I think SC2 was designed to be play as a casual game, and it is balanced to be that way
Easier mechanics, easy army control, smart casting, pathing, AI
Everything scream:
Lets move our massive army to the battlefield and enjoy how the DIE, because its awesome !!
And certainly it is !! but thats not what I am looking in TeamLiquid
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suggestion to solve many issues with sc2: Double amount of HP, damage should stay the same => longer fights, more time to micro your units (no more dumb ball vs ball 5 sec. fights)
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as for unit clumping, it is very very 'small ranges units favoured' i.e marines maruaders. due to clump they are extremely powerful. this can be said with units such as mutas and the 'mass voidrays' phenomenon( this is actually true with almost all air units).
even stalker clumps and hydra clumps and ghosts sniping clumps.
thats why aoe is so strpng such as baneling, colossi, siege tanks
and also spells, fungal, HSM, Storm, EMP.
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On January 08 2012 01:51 Jehct wrote:
The way I see it, if you brought back limited unit selection, the major race you'd want to be affected is protoss as zerg/terran usually have great incentives to de-ball (flanks, splits/spreads, surrounds, etc.). The issue is that for protoss to really be affected, control groups would have to be smaller than Blizzard would probably like. A casual zerg player might be okay with 30 or 40 units per control group, but for the protoss that'd be a 120 supply army. Where would you draw the line? Or would the selection limits be different for each race? Weird situation.
Similarly, what do you do to rework the high ground mechanic? High ground is actually in a nice place right now - layering the BW mechanic on top would probably be too strong, and removing SC2's current mechanic would fundamentally alter the game. People also might be uncomfortable with attacks missing.
I thought it would be inappropriate for me to suggest any changes in the OP, but as a comment I don't see why I can't address your questions.
For unit selection limit, I always thought a supply-based system would be best. This doesn't have to be 12 supply worth of units. I think something higher like 24 would be perfectly reasonable. It's a pretty significant design shift, but it'd be a nice way to equalize the mechanic across all army types among the 3 races.
As for high ground mechanic, I suggested back in beta that high ground increase unit range, or shooting up decrease unit range. No RNG, and no complicated mechanics. It's a straightforward and logical advantage, which actually existed in Total Annihilation, for those of you who remember that old game.
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Your A and B points are common misconceptions in my opinion.
Since the beta people talk about units clumping and army movement and how it was harder to control units in BW due to the mechanics of the game.
First of all,there is nothing stopping you from dividing your army into 4 control groups.If I want I can make the game hard for myself on my own,the same as it was in BW if I want.
As far as unit clumping goes.
Try out this.Go into a sc2 game,divide a 120 supply army into 4 control groups,set the units in a line and a-move into a direction,but not by clicking into a direction directly,but move them by a-move clicking on the map far away from your location and observer what happens.You'll get yourself a BW army movement.
I have no idea who in the right mind thinks right now that its advantages to have your army fight in a ball at high supply numbers.You will eat fungals,storms,EMPs and you will die.
One of the reasons why we see balls fighting right now in starcraft 2 is because people are bad.Really bad.People need to realize this,no one right now in starcraft 2 is playing the game MECHANICALLY correct right now.Pros have so many bad habits due to the simplification of the way the game works and no one is bothering themselves to correct it and I would even dare to say that most are too lazy to attempt to correct it or don't have time due to tournaments or whatever.
Oh and almost forgot,another thing people are commonly bitching about is how sc2 graphics and that it hinders micro.
Go into your option for graphics,turn everything to low,turn the gama slightly up and there you go.You'll have a nice,clean,clear and crisp looking game with no flashy shit.This is how I play at least and I seen many other pros do the same,like Hasuobs and Mana for instance.I would even go further and do this with broadcasted game for the viewers,but at this point it seems slightly impossible because of how many people are used to the way the game looks and if you turn the graphics down,they will just bitch about it.
Now the real problem in stacraft 2 and the reason why people are playing the way they are right now is the unit design.
The starcraft 2 unit design is by far the worst part of the game and if the game at some point dies out and people call it quits,in my opinion,it will be due to the Dustin Browders idea off "cool" unit design.
There are more badly designed units in sc2 than there are good ones right now and its what causes the game to break at a mechanical level.I can't analyze this unless I make my own thread and make a huge post of how sc2 units cause the game to be volatile and force players to play a certain way right now.
The defenders advantage and high ground mechanics become obsolete not because of how blizzard intended it to be or didn't intend it to be,it fails because of a certain way each race and its units are designed.
I may be crazy but this to me is the main problem that sc2 has and,get this,blizzard can actually solve this problem,but it would involve them having to admit basically that they made huge mistakes and I'm not so sure that that will ever happen.The expansion are the perfect opportunity to fix these problems but from the units I saw at the HoTs presentation Blizzard clearly has different ideas.
People advocate that blizzard should change the way the game AI works,the units selection,army movement and what not,no.It's just not logical to think this way.
Units like marauders,colossus,sc2 marines,concussive shell,amulet,the insanely high dps of some units,+something damage against a certain armor types,hard counters,gimmicks like forcefields,etc. is what is wrong with the game and they are lowering the skill ceiling and not the mechanics of the game.
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this is sweet it should be spotlighted
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This was probably the sickest post I've read over the past months of being on Teamliquid. You sir are the voice of reason.
On January 08 2012 02:37 TheKefka wrote:
Your A and B points are common misconceptions in my opinion.
Since the beta people talk about units clumping and army movement and how it was harder to control units in BW due to the mechanics of the game.
First of all,there is nothing stopping you from dividing your army into 4 control groups.If I want I can make the game hard for myself on my own,the same as it was in BW if I want.
As far as unit clumping goes.
Try out this.Go into a sc2 game,divide a 120 supply army into 4 control groups,set the units in a line and a-move into a direction,but not by clicking into a direction directly,but move them by a-move clicking on the map far away from your location and observer what happens.You'll get yourself a BW army movement.
I have no idea who in the right mind thinks right now that its advantages to have your army fight in a ball at high supply numbers.You will eat fungals,storms,EMPs and you will die.
One of the reasons why we see balls fighting right now in starcraft 2 is because people are bad.Really bad.People need to realize this,no one right now in starcraft 2 is playing the game MECHANICALLY correct right now.Pros have so many bad habits due to the simplification of the way the game works and no one is bothering themselves to correct it and I would even dare to say that most are too lazy to attempt to correct it or don't have time due to tournaments or whatever.
Oh and almost forgot,another thing people are commonly bitching about is how sc2 graphics and that it hinders micro.
Go into your option for graphics,turn everything to low,turn the gama slightly up and there you go.You'll have a nice,clean,clear and crisp looking game with no flashy shit.This is how I play at least and I seen many other pros do the same,like Hasuobs and Mana for instance.I would even go further and do this with broadcasted game for the viewers,but at this point it seems slightly impossible because of how many people are used to the way the game looks and if you turn the graphics down,they will just bitch about it.
Now the real problem in stacraft 2 and the reason why people are playing the way they are right now is the unit design.
The starcraft 2 unit design is by far the worst part of the game and if the game at some point dies out and people call it quits,in my opinion,it will be due to the Dustin Browders idea off "cool" unit design.
There are more badly designed units in sc2 than there are good ones right now and its what causes the game to break at a mechanical level.I can't analyze this unless I make my own thread and make a huge post of how sc2 units cause the game to be volatile and force players to play a certain way right now.
The defenders advantage and high ground mechanics become obsolete not because of how blizzard intended it to be or didn't intend it to be,it fails because of a certain way each race and its units are designed.
I may be crazy but this to me is the main problem that sc2 has and,get this,blizzard can actually solve this problem,but it would involve them having to admit basically that they made huge mistakes and I'm not so sure that that will ever happen.The expansion are the perfect opportunity to fix these problems but from the units I saw at the HoTs presentation Blizzard clearly has different ideas.
People advocate that blizzard should change the way the game AI works,the units selection,army movement and what not,no.It's just not logical to think this way.
Units like marauders,colossus,sc2 marines,concussive shell,amulet,the insanely high dps of some units,+something damage against a certain armor types,hard counters,gimmicks like forcefields,etc. is what is wrong with the game and they are lowering the skill ceiling and not the mechanics of the game.
This was probably the sickest post I've read over the past months of being on Teamliquid. You sir are the voice of reason.
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Yet another SC2 vs BW post. With regards to the OP's points:
A) The ball formation is not the most effective fighting formation in SC2 - a superior concave will defeat this formation. The reason why the ball exists is because many pros are not good enough to spread their units. In regards to mechanics, the skill ceiling is hardly reached - in many games, I can see glaring errors made by even the top players. Also, multi-tasking (e.g. multi-pronged attacks) is only capable by the very best at the moment.
B) In BW, you can select 12 units, but this is an complete arbitrary number. I'm sure Warcraft2 players were complaining when this was done (in Warcraft2, you can only select 9 units). I don't mind the select all units function at all - the best players will be able to keep key units in a separate hotkey and differentiate themselves.
C) This I partially agree, and I argue that warp-gates are a broken mechanic. Still, many pros are now utilising the defender's advantage of terrain by adopting a superior formation.
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Not only is this visually unappealing when every army looks the same, but it makes combat extremely deterministic. After all, if engagements only can arise out of one formation, it makes sense that units will behave in one way as they fight in that formation. This determinism takes away a large amount of excitement and thrill from fights, because often the winner is known before the battle even starts.
Anyone who's ever spent any time with a Unit Tester map knows that that is completely untrue.
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oh look it's this sc2 vs bw thread again. just use multiple control groups and BAM, you've got bw army. the best pros already do this and split pre-fight.
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On January 08 2012 05:10 Mortal wrote:
oh look it's this sc2 vs bw thread again. just use multiple control groups and BAM, you've got bw army. the best pros already do this and split pre-fight.
No, it's still not bw army...
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Isn't the point of being a pro to do things that the average player can't do, i.e. attacking with spread units and handling numerous control groups? Shouldn't there be an opportunity for casual players to enjoy the same game that pros play, while in reality not limiting the actual control a player has over the units (such as 1,000 apm demonstrations done by high end AIs)?
I don't have high APM or incredible mouse precision, thus I cannot do the amazing marine splits I see professional players doing. I played BW and appreciate the dynamics the units (combined with awful AI) offered, but I mostly feel that in 5 years or so SC2 players will be doing incredibly advanced unit control schemes which will make engagements as a whole much more interesting.
One thing I COMPLETELY agree with however, is that there needs to be a high-ground advantage, or essentially a defender's advantage. It's ridiculous that you can go unit for unit firing up a cliff, it just defeats common sense.
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EPT
