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On July 02 2012 23:28 iky43210 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 23:17 Rabiator wrote:On July 02 2012 22:56 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 22:11 Darneck wrote:On July 02 2012 21:58 Insoleet wrote:
It seems like people would like to play Broodwar with higher graphisms. I dont agree.
Technology has evolved, so units are not as retarded as in the past. Their pathing is good, the unlimited control group is good.
The problem is not deathball. The problem is that deathball totally deny any micro (expect splittings bioball and kitting).
If micro would make deathball less or more powerful, that would be a better game. And i think the choices blizzard made are the good ones. The deathball will still be there, but with micro, you'll be able to totally destroy it (or totally get destroyed). I hate this argument. People should stop thinking about it being technology having evolved and instead start thinking about it being rules for the game. Just because we have the technology to do something doesn't mean we should/have to do something. its a game. you're not going to attract many next generation of progamers with an unintuitive/bad interface and UI. Imo one of the reason that flash, bisu, JD still dominates in broodwar scene for so long because lack of new talented players compare to the past, and the scene basically starts to stale and revolves around the same pros. Oh come on ... just because someone says "Blizzard has gone too far with making UI movement perfect and the unlimited unit selection is bad" does NOT mean he wants to have Brood War settings. Its NOT one or the other, but there could be some shades of grey involved. Just look at THIS THREAD and combine it with "24 unit max per control group" and you have a shade of grey instead. I also suggested already that the player should be able to CHOOSE between open and close formation and thus decide himself if he wants to take the risk to die to area damage OR be on the safe side but with lower damage output from his own side. The SC2 version is simply bad, because it does NOT offer choice ... or rather "force the player to make a decision". The technology is there to do it ... all that is missing is the will to do it. EDIT: Here is a question for all those who think the Deathball isnt that bad: Why do you think there is no range upgrade for Marines anymore (which they had in BW)? Simple answer: It would be totally OP in a tight ball of death because Marines is a really small unit. 24 units selections = ~5-6 controls just to select your max army (forget about controlling a few ghosts and ravens here and there). no it still wouldn't do anything, its a limit for the sake of there being a limit. The only reason why it was 12 unit in 1998 was due to engine limitation. and to your edit. Because marines already have the range upgrade
No one is denying that. Just because the limit isn't needed because of the lack of technology any longer doesn't mean that it isn't needed for other reasons.
Saying that there shouldn't be a limit just because the technology isn't limiting us to it any longer is just stupid.
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On July 02 2012 23:17 Rabiator wrote:EDIT: Here is a question for all those who think the Deathball isnt that bad: Why do you think there is no range upgrade for Marines anymore (which they had in BW)? Simple answer: It would be totally OP in a tight ball of death because Marines is a really small unit.
I think marines are about the only unit that doesn't qualify as a deathball. It sure is scary as hell - but unlike for example a collossus ball - it can be effectively destroyed with AoE (banes, fungal, collossi, storm, tanks). That's why you see bio terrans spreading their army out in large concaves and try to split the enemy army with multi-pronged attacks - because their bio-centered army is so vulnerable as one big blob.
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On July 02 2012 21:42 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 00:52 Archerofaiur wrote:
The Deathball. It is a phenomenon that has come to define almost every game of Starcraft 2. Huge armies grouped together that move together until one big battle that determines the game. The problem primarily arose out of changes to the UI, both improved pathing and unlimited unit selection. As we learn more about Heart of the Swarm it becomes clear that the developers are focused on breaking up the death ball. I fully agree with you on the problem which the Deathball causes, BUT your (and possibly Blizzards) conclusion is totally false. The real way to "nerf the Deathball" would be to nerf the mechanics which made it possible ... i.e. the unlimited unit selection, but much more the perfect movement AI. In addition to this the macroing capabilities need to be reduced.
I think a certain consideration of whats realistic is necessarily in this debate. Changing unlimited unit selection, pathing and unit radius changes everything about SC2 magnitudes more than even the balance upset that HOTS will bring.
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+ Show Spoiler +On July 02 2012 23:37 Lurk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 23:17 Rabiator wrote:EDIT: Here is a question for all those who think the Deathball isnt that bad: Why do you think there is no range upgrade for Marines anymore (which they had in BW)? Simple answer: It would be totally OP in a tight ball of death because Marines is a really small unit. I think marines are about the only unit that doesn't qualify as a deathball. It sure is scary as hell - but unlike for example a collossus ball - it can be effectively destroyed with AoE (banes, fungal, collossi, storm, tanks). That's why you see bio terrans spreading their army out in large concaves and try to split the enemy army with multi-pronged attacks - because their bio-centered army is so vulnerable as one big blob.
This is at least partly correct and highlights what needs to change. Marines have become the default deathball unit for terran because they're so strong and everything else has been nerfed to compensate for that. This means terran struggles is deathball play, because their deathballs can be severely dented by a limited number of AOE units.
Think about how just a couple burrowed banelings combined with some infestors, or just a few storms, or some high ground siege tanks can cripple a terran bio attack without committing much supply to it. This is how it should be for ALL races. If all deathballs could be held up with a small number of units, then it would constrict DB play.
A few siege tanks with thor backup can conceivably hold off a "deathball" of zerg lair tech, but once brood lords come into play it's really difficult to hold that off supply effectively, so you have to group your whole army. Protoss deathball meanwhile laugh at anything that isn't nearly equal in supply. This is what has to fundamentally change.
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It's nice to see that many people are having this discussion, as I think it would have been the perfect opportunity for Blizzard to make core design decisions for HotS. Sadly it is probably too late. But if we're talking about the deathball, then I think that there are other things which promote the Deathball style other than the no limit in unit selection and clumping.
In my opinion, the races which exhibit the Deathball style the most are Zerg and Protoss. For instance, the warpgate mechanic makes all Protoss gateway units very weak before they get upgrades (blink/charge, etc...). Protoss essentially has to turtle until it has established a decent economy and has access to its AOE units. There is no incentive for the Protoss to do anything else than turtle, unless they want to allin, because gateway units will die very easily to stimmed bio or ling/roach.
Just to say that there are a lot more things involved in why we see the deathball than how the game engine was designed. At this point, I'm waiting to see whether Blizzard will have the balls to make drastic design changes for Legacy of the Void, the last expansion, to make the game more fun to play and to watch than it is at the moment. But fortunately for Blizzard, there isn't that much competition in the RTS market, so I'm not very hopeful 
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As I see it their are many suggestions proposed in this thread and they fall into three categories
Things the community can change
Things Blizzard can and may be willing to change
Things that would require a rework of the engine
More Open Maps
Fewer Resources per Base
Increased AOE
Defenders Advantage/Board Control
Increased Unit Formation
Increased Unit Radius
Limited Unit Selection
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On July 02 2012 23:17 Rabiator wrote:
EDIT: Here is a question for all those who think the Deathball isnt that bad: Why do you think there is no range upgrade for Marines anymore (which they had in BW)? Simple answer: It would be totally OP in a tight ball of death because Marines is a really small unit.
Eh, BW Marines had range 4 (5 with the upgrade), while SC2 Marines have range 5 from the start. Also, the Combat Shields upgrade may have been a replacement for the range upgrade. But then again, it's hard to compare BW ranges to SC2 ranges due to engine differences.
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On July 03 2012 00:16 Archerofaiur wrote:As I see it their are many suggestions proposed in this thread and they fall into three categories Show nested quote +Things the community can change
Things Blizzard can and may be willing to change
Things that would require a rework of the engine
More Open Maps
Fewer Resources per BaseIncreased AOE
Defenders Advantage/Board ControlIncreased Unit Formation
Increased Unit Radius
Limited Unit Selection
I'd add reduce the range of all units
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All I think they really need to do is make units clump up more loosely when box moving. There's no need to mess with pathing AI, just have the units be farther apart. I don't think having a few raiders separate from the ball is the answer. It just makes the ball smaller, it doesn't do much to break it up.
Reducing unit range is a great idea too. I hadn't thought of it since the ranged were rather similar. But with tighter units a side effect is more rows in range at once.
So,
-Increase collision size
-Reduce range
-Remove Colossus
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God the tempest is fucking shit. That quote in the OP on the design of the Tempest makes me cringe. It's insulting that the Carrier is removed for this thing. Just put a god damn corsair-like unit in the game in replace of the Phoenix and keep the Carrier. Christ.
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Good pathing is a pretext. Dustin Browder always said that "oh we have deathball because we have good pathing. We will never sacrifice good pathing". It's simply a pretext. There are tons of other solutions. This thread has so many solutions that can actually solve the deathball problem: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223889
But I'm calling it, Blizzard will not change it.
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On July 03 2012 02:02 larse wrote:Good pathing is a pretext. Dustin Browder always said that "oh we have deathball because we have good pathing. We will never sacrifice good pathing". It's simply a pretext. There are tons of other solutions. This thread has so many solutions that can actually solve the deathball problem: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223889But I'm calling it, Blizzard will not change it.
So the choice is strive for the solutions you cant have. Or the ones you can.
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The deathball "problem" is kind of overblown, and really is only one way to play the game that has its share of advantages and disadvantages. I think we should be thankful that we can play a blob style if we want; for some people it's easier and can be quite effective, while you can also play a more spread out harassing style and be an effective player as well. BW's pathing was a pain in the ass and made the game more mechanically difficult for a lot of players, and it became less about strategy and more about how fast you can move your hands which is kind of against the point of an RTS
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On July 03 2012 02:05 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2012 02:02 larse wrote:Good pathing is a pretext. Dustin Browder always said that "oh we have deathball because we have good pathing. We will never sacrifice good pathing". It's simply a pretext. There are tons of other solutions. This thread has so many solutions that can actually solve the deathball problem: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223889But I'm calling it, Blizzard will not change it. So the choice is strive for the solutions you cant have. Or the ones you can.
Well if a significant and important part of the community would "gather with pitchforks outside Blizzard HQ" or if certain spokespersons would tell them that they are doing bad things they might consider listening to them. I mean if a bunch of pro players from many teams and a bunch of analytical casters could be made to agree on the blatantly obvious problems of SC2 and would tell that to Blizzard they would be forced to listen or lose yet another bit of credibility.
The core of the problem IMO is the perfect unit movement, the unlimited unit selection and the macroing capabilities of all three races. This sums up to having engagements of "maximum available army" vs "yet another maximum available army" and only very rarely do we have engagements at multiple fronts. The problem of the Deathball goes much deeper IMO because it also makes balancing unnecessarily hard.
Example: If you have a Siege Tank capable of oneshotting Zerglings and twoshotting Roaches they are ridiculously powerful, but only if you have 20 Roaches inside the targeting area. For SC2 this has been solved by nerfing both damage and radius ... which has made the unit much less powerful and forces the Terran to use many more of them in an area to get some measure of safety. This also means that he cant have some tanks back home for defense ... The same is true for High Templars, which could be kept at home for drop defense ... if Psi Storm hadnt been nerfed.
And now they plan on introducing more units which make Siege Tanks useless and call it "buffing mech" ... thats some strange logic IMO.
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On July 03 2012 02:24 tehemperorer wrote:
The deathball "problem" is kind of overblown, and really is only one way to play the game that has its share of advantages and disadvantages. I think we should be thankful that we can play a blob style if we want; for some people it's easier and can be quite effective, while you can also play a more spread out harassing style and be an effective player as well. BW's pathing was a pain in the ass and made the game more mechanically difficult for a lot of players, and it became less about strategy and more about how fast you can move your hands which is kind of against the point of an RTS
BW isn't less about strategy at all on the highest level. The mechanics just seperated the best players from the average/good players which is really good because that's what's needed. There needs to be something that allows you to keep a consistency by purely being better than your opponent. You can still get caught off guard by tactics by worse players but not amazingly worse which can still happen in sc2.
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On July 02 2012 01:13 Snoodles wrote:
I think instead of focusing on units to break up deathballs they should focus on maps. The less minerals/gas per expansion is idea is best IMO. Make it easy to take up FRAGILE bases all over the map, and watch players skirmish with handfuls of units all over the map. Right now the "community" keeps giving blizzard shit for the maps they make, yet only support maps that let you too safely make three bases, and now four that are easily secured from harassment. "Oh noes. Rocks. Veto. Oh noes, it's too hard to take a 4th on antiga, veto" I think the small 4th base on daybreak is more of what we need to see.
although this works in bw, due to macro mechanics wouldnt this make things very hard for terran? your bases mine out suuper fast and you are mineral heavy, so you hvae to spread yourself out as much as a zerg,but also need to play in a way that lends yourself week to counterattacks (aggression)
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The best solution is in fact adding an option that let the units move in their original formation, but with different speed. So if you spread out your units in advance, then move them, you will have a very spread out army. This will decrease the damage of AOE, but it also reduces the DPS density of the range units, and increase the melee surface of the melee units. It's not like some naive observations "oh! we need to buff AOE then!".
In sum
If let units move in their original formation:
1. AOE damage decreases
2. Range DPS Density decreases
3. Melee damage increases
The balance issue will be not as bad as many believed.
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On July 02 2012 01:04 Shiori wrote:
It won't work. Why? Because the problem with the deathball isn't that it's too big; it's that it's a microless ball whose success or failure guarantees the success or failure of the game. These harassment units vary between being utterly useless and absurdly overpowered but none of them will win you the game themselves. They might, if poorly defended, give you a slight economic advantage, but if your deathball loses to the enemy's deathball, you still lose because he walks over your base.
Blizzard doesn't seem to understand that the deathball exists because of the insane cost-efficiency of a few key units. Terran is more capable of doing multi-pronged harassment because 1 Medivac with MM in it is worth its weight in gold as far as cost-efficiency goes. Same thing for Roaches/Lings against Protoss. The trouble is that Zerg and Protoss get their super cost-efficient units at tier 2 and 3, which means they're expensive and need to be surrounded with other units in order to survive. This leads to deathball syndrome. Colossi are bad if you just have 3 of them sitting by themselves, but if they're buffered by a bunch of Stalkers and Sentries, you have a game-ending force. Same with Immortals. Same with Brood Lords. Same with Templar. Same with Ghosts.
If Blizzard wants to get rid of the deathballs, they have basically two options: give everyone an early game unit that scales well and is cost-efficient, or nerf all units that are good against everythinkg. Prime targets for this nerf would be Marauders, Roaches, Colossi, Infestors, and so on. These are units that you can build in 1 or more matchups that are good against pretty much any strategy. I rarely make a decision when I decide to add a few more Colossi to the mix, because Colossi are basically always going to pay for themselves.
I also find it kinda ironic that the best units Blizzard is adding are the ones that can be readily added to deathballs, like the Viper, Widow Mine, and Oracle. Every Protoss player knows that the Tempest, at 300gas for no AoE, is going to be virtually worthless, especially since cleaning up an entire expansion over the course of 5 minutes wouldn't justify its obscene cost. I think attacking Nydus worms might be used, but that they're fundamentally unnecessary since Zerg harassment never gets shut down in the sense that DB thinks it does.
Totally agree with everything you just said. They need to make the deathball clumsy and ineffective in order to really erase the problem. Having collosi be amazing with supporting units and horrible by themselves is almost the opposite of what you really want.
What they need to do is make the most powerful units in the game require tremendous skill and execution to use. You kind of see this with the tank having to unsiege relocate siege unsiege ect. Basically they need to buff aoe damage but also make aoe units more difficult to use. I think this would make the deathball a less attractive option.
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On July 03 2012 02:56 larse wrote:
The best solution is in fact adding an option that let the units move in their original formation, but with different speed. So if you spread out your units in advance, then move them, you will have a very spread out army. This will decrease the damage of AOE, but it also reduces the DPS density of the range units, and increase the melee surface of the melee units. It's not like some naive observations "oh! we need to buff AOE then!".
In sum
If let units move in their original formation:
1. AOE damage decreases
2. Range DPS Density decreases
3. Melee damage increases
The balance issue will be not as bad as many believed.
Not quite sure why you call it naive observations.
If we just add a spread which could make AOE useless it would just be a case of armies a moving into each other with no need to micro out of aoe spells and stuff.
AOE should be OP, it should melt units in seconds, it should work like storm does vs marines at the moment.
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On July 03 2012 02:29 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2012 02:05 Archerofaiur wrote:On July 03 2012 02:02 larse wrote:Good pathing is a pretext. Dustin Browder always said that "oh we have deathball because we have good pathing. We will never sacrifice good pathing". It's simply a pretext. There are tons of other solutions. This thread has so many solutions that can actually solve the deathball problem: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223889But I'm calling it, Blizzard will not change it. So the choice is strive for the solutions you cant have. Or the ones you can. Well if a significant and important part of the community would "gather with pitchforks outside Blizzard HQ" or if certain spokespersons would tell them that they are doing bad things they might consider listening to them. I mean if a bunch of pro players from many teams and a bunch of analytical casters could be made to agree on the blatantly obvious problems of SC2 and would tell that to Blizzard they would be forced to listen or lose yet another bit of credibility.
History is the best predictor of the future. Just look at previous "pitchfork movements" such as MBS and LAN.
The best you get from this, if you gather the community around this issue is a community solution like macro mechanics or load game from replay. Asking a company to completely redesign a game from ground up for an expansion is about as fruitful as asking your dog for more money.
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EPT
