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+ Show Spoiler +On July 02 2012 06:28 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 06:26 Savant wrote:
There were deathballs in BW as well. They were just a lot more spread out and damage occurred slow enough that players had more room to micro. What makes a deathball in SC2 boring is that once you engage there's really not much you can micro besides casting spells. You can't right click your units around during a big engagement while colossi or broodlords are shooting at you, so the battle is dictated by army composition and positioning prior to the fight than a player's micro skills. Blizzard can start by giving casters less weight and toning down the splash. There's no incentive to maneuver your units in battle when storm/fungal/emp is 10x more crucial, and maneuvering under broodlord/colossus fire just gets your units massacred without firing a shot. Maybe if they removed autocast, added some cooldowns to spells, and made it so that colossi or broodlords miss when the target is moving, people will spend more time fighting screen-wide battles instead of a-moving then spamming f. You call BW armies a deathball and then you give the exact reason why they aren't considered a deathball...
No. Blizzard at least thinks "breaking up the deathball" means more harass and small group engagements. I'm saying having a large army all in one place isn't bad, if there's room for players to micro against each other. Unbeatable army compositions and split-second spellcasting have too much influence on the outcome of a game, to the point of trivializing other aspects.
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On July 02 2012 04:31 []Phase[] wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 03:29 Bleak wrote:
The way to fix deathball problem is simple: Making early to midgame and midgame small skirmishes happen more often. For that to happen though, the fights should last longer. The units should take longer to kill each other. Sorry I took the first 2 lines here, but I think a lot of people will disagree with this. (I myself am not quite out of it yet, I think we should see the different scenario's play out before we make any calls) AOE units that kill other units fast make it so that clumping gets punished hard. 1 reaver shot will make you think twice about running around with big groups of zerglings, just like banelings do now. From most posts ive seen here, most people agree on the following : 'because our units dont kill fast enough, we need to stack a lot of 'em together, so we CAN kill stuff fast.' So in light of this : aoe units should kill ALOT, FAST, but should be VERY VULNERABLE, MICROINTENSIVE, EXPENSIVE. (edit : the colossus kills stuff mediocre-ly fast, but is only so-so micro intensive, not THAT vulnerable either, whereas reaver was slow as hell and very vulnerable.) again, I think we should see it play out first before we can say 'its this or that', but I just saw a big contrast here between you and other posters and thought it would be worth mentioning. What do you think?
True, a reaver really hits like a freight train but...if you think about reaver, it's extremely slow, needs another unit to be transported into battle, and needs that same unit to be really effective in combat.
Colossus is a thousand times more mobile than Reaver, supplements Gateway army well, has huge range, and it hits like a truck. See my point?
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The more I read this thread , the more I tell myself that this game is fucked up and I should switch to a brain less game where this kind of discution doesn't happen ...
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On July 02 2012 06:32 Kharnage wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 06:26 Savant wrote:
There were deathballs in BW as well. They were just a lot more spread out and damage occurred slow enough that players had more room to micro. What makes a deathball in SC2 boring is that once you engage there's really not much you can micro besides casting spells. You can't right click your units around during a big engagement while colossi or broodlords are shooting at you, so the battle is dictated by army composition and positioning prior to the fight than a player's micro skills. Blizzard can start by giving casters less weight and toning down the splash. There's no incentive to maneuver your units in battle when storm/fungal/emp is 10x more crucial, and maneuvering under broodlord/colossus fire just gets your units massacred without firing a shot. Maybe if they removed autocast, added some cooldowns to spells, and made it so that colossi or broodlords miss when the target is moving, people will spend more time fighting screen-wide battles instead of a-moving then spamming f. This is wrong. If 'micro' had so little impact on large engagements then fungal wouldn't be as stupidly powerful as it is. The 40 damage it puts out isn't what makes fungal so brutal, it's the lock down on movement. If they took the damage component away entirely fungal would still be used in those huge engagements. Since fungals primary function is to remove the ability for the other player to micro, micro must be playing a pretty big part.
I'm gonna call bs on this one. Especially ZvT. Fungal is SPAMMED more than emp or storm because it does damage AND roots. If it only rooted you wouldn't see it used half as much as it is. It's the fact that it roots AND does a hefty chunk of damage that is chainable (due to the root). If storm rooted I'm sure you would see it like 5x more than you do right now.
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One of the big problems with the deathball is that everything ends too quickly. For instance players can't go back,
1) because a lot of times just for retreating they lose more than they gain, so high is the dps of the units
2) can't micro properly because everything happens too fast. How many times do we see players realise they should retreat because the battle isn't going in their favor, but by the time they react it's already hopeless ?
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In a recent GSL ZvT, the Zerg demonstrated exactly what you need to shift the emphasis from 'deathball' play.
He did a huge runby attack into the Terran's third while the Terran's ball of marines and tanks were bearing down on his third and fourth. The casters started talking about how we were going to see a base-race, but I saw immediately what the Zerg was doing. He had a small number of infestors and banelings stationed outside his third, and used that smaller force to prevent the base-trade. Had the Terran the leisure to siege up and push forward, those small defense would have been overwhelmed, but for that narrow window of time they were able to hold - and such was the Terran's hurry that he threw away the bulk of his forces into that well-prepared defence.
Thus to split up the deathball you need:
The ability for a small force to deny or delay the progress of a substantially larger one.
Unless that is true, the deathball will always be the 'best' way to play.
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Unlimited unit selection has nothing to do with how units naturally clump up in SC2. Limiting controls is not the way to solve this problem. Play SC2 and put your units in separate hotkeys. They'll still clump up because that's simply how SC2 pathfinding/movement works. No introduction of a selection limit or new units that have reaver-like splash damage will change that. Even when no splash units were present in a broodwar battle, units still didn't clump. Both unit splash damage and selection limit have nothing to do with this.
A solution to this can ONLY come from modifying the pathfinding or changing that parameter that someone mentioned could be done through the map editor. We need to all agree on what it is that is causing the clumping and strongly voice our opinion that we want that changed. It's not the units and it's not the selection limit. I gotta go test the map editor thing for myself when I get the time to. If it's really just a simple thing to change through the map editor then we can at least focus this anti-deathball movement into asking blizzard to adjust that value. If someone could record a video of before and after of movement with that value by default and modified, I would really appreciate it as I don't currently have access to SC2...
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so what is this thread exactly? it's information we already know, it doesn't reveal anything new so I'm wondering, whats the point of this thread?
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On July 02 2012 05:36 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 05:10 Demorase wrote:On July 02 2012 04:58 0neder wrote:
If you think this stuff will prevent deathballs, think again.
Bigger more open maps, dynamic unit spacing (EG units get stuck on each other), stronger splash, and better game design will break up the deathball.
As long as current unit spacing paradigm, IE clipping units and hyper-dense grouping, continues, the deathball wars will continue and more people will get bored of SC2. Bigger maps is the absolute last thing we need right now. + Show Spoiler +
The problem with SC2 right now as an e-sport is that there's nothing goin on in the first 15 mins in the bigger maps.
For all the flaws SC2 had when it was released, I'm a strong believer that it was actually more entertaining, yes the balance was atrocious but there was more action going on, more stuff to watch. Now it's a borefest until the 15 min mark.
What SC2 needs is: much more action in the first minutes without ending the game, and put an end to the whole "flip coin" build order. Waiting 15 min for the game to pick up when it was already determined in the first 5 when a player went blindly with a better build order is just terrible.
I think the term people are actually talking about is "more open" maps. They don't necessarily need to be bigger. Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 05:00 0neder wrote:On July 02 2012 04:02 Darneck wrote:On July 02 2012 01:11 iky43210 wrote:On July 02 2012 00:57 enemy2010 wrote:
It think with units that "pull units out of a death ball to thin it out" won't prevent both parties to build up those.
My direct suggestion would be to allow less units to be grouped up in a control group. I don't think of a number as small as in BW (12 i guess, right?), but maybe something like 24, so one page of a control group? no, purposely restricting UI to be unintuitive is a taboo in any designer or UI book. Not only are they frustrating, you are alienating a good portion of the playerbase when you do something like this that modern computer users/gamers aren't used to Blizzard should just implement a tournament mode and also have a ladder using that and one without where some balance changes/mechanics work differently. Restricting unit selection is not 'unintuitive, it's just a limit that effects army control for the better. I'm not necessarily advocating that, as I think the main issue is horrible closed map design and unit spacing, but I don't think it would hurt in some form. SC2 needs this kind of spacing (taken from this thread Dynamic Unit Spacing), Then deathballs will dissipate and splash can get way stronger and have more variance in the result. It's also more exciting because armies feel bigger and battles more epic. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IMGcj.jpg) + Show Spoiler + Oneder that is a great thread and I think when SC2 was in its alpha stages things like that would have been the correct answer. However, currently SC2 needs a different solution. I see the present situation as very similar to the MBS and automining problem that we faced when SC2 was young. We solved that with macro mechanics. It seems to me that a similar innovative solution is required here.
If you think macro mechanics solved anything, you are sorely mistaken. They just made the starcraft more volatile, promoted passive play since maxing is so easily within reach, and make comebacks and back and forth play much more difficult. The mechanics are interesting and not bad for a casual game, but they are not good for competitive play if you want back and forth (which I think most agree makes games more exciting). TLBS and many others have pointed this out.
You guys just don't get it. Some singular *UNIT* will not solve the deathball. You're just parroting Browder and Kims' poorly conceived design goals that are completely disconnected from reality and learnings from past RTS game paradigms. The deathball is a fundamental problem that requires changing fundamental aspects of the game in order to be fixed.
People here grossly overestimate how hard these changes would be. It was already done my some schmoe with the editor! You could make this change in one day, buff all AoE a bit (especially tanks), and put it in the beta immediately and go from there. These vainly imagined huge barriers to implementation are just silly. The only barrier is Browder's pride as a designer, which could be overcome with enough community support/pressure.
Then you make bigger maps that are more wide open, the battles feel more epic and exciting and large, and it will help SC2 be more successful in Korea. Implement high ground mechanic, etc.
You don't need BW units in the expansions, if you just fix the fundamentals, things will instantly get more exciting for old and new players/spectators alike.
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On July 02 2012 06:56 emc wrote:
so what is this thread exactly? it's information we already know, it doesn't reveal anything new so I'm wondering, whats the point of this thread?
This thread is one of a handful of recent threads that have resurrected discussion on improving fundamental shortcomings in SC2 in the interest of having a very long lifespan of community and esport interest, without relying on Blizzard financing and short-term popularity from expansions. This recent resurgence has been catalyzed by the community's realization that the 'wait and see, time will fix it' approach to satisfaction with game design is sorely mistaken. Browder is still clinging to arbitrary design decisions that hurt the game's potential and coming up with frankly uninteresting and one-dimentional new unit ideas.
BW was great. SC2 doesn't need to be BW, it doesn't need BW units, etc., but it MUST incorporate ALL the fundamental elements of BW's success in order to be more successful in terms of love for the game and longevity, as an e-sport and game community. Not because they were in BW, but because they turned out to be wildly successful and are frankly just principles of good game design and good spectator sport.
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On July 02 2012 06:56 emc wrote:
so what is this thread exactly? it's information we already know, it doesn't reveal anything new so I'm wondering, whats the point of this thread?
It would be nice if this thread could make us all identify exactly what it is that needs to be done to get rid of the deathballs and we could all then make a small movement to ask blizzard to change this.
Saying it's due to different types of units + limitless selection + movement/pathfinding + basically not broodwar, just doesn't get us anywhere.
I think we've all pretty much concluded that Blizzard's strategy of removing supply from the deathball for some harassment doesn't fix anything and simply avoids the issue. So how do we attack the issue?
Bommes said that changing the formation Diameter in the map editor solves the clumping(at least to an extent). That's the type of stuff we need. If we can verify that this works and see how different movement is with and without this, maybe get some players to test out custom maps with this, then we would have something solid that we could ask blizzard to specifically change without telling them to make BW(since they hate anything BW related). If it's really something that specific that can be easily tweaked then that would be great. Even if it doesn't fix everything, if it really makes the movement much more fluid and much less clumpy then that's a good start. Again, a video of the differences in movement, before and after tweaking that number would be great.
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On July 02 2012 06:52 Umpteen wrote:
Thus to split up the deathball you need:
The ability for a small force to deny or delay the progress of a substantially larger one.
Unless that is true, the deathball will always be the 'best' way to play.
So what you're saying is...buff tanks?
I wholeheartedly agree.
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We need to raise money as a community to pay for a showmatch between top players (think Flash, Stork,etc) and get video comments from them and community pillars along the lines of "we should do this." We need to leverage our connections to somehow open communication channels with these players and get them to man up and say what they actually think (Day9, etc).
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On July 02 2012 06:56 emc wrote:
so what is this thread exactly? it's information we already know, it doesn't reveal anything new so I'm wondering, whats the point of this thread?
As you can probably tell reading through the thread their still exists a considerable amount of disagreement over what causes the death ball phenomenon (too much damage, not enough, unit radius, unlimited unit selection, pathfinding, maps, splash damage, no retreating, etc...) and how to fix it?
On July 02 2012 06:54 pzea469 wrote:
Unlimited unit selection has nothing to do with how units naturally clump up in SC2. Limiting controls is not the way to solve this problem. Play SC2 and put your units in separate hotkeys. They'll still clump up because that's simply how SC2 pathfinding/movement works.
A good point.
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On July 02 2012 07:12 0neder wrote:
We need to raise money as a community to pay for a showmatch between top players (think Flash, Stork,etc) and get video comments from them and community pillars along the lines of "we should do this." We need to leverage our connections to somehow open communication channels with these players and get them to man up and say what they actually think (Day9, etc).
Completely agree with your mindset. There are plenty of things I think most of the community would agree on, certainly many pros would agree with, but the issue always destroys everything is balance. For example, I remember most people agreeing that a defenders advantage for highground(a real defenders advantage) would be something that could only be good for the game. But these discussions got too mixed with SC2 not being BW and big changes affecting current balance way too much. Now if you were to make a thread on that on TL it would get locked, probably because it's been discussed to death. Well HOTS is coming, and balance is going to be all over the place anyways, so now is the time to try and get changes going.
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On July 02 2012 01:21 zezamer wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:12 mastergriggy wrote:On July 02 2012 01:07 xsnac wrote:
I dont understand why ppl dont like deathball ? a big battle with high tier units is the worse thing you can ask for if you are a spectator . Fixed. Death balls are boring to watch. Spread it out a bit and let the viewer be fully immersed with the battle raging around every side of the screen is so much more entertaining. Best games are the ones where the observer can't keep up with everything ;9
In other words, TvT.
Nada V boxer was awesome for this. It got to the point where tastetosis were tracking 3 different things... and missed the banshee in the main.
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On July 02 2012 07:22 Selkie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 01:21 zezamer wrote:On July 02 2012 01:12 mastergriggy wrote:On July 02 2012 01:07 xsnac wrote:
I dont understand why ppl dont like deathball ? a big battle with high tier units is the worse thing you can ask for if you are a spectator . Fixed. Death balls are boring to watch. Spread it out a bit and let the viewer be fully immersed with the battle raging around every side of the screen is so much more entertaining. Best games are the ones where the observer can't keep up with everything ;9 In other words, TvT. Nada V boxer was awesome for this. It got to the point where tastetosis were tracking 3 different things... and missed the banshee in the main.
And some of MMA's TvZ games where he drops 3 places at once constantly, like vs Losira at MLG. Definitely my favorite SC2 games.
Also, I wish someone had the balls to necro that Dynamic unit movement thread and put up a petition for implementing that into the game.
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On July 02 2012 07:29 NukeD wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 07:22 Selkie wrote:On July 02 2012 01:21 zezamer wrote:On July 02 2012 01:12 mastergriggy wrote:On July 02 2012 01:07 xsnac wrote:
I dont understand why ppl dont like deathball ? a big battle with high tier units is the worse thing you can ask for if you are a spectator . Fixed. Death balls are boring to watch. Spread it out a bit and let the viewer be fully immersed with the battle raging around every side of the screen is so much more entertaining. Best games are the ones where the observer can't keep up with everything ;9 In other words, TvT. Nada V boxer was awesome for this. It got to the point where tastetosis were tracking 3 different things... and missed the banshee in the main. And some of MMA's TvZ games where he drops 3 places at once constantly, like vs Losira at MLG. Definitely my favorite SC2 games. Also, I wish someone had the balls to necro that Dynamic unit movement thread and put up a petition for implementing that into the game.
I can do it. It is pertinent to HotS beta right now, we've given things a year to see how they developed and the same shortcomings still exist. The long-term fate of the starcraft community and esports scene is on the line, IMO. Sure, if nothing is done SC2 will continue perhaps a few years past LotV, but what then? What will keep players and spectators coming back for a decade after that (or more) in spite of all the new flashy games?
However, maybe a new, more comprehensive thread is in order that includes the existing great resources like the Dynamic Spacing thread. What do you all think?
Although, I don't know if a petition is the best route. There are lots of players unfamiliar with BW that will just reject it as a BW movement because they don't understand the potential for improvement, and then the design team will just hide behind that stuff like they hide behind ladder stats when talking balance. I suggest we directly petition key community leaders for the changes, and get them to explain why the changes are fundamentally better for esports and a lasting, passionate player base.
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On July 02 2012 07:08 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 06:56 emc wrote:
so what is this thread exactly? it's information we already know, it doesn't reveal anything new so I'm wondering, whats the point of this thread? This thread is one of a handful of recent threads that have resurrected discussion on improving fundamental shortcomings in SC2 in the interest of having a very long lifespan of community and esport interest, without relying on Blizzard financing and short-term popularity from expansions. This recent resurgence has been catalyzed by the community's realization that the 'wait and see, time will fix it' approach to satisfaction with game design is sorely mistaken. Browder is still clinging to arbitrary design decisions that hurt the game's potential and coming up with frankly uninteresting and one-dimentional new unit ideas. BW was great. SC2 doesn't need to be BW, it doesn't need BW units, etc., but it MUST incorporate ALL the fundamental elements of BW's success in order to be more successful in terms of love for the game and longevity, as an e-sport and game community. Not because they were in BW, but because they turned out to be wildly successful and are frankly just principles of good game design and good spectator sport.
Now this post clarifies the issues completely. Well written post thanks fro putting it up.
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On July 02 2012 07:41 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2012 07:29 NukeD wrote:On July 02 2012 07:22 Selkie wrote:On July 02 2012 01:21 zezamer wrote:On July 02 2012 01:12 mastergriggy wrote:On July 02 2012 01:07 xsnac wrote:
I dont understand why ppl dont like deathball ? a big battle with high tier units is the worse thing you can ask for if you are a spectator . Fixed. Death balls are boring to watch. Spread it out a bit and let the viewer be fully immersed with the battle raging around every side of the screen is so much more entertaining. Best games are the ones where the observer can't keep up with everything ;9 In other words, TvT. Nada V boxer was awesome for this. It got to the point where tastetosis were tracking 3 different things... and missed the banshee in the main. And some of MMA's TvZ games where he drops 3 places at once constantly, like vs Losira at MLG. Definitely my favorite SC2 games. Also, I wish someone had the balls to necro that Dynamic unit movement thread and put up a petition for implementing that into the game. Although, I don't know if a petition is the best route. There are lots of players unfamiliar with BW that will just reject it as a BW movement because they don't understand the potential for improvement, and then the design team will just hide behind that stuff like they hide behind ladder stats when talking balance. I suggest we directly petition key community leaders for the changes, and get them to explain why the changes are fundamentally better for esports and a lasting, passionate player base.
Yeah you are probably right, after all it has been like that whenever the issue is brought up. It baffles my mind how people say it will discourage micro and cant see past that and realize that, with aoe buffs that are the most natural thing that follows, it actually encourages it trough longer battles, more incentive to run from strong aoe, better positioning etc.
Thats why I think your idea of a new thread which actually tests the mod in games and does the indepth analythical stuff of the new pathing pros and cons ( something like Barrin has done in this thread) is the best way to go about it, along with reaching out to community figures.
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