[HOTS] Breaking up the Death Ball - Page 9

On July 02 2012 07:41 0neder wrote:

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.

On July 02 2012 07:10 pzea469 wrote:

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.

On July 02 2012 08:13 Bommes wrote:


Well, I could start clarifying what the value exactly does and maybe upload a little video and some pictures. But basically it just defines what it says, up to what distance a unit group stays in the formation that you issued the order to.


Lets say you have 3 Marines in a specific formation:

.........O................................
...........................................
...............O..........................
.....O...................................
..........................................

As far as I understand it as soon as you issue an order to them they get a personal region that defines the "inside" of this specific unit group. Now lets say Formation Diameter has a value of 6 (default value for melee maps), it means they will hold their specific formation (that means the distance and angles between themselves) as long as they get issued an order that is less than 6 range away from the center of their region.

So lets say you order them to a spot with range 3 away it will look like this with the formation holding:

.................O......................
.........................................
.......................O.................
.............O..........................
.........................................

Now you order them to move to a spot that has a distance of say 7 from their center point (with Formation Diameter set to 6):

.......................................................
......................................O..............
.......................................O............
......................................O.............
.......................................................

They clump up.

Now if you set Formation Diameter to a high value it just means that whatever happens every unit group that gets an order will always hold the formation. If they are clumped up before they will stay clumped up, and if they are spread out (which should be way more often the case) they will stay spread out.

If you issue an order to inside the region that defines the unit group (practically if you click in between the units) they will automatically all run to the point with no formation standing. I think thats similar to how SCBW units behave.

Of course that means that it is way more complicated to do difficult unit movements the more spread out the units are. Because they will stay in the formation they were before. So you will automatically have no choice but babysit your units way more and you can't have too many different unit types in the same control groups without messing all the positioning up. Which I personally think would be cool to see/use, but I'm not sure everyone would like it. And it could complicate a lot of things a lot, I haven't tested how it behaves if you use it in a serious melee match Should be tested.

On July 02 2012 08:39 Chaggi wrote:
I wish that tanks had better damage and other races had less ways to make tanks obsolete in HoTS.

On July 02 2012 05:00 0neder wrote:


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.

On top of all this the Widow Mine encourages enemy players to break up their deathballs after the mine latches on a unit inside the deathball.

On July 02 2012 00:58 BiG wrote:
I dont even think the deatball is a problem anymore. The whole thing was present like 1 year ago, but nowadays there is so much harass/drop involved in all races.
also i dont think those new units will change anything in that regard. yes there might be more harass, but in the end you need a fighting army.

On July 02 2012 08:59 Ribbon wrote:
The solution isn't to make the pathfinding worse or add artificial difficulty, it's too buff splash.

Think of marines against banelings, and all the splits you have to do. That's fun and exciting. If tanks and storm were a bit better, deathballs would fix themselves at pro level because they'd just die.

Relating to HOTS, I think the blinding cloud is good against clumps, but ZvT was already the best matchup for breaking that up, thanks to baneling vs marine. The Tempest has the potential to be interesting, though, if only because it turns the one deathball into two (one ground, one clump of Tempests; it's silly to keep Tempests in your main deathball).

On July 02 2012 09:10 Darkman wrote:
I truly believe they should make you unable to select more than 24 units (1 page) on the screen at a time. This is similar to brood war and will cause the use of micro and control groups to split up the deathball permanently, end of story. It may seem crazy to some but I think it's the best idea and the truly skilled players will excel at it.

Edit: Also the unit spacing is a great idea. Totally would support that as well.

On July 02 2012 08:59 Ribbon wrote:
The solution isn't to make the pathfinding worse or add artificial difficulty, it's too buff splash.

Think of marines against banelings, and all the splits you have to do. That's fun and exciting. If tanks and storm were a bit better, deathballs would fix themselves at pro level because they'd just die.

On July 02 2012 09:18 Darkman wrote:


This would work too except Blizzard has moved in the opposite direction regarding splash, nerfing it instead. Storm, tanks, ghosts, have all been nerfed. Hopefully they will consider undoing some changes.

On July 02 2012 09:05 IOvEggY wrote:
discussing about a game that hasnt come out even in beta and will change drastically is really retarded imo.

On July 02 2012 09:31 Falling wrote:
I wonder if adding magic box for ground units back into the game would fix some of the death ball problems. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong because I'm rubbish, but I was testing both BW and SC2 to see if you could the units would stay in formation, but it just doesn't work in SC2 without constantly giving more orders to separate.

BW could pack units pretty tight, but with magic box you could spread them out and keep them spread out. Once again, it's a fix that doesn't 'break' unit ai, but adds more options for the player. Pack them in tight it you want or separate them if you want. I still find the constant adjusting due to unit pushing rather irritating as it adds an element of unpredictability of where my units are going to be. But even if you kept unit pushing and shoving, ground magic box would be nice.

As for the Oracle being a fix for Deathball... I know that' it's intended purpose and we will have to see how it plays out; however, it doesn't really change the Protoss army does it? I think it was Tyler that saying that except for the Tempest the core of the Protoss army remains unchanged. So if there is or isn't a problem with deathball, the Oracle isn't going to change it as the composition remains unchanged. You'll just divert a small amount of supply to constantly debuffing the mineral line.

On July 02 2012 06:25 Stratos_speAr wrote:
You're not understanding the problem. SC2 players don't deathball because they're lazy; they deathball because it's the most efficient/best way to win due to the pathing/unit AI. This isn't the case in BW, and that's why you wouldn't see deathballing in BW, even with unlimited unit selection.

On July 02 2012 09:27 Toadvine wrote:


Your post is an order of magnitude more retarded and useless than anything else posted in this thread. Just imo, try not to take it too personally.