Modified Movement Test - Page 17

tl;dr
People missing the point. MM not about aoe or micro, it's about breaking up the deathball and increasing engagement depth & dynamics.
I tried the MM map and it doesn't change much. Deathballs are still easy to make and are still the most efficient army formation. Replays to come soon-ish (NA masters level)
Instead of unit pathing/movement/AI, I think increasing unit collision would do a much better job at breaking up deathballs and bringing about more dynamic engagements.
If you're going to comment/argue on any of the above points, read the rest of the wall of text in its entirety, or I will ignore you because you are an impatient idiot.

WARNING: Obnoxious bolding of words to follow.

I feel like people are 1) missing the point. 2) looking at the issue from only one perspective.

My take on the MM map & the Dynamic Unit Movement thread (cause in all honesty, they're pretty similar from what I've skimmed through) is the following:

Problem: SC2 engagements tend to devolve into deathball on deathball. There are a number of problems with this that I won't go over, since it seems most people seem to agree (as well as Blizzard) that deathball on deathball is bad. For what reason, we can disagree on, but the bottom line is that deathball on deathball =

If you mention BALANCE, you are definitely missing the point. This change is meant to be a possible addition to HotS, where balance as we know it will get thrown out the window - the perfect opportunity to tweak possible inherent game flaws.
If you mention AREA OF EFFECT DAMAGE, you are also missing the point. Implications for changes to aoe damage is essentially a part of balance.
If you mention MICRO, you are probably missing the point. The goal of the MM change is not to make micro such as unit splitting easier or harder. That can also be considered a part of balance. The reason I say probably, though, is that unit positioning and awareness can be considered micro, which I think is key in what OP is trying to do.

What modified movement seems to be trying to do is to encourage breaking up the deathball (as are many of HotS units) by allowing players easier splitting/spreading of armies. While I can see where OP is coming from with this change, I don't think this specific change to unit movement is what is necessary.

I've tried the MMDaybreak map against an AI real quick just to observe the unit motions and found that this change doesn't impact actual gameplay very much. Someone mentioned earlier (in this thread? or was it the other thread?) that the most efficient method is STILL to just clump everything into a ball, since you reduce surface area and, due to high unit (and dps) density, deathballs allow for the most efficient use of units. I'll test the map vs a friend and upload the replay when I get to it to confirm, but so far, this modified movement doesn't change much. Especially since units tend to clump at chokes anyways. So basically, even with this change, it still ends up being deathball vs deathball.

What I think (and has been brought up a few times on TL to no avail) would suit the OP's purposes better is an increase in unit collision size. This naturally causes units to spread out a bit more and can possibly make the deathball's radius so large that there's no longer any incentive to do so, except in very specific circumstances. My two cents? The breaking up of deathballs is NOT the primary cause for smaller skirmishes all over the map (though it is a key component); area control is.

Think about the state of ZvT a few months ago (muta ling bling vs marine medi tank). I think there was even a poll on TL about the most dynamic and interesting match up and, if I remember correctly, ZvT was awarded the title. Most people attributed this to the area control that came with tanks. Even if Zerg had a superior army, a bad engagement angle could mean his superior army gets completely crushed by marine tank fire. Thus, the Z had to be active in scouting and proficient in maneuvering his army around so that he can get the right angle to engage. This also had the effect of making run-bys and muta harassment more viable (whether it's because attacking into the seige line would be suicide, or to bait the Terran into moving out of position and opening a window in an otherwise impenetrable defense). From the T side, the Terran had to be methodic and careful about pushing out of the map, and he had to be aware of the both player's army movements and position. This lead to some very dynamic army movements and made positioning just as important as army composition.
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All of this is due to the area control seige tanks gave. (This analogy also applies somewhat to TvT, but since both players get seige tanks it can sometimes turn into trench warfare essentially. Also, I don't play T so I have no clue about TvT other than it's heavily position based).

Going back to unit collision, let's say we have 11 min roach max PvZ Cloud Kingdom. Let's say hypothetically with the current unit collision, you have 60 roaches, 40 of which can fire at once (Ignore forcefields for this simplified example. Let's assume stalkers are just as cost effective per unit as roaches). What if roach unit collision was such that, instead of 40, you could only get 30 roaches firing at once? How about 20? If only 20 of your roaches can be attacking at that location at any given time, there would be much more incentive to split your army and attack multiple locations at once. This also applies to the Protoss, in that he will also be limited by an increase in his unit collision size and have the incentive to spread his army out to defend multiple locations at once.

What's stopping this from happening NOW is that, if I split my roaches into 30 and 30, the smaller unit collision size means that I basically have half my army against his entire army (it's like forcefielding yourself in half for him!). After he stomps half my roaches, he just has to march over and massacre the other half and I won't have enough time to do any real damage. If unit collision sizes were larger, however, he has less army fighting my 30 roaches (say, 60% or 70% of his army can attack at any given time), meaning not only do my roaches do more damage , it also takes longer for the protoss to kill the first 30 roaches. (Think 1 roach vs 1 marine 10x vs. 1 roach vs 10 marines 1x) This makes multi-pronged attacks more powerful and encourages more army movement, flanks, etc. This example can be extended to engagements in the middle of the map as well.

Let's say we find an increased unit collision size and change units/maps where everything balances. How might a mid-game ZvP engagement play out? Ideally, we might have the Z (with larger numbers of cheaper, lower range units) setting up a flank on the protoss. The protoss, having good map awareness, sees the flank coming before it's too late, and decides to warp in reinforcements BEHIND the group of Zerg units intended to flank; the Protoss is essentially flanking a flank. Now what determines who comes out of this engagement victorious is not only army composition and macro, but also maneuvering, preparation, and planning. Did the Zerg player anticipate the possibility of his flank being countered and leave an escape path? Did he foresee this, and decided pre-emptively to rally his reinforcements to a Protoss expansion, knowing that the Protoss would either have to warp in to save his mining probes or risk getting his army crushed by a flank? Did the Protoss pick an avenue of attack that will allow him to clean up the flank from a defensive position, or did the Zerg manage to bait the Protoss out of position and too far to clean up in time? There are so many extra positional and tactical factors that could go into an engagement like this that aren't present in the typical deathball vs deathball microfest/shitstorm (think typical PvT deathballs) that really should be in an RTS game like SC2 that are simply missing.

NOTE: I realize scenarios like the one I explained above do happen. However, I am hypothesizing that an increase in unit collision size (and a corresponding decrease in dps per area) will ENCOURAGE positional play and, instead of having the odd game where such factors become a major factor in an engagement, EVERY ENGAGEMENT will be planned out with such factors in mind. This also has an extra affect of adding depth to the game and giving more chance for the best players to separate themselves from the good players.