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There will obviously be balance shifts when gameplay values are changed. Nobody is claiming otherwise. This thread is about the effect these changes have on the clarity and spectator-friendliness of SC2. |
On July 05 2012 20:06 v3chr0 wrote:
They will start to clump slowly, yes - depending on how far and where you clicked on the minimap, which is fine. Did you not read the second thing I quoted? You shouldn't be able to move across the whole map in the same EXACT formation without no further micro, not even BW was like that.
I just want to ask, did you try the mod? Units in BW were affected/clumped/congo lined by the terrain. The same happens with this mod. I told you that it is basically cosmetic atm. That's because as soon as you move units are clumped by terrain features into a big ball. Also units auto-clump on attack move.
I've changed my opinion that it's much more an issue of collision. This doesn't do that much to the game. You still split your units etc. This just looks better for movement.
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On July 05 2012 20:06 v3chr0 wrote:
They will start to clump slowly, yes - depending on how far and where you clicked on the minimap, which is fine. Did you not read the second thing I quoted? You shouldn't be able to move across the whole map in the same EXACT formation without no further micro, not even BW was like that.
I read it but didnt respond it simply because there is no way that an army would hold formation across the current set of maps we have due to ramps, chokes, etc... and you still have to micro in battles simply because when you attack move, units will bump into each other while trying to get to their destination.
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On July 05 2012 20:12 Qwyn wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2012 20:06 v3chr0 wrote:
They will start to clump slowly, yes - depending on how far and where you clicked on the minimap, which is fine. Did you not read the second thing I quoted? You shouldn't be able to move across the whole map in the same EXACT formation without no further micro, not even BW was like that. I just want to ask, did you try the mod? Units in BW were affected/clumped/congo lined by the terrain. The same happens with this mod. I told you that it is basically cosmetic atm. That's because as soon as you move units are clumped by terrain features into a big ball. Also units auto-clump on attack move. I've changed my opinion that it's much more an issue of collision. This doesn't do that much to the game. You still split your units etc. This just looks better for movement.
Yes I have, and I liked it, the game movement and battles were better, but it felt unnecessary to me.
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On July 05 2012 20:13 LgNKami wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2012 20:06 v3chr0 wrote:
They will start to clump slowly, yes - depending on how far and where you clicked on the minimap, which is fine. Did you not read the second thing I quoted? You shouldn't be able to move across the whole map in the same EXACT formation without no further micro, not even BW was like that. I read it but didnt respond it simply because there is no way that an army would hold formation across the current set of maps we have due to ramps, chokes, etc... and you still have to micro in battles simply because when you attack move, units will bump into each other while trying to get to their destination.
Hey, lol, dual teaming. What are your thoughts on unit collision and the whole wading through units like butter issue? I think that taking a look at collision is the better route, like in the Dynamic Movement thread that was necroed. Since you seem to like this idea?
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On July 05 2012 20:01 LgNKami wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2012 19:57 v3chr0 wrote:On July 05 2012 12:53 Qwyn wrote:On July 05 2012 12:48 Kharnage wrote:
ROFL, people keep whinging about SC2 easy mode, but i can't think of anything mroe eazy mode than this.
So, i put my zealots at the front, then my archons, then immortals / stalkers and lastely colossus and 1A right?
with a nice spread of colossus and half a dozen extra zealots on the wings to flank
great, death ball gone, perfect engagements everytime. now the game is 'much' better. Except that's not how it works. Also...if it was that easy then why don't players do that already? Not much is changing, did you even try this mod? For the most part it's actually just cosmetic b/c there are more fundamental issues at work here (units slide around each other instead of sticking/resisting). And the issues with SCII are manyfold, this is just one of them. What you are describing is the Protoss deathball. Which already happens. No, that IS exactly how it works: the units keep their formation with this change. This mod actually proves that we don't need this change, because most lower skill players are NOT pre-splitting their units because they don't have the multitasking to, while I can guarantee pros and better players will most definitely pre-split their army. Mods like these are warranted given peoples disgust for deathballs, but you have to understand that the future of SC2 in Esports will not be deathballs. Sooner or later you'll see people with 1-3 control groups of army, and people actually using this built-in 'mod' by using the trick Blizzard already has in the game: You can already do this right now in game, no mods required. It just takes a little bit of skill (what we want right? no ez mode).
Set up your units in whatever formation, attack move on the mini-map in the farthest possible place in the same direction you want to attack and they will keep the formation. The farther away you attack move, the more closely they stay in formation and clump less.
It's quite useful. People have to do similar with Mutas, it's a viable tactic, nobody uses it; instead we make a mod to do it for us... we don't need it. you can presplit your units with the current state of the game all you want. the moment you move them, they will clump.
That is not particular true.
If you click to move, far away, they will stay in formation.
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On July 05 2012 20:16 v3chr0 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2012 20:12 Qwyn wrote:On July 05 2012 20:06 v3chr0 wrote:
They will start to clump slowly, yes - depending on how far and where you clicked on the minimap, which is fine. Did you not read the second thing I quoted? You shouldn't be able to move across the whole map in the same EXACT formation without no further micro, not even BW was like that. I just want to ask, did you try the mod? Units in BW were affected/clumped/congo lined by the terrain. The same happens with this mod. I told you that it is basically cosmetic atm. That's because as soon as you move units are clumped by terrain features into a big ball. Also units auto-clump on attack move. I've changed my opinion that it's much more an issue of collision. This doesn't do that much to the game. You still split your units etc. This just looks better for movement. Yes I have, and I liked it, the game movement and battles were better, but it felt unnecessary to me.
I agree that it feels unnescesary to me, particularly b/c the scope of what it accomplishes isn't enough to justify increasing AOE etc.
As I said before more focus on collision. Something that is easy to implement. Lol I'm not really that good with the map editor - wish I could figure out the setting that was used in the Dynamic Movement thread.
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It's quite sad that so many people dismiss the idea because they think it makes stuff easier without giving it a try first. If you had tried it first you would not talk such BS. This change makes it a little bit easier to keep the general shape of your army. If you do not have to spent so much APM on just that it opens up so much more micro of individual units. You can move and reposition individual units, you can move casters in your army and far more. Even at the highest level of play individual units behave far from optimal in fights. Even the best players right and in the future will not be able to command every single unit to the max in big fights. This won't haven with the current or with the modified movement. There is always room to improve. No one will ever be able to micro like Automatron 2000. There will always be ways to improve, even if things that should be simple are simple. You should not be fighting the UI you should be fighting your opponent.
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On July 05 2012 20:19 Nachtwind wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2012 20:01 LgNKami wrote:On July 05 2012 19:57 v3chr0 wrote:On July 05 2012 12:53 Qwyn wrote:On July 05 2012 12:48 Kharnage wrote:
ROFL, people keep whinging about SC2 easy mode, but i can't think of anything mroe eazy mode than this.
So, i put my zealots at the front, then my archons, then immortals / stalkers and lastely colossus and 1A right?
with a nice spread of colossus and half a dozen extra zealots on the wings to flank
great, death ball gone, perfect engagements everytime. now the game is 'much' better. Except that's not how it works. Also...if it was that easy then why don't players do that already? Not much is changing, did you even try this mod? For the most part it's actually just cosmetic b/c there are more fundamental issues at work here (units slide around each other instead of sticking/resisting). And the issues with SCII are manyfold, this is just one of them. What you are describing is the Protoss deathball. Which already happens. No, that IS exactly how it works: the units keep their formation with this change. This mod actually proves that we don't need this change, because most lower skill players are NOT pre-splitting their units because they don't have the multitasking to, while I can guarantee pros and better players will most definitely pre-split their army. Mods like these are warranted given peoples disgust for deathballs, but you have to understand that the future of SC2 in Esports will not be deathballs. Sooner or later you'll see people with 1-3 control groups of army, and people actually using this built-in 'mod' by using the trick Blizzard already has in the game: You can already do this right now in game, no mods required. It just takes a little bit of skill (what we want right? no ez mode).
Set up your units in whatever formation, attack move on the mini-map in the farthest possible place in the same direction you want to attack and they will keep the formation. The farther away you attack move, the more closely they stay in formation and clump less.
It's quite useful. People have to do similar with Mutas, it's a viable tactic, nobody uses it; instead we make a mod to do it for us... we don't need it. you can presplit your units with the current state of the game all you want. the moment you move them, they will clump. That is not particular true. If you click to move, far away, they will stay in formation.
Please, this works for air units, but not for ground units on current maps. For ground units is highly situational. On top of that different armys behave different. Late game zerg armys for example kind of autospread and arrange them self in a quite useful manner because they have different sizes and speeds while others like marine tank clue together. This is a problem especially at the lower levels.
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I don't know if this already has been posted but I'm going to say it anyways. The pathfinding with unit clumping up is intentional. It forces more micro out of the player, marine splitting, spreading out units vs fungals, emp's, storms and all that just increases the skill cieling of SC2 which is a good thing. It also makes it a better spectator sport, I mean everyone can agree that you nerd-jizzed seeing some good terran splitting against banelings. Add this into the game and that splitting won't be as special anymore.
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On July 05 2012 20:39 submarine wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2012 20:19 Nachtwind wrote:On July 05 2012 20:01 LgNKami wrote:On July 05 2012 19:57 v3chr0 wrote:On July 05 2012 12:53 Qwyn wrote:On July 05 2012 12:48 Kharnage wrote:
ROFL, people keep whinging about SC2 easy mode, but i can't think of anything mroe eazy mode than this.
So, i put my zealots at the front, then my archons, then immortals / stalkers and lastely colossus and 1A right?
with a nice spread of colossus and half a dozen extra zealots on the wings to flank
great, death ball gone, perfect engagements everytime. now the game is 'much' better. Except that's not how it works. Also...if it was that easy then why don't players do that already? Not much is changing, did you even try this mod? For the most part it's actually just cosmetic b/c there are more fundamental issues at work here (units slide around each other instead of sticking/resisting). And the issues with SCII are manyfold, this is just one of them. What you are describing is the Protoss deathball. Which already happens. No, that IS exactly how it works: the units keep their formation with this change. This mod actually proves that we don't need this change, because most lower skill players are NOT pre-splitting their units because they don't have the multitasking to, while I can guarantee pros and better players will most definitely pre-split their army. Mods like these are warranted given peoples disgust for deathballs, but you have to understand that the future of SC2 in Esports will not be deathballs. Sooner or later you'll see people with 1-3 control groups of army, and people actually using this built-in 'mod' by using the trick Blizzard already has in the game: You can already do this right now in game, no mods required. It just takes a little bit of skill (what we want right? no ez mode).
Set up your units in whatever formation, attack move on the mini-map in the farthest possible place in the same direction you want to attack and they will keep the formation. The farther away you attack move, the more closely they stay in formation and clump less.
It's quite useful. People have to do similar with Mutas, it's a viable tactic, nobody uses it; instead we make a mod to do it for us... we don't need it. you can presplit your units with the current state of the game all you want. the moment you move them, they will clump. That is not particular true. If you click to move, far away, they will stay in formation. Please, this works for air units, but not for ground units on current maps. For ground units is highly situational. On top of that different armys behave different. Late game zerg armys for example kind of autospread and arrange them self in a quite useful manner because they have different sizes and speeds while others like marine tank clue together. This is a problem especially at the lower levels.
Please, i played the mod and i could only see minor different moving with a T army. The mod itself acts like if there is no path summarisation where without the mod all unit paths end to the point you clicked. You can avoid that if you click far far away.
If there was a narrow space (you mentioned maps/situational and i think you meaned that) the mod acts like it would in original the units will clump up.
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On July 05 2012 20:44 Olsson wrote:
I don't know if this already has been posted but I'm going to say it anyways.
Yeah, lol, it has been posted. Many times. Like, by every person who hasn't tried the mod and doesn't realize that this is not that significant in what it does (compared to what you think it does)...at all.
I think the focus should be on collision lol. This is largely cosmetic.
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On July 05 2012 20:44 Olsson wrote:
I don't know if this already has been posted but I'm going to say it anyways. The pathfinding with unit clumping up is intentional. It forces more micro out of the player, marine splitting, spreading out units vs fungals, emp's, storms and all that just increases the skill cieling of SC2 which is a good thing. It also makes it a better spectator sport, I mean everyone can agree that you nerd-jizzed seeing some good terran splitting against banelings. Add this into the game and that splitting won't be as special anymore.
You are wrong tho. Tell me other cool micro tricks that made you jizz your pants that dont include marines. Vortex? Storms? Blink? Baneling drops? Yeah right.
I do agree that this by itself wont fix the deathball issue. Even with this I dont see why protoss or zerg would go for a more spread out army rather than dps packed ball except the ocassional fungal or emp dodge. Id rather make unit hitboxes larger along with dynamic unit movement fix ( when units dont push eachother), plus this formation retaining. Making a deathball should be a lot more difficult to do.
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On July 05 2012 20:25 submarine wrote:It's quite sad that so many people dismiss the idea because they think it makes stuff easier without giving it a try first. If you had tried it first you would not talk such BS. This change makes it a little bit easier to keep the general shape of your army. If you do not have to spent so much APM on just that it opens up so much more micro of individual units. You can move and reposition individual units, you can move casters in your army and far more. Even at the highest level of play individual units behave far from optimal in fights. Even the best players right and in the future will not be able to command every single unit to the max in big fights. This won't haven with the current or with the modified movement. There is always room to improve. No one will ever be able to micro like Automatron 2000. There will always be ways to improve, even if things that should be simple are simple. You should not be fighting the UI you should be fighting your opponent.
Well said. Right now Splitting in fight is the only thing you can do and it mostly applies to marine baneling micro. Thats a very small part of the game. It's cool though, I won't argue against that. But. The micro ends there. I have never seen a player marine split like a pro AND target banelings with tanks AND send single marines to attack infestors or manage a drop elsewhere or pull back wounded marines or actively prevent tanks from shooting at own tanks and marines or rearrange their medivacs or spread the split away marines even more against fungal or stim little troops midfight or do all the other stuff people could come up with that increase effectiveness.
I truly believe this wont take away anything from the game but will enrich it. While testing this I felt that micro was a lot more fluid and free to any shape or form rather than restrictive in comparision to before.
I am not that interested in aesthetics of the game and i dont care about BW honestly. It's nice that BW was such a good game but it is not needed here as a point in the argument because all the reasons presented for this cause are independent of broodwar. BW could have never existed and the reasoning would still be the same. I care about this change solely because of improvement of gameplay and the possibilites a player has and the choices he can make aswell as the usability of his dexterity.
What I really liked after testing is that you can manipulate the army to your advantage ONLY if you are good enough. If you dont invest apm quite constantly in your army it will be clumped or become clumped after a short time do to map artifacts or attacking enemies. You wont really notice any difference at all actually. Not until you actually invest apm into the army formation.
Now if you would, as was suggested, buff AOE even to a slight degree the game would be more micro intensive than before because the additional APM for your army formation would not be optional but rather demanding on a high level of play.
Further more it looks like defenders advantage due to chokes, even bigger ones, would increase but not incredibly much aswell because armies still can get up ramps fast if they want - just clumped. So you could use a smaller amount of siege units or other AOE units to defend that ramp and use the rest of your army elsewhere while the deathball has harder work at your ramp. This weakens the deathballs abiliy to bulldose its way through everything.
SCII is a complex game of course and noone can predict the outcome of the MM change but we can present arguments that show the likeliness of improving gameplay and I guess thats what people want right? The better aesthetics are a bonus of course but even the bigger armysizes enhance the pros ability to predict the strength of a force which gives them more crucial information so it is not solely aesthetic aswell.
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On July 05 2012 20:44 Olsson wrote:
I don't know if this already has been posted but I'm going to say it anyways. The pathfinding with unit clumping up is intentional. It forces more micro out of the player, marine splitting, spreading out units vs fungals, emp's, storms and all that just increases the skill cieling of SC2 which is a good thing. It also makes it a better spectator sport, I mean everyone can agree that you nerd-jizzed seeing some good terran splitting against banelings. Add this into the game and that splitting won't be as special anymore.
Can people please stop being so close-minded and also read the thread too to see all the suggestions. The OP could probably do well with an update with all the advantages and changes that could possibly come from it.
You say that spreading out vs AOE units increases the skill ceiling and that's true and guess what? With this a buff to AOE would be possibly which in turn would make splitting more important and with a radius buff it also wouldn't reduce the amount of splitting you would have to do. And it would also add the possiblity for all of these changes
Quote from weerwolf
"yes, I think it will, but it will also mean multiple other things. I know people hate the reference to Broodwar, but Im going to reference to it anyway for the battles, just so people get some kind of a picture (or can look up a picture ).
In Broodwar, there are also some variety of deathballs, for example in TvP. 'Deathballs' will be spread far enough however that there is plenty of room for micro, plenty of room for movement, plenty of room for retreating and making strategic decisions. Because of this, you can actually retreat, without having to lose at least half or 75% of your army which leads to you immediatly losing the game if you went ahead with a deathball vs deathball battle, and lost. (which is the case with the current sc2 deathball vs deathball scenario).
However, it changes even more. Because units are more spread out, the damage per second at the moment the armies clash is far less. This is why there is more room for micro, movement and decisions.
Another effect, is that smaller armies will be usefull again! Instead of being instantly annihilated by the blob, the army size that is smaller can actually do some damage to the larger army, because not all of the dps of the larger army is at the front of the battle. Smaller armies could still exchange unfavorably, but some units (Like tanks), have more firing time because they will launch a couple of shots, annihilate the first couple of units and be reloaded by the time the rest of the opponents army is near them. In the current situation, tanks fire once or twice, but since all the units are at the front they get overwhelmed within seconds.
Because smaller armies are not almost inherently mean a waste of money, it is not useless for a player to attack multiple fronts. this means that the defending player can do two things:
1. Keep his army as a deathball and try to kill each group one by one. This will ofcourse work, and will kill the other army with somewhat of an advantage, but the other small groups still damage his economy. Since the player with the smaller armies all over the map wouldnt gain an immense disadvantage with engaging with smaller forces, he would have an ecomonic lead, still some forces, and could likely win the game.
2. Split up his forces to defend, counter attack, secure ground (yes, securing ground would be a lot more usefull and doable again). Attention of the two players would be needed everywhere, everywhere would need to be micro'd. Even with the new Hearth of the Swarm this would be great, since the new widow mine could secure ground against the smaller forces invading it."
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It is a shame, id love this. You could then start thinking about using unit formations which is something i have though about before being massively advantages but near impossible to implent due to clumping nature of the move ment commands.
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I like this, it reminds me of spreading in broodwar before you attack a tank like or something. In SC2 it doesn't matter how your army is shaped before you engage they all clump up anyway when you go to attack.
It looks more natural too when the army is moving across flat ground.
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An expansion is the perfect time to introduce this (or something similar). Comon Blizz, do what's right for HOTS!
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Can people please stop commenting without having tried out the mod?!
Man would be cool if some pros could try this out.
Maybe we can have a tourney with these maps just for fun and to give some exposure. 
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Also we're not saying this is the perfect change, it obviously isn't. We're trying to get blizzard to realize that there's something wrong with the deathballing of units. It's not fun to spectate, it's not fun to play against. I want to be able to retreat certain parts of my army without suddenly losing 50 percent of my firepower and getting decimated in half a second. Sc2 can become a lot better, it needs more micro. For the love of god, we need stuff like jaedong's muta's, if you don't like microing, you're a sad boring bastard and all your stories end with "and then I got back to my base and macro'd some more."
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On July 05 2012 20:13 LgNKami wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2012 20:06 v3chr0 wrote:
They will start to clump slowly, yes - depending on how far and where you clicked on the minimap, which is fine. Did you not read the second thing I quoted? You shouldn't be able to move across the whole map in the same EXACT formation without no further micro, not even BW was like that. I read it but didnt respond it simply because there is no way that an army would hold formation across the current set of maps we have due to ramps, chokes, etc... and you still have to micro in battles simply because when you attack move, units will bump into each other while trying to get to their destination.
If ground units don't stay in formation with mini-map attack move because of chokes then they also won't stay in formation with this new mod. Chokes are chokes.
The point is, in the open field you can already do what this mod does with a little bit of skill required.
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EPT
