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 06 2012 22:29 Mr Cochese wrote: Yes, I don't think this actually changes that much either. All it really does it to give you some control of how your group moves - e.g. if you put your marines in a line they will quickly concave around any force they meet head on, but then they become highly vulnerable at the flanks. Most splash damage happens during engagements, and during engagements you'll find the ranged guys naturally forming a concave with everyone else jockeying for position behind them. This means that there'll still always be a load of bunched up guys to get hit by the arc cannon or stormu.
The people that keep saying this won't change much are missing the point that has been repeatedly made earlier in the thread. It is a given that if you put this change into the game you would then buff AoE damage. Why? Because this change would make AoE very weak in its current state, but if you buff AoE, it will then seriously discourage deathball play because it will destroy deathballs instantly. You currently can't buff AoE because it would be too powerful due to natural clumping of units, so these two must go hand-in-hand.
Welp, finally made it through this thread. Still shaking my head.
On July 06 2012 22:11 b3n3tt3 wrote: if this was implemented then terran would have to suffer more from nerfs.
why? current game balance revolves around server wide winrates. pretty BS huh, but it's the truth.
This mod is very good but it will create a new game. LotV?
Thus the theme of this thread continues: responses from people who've actually played with this change are overwhelmingly positive, and are meanwhile drowned out by people who haven't, though they insist on posting gloom and doom nonsense. Frequently the latter are even commenting on how the game is too perfect to change this much, occasionally. Two Blizzard expansions coming. Just pointing that out.
If you say this would make Terran imba (again), — or whatever else it is you think this "breaks", — then prove it. At least the guy with the notion that split marines and tanks would suddenly become unstoppable made an attempt. It was [apparently] through a really lopsided, poorly handled, and isolated engagement in a unit tester, but still. Host some customs, put up some replays. Don't just say "If this happened teh world would endz0r". You've got every opportunity to try it yourself. I can't even fathom how people wrote out long negative responses without even trying it. Maybe I'm just remembering wrong, they all kindof run together.
To the OP: played around with this in the unit tester, seems fine. Not like a, "This is how you solve all of the problems with SC2" thing. Found it subtle, and intuitive. As far as I can tell, if you don't actively split/clump your units, you won't notice a difference at all. AT ALL. There's not a "be optimal" button for groups of units. The things that you split against now? You still split against those. Clump? Yep, stayed the same. It makes it so that the units don't instantly clump up when you move them after splitting. I know that that should not need to be repeated, but every few posts there's someone else saying how it makes the game ezmode and makes banelings useless or some crap. Without actually testing anything, of course.
And here I was thinking that the SC2 guys didn't want to fight against the interface.
But then, somehow, MBS gets brought up, or there's a "If you want BW go play BW" comment, or suddenly there's a random (/misguided) link to starbow or something. It's all really...silly.
I can believe that SC2's clumping as-is was by design. But, there sure have been a lot of changes to AoEs to make up for everything being in a ball all the time, thanks to it being ridiculously hard to move an army in any other formation.
Also,
On July 05 2012 13:19 Rkynick wrote: Broodwar wasn't perfect. It was good, but not perfect. No automine and the unit selection limit are examples of BW flaws. They literally serve no design purpose, and are the results of design laziness. They should not be mistaken for design decisions. The only thing they do is force more tedious micro out of players, to overcome the design flaws of the game's interface.
Personally, I prefer a much more strategy-orientated approach to the game's design. You don't add any strategy or depth to the game by removing auto-mine or unlimited unit selection, so don't do it.
You had some good points and some bad points through the thread, Rkynick, but this was a bad one. Think about macro. Although you think, "I need to keep building workers constantly", you still have to manually do that. Rather than "start building <type of unit> until I stop you", and rather than spending resources as units entered production (which makes more sense, as far as making sense is concerned), it's by design that you're making them one at a time every X number of seconds.
I can't say for sure whether or not the lack of automine and 12 unit selection were by design or not. I think you should consider the same stance, tbh, rather than being dismissive just because of what you would have preferred. Because, if strategy is all that matters, it really shouldn't be an issue that you can't spare the attention to go back to your base and check up on unit production during that battle, right? Yes, it's certainly a part of your strategy to decide to keep producing units. It's also usually a part of everyone's strategy to keep having money.
One specific change at a time is the way to do it. Telling Blizz and the community that you want to not force units to clump, want them to not go around things that fast, increase their collision size, buff AoE significantly, less minerals in bases, all to change SC2 at the same time won't bring anything. If Blizzard changes anything it's going to be slowly one thing at a time and it should start with the things that wouldn't change the game too drastically, but would still be a change for the better. I think this modification is just that. On top of that, this modification gives the user more freedom, instead of taking freedom away. Increasing unit collision size makes it so you won't clump because you can't. The game won't let you. Then making units go around things slower is making the AI worse, something Blizz is likely to never do. I'm not saying i'm completely against those changes, but limiting user control and making AI act less efficiently is something Blizzard really isn't too crazy about. MM doesn't limit you or make the AI worse. It just gives the player more control and freedom. Spectating seems to be much better, and it doesn't radically change the way the game is played. That sounds like something Blizzard could end up doing if we push for it. Again, i'm not necessarily against other changes, in fact I'm definitely on the side of some of them, but you shouldn't ignore a smaller change because it's not drastic enough. It's part of the big picture of making SC2 better. Focus on the smaller changes first.
I really think the community is deluding itself in a sense about its power to influence Blizzard. True, the community helps get things nerfed and exposes exploits, but this new trend of whining at blizzard and showing their designers how much we'd love this or that feature, pressuring them into changing their game in some democratic way... it's not working. Anybody else notice that Starcraft 2 is over 2 years old and the community still hasn't succeeded in doing anything but motivate balance tweaks and encourage tournaments?
I think the best bet, considering the circumstances, is to simply use the Starcraft 2 map editor to make NEW GAMES. I don't think they should be named "Starcraft Enhanced" or anything like that, but especially with the arcade coming out people could create a modding/design community and also a player community for these mods, which, using the SC2 engine, could exist almost as games in their own rights. If enough of a player base could be built, a player could just log on and see who's playing his favorite SC2-Engine games, and get a game together... much like footmen wars or DOTA in warcraft 3.
Of course, this post will get swallowed up by the hundreds of other posts and never stand out in any way. TL needs to make an exclusive forum of important community contributors (I don't mean myself, but I do mean guys like Barrin and pzea and ironmansc) where smart writing doesn't get drowned out by 14 pages of
I hope the StarCraft 2 guys rapes Flash
banter.
This is possibly the best post in the entire thread. With the upcoming release of 1.5 Arcade people should check out the SC2 BW MOD and StarBow
Nah. The changes people most want to see require changes to the game engine, and that's just not gonna happen.
For some reason, how long a worker spends mining a mineral field can't be changed in the editor. This has led the community to try fewer resource nodes per base, lower yield mining and other convoluted solutions to a problem that has an obvious fix (except it's not available in the editor).
For some reason, tweaking unit movement variables simply isn't able to reproduce the same inertia-defying physics that made the smooth moving shot possible in Broodwar. SCII:s new engine is just too realistic in a sense, and we get these gliding, clumsy and inert units as a result.
Same story with unit pathing and the deathball (even though I personally don't think this is the most pressing issue). It's not realistic to expect Blizzard to make changes to their game engine.
Every change they've implemented thus far, has been one that you can achieve through the map editor.
On July 06 2012 23:26 LaLuSh wrote: For some reason, how long a worker spends mining a mineral field can't be changed in the editor. This has led the community to try fewer resource nodes per base, lower yield mining and other convoluted solutions to a problem that has an obvious fix (except it's not available in the editor).
It's possible, i did it in my own experiments with data editor.
On July 06 2012 23:26 LaLuSh wrote: For some reason, how long a worker spends mining a mineral field can't be changed in the editor. This has led the community to try fewer resource nodes per base, lower yield mining and other convoluted solutions to a problem that has an obvious fix (except it's not available in the editor).
It's possible, i did it in my own experiments with data editor.
On July 06 2012 23:26 LaLuSh wrote: For some reason, how long a worker spends mining a mineral field can't be changed in the editor. This has led the community to try fewer resource nodes per base, lower yield mining and other convoluted solutions to a problem that has an obvious fix (except it's not available in the editor).
It's possible, i did it in my own experiments with data editor.
How did you do it?
Seriously man? You can't even read the OP? It's in the very last line. Under the bold letters "What I did"
On topic: I don't like this. That's just my opinion. Age of empires had some pre-defined spread options, and it's just so noobish. If you tell a group of units to go to one point, they should all find their own best path, naturally this means they will clump, and collosus will go off by themselves because they're like children and want to walk along the cliff.
Sure you may need APM to initially get your army spread, but as the current game stands, you need APM to spread it, and keep it spread, and rearrange the spread. I just don't like this.
On July 06 2012 23:26 LaLuSh wrote: For some reason, how long a worker spends mining a mineral field can't be changed in the editor. This has led the community to try fewer resource nodes per base, lower yield mining and other convoluted solutions to a problem that has an obvious fix (except it's not available in the editor).
It's possible, i did it in my own experiments with data editor.
How did you do it?
Seriously man? You can't even read the OP? It's in the very last line. Under the bold letters "What I did"
On topic: I don't like this. That's just my opinion. Age of empires had some pre-defined spread options, and it's just so noobish. If you tell a group of units to go to one point, they should all find their own best path, naturally this means they will clump, and collosus will go off by themselves because they're like children and want to walk along the cliff.
Sure you may need APM to initially get your army spread, but as the current game stands, you need APM to spread it, and keep it spread, and rearrange the spread. I just don't like this.
Kind sir, we appreciate your zealous enthusiasm, but he wasn't talking about MM! He was responding to Superouman's post about how he was able to change worker mining time, which was a response to LaluSh!
One specific change at a time is the way to do it. Telling Blizz and the community that you want to not force units to clump, want them to not go around things that fast, increase their collision size, buff AoE significantly, less minerals in bases, all to change SC2 at the same time won't bring anything. If Blizzard changes anything it's going to be slowly one thing at a time and it should start with the things that wouldn't change the game too drastically, but would still be a change for the better. I think this modification is just that. On top of that, this modification gives the user more freedom, instead of taking freedom away. Increasing unit collision size makes it so you won't clump because you can't. The game won't let you. Then making units go around things slower is making the AI worse, something Blizz is likely to never do. I'm not saying i'm completely against those changes, but limiting user control and making AI act less efficiently is something Blizzard really isn't too crazy about. MM doesn't limit you or make the AI worse. It just gives the player more control and freedom. Spectating seems to be much better, and it doesn't radically change the way the game is played. That sounds like something Blizzard could end up doing if we push for it. Again, i'm not necessarily against other changes, in fact I'm definitely on the side of some of them, but you shouldn't ignore a smaller change because it's not drastic enough. It's part of the big picture of making SC2 better. Focus on the smaller changes first.
I really think the community is deluding itself in a sense about its power to influence Blizzard. True, the community helps get things nerfed and exposes exploits, but this new trend of whining at blizzard and showing their designers how much we'd love this or that feature, pressuring them into changing their game in some democratic way... it's not working. Anybody else notice that Starcraft 2 is over 2 years old and the community still hasn't succeeded in doing anything but motivate balance tweaks and encourage tournaments?
I think the best bet, considering the circumstances, is to simply use the Starcraft 2 map editor to make NEW GAMES. I don't think they should be named "Starcraft Enhanced" or anything like that, but especially with the arcade coming out people could create a modding/design community and also a player community for these mods, which, using the SC2 engine, could exist almost as games in their own rights. If enough of a player base could be built, a player could just log on and see who's playing his favorite SC2-Engine games, and get a game together... much like footmen wars or DOTA in warcraft 3.
Of course, this post will get swallowed up by the hundreds of other posts and never stand out in any way. TL needs to make an exclusive forum of important community contributors (I don't mean myself, but I do mean guys like Barrin and pzea and ironmansc) where smart writing doesn't get drowned out by 14 pages of
I hope the StarCraft 2 guys rapes Flash
banter.
This is possibly the best post in the entire thread. With the upcoming release of 1.5 Arcade people should check out the SC2 BW MOD and StarBow
Nah. The changes people most want to see require changes to the game engine, and that's just not gonna happen.
For some reason, how long a worker spends mining a mineral field can't be changed in the editor. This has led the community to try fewer resource nodes per base, lower yield mining and other convoluted solutions to a problem that has an obvious fix (except it's not available in the editor).
For some reason, tweaking unit movement variables simply isn't able to reproduce the same inertia-defying physics that made the smooth moving shot possible in Broodwar. SCII:s new engine is just too realistic in a sense, and we get these gliding, clumsy and inert units as a result.
Same story with unit pathing and the deathball (even though I personally don't think this is the most pressing issue). It's not realistic to expect Blizzard to make changes to their game engine.
Every change they've implemented thus far, has been one that you can achieve through the map editor.
Which I why the community should through support behind mods that use the map editor to change the game engine.For instance the SC2 BW Mod allows you to turn on/off unlimited unit selection.
Welp, finally made it through this thread. Still shaking my head.
On July 06 2012 22:11 b3n3tt3 wrote: if this was implemented then terran would have to suffer more from nerfs.
why? current game balance revolves around server wide winrates. pretty BS huh, but it's the truth.
This mod is very good but it will create a new game. LotV?
Thus the theme of this thread continues: responses from people who've actually played with this change are overwhelmingly positive, and are meanwhile drowned out by people who haven't, though they insist on posting gloom and doom nonsense. Frequently the latter are even commenting on how the game is too perfect to change this much, occasionally. Two Blizzard expansions coming. Just pointing that out.
If you say this would make Terran imba (again), — or whatever else it is you think this "breaks", — then prove it. At least the guy with the notion that split marines and tanks would suddenly become unstoppable made an attempt. It was [apparently] through a really lopsided, poorly handled, and isolated engagement in a unit tester, but still. Host some customs, put up some replays. Don't just say "If this happened teh world would endz0r". You've got every opportunity to try it yourself. I can't even fathom how people wrote out long negative responses without even trying it. Maybe I'm just remembering wrong, they all kindof run together.
To the OP: played around with this in the unit tester, seems fine. Not like a, "This is how you solve all of the problems with SC2" thing. Found it subtle, and intuitive. As far as I can tell, if you don't actively split/clump your units, you won't notice a difference at all. AT ALL. There's not a "be optimal" button for groups of units. The things that you split against now? You still split against those. Clump? Yep, stayed the same. It makes it so that the units don't instantly clump up when you move them after splitting. I know that that should not need to be repeated, but every few posts there's someone else saying how it makes the game ezmode and makes banelings useless or some crap. Without actually testing anything, of course.
And here I was thinking that the SC2 guys didn't want to fight against the interface.
But then, somehow, MBS gets brought up, or there's a "If you want BW go play BW" comment, or suddenly there's a random (/misguided) link to starbow or something. It's all really...silly. + Show Spoiler +
I can believe that SC2's clumping as-is was by design. But, there sure have been a lot of changes to AoEs to make up for everything being in a ball all the time, thanks to it being ridiculously hard to move an army in any other formation.
Also,
On July 05 2012 13:19 Rkynick wrote: Broodwar wasn't perfect. It was good, but not perfect. No automine and the unit selection limit are examples of BW flaws. They literally serve no design purpose, and are the results of design laziness. They should not be mistaken for design decisions. The only thing they do is force more tedious micro out of players, to overcome the design flaws of the game's interface.
Personally, I prefer a much more strategy-orientated approach to the game's design. You don't add any strategy or depth to the game by removing auto-mine or unlimited unit selection, so don't do it.
You had some good points and some bad points through the thread, Rkynick, but this was a bad one. Think about macro. Although you think, "I need to keep building workers constantly", you still have to manually do that. Rather than "start building <type of unit> until I stop you", and rather than spending resources as units entered production (which makes more sense, as far as making sense is concerned), it's by design that you're making them one at a time every X number of seconds.
I can't say for sure whether or not the lack of automine and 12 unit selection were by design or not. I think you should consider the same stance, tbh, rather than being dismissive just because of what you would have preferred. Because, if strategy is all that matters, it really shouldn't be an issue that you can't spare the attention to go back to your base and check up on unit production during that battle, right? Yes, it's certainly a part of your strategy to decide to keep producing units. It's also usually a part of everyone's strategy to keep having money.
What is misguided about supporting the custom map scene as a vehicle for creating the game the community wants to play? One only need to look at DOTA.
One thing I see over and over again are people saying how the limitations made BW "better" than it otherwise would have been without those limitations.
Nobody knows how BW would have turned out if those limitations were not in place. All we can conclusively say is that those technical limitations had an impact on the gameplay, but since we don't have access to the alternate universes where those limitations were removed we have no idea how BW would have played out over its 12 year history without them. It's entirely plausible that BW would have been just as exciting and dynamic and everything else people love about the game without those limitations.
Additionally SC2 is a new and different game, you can't say that since SC2 doesn't have those limitations that's why the gameplay is "worse". Even if those technical limitations were in place in SC2, it would still be a different game with its own problems.
Yeah, it's so hard to split our units... Let's just make them always move in magic box. The unit movement doesn't feel wrong... When you select all your units and move command them to a single point on the map, of course they will clump up. This is how it should work. It's up to the player, if he wants his army not clumped, to split them manualy. Nice effort, but I don't think that the game will benefit from this... That is my personal opinion of course
On July 07 2012 03:29 Pr0wler wrote: Yeah, it's so hard to split our units... Let's just make them always move in magic box. The unit movement doesn't feel wrong... When you select all your units and move command them to a single point on the map, of course they will clump up. This is how it should work. It's up to the player, if he wants his army not clumped, to split them manualy. Nice effort, but I don't think that the game will benefit from this... That is my personal opinion of course
Do you really want to have them all move to that one point? Wouldnt it be more natural to keep a formation while moving ... kinda like a bunch of cops searching a forest for a piece of evidence? Armies work with FORMATIONS and the only one available in SC2 is a stupid ball for movement. That might not feel wrong to you, but many others are annoyed by it.
Oh and this isnt about being too lazy to split your army (which has its disadvantages as well), but rather about staying in a formation while marching.
On July 06 2012 23:26 LaLuSh wrote: For some reason, how long a worker spends mining a mineral field can't be changed in the editor. This has led the community to try fewer resource nodes per base, lower yield mining and other convoluted solutions to a problem that has an obvious fix (except it's not available in the editor).
It's possible, i did it in my own experiments with data editor.
How did you do it?
Seriously man? You can't even read the OP? It's in the very last line. Under the bold letters "What I did"
On topic: I don't like this. That's just my opinion. Age of empires had some pre-defined spread options, and it's just so noobish. If you tell a group of units to go to one point, they should all find their own best path, naturally this means they will clump, and collosus will go off by themselves because they're like children and want to walk along the cliff.
Sure you may need APM to initially get your army spread, but as the current game stands, you need APM to spread it, and keep it spread, and rearrange the spread. I just don't like this.
What about magic box in BW? Did you think that was noobish as well? I agree there shouldn't be formation buttons and perhaps this isn't quite the right fix. But do you think having the option to keep your units spread (via method like a proper magic box) is noobish as well?
Dno if it has been mentioned in this thread yet, but... imo it would probably be better if something like the magic box from BW was implemented. http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Magic_Boxes
If units were within those boxes (one is for air, other ground) then they would stay in formation. Outside, they would ball up.
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.
And that's the way it should be! You also forgot to mention, that if you can do that tactic so does your opponent. He too, will put his infestors in the back, roach at the front and lings at the flanks. Both get a more efficient tactic, more close to a real life combat between armies, which we can understand, and much more beautiful to watch than just a bunch of mixed clumped units. Why are they all disorganized? - asks a friend new to the game. Because the players have to constantly separate them because the AI doesn't allow them to stay in formation, and it's such a hassle one might as well not bother and let em all clump and disorganized.
In real life will you send the snipers at the front and the tanks right behind them? Of course not. I feel these is one of those things that would bring SC2 more mainstream because it would bring a lot of tactics real armies do.
On July 07 2012 04:11 Plexa wrote: Dno if it has been mentioned in this thread yet, but... imo it would probably be better if something like the magic box from BW was implemented. http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Magic_Boxes
If units were within those boxes (one is for air, other ground) then they would stay in formation. Outside, they would ball up.
Erm. Isn't this exactly how it works in SC2 at the moment?
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7OPuh.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zA2aN.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images/0/0a/Derp.jpg)
