EPTFungals, FF, Storms, and Smart-casting - Page 11
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mcdrewbie
8 Posts
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Dyme
Germany523 Posts
Everything would have to be redesigned and, yeah, that would be a different game. Maybe in Starcraft 3. | ||
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Mirror0423
United States175 Posts
Or why not "spread tank then siege" button? or "kite" button? or why not have a lot of terran units (such as hellions/tanks/other units who by looking at them should be able to move and shoot at the same time) behave like pheonix? why not have "form X" such as "for concave button" so you can form a concave easier at your choke? that's also intuitive. We are manually required to do these other small micro that essentially blizzard can just put a button on. It's not a hassle/get in the way. It's what makes the difference. Small things such as spreading tanks, or kiting with certain units is what separates the good players from the mediocre players. Removing smart-casting will just be adding a skill-set that separates the top 5% of players even more finely. It's a game, it's not necessarily supposed to be "as intuitive as possible". | ||
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DeCoup
Australia1933 Posts
Snipe: SC2 does not perform overkill damage on instant attacks/spells. For example, if you calldown a mule in the center of a ball of 100 enemy marines you will notice that only enough marines to 1 shot the mule will shoot. The rest will just stand there. If you had enough ghosts, snipe would insta kill any enemy and perform no overkill damage, wasting no energy in the process. Infested Terran: Spamming out your entire group of infested terrans energy pools as Infested Terrans is a tactic used quite commonly in a few different situations. This change would allow players with 12 Infestors to release 96 Infested Terrans in 9 clicks. | ||
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dUTtrOACh
Canada2339 Posts
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On November 25 2012 10:55 fighter2_40 wrote: I'm almost entirely sure that you didn't read anything that I said past the first sentence. I only played broodwar casually, and never watched pro games. I actually stated in my post that removing smartcast was not the way to balance the game. Please take the time to read what people post when they are actually trying to add something constructive. Sorry, I was mainly talking about the posts in general, but yours was the most relevant and recent. | ||
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Ryder.
1117 Posts
On November 26 2012 04:16 Mirror0423 wrote: If you wanna make it so people can do w/e they think of, why not have a "split marine button"? isn't it "intuitive" to be able to tell your marines to spread apart? but because there isn't one, but we all know it's good, we went nuts when MKP did that fantastically and consistently well against banelings. Or why not "spread tank then siege" button? or "kite" button? or why not have a lot of terran units (such as hellions/tanks/other units who by looking at them should be able to move and shoot at the same time) behave like pheonix? why not have "form X" such as "for concave button" so you can form a concave easier at your choke? that's also intuitive. We are manually required to do these other small micro that essentially blizzard can just put a button on. It's not a hassle/get in the way. It's what makes the difference. Small things such as spreading tanks, or kiting with certain units is what separates the good players from the mediocre players. Removing smart-casting will just be adding a skill-set that separates the top 5% of players even more finely. It's a game, it's not necessarily supposed to be "as intuitive as possible". The UI should facilitate in letting the player do what he/she wants to do, it shouldn't do it for them. There is a clear difference, stop trying to make dumb comparisons. | ||
Falling
Canada11258 Posts
The UI actually is kinda doing it for them. You selected all the casters and told them all to cast a spell. But the UI holds your hand and does the splitting for you so you don't need to learn how to grab your casters individually to cast. The UI disallows you from telling all selected casters to fire both when it would be a bad thing (overlap) or a really good thing (magic box.) The UI is making the decision for you and doing it for you. But the easiness of spell-casting is part of allows spells to dominate so hard. @DeCoup. There might be a couple spells that would benefit from this the other way and would have to be toned back. If we had spider mines in SC2, this would be a buff to them as it would be easier to lay more of them down faster. | ||
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thepuppyassassin
900 Posts
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DodgySmalls
Canada158 Posts
I definitely feel like the non-smart cast micro is better from a lower level player perspective as well, because it gives you something OBVIOUS to improve on. You can watch a replay and say, "Hey! I would've won this battle and been able to hold my fourth if I had just gotten off 2 more storms, I'll need to practice my micro." Where as it can be slightly un-clear if you were outmicroed by an opponent, failed to micro sufficiently, or if your build/other factors in the game were the real is a real issue. I especially agree with the saturating the screen aspect of sc2 storms. I don't think I've been impressed more than once or twice by a pro gamers storms because I can basically accomplish the same goal and I am not anywhere near as skilled a player. Even if it's never altered in SC2, it was still an interesting listen/read. Great post. | ||
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J.E.G.
United States389 Posts
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mcdrewbie
8 Posts
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netherh
United Kingdom333 Posts
On November 26 2012 10:40 Falling wrote: You selected all the casters and told them all to cast a spell. But the UI holds your hand and does the splitting for you so you don't need to learn how to grab your casters individually to cast. The UI disallows you from telling all selected casters to fire both when it would be a bad thing (overlap) or a really good thing (magic box.) The UI is making the decision for you and doing it for you. But that's not what happened. I selected all the casters, and told the nearest one to cast a spell. That's just how spells work in SC2. You're saying the interface should do something completely different by default, then pretending like that's already the default and the UI is doing something else. It's designed to have "smart-casting". Yes, you could design it not to, but that's never going to happen as it would be hideously counter-intuitive , and involve so much more apm that you'd never see any caster use at lower levels. If spells are so much of a problem, why not just nerf / change the spells. Make storm have a slightly smaller area and do less damage, but over a longer period of time, so it can be used for zoning, for example. I don't think completely changing the way the interface works is ever going to be a practical solution. | ||
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Falling
Canada11258 Posts
On November 27 2012 23:15 netherh wrote: But that's not what happened. I selected all the casters, and told the nearest one to cast a spell. That's just how spells work in SC2. You're saying the interface should do something completely different by default, then pretending like that's already the default and the UI is doing something else. It's designed to have "smart-casting". Yes, you could design it not to, but that's never going to happen as it would be hideously counter-intuitive , and involve so much more apm that you'd never see any caster use at lower levels. This argument amounts to SC2 is not designed this way, therefore it is counter-intuitive. SC2 is not the gold standard for intuition and just because something can be designed differently doesn't make it inherently unintuitive. Different is not unintuitive necessarily. To me, intuitive and unintuitive have specifically to do with the relation between action and result. Is what you are doing (action) make sense with what results. So as an extreme example to cast you had to select the high-templar, then click on every single Nexus, and then hit storm. That is unintuitive because what does clicking on Nexus having anything to do with with casting storm from high templar. Or to cast storm you had to cast it behind the templar and the storm will actually cast in its mirror opposite. That doesn't make much sense and is unintuitive. Where you click should be where it storms. But BW casting has its own logic to it. You select 5 templar, 5 templar are selected. You tell 5 templar to move to location A, 5 templar go to location A. You tell 5 templar to storm location B, 5 templar storm location B. It is very straight forward and very easy to understand. So then there is a skill to learn how to storm not just location B, but also C, D, E, and F. That is harder, but not unintuitive. It is different, but not unintuitive. Unintuitive gets thrown around a lot by a lot of people in these debates and On November 27 2012 23:15 netherh wrote: If spells are so much of a problem, why not just nerf / change the spells. Make storm have a slightly smaller area and do less damage, but over a longer period of time, so it can be used for zoning, for example. That's rather the point. When spells dominate too much, the immediate push is to nerf the spell so it sucks individually. We just dilute the spells so we can have a lot of them all the time. I'd rather see it require a lot of skill and speed to get out a lot of spells so that the spells can remain really powerful, but not dominate the gameplay so much, and let spells remain in a support role and remain a spectacle rather turn it mundane. | ||
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R3DT1D3
285 Posts
I want to like you ideas Falling but they're so wrapped up in assuming BW was the only good RTS and dismissing anything else any other RTS has tried since it's release. Much as you have been quick to point out that SC2's design is not the golden standard, BW is not the golden standard of design either. Ok so I have two things hopefully you can clarify: 1) I'm struggling with understanding is how you keep saying how casters are in the game to make the game harder or less simplistic at least. I disagree whole-heartedly (particularly with Terran). Most spellcasters in SC2 are easier to use to than the T1/T2 armies that they "support." You want to tell me that it's harder to fungal groups of units and/or spam infested terrans than it is to properly control ling/bane/muta? That it's more complicated to storm or vortex units than it is to properly use phoenixes or blink stalkers? Is anything a Raven or Ghost can pull off harder than properly controlling a MMM, Marine-Tank, or pure mech army? When it comes right down to it, spellcasters would be the easiest to use units in the game if the poorly designed group of SC2's massive units didn't exist. 2) It is NOT intuitive to magic box or clone or do any micro trick that was exclusive to Brood War. You can argue until you're blue in the face but I can guarantee no one at Blizzard designed the game with all of the many things that were discovered in mind. The average RTS player who didn't play BW is never going to find any of that intuitive. Heck, the reaver was only supposed to be used for defense according to Blizzard but I digress... | ||
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Falling
Canada11258 Posts
BW may not be the gold standard, but that's irrelevant. The point isn't that it should be one way or the other because it is in one game or the other. The point is what one game does, doesn't make alternate ways of doing things 'unintuitive.' Different from status quo doesn't equal "unintuitive." Harder to accomplish doesn't equal "unintuitive." Something can be very, very hard to accomplish and yet be very intuitive as to what you must do. re: 1) No I am not saying spell-casting is harder than controlling marines splits for instance. If you take a look how RTS units can be designed, generally speaking you could put them into three categories. (Maybe more, but that's all I can think of right now.) 1) Basic a-move units. This is especially true for units that have really sluggish handling- SupCom2, Battle for Middle Earth 2, or Empire at War 2. All you really do is direct the right units to attack at the other right units and maybe click a special ability like cover fire or something. Yeah cavalry can over-run archers, but by and large the units are very unresponsive and not given to micro. You select your units and move them in. A variant on this are units whose rate of fire is so fast that the tiny cooldown makes the unit difficult to micro without losing damage. Collosus being an example. 2) This is where spell-casting comes in. Spell-casting is deliberately more difficult than a-move units. It's more than directing the right composition to attack the right units in rock paper scissors. The unit does not rely on auto attack to be effective, but relies on manual control. 3) Rapid response unit command. Attack-retreat micro, moving shot, patrol micro. Take your pick, this sort of micro relies on burst damage, (usually) cooldown in-between, and speed. And if they are not speedy, they rely on another unit that compensates for it- some sort of transport ship. The best version of this has very little delay in the transition between attacking and then moving again. This is where your ling/bane/muta control kinda comes in (although there is a slight sluggishness either due to Battlenet latency, unit design or both.) No, I don't think spell-casting is necessarily harder than this. But it is difficult to do both at the same time, but we have more time to do so due to MBS (at least in theory.) The behind the scenes argument, is we need more of 3). 3) doesn't clutter the screen with information and giant light show. 3) is very spectator friendly. 3) requires tremendous amounts of skill and rewards better players. 3) doesn't get in the way of newbies that don't want to learn micro tricks. But because we have less of 3) overall, Blizzard is compensating by adding more of 2) and making 2) easier. This is negatively impacting the gameplay in a variety of ways. But 3) is where we need to see more, much, much more. re: 2) You misunderstand what I am arguing, but that's partly my fault because I wanted to avoid using "non-smart-casting." I'll change that to be more clear. I'm not saying cloning/magic boxing itself is necessarily the intuitive part. Though I'm not sure what makes it un-intuitive. They're just techniques to separate your casters. That could be any technique. But BW casting has its own logic to it. You select 5 templar, 5 templar are selected. You tell 5 templar to move to location A, 5 templar go to location A. You tell 5 templar to storm location B, 5 templar storm location B. It is very straight forward and very easy to understand. THIS is the part that I am arguing is just as intuitive as smart-casting. It's a very clear, logical outcome based on the commands you gave. It's different than SC2, but not 'counter-intuitive.' | ||
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iamcaustic
Canada1509 Posts
This also means that smart casting can be enabled/disabled on a case by case basis, rather than the idea of a fundamentally hard-coded AI mechanic being stripped out of the game. You can still have your smart casting for things like infested terrans, feedback and snipe, but disabled for storm, EMP and fungal. :0 I made this little "discovery" (I'm sure a number of people in the business of mucking in the data editor already knew about it) because I wondered how Blizzard had abilities like stim and blink affect all selected units, but not these AoE spells. Anywho, if anyone wants to test what it's like to have smart casting removed from some of the more powerful abilities in SC2, that's how you go about doing it. You could also go about buffing the strength of said abilities in compensation for the loss of smart casting while you're at it, since you'd be in the data editor anyway. EDIT: I'm going to bed, but I might make a video or something demonstrating the thing in action tomorrow, if someone doesn't beat me to the punch. | ||
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Falling
Canada11258 Posts
Nice find. | ||
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netherh
United Kingdom333 Posts
On November 28 2012 03:42 Falling wrote: This argument amounts to SC2 is not designed this way, therefore it is counter-intuitive. SC2 is not the gold standard for intuition and just because something can be designed differently doesn't make it inherently unintuitive. Different is not unintuitive necessarily. To me, intuitive and unintuitive have specifically to do with the relation between action and result. Is what you are doing (action) make sense with what results. So as an extreme example to cast you had to select the high-templar, then click on every single Nexus, and then hit storm. That is unintuitive because what does clicking on Nexus having anything to do with with casting storm from high templar. Or to cast storm you had to cast it behind the templar and the storm will actually cast in its mirror opposite. That doesn't make much sense and is unintuitive. Where you click should be where it storms. Exactly. You never, ever, ever want to cast every single storm at once. Ever. Because storm doesn't stack. It would be inconceivable (...) for the UI to work that way. Idiotic. Madness. Unintuitive. SC2 is much easier to understand (i.e. intuitive) than BW then, in this regard, because it actually does what you want to do when casting spells. Select spellcasters, cast a spell. | ||
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Treehead
999 Posts
I can understand and appreciate why blanketting storms and FF clutters things up, makes it harder to spectate and harder to actually be good at it (since the mechanics of it are simpler), and I accept your basic premise that without the need a lot of simultaneous spells for defense, smartcasting makes things harder to watch and easier to execute. I just don't think SC2 is ever going to be a game of scattered small numbers of spells (if only because of the resource differences between SC2 and BW) - and therefore, I doubt the removal of smartcasting would be good for SC2. Now, if you were to add difficulty another way for a type of ability which was less mandatory and more powerful, I'd be all for it being harder to use. But when it's necessary to use forcefield every 15 seconds to hold off a 4-gater, I can't say that I'm for making the act of casting FF mechanically harder. Here's one potential method of arguing the case for smartcasting: If you have a spell that you know you will need to use 3 times over the course of the early game, and you can execute it properly 80% of the time individually - over the course of the game, you know that you can execute properly a little more than half the time (51.2%). But change that 3 times to 5 times (32.8%) or 8 times (16.8%), and your chance to complete a game properly dwindles. This means one of two things: 1. You get better execution; or 2. The spell gets easier to cast. If we're moving from 3 executions to 8, you'd need to up your execution from 80% to 92% (a drastic reduction in failure rate). Especially when someone else is trying to mess you up, this very well might be close to impossible to accomplish. But in general, the theory is just that when you have to do a larger number of things (or in this case, cast a larger number of spells), they need to be easier to cast. Whether more spells is better or not, you may have a point - but there are more spells being used. So, they kind of do need to be easier to use. | ||
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