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Serpico
4285 Posts
On February 05 2013 13:57 Sated wrote: They could, but Barrin never does. Barrin always uses BW. I wasn't commenting on the validity of the argument, just the way Barrin chooses to argue. I wonder why using brood war when talking about SC 2 makes so much sense. | ||
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MonkSEA
Australia1227 Posts
Can people realize that they're two different games, the mechanics of one game doesn't work in the either game all the time and this is one of those said mechanics. What is there to discuss about high ground though? The way the original post is read in my eyes is: Here's a bunch of pretty pics of maps in BW with no high ground, or little of it, and in my opinion it made the game good. But it makes SC2 good still, but people think it's promoting stale play. Why isn't SC2 following the path BW left it which promoted fun play? | ||
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Unsane
Canada170 Posts
On February 05 2013 14:06 MonkSEA wrote: Comparing BW and it's maps to SC2 and it's maps is like comparing CoD maps with the DOTA maps. This is a terrible analogy, considering probably 90% of BW switched to SC2 on day 1 and therefore that is where the meta game started at. They are not only in the same genre but the commonalities between BW and SC2 (ignoring the fact one is literally the next installment of the previous) are HUGE. The commonalities between CoD and DOTA are almost non existent. They may be different games, sure, but the community is quite vastly shared. Unlike dota and CoD where the community has no overlap. I could go on all day about this. | ||
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KillingVector
United States96 Posts
On February 05 2013 14:06 MonkSEA wrote: Comparing BW and it's maps to SC2 and it's maps is like comparing CoD maps with the DOTA maps. Can people realize that they're two different games, the mechanics of one game doesn't work in the either game all the time and this is one of those said mechanics. What is there to discuss about high ground though? The way the original post is read in my eyes is: Here's a bunch of pretty pics of maps in BW with no high ground, or little of it, and in my opinion it made the game good. But it makes SC2 good still, but people think it's promoting stale play. Why isn't SC2 following the path BW left it which promoted fun play? Why does high ground advantage not work in Sc2? Its more of a general concept that effects strategic choices. I can't think of one unit that is suddenly "broken" by it. I think Barrin is right that most people's concerns are fixed by intelligent map design (this includes resource distribution). @ Thieving Magpie I also think different terrain effects are interesting and something that could be looked at. Someone made a thread about it: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=395256 Realistically, this seems like the avenue that map makers will have to explore, because I really don't believe that Blizzard will ever change their stance on high ground advantage. Even if they did, the starting "Blizzard" maps ladder pool is sure to implement it very poorly. | ||
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Magicferret
United States8 Posts
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Falling
Canada11456 Posts
However here goes nothing. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TK627q6.jpg) Things to notice. 1) Mains and natural are not on high ground. Instead they are walled. And really that is all SC2's so-called 'high ground advantage'. It is mostly a wall advantage, not a high ground advantage. 2) The high ground in the centre of the map are not tight chokes, but massive ridges one quarter the height of the map. These are not impassable chokes that will bog down the flow of the game. However they will give the one attacking up the ridge some reason for caution. When early game pressure is met by a force pushing back, these ridges will allow something like dragoons to fall back in a fighting retreat, regathering on top of each ridge to slow down the counter-push just a little bit longer so reinforcements can be replenished at home. Each of those ridges becomes a potential battle site where players will choose to take a stand or fire a few shots and retreat. As for offence. Let's say Blue is our intrepid Terran mech that has set up with Tanks and mines. It is not impossible to bust through (not a constrictive choke.) But it will make it harder to bust through. Therefore Red will not wish to give up the Ridges and fight to keep them from falling into Blue's hands. And when they do, they must decide the cost of a frontal attack vs trying some alternate routes. By gaining the ridge, the Terran's positional army is accomplishing multiple offensive goals. If the Red has not yet expanded, Blue effectively shuts down expansions along that path. If Red had expanded there, Blue has now cuts off Red's reinforcing armies, and threatens multiple areas. Perhaps Blue can cut down one of the expansions. At the very least, it should help raiders get in easier and Red's new armies are split. Any of those ridges can accomplish similar offensive threats depending on where players have decided to expand. The point isn't that SC2 doesn't have this sort of decision making. Rather, high ground advantage is something that can be wielded by map-makers to promote even more of this sort of decision-making. And that it helps both offensive and defensive strategies. At the very least it gives map-makers more things to work with. As a side note, this is also an example of how Rocks/ Temples SHOULD be used. *cough* Browder *cough* (Bottom left and top right.) | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
That's a beautiful post. Nice. | ||
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Unsane
Canada170 Posts
On February 05 2013 14:17 KillingVector wrote: Why does high ground advantage not work in Sc2? Its more of a general concept that effects strategic choices. I can't think of one unit that is suddenly "broken" by it. I think Barrin is right that most people's concerns are fixed by intelligent map design (this includes resource distribution). I feel like my tanks only use cliffs to prevent units from getting close to them: -I can put them at the cliff when against lings. -I can put them almost at the cliff when against roaches and locusts. -I can put them about five hexes from the ledge against stalkers hydras and marauders. The more tanks I have the more i can ignore this because....tanks.... with the following secondary constraints: -When shooting down cliffs air sight is not needed. -When shooting up cliffs air sight is needed. The more vikings i have the more i can make sure i have air sight Yeesh, mighty fine deathball logic we've got there...I wonder why some people don't like having no defenders advantage. Defenders advantage promotes positional play which indirectly combats deathballing. This could be a ridge in the middle of the map, people need to get over the concept that defenders advantage is only for defending mains and naturals. If i have to wait for 200/200 as mech to move out isn't that bad? Isnt that the epitome of turtling and deathballing, all in one composition? When map control can change in an instant because the map is bad and/or there is no defenders advantage, and the loss in map control puts any base after your 3rd in jeopardy because deathball play rather than positional play is being promoted, isn't that bad? Doesn't that promote 3 base (or 2, whatever the map is suggesting) play? Where we repeat that process so many times because the map pool is all essentially the same, the imba strat surfaces and dominates the whole map pool, isn't that bad? "I have to win on 3 bases or i lose because a 4th isn't an option; its not holdable". Isn't that bad? People complain about stale play, but what about seeing the same build again and again on every map? How is that not stale? In BW i could take a hold a ridge with 2 tanks as long as it wasn't already occupied. This ridge could have varying importance depending on the map, perhaps a resource node lies behind it, perhaps its your 3rd, perhaps it covers the main attack path. I only needed a tank count of 6 to potentially hold my main/nat and 3rd on fighting spirit. I could move out into the middle of the map sooner, but it depended on the map. Sometimes it was most favourable for me, (based on tankcount, opponent's composition, map) to position myself outside of his 4th? People seem to whine most about deathballs and turtling. Having defender's advantage changes the value of both turtling and deathballing. Sure, my main might be more difficult take to storm, but perhaps a reduction in how much minerals are available at each node would compensate. Lets say 1200 minerals per patch and 2000 gas per geyser, the nodes would expire faster and turtling would be less effective without effecting early game balance. Say it was reduced enough that maxing was difficult with higher tier units with only a main and natural. The 4 base zerg would beat the 2 base terran each time. He'd still be able to get out 'X unit' for your 'Y unit' push, but if that defenders advantage frightens you too much when you do go to attack, then take another base, he is giving you the map, and therefore a defensible location somewhere nearby, say at his 3rd that he'll have to take eventually, lest he run out of minerals in his main and natural. It would only effect mid and late game, if turtling was effective then a player need only expand with the map control given away by the turtling. It would reduce the value of a hidden expansions too, there are only so many 'hidden' nodes available. Edit: On February 05 2013 14:54 Falling wrote: + Show Spoiler + Probably shouldn't bother as no proper argument has been mounted beyond 'stop using BW examples.' However here goes nothing. Things to notice. 1) Mains and natural are not on high ground. Instead they are walled. And really that is all SC2's so-called 'high ground advantage'. It is mostly a wall advantage, not a high ground advantage. 2) The high ground in the centre of the map are not tight chokes, but massive ridges one quarter the height of the map. These are not impassable chokes that will bog down the flow of the game. However they will give the one attacking up the ridge some reason for caution. When early game pressure is met by a force pushing back, these ridges will allow something like dragoons to fall back in a fighting retreat, regathering on top of each ridge to slow down the counter-push just a little bit longer so reinforcements can be replenished at home. Each of those ridges becomes a potential battle site where players will choose to take a stand or fire a few shots and retreat. As for offence. Let's say Blue is our intrepid Terran mech that has set up with Tanks and mines. It is not impossible to bust through (not a constrictive choke.) But it will make it harder to bust through. Therefore Red will not wish to give up the Ridges and fight to keep them from falling into Blue's hands. And when they do, they must decide the cost of a frontal attack vs trying some alternate routes. By gaining the ridge, the Terran's positional army is accomplishing multiple offensive goals. If the Red has not yet expanded, Blue effectively shuts down expansions along that path. If Red had expanded there, Blue has now cuts off Red's reinforcing armies, and threatens multiple areas. Perhaps Blue can cut down one of the expansions. At the very least, it should help raiders get in easier and Red's new armies are split. Any of those ridges can accomplish similar offensive threats depending on where players have decided to expand. The point isn't that SC2 doesn't have this sort of decision making. Rather, high ground advantage is something that can be wielded by map-makers to promote even more of this sort of decision-making. And that it helps both offensive and defensive strategies. At the very least it gives map-makers more things to work with. As a side note, this is also an example of how Rocks/ Temples SHOULD be used. *cough* Browder *cough* (Bottom left and top right.) Mains dont have to be high ground, i did not even consider this... Edit2: Thinking about this further, ATM the maps that have had equal ground attack lead ups are considered strong for one base pushes (4gate on taldarim, for example), BW static defense was very strong and helped compensate for any lack of high ground used at the main/nat. | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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NasusAndDraven
359 Posts
On May 15 2015 21:25 Barrin wrote: Getting tired of people thinking High Ground is for defensive purposes only. Nice bump m8. But you know not all of us (not most of us) actually played broodwar. Atleast to a sense that we would have a good understanding of strategy. So how about explaining it in a way that does not require understanding of other games than SC2? EDIT: Also I think this is the problem with most map makers. They think that its ok to use offensive high grounds or easy access backdoor rocks to main or anything like that, if they can make the map "balanced" by tweaking the other parts of the maps accordingly. Also they focus way too much on making the game a good spectator sport. Even if there are 200 000 people viewing a game that is exiting because someone is abusing a highground cliff next to the other players third, its a problem if that 1 player finds it fucking annoying and something that should not be part of the game. The player will cry about it, and it will affect the whole community. I dont know if a articulated my thoughts well enough, but the point is that if you get "tired of people thinking X map feature", maybe you should think that the customer is always right, and they are the customers at this point. Like if you studied cooking for 40 years, you should still rather prepare a dish that the customer likes, instead of what you think is better. Dont theorize what is actually better, but instead do what you are asked to do, be innovative in ways that dont bother the customer. | ||
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BookTwo
1985 Posts
On February 05 2013 14:54 Falling wrote: Probably shouldn't bother as no proper argument has been mounted beyond 'stop using BW examples.' However here goes nothing. Things to notice. 1) Mains and natural are not on high ground. Instead they are walled. And really that is all SC2's so-called 'high ground advantage'. It is mostly a wall advantage, not a high ground advantage. 2) The high ground in the centre of the map are not tight chokes, but massive ridges one quarter the height of the map. These are not impassable chokes that will bog down the flow of the game. However they will give the one attacking up the ridge some reason for caution. When early game pressure is met by a force pushing back, these ridges will allow something like dragoons to fall back in a fighting retreat, regathering on top of each ridge to slow down the counter-push just a little bit longer so reinforcements can be replenished at home. Each of those ridges becomes a potential battle site where players will choose to take a stand or fire a few shots and retreat. As for offence. Let's say Blue is our intrepid Terran mech that has set up with Tanks and mines. It is not impossible to bust through (not a constrictive choke.) But it will make it harder to bust through. Therefore Red will not wish to give up the Ridges and fight to keep them from falling into Blue's hands. And when they do, they must decide the cost of a frontal attack vs trying some alternate routes. By gaining the ridge, the Terran's positional army is accomplishing multiple offensive goals. If the Red has not yet expanded, Blue effectively shuts down expansions along that path. If Red had expanded there, Blue has now cuts off Red's reinforcing armies, and threatens multiple areas. Perhaps Blue can cut down one of the expansions. At the very least, it should help raiders get in easier and Red's new armies are split. Any of those ridges can accomplish similar offensive threats depending on where players have decided to expand. The point isn't that SC2 doesn't have this sort of decision making. Rather, high ground advantage is something that can be wielded by map-makers to promote even more of this sort of decision-making. And that it helps both offensive and defensive strategies. At the very least it gives map-makers more things to work with. As a side note, this is also an example of how Rocks/ Temples SHOULD be used. *cough* Browder *cough* (Bottom left and top right.) Great post. "Each of those ridges becomes a potential battle site", so very true. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3484 Posts
But with Watch Towers, with Mothership Core, Overseer, Medivacs, Air battle units and even Colossus, it almost diminishes the High Ground advantage. They added Gold Bases, Watch Towers for more reasons to venture out on the map and grab map control, but funnily enough the removed High Ground combat advantage, did just that. I never liked the %miss that BW had, even though there's Pseudo random systems, I don't think it fits Starcraft. Instead I really like the idea of +1 armour for high ground, or +1 range for shooting down, or -1 range for shooting up. It makes sense from a bullets perspective, with lazers maybe not, but yeah. | ||
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Obsi
87 Posts
On May 15 2015 21:25 Barrin wrote: Getting tired of people thinking High Ground is for defensive purposes only. You just confirmed the quality of this thread and your OP, congratz. The polls and questions asked are flawed. Different maps with high grounds in different positions would create more variety in strategy for sure. But variety for variety's sake is not good. If you want some bullshit strats and good ol' 2010 balance back, sure let's make highground advantage an attackers thing. Have fun zergs holding any Protoss/Siege Tank push/allin. And the poll thing: Would switching elephants in for politicians lead to more variety in decisions? Yes. Whereas the question should be, whether it would be a GOOD thing. Also: NasusAndDravens points are all really good. I guess many mapmakers just don't play the game anymore but still think they know what is fun to play (on). | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Superouman
France2195 Posts
On May 15 2015 21:31 NasusAndDraven wrote: Nice bump m8. But you know not all of us (not most of us) actually played broodwar. Atleast to a sense that we would have a good understanding of strategy. So how about explaining it in a way that does not require understanding of other games than SC2? EDIT: Also I think this is the problem with most map makers. They think that its ok to use offensive high grounds or easy access backdoor rocks to main or anything like that, if they can make the map "balanced" by tweaking the other parts of the maps accordingly. Also they focus way too much on making the game a good spectator sport. Even if there are 200 000 people viewing a game that is exiting because someone is abusing a highground cliff next to the other players third, its a problem if that 1 player finds it fucking annoying and something that should not be part of the game. The player will cry about it, and it will affect the whole community. I dont know if a articulated my thoughts well enough, but the point is that if you get "tired of people thinking X map feature", maybe you should think that the customer is always right, and they are the customers at this point. Like if you studied cooking for 40 years, you should still rather prepare a dish that the customer likes, instead of what you think is better. Dont theorize what is actually better, but instead do what you are asked to do, be innovative in ways that dont bother the customer. Every single map maker in the community is able to make standard ladder-worthy maps 24/7/365. We don't do it because it's boring to do the same thing over and over again. The players are supposed to adapt their strategy to every map. People are too much used to whine about everything but there are some cases, like games, where the interesting and fun part is to use the brain and go beyond your comfort zone. This is a real time strategy game, not a brain-dead 200/200 macro simulator. People in sc2 community complain that we make only standard on industrial scale. When we create maps with unusual features, people are angry. This is a neverending whining. This is why i stopped caring about the whining and work only on experimental maps. The most standard maps win in tlmc and my bet is that the winner of tlmc6 will be the most standard one from the pool. You can vote right now to have an unusual map in the ladder map pool so vote for these maps. | ||
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BronzeKnee
United States5219 Posts
On February 04 2013 23:59 Barrin wrote: Is High Ground only Defensive? ...Let me take a stab at this since you didn't spell out definitions, and therefore your argument has some holes. If person holding the high ground always has the advantage in battle, then it is advantageous to hold the high ground. If by attacking one must leave the high ground, then it is only useful for the defender. The vast majority of examples of high ground usage in SC2 are ones where someone traps someone else and forces them to attack the high ground. They trap them by being aggressive and taking map control. But that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't the defender, since the trapped player must attack into them to break out. The best strategy in any strategy game and indeed war itself is to force your opponent to attack into you. You always want to fight where you have the advantage, and because of the idea of the "defenders" advantage, you always want to be defending. So, you really need to spell out the definitions of defender or attacker. Let's revisit Terran drop play on Lost Temple during the early WOL days. Let's say a Terran player drops and puts Siege Tanks on the high ground near my natural. I move out to expand and suddenly my Probe explodes. Now if I want to expand to my natural, I have to attack to get him off the high ground. Therefore, he is the defender right? Yet that drop was considered an offensive play. And therein lies the problem. Are you taking about the defender more generally as someone having a playstyle where they don't cross over the mid-line of the map (turtle play)? Or are you talking about the defender as being the person who doesn't initiate combat in a specific instance (the attacker initiates the battle)? Those are two very different definitions, and using my example above on Lost Temple, I may be playing a turtle style and be the "defender" yet I have to initiate combat (attack) to get those Siege Tanks off the high ground. So I could be considered both the attacker and defender at once. Either way, we know is that my opponent executed a good strategy because he is forcing me to attack into him. So it is pretty easy to argue successfully that the high ground is something that only benefits the defender if we take the latter definition. And with both those definitions in mind, we can see the potential problems and benefits of implementing stronger high ground advantage. | ||
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bluQ
Germany1724 Posts
On May 19 2015 02:22 BronzeKnee wrote: Well you didn't exactly spell out definitions, so your argument is pretty easy to trash. If person holding the high ground always has the advantage in battle, then it is advantageous to hold the high ground. If by attacking one must leave the high ground, then it is only useful for the defender. The vast majority of examples of high ground usage in SC2 are ones where someone traps someone else and forces them to attack the high ground. They trap them by being aggressive and taking map control. But that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't the defender. You really need to spell out the definitions of defender or attacker. Let's revisit Terran drop play on Lost Temple during the early WOL days. Let's say a Terran player drops and puts Siege Tanks on the high ground near my natural. I move out to expand and suddenly my Probe explodes. Yet that drop was considered an offensive play. But if I want to expand, I have to attack and get him off the high ground. Therefore, he is the defender. Thanks for your post ... reading through the thread I was constantly wondering "how the hell should you be offensive by HOLDING a position". To nurture this thread with some definitions: + Show Spoiler + Wikipedia.com - Definition "offensive (military)" An offensive is a military operation that seeks through aggressive projection of armed force to occupy territory, gain an objective or achieve some larger strategic, operational or tactical goal. Another term for an offensive often used by the media is 'invasion', or the more general 'attack'.[...] DISCLAIMER: I know it is the definition for the noun "offensive". But I hope it makes my point clearer. Going by this definition you can never be offensive by holding a position. You did your aggression/offensive to get to that position. You either put more immediate pressure onto your opponent or less, depending on the position but not necessarily the "highground". What - I guess - Barrin tried to say is that by adjusting the mechanics (to get a bigger advantage off of high-grounds) you have more strategical options for the position or more positional option for strategies. Highgrounds can and never will be "offensive". That brings me to the next point. A highground is an advantage. It doesn't matter if it has miss-chance, non-vision or whatever effect. By adding effects you just make the advantage bigger or smaller. Now here is where a lot of people would start to argue if it creates stale-plays, more predictable outcomes etc. But I say; still the wrong point to discuss. Before you start to adjust anything you should first elaborate on the concept of advantages in a RTS. And since it is a map-artifact; also about the positioning of said advantages. Lost Temple was not bad because of a certain highground mechanic. It was bad because the highground was positioned in a way that especially Zergs had no answer to it. We could have had 50% miss-chance for the highground-defender and it would still have been imbalanced. Same goes for BW. That BW had maps which created exciting play around highgrounds was not necessarily due to the fact of the highground mechanic but because of several game-mechanics benefiting from it. Well .... I don't have an opinion about it because I think it is a way too complex mechanic to just theorycraft about. I would rather leave it as it is and put my thought-work into general map-design and general game-mechanics. edit: Some thought-food; the principle of "high-ground"-Mainbase. Is there a map-design that can implement a low-ground base without being abnormally abused by Blink? | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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NasusAndDraven
359 Posts
On May 19 2015 00:57 Superouman wrote: Every single map maker in the community is able to make standard ladder-worthy maps 24/7/365. Depends how you define "ladder-worthy". Does that mean the map has to be better than slag pits? Or does it mean that you need to create another map as good as cloud kingdom, AKA the best map ever? You can make really stand out maps without gimmicks. Now I am not saying that you should never use gimmicks. But how about not using gimmicks that are widely hated by the community like backdoor rocks, abuse able gold bases, or if we want to stay on topic, offensive high grounds, just because you think it works for the map? | ||
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bluQ
Germany1724 Posts
On May 19 2015 03:04 Barrin wrote (spoilerd the img): The closer a held position is to your opponent the easier it is to attack him, therefore the more aggressive it is. It's less about the actual aggression, granted, but the threat of it is still offensive. You are forcing your opponent to defend his side of the map (whether or not he has claimed it yet) with this threat of aggression. Denying your opponent the ability to move out on the map to scout or take expansions is essentially aggressive, regardless of whether or not there is an actual engagement. Dead things don't do damage, but there is more to concept of "the best defense is a great offense". A position is aggressive simply by being closer to your opponent's bases than your own bases. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images/thumb/e/ef/ReverseTemple.jpg/600px-ReverseTemple.jpg) I see where you are coming from, but I have a hard time seeing how having roughly equal forces above your enemy's main on Reverse Temple is anything but aggressive. To be clear, once you have crossed into the enemy's side of the map (see Influence of the Map Analyzer and Circle Syndrome for more information on how to decide this, but it's exactly what you think it is) you are the attacker. You are never the attacker whenever your forces are on "your" side of the map, you are always the defender when your opponent moves his forces on "your" side of the map. This is how I define these terms. This is really just semantics btw, the effects are the same. Are you saying that high ground is only defensive? This is less about semantics, more about the essence of the debate you want to drive forward. I kinda allready wrote what you did. The closer you are to certain points of interest the more aggressive the position is. The contrary to defending is attacking. A position that is held/fortified is by that definition always defended. Now can a defended position be aggressive? I would say; nay. Either you are launching an attack, or are defending. To launch an attack you obviously need to move out. Can highgrounds be aggressive? If they are part of an attack. Are they offensive? Well ... a position is, not the highground. Not a highground is an agressor, nor does a highground make a position offensive. It is the position itself that is either offensive or defensive (proximity to opponent, cutting routes etc.). The highground can just enable a position that without the highground would be hard to defend(/easy to take) to be defendable again. And well a highground can be abused for an attackers advantage. Then again you are defending the position. So coming back to your question "Are you saying that high ground is only defensive?": No. Defending a position is defensive. Depending on strategic impact of defending the position you can put on pressure on your opponent. We can now debate about the lingustic meaning of "defensive" in different scenarios, but that would be missing the point. And again, I am not the one to ask for an opinion wether it is good for SC2 to change the current mechanic. I just want to help to clear some mist. edit: lots of editseses. | ||
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