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Russian Federation221 Posts
On September 11 2013 16:49 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 15:49 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. I assumed it is self explanatory that if you have different pathing you are then obliged to redesign most of the units and game mechanics. And contrary to your opinion, I hold the stance that it is impossible to design fun units and mechanics other than marine micro with this pathing. There is simply not enough room to be creative in a time span of 2 seconds (the average time a big battle in sc2 lasts) and designing units to artificially prolong that time span isn't going to make for a fun game. most of the micro however is done prior the actual engagement. viking poking blink stalkers defending the colossus marauder stim in for snipe cloak ghost move forward to emp/snipe while stalkers try to deny A lot of people are just not understanding/appreciating the micro in SC2. high clumped unit has their own micro such as what we saw yesterday on WCS EU where starbuck continuously used roach hydra to bait forcefields and then constantly adjusting its flank according to the FFs and protoss firepower focus. That plus other tricks like viper abducting the colossus etc Or you can see how zerg like JD uses split with his mutas against templar storms. Or protoss with HT flanks and warp prism storm
All the micro that you described would still exist if units were spread out by default.
In BW there were also micro with EMP, defensive matrix, reaver-shutle, eradiate, cloak writes, scourges, mines and many more.
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Russian Federation221 Posts
On September 11 2013 18:20 saddaromma wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 16:49 ETisME wrote:On September 11 2013 15:49 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. I assumed it is self explanatory that if you have different pathing you are then obliged to redesign most of the units and game mechanics. And contrary to your opinion, I hold the stance that it is impossible to design fun units and mechanics other than marine micro with this pathing. There is simply not enough room to be creative in a time span of 2 seconds (the average time a big battle in sc2 lasts) and designing units to artificially prolong that time span isn't going to make for a fun game. most of the micro however is done prior the actual engagement. viking poking blink stalkers defending the colossus marauder stim in for snipe cloak ghost move forward to emp/snipe while stalkers try to deny A lot of people are just not understanding/appreciating the micro in SC2. high clumped unit has their own micro such as what we saw yesterday on WCS EU where starbuck continuously used roach hydra to bait forcefields and then constantly adjusting its flank according to the FFs and protoss firepower focus. That plus other tricks like viper abducting the colossus etc Or you can see how zerg like JD uses split with his mutas against templar storms. Or protoss with HT flanks and warp prism storm Doesn't matter how hard you micro, the guy with better production wins 9/10 times. Micro has very miniscule effect in SC2. Basic micro such as stim/kite, abduct or spreading are important, but they don't deliver WOW moments. Compare reaver's 10 scv kills to templar's 10 kills. In BW crowd would be applauding, in sc2, nevermind, terran dropped 5 mules and he's back in the game.
I agree mules, injects and chrono boosts do not contribute to opportunities for micro.
Once army gets bigger than 100 supply opportunities and need for micro in sc2 decreases dramatically.
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On September 11 2013 18:20 saddaromma wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 16:49 ETisME wrote:On September 11 2013 15:49 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. I assumed it is self explanatory that if you have different pathing you are then obliged to redesign most of the units and game mechanics. And contrary to your opinion, I hold the stance that it is impossible to design fun units and mechanics other than marine micro with this pathing. There is simply not enough room to be creative in a time span of 2 seconds (the average time a big battle in sc2 lasts) and designing units to artificially prolong that time span isn't going to make for a fun game. most of the micro however is done prior the actual engagement. viking poking blink stalkers defending the colossus marauder stim in for snipe cloak ghost move forward to emp/snipe while stalkers try to deny A lot of people are just not understanding/appreciating the micro in SC2. high clumped unit has their own micro such as what we saw yesterday on WCS EU where starbuck continuously used roach hydra to bait forcefields and then constantly adjusting its flank according to the FFs and protoss firepower focus. That plus other tricks like viper abducting the colossus etc Or you can see how zerg like JD uses split with his mutas against templar storms. Or protoss with HT flanks and warp prism storm + Show Spoiler +
Doesn't matter how hard you micro, the guy with better production wins 9/10 times. Micro has very miniscule effect in SC2. Basic micro such as stim/kite, abduct or spreading are important, but they don't deliver WOW moments.
Compare reaver's 10 scv kills to templar's 10 kills. In BW crowd would be applauding, in sc2, nevermind, terran dropped 5 mules and he's back in the game.
They didn't applaud because the damage was big, they applauded because they would at most only 2-3 of any of those units in the battle field and at most they'd see about 6-8 made per game ASSUMING you lost a lot of them.
They cheered because you used 1 unit to kill 10 workers using 1 or 2 storms.
Do you ever see 4-5 psi storms in BW? No, because that shit is hard! 90% of the time you see 1-2 storms off of 2 baby-sat templars and ONLY when the time was right.
Its hard to cheer for a storm when there are 8 happening each engagement. What's impressive about that?
What's impressing about seeing 8 storms land in the battlefield and then watching only 2 storms land in a worker line?
In BW if you were caught in a storm you were dead. But storms were rare, so it was okay. SCVs would die to storms as quickly as Hydralisks and Vultures died to storms. Storm was not X amount of damage storm was a cloud of death. It wasn't this thing that was only good against marines/zerglings but was central to the grand majority of the Protoss DPS. It simply took one or two well placed storms to turn the tide of a battle. That is the opposite in SC2. In SC2, storms damage most units, but they only really *threaten* Zerglings and Marines. When storm is used, you see 4-8 of them at a time. At some point it just becomes clouds of lights.
That's why things like Psi storm was cheered for. Mules not having existed has nothing to do with the entertaining value of a spell.
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On September 11 2013 15:24 EatThePath wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. Any units are always more fun when things are more spread out, because the lower local dps allows you time for relevant micro decisions. There can be tactics evolving within an engagement, not just a dominos release of two armies meeting.
There can be a lot of micro involved in clumped units as well.
Whether units are clumped or not are arbitrary--but units have to be designed with that arbitration in mind.
No matter how clumped or unclumped units are, RTS design remains the same.
Cheap mobile units outflank slow strong units but are squished by expensive aoe units which can't manage slow strong units.
The more transparent that trifecta is the more entertaining the game is.
In a game like BW, unit design was damage based. Dragoons dealt full damage to large units, vultures dealt full damage to small units, etc... Which works in a game with spread out units since fights are closer to the 1v1 scale that the units were designed in.
When units clump you can't have that dynamic which is why the +damage stats on units snowball. 1 maraduer compared to 1 stalker is very balanced. One is more mobile, one is more damaging, etc... They both have uses. But once you clump them up marauders hard counter stalkers so badly that it never feels fair. The reason it doesn't feel fair is that the units were designed with spread out 1v1 unit fights in mind and instead are put in a game where tight clumps allows focus fire to be easier instead of harder. (Try to focus fire with Dragoons in BW, that shit is hard! (Vultures are even tougher with the way they always wiggle a bit after stopping unless you use the hold command to stop and the patrol command to attack move))
When it is too easy to focus fire, don't give units such high damage potential. When the game is hard to focus fire in, give units high damage potential. One or the other.
But yes, declumping unit pathing is also a valid change, but it would require as much reworking of units as keeping units clumped.
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On September 12 2013 00:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 15:24 EatThePath wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. Any units are always more fun when things are more spread out, because the lower local dps allows you time for relevant micro decisions. There can be tactics evolving within an engagement, not just a dominos release of two armies meeting. There can be a lot of micro involved in clumped units as well. Whether units are clumped or not are arbitrary--but units have to be designed with that arbitration in mind. No matter how clumped or unclumped units are, RTS design remains the same. Cheap mobile units outflank slow strong units but are squished by expensive aoe units which can't manage slow strong units. The more transparent that trifecta is the more entertaining the game is. In a game like BW, unit design was damage based. Dragoons dealt full damage to large units, vultures dealt full damage to small units, etc... Which works in a game with spread out units since fights are closer to the 1v1 scale that the units were designed in. When units clump you can't have that dynamic which is why the +damage stats on units snowball. 1 maraduer compared to 1 stalker is very balanced. One is more mobile, one is more damaging, etc... They both have uses. But once you clump them up marauders hard counter stalkers so badly that it never feels fair. The reason it doesn't feel fair is that the units were designed with spread out 1v1 unit fights in mind and instead are put in a game where tight clumps allows focus fire to be easier instead of harder. (Try to focus fire with Dragoons in BW, that shit is hard! (Vultures are even tougher with the way they always wiggle a bit after stopping unless you use the hold command to stop and the patrol command to attack move)) When it is too easy to focus fire, don't give units such high damage potential. When the game is hard to focus fire in, give units high damage potential. One or the other. But yes, declumping unit pathing is also a valid change, but it would require as much reworking of units as keeping units clumped.
I disagree for the simple reason that you can also clump your units by hand (like making a nice tight line of dragoons in BW). I can't really think of a single situation in SC2 that would be worse off with default unit clumping being reduced. Yes, the AoE spells wouldn't be as juicy but they don't have to be to be useful. At the highest level they serve as space control anyway.
The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines winning easily against double the supply of zerglings.
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On September 12 2013 00:45 EatThePath wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 00:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 15:24 EatThePath wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. Any units are always more fun when things are more spread out, because the lower local dps allows you time for relevant micro decisions. There can be tactics evolving within an engagement, not just a dominos release of two armies meeting. There can be a lot of micro involved in clumped units as well. Whether units are clumped or not are arbitrary--but units have to be designed with that arbitration in mind. No matter how clumped or unclumped units are, RTS design remains the same. Cheap mobile units outflank slow strong units but are squished by expensive aoe units which can't manage slow strong units. The more transparent that trifecta is the more entertaining the game is. In a game like BW, unit design was damage based. Dragoons dealt full damage to large units, vultures dealt full damage to small units, etc... Which works in a game with spread out units since fights are closer to the 1v1 scale that the units were designed in. When units clump you can't have that dynamic which is why the +damage stats on units snowball. 1 maraduer compared to 1 stalker is very balanced. One is more mobile, one is more damaging, etc... They both have uses. But once you clump them up marauders hard counter stalkers so badly that it never feels fair. The reason it doesn't feel fair is that the units were designed with spread out 1v1 unit fights in mind and instead are put in a game where tight clumps allows focus fire to be easier instead of harder. (Try to focus fire with Dragoons in BW, that shit is hard! (Vultures are even tougher with the way they always wiggle a bit after stopping unless you use the hold command to stop and the patrol command to attack move)) When it is too easy to focus fire, don't give units such high damage potential. When the game is hard to focus fire in, give units high damage potential. One or the other. But yes, declumping unit pathing is also a valid change, but it would require as much reworking of units as keeping units clumped. I disagree for the simple reason that you can also clump your units by hand (like making a nice tight line of dragoons in BW). I can't really think of a single situation in SC2 that would be worse off with default unit clumping being reduced. Yes, the AoE spells wouldn't be as juicy but they don't have to be to be useful. At the highest level they serve as space control anyway. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines winning easily against double the supply of zerglings.
You can also spread your units out by hand, what's your point?
I'm asking that whether or not units are clumped or not the unit design has to reflect that. right now it doesn't. The game would improve if Blizzard simply commits one way or another.
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the way to have a more fun sc2 imo is either raise the skill to use some key amove boring unit like chargelot archon colossus by adding capacity to them or to provide answers for the other race that will force the player to micro its unit.
The perfect example of that is the WM. In non professional games (master and below i mean) a+click lings + bling could win decently vs bio tank. Now vs WM zerg has to be careful with his ling bane and have to use more strategies like flank, bait etc... that involve micro. Maybe microing vs mines is too hard i don't know but i think it's clearly an improve of skill for the game to have brought this kind of unit in the game.
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Russian Federation40190 Posts
On September 12 2013 00:45 EatThePath wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 00:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 15:24 EatThePath wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. Any units are always more fun when things are more spread out, because the lower local dps allows you time for relevant micro decisions. There can be tactics evolving within an engagement, not just a dominos release of two armies meeting. There can be a lot of micro involved in clumped units as well. Whether units are clumped or not are arbitrary--but units have to be designed with that arbitration in mind. No matter how clumped or unclumped units are, RTS design remains the same. Cheap mobile units outflank slow strong units but are squished by expensive aoe units which can't manage slow strong units. The more transparent that trifecta is the more entertaining the game is. In a game like BW, unit design was damage based. Dragoons dealt full damage to large units, vultures dealt full damage to small units, etc... Which works in a game with spread out units since fights are closer to the 1v1 scale that the units were designed in. When units clump you can't have that dynamic which is why the +damage stats on units snowball. 1 maraduer compared to 1 stalker is very balanced. One is more mobile, one is more damaging, etc... They both have uses. But once you clump them up marauders hard counter stalkers so badly that it never feels fair. The reason it doesn't feel fair is that the units were designed with spread out 1v1 unit fights in mind and instead are put in a game where tight clumps allows focus fire to be easier instead of harder. (Try to focus fire with Dragoons in BW, that shit is hard! (Vultures are even tougher with the way they always wiggle a bit after stopping unless you use the hold command to stop and the patrol command to attack move)) When it is too easy to focus fire, don't give units such high damage potential. When the game is hard to focus fire in, give units high damage potential. One or the other. But yes, declumping unit pathing is also a valid change, but it would require as much reworking of units as keeping units clumped. I disagree for the simple reason that you can also clump your units by hand (like making a nice tight line of dragoons in BW). I can't really think of a single situation in SC2 that would be worse off with default unit clumping being reduced. Yes, the AoE spells wouldn't be as juicy but they don't have to be to be useful. At the highest level they serve as space control anyway. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines winning easily against double the supply of zerglings.
The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines losing to 10 burrowed banelings. It is double edged sword.
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I wouldn't mind experimenting with less clumpy pathfinding provided my units still went where I told them to without getting lost. I definitely don't want a return to BW's broken pathfinding though. Similarly, I don't want to return to limited unit selection either. I'd much rather have clumped units than a user interface I have to constantly fight with.
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4713 Posts
On September 12 2013 04:21 archwaykitten wrote:
I wouldn't mind experimenting with less clumpy pathfinding provided my units still went where I told them to without getting lost. I definitely don't want a return to BW's broken pathfinding though. Similarly, I don't want to return to limited unit selection either. I'd much rather have clumped units than a user interface I have to constantly fight with.
I think we can have a happy compromise on limited unit selection. Instead of having say, an arbitrary number, we have a dynamic number based on the units supply. How this would work is that you could have a control group of more units if the unit only cost 1 supply as opposed to 6 supply. So now you could have a group of 48 lings, 24 marines, 12 zealots, 8 tanks, 6 immortals or 4 colossus/thor/ultras.
This could be also made to handle any combination of supply units so long as the maximum selection cap for a group was 24. The number is fair in that it works well for both small units and large units and, in the late game you want 3-4 army hotkeys anyway, and 24 supply per group almost covers your army hotkeying need.
It would solve tons of issues especially those regarding critical masses of units that become broken because its too easy to control a critical mass.
Yeah I also agree with the pathfinding, I don't want a broken pathfinding where units get lost along the way, but I'd like a pathfinding that didn't make units clump so much.
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On September 12 2013 04:21 archwaykitten wrote:
I wouldn't mind experimenting with less clumpy pathfinding provided my units still went where I told them to without getting lost. I definitely don't want a return to BW's broken pathfinding though. Similarly, I don't want to return to limited unit selection either. I'd much rather have clumped units than a user interface I have to constantly fight with.
I really need to write a blog about what Day9 was actually talking about when he tried to explain the tactility of BW.
The "less clumpy" nature of BW was not due to bad pathfinding, it was due to incomplete pathfinding. The algorithms they used stopped working over time getting units trapped in loops. This was mostly not a problem in their testing until they tried using it on workers. They could not solve this issue and so simply had workers fly through each other when mining.
However, over short distances and when given constantly refreshed commands ("spamming") the commands would loop back to the start point and not deteriorate. This was due to the fact that they intended the game to be squad based in nature, hence the control groups, where you controlled small armies to engage each other.
They didn't realize Korea would say "fuck it, I'll play fast enough" that the bugs began to show (much like it showed when workers tried mining in clumps)
The tactility that people talk about stem from the attempt to circumvent these bugs on a large scale while maintaining the blitz speed that they were now expected to keep.
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On September 12 2013 04:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 04:21 archwaykitten wrote:
I wouldn't mind experimenting with less clumpy pathfinding provided my units still went where I told them to without getting lost. I definitely don't want a return to BW's broken pathfinding though. Similarly, I don't want to return to limited unit selection either. I'd much rather have clumped units than a user interface I have to constantly fight with.
I really need to write a blog about what Day9 was actually talking about when he tried to explain the tactility of BW. The "less clumpy" nature of BW was not due to bad pathfinding, it was due to incomplete pathfinding. The algorithms they used stopped working over time getting units trapped in loops. This was mostly not a problem in their testing until they tried using it on workers. They could not solve this issue and so simply had workers fly through each other when mining. However, over short distances and when given constantly refreshed commands ("spamming") the commands would loop back to the start point and not deteriorate. This was due to the fact that they intended the game to be squad based in nature, hence the control groups, where you controlled small armies to engage each other. They didn't realize Korea would say "fuck it, I'll play fast enough" that the bugs began to show (much like it showed when workers tried mining in clumps) The tactility that people talk about stem from the attempt to circumvent these bugs on a large scale while maintaining the blitz speed that they were now expected to keep.
It should also be pointed out that BW was run on a "grid" and units could moved from "square" to "square". Two units couldn't "clump" like in SC2, because even when they were right next to each other, they couldn't "pack in". They cannot occupy the same space at the same time. The view in BW was much smaller as well, only being in 640/480. The whole game was in a much small space and everything worded within those constraints.
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On September 10 2013 23:20 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2013 22:59 _Search_ wrote:
I really don't get why Starcraft people don't understand that the word "utilize" is just a pretentious way of saying "use". NEVER say utilize. Ever. Use and utilize are very different words.... Utilize comes from the word utility, and implies the accessing of variant aspects of an object instead of using its primary function. Example: One uses a knife to slice, yet by utilizing a knife's handle, one can hammer open peanuts. One uses a knife to cut, but one can utilize the thin blade of a knife to pry open a pistachio. One uses a knife to peel, but by utilizing the flat side of the blade, one can also press garlic.
Using something for its primary function is utilizing it too, you just made that distinction up. I won't say utilize can be replaced by use and confer the exact same meaning in each and every instance, but usually this holds.
Just look in any dictionary, and you'll most likely see it's indeed a synonym for 'use'. Below is Merriam Webster's entry.
Full Definition of UTILIZE
: to make use of : turn to practical use or account
Synonyms
apply, employ, exercise, exploit, harness, operate, use
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On September 12 2013 00:52 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 00:45 EatThePath wrote:On September 12 2013 00:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 15:24 EatThePath wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. Any units are always more fun when things are more spread out, because the lower local dps allows you time for relevant micro decisions. There can be tactics evolving within an engagement, not just a dominos release of two armies meeting. There can be a lot of micro involved in clumped units as well. Whether units are clumped or not are arbitrary--but units have to be designed with that arbitration in mind. No matter how clumped or unclumped units are, RTS design remains the same. Cheap mobile units outflank slow strong units but are squished by expensive aoe units which can't manage slow strong units. The more transparent that trifecta is the more entertaining the game is. In a game like BW, unit design was damage based. Dragoons dealt full damage to large units, vultures dealt full damage to small units, etc... Which works in a game with spread out units since fights are closer to the 1v1 scale that the units were designed in. When units clump you can't have that dynamic which is why the +damage stats on units snowball. 1 maraduer compared to 1 stalker is very balanced. One is more mobile, one is more damaging, etc... They both have uses. But once you clump them up marauders hard counter stalkers so badly that it never feels fair. The reason it doesn't feel fair is that the units were designed with spread out 1v1 unit fights in mind and instead are put in a game where tight clumps allows focus fire to be easier instead of harder. (Try to focus fire with Dragoons in BW, that shit is hard! (Vultures are even tougher with the way they always wiggle a bit after stopping unless you use the hold command to stop and the patrol command to attack move)) When it is too easy to focus fire, don't give units such high damage potential. When the game is hard to focus fire in, give units high damage potential. One or the other. But yes, declumping unit pathing is also a valid change, but it would require as much reworking of units as keeping units clumped. I disagree for the simple reason that you can also clump your units by hand (like making a nice tight line of dragoons in BW). I can't really think of a single situation in SC2 that would be worse off with default unit clumping being reduced. Yes, the AoE spells wouldn't be as juicy but they don't have to be to be useful. At the highest level they serve as space control anyway. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines winning easily against double the supply of zerglings. You can also spread your units out by hand, what's your point?
That's why I included the marines example. Clumping (primarily related to movement) causes problems, especially for the ranged vs melee dynamic.
I'm asking that whether or not units are clumped or not the unit design has to reflect that. right now it doesn't. The game would improve if Blizzard simply commits one way or another.
I would agree that slicing the design problem specifically in relation to clumpiness and choosing one way or another would lead to better designs. Maybe it's a bit of an arcane approach given all the other design considerations, maybe not. Nevertheless I contend that less clumpy is just better for Starcraft, and possibly RTS generally, and it is more forgiving for unit design; i.e., regardless of unit design less clumpy will play better and generate better engagement dynamics.
If you want to boil it down to a very simplistic statement, requiring manual clumping is better than requiring manual declumping. For a very simple justification: default unclumpy behavior makes engagements at all scales resemble small-sided engagements locally in multiple.
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On September 12 2013 04:55 dani` wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2013 23:20 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 10 2013 22:59 _Search_ wrote:
I really don't get why Starcraft people don't understand that the word "utilize" is just a pretentious way of saying "use". NEVER say utilize. Ever. Use and utilize are very different words.... Utilize comes from the word utility, and implies the accessing of variant aspects of an object instead of using its primary function. Example: One uses a knife to slice, yet by utilizing a knife's handle, one can hammer open peanuts. One uses a knife to cut, but one can utilize the thin blade of a knife to pry open a pistachio. One uses a knife to peel, but by utilizing the flat side of the blade, one can also press garlic. Using something for its primary function is utilizing it too, you just made that distinction up. I won't say utilize can be replaced by use and confer the exact same meaning in each and every instance, but usually this holds. Just look in any dictionary, and you'll most likely see it's indeed a synonym for 'use'. Below is Merriam Webster's entry. Show nested quote +
Full Definition of UTILIZE
: to make use of : turn to practical use or account
Synonyms
apply, employ, exercise, exploit, harness, operate, use
Yes, utilizing something for its primary function is utilizing it. It's called nuance. Utilize is, by and large, a hinting at an object's utility outside of what is considered "obvious."
It can be swapped out with the word use, and while the meaning remains the same, the nuance changes. Much like you could also replace use with words like implement, or phrases like bring forth, etc...
The words are not the same, they are similar or synonymous with each other, but they are not the same.
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On September 12 2013 01:02 lolfail9001 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 00:45 EatThePath wrote:On September 12 2013 00:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 15:24 EatThePath wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. Any units are always more fun when things are more spread out, because the lower local dps allows you time for relevant micro decisions. There can be tactics evolving within an engagement, not just a dominos release of two armies meeting. There can be a lot of micro involved in clumped units as well. Whether units are clumped or not are arbitrary--but units have to be designed with that arbitration in mind. No matter how clumped or unclumped units are, RTS design remains the same. Cheap mobile units outflank slow strong units but are squished by expensive aoe units which can't manage slow strong units. The more transparent that trifecta is the more entertaining the game is. In a game like BW, unit design was damage based. Dragoons dealt full damage to large units, vultures dealt full damage to small units, etc... Which works in a game with spread out units since fights are closer to the 1v1 scale that the units were designed in. When units clump you can't have that dynamic which is why the +damage stats on units snowball. 1 maraduer compared to 1 stalker is very balanced. One is more mobile, one is more damaging, etc... They both have uses. But once you clump them up marauders hard counter stalkers so badly that it never feels fair. The reason it doesn't feel fair is that the units were designed with spread out 1v1 unit fights in mind and instead are put in a game where tight clumps allows focus fire to be easier instead of harder. (Try to focus fire with Dragoons in BW, that shit is hard! (Vultures are even tougher with the way they always wiggle a bit after stopping unless you use the hold command to stop and the patrol command to attack move)) When it is too easy to focus fire, don't give units such high damage potential. When the game is hard to focus fire in, give units high damage potential. One or the other. But yes, declumping unit pathing is also a valid change, but it would require as much reworking of units as keeping units clumped. I disagree for the simple reason that you can also clump your units by hand (like making a nice tight line of dragoons in BW). I can't really think of a single situation in SC2 that would be worse off with default unit clumping being reduced. Yes, the AoE spells wouldn't be as juicy but they don't have to be to be useful. At the highest level they serve as space control anyway. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines winning easily against double the supply of zerglings. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines losing to 10 burrowed banelings. It is double edged sword.
The difference is there's nothing the zerglings can do to win. The marines can easily avoid dying to banelings like that.
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On September 12 2013 04:54 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 04:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 12 2013 04:21 archwaykitten wrote:
I wouldn't mind experimenting with less clumpy pathfinding provided my units still went where I told them to without getting lost. I definitely don't want a return to BW's broken pathfinding though. Similarly, I don't want to return to limited unit selection either. I'd much rather have clumped units than a user interface I have to constantly fight with.
I really need to write a blog about what Day9 was actually talking about when he tried to explain the tactility of BW. The "less clumpy" nature of BW was not due to bad pathfinding, it was due to incomplete pathfinding. The algorithms they used stopped working over time getting units trapped in loops. This was mostly not a problem in their testing until they tried using it on workers. They could not solve this issue and so simply had workers fly through each other when mining. However, over short distances and when given constantly refreshed commands ("spamming") the commands would loop back to the start point and not deteriorate. This was due to the fact that they intended the game to be squad based in nature, hence the control groups, where you controlled small armies to engage each other. They didn't realize Korea would say "fuck it, I'll play fast enough" that the bugs began to show (much like it showed when workers tried mining in clumps) The tactility that people talk about stem from the attempt to circumvent these bugs on a large scale while maintaining the blitz speed that they were now expected to keep. It should also be pointed out that BW was run on a "grid" and units could moved from "square" to "square". Two units couldn't "clump" like in SC2, because even when they were right next to each other, they couldn't "pack in". They cannot occupy the same space at the same time. The view in BW was much smaller as well, only being in 640/480. The whole game was in a much small space and everything worded within those constraints.
Mostly my problem with Day9's vod on it was that he was playing too safe and casual and did not properly explain just *what* is different. My head was dizzy the first time I realized just how massive the screen could get in SC2 compared to BW. I'll probably have something put together by next week since people keep talking about BW pathing and BW etc... without knowing *what* it means.
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On September 12 2013 05:15 EatThePath wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 01:02 lolfail9001 wrote:On September 12 2013 00:45 EatThePath wrote:On September 12 2013 00:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 15:24 EatThePath wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:On September 11 2013 07:38 NukeD wrote:
It was obvious from the WoL beta that unit clumping is the number one issuse SC2 has. I was actually shocked when I realised they have no intentions on changing it. I am convinced the game would instantly be 100% better if you made pathing the way it should have been (sort of like Maverick has made it in his SC2BW mod).
I mean for that reason alone I cant take the design team seriously (and Entomb was just the icing on the cake, but I guess some people could enjoy that), without getting into some other issues that whether they are a problem or not is debatable. Current pathing isnt debatable however. If you think pathing in SC2 is good you are plain wrong. And thats objective as it gets. I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. Any units are always more fun when things are more spread out, because the lower local dps allows you time for relevant micro decisions. There can be tactics evolving within an engagement, not just a dominos release of two armies meeting. There can be a lot of micro involved in clumped units as well. Whether units are clumped or not are arbitrary--but units have to be designed with that arbitration in mind. No matter how clumped or unclumped units are, RTS design remains the same. Cheap mobile units outflank slow strong units but are squished by expensive aoe units which can't manage slow strong units. The more transparent that trifecta is the more entertaining the game is. In a game like BW, unit design was damage based. Dragoons dealt full damage to large units, vultures dealt full damage to small units, etc... Which works in a game with spread out units since fights are closer to the 1v1 scale that the units were designed in. When units clump you can't have that dynamic which is why the +damage stats on units snowball. 1 maraduer compared to 1 stalker is very balanced. One is more mobile, one is more damaging, etc... They both have uses. But once you clump them up marauders hard counter stalkers so badly that it never feels fair. The reason it doesn't feel fair is that the units were designed with spread out 1v1 unit fights in mind and instead are put in a game where tight clumps allows focus fire to be easier instead of harder. (Try to focus fire with Dragoons in BW, that shit is hard! (Vultures are even tougher with the way they always wiggle a bit after stopping unless you use the hold command to stop and the patrol command to attack move)) When it is too easy to focus fire, don't give units such high damage potential. When the game is hard to focus fire in, give units high damage potential. One or the other. But yes, declumping unit pathing is also a valid change, but it would require as much reworking of units as keeping units clumped. I disagree for the simple reason that you can also clump your units by hand (like making a nice tight line of dragoons in BW). I can't really think of a single situation in SC2 that would be worse off with default unit clumping being reduced. Yes, the AoE spells wouldn't be as juicy but they don't have to be to be useful. At the highest level they serve as space control anyway. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines winning easily against double the supply of zerglings. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines losing to 10 burrowed banelings. It is double edged sword. The difference is there's nothing the zerglings can do to win. The marines can easily avoid dying to banelings like that.
A lot of zerg's wins vs protoss has come about due to zergling clump being difficult to stop with forcefields unless you're parti- *cough* I mean perfect.
The way mass zerglings play in SC2 is MUCH different than it was in BW and has lead to very very very brutal results in PvZ. There's a reason Zealots mostly suck even against zerglings.
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On September 12 2013 05:16 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 04:54 Plansix wrote:On September 12 2013 04:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 12 2013 04:21 archwaykitten wrote:
I wouldn't mind experimenting with less clumpy pathfinding provided my units still went where I told them to without getting lost. I definitely don't want a return to BW's broken pathfinding though. Similarly, I don't want to return to limited unit selection either. I'd much rather have clumped units than a user interface I have to constantly fight with.
I really need to write a blog about what Day9 was actually talking about when he tried to explain the tactility of BW. The "less clumpy" nature of BW was not due to bad pathfinding, it was due to incomplete pathfinding. The algorithms they used stopped working over time getting units trapped in loops. This was mostly not a problem in their testing until they tried using it on workers. They could not solve this issue and so simply had workers fly through each other when mining. However, over short distances and when given constantly refreshed commands ("spamming") the commands would loop back to the start point and not deteriorate. This was due to the fact that they intended the game to be squad based in nature, hence the control groups, where you controlled small armies to engage each other. They didn't realize Korea would say "fuck it, I'll play fast enough" that the bugs began to show (much like it showed when workers tried mining in clumps) The tactility that people talk about stem from the attempt to circumvent these bugs on a large scale while maintaining the blitz speed that they were now expected to keep. It should also be pointed out that BW was run on a "grid" and units could moved from "square" to "square". Two units couldn't "clump" like in SC2, because even when they were right next to each other, they couldn't "pack in". They cannot occupy the same space at the same time. The view in BW was much smaller as well, only being in 640/480. The whole game was in a much small space and everything worded within those constraints. Mostly my problem with Day9's vod on it was that he was playing too safe and casual and did not properly explain just *what* is different. My head was dizzy the first time I realized just how massive the screen could get in SC2 compared to BW. I'll probably have something put together by next week since people keep talking about BW pathing and BW etc... without knowing *what* it means.
Yeah, that is one of the biggest differences between SC2 and BW. I think I played BW on a 14 inch CRT, with a ball mouse. People really forget how far games have come in that amount of time and what has changed. The pathing is another issue that people just assume is a quick fix and would "solve everything", when it would likely just make some stuff super powered and other things suck.
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On September 12 2013 05:19 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2013 05:15 EatThePath wrote:On September 12 2013 01:02 lolfail9001 wrote:On September 12 2013 00:45 EatThePath wrote:On September 12 2013 00:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 15:24 EatThePath wrote:On September 11 2013 14:49 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 14:24 NukeD wrote:On September 11 2013 13:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:On September 11 2013 09:46 archwaykitten wrote:
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I dunno man. Unlike in BW, my units actually go where I tell them to in SC2 without getting lost along the way. That seems like pretty good pathing to me. He's not saying it doesn't work, he's saying its not entertaining. Now he thinks his opinion that it isn't entertaining is fact and not simply an opinion--which is the type of snide remark that sparks flame wars. But despite his snark, understand that he's trying to talk about visual appeal and not effectiveness of design or coding. I personally disagree with him that unit pathing is badly implemented in SC2, but I do agree that it has not been the *cause* of entertaining play. If AOE dps was upped so much that seige units became the norm and the game became about massive lines of aoe units not wanting to break the no man's land--then you'd get BW TvT and PvT where barracks units were pretty much never used. Ok yeah I did want to sound a bit dramatic because I am somewhat frustrated by past discussions on the topic of SC2 pathing. Mostly by people chategorically refusing to understand what you are trying to say and dissmising the idea of not clumpy pathing with simple remarks as "ye make SC2 even easier with no spread micro" or "no more marine vs baneling" etc. Ofcourse i am not talkin about the effectivness of the pathing in SC2. Its obviusly perfect at making the units do what you tell them to do. I am just saying, design wise however, its absolutelly abysmal (because of entertainment value if you will, but I mainly think of micro here as Rabiator explained previously). My main grip against the "spread out the units" movement is that its not asking for the Yang to its Ying. If we spread units out, we need to design the units to be fun when fighting spread units. But the same could be said about units being clumped, if we design units to be fun to watch when fighting armies both would lead to the same end result entertainment wise. Currently in SC2 it seems like half the units would be more entertaining if units were spread out and the other half are only interesting because the units clump. One or the other would be better. Any units are always more fun when things are more spread out, because the lower local dps allows you time for relevant micro decisions. There can be tactics evolving within an engagement, not just a dominos release of two armies meeting. There can be a lot of micro involved in clumped units as well. Whether units are clumped or not are arbitrary--but units have to be designed with that arbitration in mind. No matter how clumped or unclumped units are, RTS design remains the same. Cheap mobile units outflank slow strong units but are squished by expensive aoe units which can't manage slow strong units. The more transparent that trifecta is the more entertaining the game is. In a game like BW, unit design was damage based. Dragoons dealt full damage to large units, vultures dealt full damage to small units, etc... Which works in a game with spread out units since fights are closer to the 1v1 scale that the units were designed in. When units clump you can't have that dynamic which is why the +damage stats on units snowball. 1 maraduer compared to 1 stalker is very balanced. One is more mobile, one is more damaging, etc... They both have uses. But once you clump them up marauders hard counter stalkers so badly that it never feels fair. The reason it doesn't feel fair is that the units were designed with spread out 1v1 unit fights in mind and instead are put in a game where tight clumps allows focus fire to be easier instead of harder. (Try to focus fire with Dragoons in BW, that shit is hard! (Vultures are even tougher with the way they always wiggle a bit after stopping unless you use the hold command to stop and the patrol command to attack move)) When it is too easy to focus fire, don't give units such high damage potential. When the game is hard to focus fire in, give units high damage potential. One or the other. But yes, declumping unit pathing is also a valid change, but it would require as much reworking of units as keeping units clumped. I disagree for the simple reason that you can also clump your units by hand (like making a nice tight line of dragoons in BW). I can't really think of a single situation in SC2 that would be worse off with default unit clumping being reduced. Yes, the AoE spells wouldn't be as juicy but they don't have to be to be useful. At the highest level they serve as space control anyway. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines winning easily against double the supply of zerglings. The ability to move fluidly in a clump without effort causes degenerate situations like 100 stim marines losing to 10 burrowed banelings. It is double edged sword. The difference is there's nothing the zerglings can do to win. The marines can easily avoid dying to banelings like that. A lot of zerg's wins vs protoss has come about due to zergling clump being difficult to stop with forcefields unless you're parti- *cough* I mean perfect. The way mass zerglings play in SC2 is MUCH different than it was in BW and has lead to very very very brutal results in PvZ. There's a reason Zealots mostly suck even against zerglings.
Again, this is a "problem" with fluid clumpy movement. Perhaps it'd be better to say, "an arguably undesirable consequence of". + Show Spoiler +In the case of PvZ, there's no mineral sink unit that range dps's zerglings that scales well into the lategame for protoss to be including in their army. So the difference between okay and not okay is very stark. That said, it's okay to add zealots to your army if you see vast quantities of lings and this is more or less effective much of the time. As long as you're fighting lings and not watching them run into your mineral lines.
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EPT
