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We all know that the deathball problem is a flaw of sc2. Sadly, there has been no attempt made by Blizzard to address the issue since the release of the game three years ago. Considering the fact that SC2 is dying ( just joking), there is certainly a sense of urgency to try to attack the problem.
+ Show Spoiler +
Apparently, it would require some fundamental mechanism redesigns to solve the deathball problem. It cannot be done by doing small tweaks like buffing/nerfing the speed of a certain unit. It cannot be achieved without touching the pathing/collision+ Show Spoiler +Blog post about pathfinding in sc2: "Broodwar is obviously more dynamic and that SC2 is obviously more rigid."www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=429573
There are a few community projects which try to make a better sc2 by either tweaking the units' ablility/dps/range/speed or folking another game, such as:
Project Hub:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=388155
SC2BW:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=145316
However, I feel none of these attempt solve the real issue(or is aimed at solving it). I'm hoping someone could make a custom map or mod to redesign the mechanism and avoid the deathball (and make a better SC2).
+ Show Spoiler +What happens if sc2 units has less dps: IMBA LEAGUE - ALL UNITS DO HALF DAMAGE
Btw, there is a comprehensive article regarding the deathball problem on the Planetary Annihilation (I have no idea of this game) forum:
There Be Dragons: Slaying the Deathball
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/there-be-dragons-slaying-the-deathball.45056/
The author has some interesting ideas. Just to quote some:
-- Long range is the largest contributing factor to deathballs.Splash damage also frequently leads to deathballs.
-- Many RTS games are not even aware that having a single blob of units is an issue. Many RTS games take it as a matter of course that you keep your entire army together. These games rely on composition to create "strategy." ......The ideal composition of this deathball is indeed a complicated calculus depending on the relative strength of many options and strategies, but "standard play" deathballs will emerge in only a few days or weeks which will then be widely copied.
---The only way to actually slay the dragon and remove the deathball gameplay pathology entirely is to have all units in the game be less efficient to use in very large groups.
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I don't think deathball is playing as big of a role as you think it is lately.
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that was an amazing article. Thank you for mentioning it, the author definitely spent a lot of time to present the arguments in such a way.
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Hmm... I don't think Blizzard made no attempts at it, it's just that we haven't seen a radical one so far.
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I agree quite a bit with the guy and I believe he actually seems to know something about RTS/strategy/death balls. Definitely worth the read. Sadly, I don't think Blizzard would ever change SC2 as drastic as that. It would take a complete rework of so many units. Maybe something they could try to do for LotV? (Such optimism!)
And, I do wonder how that Planetary Annihilation game will turn out. I'd love to see a true competitive "real-time strategy" game.
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The deathball is fine as it is. With skill levels rising, we are progressively seeing more and more dynamic gameplay. Look at any match from <insert top 10 player>.
How many years did it take for BW to evolve? 7 years for iloveoov macro, 8 years for Zerg to be revolutionized.
SC2 has only been out for 2 years, which is NOTHING compared to the evolution of BW. Alas, we are all impatient and dismiss any faults we see without giving the game a chance to evolve on its own.
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On October 28 2013 16:10 Blargh wrote:
Maybe something they could try to do for LotV? (Such optimism!).
Thats what we said before HoTS wa released, kinda hopeless by now...
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On October 28 2013 16:16 flashimba wrote:
The deathball is fine as it is. With skill levels rising, we are progressively seeing more and more dynamic gameplay. Look at any match from <insert top 10 player>.
How many years did it take for BW to evolve? 7 years for iloveoov macro, 8 years for Zerg to be revolutionized.
SC2 has only been out for 2 years, which is NOTHING compared to the evolution of BW. Alas, we are all impatient and dismiss any faults we see without giving the game a chance to evolve on its own.
A game like Chess can never evolve into Football, not even in a million years. The problem lies in the fundamental mechanism, not in the units/maps/players.
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On October 28 2013 16:16 flashimba wrote:
The deathball is fine as it is. With skill levels rising, we are progressively seeing more and more dynamic gameplay. Look at any match from <insert top 10 player>.
How many years did it take for BW to evolve? 7 years for iloveoov macro, 8 years for Zerg to be revolutionized.
SC2 has only been out for 2 years, which is NOTHING compared to the evolution of BW. Alas, we are all impatient and dismiss any faults we see without giving the game a chance to evolve on its own.
That was different. In 8 years we wont even have that many people playing sc2 at this rate. BW was rising in korea due to the recession -> pc bang and whatnot. Sc2 on the other hand is losing viewers and players.
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nice read, quite interesting.
i don't really agree with the part making units even lower hp though, sc2 fights already end fast enough. they should make them deal less damage and cost less supply, and increase the supply cap instead.
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more aoe dps would fix this. like tanks do 70, colossi 35, banes 70.
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didnt someone link the point about the nature of ranged combat as the problem. when 10 ranged units meet 8 ranged units it doesnt end with 10-8 but instead its something like 10-2 or something that causes the more numerous long ranged guys to survive more or less in tact while annihilating the other group completely.
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On October 28 2013 16:16 flashimba wrote:
The deathball is fine as it is. With skill levels rising, we are progressively seeing more and more dynamic gameplay. Look at any match from <insert top 10 player>.
How many years did it take for BW to evolve? 7 years for iloveoov macro, 8 years for Zerg to be revolutionized.
SC2 has only been out for 2 years, which is NOTHING compared to the evolution of BW. Alas, we are all impatient and dismiss any faults we see without giving the game a chance to evolve on its own.
I don't think that games are better now than they were in 2010-11 skillwise. The builds are more refined and players have deeper knowledge of all the strategic nuances, but they're not any more skilled than they were back in the day.
The game simply doesn't reward high-octane, high skill requirement plays - and more than often ends up punishing them for the smallest of mistakes. It's more of a flashy thing that ultimately doesn't have a lot of impact on the outcome of the game. You can have godly execution, but make one bad decision or misjudge the situation for a minute, and the player who was being taken to school all game long will suddenly get the correct composition and poop all over you. Yawn.
The game will never evolve to the point of rewarding skill based plays, because it was not designed that way.
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Heh, this again. Actually Blizzard did try to address this problem with HoTS through widow mines and oracles (not that they really succeeded), so what you state there in OP is blatantly wrong.
But a nice article that you linked there.
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Do you think it is possible to block unit from shooting through each other with the map editor?
It would kill any deathbally play right there, phenomenally increase the skill level, and also probably turn zealots and lings imba :p
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I don't think we absolutely must have a fundamental reworking of the starcraft 2 engine in order to eliminate the deathball. While I agree that these inherent issues exist, Blizzard is unlikely to remake things from the ground up, and I think we can and should focus on ways to tweak things via additions or small patches.
The critical point to be considered is that deathballs will not be used if there is some other, possibly more efficient, way to play. To get this we really only need 2 things.
1. There needs to be some sort of unit that has great capacity for winning small engagements but scales poorly.
2. There should be some way for a suitably positioned/entrenched/composed smaller force to fight reasonably efficiently versus a larger force or "deathball"
Concerning 1: The idea of decreasing marginal utility is brought up in the article and is central to rts gameplay. Ideally, for every unit type, having x number of said unit should be good, but having 2x should be less than twice as good. Melee units, or short range units, naturally tend to follow this as it becomes progressively harder for them too all attack at once as there are more of them. However, this is not the only way to accomplish this. Removing smart targeting from units with large damage and low rate of fire also helps. Players know that these units require manual targeting to be most efficient, but the more of them there are the harder that is to do. Both players can then work to take advantage of this. (i.e. stopping certain units from firing while others do to prevent overkill, or purposely trying to force overkill on a single unit) This example of removing smart targeting is part of a more general concept of units that require a great deal of control or attention in order to perform optimally. Such units can be allowed to have extremely high optimal performance, meaning that small numbers of them can accomplish a great deal, because players will find it increasingly hard to use many of them at once.
Further, these sort of units can discourage "deathball" play even without nerfing the existing "deathball." If these sort of units have the potential to inflict great damage early on in small scale engagements, players will tend to produce them knowing they can injure an opponent going for a "deathball" sufficiently so that they can win through economic advantage later. (Maru makes a great case for mmm as this type of unit. He tends to win games by forcing many small engagements with these efficient forces and then hopes to defeat the eventual deathball by just having more stuff rather than having his own deathball with ghosts and vikings)
Concerning 2: This is often discussed as defenders advantage. If it is possible for a slightly smaller force to defeat a larger force when suitably prepared, then it allows players to set up these minimal supply defenses will also commiting some supply elsewhere on the map (hopefully to aggression of their own) However, identifying this with defenders advantage is too narrowly defining it. Widow mines and burrowed banelings also can fall into this category. They are units which have the potential to inflict casualties greater than their own worth even in the field away from a defensive position. This actually produces better gameplay than giving too strong a defenders advantage which can encourage players not to split for multiple attacks for fear of losing at each point due to defenders advantage, thus encouraging deathball play again. High templars with storm can also fall into this category as they allow a small force to, if not defeat, at least significantly wound larger forces while their effectiveness goes down when facing small groups of units.
Additionally, a point which the author of this article passes by rather quickly, but which I think can be quite helpful is the presence of cheap, easily replaced forces. Having easily replaced forces encourages the use of said forces in engagements where losses can be taken. There should be a real decision concerning taking casualties for the chance to inflict damage in other ways. Losing a small force in order to take out a new mining base or specific tech structure should be an option to be weighed. Too often we see players do this only to lose the game shortly after because their opponent just all ins with their temporary army advantage. This has to do with the efficiency of the deathball as well. The idea being that having the army advantage isn't actually a temporary situation because you can simply force engagements repeatedly, and each will be extremely efficient and leave you with a still greater army advantage.
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Im like a broken record here but im gonna say it anyways. Pathing. Fix the damn pathing.
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still dont know why ppl make such threads when it's not even the final version of SC2
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Very interesting reads! One point in particular that got me thinking was this:
So, what causes a deathball to be the best approach? Simply put, a deathball results when a force can stack DPS sufficient to prevent itself from sustaining casualties. Long range is the largest contributing factor to deathballs. Long range units in sufficient numbers can stack together and kill enemies forces of arbitrary size before they close to range to deal any damage. Splash damage also frequently leads to deathballs because increasing numbers of splash sources start to overlap in higher density, and allow increasingly tougher targets to be wiped out in large numbers.
However, looking at Brood War, many of the splash damage units were not actually splash damage units in a mobile deathball. The Siege Tank could not dish out splash damage while moving, so it was useless in a moving deathball. The Lurker could not attack at all unless buried, so it was useless in a moving deathball. The Reaver - well, you wouldn't want to have that unit in the middle of your deathball and you wouldn't want to have it too exposed either. So Brood War had several mechanics that (perhaps accidentally) made the splash damage units pretty worthless in deathballs. I find that interesting 
I don't mean to make any implicit arguments about SC2 with this, though, I just wanted to point out something I found interesting after reading the blog and post.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HFFwNQ4.jpg)
