EPTAddress the Deathball problem in SC2? - Page 2
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TaShadan
Germany1981 Posts
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Emuking
United States144 Posts
On October 28 2013 17:08 iMAniaC wrote: Very interesting reads! One point in particular that got me thinking was this: 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. I think its also interesting that siege tanks, lurkers and scarabs shots could be wasted by either shooting at the same target at the same time causing overkill aka wasted shots. they could also straight up miss. compare THAT to the splash in sc2 | ||
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Cheren
United States2911 Posts
On October 28 2013 15:53 Pandain wrote: I don't think deathball is playing as big of a role as you think it is lately. Same, there were very few deathball games at WCS. | ||
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Tobblish
Sweden6404 Posts
On October 28 2013 17:47 Cheren wrote: Same, there were very few deathball games at WCS. It changes a lot with what kind of style players got, it's much more common in foreigner games since they aren't as aggressive in their play style. I was very surprised with how awesome the games was this WCS Finals every game had fights happening constantly. | ||
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Squat
Sweden7978 Posts
On October 28 2013 17:05 NexCa wrote: still dont know why ppl make such threads when it's not even the final version of SC2 Because it basically is? LotV adds a few more units, nerfs some things, buffs some things, and the inherent structural problems of the game remain firmly lodged right where they are. Unless Blizzard are finally wiling to reconsider sacred cows like FF/warp gate/terrible terrible damage/moronic units like colossus and swarm host etc, then this changes...well nothing. The deathball will exist as long as there are not enough positionally powerfully units that discourage attacking into a defended position even against a smaller force and as long as 3-base capped eco allows and easy and safe turtle to 200/200. LotV is not going to address any of this unless it is vastly different in nature from HotS. | ||
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hiro protagonist
1294 Posts
makes me want to play a SC2 game with a 12 unit max group to see if theres anything to my theory crafting... | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
Game design that forces players to control smaller groups of units will certainly help but I think this will solve itself given enough time. | ||
iHirO
United Kingdom1381 Posts
That was a really well articulated argument, thanks for the link. | ||
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TaShadan
Germany1981 Posts
On October 28 2013 17:37 Emuking wrote: I think its also interesting that siege tanks, lurkers and scarabs shots could be wasted by either shooting at the same target at the same time causing overkill aka wasted shots. they could also straight up miss. compare THAT to the splash in sc2 True overkill is another thing. SC2 has hardly any overkill because of units targeting AI right? | ||
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
In StarCraft 2 if your army is at home it will probably win due to shorter supply lines, if it isn't at home and you're being assaulted there ARE NO DELAY TACTICS you can use for your army to arrive home, your only play becomes assaulting their now undefended main base, e.g. a base trade. What do I mean there's no delay tactics? I mean there's nothing you can do to prevent the enemy from crushing your workers and any contingent military forces in the vicinity before your main army arrives. If units had high hp and relatively low damage you would have a lot more opportunity to keep your base in tact, and base trading with death balls wouldn't be your only play. It goes back to the subject of defender's advantage in buying time to counter the deathball. I miss defender's advantage in this game now that BW is experiencing somewhat of a revival and the difference in strategy is obvious between the two games. | ||
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Aunvilgod
2653 Posts
On October 28 2013 15:53 Pandain wrote: I don't think deathball is playing as big of a role as you think it is lately. Depends on the matchup, really. I think in PvZ and PvP it can still be improved. | ||
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monomo
Germany150 Posts
We are kind of complaining on a high level - that series was action packed and full of multi pronged harass; even though most games were ended by a Deathball style attack, the things leading up to it were great entertainment AND really good play. tl;dr I don't think this is a problem | ||
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crappen
Norway1546 Posts
On October 28 2013 18:47 monomo wrote: Really, though, watching maru vs dear and severeal other series in the last few months makes me put things iunto perspective. We are kind of complaining on a high level - that series was action packed and full of multi pronged harass; even though most games were ended by a Deathball style attack, the things leading up to it were great entertainment AND really good play. tl;dr I don't think this is a problem That is the problem for me, the anticlimax, the punch in the face. The game just ended with one army just rolling over the other in matter of seconds. This was such a huge let down :s | ||
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Talin
Montenegro10532 Posts
On October 28 2013 18:47 monomo wrote: We are kind of complaining on a high level - that series was action packed and full of multi pronged harass; even though most games were ended by a Deathball style attack, the things leading up to it were great entertainment AND really good play. But the things "leading up to it" need to be more influential in terms of match outcome. In their g1 it turns out that all the fast paced action was pretty much just for show, but in the end it was large-scale decision making that determined the end result. Besides, how many games on average contain that much action anyway? Generally very few, and only a few players choose to initiate that kind of tempo due to stylistic preferences. And they get punished for it all the time. The game is actively discouraging players from doing that, because playing slow and solid with good scouting and positional awareness is always going to win no matter what (often times it's even a simple build order win). IMO, players like MMA, DRG, Hero, MKP played much better Starcraft earlier in their careers, a year or longer ago, but the game forced them to temper their playstyle in order to actually keep up with results and make money. How many times have these players done incredible things all over the map, but it just wasn't enough, and then they get punished for one or two decisions and stomped by an ideal army composition of their opponent? It should natural for the game to reward the kind of plays that gets spectators excited and that's actually satisfying for players to execute in the game, things that actually feel "good". But what we have is almost the exact opposite, where the only real purpose of those plays is being flashy and showing off, while the game is decided almost entirely by decision making and risk management. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On October 28 2013 16:03 Mahanaim wrote: Hmm... I don't think Blizzard made no attempts at it, it's just that we haven't seen a radical one so far. Blizzard didnt understand the reasoning behind "dynamic unit movement" (1) ... so they did NOT make any attempt to fix the pathing from "perfectly boring" to "unpredictable with required micro and thus exciting". Unit density is at the heart of the problem and behind that we have - pathing and and unit selection plus - economy/(over)production as the real culprits which are sooo deep in the SC2 mechanics that Blizzard cant just "fiddle with some numbers" to fix the problem. They wont do it because it would admit that they screwed up big time AND because it will be a lot of work. Oh and in one interview from last year (from their tournament in China) Dustin Browder said that "the players WANT their units to clump up" ... which is pretty ridiculous. (1) No fix to clumpy unit movement - Blizzards reply to dynamic unit movement ---- BW had a huge advantage over SC2 in its pathing and unit selection, because that made the game easier for casuals. In SC2 the pathing is "perfect" and the unit selection is unlimited and thus any attacking casual player will have maximum efficiency. This requires the defending casual player to have equally "superb" reactions to counter the threat ... and that isnt the case, which makes losing a game as a casual in SC2 absolutely not fun. In BW the attacker had to control several groups of units AND "force them into a good position", which is something a casual could only do so-so ... which gave the defending casual ample time to react with his mediocre skills. For professionals there isnt really a difference between the games, they can use armies and defend against them with the required reaction speed ... | ||
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Salient
United States876 Posts
On October 28 2013 17:02 NukeD wrote: Im like a broken record here but im gonna say it anyways. Pathing. Fix the damn pathing. Correct. Units should not squeeze together so tightly (e.g. 15 voids on top of each other, 30 mutas in a space that should hold 3, or a marine blob). There sbould be a small exclusion zone around each unit to prevent absurd and unrealistic levels of unit packing. That would keep deathball DPS in check. Also, it would fix silly problems like when 2 stacked muta packs encounter each other and it is impossible to tell who has more mutas before the fight. | ||
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MyrMindservant
695 Posts
Everyone should also read one of the responses in that thread: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/there-be-dragons-slaying-the-deathball.45056/#post-700220 It addresses some mistakes/misconceptions made by the author of that article. To people writing "just add more/stronger AOE damage", this is not a solution per se. As was stated in the linked article AOE damage can also encourage deathballs. To deal with this you need particular sources of splash damage that would not scale well with numbers or be useful in mobile deathball itself. iMAniaC did mention this at the previous page. And dethballing IS a problem in SC2. This was mentioned countless times by different people in different threads at this very forum. No metagame shifts can change this. The game itself encourages it. Also see Talin's post above. | ||
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S1eth
Austria221 Posts
On October 28 2013 20:19 Salient wrote: Correct. Units should not squeeze together so tightly (e.g. 15 voids on top of each other, 30 mutas in a space that should hold 3, or a marine blob). There sbould be a small exclusion zone around each unit to prevent absurd and unrealistic levels of unit packing. That would keep deathball DPS in check. Also, it would fix silly problems like when 2 stacked muta packs encounter each other and it is impossible to tell who has more mutas before the fight. The fans/players would lynch Blizzard if they removed mutastacking. | ||
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Fus
Sweden1112 Posts
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Grumbels
Netherlands7032 Posts
On October 28 2013 17:47 Cheren wrote: Same, there were very few deathball games at WCS. I don't even know how it is considered acceptable that after over three years of development of the game, which is incomparable to the same time period in Brood War's history because of improved knowledge, dedication, organization, that we are finally seeing less death ball play in some match-ups only at the very top level. This from the same community that wants a foreigner only WCS NA/EU, shouldn't we want the potential for interesting games on all levels of play? | ||
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