To recap why we would want auto spreading during movement:

- unit movement looks more natural
- area of effect spells can be more powerful without instantly killing everything
- higher defender's advantage as an advancing army has difficulty engaging with all units at once
- less snowballing of large size armies versus smaller ones, because the bigger army can't engage with all units at once
- terrain obstacles might matter more

I don't think the effects are going to be that noticeable, it's only a small change to the unit movement, but I think every little bit helps.

Autospreading while idle has some nice consequences, but personally I find it really annoying that whenever I want to click on a zergling it somehow jumps away from my mouse cursor.

Xiphias

Norway2223 Posts

March 26 2014 12:12 GMT

#5504

Thanks for feedback, hopefully playing the test-map will be enjoyable.

Also, I cast another game, forgot to add that:

The VOD seems to only play on youtube and not in the thread for some reason.

The "allow embed" is checked so this is a bit odd.

Grumbels

Netherlands7032 Posts

March 26 2014 12:26 GMT

#5505

On March 25 2014 06:26 Grumbels wrote:
Someone on reddit found an article on Starcraft's development.
+ Show Spoiler +

I thought it was curious that Blizzard thought about giving each race a different unit selection limit and that apparently you could select multiple buildings at once. I think it's more evidence for the idea that the BW interface choices were deliberate and not simply forced due to technological limitations.

Deleted User 97295

1137 Posts

March 26 2014 12:42 GMT

#5506

--- Nuked ---

Xiphias

Norway2223 Posts

March 26 2014 13:20 GMT

#5507

On March 26 2014 21:42 Laertes wrote:
I feel like we should be updating the main game with the new pathing soon, since many people seem to like it better than the idle spread.

That's the plan, but we'll let people test it out some more first. Give it a day or so.

Foxxan

Sweden3427 Posts

March 26 2014 13:32 GMT

#5508

On March 26 2014 20:12 labbe wrote:
^hate the autospread as well

EDIT: The autospread while standing still that is

Yes. To be more clear, the autospread while standing still for me to

Big J

Austria16289 Posts

March 26 2014 13:54 GMT

#5509

new pathing looks great. Question: How far do units spread with it?
Vultures... no clue what has changed

IPS.Blue

Germany309 Posts

March 26 2014 16:38 GMT

#5510

On March 25 2014 23:11 Weerwolf wrote:
Yeah, Im one of them. SC2 sucked all the will to play out of me, but I watch Starbow at Psy and twitch almost daily.

Same here. Just played my first game, though, and it was lots of fun.

AnteZ

Germany29 Posts

March 26 2014 17:19 GMT

#5511

Ah nice I have been looking forward to this. My dissatisfaction with the idle autospread was the reason I tinkered around with the unit pathing in the first place so obviously I want to see this implemented in the main mod aswell :-)
My only concern is that the spreading while moving currently implemented might be TOO subtle to change the way we control our armies. It would be great if the pathfinding influenced the stragegies and tactics used in the game. Like in Broodwar (Allegedly. I never player bw much)

The_Red_Viper

19533 Posts

March 26 2014 17:34 GMT

#5512

On March 27 2014 02:19 AnteZ wrote:
Ah nice I have been looking forward to this. My dissatisfaction with the idle autospread was the reason I tinkered around with the unit pathing in the first place so obviously I want to see this implemented in the main mod aswell :-)
My only concern is that the spreading while moving currently implemented might be TOO subtle to change the way we control our armies. It would be great if the pathfinding influenced the stragegies and tactics used in the game. Like in Broodwar (Allegedly. I never player bw much)

Yeah i agree, this doesn't look like it would change much

Xiphias

Norway2223 Posts

March 26 2014 17:47 GMT

#5513

I've seen versions of this where the unit spread is more noticable and "bigger" (if that makes sense).

I am also a tad concerned that this unit spread might not be enough.

If the units were forced to spread out more it may affect micro and just look very forced. That is my concern in that direction, but maybe the Dec Wiz can deliver.

decemberscalm

United States1353 Posts

March 26 2014 17:49 GMT

#5514

It is a minimal effect, the greatest amount of benefit is just on aesthetics. I was trying to be as little invasive as possible. We actually used to have a heavier, more impactful pathing but found that high level players were annoyed by it. This pathfinding is the most natural and easy to accept pathfinding I've had the opportunity of playing around with so far.
I myself would actually prefer a straight up clone of BW pathfinding and micro hopefully with some awkward bugs removed like units getting stuck places. It was just so nice and defined compared to SC2s super floaty micro and pathfinding. But I realize that a lot of people would be turned off by it in practice.

Major props to Antez for the vulture. I did tweak it a tiny bit to make sure it only activates the pre-empted move command when travelling at least 3 speed. A barely moving vulture would move some distance right in front of him which was kind of odd.

Weird editor stuff:
You can do a sort of moving shot, even with a hellion (given accel and decel). It required a move command to the target, and then a qued attack command right after. It'll slide into its target. Qued move commands seem to completely ignore decel so use that for muta movement at small distances. I believe a unit will slide into its target because he takes a tiny bit of time to acquire the target and keeps moving past the attack command point.

Edit:Here is what a larger effect size might look like. Notice smaller units derp when they are given a bigger effect.

I think the best solution might be a large effect for large units and a medium effect for smaller units.

tehredbanditt

103 Posts

March 26 2014 18:29 GMT

#5515

I know this is a tough subject, and I don't remember if was even possible to do, but a possible reduction on max unit select could make for a more visually appealing game (especially in regards to late game armies). It could even be a large unit selection number (around 20, or 40ish?).

Xiphias

Norway2223 Posts

March 26 2014 18:40 GMT

#5516

On March 27 2014 03:29 tehredbanditt wrote:
I know this is a tough subject, and I don't remember if was even possible to do, but a possible reduction on max unit select could make for a more visually appealing game (especially in regards to late game armies). It could even be a large unit selection number (around 20, or 40ish?).

There is no stable way of limited until selection in editor atm. yes SC2BW has it, but it is not an ideal solution it terms of editor work. Nothing to do with design nor balance.

Grumbels

Netherlands7032 Posts

March 26 2014 18:47 GMT

#5517

On March 27 2014 03:40 Xiphias wrote:

Show nested quote +

There is no stable way of limited until selection in editor atm. yes SC2BW has it, but it is not an ideal solution it terms of editor work. Nothing to do with design nor balance.

I recall that someone (you?) had a conversation with Blizzard where they said this might happen in the future? (it's rather odd the editor is restricted in this tbh, so I can see why Blizzard would want to change it from their perspective as well)

Personally I'd love a 24 unit selection limit, although it would be controversial. It's like all of a sudden you would have to take the bicycle to work instead of the car, maybe it has advantages (exercise), but you'd be annoyed at first.

Xiphias

Norway2223 Posts

March 26 2014 19:12 GMT

#5518

I did speak to blizzard, and we did speak of many bugs and potential changes (carrier for example), but I did not mention this one. I can mention it I guess.

Problem is that even if they go through a lot of work and make this possible to edit easily we are still not sure if we want to use it.

MTAC

103 Posts

March 26 2014 22:02 GMT

#5519

IMO, I'd like to see the large effect coming into play.

I don't play anymore, nor watch SC2. But thx to Starbow, I've watch some streams/VOD lately and if the large effect get it through, I think it'll be very interesting.

If pro/semi-pro have an hard time with it, I dont think it's a problem. In BW, people get over it and provided some great micro / unit management, so all in all I don't think it'll be bad, especially since even with that spread, it won't be as hard as BW to control your unit.

Most importantly it bring a LOTS of unit control, even off the fights.

- A fight will have to be prepared far before it even start, by spam-click like on the video or by rearranging your army after the movements / before the attack.
- Forcing multitask from your opponent make a moving army more vulnerable, as it'll spread itself. No as in SC2 (baneling/tank/storm boum! pouf....) but by giving you the ability to kill the front/back line of an army more easily. Encouraging more multitask and small fights btw.
- a small group of unit is far less impacted by this. Therefore the encouraging the action-packed game we'd like.

By watching the small spread, I agree with some others when they say it's more a "style" thing than a real gameplay one, while the second one is far more impacting.

I may be wrong, but I hope that as soon as the first spread is adopted, you'll open a test map with the large one.

Zaphod Beeblebrox

Denmark697 Posts

March 26 2014 22:40 GMT

#5520

I like the results the large effect get, but not how it look for small units.
Maybe make the movement trigger less harsh for smaller units so they spread out slower, but has the same potential spread from the effect?