I just happened to find some weird unit behavior that I thought might interest some of you. So basically if you move command (right click) with an army unit (not happening with workers) on another friendly unit, it will run to that unit no matter whether there are enemy units around any of the units as you would probably expect when rightclicking. However if the moving unit gets close to the unit you right-clicked on, at a given radius, the moving unit changes into attack mode and will not finish its move command but rather attack anything inside its aggro radius, if there is an enemy unit inside the moving unit's aggro radius. It neither changes the attack priority (units that can attack you are attacked first etc.), nor does it work with just enemy buildings in its radius.
The question though is why that is the case or rather why Blizzard would implement such a behavior, as I assume that it's not a bug. If you're in a fight the only reason to move command that comes to my mind right now is to stutter step forward. But if you do that, you want your units to actually move and not switch back into attack mode right away, as you could've just a-moved then. Now the situation where I found out about this might seem very special, but it was actually costing me quite a lot. I ran into my opponents mineral line with just 1 zergling surviving and 2 banelings trailing behind and my opponent had a queen sitting on the far side of the mineral line at the hatchery. Now I wanted to walk into my opponents mineral line with my banelings but accidently right-clicked onto my zergling. If my banelings would've just finished their move command, that would not have mattered as I would then let them explode on drones. But after walking towards the zergling for just a second they turned around and subsequently attack moved into the queen doing pretty much nothing and ignoring their initial command I gave them.
So while this is a very specific scenario, it can happen and leads to very unintuitive behavior. I see that it might save you from losing a battle stupidly, but the only real reason to use move command inside a fight as mentioned before is if you actually want to walk forward, so it doesn't help there either. It can also keep you from microing away from your opponent since if you want to right click a damaged unit back and you accidently right click on one of your units standing behind, the microed unit will actually not change anything at all and just continue attacking.
I hope it's new and interesting for at least some of you, as I've been playing SC2 for a long time and never encountered this before or at least never realized. If I overlook like a huge advantage of that behavior (besides maybe on really low level when people.... right click their whole army on own units in fights and don't realize it???) please let me know.
Maybe I wasn't clear with that. As I said I've been playing SC2 for a long time and never realized that, maybe it is even new with LotV? I'm asking for reasons why such behavior would be wanted over the intuitive behavior of the unit just fullfilling its command. If you don't see material for discussion I guess it will just be informative for people who are interested. Like "99% useless facts" style I guess.
Maybe I'll just add some gifs/videos/pictures later if possible so it'll be easier to comprehend.
On June 23 2016 01:19 Obsi wrote: The question though is why that is the case or rather why Blizzard would implement such a behavior, as I assume that it's not a bug.
AFAIK it's always worked like this. These are the same actions that are taken by units rallied to another unit (for instance a group of phoenixes rallied to the first phoenix which you produced).
The "attacks enemies when inside its radius" thing when they "don't attack enemy buildings" is just a matter of the "move to X unit" implementation: units will "defend" (by shooting units) when they're within a certain range, but will never go "aggressive" (by attacking buildings).
All I can say, with regards to the baneling scenario is to be careful where you click -- typically you'd click behind the arriving zerglings so that your units will move towards the point you want, but you'll not have to worry about clicking on your own lings (similar to clicking beyond workers with banelings so that they don't all try to explode on a particular one, then explode by proxy when their target is dead yet other things are in range).
", it will run to that unit no matter whether there are enemy units around any of the units as you would probably expect when rightclicking. However if the moving unit gets close to the unit you right-clicked on, at a given radius, the moving unit changes into attack mode and will not finish its move command"
On June 23 2016 02:21 Dumbledore wrote: ", it will run to that unit no matter whether there are enemy units around any of the units as you would probably expect when rightclicking. However if the moving unit gets close to the unit you right-clicked on, at a given radius, the moving unit changes into attack mode and will not finish its move command"
You are contradicting yourself :S
I am considering the scenario where you click on another unit of yours from either further away than that radius or in an environment where there are no enemy units around. Though I didn't specify that beforehand it should be clear by the end of the next sentence. That's also why the sentence starts with "however". Sorry for writing it badly, I tried to build a picture here. Imagine just rightclicking one of your units and what you'd expect, if you didn't knowing about the following.
On June 23 2016 01:19 Obsi wrote: The question though is why that is the case or rather why Blizzard would implement such a behavior, as I assume that it's not a bug.
AFAIK it's always worked like this. These are the same actions that are taken by units rallied to another unit (for instance a group of phoenixes rallied to the first phoenix which you produced).
The "attacks enemies when inside its radius" thing when they "don't attack enemy buildings" is just a matter of the "move to X unit" implementation: units will "defend" (by shooting units) when they're within a certain range, but will never go "aggressive" (by attacking buildings).
All I can say, with regards to the baneling scenario is to be careful where you click -- typically you'd click behind the arriving zerglings so that your units will move towards the point you want, but you'll not have to worry about clicking on your own lings (similar to clicking beyond workers with banelings so that they don't all try to explode on a particular one, then explode by proxy when their target is dead yet other things are in range).
The problem is that I had the banelings and ling in the same hotkey and I rightclicked like twice I guess. But since the ling was already very close to where I rightclicked by the time I rightclicked the second time it was already there so I actually clicked on the zergling. Thanks for pointing out that this has always been the case. But still, where's the point in that? The upside seems very small. Since Blizzard always wanted "intuivity", that seems like a weird decision.
On June 23 2016 02:21 Dumbledore wrote: ", it will run to that unit no matter whether there are enemy units around any of the units as you would probably expect when rightclicking. However if the moving unit gets close to the unit you right-clicked on, at a given radius, the moving unit changes into attack mode and will not finish its move command"
You are contradicting yourself :S
Hes not really contradicting himself. Hes just pointing out that the unit acts differently depending on if there is an opponent's unit in the area.
Thanks, haven't seen that post before, sorry. At least it confirms what I found. Though there is no real discussion going on it seems the general consensus is that it's doing more bad then good? Sad the thread didn't make it big enough for Blizzard to do sth about it or maybe they just don't care or actually think it's a good "feature". I don't know, but I don't think it's doing good and it's counterintuitive anyways.
On June 23 2016 03:06 Obsi wrote: Thanks for pointing out that this has always been the case. But still, where's the point in that? The upside seems very small. Since Blizzard always wanted "intuivity", that seems like a weird decision.
It's mostly for the rally-point, I suspect.
So, if you rally a bunch of marines to a tank (say), then units get close to the tank, which of these responses would you prefer from arriving marines?
1 - Do nothing, but continue moving to the tank (strictest move-command logic) 2 - Realize there's enemies in range, and shoot them (current logic) 3 - Realize there's enemies in range and a floating building and shoot whichever is closer / has higher threat-detection (probably "best" logic by most people's reckoning) 4 - Shoot everything along the way (_not_ acceptable according to the move-command rally point, to most people)
Personally, I'm not really sure why it's not 3, but neither 1 nor 4 would make me happy -- if we have only move-command rally-points.
What would make sense would be if:
- rally-points worked on 3 OR - attack-move rally command was available which worked on 4 and the move-command rally point worked on 1 (or 3)
AND - move-commands to units worked according to 1
AFAIK there's no really good logic to why move-commanded units don't attack buildings. Other than that, it's all interface improvement wishes, tbh.
This has been the way move worked as long as I can remember, certainly since WOL. Think of it as "move" changing to "guard" when used on a friendly unit; the guarding unit will attempt to move to the unit it guards and then attack anything (including buildings) in range that it can, as long as that unit is attacking. If the unit is moving without an attack command then the guarding unit will only move too. The behavior of the followed unit determines the behavior of the following unit.
I've made a video where I explain how the follow order works.
The follow order makes a unit essentially protect another unit. But the defender only attacks units when the defender is within a certain distance of the protected unit. The distance is 6. Also, the order of the protected unit is important. The defender will only attack when the protected unit is not on move command (so stop, hold position, patrol, attack, harvest will all make the defender attack, only the move order will prevent the defender from attacking enemies).
On June 23 2016 04:59 Xsyq wrote: This has been the way move worked as long as I can remember, certainly since WOL. Think of it as "move" changing to "guard" when used on a friendly unit; the guarding unit will attempt to move to the unit it guards and then attack anything (including buildings) in range that it can, as long as that unit is attacking. If the unit is moving without an attack command then the guarding unit will only move too. The behavior of the followed unit determines the behavior of the following unit.
No it wasn't, I'm pretty sure. It started doing that since mid hots I think. And it pisses me off. It happens like at least 2-3 times per day, and that's exactly why I'm losing more games than I should have.
Thanks, haven't seen that post before, sorry. At least it confirms what I found. Though there is no real discussion going on it seems the general consensus is that it's doing more bad then good? Sad the thread didn't make it big enough for Blizzard to do sth about it or maybe they just don't care or actually think it's a good "feature". I don't know, but I don't think it's doing good and it's counterintuitive anyways.
I was searching for that post and yeah, it's bad as you can guess. Definitely annoying. Especially in ZvZ in lings / banes war, where sometimes I want my queens to move near the minerals. But more often than not, it doesn't move at all because I right clicked a drone. Or when I tell my queen to move back near a spore when there are phoenix. Lost way too much queens because of that sh.t and I'm pretty sure it didn't behave like that in WoL.
I guess Blizz doesn't want to change it because there are players that like to move out with their queens and ultras (for example) and right click whatever unit they have in their army. Definitely something I don't like, but may not be as annoying as you'd think for the others players.
On June 23 2016 04:59 Xsyq wrote: This has been the way move worked as long as I can remember, certainly since WOL. Think of it as "move" changing to "guard" when used on a friendly unit; the guarding unit will attempt to move to the unit it guards and then attack anything (including buildings) in range that it can, as long as that unit is attacking. If the unit is moving without an attack command then the guarding unit will only move too. The behavior of the followed unit determines the behavior of the following unit.
No it wasn't, I'm pretty sure. It started doing that since mid hots I think. And it pisses me off. It happens like at least 2-3 times per day, and that's exactly why I'm losing more games than I should have.
I'm curious then, how did move work according to you before they changed it? Because it's always done this as long as I can remember.
EPT
