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Keeping with the new Starcraft 2 Forum Style, I thought a topic should also be created to discuss smartcasting in starcraft 2.
To start with.
Smartcasting and Autocasting are 2 seperate things.
Autocasting is where a unit will use an ability or spell, without the players input.
Smartcasting is where if a spell is ordered to a group of units, only 1 will follow out that order instead of the whole group.
Smartcasting seems to be flying under the radar underneath the massive MBS argument, however I know there are mixed opinions about smartcasting, and I think that if blizzard is reading these forums, they should know our stance on the subject.
Now I can see why blizzard would implement smartcasting, it is an easier way of controlling your spellcasting units and maximising their efficiency. However there are drawbacks that come with the system that I would rather did not exist in starcraft 2.
Skill - Ok, well this is pretty straight forward. It takes more skill to effectively control your spellcasters if there is no smartcasting. Less skill means less areas for a player to prove that he is better than another. It lowers the skill gap which is bad for competition.
Requires weakening of spellcasters - In starcraft, spells were major game changers. Spells such as Psi Storm, or Irradiate were feared by zerg due to the ability to the sheer damage that they were able to inflict on your forces. What limited this damage from being overpowered was the relative difficulty to use a spellcaster effectively.
Smartcasting seeks to change this, making the use of spellcasters much easier. If spellcasters are easier to use, then their relative strength will have to be diminished so they are not overpowered. This can be done in a number of ways:
Spellcasters can be made more expensive,
their spells can be made more mana costly,
the effects of the spells could be diminished
With the first two methods, the downside would be spellcasters losing part of their role as an investment unit. Currently spellcasters are something you buy, with the potential of being worth much more than what you paid for them.
While this isnt too bad, it's the third option which would be really bad for the game, and what it looks like blizzard would be implementing.
The final option is to weaken the spells themselves. If youve seen from the gameplay pics and vids, Psi storm might be getting a much smaller radius. Simply this is boring. Spellcasters are supposed to be devestating units, not just another part of the army. This was a major problem I had in warcraft 3, where there was very little that could do mass damage to units. By weakening spells, you make the game more boring for players and spectators alike. People want to see 20 units get wiped out by a single spell. There is a reason why the korean commentators scream "HIIIGHHH TEMMMPULARRRR, PSSSIIII STOOOOORM". Its because these high powered units have the ability to change the game soo much with just 1 spell. I would hate to lose this in exchange for an easier casting system.
Logic - This point isnt as big, but it still is valid. When you order a group of marines to stim, they all do it. When you order a group of ghosts to move, they all do it. Why should only 1 use lockdown when you order a group to do it?
Rewards players for grouping - Blizzard has announced that the unit selection in SC2 will be about 150. By not implementing smartcasting, you reward people who use individual groups rather than the easier 1 group army. You are rewarding people who have greater control, and will help to keep the skill gap wide in starcraft 2.
These are my views so far. Please discuss yours.
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The problem with stupid casting is that targeted spells don't stack.
If casting 12 lockdowns meant that unit would be locked down for 12x the duration, it'd be fine.
if casting 12 storms on the same spot stacked, which it did in beta testing, it'd be fine. Who knows what other spells stack in the past. Irradiate does, perhaps Dmatrix, Lockdown, and every other spell used to stack?
I don't care how much you like cloning, I don't care if you think the old system takes more skill, the old casting UI is an *artifact* of old spellcasting behavior in early builds of the game, and unlike MBS, there is 0, that's right, zero zero zero zero FUCKING ZERO PERCENT chance of this being removed. It's not worth debating.
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You hit the argument basically spot on. But like zanno said, there really isn't a possibility of this being removed. The only logical way to make this better is to make the large spells say PSI Storm UN-Smartcastable while leaving weaker spells smartcastabile imo
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Well, what's better? 1 very good psi storm or a guy managing to land 8 perfectly placed weaker psi-storms, in the same amount of time, dealing the same damage?
One of em requires more skill and thought, surprisingly, and it's the one with smartcasting.
Smartcasting will not reduce the amount of mass deaths incured by spells in SC2, the lack of heavy destrucion spells was a feature of WC3 more than anything. It has also the added bonus of making balance easier.
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On November 16 2007 14:22 Zanno wrote:
The problem with stupid casting is that targeted spells don't stack.
If casting 12 lockdowns meant that unit would be locked down for 12x the duration, it'd be fine.
if casting 12 storms on the same spot stacked, which it did in beta testing, it'd be fine. Who knows what other spells stack in the past. Irradiate does, perhaps Dmatrix, Lockdown, and every other spell used to stack?
I don't care how much you like cloning, I don't care if you think the old system takes more skill, the old casting UI is an *artifact* of old spellcasting behavior in early builds of the game, and unlike MBS, there is 0, that's right, zero zero zero zero FUCKING ZERO PERCENT chance of this being removed. It's not worth debating.
This is how I feel. I think, for instance, that if you order 12 Ghosts to Lock Down only one of them should do so. Beyond that, I think any smart casting in the game would reduce the skill gap.
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United States7166 Posts
with the implementation of smartcasting they have weakened Psi Storm a great deal, which is the worst effect i've seen so far. in a sense it's moving towards the direction of warcraft 3 type AOE's that only hurt units rather than kill them, making the micro much easier and slower. Also if the other player micros and moves units out of the low-dmg storm, that means they'd hardly take any damage, greatly reducing the usefulness of it.
For both gamers and spectators of pro-matches, the weakening of storm makes micro less impressive, storm-drops i believe are completely useless for worker raids now, overall makes storm less useful which probably means less used. So altogether due to the fact theye must weaken spells by adding Smartcasting, I'm very opposed to this idea, maybe almost as much as MBS. Not to mention with smartcasting it's now incredibly easy to cast several spells at once, too easy in my opinion.
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I also think that smartcasting is a bad idea, not because of the functionality itself, but because to keep the game balanced they have to decrease the efficiency of some spells like psi storm then.
And that is what is a really bad thing. So if there's no way to prevent the weakening of spells, smartcasting should be removed from the game. The strong spells in SC1 are a major part of gameplay and make worker raids and so on so exciting.
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On November 16 2007 14:47 BlackSphinx wrote:
Well, what's better? 1 very good psi storm or a guy managing to land 8 perfectly placed weaker psi-storms, in the same amount of time, dealing the same damage?
One of em requires more skill and thought, surprisingly, and it's the one with smartcasting.
Smartcasting will not reduce the amount of mass deaths incured by spells in SC2, the lack of heavy destrucion spells was a feature of WC3 more than anything. It has also the added bonus of making balance easier. How goes your B attempts? Considering the difference between smartcasting and someone cloning is a very small fraction of a second. Don't know where you get this 8 to 1 ratio. I'm slow as hell and I assure you I could get at least 4-5 clone and cast very good psi storms off before you could get 8 perfectly placed ones off. Cloning takes more skill and thought, smart casting just makes it easier to do. Something made easier, doesn't increase the skill to use it, in fact it decreases the skill needed. Which when added with all other things they are adding to decrease the skill needed to do things, you end up with a very low skill ceiling and an extremely boring game and thats not even getting into the balancing issues it brings up.
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On November 16 2007 15:38 Zelniq wrote:
with the implementation of smartcasting they have weakened Psi Storm a great deal, which is the worst effect i've seen so far. in a sense it's moving towards the direction of warcraft 3 type AOE's that only hurt units rather than kill them, making the micro much easier and slower. Also if the other player micros and moves units out of the low-dmg storm, that means they'd hardly take any damage, greatly reducing the usefulness of it.
For both gamers and spectators of pro-matches, the weakening of storm makes micro less impressive, storm-drops i believe are completely useless for worker raids now, overall makes storm less useful which probably means less used. So altogether due to the fact theye must weaken spells by adding Smartcasting, I'm very opposed to this idea, maybe almost as much as MBS. Not to mention with smartcasting it's now incredibly easy to cast several spells at once, too easy in my opinion. yes and no. one hand the strength of a single storm is weaker, on the other hand this makes it easier to hotkey a group of 4 templar, load them in a shuttle, and storm the whole line and their escape route. the tradeoffs are something we won't be able to see until beta, really...
The other thing is that blizzard has always considered psi storm in SC1 to be overpowered but that's because the most popular noob maps have really narrow chokes. On BGH storm probably is overpowered, it's completely viable to have an army of 12+ templar on that map (even on hunters with the single gas instead) on Luna, definitely not. So, it might turn out the reason that they're nerfing storm is because their alpha map designs are flawed. Again, these sorts of things really can't be discussed until we have a playable game in front of us...
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IMO just make psi storm have a cast time rather than instant casting time. that way you'll still need to think of where to place it rather than click over a large group of moving units. kinda like wc3's blood mage's flamestrike - does very good damage, but requires you to position it properly cuz it has a visual indicator before it hits and a short casting time. for other spells some im sure there are other ways you can impliment micro into their smartcasting. like for lockdown, perhaps make it that the lockdown missile can be dodged? if the air unit stays in place it'll get hit by the missile, but move it beyond a certain range (2matrix perhaps) then it can dodge it.
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The issue with spells are psi is that they are such an investment that they need to have battle altering effect. Thats why they also damage their own units, to force you to use good placement and to decent if your units in the area are worth losing as an effect of that casting. As fast as SC moves, a time delay would be terrible since it would be too easy to simple out micro it.
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On November 16 2007 14:07 Fen wrote:
Logic - This point isnt as big, but it still is valid. When you order a group of marines to stim, they all do it. When you order a group of ghosts to move, they all do it. Why should only 1 use lockdown when you order a group to do it?
Because you want them to. When you move your rines, you want them all to move. When you stim your rines, you want them all to stim. When you cast Lockdown, you want to cast one. There's nothing counter-intuitive about it, the whole thing is simply a part of the greater easy-vs-difficult argument.
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You guys have to admit that psi storm is pretty much THE spell of SC. It was in many scenarios overpower. It completely negated infantry for terrans, hydras are made null by it, you can pretty much cripple a whole army with a few high templars. SC while a good game is not perfect, we shouldn't jump the cliff a spell like storm is weaken, beta will tell all.
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On November 16 2007 17:13 YinYang69 wrote:
You guys have to admit that psi storm is pretty much THE spell of SC. It was in many scenarios overpower. It completely negated infantry for terrans, hydras are made null by it, you can pretty much cripple a whole army with a few high templars. SC while a good game is not perfect, we shouldn't jump the cliff a spell like storm is weaken, beta will tell all.
I personally think defiler > HT.
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On November 16 2007 16:42 Chodorkovskiy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2007 14:07 Fen wrote:
Logic - This point isnt as big, but it still is valid. When you order a group of marines to stim, they all do it. When you order a group of ghosts to move, they all do it. Why should only 1 use lockdown when you order a group to do it? Because you want them to. When you move your rines, you want them all to move. When you stim your rines, you want them all to stim. When you cast Lockdown, you want to cast one. There's nothing counter-intuitive about it, the whole thing is simply a part of the greater easy-vs-difficult argument. It's a little bit more elaborate than easy-difficult, imo.
Basically, a UI should not doing anything that you would never want it to do. If there is a rare situation in which you'd want it to do that, then it should do that - for example, it's fine with me that ordering all your workers to mine a single patch causes them to all go to that spot - you might be in a really bad bind and have no expos with minerals, or there might be some threat to half of your mining field, say, a DT strike where you lost one of your cannons but still have some detection coverage.
If successive dmatrixes or lockdowns continued adding up, then it would make sense for 12 ghosts to lock down a single unit. But they don't stack! There is no possible situation you'd want to do this, and honestly, I strongly believe that the casting UI is the one undebatably flawed aspect of the game.
Furthermore, the difference between smartcasting and cloning is a quick mouse swipe and a single click. I think if you were to go back and implement smartcast in SC1, it would smooth out the balance of some of the useless units. Emp and Lockdown would smooth out lategame balance TvP vs Carriers, Mael would smooth out late game balance PvZ vs Ultraling - essentially, two of the only balance problems left in the whole game!!! Let's not forget about Queens -Ensnare/Broodling would greatly change the dynamic of ZvT lair tech, forcing the T to invest in more gas as their tanks and medics explode. I don't know whether or not Ensnare becoming useful would equalize with Irradiate becoming even more ridiculous than it already is, but I think the positives greatly outweigh the negatives.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 18:03 Zanno wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 16:42 Chodorkovskiy wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 14:07 Fen wrote:
Logic - This point isnt as big, but it still is valid. When you order a group of marines to stim, they all do it. When you order a group of ghosts to move, they all do it. Why should only 1 use lockdown when you order a group to do it?[/QUOTE]
Basically, a UI should not doing anything that you would never want it to do.[/QUOTE]
That's quite a bad principle because you don't take the fact that the UI might be crippled by specifically not letting you to do some stuff. Sure, UI is a flexible thing, but just like any other object, it has it's limits. Sometimes you have to let it do something bad to be able to do something good.
For example of gameplay features take flyer stacking - it is non-sensual vs AoE attacks, rendering air useless vs maelstom, psi storm, stasis, plague, mass sair etc. It doesn't make sense even logic-wise, and any noob will say it's a stupid feature that has no place in SC2. But at the same time, it allows muta stack which is an essential part of today's StarCraft. And there's no way around. Your false principle is based on a false assumption that everything can be optimized without doing damage - well, no, that's wrong.
Take baseball. Baseball bat has a lot of useless (and non-sensual) UI features - for example, it can bash skulls. Furthermore, if you "misclick" in baseball, the "bat UI" might do a stupid and non-sensual move such as bashing your own skull. That UI is archaic and is doing something you would never want to do. But, for a split second, imagine playing baseball with "modern UI safety bat" that is specifically constructed in a way it will never be able to hurt a human being, no matter what idiot uses it. Sorry, that baseball sucks ass.
SC is already considered "easy to learn, difficult to master" with an accent on the first part. No need to reward newbies even more, the features that will be sacrificed are not worth it.
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On November 16 2007 17:57 Aphelion wrote:
I personally think defiler > HT.
except terran can irridate the hell out of defiler and that defiler comes way later in the game
It all depends on timing and matchup
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[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 21:00 BluzMan wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 18:03 Zanno wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 16:42 Chodorkovskiy wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 14:07 Fen wrote:
Logic - This point isnt as big, but it still is valid. When you order a group of marines to stim, they all do it. When you order a group of ghosts to move, they all do it. Why should only 1 use lockdown when you order a group to do it?[/QUOTE]
Basically, a UI should not doing anything that you would never want it to do.[/QUOTE]
That's quite a bad principle because you don't take the fact that the UI might be crippled by specifically not letting you to do some stuff. Sure, UI is a flexible thing, but just like any other object, it has it's limits. Sometimes you have to let it do something bad to be able to do something good.[/QUOTE]Clarification:
If the UI doesn't let you do something that you would want to do, that's fine. It brings about hackers, but well, who gives a fuck about them.
If the UI does something that you that you wouldn't want it to do, that's not fine.
These sentences do not mean the same thing.
The only other example I could possibly think of in SC is that you have to deal with magic boxes in order to get your units to stay in their formation. You never want your units to move in a single file and turn into a big clump at the end, you want them to hold whatever formation you set them up in.
An example in a different game is that horrible magnetic reticule in Halo. If you're shooting at someone and one of their teammates runs in front of you then suddenly the autoaim starts tracking them instead, and the guy you were originally shooting at will probably get away scott free by the time you pry yourself off the guy with full shields. It pisses people off to no end but Bungie is a bunch of newbies 
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 22:30 Zanno wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 21:00 BluzMan wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 18:03 Zanno wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 16:42 Chodorkovskiy wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 14:07 Fen wrote:
Logic - This point isnt as big, but it still is valid. When you order a group of marines to stim, they all do it. When you order a group of ghosts to move, they all do it. Why should only 1 use lockdown when you order a group to do it?[/QUOTE]
Basically, a UI should not doing anything that you would never want it to do.[/QUOTE]
That's quite a bad principle because you don't take the fact that the UI might be crippled by specifically not letting you to do some stuff. Sure, UI is a flexible thing, but just like any other object, it has it's limits. Sometimes you have to let it do something bad to be able to do something good.[/QUOTE]Clarification:
If the UI doesn't let you do something that you would want to do, that's fine. It brings about hackers, but well, who gives a fuck about them.
If the UI does something that you that you wouldn't want it to do, that's not fine.
[/QUOTE]
That's exactly what I'm talking about. There are cases when something you would want do is connected with something you wouldn't want to do and you cannot avoid that connection.
Defilers shouldn't be able to cast swarm at the same spot, right? Now imagine you have 4 defilers, and you see a full-mana Dark Archon approach you. I would definetely want to unload their mana in an instant in that situation, with one click. Sure, the probability of such a situation is very low, but when someone does it, it's pimpest play, the audience is mad. Such is the StarCraft UI - it is outdated, it often does things that you wouldn't want to happen, but it produces pimpest plays. Pimpest plays occur when someone approaches an unique situation and finds an unique solution, it's not just about micro and macro. An open-ended interface is required to allow such solutions. Smart casting is, imo, a step away from open-ended interface, and it will definetely be implemented with general nerfing of spellcasters which is a very bad thing if you consider SC a spectator sport.
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On November 16 2007 17:57 Aphelion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2007 17:13 YinYang69 wrote:
You guys have to admit that psi storm is pretty much THE spell of SC. It was in many scenarios overpower. It completely negated infantry for terrans, hydras are made null by it, you can pretty much cripple a whole army with a few high templars. SC while a good game is not perfect, we shouldn't jump the cliff a spell like storm is weaken, beta will tell all. I personally think defiler > HT.
yeah. Storm is tight, but nothing beats watching a terran blob stopped dead in its tracks cuz one pesky def and a few lurkers are holding down the choke =p
and I agree with most that has been said here. Yes, smart casting is pretty lame. But in the same respect, you and I have to come to grips with the fact that the devs view this as another 'improvement' =[
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[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 23:35 BluzMan wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 22:30 Zanno wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 21:00 BluzMan wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 18:03 Zanno wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 16:42 Chodorkovskiy wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 16 2007 14:07 Fen wrote:
Logic - This point isnt as big, but it still is valid. When you order a group of marines to stim, they all do it. When you order a group of ghosts to move, they all do it. Why should only 1 use lockdown when you order a group to do it?[/QUOTE]
Basically, a UI should not doing anything that you would never want it to do.[/QUOTE]
That's quite a bad principle because you don't take the fact that the UI might be crippled by specifically not letting you to do some stuff. Sure, UI is a flexible thing, but just like any other object, it has it's limits. Sometimes you have to let it do something bad to be able to do something good.[/QUOTE]Clarification:
If the UI doesn't let you do something that you would want to do, that's fine. It brings about hackers, but well, who gives a fuck about them.
If the UI does something that you that you wouldn't want it to do, that's not fine.
[/QUOTE]
That's exactly what I'm talking about. There are cases when something you would want do is connected with something you wouldn't want to do and you cannot avoid that connection.
Defilers shouldn't be able to cast swarm at the same spot, right? Now imagine you have 4 defilers, and you see a full-mana Dark Archon approach you. I would definetely want to unload their mana in an instant in that situation, with one click. Sure, the probability of such a situation is very low, but when someone does it, it's pimpest play, the audience is mad. Such is the StarCraft UI - it is outdated, it often does things that you wouldn't want to happen, but it produces pimpest plays. Pimpest plays occur when someone approaches an unique situation and finds an unique solution, it's not just about micro and macro. An open-ended interface is required to allow such solutions. Smart casting is, imo, a step away from open-ended interface, and it will definetely be implemented with general nerfing of spellcasters which is a very bad thing if you consider SC a spectator sport.[/QUOTE]Not only is that a very bad example, it's also very hypocritical.
The main argument for cloning is that it requires more clicks. This one, singular, 1 in 1000 game instance, requires more clicks. You want more clicks overall and then use this situation, which requires more clicks with smartcasting than it does without, as a justification for why smartcasting is bad? Huh?
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This is the problem now. Smartcasting is another one of the things which decreases the margin between good and bad players. I don't actually see it as a gigantic problem, except if the game is balanced FOR the bad players.
What I mean is, right now good players can cast almost as well without smartcasting, so it doesn't make a big difference to them. In some PvPs you see people walking around with like 1/3 of their army all templar, and they have the ability to use all those storms efficiently. Since storm is so strong now, this is a huge advantage. A noob walking with the exact same army composition has probably just wasted a few thousand in gas.
But if smartcasting is included, more people can do this. Thats not bad per se. But if Blizzard says, oh we have to nerf storm for this, that means that the maximum potential of the spell is decreased, giving it a lower role in the game. The people directly affected are those at the top levels of play, where the slightly increased ease of use does not compensate for the decreased strength of the spell. If you are designing the game for the pros, why balance it using the noobs as the baseline?
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If your designing it for pro's why not just raise the speed to x2. That would increase the skill gap, rigth?
Get real. Blizzard is not designing this game for pro's. No one designs a game for pro's. No sport have ever been designed purely for pro's. It's a stupid idea because everyone is a beginer at first and no one wants to start doing something that is impossible at first.
Blizzard is all about doing the best games they can. They won't screw over 99,8 % of their audience to please a couple of thousand people tops. A good game is something people enjoy, so the more people who enjoy it the better the game is.
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On November 17 2007 00:39 Aphelion wrote:
This is the problem now. Smartcasting is another one of the things which decreases the margin between good and bad players. I don't actually see it as a gigantic problem, except if the game is balanced FOR the bad players.
What I mean is, right now good players can cast almost as well without smartcasting, so it doesn't make a big difference to them. In some PvPs you see people walking around with like 1/3 of their army all templar, and they have the ability to use all those storms efficiently. Since storm is so strong now, this is a huge advantage. A noob walking with the exact same army composition has probably just wasted a few thousand in gas.
But if smartcasting is included, more people can do this. Thats not bad per se. But if Blizzard says, oh we have to nerf storm for this, that means that the maximum potential of the spell is decreased, giving it a lower role in the game. The people directly affected are those at the top levels of play, where the slightly increased ease of use does not compensate for the decreased strength of the spell. If you are designing the game for the pros, why balance it using the noobs as the baseline? I think the storm nerf comes down to 3 things
1) shitty alpha maps
2) they want m&m to be viable vs protoss
3) they haven't designed zerg yet, and when they do, they'll realize they can't balance PvZ and have M&M viable TvP at the same time 
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Just add my two cents to smart casting, I think it should be selective. Mind Control? Fine. Psi Storm? Ehhh no.
I think it all depends on the ability. I'm all for Blizzard playtesting smartcasting, but if a unit because too easy to control (I'm looking at you HT's), then it should be cut for that particular spell. The idea of creating one uber long storm with a few HT's is an interesting option though.
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On November 16 2007 18:03 Zanno wrote:
Furthermore, the difference between smartcasting and cloning is a quick mouse swipe and a single click.
Just thought I'd correct this. This is true only for a group of 2. If you're cloning a group of say, 9 vessels, the difference is 9 quick mouse swipes and 9 single clicks. If you've only got a few seconds to irradiate 9 lurkers before 25 scourge come flying at your face, this difference of 18 actions would be HUGE. If smartcasting were in SC1, this would be done by pressing "i,right-click target" 9 times, 18 actions. As it is now, it's "i,right-click target, mouse down, shift-click" 9 times. Twice as many actions (36 actions total) in as little as 2 or 3 seconds. Smartcasting makes a huge difference.
Also, smartcasting (as it works in WarCraft III) a spell makes the nearest caster with enough mana/energy cast the spell. So no more searching through your 8 or 9 casters to find the one with enough mana, as it is now in SC. Even more time saved.
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On November 17 2007 02:15 AlabasterFilth wrote:
this would be done by pressing "i,right-click target" 9 times, 18 actions. As it is now, it's "i,right-click target, mouse down, shift-click" 9 times. Twice as many actions (36 actions total)
Actually it would be left-click. But regardless of that, what do you mean by "mouse down"?
What I saw in Nada's FPvod was "i, click target, select next vessel, repeat" which would make only 27 actions (which doesn't change the fact that you have to swing your mouse back and forth much more than with smartcasting).
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On November 17 2007 02:42 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2007 02:15 AlabasterFilth wrote:
this would be done by pressing "i,right-click target" 9 times, 18 actions. As it is now, it's "i,right-click target, mouse down, shift-click" 9 times. Twice as many actions (36 actions total) Actually it would be left-click. But regardless of that, what do you mean by "mouse down"? What I saw in Nada's FPvod was "i, click target, select next vessel, repeat" which would make only 27 actions (which doesn't change the fact that you have to swing your mouse back and forth much more than with smartcasting).
yeah, right-click, my bad.
"mouse-down" meaning move the pointer away from the battlefield, and into the HUD, so that you can shift-click the next unit. This "mouse-down" does NOT have to be done with smartcasting. It's not technically an action, but it requires just as much "action" as a click imo.
If you individually select each unit and cast, yes it would require less action. I was merely comparing the difference between smartcasting and cloning (defined as using the shift-click method of making a group of units do different commands).
However, you bring up a good point. Smartcasting is even an improvement over individually selecting units. With smartcasting, you're only moving your mouse around to find your next target. With individually selecting, you're moving your mouse around to both select your casters AND target units. Smartcasting still saves time; the effect is greater with the more caster units you have. Lastly, individually selecting means there's a chance you could accidentally select a caster that doesn't have enough energy (wasted actions).
Edit: case in point. I used to clone my workers to separate mineral patches when maynarding over to a new expo. I don't anymore, I just select 8-12 workers and right-click a mineral patch and continue on. Why? Because cloning takes up huge amounts of apm to do, and I'm not good enough to do it quickly. Well there's a facet of StarCraft that separates me from good players. It's an example of the skill gap in action. Imagine if smartcasting was applied to the 'mine' command. Select 12 workers, right-click each mineral patch, done. Much less work than cloning. I agree with most that smartcasting inherently takes away some of the skill that is present in SC currently, and I hope that Blizzard finds a way to balance the quickness of smartcasting with the power of caster units (or any units with smartcasting abilities).
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I've just realized that arguing about sci vessels and irradiate won't do much since most likely there won't be any sv's in SC2. Up to our current knowledge the only units affected by smartcasting would be: ghost (if it still has lockdown), ht (obviously), battlecruiser and perhaps a medic (if they still have blind).
So far it's just easier storm/yamato.
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On November 17 2007 04:47 Manit0u wrote:
I've just realized that arguing about sci vessels and irradiate won't do much since most likely there won't be any sv's in SC2. Up to our current knowledge the only units affected by smartcasting would be: ghost (if it still has lockdown), ht (obviously), battlecruiser and perhaps a medic (if they still have blind).
So far it's just easier storm/yamato. well in case you weren't paying attention it appears that ghosts have an ability that brings zealots down to 1 hp so i'm pretty sure powerful abilities are still in the picture!
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On November 16 2007 15:59 NotSorry wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2007 14:47 BlackSphinx wrote:
Well, what's better? 1 very good psi storm or a guy managing to land 8 perfectly placed weaker psi-storms, in the same amount of time, dealing the same damage?
One of em requires more skill and thought, surprisingly, and it's the one with smartcasting.
Smartcasting will not reduce the amount of mass deaths incured by spells in SC2, the lack of heavy destrucion spells was a feature of WC3 more than anything. It has also the added bonus of making balance easier. How goes your B attempts? Considering the difference between smartcasting and someone cloning is a very small fraction of a second. Don't know where you get this 8 to 1 ratio. I'm slow as hell and I assure you I could get at least 4-5 clone and cast very good psi storms off before you could get 8 perfectly placed ones off. Cloning takes more skill and thought, smart casting just makes it easier to do. Something made easier, doesn't increase the skill to use it, in fact it decreases the skill needed. Which when added with all other things they are adding to decrease the skill needed to do things, you end up with a very low skill ceiling and an extremely boring game and thats not even getting into the balancing issues it brings up.
Answer to 1st question: Bad. Heavier competition than expected, being solid in WC3 and DoW was all fine and dandy but I gotta unlearn stuff to learn this game, namely that leaving your units alone for a while just to make more is a good thing. Will get through though, found people to help me progress, however my mass gaming didn't happen yet. Small RL problems.
Chances of me posting the "I suck" thread is currently 95%. At least I'm honest.
Now, on smartcasting, 8-1 is an example. But I can cast 8 AMS on my units in about 2 second (WC3, smartcast).
Now, what I mean is that smartcasting doesn't really removes the skill required to use a spell if it's balanced to require skill properly. In short, if the time required to land a spell and it's total effect are the same with smartcast and without, there is no skill required difference. Basically, the mechanic itself is not bad, but how Blizzard handles it can lead to problems. I doubt it will though, as it will create imbalance.
Now, very low skill ceiling though might be pushing it. There is still no autocast. They have no plan of putting any skill autocast, except medic healing, which is fine.
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On November 16 2007 14:22 Zanno wrote:
The problem with stupid casting is that targeted spells don't stack.
If casting 12 lockdowns meant that unit would be locked down for 12x the duration, it'd be fine.
if casting 12 storms on the same spot stacked, which it did in beta testing, it'd be fine. Who knows what other spells stack in the past. Irradiate does, perhaps Dmatrix, Lockdown, and every other spell used to stack?
I don't care how much you like cloning, I don't care if you think the old system takes more skill, the old casting UI is an *artifact* of old spellcasting behavior in early builds of the game, and unlike MBS, there is 0, that's right, zero zero zero zero FUCKING ZERO PERCENT chance of this being removed. It's not worth debating.
Please dont make these kind of posts. They lower the quality of this forum.
I do have to agree that spells should be very strong, very fast and gamechanging.
Not a fan of smartcasting, but I care a lot more about mbs to be honest.
Personally, I think if they have smartcasting, they should do it the same way they do now with magic boxes and formations.
Obviously the magic box would have to be bigger, but even if you could smartcast during a battle by careful selection of units, you would still have to make the choice before battle to focus on macro, or rearange your units.
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On November 17 2007 12:05 fusionsdf wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2007 14:22 Zanno wrote:
The problem with stupid casting is that targeted spells don't stack.
If casting 12 lockdowns meant that unit would be locked down for 12x the duration, it'd be fine.
if casting 12 storms on the same spot stacked, which it did in beta testing, it'd be fine. Who knows what other spells stack in the past. Irradiate does, perhaps Dmatrix, Lockdown, and every other spell used to stack?
I don't care how much you like cloning, I don't care if you think the old system takes more skill, the old casting UI is an *artifact* of old spellcasting behavior in early builds of the game, and unlike MBS, there is 0, that's right, zero zero zero zero FUCKING ZERO PERCENT chance of this being removed. It's not worth debating. Please dont make these kind of posts. They lower the quality of this forum. I do have to agree that spells should be very strong, very fast and gamechanging. Not a fan of smartcasting, but I care a lot more about mbs to be honest. Personally, I think if they have smartcasting, they should do it the same way they do now with magic boxes and formations. Obviously the magic box would have to be bigger, but even if you could smartcast during a battle by careful selection of units, you would still have to make the choice before battle to focus on macro, or rearange your units. I'm sorry I'm lowering the quality of your forum by not participating in the "antiquated UIs take more skill than modern ones, gogogo cloning!" circlejerk. I'm ambivalent about MBS until I see it in practice (though I think some of the arguments against it are very flawed) but I have a very strong opinion on smartcasting and that opinion is it's not worth debating. The single target spellcasting UI is flat out bugged (not AOE, imo that's only bugged when it's not magic boxing, so it looks like we agree on that issue) and I was absolutely baffled that they didn't fix it alongside when they backported right click rally and minimap pinging from the war3 engine.
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United States5262 Posts
Can't Blizzard have all the noobie features us SC purists have as noobie OPTIONS. Like you can turn them on if you can't handle the pure SCness of it? Competitions of course should be without it.
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On November 17 2007 12:30 Zanno wrote:
I'm sorry I'm lowering the quality of your forum by not participating in the "antiquated UIs take more skill than modern ones, gogogo cloning!" circlejerk. I'm ambivalent about MBS until I see it in practice (though I think some of the arguments against it are very flawed) but I have a very strong opinion on smartcasting and that opinion is it's not worth debating. The single target spellcasting UI is flat out bugged (not AOE, imo that's only bugged when it's not magic boxing, so it looks like we agree on that issue) and I was absolutely baffled that they didn't fix it alongside when they backported right click rally and minimap pinging from the war3 engine.
My opinion is close to yours, however I believe the reason why people here do not enjoy your posts are the way you present your opinion. Less aggressivity might be a good idea ^_^. Nobody told me I lowered the quality of the forum, despite my MBS and smartcast affection, as well as my (still) overall newbieness to SC, even though I played the game at release.
Now, when it comes to a game that might very well change the landscape in Gaming as to make it a mainstream spectator sport (or E-sport, if you feel like nitpicking), I believe listening to every opinion is important. Yes, smartcast will be in, however people here want to discuss it's implications on gameplay and the fact that they like these implications in SC style gameplay, or don't like them, and why, and it is not the decision of any crowd, for or against, to decide if the point desserves to be looked at or not.
Keep in mind that everybody, as I see, in these forums take gaming seriously and enjoy the competitiveness, whether they participate actively in it or not, and opinions of diehard fans should always be taken in account, especially if said competitiveness is at stake. I do not believe these additions will make the game bad on it's own if handled correctly, but if it is the opinion of other informed veteran gamers than it is, well, I listen.
Then I try to break their points. Kinda more fun to discuss than to fight, really.
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On November 17 2007 12:56 jkillashark wrote:
Can't Blizzard have all the noobie features us SC purists have as noobie OPTIONS. Like you can turn them on if you can't handle the pure SCness of it? Competitions of course should be without it.
Well, think for a second of SC1 with MBS/Smartcast/Automine/etc...
Imagine the imbalancefest that would follow.
UI has a lot to say about balance, and thus Blizzard would be stuck with a dillema. Balance for newbies, or balance for pros. Balance for pros, and newbies leave the game, it gets bad reviews and the game won't rise. Balance for newbies, and pros won't bother as much because they'll feel shafted, and top WC3 players will return to WC3, and top SC1 players will return to SC1.
Moreover, this is creating a rift between groups of players, and that's never good.
I believe that while on paper a toggle might be good, in reality it's implications would go way too far to make it worthwhile.
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On November 17 2007 05:42 Zanno wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2007 04:47 Manit0u wrote:
I've just realized that arguing about sci vessels and irradiate won't do much since most likely there won't be any sv's in SC2. Up to our current knowledge the only units affected by smartcasting would be: ghost (if it still has lockdown), ht (obviously), battlecruiser and perhaps a medic (if they still have blind).
So far it's just easier storm/yamato. well in case you weren't paying attention it appears that ghosts have an ability that brings zealots down to 1 hp so i'm pretty sure powerful abilities are still in the picture!
Lockdown a carrier or bring down one zealot to 1hp, hmm... I don't know about you but I sense a major difference in the power level of this 2 skills.
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i am really lost in the comments... but if you guyz want 30 scourge to hit 15 mutas when you select 30 scourges and right click on 15 mutas without doing anything else, then forget it... this isnt sane... cloning should be there, and also the same goes for ghosts. you select 30 ghosts order lockdown and all 30 (if all of them have the enough energy) they will lock down.. it is that simple..no need to change this... if you want to lockdown 12 battlecruisers either you have to clon your 12 ghosts, or hot key them... thats the way, else we wont jump in our chairs, when boxer locksdown 9 or so battlecruisers faster than the eye can flick, we will just look at it and say "ye, an other lockdown so what"... just think about it... i didnt read all the comments so i might be repeating something said so sorry for that
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On November 17 2007 21:40 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2007 05:42 Zanno wrote:On November 17 2007 04:47 Manit0u wrote:
I've just realized that arguing about sci vessels and irradiate won't do much since most likely there won't be any sv's in SC2. Up to our current knowledge the only units affected by smartcasting would be: ghost (if it still has lockdown), ht (obviously), battlecruiser and perhaps a medic (if they still have blind).
So far it's just easier storm/yamato. well in case you weren't paying attention it appears that ghosts have an ability that brings zealots down to 1 hp so i'm pretty sure powerful abilities are still in the picture! Lockdown a carrier or bring down one zealot to 1hp, hmm... I don't know about you but I sense a major difference in the power level of this 2 skills.
Considering Lockdown was higher up the tech tree than Carriers, whilst Snipe is somewhere on the SC1 Academy level and costs a quarter of the energy, I'd say the latter is pretty powerful.
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The way I see it the problem with smartcasting is as follows:
in BW when a zerg army attacks a toss army the toss tries to storm as much as possible as the zerg closes in. His success is largly dependant on his HT formation before the batte, his mouse speed and his abilities to read the movements of the zerg forces.
The zerg on the other hand desperatly tries to dodge the storms and perhaps even trick the toss into storming in places where he has no intention of actually moving his units.
This creates a battle of skill between the two players. And the actual number of HP points in dmg that "psi storm" deals in a giving battle varies heavily according to the players and their micro skills on that particular day and second. Thus creating a tension before the fight and making BW exiting.
What I am afraid will happen with smartcasting in SC2 is that as the zerg moves in the toss will simply in 1 second cover the attack route with storms. The zerg won't be able to dodge, and the toss will have a much harder time screwing upp, resulting in a smaller skill gap and less pimpest play moments.
The average damage dealt to the zerg forces will probably be the same in the two games (adjusted for balance etc) But I believe that the average game in sc2 will see MUCH smaller deviations from that value than the average game in BW, and to me that seems booring.
Personally I would much prefer a solution where smartcasting were removed and the spells stacked. (aka 12 lockdowns locks for longer than normal duration, probably not with a linear dependance.)
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I don't see how smartcasting could aid bad placed storms. With it it's just easier to launch several storms at the same time but badly placed storm/dodged storm are completely unaffected by it. You need the same game understanding but less handspeed.
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I am afraid that storm will be cheap and low dps, meaning that the zergs forces will be more or less covered in a constant storm cloud.
However if they increase the already huge damage to make up for the reduced aoe while at the same time keeping the mana and resource cost of HTs constant it might even be _better_ for skill disparity, we shall see. I am very afraid they'll go down the lower aoe + lower dmg route order to make up for smartcasting though.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On November 17 2007 23:46 rick the dangerous wrote:
i am really lost in the comments... but if you guyz want 30 scourge to hit 15 mutas when you select 30 scourges and right click on 15 mutas without doing anything else, then forget it... this isnt sane... cloning should be there, and also the same goes for ghosts. you select 30 ghosts order lockdown and all 30 (if all of them have the enough energy) they will lock down.. it is that simple..no need to change this... if you want to lockdown 12 battlecruisers either you have to clon your 12 ghosts, or hot key them... thats the way, else we wont jump in our chairs, when boxer locksdown 9 or so battlecruisers faster than the eye can flick, we will just look at it and say "ye, an other lockdown so what"... just think about it... i didnt read all the comments so i might be repeating something said so sorry for that
This smartcasting would only apply to spells, if you want to clone scourges, you still have to do it the normal way.
Yeah, for ghosts it would work like that, you take 12 ghosts and click lockdown 12 times, and they lockdown 12 bcs.
I dunno, I don't really like it myself but I agree with the people who said this isn't changing.. I just don't see blizzard taking this out of the game. Yeah, lockdown might not be as impressive anymore but oh well, it's not as big of a change as - for instance - mbs is, I can live with it.
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smartcasting was implemented in Starcraft64 for the N64 and I enjoyed it :D
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SC64 also had automine ^^. It's actually a pretty good idea of what Sc2 might feel like minus the mbs.
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United States5262 Posts
On November 17 2007 14:08 BlackSphinx wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2007 12:56 jkillashark wrote:
Can't Blizzard have all the noobie features us SC purists have as noobie OPTIONS. Like you can turn them on if you can't handle the pure SCness of it? Competitions of course should be without it. Well, think for a second of SC1 with MBS/Smartcast/Automine/etc... Imagine the imbalancefest that would follow. UI has a lot to say about balance, and thus Blizzard would be stuck with a dillema. Balance for newbies, or balance for pros. Balance for pros, and newbies leave the game, it gets bad reviews and the game won't rise. Balance for newbies, and pros won't bother as much because they'll feel shafted, and top WC3 players will return to WC3, and top SC1 players will return to SC1. Moreover, this is creating a rift between groups of players, and that's never good. I believe that while on paper a toggle might be good, in reality it's implications would go way too far to make it worthwhile.
Ah icic. Thanks for the response. To be honest, I'm probably a complete noob with all the SC2 stuff. It's so much work trying to keep up with haji's StarCraft TiVo, school, and work as it is already!
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I think storm is fine the way it is now with the requirement to select individually or use the magical boxes. If Lockdown were to be made smartcast-enabled I think researching lockdown should be made only a bit more accessible than it is in SC, which would be still fairly high, and cost 150/250 mana so that it's not overpowered. Or something like giving individual ghosts an arbitrary lockdown limit like spidermines currently have, though it should still have a fairly long cooldown.
P.S. Magical boxes kick smartcast's ass, it's more useful but still requires timing and "traditional" micro to use.
magical boxes thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=33677
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I actually think smartcasting will make the game for fun. It's annoying as hell when I try to lockdown/irridate and they all do it at the same time. Sure I could take the time to become amazing at cloning and then this wouldn't be a problem, but it'd be far easier and far more efficient for me to have smartcasting.
Like others have said smartcasting will make it more accessible for the newbs, but it will also help the non-pro players too. The only thing smartcasting would hurt is pro scene difficulty. Hopefully there will be something else for pros to spend their super handspeeds on.
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Smartcasting is not important to pros, as they already had the capability to clone more or less instantaneously. Smartcasting is important to players from mid-level to great players. That group includes me. I have always been VERY disappointed at SC's lack of smartcasting, because a wide variety of caster uses are simply not possible for me and thus a few important strategies are unavailable - such as making a few ghosts to counter a fleet of BCs. The problem with cloning is timing - to have all the lockdowns go off at once, your ghosts must be moving while you're cloning. This requires space and a clear path. 95% of the time, the BCs simply kill all my ghosts before i even finish cloning. This problem applies to medics with their restorate ability as well - it is ultimately useless because of the micro involved. Even pros hardly use restorate.
Smartcasting doesn't make the game 'easier'. It simply makes the game 'possible'.
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Smartcasting doesn't make the game 'easier'. It simply makes the game 'possible'.
According to this board's powerful groupthink, it's actually a _good thing_ that you're entirely unable to do certain moves if your APM isn't at least 400. That's good for the Skill Gap(TM).
Same logic as to why it's good Zerg loses masses of lings stupidly because he has no hope of properly microing them all with the horrible interface, I mean just getting them all to move at once is hard. Obviously the game was balanced with this in mind, but stating this as a strength of BW's design is quite laughable in my opinion. Yet, it seems most people here would disagree :/
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Sweden33719 Posts
On November 21 2007 07:04 EmS.Radagast wrote:Show nested quote +
Smartcasting doesn't make the game 'easier'. It simply makes the game 'possible'.
According to this board's powerful groupthink, it's actually a _good thing_ that you're entirely unable to do certain moves if your APM isn't at least 400. That's good for the Skill Gap(TM). Same logic as to why it's good Zerg loses masses of lings stupidly because he has no hope of properly microing them all with the horrible interface, I mean just getting them all to move at once is hard. Obviously the game was balanced with this in mind, but stating this as a strength of BW's design is quite laughable in my opinion. Yet, it seems most people here would disagree :/
If you group select 50 lings they'll die the same as if you had 5 hotkeys of them, aint no interface improvement in the world that will stop that from happening short of you controlling each ling individually with your thought. In fact, keeping them in smaller groups is probably going to cut down on the casualties.
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On November 21 2007 07:50 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2007 07:04 EmS.Radagast wrote:
Smartcasting doesn't make the game 'easier'. It simply makes the game 'possible'.
According to this board's powerful groupthink, it's actually a _good thing_ that you're entirely unable to do certain moves if your APM isn't at least 400. That's good for the Skill Gap(TM). Same logic as to why it's good Zerg loses masses of lings stupidly because he has no hope of properly microing them all with the horrible interface, I mean just getting them all to move at once is hard. Obviously the game was balanced with this in mind, but stating this as a strength of BW's design is quite laughable in my opinion. Yet, it seems most people here would disagree :/ If you group select 50 lings they'll die the same as if you had 5 hotkeys of them, aint no interface improvement in the world that will stop that from happening short of you controlling each ling individually with your thought. In fact, keeping them in smaller groups is probably going to cut down on the casualties.
The problem is that using 5 of your control groups for lings limits your ability to macro/do other stuff with them. When i play zerg i'll group what i can (4 groups max) and i have to box select minimap move the rest. The problem is when i'm moving my army and i run into the other army, the process of retreating to regroup the units often ends in more casualties than necessary had i been able to group all the units.
As for locking down BCs, its better to just hotkey each one and then redo your other hotkeys. Thats how boxer did his lockdown if i recall.
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On November 20 2007 05:33 garmule2 wrote:
Smartcasting is not important to pros, as they already had the capability to clone more or less instantaneously. Smartcasting is important to players from mid-level to great players. That group includes me. I have always been VERY disappointed at SC's lack of smartcasting, because a wide variety of caster uses are simply not possible for me and thus a few important strategies are unavailable - such as making a few ghosts to counter a fleet of BCs. The problem with cloning is timing - to have all the lockdowns go off at once, your ghosts must be moving while you're cloning. This requires space and a clear path. 95% of the time, the BCs simply kill all my ghosts before i even finish cloning. This problem applies to medics with their restorate ability as well - it is ultimately useless because of the micro involved. Even pros hardly use restorate.
Smartcasting doesn't make the game 'easier'. It simply makes the game 'possible'.
Well this is how the game is designed. Why should a unit that costs 50 mins 75 gas (sorry if thats wrong) be able to counter a lategame unit which costs 400 mins 300 gas (sorry once again, not a terran player).
Spellcasters in starcraft 1 were designed to be a unit that you gamble with. On one side, you could use a group of spellcasters to devestate a group of units way more expensive than them, and on the other side, they could die without even denting the enemy. The skill required to use spellcasters effeciently was high, and therefore allowed spells to be very strong without being overpowerwd. Smartcasting damages this a lot, because effective use of spells will be expected and not a sign of skill in execution.
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On November 21 2007 23:08 Fen wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2007 05:33 garmule2 wrote:
Smartcasting is not important to pros, as they already had the capability to clone more or less instantaneously. Smartcasting is important to players from mid-level to great players. That group includes me. I have always been VERY disappointed at SC's lack of smartcasting, because a wide variety of caster uses are simply not possible for me and thus a few important strategies are unavailable - such as making a few ghosts to counter a fleet of BCs. The problem with cloning is timing - to have all the lockdowns go off at once, your ghosts must be moving while you're cloning. This requires space and a clear path. 95% of the time, the BCs simply kill all my ghosts before i even finish cloning. This problem applies to medics with their restorate ability as well - it is ultimately useless because of the micro involved. Even pros hardly use restorate.
Smartcasting doesn't make the game 'easier'. It simply makes the game 'possible'. Well this is how the game is designed. Why should a unit that costs 50 mins 75 gas (sorry if thats wrong) be able to counter a lategame unit which costs 400 mins 300 gas (sorry once again, not a terran player). Spellcasters in starcraft 1 were designed to be a unit that you gamble with. On one side, you could use a group of spellcasters to devestate a group of units way more expensive than them, and on the other side, they could die without even denting the enemy. The skill required to use spellcasters effeciently was high, and therefore allowed spells to be very strong without being overpowerwd. Smartcasting damages this a lot, because effective use of spells will be expected and not a sign of skill in execution.
Exactly.
Expectation is likely the biggest minus to smartcasting. Anyone remember how it felt when Savior was dominating? At first it was interesting and exciting but after a while it got a bit boring to see him knock down everybody. People were amazed and pissed at the same time. Savior's games were shiny but the result was just... expected. People "knew" the results before the games ended. As long as the games lasted they were great but when they ended the Savior-haters were disgusted and his fans weren't too satisfied either. Happy but not satisfied. It felt like some sort of hate-love.
This is what smartcasting would do to SC2. As much as the feature itself sounds like a good idea for beginners and amateurs - it makes the game less speculative thus less spectacular. The crowds won't like spellcasters so much anymore. Of course at first they won't have that feeling since SC2 will be a new, fascinating game but when they see all the spellcasters act the same way in any battle over and over again they will realize how unsatisfying they are compared to the good old - and sometimes stupid - spellcasters in SC.
Have you ever seen Reach trying to pull off genious storms in the past? At times his storms were freaking awesome but in the next moment they went into nothingness because he always tried to win the battle of the minds. In SC2 we will never see a player with Reach's personality again. Why? Because it will be made impossible to show personality with a feature that doesn't let us try things on our own.
Failor is one of the most important things in life. If we don't fail and if we don't see people fail, then we don't learn. If there's only light and everyone's staring into the light - what's left?
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Id belive that having ~100 pop casters(Including the semi casters with only 1 spell) will be quite common in starcraft 2 pro games, something wich would be impossible to handle in starcraft is now possible but extremely hard.
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Ok. Your post doesn't deserve any better comment. Just ok.
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On November 22 2007 00:34 ForAdun wrote:
Ok. Your post doesn't deserve any better comment. Just ok.
But you do realise that when both sides in the combat have 4 types of units with spells each and ~10 of each of them the act of casting those spells will get much harder than before? Since in sc1 it was never viable to have that many casters, instead you took a few of your race most powerfull one and spend all your time using only it, usually templar for toss, vessel for terran and defiler for zerg.
By making more units have targetable spells and more casters being viable having a good caster play will still be very hard, but it will be more hard in the sense of multitasking them, knowing wich caster you should use now instead of just the pure apm meter casters were before.
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SC2 is not Spellforce. Blizzard won\'t make SC2 a game of spellcasters. They build the spells around the basics, not visa versa. This is why they won\'t make casters so viable that they can be used in any situation without the (big) support of basic units (except harassment of course). They wouldn\'t want the game to be smartcast-mania, too. I am sure. Well, I hope...
For instance, in SC PvZ you end up having 10 archons (basic), 10 zealots (basic), 6 dragoons (basic), 6 HT\'s (caster), 2 DA\'s (caster) 4 reavers in 2 shuttles (basic) which is a relation of ca. 3 to 1. In the middle game the relation is about the same.
Now if they make spellcasters so viable that they are as useful as basic units the battles will be chaotic. With spells flying around everywhere on the screen you can\'t adapt to the situation because things happen too fast. Too many things happen too fast.You have no time to think or to react. If you can\'t think you can\'t arrange, you can\'t execute properly, you can\'t make the best out of tactics, maneuvers. There will be nothing but slaughter. A constant stream of disturbing mini-fights.
PvZ is already known to be spell-heavy, now imagine it being spell-overloaded.
Basic units are the fundamental, casters are not. This is why Blizzard will not make them too viable, at least not more than they are in SC. If they do they ruin the whole concept of SC.
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On November 22 2007 01:42 ForAdun wrote:
SC2 is not Spellforce. Blizzard won\'t make SC2 a game of spellcasters. They build the spells around the basics, not visa versa. This is why they won\'t make casters so viable that they can be used in any situation without the (big) support of basic units (except harassment of course). They wouldn\'t want the game to be smartcast-mania, too. I am sure. Well, I hope...
For instance, in SC PvZ you end up having 10 archons (basic), 10 zealots (basic), 6 dragoons (basic), 6 HT\'s (caster), 2 DA\'s (caster) 4 reavers in 2 shuttles (basic) which is a relation of ca. 3 to 1. In the middle game the relation is about the same.
Now if they make spellcasters so viable that they are as useful as basic units the battles will be chaotic. With spells flying around everywhere on the screen you can\'t adapt to the situation because things happen too fast. Too many things happen too fast.You have no time to think or to react. If you can\'t think you can\'t arrange, you can\'t execute properly, you can\'t make the best out of tactics, maneuvers. There will be nothing but slaughter. A constant stream of disturbing mini-fights.
PvZ is already known to be spell-heavy, now imagine it being spell-overloaded.
Basic units are the fundamental, casters are not. This is why Blizzard will not make them too viable, at least not more than they are in SC. If they do they ruin the whole concept of SC.
But you have to consider the basic units with spells also, and i'd guess that most matchups will use both the casters for all the races in most cases wich would also make casting things harder.
[/QUOTE]For instance, in SC PvZ you end up having 10 archons (basic), 10 zealots (basic), 6 dragoons (basic), 6 HT\'s (caster), 2 DA\'s (caster)[/QUOTE]
Zealot basic, stalker caster, archon caster, templar caster. If you define casters as those who have powerfull targetable spells (Wich is exactly those who gets affected by smartcast) you'd have to include archons (Feedback) and stalkers (Blink every 6 seconds, wich have to be cloned if you dont want to bunch blink)
Now if they make spellcasters so viable that they are as useful as basic units the battles will be chaotic. With spells flying around everywhere on the screen you can\'t adapt to the situation because things happen too fast. Too many things happen too fast.You have no time to think or to react. If you can\'t think you can\'t arrange, you can\'t execute properly, you can\'t make the best out of tactics, maneuvers. There will be nothing but slaughter. A constant stream of disturbing mini-fights.
Not if your pro, and not if the casters are more like ghosts and less like templars. The ghost we saw will be a mainstay unit and a caster, so really Blizzard is toying with this ideea, same with giving templars an attack and having toss get a caster in t1.5.(Stasis orb)
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At that point we need more information about SC2, especially the zerg. I just say that basic units are the most important units. If that doesn't fit Blizzard's ideas then I have to critize how they work on the unit-system in SC2.
But you should read again what you quoted about my example from SC PvZ; I wasn't talking about SC2. Then you may understand my arguments better.
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On November 22 2007 02:07 ForAdun wrote:
But you should read again what you quoted about my example from SC PvZ; I wasn't talking about SC2. Then you may understand my arguments better.
Yeah, the problem were that you werent talking about sc2 in a sc2 forum. Since more units have important targetable combat spells than before and if Blizzard does it right(Aka doesnt make half of them underpowered like in sc1) you will see a lot more need to cast spells in combat than before and especially casting spells with multiple unit types and a lot of different spells.
Apm/mousespeed wise this is still easier than before, but mind wise it should be comparable/harder.
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in starcraft and in warcraft 3 there are spell caster killers. why do you think starcraft 2 will be any different? just because you add smart spell casting doesn't mean you have to do anything of the sort of weakening the spells or the casters. just keep on making spell caster killers. no big deal.
i think they already revealed one. remember how good zerglings were vs high templar? if left unprotected, the high templar found themselves in a prickly position. but with banelings, it is bye bye clumped up high templar group. so you see, they are implementing the spell caster killers, so don't worry about that.
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I dont know if it was said before, i justed read the first page.
blizzard should do smarcasting and automining OPTIONAL.
this way casual gamers benefit from new technology and pro gaming would still be at a high level.
i think that kor pro leagus would definetly disable all kinds auf autostuff, to give the viewers more entertainment. i think so because entertainment was/is the key thing behind the whole esport succsess.
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On November 22 2007 09:49 neustadt wrote:
I dont know if it was said before, i justed read the first page.
blizzard should do smarcasting and automining OPTIONAL.
this way casual gamers benefit from new technology and pro gaming would still be at a high level.
i think that kor pro leagus would definetly disable all kinds auf autostuff, to give the viewers more entertainment. i think so because entertainment was/is the key thing behind the whole esport succsess.
This is mostly true. I would just add that E-sports in SKorea is so successful because of the growing interest in internet-cafe's. SC:BW has been released just at the right moment though I'm sure it's own success came through the quality of the game itself. Entertainment comes all from the feeling. How does it feel like playing and watching SC:BW? The answer is the reason for it's success.
But how will it feel like playing/watching SC2? All these new features (MBS, "unlimited" unit-selection, smartcast and automining) will be some of the leading factors. If they - or only 2 or 3 of them - turn out to disturb the game feeling after the relase of the Beta I am sure Blizzard will have big trouble to change anything about it. But if they work on it right now - for instance if they work on different ladder systems now - they will have good chances to be able to change these features properly when time comes.
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Can I also point out, that spellcasters generally make the game cluttered. Spells are generally big flashy effects on the screen. This is blizzards style and aint a problem if players are only utilising a few spellcaster units. If smartcasting = more spell use, then smartcasting also = more clutter.
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On November 16 2007 14:07 Fen wrote:
Skill - Ok, well this is pretty straight forward. It takes more skill to effectively control your spellcasters if there is no smartcasting. Less skill means less areas for a player to prove that he is better than another. It lowers the skill gap which is bad for competition.
Yes, using a spellcaster is harder without smartcasting, but I don't think it's bad for competition. The question is: What do we want to focus on? Strategy, tactics, smart moves, reading your opponents etc. or struggling with the user interface?
I dont know if it was said before, i justed read the first page.
blizzard should do smarcasting and automining OPTIONAL.
this way casual gamers benefit from new technology and pro gaming would still be at a high level.
i think that kor pro leagus would definetly disable all kinds auf autostuff, to give the viewers more entertainment. i think so because entertainment was/is the key thing behind the whole esport succsess.
One thing that they SHOULD NOT do is make it optional. It's not just casual gamers who wants smartcasting, it competitive gamers too (Like me and a whole lot more). This would only split the SC2 players into two camps and that's BAD.
Any it doesn't necessarily give viewers more entertainment. What's entertaining is that they are good, not that they can cast spells without smartcasting.
Also, some people bring up the argument that it will not be as exciting when the pros do micro stuff, if the interface is more user friendly. The way I see it, even if that were true (which I'm not sure it is), I would rather have a good game that I can play rather than be a little more excited when I watch the pros play. (After all, you all play more than you watch vods, don't you?)
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Yep plenty of competitive gamers themselves want smartcasting. I think we have to focus less on making something "impressive" and more so on making something viable. As it stands now the majority of SC casters are wasted and majority of spells are useless. And really Boxer ghost lock down was impressive for its time but not so much in this day and age.
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Why does everyone say 'struggling with the user interface' when there's clearly PLENTY of gamers who have no problem doing it?
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United States22883 Posts
On November 28 2007 22:42 Hawk wrote:
Why does everyone say 'struggling with the user interface' when there's clearly PLENTY of gamers who have no problem doing it? Plenty? It's a pretty small % who can clone and micro spells effectively and they do so with huge amounts of practice. I'd say most people (non pros) who use storm/swarm well do it with magic boxes rather than cloning, and I don't think magic box casting is any more difficult than smartcasting except that you're faced with frustration when your units are blocked/delayed in the heat of battle.
No doubt Boxer's lockdown cloning was impressive, but the entire method is over the top in difficulty and inefficient, and even he was restricted by it since there's no way he ever could've pulled it off without having his ghosts start so far away.
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On November 28 2007 23:03 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2007 22:42 Hawk wrote:
Why does everyone say 'struggling with the user interface' when there's clearly PLENTY of gamers who have no problem doing it? Plenty? It's a pretty small % who can clone and micro spells effectively and they do so with huge amounts of practice. I'd say most people (non pros) who use storm/swarm well do it with magic boxes rather than cloning, and I don't think magic box casting is any more difficult than smartcasting except that you're faced with frustration when your units are blocked/delayed in the heat of battle. No doubt Boxer's lockdown cloning was impressive, but the entire method is over the top in difficulty and inefficient, and even he was restricted by it since there's no way he ever could've pulled it off without having his ghosts start so far away.
The magic box is a hype... nobody actually uses it in game because it's too luck-dependent. You can't use it in battle because things happen too fast. One little inaccuracy and you waste tons of energy. You also have to prepare the magic box every single time which is impossible. No need to argue, just test it in games and you'll see. The argument with the magic box doesn't work.
Many (and I mean many) people can use storm and swarm properly, the rest who can't is simply too lazy, that's the whole story. Spells in SC are easy to use, they only become hard to use when you have to use them several times in a row like Boxer's lockdown on BC's.
Cloning is also not the number one method, only in some cases e.g. when you have 8 science vessels and enough time which is not usual. In a standard situation people use their APM and some accuracy for storm/swarm/irradiate etc.
Without all that effort SC would be a joke for progamers. Anyone with enough knowledge about strategy could be the next runner-up and with some luck he would stay there for a while. This isn't possible in SC and it shouldn't be possible in SC2 because: the more skill you need to become the best the more fame you get, because people will know that you are really the best. Do you think it should be easier?
Talking about Boxer's lockdown, there was little space between his ghosts and the BC's, watch the vod. He had about 4-5 seconds for the whole thing after his ghosts started walking which is impressive. You really shouldn't take this too easy, it's one of the most respected moves in the whole SC history.
When you compared the magic box to smartcast I was about to say that you don't know anything about SC. I don't say that because I don't know you, I just want to ask you: how much SC did you play? I played this game for 6 years now.
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United States22883 Posts
You have far more experience than I do, but I've pulled off mb swarms after the battle begins (first swarms done manually.) I think you're drastically overplaying the importance of spell micro in SC though. Most games aren't decided by who can most expertly cast a spell. A player with good casts doesn't automatically lose against someone with godly casts.
I think smartcasting's purpose is to replace cloning more than anything else. If you're talking about the non-cloning situations, then I think there's still an advantage to doing it the manual way and pros will still use it. Like you said, formations and timing play a big role so it's still more beneficial to select the closest unit and do it yourself, instead of rely on smartcasting and possibly end up with the templar/vessel furthest away trying to cast. As long as smartcasting doesn't operate by proximity, I think there'd still be a need for manual casting in competitive play.
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On November 29 2007 00:05 Jibba wrote:
You have far more experience than I do, but I've pulled off mb swarms after the battle begins (first swarms done manually.) I think you're drastically overplaying the importance of spell micro in SC though. Most games aren't decided by who can most expertly cast a spell. A player with good casts doesn't automatically lose against someone with godly casts.
I think smartcasting's purpose is to replace cloning more than anything else. If you're talking about the non-cloning situations, then I think there's still an advantage to doing it the manual way and pros will still use it. Like you said, formations and timing play a big role so it's still more beneficial to select the closest unit and do it yourself, instead of rely on smartcasting and possibly end up with the templar/vessel furthest away trying to cast. As long as smartcasting doesn't operate by proximity, I think there'd still be a need for manual casting in competitive play.
I never said games are decided by who has the better control. Never. I say games are strongly influenced; which is reason enough to keep it a special task in the game - a task that becomes harder the more casters players use. One shouldn't be rewarded for overproducing caster units if he can't control them properly without smartcast, that's my opinion.
I think you see my arguments too drastically. The arguments I give are only parts of the whole thing, put them all together and you have the picture called competitive SC, at least how I see it. Since I know rather well how competitive SC works I also have some knowledge about how SC2 can stay competitive - and how it can't. I'm following the basics (being able to do this or that is probably the most important basic) of competitive SC. This is the fundamental for my reasoning.
Yes smartcast will also replace cloning, and as we know from WC3 smartcast will totally ruin manual casting. There will be nothing but smartcast because it indeed is revolutional. I've never said I find smartcast bad as a whole, it is definitely an improvement for some games, games that are not as good as SC. When it comes to SC2 which shall be known as a competitive game then... you know what I'm going to say.
In another topic I said I can live with smartcast if MBS and the high unit-selection-cap will be left out of SC2 so my arguing against smartcast is based on my overall view of the current SC2. And not only my view.
What people said about how SC2 plays was very clear: it is too easy. (The rest of them only said how amazing the game is and that the graphics are great, they didn't even recognize the new features which is rather funny. To me this proves that they are not interested in the game mechanics, they are probably waiting for WoW in space and not for the next Starcraft.)
Too easy means too easy. A message that has yet been officially ignored by Blizzard. This worries me.
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United States22883 Posts
True, but you said:
Without all that effort SC would be a joke for progamers. Anyone with enough knowledge about strategy could be the next runner-up and with some luck he would stay there for a while.
To me, it seems like the exact opposite. With enough practice, there plenty of mechanically sound pros (practice partners, B team and such) who are capable of any maneuver and in most cases, very good execution (although still below the level of top grade pros.) The main thing they lack is deep strategic understanding, which is why we see so many clone terrans. I think that effort part is actually easier for progamers and the strategic knowledge is what seperates the best from the rest.
I'm curious how smartcasting has ruined manual casting in WC3, since I've only watched half a dozen matches. I still think the positioning/timing argument is a legitimate reason for continuing to cast manually.
I think most people who said SC2 was too easy, were complaining about MBS more than anything else. I'm completely against MBS and leaning against the huge unit selection cap.
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On November 29 2007 02:53 Jibba wrote:
To me, it seems like the exact opposite. With enough practice, there plenty of mechanically sound pros (practice partners, B team and such) who are capable of any maneuver and in most cases, very good execution (although still below the level of top grade pros.) The main thing they lack is deep strategic understanding, which is why we see so many clone terrans. I think that effort part is actually easier for progamers and the strategic knowledge is what seperates the best from the rest.
I bet many of those "clone terrans" would rape the living shit out of you in terms of strategic understanding. Just because they play a very solid mechanical and somewhat conservative style doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing.
And this "deep strategic understanding" crap is overrated. You talk about like its some mystical thing that some people are born with and others aren't. Strategy in games is a mixture of preparation, experience with game timing and situations, on the fly intuition and tactics, and the confidence to execute it. If you talking about the strategic genius of the great commanders in actual warfare, that is something else entirely different, and is not possible to simulate in a game. That kind of strategy is based upon the ability to gauge unknowns and unmeasurables. Competitive RTS games by their nature are exhaustively tested, calculated, with the conditions well known.
Contrary to what you say, strategy can be just as easily taught as mechanics. That was what the MBC game coach said in an interview, that July hadn't been playing strategically for 2 years when he won his OSLs. In fact, he says he looks for mechanical ability rather than strategy when looking for new players. And look at that MBC team - everyone on that roster has their own distinctive style, and no one can accuse their of being "clone" players.
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United States22883 Posts
On November 29 2007 03:07 Aphelion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2007 02:53 Jibba wrote:
To me, it seems like the exact opposite. With enough practice, there plenty of mechanically sound pros (practice partners, B team and such) who are capable of any maneuver and in most cases, very good execution (although still below the level of top grade pros.) The main thing they lack is deep strategic understanding, which is why we see so many clone terrans. I think that effort part is actually easier for progamers and the strategic knowledge is what seperates the best from the rest.
I bet many of those "clone terrans" would rape the living shit out of you in terms of strategic understanding. Just because they play a very solid mechanical and somewhat conservative style doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing. And this "deep strategic understanding" crap is overrated. You talk about like its some mystical thing that some people are born with and others aren't. Strategy in games is a mixture of preparation, experience with game timing and situations, on the fly intuition and tactics, and the confidence to execute it. If you talking about the strategic genius of the great commanders in actual warfare, that is something else entirely different, and is not possible to simulate in a game. That kind of strategy is based upon the ability to gauge unknowns and unmeasurables. Competitive RTS games by their nature are exhaustively tested, calculated, with the conditions well known. Contrary to what you say, strategy can be just as easily taught as mechanics. That was what the MBC game coach said in an interview, that July hadn't been playing strategically for 2 years when he won his OSLs. In fact, he says he looks for mechanical ability rather than strategy when looking for new players. And look at that MBC team - everyone on that roster has their own distinctive style, and no one can accuse their of being "clone" players. I'm pretty sure they'd rape the living shit out of everyone here strategically, but that's irrelevant. I was simply saying that it's off base to say manual casting skill is the deciding factor between pros (when lots of pros have the ability, but they lack in other areas) and it's incorrect to assume smartcasting simplifies the game so much that "Anyone with enough knowledge about strategy could be the next runner-up and with some luck he would stay there for a while."
"Strategy in games is a mixture of preparation, experience with game timing and situations, on the fly intuition and tactics, and the confidence to execute it." That's exactly what I mean. Timing, intuition, tactics, etc. are what separates the best pros from regular pros. Casting skill is included in that, but it's a fraction.
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On November 17 2007 12:56 jkillashark wrote:
Can't Blizzard have all the noobie features us SC purists have as noobie OPTIONS. Like you can turn them on if you can't handle the pure SCness of it? Competitions of course should be without it.
No, because no one will be impressed when a progamer clones 12 spells really fast if 50 APM noobs can do it with smartcasting turned on. Pros working miracles with the same UI as the common player seem impressive. Progamers wrestling with a crappy UI to do what a noob does when smartcasting is turned on won't make a spectator stare, eyes wide, unable to believe that the micro he is witnessing could be accomplished by human hands.
Progaming isn't for progamers, it's for spectators. If you can't make progamming interesting for an average player to watch, why bother balancing it for progamers at all?
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Why bother bringing up lockdowns or what have you. I mean it's not even use and you know why? Cause of the damn UI thats why! Fuck I guess we can keep the UI shitty if it makes us go wow one game out of every thousand. There will always be things that make us go wow and gamers pro or otherwise will find clever things to do in game that require alot of hand dexterity. Smartcasting will not ruin that.
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On November 29 2007 03:32 Jibba wrote:
"Strategy in games is a mixture of preparation, experience with game timing and situations, on the fly intuition and tactics, and the confidence to execute it." That's exactly what I mean. Timing, intuition, tactics, etc. are what separates the best pros from regular pros. Casting skill is included in that, but it's a fraction.
Yes, and by that definition, you will see that strategy isn't really that clear cut from execution and mechanics, but rather very interrelated and sometimes takes the same skill sets. Its not these earth-breaking builds which define pros, but rather incrementally better decision making and execution in pressure packed situations. Its not that there is an army of clones out there with the same mechanical ability but lacking the strategical spark to make them pro. A player might be hindered from being pro as much by his mechanics as his strategy. Hence smartcasting isn't going to suddenly help the top professional players compared to their lesser counterparts which match them in mechanics but not in strategy. Its simply going to decrease the skill gap overall as there is less to execute and less incremental decisions to make.
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On November 29 2007 04:53 YinYang69 wrote:
Why bother bringing up lockdowns or what have you. I mean it's not even use and you know why? Cause of the damn UI thats why! Fuck I guess we can keep the UI shitty if it makes us go wow one game out of every thousand. There will always be things that make us go wow and gamers pro or otherwise will find clever things to do in game that require alot of hand dexterity. Smartcasting will not ruin that.
Come on, smartcast will make it much easier to use caster units properly so it will automatically ruin the wow-effect in many scenarios. This is logic.
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On November 29 2007 04:53 YinYang69 wrote:
Why bother bringing up lockdowns or what have you. I mean it's not even use and you know why? Cause of the damn UI thats why! Fuck I guess we can keep the UI shitty if it makes us go wow one game out of every thousand. There will always be things that make us go wow and gamers pro or otherwise will find clever things to do in game that require alot of hand dexterity. Smartcasting will not ruin that.
Ghosts aren't used because the unit as a whole sucks, not because it's hard to hit what you want.
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How about then add feature SUPER SMART cast? If you noticed in SC all casters need to stop and pause for a blink of an eye to cast their spell. I think we should remove that feature.
For example if trying to use ensnare, def matrix, the target need to be approximately stationary to get a good hit / hit. That is so annoying to the beginners, isnt the purpose of casting a spell hitting the target? For the pros, casters can cast spells without pause can speed up the game, isnt this a win-win situation?
Isnt it also a huge inconvinience that units cant move and attack without stopping? Why dont we remove that as well? (see total annihilation/ DoW)
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On November 29 2007 06:22 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2007 04:53 YinYang69 wrote:
Why bother bringing up lockdowns or what have you. I mean it's not even use and you know why? Cause of the damn UI thats why! Fuck I guess we can keep the UI shitty if it makes us go wow one game out of every thousand. There will always be things that make us go wow and gamers pro or otherwise will find clever things to do in game that require alot of hand dexterity. Smartcasting will not ruin that. Ghosts aren't used because the unit as a whole sucks, not because it's hard to hit what you want.
he's right, ghosts arn't used due to the gas consumption, they cost so much gas that it's better spent on tanks and other stuff.
Although i've been surprised to see how many nonstarcraft players assume that ghosts are not used at the pro level because of the UI. It's honestly not hard to clone a few lockdowns. You can practice against a computer for about 5 minutes (type in codes to get ghosts really fast) and it will become easy. It's not that different than casting a few storms at once or reloading and microing two reavers at once.
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Well, the reason why their gas consumption is a problem is mainly because of where they are on the tech tree, although if a Terran manages to get some gas floating they could be useful. I've seen Boxer do that.
However, if they had smartcast, I'm certain they'd see a lot more usage.
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United States22883 Posts
I think Lockdown is just used as an example because Boxer made it so flashy. A more relevant example would be Irradiate.
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On November 28 2007 23:45 ForAdun wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2007 23:03 Jibba wrote:On November 28 2007 22:42 Hawk wrote:
Why does everyone say 'struggling with the user interface' when there's clearly PLENTY of gamers who have no problem doing it? Plenty? It's a pretty small % who can clone and micro spells effectively and they do so with huge amounts of practice. I'd say most people (non pros) who use storm/swarm well do it with magic boxes rather than cloning, and I don't think magic box casting is any more difficult than smartcasting except that you're faced with frustration when your units are blocked/delayed in the heat of battle. No doubt Boxer's lockdown cloning was impressive, but the entire method is over the top in difficulty and inefficient, and even he was restricted by it since there's no way he ever could've pulled it off without having his ghosts start so far away. The magic box is a hype... nobody actually uses it in game because it's too luck-dependent. You can't use it in battle because things happen too fast. One little inaccuracy and you waste tons of energy. You also have to prepare the magic box every single time which is impossible. No need to argue, just test it in games and you'll see. The argument with the magic box doesn't work. Many (and I mean many) people can use storm and swarm properly, the rest who can't is simply too lazy, that's the whole story. Spells in SC are easy to use, they only become hard to use when you have to use them several times in a row like Boxer's lockdown on BC's. Cloning is also not the number one method, only in some cases e.g. when you have 8 science vessels and enough time which is not usual. In a standard situation people use their APM and some accuracy for storm/swarm/irradiate etc. Without all that effort SC would be a joke for progamers. Anyone with enough knowledge about strategy could be the next runner-up and with some luck he would stay there for a while. This isn't possible in SC and it shouldn't be possible in SC2 because: the more skill you need to become the best the more fame you get, because people will know that you are really the best. Do you think it should be easier? Talking about Boxer's lockdown, there was little space between his ghosts and the BC's, watch the vod. He had about 4-5 seconds for the whole thing after his ghosts started walking which is impressive. You really shouldn't take this too easy, it's one of the most respected moves in the whole SC history. When you compared the magic box to smartcast I was about to say that you don't know anything about SC. I don't say that because I don't know you, I just want to ask you: how much SC did you play? I played this game for 6 years now.
Erm I feel as if I need to defend the magic boxes thing and try and clear up the issue on it a bit. Firstly, many people use the technique, with or without knowing they are actually using it. Clumping mutas is pretty a direct application of magic boxes (though in 'reverse'), spreading marines while running away from lurkers etc.
You also seem to think that magic boxes is limited to things like storm casting and dark swarms where if things go wrong then crucial energy. I'll give you some more practical examples that you can easily use in your typical game. In TvP for instance, selecting small groups of vultures before using the mine command will ensure all mines are laid (alot of people will be doing this without realising why its effective), keeping science vessels apart in TvZ for easy selection, selecting and controlling smaller groups of mm so they don't clump while moving, casting both storms at once when you drop templars from a shuttle etc, stopping clumping for flanking purposes.
You don't need to set it up in each game. If it were that troublesome I would have never gone through the trouble to make that thread in the first place The point is that if you have an understanding of the concept, you can apply it wherever you feel it's useful. It also helps you predict the effect of your commands based on what you are selecting (subconciously you would probably know this already from playing alot, like a sort of "feeling" that your units will get clumped or they won't).
With a good understanding of the concept, magic boxes is not luck dependent at all. If you know how and why it works, then you will easily know the risk of using the technique if you want to use it with something risky such as storms, so you'll know when and when not to use it. In some of the examples I gave above, there is simply no element of luck. I know that each time if I select a small group of vultures, I'm gauranteed to have them within the confines of a box, so they'll all lay their mines simultaneously without bumping into each other.
And to the comment "you can't use it in battle because things are happening too fast". Well I've been using it really often, and in real games, so you shouldn't make a claim like that unless you have some sort of proof. If you're gonna say "there's better things to do", then you don't understand how I intend the technique to be used (which is of course partly my fault). The whole point is that you replace your original actions with slightly modified ones to improve the effectiveness of your micro, whenever you see fit.
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On November 29 2007 08:12 BlackSphinx wrote:
Well, the reason why their gas consumption is a problem is mainly because of where they are on the tech tree, although if a Terran manages to get some gas floating they could be useful. I've seen Boxer do that.
However, if they had smartcast, I'm certain they'd see a lot more usage. Currently in Sc:Bw, no they wouldn't, the gas is still better off used on a tank or something else. The split second needed to lock down something isn't stopping anyone. It's like saying people would use mass queens if they had smartcast which is also a retarded assumption. The micro isn't the issue it's the tech/unit cost just isn't worth getting over another unit. The reason boxer does it in most cases is for the "OH shit, didn't think he would do that" factor, catching the opposition off guard.
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On November 29 2007 07:54 MyLostTemple wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2007 06:22 Hawk wrote:On November 29 2007 04:53 YinYang69 wrote:
Why bother bringing up lockdowns or what have you. I mean it's not even use and you know why? Cause of the damn UI thats why! Fuck I guess we can keep the UI shitty if it makes us go wow one game out of every thousand. There will always be things that make us go wow and gamers pro or otherwise will find clever things to do in game that require alot of hand dexterity. Smartcasting will not ruin that. Ghosts aren't used because the unit as a whole sucks, not because it's hard to hit what you want. he's right, ghosts arn't used due to the gas consumption, they cost so much gas that it's better spent on tanks and other stuff. Although i've been surprised to see how many nonstarcraft players assume that ghosts are not used at the pro level because of the UI. It's honestly not hard to clone a few lockdowns. You can practice against a computer for about 5 minutes (type in codes to get ghosts really fast) and it will become easy. It's not that different than casting a few storms at once or reloading and microing two reavers at once.
On November 29 2007 11:22 NotSorry wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2007 08:12 BlackSphinx wrote:
Well, the reason why their gas consumption is a problem is mainly because of where they are on the tech tree, although if a Terran manages to get some gas floating they could be useful. I've seen Boxer do that.
However, if they had smartcast, I'm certain they'd see a lot more usage. Currently in Sc:Bw, no they wouldn't, the gas is still better off used on a tank or something else. The split second needed to lock down something isn't stopping anyone. It's like saying people would use mass queens if they had smartcast which is also a retarded assumption. The micro isn't the issue it's the tech/unit cost just isn't worth getting over another unit. The reason boxer does it in most cases is for the "OH shit, didn't think he would do that" factor, catching the opposition off guard.
You two are dumb, the ghost costs just 75 gas and needs just to lockdown any toss unit for him to pay off himself wich means that he is technically around as cost effective as high templars vs toss.
The problem is the extreme amounths of lockdowns youd have to make, lockdown requires a lot of more speed and precision than casting storms since they targets an unit instead of an area and there is no reason to wait with locks while storms are usually not worth it blowing all your energy instantly on. I can assure you that ghosts would be mainstream vs toss if sc had smartcast on lockdown, you wouldnt use them in droves but more like templars as having a few in your army locking enemy units such as shuttles, goons, reavers and carriers, wich perfectly compliments the gas free vulture.
Queen is a totally different nature, it is much more expensive, its ability costs 150 energy and the strongest things it can target is tanks, templars and ultras wich means that it take a looong time for a queen to pay off.
Edit: And i think the most important reason high templars are used so much is not his spells, but his ability to transform to archons when they run out of energy. If they couldn't become archons i doubt you'd see a lot of templars in most games simply beacuse they too take a lot of clicks, are expensive and vulnerable and slow and takes a ton of teching to get.
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Yes yes ghost do cost a ton of gas and is way way too high on the tech tree. Regardless terran usually have more than enough gas to research lockdown and a ghost which is worth more than their weight in cost if they manage to lockdown a arbiter or carrier. On a whole they do suck but the UI makes them even worse than they are and even further diminish their viability.
How can you argue otherwise. I mean you got to move your forces in a ball, do good mine placement, tank sieging, turret placing and add to that you got to either spend a whole hotkey on a ghost or spend time trying to click that tiny sucker, find which one has sufficient energy among the group, in the middle of your huge mech army. You can't even compare them to templars which is tenfold easily to manage and use. It's such a hassle to even use them, and the UI plays a role in that.
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On November 29 2007 18:48 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2007 07:54 MyLostTemple wrote:On November 29 2007 06:22 Hawk wrote:On November 29 2007 04:53 YinYang69 wrote:
Why bother bringing up lockdowns or what have you. I mean it's not even use and you know why? Cause of the damn UI thats why! Fuck I guess we can keep the UI shitty if it makes us go wow one game out of every thousand. There will always be things that make us go wow and gamers pro or otherwise will find clever things to do in game that require alot of hand dexterity. Smartcasting will not ruin that. Ghosts aren't used because the unit as a whole sucks, not because it's hard to hit what you want. he's right, ghosts arn't used due to the gas consumption, they cost so much gas that it's better spent on tanks and other stuff. Although i've been surprised to see how many nonstarcraft players assume that ghosts are not used at the pro level because of the UI. It's honestly not hard to clone a few lockdowns. You can practice against a computer for about 5 minutes (type in codes to get ghosts really fast) and it will become easy. It's not that different than casting a few storms at once or reloading and microing two reavers at once. Show nested quote +On November 29 2007 11:22 NotSorry wrote:On November 29 2007 08:12 BlackSphinx wrote:
Well, the reason why their gas consumption is a problem is mainly because of where they are on the tech tree, although if a Terran manages to get some gas floating they could be useful. I've seen Boxer do that.
However, if they had smartcast, I'm certain they'd see a lot more usage. Currently in Sc:Bw, no they wouldn't, the gas is still better off used on a tank or something else. The split second needed to lock down something isn't stopping anyone. It's like saying people would use mass queens if they had smartcast which is also a retarded assumption. The micro isn't the issue it's the tech/unit cost just isn't worth getting over another unit. The reason boxer does it in most cases is for the "OH shit, didn't think he would do that" factor, catching the opposition off guard. You two are dumb, the ghost costs just 75 gas and needs just to lockdown any toss unit for him to pay off himself wich means that he is technically around as cost effective as high templars vs toss. The problem is the extreme amounths of lockdowns youd have to make, lockdown requires a lot of more speed and precision than casting storms since they targets an unit instead of an area and there is no reason to wait with locks while storms are usually not worth it blowing all your energy instantly on. I can assure you that ghosts would be mainstream vs toss if sc had smartcast on lockdown, you wouldnt use them in droves but more like templars as having a few in your army locking enemy units such as shuttles, goons, reavers and carriers, wich perfectly compliments the gas free vulture. Queen is a totally different nature, it is much more expensive, its ability costs 150 energy and the strongest things it can target is tanks, templars and ultras wich means that it take a looong time for a queen to pay off. Edit: And i think the most important reason high templars are used so much is not his spells, but his ability to transform to archons when they run out of energy. If they couldn't become archons i doubt you'd see a lot of templars in most games simply beacuse they too take a lot of clicks, are expensive and vulnerable and slow and takes a ton of teching to get. You're calling us dumb and you're whole argument is that YOU'RE too slow to use certain units, and therefore thats why they aren't used in masses. Seriously, test your theory go download the smartcast hack for SC1, hell download the MBS hack while you're at it and see if it makes ghosts any more helpful for you.
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@ skyglow1
We were specifically talking about caster units when we took the magic box into account. This is what I said, nobody uses the magic box with caster units. Of course the magic box is useful for combat units, I myself use it - but never for caster units. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I hope this clears it up.
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On November 29 2007 18:48 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2007 07:54 MyLostTemple wrote:On November 29 2007 06:22 Hawk wrote:On November 29 2007 04:53 YinYang69 wrote:
Why bother bringing up lockdowns or what have you. I mean it's not even use and you know why? Cause of the damn UI thats why! Fuck I guess we can keep the UI shitty if it makes us go wow one game out of every thousand. There will always be things that make us go wow and gamers pro or otherwise will find clever things to do in game that require alot of hand dexterity. Smartcasting will not ruin that. Ghosts aren't used because the unit as a whole sucks, not because it's hard to hit what you want. he's right, ghosts arn't used due to the gas consumption, they cost so much gas that it's better spent on tanks and other stuff. Although i've been surprised to see how many nonstarcraft players assume that ghosts are not used at the pro level because of the UI. It's honestly not hard to clone a few lockdowns. You can practice against a computer for about 5 minutes (type in codes to get ghosts really fast) and it will become easy. It's not that different than casting a few storms at once or reloading and microing two reavers at once. Show nested quote +On November 29 2007 11:22 NotSorry wrote:On November 29 2007 08:12 BlackSphinx wrote:
Well, the reason why their gas consumption is a problem is mainly because of where they are on the tech tree, although if a Terran manages to get some gas floating they could be useful. I've seen Boxer do that.
However, if they had smartcast, I'm certain they'd see a lot more usage. Currently in Sc:Bw, no they wouldn't, the gas is still better off used on a tank or something else. The split second needed to lock down something isn't stopping anyone. It's like saying people would use mass queens if they had smartcast which is also a retarded assumption. The micro isn't the issue it's the tech/unit cost just isn't worth getting over another unit. The reason boxer does it in most cases is for the "OH shit, didn't think he would do that" factor, catching the opposition off guard. You two are dumb, the ghost costs just 75 gas and needs just to lockdown any toss unit for him to pay off himself wich means that he is technically around as cost effective as high templars vs toss. The problem is the extreme amounths of lockdowns youd have to make, lockdown requires a lot of more speed and precision than casting storms since they targets an unit instead of an area and there is no reason to wait with locks while storms are usually not worth it blowing all your energy instantly on. I can assure you that ghosts would be mainstream vs toss if sc had smartcast on lockdown, you wouldnt use them in droves but more like templars as having a few in your army locking enemy units such as shuttles, goons, reavers and carriers, wich perfectly compliments the gas free vulture. Queen is a totally different nature, it is much more expensive, its ability costs 150 energy and the strongest things it can target is tanks, templars and ultras wich means that it take a looong time for a queen to pay off. Edit: And i think the most important reason high templars are used so much is not his spells, but his ability to transform to archons when they run out of energy. If they couldn't become archons i doubt you'd see a lot of templars in most games simply beacuse they too take a lot of clicks, are expensive and vulnerable and slow and takes a ton of teching to get.
Hmm...I dunno. I think anyone would agree that Tasteless knows quite a lot more than bw than some random ass person like you. I mean like, I knew I was right before he even said that, because anyone with half a brain could tell you that a ghost is pretty worthless. But hey, you know more than people that have been playing the game for years!
I mean, it's not like ghost has a real low hp, gets buttfucked by storm, that toss has obs 95% time making unable to sneak up and get units, or that 75 gas is a real lot for a unit that doesnt do a whole lot, when a tank costs just a little bit more and is going to be a lot more effective. Clearly, it's the UI!
edit: wow I just read what you wrote again and I'm still laughing. At least do yourself a favor: if you're gonna insist on arguing about 'improving the game' with all these dandy new features, please know what the hell you're talking about first 
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Well, Klockan is right that the gas-cost is not the reason for ghosts to be underused. Vessels have an equal impact on gas but even in TvP they are extremely useful, arbiters and ht's get much weaker because of EMP. The UI is one of the main reasons why ghosts are underused. SC is very fast-paced and ghosts are only useful against carriers and arbiters. Since arbiters get countered by vessels the only reason left to build ghosts are carriers.
As seen on Monty Hall between Chrh and Bisu in the proleague several months ago. Who's interested in the progaming-scene knows that game already but I will use spoiler tags anyway. + Show Spoiler +Chrh clearly won the game with the massive use of ghosts. If you rewatch the game you can see that Chrh had relatively "easy" times using his ghosts whenever he needed them.
To me this proves that the UI is not the first reason why ghosts are underused. It's the 2nd reason at best.
So...
Q: Why don't terran players automatically tech to ghost as soon as they scan carrier tech? It would be logical, not?
I thought about the possible scenarios where carriers can be locked down. Protoss players are smart, they never send their group of carriers further than neccessary. They keep them on cliffs or above water/space, in other words: they keep them in distance. Proper control allows the protoss player to do a lot of damage without getting too many hits on his carriers from goliaths. Now imagine terran has some ghosts there and manages to lockdown say 2 carriers out of 8. Protoss will fly the rest away and continue to harass somewhere else. The ghosts will have to walk a long distance, probably through a mass of goliaths and tanks and maybe into mining scvs because protoss likes to harass expansions with his carriers. The 2 lone carriers that have been locked down can't get shot because they were returning behind the cliff/water at the moment when the ghosts locked them down. Terran will lock down 2 more carriers at his expansion but only 1 of them stays in the range of goliath fire. The first two carriers will be unlocked at that point and protoss flies his 6 carriers somewhere else and adds 2 new carriers. Terran manages to shoot down one of the locked carriers and locks 2 of the remaining carriers. Protoss flies his carriers (6 again) away and adds the once-locked carrier from the expansion that terran couldn't manage to shoot down. Protoss adds a 3rd stargate. Terran manages to shoot down one of the locked carriers and barely damages the other one and protoss rescues the weak carrier and adds it to his remaining 6, then adds 2 new carriers and keeps harassing, now building 3 carriers at once. Follow the story-line and you know why ghosts don't make enough of a difference.
The extra effort is simply too much. No matter how hard terran tries, protoss can always keep a healthy amount of carriers, all because of cliff usage and path abuse.
Now this is the scenario for maps with many dangerous cliffs/waters and with bad pathing like Loki 2 and Peaks of Baekdu. On maps like Longinus or maybe Python it can be different because there's much more space for ground units and the pathing is alright.
The thing is that protoss players are "smart" enough to not tech carriers on Longinus or Python unless they want to surprise terran. Or the starting positions are good for carriers e.g. 12-3 on Python. So terran will never get into a scenario where ghosts become useful enough against carriers. Not even smartcast could change that.
Sorry spoiler again. + Show Spoiler +But Chrh used ghosts vs Bisu on Monty Hall and he had success with it. Monty Hall is obviously a carrier-map, pathing is not too good, it has cliffs, everything's alright. Q: Why did Chrh win with his ghosts? A: Bisu was obviously surprised. He ran his carriers into the ghosts all the time so what would he expect to happen? As I described the best scenario for carriers vs ghosts is to keep them on cliffs/above water. Bisu forgot about it so he lost the game.
PS: Sometimes I hate to make spoilers.
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On November 30 2007 00:59 ForAdun wrote:
Q: Why don't terran players automatically tech to ghost as soon as they scan carrier tech? It would be logical, not?
Easier, quicker, and more cost-efficient to pump goliaths from existing 6+ factories rather than make NEW barracks to train NEW ghosts and also add a NEW add-on to your science facility so you can research NEW lockdown. Also have to wait for your ghosts to get to 150 energy. All this for an ability that doesn't even do any damage, simply disables a unit. Even after all that tech, you'll still need golaiths anyways to kill it! Why not simply use those resources to make the more obvious and readily-available counter unit? Well that's exactly what pros do, I'm sure you know that already.
This brings me to another point. If a caster isn't very good because of its abilities, then smartcasting won't do anything to make it better. Notice in SC that the good abilities are those that do direct damage (psionic storm, irradiate, plague), or those that protect units (defensive matrix, dark swarm). Abilities like lockdown, ensnare, EMP, hallucinate, and parasite simply don't help you kill units quickly enough to be useful (EMP could be the exception here; a well-placed EMP could potentially drain 500+ shields & templar energy in one shot; against a group of carriers, one EMP can easily drain 1500+ shields in one shot).
Now look at SC2. Psionic Storm is almost definitely in the game, and there are some other abilities that seem to benefit from smartcasting, such as the new ghost's snipe (notice it is a direct damage ability, so we can already make a reasonable assumption it will be a great ability). Smartcasting will make these game-breaking abilities even more game-breaking, which is why they need to be balanced appropriately.
Who cares if you could more quickly disable a few more units, or EMP an area a few seconds quicker? Casting crappy abilities faster won't suddenly revolutionize any gameplay or strategy.
Smartcasting doesn't make a bad ability good. It only makes good abilities better.
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On November 30 2007 00:59 ForAdun wrote:Well, Klockan is right that the gas-cost is not the reason for ghosts to be underused. Vessels have an equal impact on gas but even in TvP they are extremely useful, arbiters and ht's get much weaker because of EMP. The UI is one of the main reasons why ghosts are underused. SC is very fast-paced and ghosts are only useful against carriers and arbiters. Since arbiters get countered by vessels the only reason left to build ghosts are carriers. As seen on Monty Hall between Chrh and Bisu in the proleague several months ago. Who's interested in the progaming-scene knows that game already but I will use spoiler tags anyway. + Show Spoiler +Chrh clearly won the game with the massive use of ghosts. If you rewatch the game you can see that Chrh had relatively "easy" times using his ghosts whenever he needed them. To me this proves that the UI is not the first reason why ghosts are underused. It's the 2nd reason at best. So... Q: Why don't terran players automatically tech to ghost as soon as they scan carrier tech? It would be logical, not? I thought about the possible scenarios where carriers can be locked down. Protoss players are smart, they never send their group of carriers further than neccessary. They keep them on cliffs or above water/space, in other words: they keep them in distance. Proper control allows the protoss player to do a lot of damage without getting too many hits on his carriers from goliaths. Now imagine terran has some ghosts there and manages to lockdown say 2 carriers out of 8. Protoss will fly the rest away and continue to harass somewhere else. The ghosts will have to walk a long distance, probably through a mass of goliaths and tanks and maybe into mining scvs because protoss likes to harass expansions with his carriers. The 2 lone carriers that have been locked down can't get shot because they were returning behind the cliff/water at the moment when the ghosts locked them down. Terran will lock down 2 more carriers at his expansion but only 1 of them stays in the range of goliath fire. The first two carriers will be unlocked at that point and protoss flies his 6 carriers somewhere else and adds 2 new carriers. Terran manages to shoot down one of the locked carriers and locks 2 of the remaining carriers. Protoss flies his carriers (6 again) away and adds the once-locked carrier from the expansion that terran couldn't manage to shoot down. Protoss adds a 3rd stargate. Terran manages to shoot down one of the locked carriers and barely damages the other one and protoss rescues the weak carrier and adds it to his remaining 6, then adds 2 new carriers and keeps harassing, now building 3 carriers at once. Follow the story-line and you know why ghosts don't make enough of a difference. The extra effort is simply too much. No matter how hard terran tries, protoss can always keep a healthy amount of carriers, all because of cliff usage and path abuse. Now this is the scenario for maps with many dangerous cliffs/waters and with bad pathing like Loki 2 and Peaks of Baekdu. On maps like Longinus or maybe Python it can be different because there's much more space for ground units and the pathing is alright. The thing is that protoss players are "smart" enough to not tech carriers on Longinus or Python unless they want to surprise terran. Or the starting positions are good for carriers e.g. 12-3 on Python. So terran will never get into a scenario where ghosts become useful enough against carriers. Not even smartcast could change that. Sorry spoiler again. + Show Spoiler +But Chrh used ghosts vs Bisu on Monty Hall and he had success with it. Monty Hall is obviously a carrier-map, pathing is not too good, it has cliffs, everything's alright. Q: Why did Chrh win with his ghosts? A: Bisu was obviously surprised. He ran his carriers into the ghosts all the time so what would he expect to happen? As I described the best scenario for carriers vs ghosts is to keep them on cliffs/above water. Bisu forgot about it so he lost the game. PS: Sometimes I hate to make spoilers.
Maybe at the pro-level where the Protoss has absolutely perfect carrier use, then lockdown wouldn't be very useful even with MBS. But what if they just slip-up even a single time, by bringing their carriers slightly too far out of the cliff. Normally, this would be punished by goliath fire by losing 1 carrier or maybe 2 at most. Like you noted, even Bisu ran into the ghosts unexpectedly in the game. However, if the Terran had about 5-6 ghosts in their army along w/goliaths, one mistake and bam now the whole carrier fleet (or most of it) is suddenly disabled and in the open to fire --> dead --> gg. This scenario would be far more common at the lower, middle or upper skill level players (non-Korean pro), where a single mismicro error happens all the time.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
Klockan3, i hate to be mean but i couldn't stop laughing when i read your post, i thought it was a joke at first, then i just felt embarrassed for you.
The tank is the backbone of the terran army when fighting protoss, if you can get enough tanks and get them covered by vulture bikes you can push out of your base and take out the protoss. Terrans don't use infantry against protoss because PSI storm is so powerful that it makes them useless. The ghost costs almost as much gas as a Tank, and keep in mind the tank does the most damage out of the terran attack force, 70 damage when in seige mode. So if your going to sacrifice 6 tanks to get 8 ghosts your giving up a lot of damage that you could deal in a battle. Keep in mind seige tanks are so powerful and have such incredible range that a protoss player can lose his army in seconds if he attacks at the wrong moment, with that in mind, there's no need to waist gas getting a unit that can temporarily freeze any protoss ground units. It's so uneconomical that the risk isn't worth it.
Ghosts could be useful against carriers, but lockdown lacks range and carriers can move away while they attack. You can kill a ghost in under a second with a few carriers meaning you'd have to catch those carriers out in the open, and a good player would never let you do that. You also seem to forget that by spending that gas on a few ghosts your giving up goliaths or wraiths, which cost gas as well. In other words if you actually get to lock down a unit, you'd still have less units there to kill it than if you didn't waist time trying to be fancy with ghosts in the first place. Lockdown, unlike say, EMP is just not that useful in TvP given these circumstances.
Doing mass lock downs isn't any harder than doing mass storms or irradiates. The UI is by no means preventing ghosts from being used competitively. It's simply not a good unit and plays no central role in winning.
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United States22883 Posts
Doing mass lock downs isn't any harder than doing mass storms or irradiates. The UI is by no means preventing ghosts from being used competitively. It's simply not a good unit and plays no central role in winning. Do you really believe mass lockdowns/irradiate are as difficult as storm/swarm? I think the UI and cloning make lockdown significantly more difficult than the aoe spells and harder than it should be given how badly ghosts suck. The real case to be made is that Irradiate needs to be difficult to use, and as much as I think cloning is a backwards way to do things, smartcasting would make Irradiate way too powerful and I'd rather work around a UI than have an important spell toned down, so I guess I'm joining the anti-smartcasting crowd.
Isn't storm already getting nerfed?
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
i don't see how it would be inherently harder to preform several lock downs at once instead of several psi storms. Both involve you clicking on individual caster, hitting the corresponding hotkey, then clicking on the desired unit you wish to use the ability against, then repeat. Storms must be more calculated as well since it's affecting more units, i would even argue it's more difficult to cast a few excellent storms back to back than lockdown a few units.
I do agree with you though that mass spell casting shouldn't be made too easy.
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On November 29 2007 23:39 ForAdun wrote:
@ skyglow1
We were specifically talking about caster units when we took the magic box into account. This is what I said, nobody uses the magic box with caster units. Of course the magic box is useful for combat units, I myself use it - but never for caster units. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I hope this clears it up.
Woops I shoulda thought of that >< Sorry.
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Simply put, smartcasting takes skill out of the game. If you want the game to be lesss skill involved, then add it
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On November 29 2007 04:53 YinYang69 wrote:
Why bother bringing up lockdowns or what have you. I mean it's not even use and you know why? Cause of the damn UI thats why! Fuck I guess we can keep the UI shitty if it makes us go wow one game out of every thousand. There will always be things that make us go wow and gamers pro or otherwise will find clever things to do in game that require alot of hand dexterity. Smartcasting will not ruin that.
no, smartcasting itself won't ruin anything, but turning it off for progamers and leaving it on for average players will diminish how spectacular progaming is.
I actually think smart casting is a good idea, but I think an on/off swith for it is not.
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On November 30 2007 06:58 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2007 00:59 ForAdun wrote:Well, Klockan is right that the gas-cost is not the reason for ghosts to be underused. Vessels have an equal impact on gas but even in TvP they are extremely useful, arbiters and ht's get much weaker because of EMP. The UI is one of the main reasons why ghosts are underused. SC is very fast-paced and ghosts are only useful against carriers and arbiters. Since arbiters get countered by vessels the only reason left to build ghosts are carriers. As seen on Monty Hall between Chrh and Bisu in the proleague several months ago. Who's interested in the progaming-scene knows that game already but I will use spoiler tags anyway. + Show Spoiler +Chrh clearly won the game with the massive use of ghosts. If you rewatch the game you can see that Chrh had relatively "easy" times using his ghosts whenever he needed them. To me this proves that the UI is not the first reason why ghosts are underused. It's the 2nd reason at best. So... Q: Why don't terran players automatically tech to ghost as soon as they scan carrier tech? It would be logical, not? I thought about the possible scenarios where carriers can be locked down. Protoss players are smart, they never send their group of carriers further than neccessary. They keep them on cliffs or above water/space, in other words: they keep them in distance. Proper control allows the protoss player to do a lot of damage without getting too many hits on his carriers from goliaths. Now imagine terran has some ghosts there and manages to lockdown say 2 carriers out of 8. Protoss will fly the rest away and continue to harass somewhere else. The ghosts will have to walk a long distance, probably through a mass of goliaths and tanks and maybe into mining scvs because protoss likes to harass expansions with his carriers. The 2 lone carriers that have been locked down can't get shot because they were returning behind the cliff/water at the moment when the ghosts locked them down. Terran will lock down 2 more carriers at his expansion but only 1 of them stays in the range of goliath fire. The first two carriers will be unlocked at that point and protoss flies his 6 carriers somewhere else and adds 2 new carriers. Terran manages to shoot down one of the locked carriers and locks 2 of the remaining carriers. Protoss flies his carriers (6 again) away and adds the once-locked carrier from the expansion that terran couldn't manage to shoot down. Protoss adds a 3rd stargate. Terran manages to shoot down one of the locked carriers and barely damages the other one and protoss rescues the weak carrier and adds it to his remaining 6, then adds 2 new carriers and keeps harassing, now building 3 carriers at once. Follow the story-line and you know why ghosts don't make enough of a difference. The extra effort is simply too much. No matter how hard terran tries, protoss can always keep a healthy amount of carriers, all because of cliff usage and path abuse. Now this is the scenario for maps with many dangerous cliffs/waters and with bad pathing like Loki 2 and Peaks of Baekdu. On maps like Longinus or maybe Python it can be different because there's much more space for ground units and the pathing is alright. The thing is that protoss players are "smart" enough to not tech carriers on Longinus or Python unless they want to surprise terran. Or the starting positions are good for carriers e.g. 12-3 on Python. So terran will never get into a scenario where ghosts become useful enough against carriers. Not even smartcast could change that. Sorry spoiler again. + Show Spoiler +But Chrh used ghosts vs Bisu on Monty Hall and he had success with it. Monty Hall is obviously a carrier-map, pathing is not too good, it has cliffs, everything's alright. Q: Why did Chrh win with his ghosts? A: Bisu was obviously surprised. He ran his carriers into the ghosts all the time so what would he expect to happen? As I described the best scenario for carriers vs ghosts is to keep them on cliffs/above water. Bisu forgot about it so he lost the game. PS: Sometimes I hate to make spoilers. Maybe at the pro-level where the Protoss has absolutely perfect carrier use, then lockdown wouldn't be very useful even with MBS. But what if they just slip-up even a single time, by bringing their carriers slightly too far out of the cliff. Normally, this would be punished by goliath fire by losing 1 carrier or maybe 2 at most. Like you noted, even Bisu ran into the ghosts unexpectedly in the game. However, if the Terran had about 5-6 ghosts in their army along w/goliaths, one mistake and bam now the whole carrier fleet (or most of it) is suddenly disabled and in the open to fire --> dead --> gg. This scenario would be far more common at the lower, middle or upper skill level players (non-Korean pro), where a single mismicro error happens all the time.
Carrier micro is known to be one of the easiest things to do in SC. Moving a fleet of carriers back and forth to prevent damage and pick out single targets is a basic skill for any better gamer, progamer or not. Even zerg players who've never touched protoss before can do that after some minutes of training. Any amateur can use carriers like a progamer. This is the main reason why carriers were so overwhelming several years ago.
+ Show Spoiler +Would be nice if you put the Bisu part in spoiler tags. Just in case. Yes, Bisu lost his carriers like a newbie but as I explained he was simply bluffed by the early ghost tech. Afaik he didn't even have enough time to react in the first scenario to save all of his carriers which was essential. Then again terran had several gas expansions so he could afford to build many many ghosts and send them into different directions which is essential on Monty Hall. Because of that Bisu was unable to come back and start proper harassment.
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On November 29 2007 23:39 ForAdun wrote:
@ skyglow1
We were specifically talking about caster units when we took the magic box into account. This is what I said, nobody uses the magic box with caster units. Of course the magic box is useful for combat units, I myself use it - but never for caster units. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I hope this clears it up.
Well personally, I use magic boxes (and purposely avoid magic boxes when needed) with casters very frequently unless I'm in a macrofest... and then sometimes even then but it's just less precise. And if Blizzard keeps to their purpose of putting a little less emphasis on base management in SC2, every micro trick is going to be critical at the pro level if nowhere else.
Magic boxes needs to stay working for casters, or they just lost a big part of what made SC:BW fun.
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i got here a bit late haha but i think that what i have to say is reasonable and simple if a pro dosent have to micro that much for casting then he'll have more time to micro other units ergo the more skillfull player will still win we are going to see even more micro not less
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r u insane? this topic was created and last discuss in 2007....
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On May 20 2010 05:22 ale wrote:
i got here a bit late haha but i think that what i have to say is reasonable and simple if a pro dosent have to micro that much for casting then he'll have more time to micro other units ergo the more skillfull player will still win we are going to see even more micro not less
You necrod a thread so you could share two sentences?
Enjoy the ban.
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haha i just thought i had the right to say what i thought, i'm new to this website and this post seemed important, and afterall it's the only thred about smartcasting
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Smart-casting is fine in my opinion, the idea of you selecting a group of spell casters and every single one blowing their MP when you cast a spell ONCE seemed simply like sloppy coding to me. Sure it may make it easier to use spell casters, and a lot of us (myself included) got used to and are fine with manually selecting casters individually I fully support smart-casting. Why? Because it lets me focus my micro on more important things than spending a good 35-40% of it working around an archaic UI and control system.
Edit: BTW why the hell was this thread rezzed?
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EPT
