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Hi everyone.
I recently found out that pretty much all units in SC2 seem to have a random attack delay attached to them. This seems to mean that there is a randomness in the attack speed of all units, there being a chance of a unit attacking faster or slower than normal.
I found out about this after reading this topic on the EU beta forums and I was quite surprised. Sickstee.nine basically reports that in a 1 zealot vs 1 zealot fight, his zealot died with the enemy zelot surviving with 4 HP even though his zealot ATTACKED FIRST.
There is a replay there as well which unfortunately I can't figure out how to view anymore because of patch 13.
I had a look in the editor and indeed, pretty much all attacks for all units have:
Random Delay Maximum 0.125
Random Delay Minimum - 0.0625
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. I am far from being a top level player and I didn't play SC1 online much, but from what I remember the only randomness in SC1 was the miss chance for attacking units on high ground. That was easy to account for (you knew you might miss if you attacked high ground).
This just sounds like in SC2 there is an intrinsic miss chance for all units and there is no guarantee that when equal armies clash the result of the fight will be a draw, with perfect micro on both sides. Or did I miss something?
While some people might find this ok, I'm not sure I like this at all.
Discuss?
EDIT:
My own replay showing this: http://ul.to/jm2x75
Video recorded from the above replay (excuse quality and choppiness): http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7184942
You can see that the zealots aren't upgraded in any way (they are both the first zealots me and the computer make). You can see that the Computer's zealot hits first (I think you can make out the shield numbers in the UI).
Having thought about it I agree it's not such a big deal, especially later on when there are more units fighting against each other. I'm not that bothered about it anymore.
However, I think this is something players need to keep in mind, especially in low food fights (early game). It definitely wasn't something I was aware of before 
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thats about 50 milliseconds?
i doubt it makes any difference
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BW seemed to have something like this too though it probably wasn't intentional. Have you ever tried to kill all your SCVs as an obs? Even if your last 2 SCVs started attacking at the same time, one SCV would often randomly attack faster.
That being said, I don't like this randomness. There is no need for it. It doesn't make the game any better.
Oh and good job finding this.
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I couldn't find it in the editor. Which tab should I be looking at?
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Well, as stated in the link it was enough of a difference to alter the outcome of a zealot vs zealot fight.
Even if these delays do not make much of a difference there is still the freak bug linked in my original post.
Zealot attacks another zealot first, but also dies first with the other zealot having 4 HP left >.>
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On May 24 2010 21:20 shalafi wrote:
I couldn't find it in the editor. Which tab should I be looking at?
It's in the "Stats" tab of the weapons.
I can't take all the credit, Sickstee.nine found it, I just thought about posting this on TL.
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The interesting thing is that Blizzard said they didn't want a high ground advantage with a random miss chance. They said they didn't like the randomness of it. Now there seems to be other randomness encoded into the game. I wonder what Blizzard's comment would be on that.
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Someone post that jace hall video ^_^
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On May 24 2010 21:22 Aurdon wrote:
The interesting thing is that Blizzard said they didn't want a high ground advantage with a random miss chance. They said they didn't like the randomness of it. Now there seems to be other randomness encoded into the game. I wonder what Blizzard's comment would be on that.
Exactly this. Blizzard either needs to remove the hypocrisy or add in low ground miss chance.
Great find. I can't say I ever noticed this but I think any randomness in this form would be significant and unwanted.
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On May 24 2010 21:19 spinesheath wrote:
BW seemed to have something like this too though it probably wasn't intentional. Have you ever tried to kill all your SCVs as an obs? Even if your last 2 SCVs started attacking at the same time, one SCV would often randomly attack faster.
That being said, I don't like this randomness. There is no need for it. It doesn't make the game any better.
Oh and good job finding this.
With the unclear attack animation of the SCV, I think, that the SCV double kill only was this difficult due to poor unit pathing. If they did start attacking at the same tick, they should die both 10 out of 10 times.
Is this delay thing actually confirmed? I do remember seeing 2 stalkers shooting each other and dying simultaneously. Did the delay just even out over time, as stalkers need a lot of attacks to kill each other?
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I'll try to test this a bit myself, it just sucks that I'm at work atm and can't play 
I'll also try to conjure up a map with the delays removed and see what effect that has.
Feel free to test this yourselves as well.
I'd really want Blizz to remove this completely from the game!
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It makes sense that one unit, although identical in every way, will attack a bit sooner/later because of their animations (wait that tiny bit more for walk animation to end before attacking?) or whatever. It's obviously not intentional and doubt they can really fix it.
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China10928 Posts
For ranged units they die at the same time if you order 2 to attack each other. (if they have a projectile animation)
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On May 24 2010 21:29 Slunk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 21:19 spinesheath wrote:
BW seemed to have something like this too though it probably wasn't intentional. Have you ever tried to kill all your SCVs as an obs? Even if your last 2 SCVs started attacking at the same time, one SCV would often randomly attack faster.
That being said, I don't like this randomness. There is no need for it. It doesn't make the game any better.
Oh and good job finding this. With the unclear attack animation of the SCV, I think, that the SCV double kill only was this difficult due to poor unit pathing. If they did start attacking at the same tick, they should die both 10 out of 10 times. Is this delay thing actually confirmed? I do remember seeing 2 stalkers shooting each other and dying simultaneously. Did the delay just even out over time, as stalkers need a lot of attacks to kill each other?
Stalkers have a slow moving projectile, even if the units dies the "bullet" keeps on going....its easy to get double kills with ranged projectile units. The slight delay in firing is more than compensated with the delay the projectile takes in reaching its target.
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On May 24 2010 21:21 iiomega wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 21:20 shalafi wrote:
I couldn't find it in the editor. Which tab should I be looking at? It's in the "Stats" tab of the weapons. I can't take all the credit, Sickstee.nine found it, I just thought about posting this on TL.
Okay, found it. I had to activate "Advanced Values".
It seems that most units have that delay you said exactly, so fast-attacking units can vary more.
(For example, the fastest a ling can attack about 20% faster than the slowest ling).
Other attack, like reaper's grenades, can vary up to 0.5 seconds.
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So zergling fights are random? 
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I think BW had this as well, its avoid the weird scene of 30 units all attacking in sync. Things look more "natural" this way.
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This should be easy to test. Just make a map with 2 zerglings, wait for them to attack each other one or two times, save the game and reload it a bunch of times to see if the outcome is allways the same. (If it's even possible, I am not sure if SC" even has a save feature o0).
I don't think this is actually true. I remember a lot of times seeing let's say reapers tossing they grenades allways at the exact same time without any guy missing the rhythm.
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it's pretty obvious if you let 2 archons engage simultaneously
the gap can vary to +/- 1 attack, which is imo absolutly huge.
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On May 24 2010 21:49 HubertFelix wrote:So zergling fights are random?
Obviously they are. But mostly because of unit AI
On May 24 2010 21:21 iiomega wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 21:20 shalafi wrote:
I couldn't find it in the editor. Which tab should I be looking at? It's in the "Stats" tab of the weapons. I can't take all the credit, Sickstee.nine found it, I just thought about posting this on TL.
As if it was hidden somewhere haha
BW has it too and that's very noticeable especially when you watch m&m force. The problem here's not the random delay itself, but blizzard's inconsistency in leaving this random shit in the game, that is good ONLY for aesthetics, and refusal to put actually important high-ground advantage, cause it has randomness in it.
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EPT
