There will obviously be balance shifts when gameplay values are changed. Nobody is claiming otherwise. This thread is about the effect these changes have on the clarity and spectator-friendliness of SC2.
I'm testing out how matches work with the movement modifed such as in this video.
This isn't the best example, but it's a match in mmDaybreak. Overall gameplay seems very similar, and not extremely different as many thought it would be, but if you look at how armies move and aren't forced to clump everytime you right click somewhere, it's pretty significant. It's much more spectator friendly. Although this game never got to that high of an army count, the armies seemed to look fuller in size. You can even tell in low army numbers when retreating, it doesn't force you to clump. Anyways, this was a match between 2 diamonds I guess(that's the rank I used to be at when I played). I'm definitely rusty, hope you can look past that. Also something to note is that the more open the map, the more obvious the difference would be. I'm just happy the autoballs are gone lol. I felt more in control of my army.
What it does: It makes units stay in formation when moving them rather than ball up. You can organize your army as you wish and SC2 won't force you into a balled up army. You can still ball up your army if you wish but it is a choice. Armies look more natural as they move around the map. And of course, your army still reacts to their environment, so if things are in the way your army formation will adjust.
This isn't some genius coding or anything, I don't deserve any credit, it's just a number change of a value in the map editor. I'm not the first to find this out either, but I don't think a match has ever been played using this modification.
I tested playing with a friend on a daybreak map i modified and it didn't seem to break anything. However, we're not that pro and honestly we just don't really play or watch anymore. So I'm in need of some players, hopefully masters that know what they're doing to play some competitive matches and upload some replays, and give feedback.
So if you would help me by looking for the MM maps, listed above, on SC2 and playing a match there I would really appreciate it. MM = Modified Movement. I'm really curious as to how competitive matches would change with this modification, if at all.
Goal: To inspire Blizzard into changing SC2's current unit movement. I HATE the ball up effect and this seems to remove that. You can still ball up your units but the game won't force you into that. So if anyone is interested, I'd like people to just play a regular match and upload some replays. It would even be awesome if some pros or streamers could take a moment and try it out and give their thoughts. A match between two pros with their opinions would be amazing.
Look for "DM Unit Tester" for a modified unit tester with this movement. Uploaded by SeiGG
========================================================================== I have no idea whether this might break something since I haven't tested it enough and am honestly not as qualified to test it as players who currently play SC2 actively. I'm also not saying that this is the ultimate solution and that Blizzard should implement exactly what I've done. This might be a good solution, it might fail, but the goal is to get Blizzard to look at this and make some sort of change to unit movement that gives a similar result, whether it's through this type of method or another.
What I did:
"As to what I changed so others can do it too. Click the Data button in the editor. Then go on the Gameplay Data tab. Click on Default SC2 Gameplay Settings. Once clicked, on the right you will see some settings you can change. One of them is Formation Diameter(Mixed). Simply change this value to 50 to achieve what I've done. That's it "
And what needs to be done is indeed convince blizzard to change it but convince them in a way so that they realise it's not making the pathing worse or anything like that which it isn't either way but blizzard seems to love their "The pathing is better in sc2, clumbing is therefore good."
I do agree with you that clumped up armé is bad even in game play. But i guess it's just how it is. If the armé composition doesn't clump up it will be for example a lot harder to fungal or storm? or do EMP with ghosts.
On July 03 2012 18:59 Darneck wrote: Any chance of uploading MMdaybreak to EU?
This is the first time I've published a map so I apologize for not having uploaded it to EU and other regions. I'll try and do that now, hope it's not hard...
On July 03 2012 19:01 SilSol wrote: I do agree with you that clumped up armé is bad even in game play. But i guess it's just how it is. If the armé composition doesn't clump up it will be for example a lot harder to fungal or storm? or do EMP with ghosts.
AOE would just need a buff in area and maybe damage too. I love AOE and it should be OP as hell.
On July 03 2012 19:01 SilSol wrote: I do agree with you that clumped up armé is bad even in game play. But i guess it's just how it is. If the armé composition doesn't clump up it will be for example a lot harder to fungal or storm? or do EMP with ghosts.
This might be true, since the clumping is the reason why they have lower aoe radius in SC2. The radius might need to be increased if units don't naturally clump anymore. Hopefully we get good feedback as to how this affects gameplay as people play the map.
My immediate thought is that the maintained formation shown in the video would significantly reduced the effectiveness of AoE across the board. It looked like you only needed to spread your army once and as long as you had them all selected and didn't go for Terrain they couldn't fit through, they'd maintain the spread. I feel like that'd alleviate the need for more constant unit micro if you're at a level where that's something you do.
2. Like it or not. Changing it will give Blizzard a balance headache of huge proportions. Suddenly the AoE is kinda worthless. MKP doesn't need to even marinesplit vs banelings. His units won't clump up -> problem solved.
This is one of those things that won't change in SC2.
I really don't like the idea of changing something this fundamental to hwo sc2 works at this point in it's development as an ESPORTS.
If something like this should have been implemented it would have had to have been back in beta or before, now, especially with the kespa players coming in, there is so much invested in sc2 as it is now that it would be incredibly unfair to the players to change something as fundamental as how all the units move.
Imagine changing the football used in soccer by making is 25% larger, it's basically that. You can't have a stable Esports scene if the very fundamentals of the game can change with little to no warning, For sc2 to succeed as a sport it needs to be scene as a stable carreer, and large changes like this undermine that.
If the pro's who have been practicing with the current setup for almost two years now wanted a change then fine, but a lot of diamond and master non pros who just want matches to look prettier and force all the pros to relearn the game just so that can happen seems very unfair imo.
It looks much nicer visually, however I believe it can make control a bit harder. That's not a bad thing after all, since pro players have the apm to either put the units in a deathball formation or into any other formation quite easily.
Just hope it won't make stalkers and immortals as stupid as dragoons.
On July 03 2012 19:06 killerdog wrote: I really don't like the idea of changing something this fundamental to hwo sc2 works at this point in it's development as an ESPORTS.
If something like this should have been implemented it would have had to have been back in beta or before, now, especially with the kespa players coming in, there is so much invested in sc2 as it is now that it would be incredibly unfair to the players to change something as fundamental as how all the units move.
Imagine changing the football used in soccer by making is 25% larger, it's basically that. You can't have a stable Esports scene if the very fundamentals of the game can change with little to no warning, For sc2 to succeed as a sport it needs to be scene as a stable carreer, and large changes like this undermine that.
If the pro's who have been practicing with the current setup for almost two years now wanted a change then fine, but a lot of diamond and master non pros who just want matches to look prettier and force all the pros to relearn the game just so that can happen seems very unfair imo.
Just my opinion :p
I agree that something like this should have been back in beta but that's the past and we can't change that anymore. Now's probably a better time than we might ever get. Hots is coming and will change the game quite a bit anyways. The beta is starting soon. So with an expansion and with a new beta state, this is probably the best time to encourage Blizz to look at such a change. It shouldn't change the game THAT much, any practice you get now won't be wasted. There will be new things to learn, I'm sure, but it's really now or wait till LoV beta.
This would be a great change if implemented, but would require a lot of balancing to make AOE units work like they should. Edit: I can't find the map, I searched "MMDaybreak" "daybreak" "mm" and your name on NA and none of them worked. I tested the unit test map and was very pleased with the results. I found that properly splitting an army beats a deathball, while an improperly split one would lose. In some situations (lings against marine), the split lead to a greater surface area leading to the split army doing worse than the deathball, while against banelings the pre-split helped a lot, but was inferior to top quality marine splitting, as with that more marines can fire at once. Overall I think that this will increase the skill cap of the game, and result in better fights. (However there would need to be changes so a player (or at least observers) can zoom out and view the whole battle at once
On July 03 2012 19:08 speknek wrote: Yes current aoe spells would be less effective vs permanently spread out units, thanks detectives. Let's think about less obvious things now.
You shouldn't ignore the showstopping issue just because it's inconvenient.
On July 03 2012 19:10 Adonminus wrote: It looks much nicer visually, however I believe it can make control a bit harder. That's not a bad thing after all, since pro players have the apm to either put the units in a deathball formation or into any other formation quite easily.
Just hope it won't make stalkers and immortals as stupid as dragoons.
The value change doesn't affect movement AI, just the target location for each unit relative to the group command.
On July 03 2012 19:15 sOda~ wrote: but marine splitting is like the only cool thing in sc2
Spreading out your units via this method is OPTIONAL and you can still have the same clumped up Deathball as ever. It isnt called deathball for nothing, because it is still the most concentrated firepower per area you can have. Any defender will be at a disadvantage if he doesnt do it as well simply because you can kill off part of your opponents (spread out) army with your deathball and superior firepower.
To make a long story short: Without adjusting AoE damage (and radius) upwards dynamic unit movement doesnt matter ... except for feeling much more natural.
EPT
