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On October 24 2012 02:20 Zoltan wrote:
well Mr. Fuckbrowder, I'm not a pro. I'm just a masters league dude with 80 apm.
As a high Diamond Terran player with anywhere from 150 to 170 average SC2 APM, this depresses me. There's definitely something missing in my play that's keeping me from Masters... T_T
Anywho, even those video examples show what DB was talking about: once the units reach their destination, they tend to clump up anyway. Given that players almost never just command their units to walk across the map with a single action, there's going to be a chain of destinations your army reaches, meaning the army is still going to remain mostly clumped in a real game situation.
Even if there could be a solution to the clumping issue without sacrificing the superior unit pathing AI, these proposed solutions from the community are not it IMO.
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On November 26 2012 20:10 Rabiator wrote:0. Your brain [basic math plus a little imagination and extrapolation skill] can give you "proof" that density of the units matters and affects the game. Just look at the Stalker and the Marine. They both have somewhat "similar" dps [Stalker: 7 dps; Marine: 6.9 dps; SOURCE], BUT they differ in size. So it is logical that you can have a higher "dps per area" from a clump of Marines than you get from a clump of Stalkers and yet they start at the same individual dps. That is not debatable and based on math, but what you can have an "opinion" on is if it affects the gameplay negatively or not. The "units per 1 square" is not a value we have, because the size really isnt a known value. So there cant really be precise calculations as to how high the unit density "dps per area" is for each unit unless Blizzard does it. You might be able to create a tiny map and completely fill it with units of type X and then count them, but thats a braindead work I am not willing to do. The point is that there is a big "uncertainty factor" injected into the game balance and this cant be good. Tight clumps of units have also nerfed Siege Tanks somewhat from their BW version, to the point that you might be able to kill a Siege Tank with some infantry without even losing a single unit yourself. In BW it was rather impossible to get 20 Marines into range of a Siege Tank without taking at least one shot and having a Marine or two die in the process, BUT the "perfectly tight" unit movement allows for far greater numbers of Marines to bum rush the tank - who gets 1 shot off without killing any unit (yay ... 35 damage vs. non-armored doesnt even kill a Marine and barely kills a Zergling!!) - and kill it in the blink of an eye. This is basically the downfall of mech, because the backbone unit can be rushed by too many units far too fast and killed without many losses. With a limited number of units in a control group AND forcing them to spread out while moving, you couldnt bring that many infantry in range easily, so you would actually need to think about how to do it. If you increase the combat values of the Siege Tank (either health or damage output ... doesnt really matter which) you will make the tank far too powerful in a "few vs few" situation. This clearly shows that it is a terrible idea to have a big difference in balancing between "few vs. few" and "many vs many". Unit density is at the core here and it should NOT be impossible to get a high unit density, BUT it should come at a cost (potentially losing a big chunk to AoE) AND require work from the player instead of coming "automatically".
I do not disagree with you about unit sizes. I disagree with the conclusions you are making.
Just because there is a preceived correlation between pathing and "what is wrong with sc2" doesnt make it so. You need to prove it by experimentation.
Browder did not report how his experiments were carried out, nor what the parameters included. If he did, there would be much less speculation about how valid those tests are and why. This is his fault, but the same rule applies to everyone else
Either way, it is the only data we have and it says your theory is incorrect.
4) Both sides have claimed a lot of things, so you cant really argue that way.
There are no "sides". I am asking you to back your arguments up. I don't have any of my own, but I am sceptical to this kind of conclusion. If you can prove to me that pathing solves an observable problem, I will happily support your claims.
You dont work at Blizzard, so you dont know everything you need to know about the game. <- If that was a requirement for thinking about the game and forming an opinion we should rather close down TL and all other fansites and just become happy little consumer-zombies without using our brain for thinking.
Blizzard has access to data that you do not, but that doesn't bother you when you are coming to your conclusions? Obviously you are entitled to an oppinion, but why would that mean your oppinion is suddenly more valid than the blizzard one, when you clearly have less data available.
I trust in Blizzard/Dustin Browder. <- Blind faith in a leader has never been a good thing. You have to ALWAYS think about what he/they is/are doing and if things go badly you need to say STOP. Thinking about stuff and possibilities is GOOD, because it EXERCISES YOUR BRAIN!
You have proposed zero concrete evidence, only speculation, yet you complain when people would rather take Blizzards side instead of your own because that would be blind faith? I am not defending Blizzard, I am asking why people feel such need to criticise them for what they do.
This is what I wrote in a post earlier in the thread:
You could essentially achieve the same results by arbitrarily restricting units from firing depth wise in a formation. Say that units block LoS of each other. You could also reduce the length of each unit of "range". That effectively does the same thing as just increasing the size of all units, without distorting the scale of the game. You could also have a slight "penetration" effect from single target units, so that any unit standing behind a unit would take 25% of the damage or something, making deep formations less attractive to wide ones.
I can't prove that these are theories that will work, but I think they will. So how do you argue against that?
On November 27 2012 03:52 theSAiNT wrote:
1) His test is clearly retarded. They allow UI tweaks to make it easier to spread but it's still optimal to clump up due to small unit size + long range. Therefore people chose to clump instead of spread.
2) Link please. Can't comment on this one, don't know it.
3) See BW.
4) This might be a fallacy (depending how you define 'extraordinary'. There are different applications with Bayes' Rule.)
5) Because he's stupid. He doesn't even understand the criticisms people are making. Case in point: he thinks people are asking for UI tweaks when what they want is a good reason to spread out.
1) I agree with you here. However, that has nothing to do with unit pathing now does it? I did not follow the blizzard thread super carefully, but it was my interpretation that they tested the kind of unit movement suggested by the community. A lot. What I gathered is that once you start moving these formations around in a normal game you eventually disable the magic box anyway.
So in the end, people do not chose to clump up, they simply do not need to split up. Unit pathing and formations then have no bearing on their play? Or do you think people would bother clumping up if they could with this new system?
2) I will have to concede this point, I can't find the video. All I know is that HD alledegly tried it and it didnt seem to matter much. Maybe someone else knows.
3) Broodwar is an isometric game with no physics. Unit pathing was terrible and I do not think that we want to have any of that back. I think another big contributor to units not being as clumped up then would be that you only moved 12 units at the time. The game of BW would split your units for you because of how the engine was designed. It is an oft used argument, but it is true. Sc2 is not the same as BW. What works for brood war might not work for Sc2. I am unsure of how we would even go about trying to prove in which ways you can compare the two.
4) What I think Mr Sagan means is that exceptional proof is simply put proof that is likely true. All I am saying is that I feel like the unit pathing is viewed as a silver bullet for sc2 and in order for me to believe that you will need more than just a video of units that are not clumped up.
5) If you look at the original battle.net thread, you will see that he gets pretty much all forms of critisism. People were asking for unit movement changes, not more reasons to spread out. The topic even explicitly states this.
The reason you have death balls is because you don't need to spread. In what way does non clumpy unit movement solve this?
People already complain quite a lot about having to spread bio versus protoss, which is precisely the kind of situation that you are advocating. Splitting and overall positioning in that way is mostly a mechanical challenge, where as positioning a siege tank is a strategical one.
If you force units to not clump, you are removing the challenge but bring nothing else back. Now MMM will stomp siege tanks and colossus and storms all day because they are presplit. So you want to increase the radius of the splash? Then you are back to square one. The only difference is that the units now occupy a larger part of the ground they stand on. Maybe that is a good thing for the esthetics, but honestly I don't feel like it is important for gameplay at all. The one thing that I would like is for the maps to be a part of this. With chokes and open spaces in different positions, you can be more succesful in the right engagement. Cloud Kingdom does this well, Entombed Valley not at all.
I think the damage output is just too high, that is why we call them death balls. There is no time to position units or take advantage of things. In that sense, forced unit formations would only be a bandaid fix.
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One thing I WILL say is that the clumping is ugly as sin,
and it may deserve to be phased out just because of that.
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Russian Federation221 Posts
On November 27 2012 17:20 Fenris420 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2012 20:10 Rabiator wrote:0. Your brain [basic math plus a little imagination and extrapolation skill] can give you "proof" that density of the units matters and affects the game. Just look at the Stalker and the Marine. They both have somewhat "similar" dps [Stalker: 7 dps; Marine: 6.9 dps; SOURCE], BUT they differ in size. So it is logical that you can have a higher "dps per area" from a clump of Marines than you get from a clump of Stalkers and yet they start at the same individual dps. That is not debatable and based on math, but what you can have an "opinion" on is if it affects the gameplay negatively or not. The "units per 1 square" is not a value we have, because the size really isnt a known value. So there cant really be precise calculations as to how high the unit density "dps per area" is for each unit unless Blizzard does it. You might be able to create a tiny map and completely fill it with units of type X and then count them, but thats a braindead work I am not willing to do. The point is that there is a big "uncertainty factor" injected into the game balance and this cant be good. Tight clumps of units have also nerfed Siege Tanks somewhat from their BW version, to the point that you might be able to kill a Siege Tank with some infantry without even losing a single unit yourself. In BW it was rather impossible to get 20 Marines into range of a Siege Tank without taking at least one shot and having a Marine or two die in the process, BUT the "perfectly tight" unit movement allows for far greater numbers of Marines to bum rush the tank - who gets 1 shot off without killing any unit (yay ... 35 damage vs. non-armored doesnt even kill a Marine and barely kills a Zergling!!) - and kill it in the blink of an eye. This is basically the downfall of mech, because the backbone unit can be rushed by too many units far too fast and killed without many losses. With a limited number of units in a control group AND forcing them to spread out while moving, you couldnt bring that many infantry in range easily, so you would actually need to think about how to do it. If you increase the combat values of the Siege Tank (either health or damage output ... doesnt really matter which) you will make the tank far too powerful in a "few vs few" situation. This clearly shows that it is a terrible idea to have a big difference in balancing between "few vs. few" and "many vs many". Unit density is at the core here and it should NOT be impossible to get a high unit density, BUT it should come at a cost (potentially losing a big chunk to AoE) AND require work from the player instead of coming "automatically". 3) Broodwar is an isometric game with no physics. Unit pathing was terrible and I do not think that we want to have any of that back.
What was so terrible in BW unit pathing? Aside from zealots moving in Benny Hill style(which is imho funny and not terrible).
For me if the choice is from BW pathing and SC2 pathing I would choose BW.
I dont watch many Dota 2 and LOL games so I can't be sure, but unit pathing in those games looks OK.
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On November 27 2012 17:20 Fenris420 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2012 20:10 Rabiator wrote:0. Your brain [basic math plus a little imagination and extrapolation skill] can give you "proof" that density of the units matters and affects the game. Just look at the Stalker and the Marine. They both have somewhat "similar" dps [Stalker: 7 dps; Marine: 6.9 dps; SOURCE], BUT they differ in size. So it is logical that you can have a higher "dps per area" from a clump of Marines than you get from a clump of Stalkers and yet they start at the same individual dps. That is not debatable and based on math, but what you can have an "opinion" on is if it affects the gameplay negatively or not. The "units per 1 square" is not a value we have, because the size really isnt a known value. So there cant really be precise calculations as to how high the unit density "dps per area" is for each unit unless Blizzard does it. You might be able to create a tiny map and completely fill it with units of type X and then count them, but thats a braindead work I am not willing to do. The point is that there is a big "uncertainty factor" injected into the game balance and this cant be good. Tight clumps of units have also nerfed Siege Tanks somewhat from their BW version, to the point that you might be able to kill a Siege Tank with some infantry without even losing a single unit yourself. In BW it was rather impossible to get 20 Marines into range of a Siege Tank without taking at least one shot and having a Marine or two die in the process, BUT the "perfectly tight" unit movement allows for far greater numbers of Marines to bum rush the tank - who gets 1 shot off without killing any unit (yay ... 35 damage vs. non-armored doesnt even kill a Marine and barely kills a Zergling!!) - and kill it in the blink of an eye. This is basically the downfall of mech, because the backbone unit can be rushed by too many units far too fast and killed without many losses. With a limited number of units in a control group AND forcing them to spread out while moving, you couldnt bring that many infantry in range easily, so you would actually need to think about how to do it. If you increase the combat values of the Siege Tank (either health or damage output ... doesnt really matter which) you will make the tank far too powerful in a "few vs few" situation. This clearly shows that it is a terrible idea to have a big difference in balancing between "few vs. few" and "many vs many". Unit density is at the core here and it should NOT be impossible to get a high unit density, BUT it should come at a cost (potentially losing a big chunk to AoE) AND require work from the player instead of coming "automatically". I do not disagree with you about unit sizes. I disagree with the conclusions you are making. Just because there is a preceived correlation between pathing and "what is wrong with sc2" doesnt make it so. You need to prove it by experimentation. Browder did not report how his experiments were carried out, nor what the parameters included. If he did, there would be much less speculation about how valid those tests are and why. This is his fault, but the same rule applies to everyone else Either way, it is the only data we have and it says your theory is incorrect.
The thing is:
a. Blizzard has NOT proven their theory by examples either (and neither has any of the "trust in Blizzard" people) no matter what you claim. They didnt say how they tested it and you said it yourself ... and yet you claim that is "the only data we have"?
b. My reasoning is quite simply that tight movement and unlimited unit selection create a "fluctuating balance" between units of type a and b according to the number of units involved and this makes balancing stupidly hard. My reasoning also claims that the deathball is making the game boring to watch simply because you cant efficiently siege your enemy. My reasoning also claims that Blizzard is making their own job of balancing units and creating fun units harder because of the existence of auto-clumping; the examples of "super-strong" attacks and abilities in BW shows that quite clearly. They were OP, but acceptable since they never affected a big chunk of your opponents army.
I dont need a video for to show that more Marines can be stacked into the same space compared to Stalkers. The dps of the Marine clump will be higher per area of units. You are agreeing with me here that there is a fluctuation in balance and come to the conclusion that it isnt as bad. That is your right, but you are continuing to tell me that I am wrong without any proof yourself.
I dont need a video to "prove" that the damage of the Siege Tank had to be nerfed simply because it would have annihilated too much stuff with the BW values. The consequence is that in fewer numbers they dont really do their job anymore and dont kill enough before getting killed themselves easily. This is clearly a consequence of tight unit movement and also unlimited unit selection.
The big issue is that it adds a degree of uncertainty to the game which could be taken out if the unit selection was limited to 12 and units would spread out while moving. Sure you have the same amount of units on the map, but its all about "how many units can affect each other?" and thats where the problem starts.
If TOO MANY small units can shoot a big unit - Siege Tank, Thor, Carrier, Battlecruiser - the big ones die too fast and arent worth it. Logical and trivial conclusion which requires no video.
Trying to fix this "big units seem to be made of paper" problem by making them tougher or stronger doesnt work, because they will get too tough if you rush them out and overwhelm the opponent easily.
I also dont need a video to describe how the deathball (any tight army) works. You either think its great OR you are like me and think its terribly boring.
I also dont need a video to tell you that positional play and siegeing your opponent isnt worth it because of the deathball, because hey, Dustin Browder said it himself ... the deathball is the most efficient way and it is a trivial logic which says that this focused damage is more efficient than spreading out your forces. So the deathball - which essentially IS tight movement and unlimited unit selection - LIMITS STRATEGIES. It ultimately boils down to ...
- Do you want a game with big armies dancing around each other and eventually erasing each other in a big 30 second battle? OR
- Do you want constant small and medium sized engagements all over with nifty tricks being used to dislodge a fortified position in a constantly ongoing war?
- Do you want one strategy only to be viable or more than one?
- Do you want interesting and potentially overpowered abilities which dont matter because they are only rarely overpowered?
The point is that automatic tight unit movement and unlimited selection make it TOO EASY to form a concentrated group of units, but it would be better if ...
- you had the OPTION (instead of getting it automatically) to clump your units through MICRO and
- you could be penalized for doing so by strong AoE attacks and
- you could be as efficient with a somewhat spread out army.
I dont need to prove anything here, because most of it is pure math and quite trivial.
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With the post (which is now above the above post) in mind, I've just tested a game of BW to confirm the effectiveness of unit pathing.
Here is what happened when I tried to move a control group of zerglings:
- I initially spread them out in a concave, as if they were about to surround an unsuspecting enemy.
- I gave the move command, and my zerglings began forming a line. (the concave shape was gone...)
- The zerglings at the front moved smoothly.
- The ones at the back bumped with the zerglings in the front. (Don't even ask how...they just did)
- This made the zergling stop for some fractions of a second, as if it was stunned.
- The zergling at the front kept moving without being affected.
This actually made my army seem spread out, because my control group of zerglings didn't move as one - the ones at the back bumped with the ones at front, stopped for some micro seconds and then moved on. This bump caused a space to develop between the zergling at the front (which didn't bump into anything).
A video might be better, but I hope my limited english conveyed the picture.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the unit pathing in BW is buggy. The "spread-out" doesn't seem intentional... Not surprising, considering mutalisk stacking is also a bug, along with other bugs that became so crucial to BW micro.
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Russian Federation221 Posts
On November 27 2012 19:58 Unshapely wrote:
With the post (which is now above the above post) in mind, I've just testing a game of BW to confirm the effectiveness of unit pathing.
Here is what happened when I tried to move a control group of zerglings:
- I initially spread them out in a concave, as if they were about to surround an unsuspecting enemy.
- I gave the move command, and my zerglings began forming a line. (the concave shape was gone...)
- The zerglings at the front moved smoothly.
- The ones at the back bumped with the zergling in the front. (Don't even ask how...they just did)
- This made the zergling stop for some fractions of a second, as if it was stunned.
- The zergling at the front kept moving without being affected.
This actually made my army seem spread out, because my control group of zerglings didn't move as one - the ones at the back bumped with the ones at front, stopped for some micro seconds and then moved on. This bump caused a space to develop between the zergling at the front (which didn't bump into anything).
A video might be better, but I hope my limited english conveyed the picture.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the unit pathing in BW is buggy. The "spread-out" doesn't seem intentional... Not surprising, considering mutalisk stacking is also a bug, along with other bugs that became so crucial to BW micro.
But the end result is that units are spread out in BW?
OK since you are talking about bad and buggy animation look at Thors in SC2. They constantly penetrate (don’t know which better word to use) into each other.
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Yes, that is the core reason why units are spread out in BW. They just don't move as one (in SC2, units move really smoothly). I've just tested this with marines as well, and a couple of larger units such as dragoons.
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Russian Federation221 Posts
On November 27 2012 20:38 Unshapely wrote:
Yes, that is the core reason why units are spread out in BW. They just don't move as one (in SC2, units move really smoothly). I've just tested this with marines as well, and a couple of larger units such as dragoons.
In that case in SC2 Blizzard should have done smooth movement but kept end result of movement from BW (spread out units).
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On November 27 2012 19:56 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 17:20 Fenris420 wrote:On November 26 2012 20:10 Rabiator wrote:0. Your brain [basic math plus a little imagination and extrapolation skill] can give you "proof" that density of the units matters and affects the game. Just look at the Stalker and the Marine. They both have somewhat "similar" dps [Stalker: 7 dps; Marine: 6.9 dps; SOURCE], BUT they differ in size. So it is logical that you can have a higher "dps per area" from a clump of Marines than you get from a clump of Stalkers and yet they start at the same individual dps. That is not debatable and based on math, but what you can have an "opinion" on is if it affects the gameplay negatively or not. The "units per 1 square" is not a value we have, because the size really isnt a known value. So there cant really be precise calculations as to how high the unit density "dps per area" is for each unit unless Blizzard does it. You might be able to create a tiny map and completely fill it with units of type X and then count them, but thats a braindead work I am not willing to do. The point is that there is a big "uncertainty factor" injected into the game balance and this cant be good. Tight clumps of units have also nerfed Siege Tanks somewhat from their BW version, to the point that you might be able to kill a Siege Tank with some infantry without even losing a single unit yourself. In BW it was rather impossible to get 20 Marines into range of a Siege Tank without taking at least one shot and having a Marine or two die in the process, BUT the "perfectly tight" unit movement allows for far greater numbers of Marines to bum rush the tank - who gets 1 shot off without killing any unit (yay ... 35 damage vs. non-armored doesnt even kill a Marine and barely kills a Zergling!!) - and kill it in the blink of an eye. This is basically the downfall of mech, because the backbone unit can be rushed by too many units far too fast and killed without many losses. With a limited number of units in a control group AND forcing them to spread out while moving, you couldnt bring that many infantry in range easily, so you would actually need to think about how to do it. If you increase the combat values of the Siege Tank (either health or damage output ... doesnt really matter which) you will make the tank far too powerful in a "few vs few" situation. This clearly shows that it is a terrible idea to have a big difference in balancing between "few vs. few" and "many vs many". Unit density is at the core here and it should NOT be impossible to get a high unit density, BUT it should come at a cost (potentially losing a big chunk to AoE) AND require work from the player instead of coming "automatically". I do not disagree with you about unit sizes. I disagree with the conclusions you are making. Just because there is a preceived correlation between pathing and "what is wrong with sc2" doesnt make it so. You need to prove it by experimentation. Browder did not report how his experiments were carried out, nor what the parameters included. If he did, there would be much less speculation about how valid those tests are and why. This is his fault, but the same rule applies to everyone else Either way, it is the only data we have and it says your theory is incorrect. The thing is: a. Blizzard has NOT proven their theory by examples either (and neither has any of the "trust in Blizzard" people) no matter what you claim. They didnt say how they tested it and you said it yourself ... and yet you claim that is "the only data we have"? b. My reasoning is quite simply that tight movement and unlimited unit selection create a "fluctuating balance" between units of type a and b according to the number of units involved and this makes balancing stupidly hard. My reasoning also claims that the deathball is making the game boring to watch simply because you cant efficiently siege your enemy. My reasoning also claims that Blizzard is making their own job of balancing units and creating fun units harder because of the existence of auto-clumping; the examples of "super-strong" attacks and abilities in BW shows that quite clearly. They were OP, but acceptable since they never affected a big chunk of your opponents army. I dont need a video for to show that more Marines can be stacked into the same space compared to Stalkers. The dps of the Marine clump will be higher per area of units. You are agreeing with me here that there is a fluctuation in balance and come to the conclusion that it isnt as bad. That is your right, but you are continuing to tell me that I am wrong without any proof yourself. I dont need a video to "prove" that the damage of the Siege Tank had to be nerfed simply because it would have annihilated too much stuff with the BW values. The consequence is that in fewer numbers they dont really do their job anymore and dont kill enough before getting killed themselves easily. This is clearly a consequence of tight unit movement and also unlimited unit selection. The big issue is that it adds a degree of uncertainty to the game which could be taken out if the unit selection was limited to 12 and units would spread out while moving. Sure you have the same amount of units on the map, but its all about "how many units can affect each other?" and thats where the problem starts. If TOO MANY small units can shoot a big unit - Siege Tank, Thor, Carrier, Battlecruiser - the big ones die too fast and arent worth it. Logical and trivial conclusion which requires no video. I also dont need a video to tell you that positional play and siegeing your opponent isnt worth it because of the deathball, because hey, Dustin Browder said it himself ... the deathball is the most efficient way and it is a trivial logic which says that this focused damage is more efficient than spreading out your forces. So the deathball - which essentially IS tight movement and unlimited unit selection - LIMITS STRATEGIES. It ultimately boils down to ... - Do you want a game with big armies dancing around each other and eventually erasing each other in a big 30 second battle? OR - Do you want constant small and medium sized engagements all over with nifty tricks being used to dislodge a fortified position in a constantly ongoing war? - Do you want one strategy only to be viable or more than one? - Do you want interesting and potentially overpowered abilities which dont matter because they are only rarely overpowered? I dont need to prove anything here, because most of it is pure math and quite trivial.
I don't know why you are bringing up Stalkers vs. Marines. Clearly the game has already been balanced with this in mind (you even atested this with siege tanks being nerfed). The same can be applied to the "too many small units can shoot a big unit" argument you're making. And even if there is a balance issue, this can all be fixed by nerfing or buffing units. Even in the worst case scenario, you would just make marines the slightest bit larger so there is less concentrated DPS, they would still clump but do slightly less DPS, ergo the clumping is not the issue.
Regarding the 'fluctuating balance' and 'uncertainty', is this not still dependant on the player's ability? If the player is consistent in the way he engages, then how can there be uncertainty? And If the player is always clumping his units to get maximum damage, then how is this uncertain? And if he isn't, then is he not disadvantaging himself (if as you say clumping is the most efficient method)? On this same train of thought, have you thought perhaps that this added variable of proper micro/movement of your army may be increasing the skill ceiling by providing more micro opportunities, since it takes a better player to be consistent and engage in the correct manner? Keep in mind that in SC2 Blizzard has given you the ability to both clump your units and spread them out if the situation calls for it and you have the APM for it (obviously, and no different to your return to 12 unit selection suggestion).
So the only problem as far as I can see - if there is one - is the somewhat lack in incentive to keep your units spread rather than a clump. Certain situations call for it, such as marine v banelings, mutalisk magic boxing thor, X v fungal growth/emp/storm, but since people still complain in threads like these about clumped armies, perhaps it isn't enough. HOTS may fix this with Widow Mines and Blinding Cloud. But either way, the pathing itself is not the issue (on the contrary, it is part of the solution if there is enough incentive for both forms of movement, since pre-split units like in BW do not give you this kind of luxury).
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On November 27 2012 19:56 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 17:20 Fenris420 wrote:On November 26 2012 20:10 Rabiator wrote:0. Your brain [basic math plus a little imagination and extrapolation skill] can give you "proof" that density of the units matters and affects the game. Just look at the Stalker and the Marine. They both have somewhat "similar" dps [Stalker: 7 dps; Marine: 6.9 dps; SOURCE], BUT they differ in size. So it is logical that you can have a higher "dps per area" from a clump of Marines than you get from a clump of Stalkers and yet they start at the same individual dps. That is not debatable and based on math, but what you can have an "opinion" on is if it affects the gameplay negatively or not. The "units per 1 square" is not a value we have, because the size really isnt a known value. So there cant really be precise calculations as to how high the unit density "dps per area" is for each unit unless Blizzard does it. You might be able to create a tiny map and completely fill it with units of type X and then count them, but thats a braindead work I am not willing to do. The point is that there is a big "uncertainty factor" injected into the game balance and this cant be good. Tight clumps of units have also nerfed Siege Tanks somewhat from their BW version, to the point that you might be able to kill a Siege Tank with some infantry without even losing a single unit yourself. In BW it was rather impossible to get 20 Marines into range of a Siege Tank without taking at least one shot and having a Marine or two die in the process, BUT the "perfectly tight" unit movement allows for far greater numbers of Marines to bum rush the tank - who gets 1 shot off without killing any unit (yay ... 35 damage vs. non-armored doesnt even kill a Marine and barely kills a Zergling!!) - and kill it in the blink of an eye. This is basically the downfall of mech, because the backbone unit can be rushed by too many units far too fast and killed without many losses. With a limited number of units in a control group AND forcing them to spread out while moving, you couldnt bring that many infantry in range easily, so you would actually need to think about how to do it. If you increase the combat values of the Siege Tank (either health or damage output ... doesnt really matter which) you will make the tank far too powerful in a "few vs few" situation. This clearly shows that it is a terrible idea to have a big difference in balancing between "few vs. few" and "many vs many". Unit density is at the core here and it should NOT be impossible to get a high unit density, BUT it should come at a cost (potentially losing a big chunk to AoE) AND require work from the player instead of coming "automatically". I do not disagree with you about unit sizes. I disagree with the conclusions you are making. Just because there is a preceived correlation between pathing and "what is wrong with sc2" doesnt make it so. You need to prove it by experimentation. Browder did not report how his experiments were carried out, nor what the parameters included. If he did, there would be much less speculation about how valid those tests are and why. This is his fault, but the same rule applies to everyone else Either way, it is the only data we have and it says your theory is incorrect. The thing is: a. Blizzard has NOT proven their theory by examples either (and neither has any of the "trust in Blizzard" people) no matter what you claim. They didnt say how they tested it and you said it yourself ... and yet you claim that is "the only data we have"? b. My reasoning is quite simply that tight movement and unlimited unit selection create a "fluctuating balance" between units of type a and b according to the number of units involved and this makes balancing stupidly hard. My reasoning also claims that the deathball is making the game boring to watch simply because you cant efficiently siege your enemy. My reasoning also claims that Blizzard is making their own job of balancing units and creating fun units harder because of the existence of auto-clumping; the examples of "super-strong" attacks and abilities in BW shows that quite clearly. They were OP, but acceptable since they never affected a big chunk of your opponents army. I dont need a video for to show that more Marines can be stacked into the same space compared to Stalkers. The dps of the Marine clump will be higher per area of units. You are agreeing with me here that there is a fluctuation in balance and come to the conclusion that it isnt as bad. That is your right, but you are continuing to tell me that I am wrong without any proof yourself. I dont need a video to "prove" that the damage of the Siege Tank had to be nerfed simply because it would have annihilated too much stuff with the BW values. The consequence is that in fewer numbers they dont really do their job anymore and dont kill enough before getting killed themselves easily. This is clearly a consequence of tight unit movement and also unlimited unit selection. The big issue is that it adds a degree of uncertainty to the game which could be taken out if the unit selection was limited to 12 and units would spread out while moving. Sure you have the same amount of units on the map, but its all about "how many units can affect each other?" and thats where the problem starts. If TOO MANY small units can shoot a big unit - Siege Tank, Thor, Carrier, Battlecruiser - the big ones die too fast and arent worth it. Logical and trivial conclusion which requires no video. Trying to fix this "big units seem to be made of paper" problem by making them tougher or stronger doesnt work, because they will get too tough if you rush them out and overwhelm the opponent easily. I also dont need a video to describe how the deathball (any tight army) works. You either think its great OR you are like me and think its terribly boring. I also dont need a video to tell you that positional play and siegeing your opponent isnt worth it because of the deathball, because hey, Dustin Browder said it himself ... the deathball is the most efficient way and it is a trivial logic which says that this focused damage is more efficient than spreading out your forces. So the deathball - which essentially IS tight movement and unlimited unit selection - LIMITS STRATEGIES. It ultimately boils down to ... - Do you want a game with big armies dancing around each other and eventually erasing each other in a big 30 second battle? OR - Do you want constant small and medium sized engagements all over with nifty tricks being used to dislodge a fortified position in a constantly ongoing war? - Do you want one strategy only to be viable or more than one? - Do you want interesting and potentially overpowered abilities which dont matter because they are only rarely overpowered? The point is that automatic tight unit movement and unlimited selection make it TOO EASY to form a concentrated group of units, but it would be better if ... - you had the OPTION (instead of getting it automatically) to clump your units through MICRO and - you could be penalized for doing so by strong AoE attacks and - you could be as efficient with a somewhat spread out army. I dont need to prove anything here, because most of it is pure math and quite trivial. Why do you keep bringing up marines and stalkers? It has nothing to do with anything he's saying.
What he is saying is you need to PROVE THAT MOVEMENT CHANGES WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN HOW THE GAME ACTUALLY PLAYS OUT. Prove that these tweaks actually change something in a real-game situation, and demonstrate how those changes play out.
What Browder has mentioned (And HD as well after his testing) is that due to the way players move their armies across the map, even with movement tweaks the game looks and plays out essentially the same. The burden of proof is ON YOU to prove that it makes a difference.
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On November 27 2012 22:18 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 19:56 Rabiator wrote:On November 27 2012 17:20 Fenris420 wrote:On November 26 2012 20:10 Rabiator wrote:0. Your brain [basic math plus a little imagination and extrapolation skill] can give you "proof" that density of the units matters and affects the game. Just look at the Stalker and the Marine. They both have somewhat "similar" dps [Stalker: 7 dps; Marine: 6.9 dps; SOURCE], BUT they differ in size. So it is logical that you can have a higher "dps per area" from a clump of Marines than you get from a clump of Stalkers and yet they start at the same individual dps. That is not debatable and based on math, but what you can have an "opinion" on is if it affects the gameplay negatively or not. The "units per 1 square" is not a value we have, because the size really isnt a known value. So there cant really be precise calculations as to how high the unit density "dps per area" is for each unit unless Blizzard does it. You might be able to create a tiny map and completely fill it with units of type X and then count them, but thats a braindead work I am not willing to do. The point is that there is a big "uncertainty factor" injected into the game balance and this cant be good. Tight clumps of units have also nerfed Siege Tanks somewhat from their BW version, to the point that you might be able to kill a Siege Tank with some infantry without even losing a single unit yourself. In BW it was rather impossible to get 20 Marines into range of a Siege Tank without taking at least one shot and having a Marine or two die in the process, BUT the "perfectly tight" unit movement allows for far greater numbers of Marines to bum rush the tank - who gets 1 shot off without killing any unit (yay ... 35 damage vs. non-armored doesnt even kill a Marine and barely kills a Zergling!!) - and kill it in the blink of an eye. This is basically the downfall of mech, because the backbone unit can be rushed by too many units far too fast and killed without many losses. With a limited number of units in a control group AND forcing them to spread out while moving, you couldnt bring that many infantry in range easily, so you would actually need to think about how to do it. If you increase the combat values of the Siege Tank (either health or damage output ... doesnt really matter which) you will make the tank far too powerful in a "few vs few" situation. This clearly shows that it is a terrible idea to have a big difference in balancing between "few vs. few" and "many vs many". Unit density is at the core here and it should NOT be impossible to get a high unit density, BUT it should come at a cost (potentially losing a big chunk to AoE) AND require work from the player instead of coming "automatically". I do not disagree with you about unit sizes. I disagree with the conclusions you are making. Just because there is a preceived correlation between pathing and "what is wrong with sc2" doesnt make it so. You need to prove it by experimentation. Browder did not report how his experiments were carried out, nor what the parameters included. If he did, there would be much less speculation about how valid those tests are and why. This is his fault, but the same rule applies to everyone else Either way, it is the only data we have and it says your theory is incorrect. The thing is: a. Blizzard has NOT proven their theory by examples either (and neither has any of the "trust in Blizzard" people) no matter what you claim. They didnt say how they tested it and you said it yourself ... and yet you claim that is "the only data we have"? b. My reasoning is quite simply that tight movement and unlimited unit selection create a "fluctuating balance" between units of type a and b according to the number of units involved and this makes balancing stupidly hard. My reasoning also claims that the deathball is making the game boring to watch simply because you cant efficiently siege your enemy. My reasoning also claims that Blizzard is making their own job of balancing units and creating fun units harder because of the existence of auto-clumping; the examples of "super-strong" attacks and abilities in BW shows that quite clearly. They were OP, but acceptable since they never affected a big chunk of your opponents army. I dont need a video for to show that more Marines can be stacked into the same space compared to Stalkers. The dps of the Marine clump will be higher per area of units. You are agreeing with me here that there is a fluctuation in balance and come to the conclusion that it isnt as bad. That is your right, but you are continuing to tell me that I am wrong without any proof yourself. I dont need a video to "prove" that the damage of the Siege Tank had to be nerfed simply because it would have annihilated too much stuff with the BW values. The consequence is that in fewer numbers they dont really do their job anymore and dont kill enough before getting killed themselves easily. This is clearly a consequence of tight unit movement and also unlimited unit selection. The big issue is that it adds a degree of uncertainty to the game which could be taken out if the unit selection was limited to 12 and units would spread out while moving. Sure you have the same amount of units on the map, but its all about "how many units can affect each other?" and thats where the problem starts. If TOO MANY small units can shoot a big unit - Siege Tank, Thor, Carrier, Battlecruiser - the big ones die too fast and arent worth it. Logical and trivial conclusion which requires no video. Trying to fix this "big units seem to be made of paper" problem by making them tougher or stronger doesnt work, because they will get too tough if you rush them out and overwhelm the opponent easily. I also dont need a video to describe how the deathball (any tight army) works. You either think its great OR you are like me and think its terribly boring. I also dont need a video to tell you that positional play and siegeing your opponent isnt worth it because of the deathball, because hey, Dustin Browder said it himself ... the deathball is the most efficient way and it is a trivial logic which says that this focused damage is more efficient than spreading out your forces. So the deathball - which essentially IS tight movement and unlimited unit selection - LIMITS STRATEGIES. It ultimately boils down to ... - Do you want a game with big armies dancing around each other and eventually erasing each other in a big 30 second battle? OR - Do you want constant small and medium sized engagements all over with nifty tricks being used to dislodge a fortified position in a constantly ongoing war? - Do you want one strategy only to be viable or more than one? - Do you want interesting and potentially overpowered abilities which dont matter because they are only rarely overpowered? The point is that automatic tight unit movement and unlimited selection make it TOO EASY to form a concentrated group of units, but it would be better if ... - you had the OPTION (instead of getting it automatically) to clump your units through MICRO and - you could be penalized for doing so by strong AoE attacks and - you could be as efficient with a somewhat spread out army. I dont need to prove anything here, because most of it is pure math and quite trivial. Why do you keep bringing up marines and stalkers? It has nothing to do with anything he's saying. What he is saying is you need to PROVE THAT MOVEMENT CHANGES WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN HOW THE GAME ACTUALLY PLAYS OUT. Prove that these tweaks actually change something in a real-game situation, and demonstrate how those changes play out. What Browder has mentioned (And HD as well after his testing) is that due to the way players move their armies across the map, even with movement tweaks the game looks and plays out essentially the same. The burden of proof is ON YOU to prove that it makes a difference.
Stop this 'burden of proof' rhetoric. All it means is that you're more inherently biased towards one point of view than another.
Clearly unit movement makes a difference to gameplay. Look at BW. Or any other RTS game which has different unit movements to SC2, e.g. C&C, CoH, DoW, War3 etc. Unit movement affects gameplay. There is no 'burden of proof'. The statement is self evidently true.
In this particular instance, it's even worse to cite Browder's 'test' as 'proof' because, as I've noted before, it was a STUPID, BAD TEST.
In SC2, it is optimal to clump units due to long range and small unit size. So when given the choice, players still choose to clump up. WHICH IS EXACTLY AS EXPECTED.
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On November 28 2012 00:49 theSAiNT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 22:18 RampancyTW wrote:On November 27 2012 19:56 Rabiator wrote:On November 27 2012 17:20 Fenris420 wrote:On November 26 2012 20:10 Rabiator wrote:0. Your brain [basic math plus a little imagination and extrapolation skill] can give you "proof" that density of the units matters and affects the game. Just look at the Stalker and the Marine. They both have somewhat "similar" dps [Stalker: 7 dps; Marine: 6.9 dps; SOURCE], BUT they differ in size. So it is logical that you can have a higher "dps per area" from a clump of Marines than you get from a clump of Stalkers and yet they start at the same individual dps. That is not debatable and based on math, but what you can have an "opinion" on is if it affects the gameplay negatively or not. The "units per 1 square" is not a value we have, because the size really isnt a known value. So there cant really be precise calculations as to how high the unit density "dps per area" is for each unit unless Blizzard does it. You might be able to create a tiny map and completely fill it with units of type X and then count them, but thats a braindead work I am not willing to do. The point is that there is a big "uncertainty factor" injected into the game balance and this cant be good. Tight clumps of units have also nerfed Siege Tanks somewhat from their BW version, to the point that you might be able to kill a Siege Tank with some infantry without even losing a single unit yourself. In BW it was rather impossible to get 20 Marines into range of a Siege Tank without taking at least one shot and having a Marine or two die in the process, BUT the "perfectly tight" unit movement allows for far greater numbers of Marines to bum rush the tank - who gets 1 shot off without killing any unit (yay ... 35 damage vs. non-armored doesnt even kill a Marine and barely kills a Zergling!!) - and kill it in the blink of an eye. This is basically the downfall of mech, because the backbone unit can be rushed by too many units far too fast and killed without many losses. With a limited number of units in a control group AND forcing them to spread out while moving, you couldnt bring that many infantry in range easily, so you would actually need to think about how to do it. If you increase the combat values of the Siege Tank (either health or damage output ... doesnt really matter which) you will make the tank far too powerful in a "few vs few" situation. This clearly shows that it is a terrible idea to have a big difference in balancing between "few vs. few" and "many vs many". Unit density is at the core here and it should NOT be impossible to get a high unit density, BUT it should come at a cost (potentially losing a big chunk to AoE) AND require work from the player instead of coming "automatically". I do not disagree with you about unit sizes. I disagree with the conclusions you are making. Just because there is a preceived correlation between pathing and "what is wrong with sc2" doesnt make it so. You need to prove it by experimentation. Browder did not report how his experiments were carried out, nor what the parameters included. If he did, there would be much less speculation about how valid those tests are and why. This is his fault, but the same rule applies to everyone else Either way, it is the only data we have and it says your theory is incorrect. The thing is: a. Blizzard has NOT proven their theory by examples either (and neither has any of the "trust in Blizzard" people) no matter what you claim. They didnt say how they tested it and you said it yourself ... and yet you claim that is "the only data we have"? b. My reasoning is quite simply that tight movement and unlimited unit selection create a "fluctuating balance" between units of type a and b according to the number of units involved and this makes balancing stupidly hard. My reasoning also claims that the deathball is making the game boring to watch simply because you cant efficiently siege your enemy. My reasoning also claims that Blizzard is making their own job of balancing units and creating fun units harder because of the existence of auto-clumping; the examples of "super-strong" attacks and abilities in BW shows that quite clearly. They were OP, but acceptable since they never affected a big chunk of your opponents army. I dont need a video for to show that more Marines can be stacked into the same space compared to Stalkers. The dps of the Marine clump will be higher per area of units. You are agreeing with me here that there is a fluctuation in balance and come to the conclusion that it isnt as bad. That is your right, but you are continuing to tell me that I am wrong without any proof yourself. I dont need a video to "prove" that the damage of the Siege Tank had to be nerfed simply because it would have annihilated too much stuff with the BW values. The consequence is that in fewer numbers they dont really do their job anymore and dont kill enough before getting killed themselves easily. This is clearly a consequence of tight unit movement and also unlimited unit selection. The big issue is that it adds a degree of uncertainty to the game which could be taken out if the unit selection was limited to 12 and units would spread out while moving. Sure you have the same amount of units on the map, but its all about "how many units can affect each other?" and thats where the problem starts. If TOO MANY small units can shoot a big unit - Siege Tank, Thor, Carrier, Battlecruiser - the big ones die too fast and arent worth it. Logical and trivial conclusion which requires no video. Trying to fix this "big units seem to be made of paper" problem by making them tougher or stronger doesnt work, because they will get too tough if you rush them out and overwhelm the opponent easily. I also dont need a video to describe how the deathball (any tight army) works. You either think its great OR you are like me and think its terribly boring. I also dont need a video to tell you that positional play and siegeing your opponent isnt worth it because of the deathball, because hey, Dustin Browder said it himself ... the deathball is the most efficient way and it is a trivial logic which says that this focused damage is more efficient than spreading out your forces. So the deathball - which essentially IS tight movement and unlimited unit selection - LIMITS STRATEGIES. It ultimately boils down to ... - Do you want a game with big armies dancing around each other and eventually erasing each other in a big 30 second battle? OR - Do you want constant small and medium sized engagements all over with nifty tricks being used to dislodge a fortified position in a constantly ongoing war? - Do you want one strategy only to be viable or more than one? - Do you want interesting and potentially overpowered abilities which dont matter because they are only rarely overpowered? The point is that automatic tight unit movement and unlimited selection make it TOO EASY to form a concentrated group of units, but it would be better if ... - you had the OPTION (instead of getting it automatically) to clump your units through MICRO and - you could be penalized for doing so by strong AoE attacks and - you could be as efficient with a somewhat spread out army. I dont need to prove anything here, because most of it is pure math and quite trivial. Why do you keep bringing up marines and stalkers? It has nothing to do with anything he's saying. What he is saying is you need to PROVE THAT MOVEMENT CHANGES WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN HOW THE GAME ACTUALLY PLAYS OUT. Prove that these tweaks actually change something in a real-game situation, and demonstrate how those changes play out. What Browder has mentioned (And HD as well after his testing) is that due to the way players move their armies across the map, even with movement tweaks the game looks and plays out essentially the same. The burden of proof is ON YOU to prove that it makes a difference. Stop this 'burden of proof' rhetoric. All it means is that you're more inherently biased towards one point of view than another. Clearly unit movement makes a difference to gameplay. Look at BW. Or any other RTS game which has different unit movements to SC2, e.g. C&C, CoH, DoW, War3 etc. Unit movement affects gameplay. There is no 'burden of proof'. The statement is self evidently true. In this particular instance, it's even worse to cite Browder's 'test' as 'proof' because, as I've noted before, it was a STUPID, BAD TEST. In SC2, it is optimal to clump units due to long range and small unit size. So when given the choice, players still choose to clump up. WHICH IS EXACTLY AS EXPECTED. It's not rhetoric. You can't just make a statement and have it be accepted as true without any evidence to support it. That's just the way it works. Clearly the way units move and interact within an engine makes a difference for gameplay, but that doesn't mean any of the proposed anti-clumping suggestions within the existing SC2 engine make an actual difference when it comes to gameplay.
And you appear to be suggesting that the unit movement isn't the source of any perceived problems here, so thanks for the support of my argument I guess?
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I am under the impression we are stuck with how unit movement works.
Blizzard needs the movement system to be the same across all breadths of game play. If they change the unit formation, the campaign will change in wild and unpredictable ways, Bliz will not likely want to even bother changing that. It also changes a core principle for all multiplayer games have ever played in SC2.
They would need to actually code in new changes, develop new pathing. Messing with just formation diameter only hurts the current skill cap and warrants an entire re-balance of the game, turning off unit blocking to get spread out units doesn't stop swarm movement and also makes the game way more noob unfriendly. Bliz can't have that, it'd be like removing auto mining.
My actual hopes for improvement in the game are making defenders advantage and chokes matter which helps cure the death ball problem. Unfortunately, the whole game play bliz went for is quicker matches. The units are designed to work in this respect, not for BW style positional game play. Hell, we lost two very key positional units (reaver/lurker) and got two super fast units instead (bane/col).
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Russian Federation221 Posts
On November 28 2012 02:58 decemberscalm wrote:
I am under the impression we are stuck with how unit movement works.
Blizzard needs the movement system to be the same across all breadths of game play. If they change the unit formation, the campaign will change in wild and unpredictable ways, Bliz will not likely want to even bother changing that. It also changes a core principle for all multiplayer games have ever played in SC2.
They would need to actually code in new changes, develop new pathing. Messing with just formation diameter only hurts the current skill cap and warrants an entire re-balance of the game, turning off unit blocking to get spread out units doesn't stop swarm movement and also makes the game way more noob unfriendly. Bliz can't have that, it'd be like removing auto mining.
My actual hopes for improvement in the game are making defenders advantage and chokes matter which helps cure the death ball problem. Unfortunately, the whole game play bliz went for is quicker matches. The units are designed to work in this respect, not for BW style positional game play. Hell, we lost two very key positional units (reaver/lurker) and got two super fast units instead (bane/col).
You are right, lack of defenders advantage makes SC2 less strategic game compared to BW.
In BW defenders advantage was achieved imho mainly because armies were less mobile and reinforcements arrived slowly. Now with warp gates protoss can reinforce his army almost instantly. Terran and Zerg thanks to rally points can also reinforce their armies relatively fast.
We can see defenders advantage quite rarely and mainly in ZvZ in roach wars.
So even if pathing is improved and clumping of units is fixed, SC2 will never have positional and strategic plays which were in BW. That is why there is absolutely no place in SC2 for reavers and lurkers.
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On November 27 2012 19:58 Unshapely wrote:
With the post (which is now above the above post) in mind, I've just tested a game of BW to confirm the effectiveness of unit pathing.
Here is what happened when I tried to move a control group of zerglings:
- I initially spread them out in a concave, as if they were about to surround an unsuspecting enemy.
- I gave the move command, and my zerglings began forming a line. (the concave shape was gone...)
- The zerglings at the front moved smoothly.
- The ones at the back bumped with the zerglings in the front. (Don't even ask how...they just did)
- This made the zergling stop for some fractions of a second, as if it was stunned.
- The zergling at the front kept moving without being affected.
This actually made my army seem spread out, because my control group of zerglings didn't move as one - the ones at the back bumped with the ones at front, stopped for some micro seconds and then moved on. This bump caused a space to develop between the zergling at the front (which didn't bump into anything).
A video might be better, but I hope my limited english conveyed the picture.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the unit pathing in BW is buggy. The "spread-out" doesn't seem intentional... Not surprising, considering mutalisk stacking is also a bug, along with other bugs that became so crucial to BW micro.
As MikeMM already said ... your units got spread out no matter how "buggy" it looked. I would like to ask you to play some Planetside 2 or any other military shooter with tanks and then run right next to one as a trooper. Eventually the tank will turn or move backwards and RUN YOU OVER (happened to me yesterday). Thus perfectly tight movement doesnt make sense while a platoon us moving.
On November 27 2012 21:22 XenoX101 wrote:
Regarding the 'fluctuating balance' and 'uncertainty', is this not still dependant on the player's ability?
No? It is only dependant upon the PRODUCTION of units. If you can bring more units to the field you win and if you can stack them tighter - thus get higher dps for the whole pack - you win. You have to realize that from a certain point you can start one-shotting your opponent units even if it is a rather tough unit. That is a terrible thing, because what is the point of a regenerating shield if you get killed right away without any chance to run for it?
In BW you could "stack" your units in a static position and thus achieve a pretty high density and a defenders advantage. In SC2 you can have all your units in one big group AND they are perfectly stacked while moving too, so this totally negates any defenders advantage.
In BW you also have your army divided into chunks of 12 and thus you pretty much eliminate/reduce the "I have more forces than you so I will crush you" problem.
On November 27 2012 22:18 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 19:56 Rabiator wrote:On November 27 2012 17:20 Fenris420 wrote:On November 26 2012 20:10 Rabiator wrote:0. Your brain [basic math plus a little imagination and extrapolation skill] can give you "proof" that density of the units matters and affects the game. Just look at the Stalker and the Marine. They both have somewhat "similar" dps [Stalker: 7 dps; Marine: 6.9 dps; SOURCE], BUT they differ in size. So it is logical that you can have a higher "dps per area" from a clump of Marines than you get from a clump of Stalkers and yet they start at the same individual dps. That is not debatable and based on math, but what you can have an "opinion" on is if it affects the gameplay negatively or not. The "units per 1 square" is not a value we have, because the size really isnt a known value. So there cant really be precise calculations as to how high the unit density "dps per area" is for each unit unless Blizzard does it. You might be able to create a tiny map and completely fill it with units of type X and then count them, but thats a braindead work I am not willing to do. The point is that there is a big "uncertainty factor" injected into the game balance and this cant be good. Tight clumps of units have also nerfed Siege Tanks somewhat from their BW version, to the point that you might be able to kill a Siege Tank with some infantry without even losing a single unit yourself. In BW it was rather impossible to get 20 Marines into range of a Siege Tank without taking at least one shot and having a Marine or two die in the process, BUT the "perfectly tight" unit movement allows for far greater numbers of Marines to bum rush the tank - who gets 1 shot off without killing any unit (yay ... 35 damage vs. non-armored doesnt even kill a Marine and barely kills a Zergling!!) - and kill it in the blink of an eye. This is basically the downfall of mech, because the backbone unit can be rushed by too many units far too fast and killed without many losses. With a limited number of units in a control group AND forcing them to spread out while moving, you couldnt bring that many infantry in range easily, so you would actually need to think about how to do it. If you increase the combat values of the Siege Tank (either health or damage output ... doesnt really matter which) you will make the tank far too powerful in a "few vs few" situation. This clearly shows that it is a terrible idea to have a big difference in balancing between "few vs. few" and "many vs many". Unit density is at the core here and it should NOT be impossible to get a high unit density, BUT it should come at a cost (potentially losing a big chunk to AoE) AND require work from the player instead of coming "automatically". I do not disagree with you about unit sizes. I disagree with the conclusions you are making. Just because there is a preceived correlation between pathing and "what is wrong with sc2" doesnt make it so. You need to prove it by experimentation. Browder did not report how his experiments were carried out, nor what the parameters included. If he did, there would be much less speculation about how valid those tests are and why. This is his fault, but the same rule applies to everyone else Either way, it is the only data we have and it says your theory is incorrect. The thing is: a. Blizzard has NOT proven their theory by examples either (and neither has any of the "trust in Blizzard" people) no matter what you claim. They didnt say how they tested it and you said it yourself ... and yet you claim that is "the only data we have"? b. My reasoning is quite simply that tight movement and unlimited unit selection create a "fluctuating balance" between units of type a and b according to the number of units involved and this makes balancing stupidly hard. My reasoning also claims that the deathball is making the game boring to watch simply because you cant efficiently siege your enemy. My reasoning also claims that Blizzard is making their own job of balancing units and creating fun units harder because of the existence of auto-clumping; the examples of "super-strong" attacks and abilities in BW shows that quite clearly. They were OP, but acceptable since they never affected a big chunk of your opponents army. I dont need a video for to show that more Marines can be stacked into the same space compared to Stalkers. The dps of the Marine clump will be higher per area of units. You are agreeing with me here that there is a fluctuation in balance and come to the conclusion that it isnt as bad. That is your right, but you are continuing to tell me that I am wrong without any proof yourself. I dont need a video to "prove" that the damage of the Siege Tank had to be nerfed simply because it would have annihilated too much stuff with the BW values. The consequence is that in fewer numbers they dont really do their job anymore and dont kill enough before getting killed themselves easily. This is clearly a consequence of tight unit movement and also unlimited unit selection. The big issue is that it adds a degree of uncertainty to the game which could be taken out if the unit selection was limited to 12 and units would spread out while moving. Sure you have the same amount of units on the map, but its all about "how many units can affect each other?" and thats where the problem starts. If TOO MANY small units can shoot a big unit - Siege Tank, Thor, Carrier, Battlecruiser - the big ones die too fast and arent worth it. Logical and trivial conclusion which requires no video. Trying to fix this "big units seem to be made of paper" problem by making them tougher or stronger doesnt work, because they will get too tough if you rush them out and overwhelm the opponent easily. I also dont need a video to describe how the deathball (any tight army) works. You either think its great OR you are like me and think its terribly boring. I also dont need a video to tell you that positional play and siegeing your opponent isnt worth it because of the deathball, because hey, Dustin Browder said it himself ... the deathball is the most efficient way and it is a trivial logic which says that this focused damage is more efficient than spreading out your forces. So the deathball - which essentially IS tight movement and unlimited unit selection - LIMITS STRATEGIES. It ultimately boils down to ... - Do you want a game with big armies dancing around each other and eventually erasing each other in a big 30 second battle? OR - Do you want constant small and medium sized engagements all over with nifty tricks being used to dislodge a fortified position in a constantly ongoing war? - Do you want one strategy only to be viable or more than one? - Do you want interesting and potentially overpowered abilities which dont matter because they are only rarely overpowered? The point is that automatic tight unit movement and unlimited selection make it TOO EASY to form a concentrated group of units, but it would be better if ... - you had the OPTION (instead of getting it automatically) to clump your units through MICRO and - you could be penalized for doing so by strong AoE attacks and - you could be as efficient with a somewhat spread out army. I dont need to prove anything here, because most of it is pure math and quite trivial. Why do you keep bringing up marines and stalkers? It has nothing to do with anything he's saying. What he is saying is you need to PROVE THAT MOVEMENT CHANGES WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN HOW THE GAME ACTUALLY PLAYS OUT. Prove that these tweaks actually change something in a real-game situation, and demonstrate how those changes play out. What Browder has mentioned (And HD as well after his testing) is that due to the way players move their armies across the map, even with movement tweaks the game looks and plays out essentially the same. The burden of proof is ON YOU to prove that it makes a difference.
1. I am not answering Browder or anyone, I am the one pointing out the core problems of the game here ...
2. I dont have to prove how the movement changes will make the game different/better, because it has already been proven in BROODWAR. In any case "better" is a subjective argument, but I have described something of the logic above (again). Now please dont pull "a dumb one" and retort by saying "BW movement is dumb" or "BW movement is buggy" or ugly or whatever ... because no one is asking to get the same movement mechanic implemented into the game.
Units simply should "bump into each other" and then take a wide berth around the other ones while on the move. The logic behind this is simple ... the "tank and the tropper" example I gave above.
3. Browder and probably HD (who cares about him anyways and I dont know what he did) only tested one - probably insufficient - modification which is not enough to fix the game anyways.
In any case ... WHERE IS BROWDER's (and your) "PROOF" that changing the movement system to something like BW where units bump into each other would NOT change the game? Add this to a 12 unit selection limit and you have a game that is more easy to balance because engagements are smaller and thus the "efficiency increases with larger packs of Marines compared to Stalkers" problem is cut off at some point. You also dont have to use Stalkers, but you can simply replace them by Zealots and the Marines will simply win by killing the Zealots before they even get to the Marines if they reach a critical number.
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The movement system of BW looks clunky and in many cases units bug out and get stuck (probably a consequence of the buildings and terrain as much as the movement), BUT at least it looks somewhat alive. Units do things "their way" instead of taking a straight line towards the point where you clicked.
In contrast the movement system of SC2 looks "perfect", right? Weellll, ... I would describe it with a different word: STERILE and BORING, because it lacks this feeling of being alive.
There is no reason to believe that there is no middle ground and that we cant ever get the "liveliness" of BW without its bugginess instead of the sterile SC2 version. All it takes is the will of the developers ... and that is lacking.
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On November 27 2012 20:44 MikeMM wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 20:38 Unshapely wrote:
Yes, that is the core reason why units are spread out in BW. They just don't move as one (in SC2, units move really smoothly). I've just tested this with marines as well, and a couple of larger units such as dragoons. In that case in SC2 Blizzard should have done smooth movement but kept end result of movement from BW (spread out units).
...You can't have smooth movement that spreads out units. The bumpiness is what makes them form a line and space themselves out.
On November 28 2012 02:58 decemberscalm wrote:
My actual hopes for improvement in the game are making defenders advantage and chokes matter which helps cure the death ball problem. Unfortunately, the whole game play bliz went for is quicker matches. The units are designed to work in this respect, not for BW style positional game play. Hell, we lost two very key positional units (reaver/lurker) and got two super fast units instead (bane/col).
Your first sentence is a bit backwards. If units didn't clump so easily, there would be inherent defenders advantage (ever seen BW PvP with lines of dragoons?) and chokepoints would be extra effective. Not only would a "deathball" formation be defunct, it wouldn't be the default best way to control your units or attack.
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On November 28 2012 20:43 EatThePath wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 20:44 MikeMM wrote:On November 27 2012 20:38 Unshapely wrote:
Yes, that is the core reason why units are spread out in BW. They just don't move as one (in SC2, units move really smoothly). I've just tested this with marines as well, and a couple of larger units such as dragoons. In that case in SC2 Blizzard should have done smooth movement but kept end result of movement from BW (spread out units). ...You can't have smooth movement that spreads out units. The bumpiness is what makes them form a line and space themselves out.
You can simulate that easily. You could easily add something similar to the game and through a small random factor which says that a unit does NOT move in a straight line towards the target and instead wiggles slightly left or right. Bumping into other units would push them as well. In any case you could easily add a "wide berth variable" to make units spread out while they are "moving = true". Just because Blizzard didnt do it doesnt mean its impossible.
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@EatThePath
Backwards? I was talking about in context of keeping the same movement which Blizzard seems extremely unlikely to change. Maps? With enough leagues using different maps, that can change.
Amazingly death balls existed in BW!!!! Surprising I know.
Sure it'll be slightly hardest for form a deathball when you need it, just requires more clicking inside the magic box. Unit movement and unit group group itself did NOT make the deathball a non factor 100% of the time. It only helped.
Think of your PvZ's and TvZ's where deathballs exist practically every game in BW. What stopped the T deathball from just rolling over a base as soon as muta pressure ended (or before muta pressure). Sunken colonies had twice the dps, more range, lurkers were amazing positional control units, and chokepoints in BW mattered more because of the pathing. Its only part of the equation. Unsmooth movement? You'd still see Toss deathballs in SC2 but more clicking to get them in that formation because it is the most efficient method of killing your opponents army (which you have to do to defend bases in sc2, no maps generally have chokes or tiny ramps, positional units and static D get busted by super high hp super anti building units eaaaaaasy).
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On November 28 2012 21:30 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2012 20:43 EatThePath wrote:On November 27 2012 20:44 MikeMM wrote:On November 27 2012 20:38 Unshapely wrote:
Yes, that is the core reason why units are spread out in BW. They just don't move as one (in SC2, units move really smoothly). I've just tested this with marines as well, and a couple of larger units such as dragoons. In that case in SC2 Blizzard should have done smooth movement but kept end result of movement from BW (spread out units). ...You can't have smooth movement that spreads out units. The bumpiness is what makes them form a line and space themselves out. You can simulate that easily. You could easily add something similar to the game and through a small random factor which says that a unit does NOT move in a straight line towards the target and instead wiggles slightly left or right. Bumping into other units would push them as well. In any case you could easily add a "wide berth variable" to make units spread out while they are "moving = true". Just because Blizzard didnt do it doesnt mean its impossible.
The problem is that we don't control our armies like that. Most players control them through a large number of tiny clicks as they move across the map. Any movement system they place to make the game look nicer will be canceled out by players attempting to move their armies in ways that make them most ready for combat. If people do not like clumped units, we should stop asking for maps with tiny chokes, ramps everywhere and small open areas. I can't think of how I would move my army in Cloud Kingom or daybreak except in a large ball.
Unit AI and pathing is not the solution to the clumping issue and Blizzard is right for not focusing on it. There are better ways for them to encourage players to split up their army.
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EPT
