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As all of us know, deathballs are a prominent problem in SC2 HotS. Blizzard has already made the destruction of the deathball one of their priorities and I can see that one of their steps is to introduce anti-deathball units: Lurker, Disruptor, Liberator. While splash damage units are great, I feel that another solution worth looking at is in the engine of SC2.
With the shift into SC2, we all know that Blizzard focused on making the physics of SC2 more realistic than in BW. Part of this was making pathing more realistic. However, this change caused units to be able to clump more easily, encouraging deathballs. What I am proposing is a change in the unit pathing.
Now what I am not calling for is a complete reversion to BW pathing as I feel that the realistic physics of SC2 is eye candy for spectators. Instead, I would like an increase in unit radius where units will stay spread out and not clump as much. In sticking with realistic physics, larger units should have a larger radius while smaller units should have a smaller radius.
This change would encourage units to be split up as deathballs basically become inferior to good unit control and management.
A problem I anticipate with this change is the reduction in splash damage from units like the Lurker, Disruptor, and Liberator as units will be more spread out. If this becomes a problem, the radius of their attacks can be increased as units will not be as clumped up as before. This would also prove to better the viewing experience as spells seem more powerful as they affect a wider area.
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I see this argument very often but I just dont understand how you think this would help against death balls. In my opinion you would still get the same death ball as before, just the size of the death ball would be bigger because each individual unit is bigger. Sure, you could argue, that the attack range stays the same, and thus units further in the back of the death ball could perhaps not attack enemies anymore so they are forced to spread out into a line much sooner then before, but I doubt this will actually make death balls go away at all, even less so because splash damage will be less useful then.
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On June 01 2015 04:56 RoomOfMush wrote: I see this argument very often but I just dont understand how you think this would help against death balls. In my opinion you would still get the same death ball as before, just the size of the death ball would be bigger because each individual unit is bigger. Sure, you could argue, that the attack range stays the same, and thus units further in the back of the death ball could perhaps not attack enemies anymore so they are forced to spread out into a line much sooner then before, but I doubt this will actually make death balls go away at all, even less so because splash damage will be less useful then.
It would be a direct nerf on ranged units, since they would not autoclump that much. But some unit radius has to change before this, just to decrease the maximum amount of damage it can be dealt per area. Having your units limited by the amount of concave they can get is an antideathball feature. Most maps don't have very wide areas for engaging and that would discourage "Deathball" play.
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Deathballs are quite rare in the beta because of the eco changes and harassment options.
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On June 01 2015 05:35 JCoto wrote: It would be a direct nerf on ranged units, since they would not autoclump that much. But some unit radius has to change before this, just to decrease the maximum amount of damage it can be dealt per area. Having your units limited by the amount of concave they can get is an antideathball feature. Most maps don't have very wide areas for engaging and that would discourage "Deathball" play. So what you say is that it would have the same effect as making all maps more choky and tighter because that would too limit "your units [...] by the amount of concave they can get". But that doesnt really change anything about the pathing either.
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There are a number of reasons for deathballs and to varying degrees.. This has been discussed to death and I can't understand how people don't understand it..!? Deathballs are nice in SC2 because they can steam roll a spread out army due to dps density, there is less need to spread your army out in WOL and HOTS, deathballs in SC2 are mobile and hence spreading out is less necessary, AOE damage isn't devastating in WOL and HOTS so deathballs aren't scared of that shit, SC2 pathing tends to deathball your army automatically, and there is probably more. Deathballing is noob and pro friendly, so why not deathball, it's easier and a players chances of winning is almost always better. Only problem is that it's boring, ugly and reduces the skill cap.
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On June 01 2015 05:43 Garbels wrote: Deathballs are quite rare in the beta because of the eco changes and harassment options.
i mean you could just eliminate it 100 percent by changing unit pathing... too much work?
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Yes, I would say that drastically changing the whole game for a nonexistent problem is too much work.
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On June 01 2015 08:32 doihy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2015 05:43 Garbels wrote: Deathballs are quite rare in the beta because of the eco changes and harassment options. i mean you could just eliminate it 100 percent by changing unit pathing... too much work? Deathballs are not inherently a bad thing. If they are the be all end all of unit compositions and don't allow for other options, then that's bad, but I don't see anything wrong with allowing a smart, skilled player to choose to create a deathball and brave the many barriers to it.
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unlimited unit selection is one of the biggest factors in deathballing
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I would LOVE to see this tested!
I think this would help not only make the game more multi-pronged and dynamic (less deathball-y), but also help alleviate the common complaint that fights end too quickly.
It sounds like an awesome change to me. Maybe even cooler than the eco changes!
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On June 01 2015 06:58 winsonsonho wrote: There are a number of reasons for deathballs and to varying degrees.. This has been discussed to death and I can't understand how people don't understand it..!? Deathballs are nice in SC2 because they can steam roll a spread out army due to dps density, there is less need to spread your army out in WOL and HOTS, deathballs in SC2 are mobile and hence spreading out is less necessary, AOE damage isn't devastating in WOL and HOTS so deathballs aren't scared of that shit, SC2 pathing tends to deathball your army automatically, and there is probably more. Deathballing is noob and pro friendly, so why not deathball, it's easier and a players chances of winning is almost always better. Only problem is that it's boring, ugly and reduces the skill cap. Exactly, the unit pathing encourages units to clump together and stack. If we change this so that units have a greater radius and remain spread out, it's actually impossible for them to "deathball" as you put it.
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the guys capable of tweaking the engine have probably been long gone since WoL launch sadly. we have called for this change many times in the past.
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i wish they would zoom out the standart camera a bit, especially so if they increase unit radius.
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"We tried this internally, but it did not feel right."
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while we're at it, i for one would like to see miss chance when firing uphill. the all-ins that would immediately be nerfed by map positioning alone...
dota 2 was brave enough to make sure they have it... who actually DOESNT want such an intuitive thing? they really messed up a large part of the strategy by not having it. essentially every map is flat. air units give you vision, then the map is flat.
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On June 01 2015 08:32 doihy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2015 05:43 Garbels wrote: Deathballs are quite rare in the beta because of the eco changes and harassment options. i mean you could just eliminate it 100 percent by changing unit pathing... too much work?
From what I HEARD, the death ball still existed in Brood War in the form of Terran mech and dragoon, archon, templar, speedlot. So, it's never going to go completely away, deathballs feel like a scapegoat for the game being less popular than other games sometimes.
Though, due to mechanical differences it was harder to control.
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China6280 Posts
Deathballing itself became a problem when unit design and synergy of Starcraft II came into place, i.e. Stalker Sentry Colossi or MMM, but with unit changes, harassment options and econ changes coming in LotV a lot of the deathball issues are not there anymore.
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I just wished full army battles lasted longer. I think units output too much damage and tier 1 units scale too well. Remove combat shields and buff mech, etc.
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On June 02 2015 02:15 Edogaa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2015 08:32 doihy wrote:On June 01 2015 05:43 Garbels wrote: Deathballs are quite rare in the beta because of the eco changes and harassment options. i mean you could just eliminate it 100 percent by changing unit pathing... too much work? From what I HEARD, the death ball still existed in Brood War in the form of Terran mech and dragoon, archon, templar, speedlot. So, it's never going to go completely away, deathballs feel like a scapegoat for the game being less popular than other games sometimes. Though, due to mechanical differences it was harder to control.
I completely agree with this, deathballing definitely existed in BW, mech was still a deathball and most Protoss comps relied on the death ball short of DT - Corsair which eventually turned into a death ball.
Besides mechanical difficulty, it was the 12 unit cap selection, not unit pathing, that contributed to the "breaking up" of death balls.
You can change all the pathing and collision you want, but as long as you can put your entire army on 1 hotkey little will change, BW was more about small skirmishes because you could actually micro and control a hoy key or 2 worth of units but controlling big armies was extremely difficult.
Pathing < < < unit selection cap
This has also been stated explicitly as never ever going to happen in SC2, so let's hope more spread out bases and the new economy will at least help.
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