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This is simply a post that encourages people to reread "Broodwar and Starcraft 2 - Pathing" by Thieving Maggie written almost two years ago. The post is linked below.
With a lot of LOTV discussions popping up, I have been looking into past articles made by awesome people on Team Liquid and I have stumbled upon a post made a long time ago by Thieving Magpie about BW and the effect of the SC2 engine. While I am in no way advocating for the return of its archaic systems, this post might generate an interesting discussion on how Blizzard's current goal compares to the problems discussed within.
Here's the post: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/429573-broodwar-and-starcraft-2-pathing
All credit for this post goes to Thieving Magpie and I did not take any part in writing it nor do I share any affiliation with the OP. I simply want to share this post and perhaps stimulate the community to look at the current problems in a new way.
One interesting quote I noted from the post was: "In Starcraft 2, my hellions will almost always kill units as efficiently as Bomber’s Hellions. Bomber will always be better at making hellions, dropping hellions, and preserving hellions—but once the flames are spewing Bomber and I are on even ground. Until this equalization of unit capabilities is stripped from Starcraft 2, none of the changes that people are suggesting will have the desired effect of bringing back the Broodwar feel of the game."
As Blizzard have tried to make the game more micro heavy, I think this quote a bit less true today within the beta when compared to the SC2 of the past. With the advent of more micro heavy units with less guaranteed damage (ravagers, adepts, liberators), battles that are fought seems more ambiguous than ever (well this might just because the pros haven't exactly figured out the game yet).
More importantly, do you think Blizzard's goal align with LOTV align with some of the issues discussed? What kind of game do you think LOTV will evolve to be as the time from launch decreases every day?
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United States4882 Posts
I think at the time, it was an excellent post that illuminated some of the movement issues that helped enable "deathball play", but in relation to the direction of LotV, it has very little grounding. Blizzard has made it quite clear with their economy model and emphasis on micro interactions that they have no desire to make the game the same as Brood War. As much as I would love to see real, large-scale positional play emerge in SC2, Blizzard seems intent on making LotV about micro interactions. Their stated goal is "lots of small skirmishes around the map", so I don't think any change to the unit pathing or collision helps with this goal.
All in all, Blizzard's solutions are probably the best way to achieve the idea of making individual skill more visible without completely resetting the engine and coming up with an entirely new game design to balance around.
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On August 03 2015 09:50 SC2John wrote: Their stated goal is "lots of small skirmishes around the map", so I don't think any change to the unit pathing or collision helps with this goal.
It helps a lot actually. If you remake the pathing so that you cannot amove into a defensive position and expect your whole army to do dmg, you can defend new expansions more easily overall. Maybe add a proper highground mechanic and these two things together greatly improve the effectiveness of smaller armies vs bigger ones when set up properly. This also would make big engagements a lot more exciting, 200 vs 200 fights (or close to it) still look and play awful in sc2.
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On August 03 2015 09:50 SC2John wrote:All in all, Blizzard's solutions are probably the best way to achieve the idea of making individual skill more visible without completely resetting the engine and coming up with an entirely new game design to balance around. But, they don't have to come up with an entirely new game design to balance around. The community has done an excellent job at that for them already. Unless they don't want to copy and paste Starbow, which is probably the case.
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I absolutely agree with SC2John...
The only thing that I am still afraid is that "HotS seemed to change the game so DeathBall wasn't possible anymore", and what happened? We all know...
In paper and without a metagame evolved it "seems like deathball is not like it was in WoL or HotS, and the game has been changed for good" etc etc. Then what could happen if suddenly we end up on the same spot as before few months after the LotV release? They won't be able to simply patch or aid band the game... and I am scared about that..
All in all I think the gameis going fine (depending on what they do with Disruptor and Collosi) The overall changes impact a lot on the playstyle and posibilities, but there are buffs and nerfs needed in order to achieve balance.
I just hope for LotV to be a game with viable alternatives strategy wise, where being able to all in, turtle or play with deathabll is a valid option but not the strongest one, and there isn't any race "forced" to do it.
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All i want is a game where micro and multitasking matter at least as much as build orders and unit composition.
I'm a zerg player and the last years have been like: "if they go bio i need ling bane muta and defending on creep", "if they go mech i need to go roach into hive tech and wait till i get the ideal composition" "if it's immortal sentry all in, i need to make Stephano's build and try to intercept the sentries, or i will lose."
The moments i could break my opponents with multitasking or micro were minimal. Most of the time it was just waiting for something to happen and create the opportunity to act.
And ofc, there were always those "glorious" moments when maxed protoss or mech moved out with an unbeatable army, and i asked myself: "how the hell i am suposed to prevent them from getting to this point it i can't break their defenses?" Even better when after the game i learned that they had half my apm.
LotV is turning this around tho. Players are forced to take expos. This makes multitasking a must have and make them exposed. If they fail to keep up with your agression, it's gg. I am finaly able to play this game without feeling like IdrA.
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In regards to deathballs, most people agree that deathball vs deathball play is not very interesting to watch or play. However, Blizzard is not going to change the pathing to make is "worse", like BW. With that in mind, what would happen if instead, they improved the pathing even more, made it even easier to micro units? One example would be to incorporate line move:
Line move into arc Line move into circle
I feel that with this feature, deathballs would not be seen nearly as often.
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On August 03 2015 13:05 MrSantiago wrote:In regards to deathballs, most people agree that deathball vs deathball play is not very interesting to watch or play. However, Blizzard is not going to change the pathing to make is "worse", like BW. With that in mind, what would happen if instead, they improved the pathing even more, made it even easier to micro units? One example would be to incorporate line move: Line move into arcLine move into circleI feel that with this feature, deathballs would not be seen nearly as often. what game is this?
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On August 03 2015 13:14 -NegativeZero- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2015 13:05 MrSantiago wrote:In regards to deathballs, most people agree that deathball vs deathball play is not very interesting to watch or play. However, Blizzard is not going to change the pathing to make is "worse", like BW. With that in mind, what would happen if instead, they improved the pathing even more, made it even easier to micro units? One example would be to incorporate line move: Line move into arcLine move into circleI feel that with this feature, deathballs would not be seen nearly as often. what game is this? Zero-K
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That was an epic post. A fantastic analysis that hits the root of SC2's problems. Pathing system aside, what I want to see is the dynamic back-and-forth display, the battles over map control, the inch-by-inch pushes towards the enemy bases instead of one fatal deathball-to-deathball engagement. In that regard, I think the most wonderful concept of unit design is the SIEGE UNIT. Back in the WoL, my favorite match is always TvZ, in which I, as T, would set up a line of tanks at the doorstep of my enemy's base covering a huge area that includes one of their buildings or two, then use the bioball to tease, luring Z's army into the tanks' range to get hit. To strengthen that position, I usually split my marines in two, one small group did the harassment and luring, while the others stood close to the tanks to protect them from unexpected flanking of mutas or lings. Sometimes when the position was secured, I would even build some turrets or bunkers around the tanks as a stronghold. One optimal position for that strategy was at a cliff - where I deployed my tanks and marines below, certainly out of the lings' touch, and a small 8-marine team dropped on the high ground doing the harassment. The goal of that was not to destroy the enemy's forces once for all, but to suffocate their economy. Now, that sort of gameplay is long gone, because not only does my enemy have a million ways to easily break through such a siege, but I have to be busy setting up my own expansions instead of punishing my enemy for expanding.
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There is absolutely no problem with the pathing system in SC2 in my opinion. Okay, its not BW, but it doesnt have to be. The problem comes from poor unit design and trying to balance everything with hyper aggressive harassment and hard counters. There is no positional play. There is no defensive play. There is no way to beat a bigger army (if your opponent knows what he is doing).
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