I didn't see a thread on this, at least not with real data, so here it is:
Using QXC's build tester, I very carefully tested whether splitting actually makes a difference. I assumed it would make some small difference (as I think most people assume), but I was wrong. I tested 3 split methods. One method is to have no split, to simply send all 6 workers to mine one patch. One method is the half split, to send all 6 workers to one patch, then quickly select 3 and send them to a different patch. The final method tested is the one I use in real games, to quickly press f1 (select idle worker) and right click an individual mineral patch, to send each worker to its own patch. I also tested whether it matters if you build the first worker before or after sending the starting ones to gather.
I used Protoss in every trial, but the race should have no affect what so ever, because no supply buildings are produced.
The rally point was the same at all times for all trials. I made sure I restarted if I misclicked at all, so that each trial would be within an infinitesimally small margin of error. No chrono boost is used, because the way you split has no effect on your chrono boosts, and it would just add another margin of error.
The effectiveness of each split is measured by the number of minerals at the 1 minute and 2 minute marks. + Show Spoiler +
If the tables look identical, they should, because they are. That is no exaggeration, it's real data I carefully recorded from in-game tests.
Yes, 1 and 2 minutes aren't very far into the game, so maybe the difference could pan out later, but really, considering how precisely equal each method is, I don't think the split would ever have any affect on any game. If you aren't seeing even a single extra 5 mineral return after 2 minutes into the game, I don't think you'll ever get an advantage large enough to account for even a single unit at any point through a game.
On June 03 2010 07:34 Kletus wrote: Okay, a couple of things to note:
i) Speed was slowest throughout the whole 1min timer; the timer I used was real-time supplied by the build order tester map VERSION 2.3.
ii) This was timed to the second. By that I mean I stopped looking at the minerals once I saw 1:00 so if an scv was JUST about to put in minerals, he gets cut.
iii) Race used was terran.
iv) For F1 split, I started the split from 6th patch from the bottom. Then just clicked down each patch. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
Also, I have noticed a pattern with the F1 selection AI and it can probably be done even more efficiently than just clicking down a line; will investigate this later.
v) For half split, I split the scvs to the patches 2nd from the top and 2nd from the bottom. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
vi) For no split, I simply took all my scvs and right-clicked the fifth patch from the bottom, which is the closest and most centered patch on the beta tester map. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
These are my findings:
Minerals @ 1min
The difference between half and none is truly negligible. The difference between F1 and the rest is maybe a couple of milliseconds, just enough for one scv to finish his trip.
So there is a difference 40 seconds in, but this difference does not increase over time. So essentially, you get those 5 minerals with a perfect f1 split milliseconds sooner than without, but there is no exponential increase, so you won't see that difference in the 1 min or 2 min results.
Also, some people have mentioned (and I've stated myself) that the map matters. Some maps have obviously split mineral patches that will benefit from worker splits, especially if patches are optimized on the edges and not the middle where you would click for a no-split.
Btw, this thread has nothing to do with BW, or whether or not this is a good thing, it's just about data. I don't think that "requiring" splitting was at all a bad thing for BW, and I also don't think it's at all necessary for SC2, it's something you'll only do once a game, and it just is what it is.
Hmm perhaps its just a .5 second difference but I guess to some people it matters. For me I would still stick with the half split, although this is indeed very interesting and I thank you for your efforts.
if i que a scv, send all my scv's to one mineral (no micro) then the first scv will pop by the time i can que another, losing time. if i micro 2 of the scv's to go to seperate patches then i can que a 2nd scv just mila seconds before the first pops.
Does it really matter? well i donno, does winning matter?
On June 03 2010 03:16 Arrian wrote: if this is indeed true it's depressing
I agree, this is kind of depressing, especially because I already spent three or four days practicing my splits... Well, I'm sticking to it then! If nothing, it at least keeps the hands warm.
On June 03 2010 03:19 Tone_ wrote: If the split is fast enough (maybe the key component) it must make a different. Just logically?
Logically I would assume it would make some difference, especially with the F1 split, since, if you did it inhumanly quickly, you could instantly send all of them at the same time, so there is no wasted time what so ever.
However, it seems that, even when you save a few milliseconds in the very beginning of the game, it doesn't really pan out into anything significant down the road.
I actually got into the very precise split testing in the above method because I was already testing splits in how quickly I can get a 13 gate up. Every single time, no matter how I split, (and interestingly, even if I did an 8 pylon instead of 9 pylon), my gateway would throw down at 1min 14sec. I did use a precise methodology for that as well, with my rally and the exact timing I would move the probe to prepare to build pylon/gate. But yeah, point is, it's a bit surprising, but it seems the split has no affect on the game.
I was actually thinking about this a while ago, it seemed that trying to split them better sometimes made it worse (like miss-clicking and having them not mine for 1 second or so). It's sad though, I wish it would make a difference.
If a difference hasn't shown up after 1 min or 2 min it's probably not going to show up ever. If the numbers are identical at all data points, then they'll just be identical. I'm just surprised the numbers came out the same even though it's hard to get the same split each time.
If this is true though, then it's detrimental to do a split. There's the ever so small chance you mess up the split and miss clicking on the mineral line. The only purpose to do it would be to just get an early APM trial.
Thanks for this data! I've been using the half split, but have noticed that it's as fast as when I don't split. Plus the greater chance for miss clicks when splitting makes splitting not very good. So many times I thought I clicked the minerals but actually got the ground next to it.
As a science major, I must examine your experimental method. How many trials of each method did you do? (Chooses to doubt and fight the results than accept them as they are depressing)
This is probably because the workers are automatically split into their mineral field. Back in BW a worker would just move onto the next mineral, check if its in use, if it is then move again, else, mine.
On June 03 2010 03:19 zealing wrote: Does it really matter? well i donno, does winning matter?
Your rhetorical question indicates that those precious early milliseconds make the difference in winning which infers that you must execute the rest of your game to flawless perfection.
I would argue that any millisecond advantage is going to be negligible considering how how thousands of other factors play out during the course of a game.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
From what I remember, you can't call other people bad players.
The split mattered in SC1, I guess it isn't as vital now as it was back then... Oh well, just one little thing we won't have to worry about. I did like the splitting in sc1 though, I was good at it and it made me feel good
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
It is fantastic!
I love how more new players are finally getting to play the game! Good job blizzard
I wouldn't go as far as mOnion, but this isn't a good thing.
I'm not a fan of arbitrary difficult tasks to increase skill ceiling, but this isn't arbitrary. The split was a measure of skill as much as it was of practice. When good players aren't rewarded for practice OR skill, then there's a problem with the game.
Fortunately this is just an aspect rather than the entire game, so somebody who has practiced will probably still crush somebody who doesn't, but I really don't think this is something to celebrate.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
I'm sorry you've dedicated so much of your life learning how to split probes in order to get a very slight economic advantage in a competitive video game. Get well soon!
Worker split itself was essential in BW, but once you got it down you basically had it perfect and was as good as Jaedong. What's the point of making people do this once in a game mechanic? I understand making macro harder, but there you can differentiate between the macro of Best vs. another progamer. No one has "perfect" macro and it's a good way to see differentiation in skill.
Worker split you do once a game, and when you get it down you're as good at it as any progamer. So removing the need to split doesn't hurt the game at all. The guy who can't split is still presumably less fast and precise than you, and that will pan out later in the game in actual important gameplay features.
did you pause the game at the beginning, send to each patch 1 probe and then unpause, AND that gave you the same minerals as sending to 1 patch? I find that difficult to believe, as you can get different minerals gathered just by having good choice of which patches to mine (better to have 2 probes mining a good close patch that 1 on good and 1 on far away). edit: pretty sure the information posted in invalid if I'm reading it correctly. That is that there is no difference if you're good enough to send each probe to a different close patch in the beginning and sending all probes to a bad patch. And just the fact that not all patches mine at the same rate (they have different distances to the base) makes me even more suspicious.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
what an elitist and hypocritical post. seriously. what about you "moving up the ranks" due to MBS? i'm sure you didn't have perfect macro that could compete with high level koreans. i'm sure they think the same about you and the pathetic blessing you received from Blizzard.
Shouldn't the fact the worker moves in a straight line to the minerals with a split and not the 'L' shape of an autosplit count for a few fractions of a second each? Maybe it's a matter of apm but I'd think it must. Try redoing the experiment at the slowest game speed to reduce all possible influences on your data. And how about the difference between rallying to empty patches with your first couple workers rather then just at a patch in the middle and letting them autosplit again?
I think the actual value of a split is to establish a good mentality. If I do a perfect split my build timings invariably seem to fall into place. I know this is rough science, but I honestly think that splitting effectively is a morale boost to your early game attention.
According to Nony, a proper 3-3 split on Steppes of War is the greatest of delights. No need for economical advantage when you just made your day a great day.
I find that if I execute a split perfectly, build a probe and do an immaculate 3/3 split, then there is either like a 1 second wait or no wait between my 9th and 10th probe after I build a pylon on 9.
I'm kind of surprised there's not like 15 or 20 extra minerals after two minutes but only midly so. Even before these results I always doubted that saving at the most one second of time by splitting the works would matter at all. Maybe if someone was gosu fast he could have more minerals with a certain kind of split sending certain workers to closer patches but there's room for error and I don't think the risk is worth the reward.
Yeah I'm a bit skeptical as to the results of this test. I'd like some extra details, or even better, video evidence. Splitting properly marks the difference between me ordering a second SCV just before the first one finishes (no production downtime) or just afterward.
I encourage everyone to test it themselves if they doubt the data, really. I'm sure I did it imperfectly. I wouldn't have even posted about this, because I wasn't really trying to be scientifically perfect, except the results were precisely equal for all trials, so it seemed significant enough to share. I just wanted a general idea if I should care or not, and now I have one.
I didn't do an equal number of trials for each method (lol), but it was more than 10 for each.
Again, I encourage everyone to test it themselves. I'd rather be wrong. I feel like splitting should matter to some degree. Also I want a reason to keep doing the super awesome f1 split.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
It is fantastic!
I love how more new players are finally getting to play the game! Good job blizzard
I wouldn't go as far as mOnion, but this isn't a good thing.
I'm not a fan of arbitrary difficult tasks to increase skill ceiling, but this isn't arbitrary. The split was a measure of skill as much as it was of practice. When good players aren't rewarded for practice OR skill, then there's a problem with the game.
Fortunately this is just an aspect rather than the entire game, so somebody who has practiced will probably still crush somebody who doesn't, but I really don't think this is something to celebrate.
I was just messing with his negative attitude
I honestly don't mind as I've gotten used to doing a 3-3 split anyway, but I don't think it will matter. Not that I want to bring this up again, but auto split/mine and MBS are only expanding the player base. It isn't really going to make a difference in the higher levels of play
Depends on how well you can split. If you split well you can make your next worker before your first worker is finish. Not the case with AI split. Also makes you feel gosu
Also keep in mind this was tested on QXC's build tester map, so that affects the mineral patch positioning. The rally point was set to the patch fourth from the top. With no split, workers were sent to the mineral patch fourth from the top. With the f1 split, each mineral was selected from top to bottom. With the half split, the workers were first sent to fifth from top, then half were sent to second from top.
Again, if I misclicked or felt I did it slowly/sloppily, I just restarted and tried again.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
It is fantastic!
I love how more new players are finally getting to play the game! Good job blizzard
I wouldn't go as far as mOnion, but this isn't a good thing.
I'm not a fan of arbitrary difficult tasks to increase skill ceiling, but this isn't arbitrary. The split was a measure of skill as much as it was of practice. When good players aren't rewarded for practice OR skill, then there's a problem with the game.
Fortunately this is just an aspect rather than the entire game, so somebody who has practiced will probably still crush somebody who doesn't, but I really don't think this is something to celebrate.
players are rewarded for practice and skill in SC2. and I really like how they managed to improve this over SCBW.
some examples...
macro mechanics: In SCBW you have to practice splitting, selecting your production buildings one by one etc. this is very hard stuff and highly rewards practice and skill. In SC2 those things are either eliminated or simplified. instead you have the implemented macro-abilities that require energy. Now you do not have to practice that much, but you make decisions. mule/comsat? where to chrono? larvae/heal/tumor? etc.
micro mechanics: In SCBW you have to practice moving shot, dancing micro etc. This requires a high amount of APM and rewards practice and skill. In SC2 some of those things are gone. But now you have alot more abilites/unit that again require decision making besides the APM. So you have to decide where to blink, when to burrow move, which building you corrupt, which unit you beam, where to place FF etc. Plus there are also quite some abilites that do not require decision making but high APM and thus practice (if you want to fully exploit them) such as: marauder shells, feedback, banelings, thor cannons, ghost sniping etc.
TLDR: I really like how blizzard made things easyer that do not require decision making and implemented a lot of new features/abilities that require this.
should compare your results with some of the players who have the best splits. it would be interesting to see a chart of all the best players right now (maybe an average of 3-5 games) and compare those to just sending all units to one patch.
On June 03 2010 03:59 Slayer91 wrote: Depends on how well you can split. If you split well you can make your next worker before your first worker is finish. Not the case with AI split. Also makes you feel gosu
I was able to begin producing the second probe before the first finished in every trial. It might have to do with the mineral positioning.
I guess regardless of fractional increases in how fast workers get to patches until those fractions add up to the 5 seconds it takes for a worker to go from hq to patch, mine, and then back to hq you wont see a difference in income, so largely isn't worth a huge apm investment.
Awesome study. Honestly, I'm not too surprised. Just like overlord on 9/10/extractortrick doesn't really matter (and overlord on 8/9/extractor didn't matter in BW), the illusion that minor changes in build order will snowball into big changes later is over-hyped. On the other hand, I believe in the lasting effects of coming out ahead in the first micro battle.
Excellent post, I am highly amused that the "split" seems to have no bearing on the game whatsoever, and of course am off to try a few tests of it myself (not that I don't believe you). Also +1 to Redtooth's post.
I actually tried testing some splits too. I did the f1 split as fast as I could, 3 and 3 split, and no split. 40 game seconds to get 200 minerals with first 6 workers with the f1 split. 40 game seconds to get 200 minerals with first 6 workers with 3 and 3 split. 41 game seconds to get 200 minerals with first 6 workers with no split.
I guess the 2, 2 and 2 split wouldn't be much different?
On June 03 2010 03:46 spinesheath wrote: According to Nony, a proper 3-3 split on Steppes of War is the greatest of delights. No need for economical advantage when you just made your day a great day.
But you do get a slight advantage with a perfect split on steps, because all the workers start mining with no initial travel time (there are 2 clumps of 3 minerals). Your advantage pretty much depends on where you sent the workers depending on how the starting minerals are arranged.
1. I always am able to qeue up a 2nd worker just before the first one finishes, no matter if i split or not and i train the worker first, then send the workers mining.
2. It really doesn't matter and I LOVE how Blizzard isn't rewarding stupid, brainless macro practice like in BW (yeah I know, you all love BW and everything was perfect in the good old days..), but allows for much more decision making.
People are obviously going to complain if what they are used to is replaced by something new and different. Let's give the game some time. (Like Day9 said)
For me the worker split is simply to warm-up my micro, and while in the long run it doesn't make you have more money, it makes the timing of your 8th worker better (i.e. if you split you will always have 50 or more mins ready to make 8th when 7th pops, but straight 6 to one patch may leave you waiting a second or two). Personally though like I said for me its all about warming up I challenge myself to see how fast and accurately I can split probes (I do a 4-2 split, and then send one of the 4 to his own patch, making it a 3-2-1 split) there's no real reason for me to do this I find other than to check my speed. Game where I do a a straight 6 to one (which is rare now) I don't notice a difference by the time I get my expo up (6-8 mins).
I usually build my SCV, then choose my SCVs to mine, and aslong as I have money to queue up another SCV Before the first one finishes, I consider that a succeeded split =)
On June 03 2010 04:12 Bluedraqy wrote: I usually build my SCV, then choose my SCVs to mine, and aslong as I have money to queue up another SCV Before the first one finishes, I consider that a succeeded split =)
Yea essentially. By the way welcome to TL, congrats on making a good 2nd post! I try to get my first worker built so that it says Probe/Drone/SCV 0:00 at the build order screen, and then I do my split or just send all 6 to one patch, some days I'm not in a high-APM mode, others I am so that will determine what I do with starting 6.
Any answer on which method is better between sending probes right away and then building the first probe after, or building the probe first sending probes to mine after? The results for that aren't clearly shown on the tables since you had a different number of probes with each method by the 2 minute mark.
I think one thing everyone is neglecting is the map: there are certain maps where depending on how you split, one or more worker(s) will go to the other side of the a mineral patch to mine. You might lose .5 seconds of mining time, but think of it in terms of your wage, say you're making 9.25 vs 9.30. Sure it's only a small difference, but over time that adds up.
I think it is more important to "order" youre first workers that spawn. Day[9] showd it in his daylie about openings. It is about that you tell the workers to mine where there aren´t any workers on. And making it so that workers mine in a way that when one worker is finished mining that another one starts mining at the exact same point in time.
honestly splitting DOES NOT MATTER. People in the first 7minutes of the game generally have perfect macro and precise build orders and timings. The moment some harass comes or some sorta action happens, ALL TIMINGS go out the window. I watch even pro players like whitera nony tlo and even then at times their minerals get a lil higher than they could be. Sometimes gateways are left out and forgotten to warp into warp gates. etc etc
So seriously, what matters is your AVERAGE macro THROUGHOUT the game not a simple 0.5second initial fancy split boost.
I mean if you watch Idra, the reason why hes so kickass is because throughout the game you never (unless intended) see his minerals shoot above 400 even with 3 bases and all the harass and everything going on.
Intro Timings and buildorders are heavily over rated, what matters is you being able to keep the macro up.
Interesting. I just did the half split, no split, and f1 split about 10 times each and I've noticed f1 split is the best.
With the no split, you MIGHT be behind a millisecond or so because the AI doesn't always split the workers to the nearest patch. As in, one instance they would split themselves perfectly and i would still make another worker on time but in another instance one would go to a far patch for some reason, thus losing time against cheese!
The same goes for half split although it occurs less frequently because you usually halfsplit to opposite sides.
The f1 split is great, I can consistently make an scv 2-3milliseconds before the first one spawns due to all the scvs being controlled and told where to go.
I used to do half split before this, but now I'll use f1. Thanks!
On June 03 2010 03:32 woolly wrote: Your rhetorical question indicates that those precious early milliseconds make the difference in winning which infersimplies that you must execute the rest of your game to flawless perfection.
the game auto splits FOR YOU. of course it doesnt matter -_-. ppl that do split is just trying to separate themselves from the "bad players" when in reality it doesn't mean shit if u split workers at start or not.
I'm sticking with my 6-3 split thank you =) Everyone's hands move at different paces, so there may be differences depending if you reacted slower one time compared to the other
Whilst the economic gain must be totally negligible, I like to think that it's the principle that matters. I think it's fair to say that good starcraft players strive for an almost anal degree of perfection, and you have to have that attitude if you want to get good in the first place, so I think of it as a 'start as you mean to go on' kind of thing.
Why do people put so much emphasis on splitting? I see this as a streamlining thing if anything. I know that in this community, a lot of people are such fans of BW that any change WHATSOEVER invokes immediate uncontrollable nerdrage, but still: streamlining the split just lets you focus on other things.
I understand the frustration of you experienced BW players, seeing these things you are very good at (after loads of practice) become obsolete, but I'm sure that's how a lot of people feel, outside of Starcraft when the things they are involved in become obsolete (Think Aboriginal bowmen when rifles were introduced.) I had an acquaintance in grade school who wouldn't shut up about how great a speller she was. I really sucked at spelling, so I felt pretty stupid. Then word processing with spell-check came along and I realized that spelling didn't matter as much as creative thought anymore. Was she still smarter than me? -arguably, yes Did she do better in other areas of school than me? -absolutely
Don't worry BW vets, you're still going to be way better than us, Blizzard just doesn't want the element of the game that separates the "boys from the men" to be a mundane click fest, or the constant need to check your SCVs to make sure they aren't taking a nap next to a mineral line.
Further testing reveals that I get: 390 @ 1min with f1 CONSISTENTLY. 385 @ 1min with nosplit with optimal AI outcome. 380 @ 1min with halfsplit with optimal AI outcome.
All tests were on the build order tester map with the terran race.
I stopped worker splitting a while back, as I suspected it made no real difference. Not because I sucked and often ended up by mis-clicking and costing myself minerals.
You probably need to test this on different maps. Some maps have the minerals more spread out than others (incineration zone), so clicking and auto spreading involves a bit of travel time whereas a 3/3 split minimizes this.
I go for the perfect 3-3 or 3-2-1 split each time just because there's really nothing else to do in the first few seconds of the game. Can't say I've noticed much of a difference in income rate either versus not splitting at all. Psychologically it feels like the money comes in slightly faster, but these tests seem to prove otherwise.
Whether I goof the split up, or it ends in a 0.5 second advantage - who cares? Not like it'll make any difference in a match anyway.
What about when you send 6 to one patch, quickly send 3 to separate patches, then separate those 3 as well? It's tricky to do, but surely it has to make some difference.
Just did a test on a build order map by qxc with a timer.
1. 10 extractor trick, 11 overlord, 14 pool Pool time: 1:17 Resources at 2 minutes: ~220 minerals / 16 drones / 2 overlords
2. 10 overlord, no extractor trick, 13 pool Pool time: 1:22 Resources at 2 minutes: ~220 / 16 drones / 2 overlords
3. 10 overlord, extractor trick, 14 pool Pool time: 1:20 (you can GREATLY reduce this if you don't build the 14th drone) Resources at 2 minutes: ~250 / 16 drones / 2 overlords
Conclusion: All are basically the same, 10 overlord, extractor trick is marginally optimal
from a thread about the extractor trick--can you test this as well?
On June 03 2010 04:28 Snowfield wrote: It never adds up, its going to be .5 forever, since you only do it once .)
sigh no it doesn't, but im too lazy to explain the exponential gain.
That's because it remains .5 seconds forever, and it is very difficult to explain something that is false.
If you build an scv .5 seconds faster, all of his gathers will be forever .5 seconds faster, meaning you have that .5 second mineral advantage at least until you over-saturate your mineral line. For every SCV you continuously make after this, all of their gathers will be .5 seconds faster. Say you get your first SCV out .5 seconds faster, and you continuously build SCVs to 2 per patch, you've gained .5 seconds on 8 minerals x 10 scvs, or 80 minerals .5 seconds faster. Once you begin to over-saturate (or fully saturate, depending on your view) to 3 workers per patch, this time will normalize back to 0 due to SCV mining AI.
In short: You gain a soft cap of ~80mins .5 seconds faster until mid-game. You do not gain minerals at a faster rate, but you simply get a few of them very slightly faster. This is not exponential gain, and this is not any game-changing difference or any game-impacting difference, I don't care how gosu you are.
So what the hell is exponential mineral gain and how do I factor it into my play?
If it's a decision to make SCV or UNIT, then one must factor that you're losing 5 minerals per ~10 seconds times a factor of how many SCVs you could make that begin producing in that time. This loss compounds exponentially until you resume SCV production, but then promptly freezes when you resume production.
This is the exponential gain you're incorrectly referring to. If you halt SCV production less than or equal to 1 SCV (20 seconds? I never look), then it's linear, but as soon as you eclipse the 1SCV build time, it becomes exponential, and your loss will increase exponentially until you begin mining again.
edit: Also to OP, thank you so much for taking the time to post that! It confirmed my suspicions, but it's still always nice to see raw data like this.
There may be errors from the tester just not being able to do certain methods as quickly, you know. Certainly, if you had infinite APM, individual split will be better than AI split (unless you guys have weird versions of the game where the workers automatically move to the closest patches). Also, being an exponential regression, I'd assume you'd have to test for much longer.
In the end, it matters, just not as much as it did in SC1. I don't see it as a flaw, though. It's such a marginal part of the game that I don't feel it really even matters. So what if people spend an extra 10 minutes of their life practicing just their worker split? After those 10 minutes, everyone is on even footing anyways.
On June 03 2010 05:22 AlliNPreFlop wrote: If you F1+Click split hella fast, you probably gain a...5-10minerals advantage, which doesn't change anything at all.. I do it for the coolness :D
If you mis-click once, you lose all of it and then some.
Its something to do when you start I mean top players can 3 split like Idra and I never thought it matters.
What would be more interesting is how important re-rallying to different mineral patchs is and if there is a preferred easy re-rally to get the job done pain free. Maybe just rallying to top and bottom minerals and then middle at the end leaving it at that.
The thing that makes me not see any return from splitting is that you maynard when you expo or at least should and that ruins your splits so was it really worth the effort of rerallying so much? I don't think so but is only slightly worth it if you have apm to spare.
Yea, personally I feel rerallying probes so that they arrive right as the previous probe leaves mining or having 2 probes stacked at a close mineral patch vs far one has a larger effect than splitting. Maybe someone should test this.
Haha, oh this makes me happy. All the elitists out there who wanted a strategy game to be won based on gimmicky mechanical tricks, instead of, uhm, strategy, it looks like it doesn't work that way after all. The new macro mechanics that have been added to make up for things like MBS and autosplit are much superior due to requiring players to make decisions in their application (except for inject larvae, sadly...).
However since discovering the F1 method I've actually grown to like it a lot as it gets me warmed up at the start of the game, so I will continue to do that.
interesting but academic. despite idiots like monion who are spazzing about autosplit, this is a non-issue. if you have a problem with MBS / auto-mining / infinite unit select at least your pet issue has a non-negligible impact on gameplay. compared with those three, autosplit is not worth discussing. it comes down to a question of to automate or not to automate, and we've already automated the major players so who gives a fuck about autosplit. if you're not dexterous enough to successfully perform a split the rest is history
On June 03 2010 03:16 Arrian wrote: if this is indeed true it's depressing
Agreed. Sarcastic or not, watching new, probably just SC2, posters in this thread is even more dejecting.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
On June 03 2010 03:26 Krowser wrote: This means I now have a few more seconds to appreciate the nice graphics of this game instead of spending more time destroying my mouse.
Sweet!!
On June 03 2010 03:31 Backpack wrote: It is fantastic!
I love how more new players are finally getting to play the game! Good job blizzard
On June 03 2010 04:36 Ballistixz wrote: the game auto splits FOR YOU. of course it doesnt matter -_-. ppl that do split is just trying to separate themselves from the "bad players" when in reality it doesn't mean shit if u split workers at start or not.
On June 03 2010 04:09 ChickenLips wrote: 1. I always am able to qeue up a 2nd worker just before the first one finishes, no matter if i split or not and i train the worker first, then send the workers mining.
2. It really doesn't matter and I LOVE how Blizzard isn't rewarding stupid, brainless macro practice like in BW (yeah I know, you all love BW and everything was perfect in the good old days..), but allows for much more decision making.
People are obviously going to complain if what they are used to is replaced by something new and different. Let's give the game some time. (Like Day9 said)
haha good way to explain it. also i never thought the splitting matters AT ALL, even starting some seconds latter wouldnt make any difference. the games almost never are that close that it would matter being a few seconds ahead
lol @ people being depressed for this. so sad lifes :/
Ya I stopped splitting a month or so ago, I just realized trying to split sometimes messed up my workers and just right clicking 1 patch did all the work for me.
in sc1 it matters ALOT. in sc2 ive never noticed a difference.
i tell them all to go mine and they slit on thier own lol. might make a milisecond or a whole seconds difference. if the game comes this close then who cares if you lose. at least it was close. i rarely ever play a game anymore where theres not a very clear winner.
and i seriously hate trying to split and screwing up one click and a drone goes behind a min patch and starts smoking a cigarette like hes on freakin lunch break or somthing.
This data is misleading. Don't let it confuse you into thinking that you can get a bad split and waste mining time and still not lose worker building time after your first worker. Starcraft is a game where every single action echoes through the future and while some actions have much more profound effects than others, it is always in your best interests to help safeguard against unknown factors by maximizing your benefit out of the assets you have. If your 2nd SCV pops out 1 second later than your enemy's does, you are behind... That's all. It's not magic, it's just mathematical fact. It doesn't necessarily mean much at all, but the point is that SC is not usually a game where you can afford to throw away any advantage at all. If you do happen to play a game that ends up being decided by the razor's edge such as 5 minerals worth of unit, and you got a bad split at the beginning, then it's theoretically possible to say you lost that game at the 00:00:00 mark. Even though a thousand other decisions you made might have had more effect on the battle.
On most maps I've been playing, e.g. Kulas and Metalo, if I queue an SCV and instantly move all 6 SCVs to the same, center mineral patch with no split (sometimes a game lags at the beginning, giving me adequate time to perfectly execute whatever split I want and queue my SCV all in the 00:00:00 instant), I will lose almost 1 second of SCV time. It's not a whole second. But it's lost time! It's lost time that is prevented by having a good split; In the same circumstance, if I split my workers to individual patches or even just get a solid half-split, I will have 55 minerals just before my first SCV finishes and comfortably start my second SCV in time to see him in the queue behind the first.
There's really nothing else to do at that point in the game besides edge in whatever perfection you can and use spare moments to think about the map and plan possible tech\upgrade\production\expansion routes out in your head.
Honestly it shouldn't matter either way. If right clicking 3 at a time in one area, reboxing 3 others, and splitting those away to another section of the mineral field made a big difference, I think that would be more agitating to the community.
"Yeah, I would have had him in the late game, but he split his units better than me when the game started."
a difference of a few hundreds of milliseconds can be crucial in SC2. Also, if you macro perfectly, you can actually accelerate your usual exponential growth in eco by a fair amount.
In other words: it's harder to be a pro at it. If you don't drop the buildings at the exact right timing, or if you become supply blocked by even just a second, you've just lost your lead gained through the split.
On June 03 2010 05:34 AncienTs wrote: If all data is true, this is definitely bad news because it means the skill gradient just became slightly smaller..
sigh
Lol, yeah. And when some noob beats you, you'll know it was because the game splilt his workers for him.
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
On June 03 2010 05:34 AncienTs wrote: If all data is true, this is definitely bad news because it means the skill gradient just became slightly smaller..
sigh
Lol, yeah. And when some noob beats you, you'll know it was because the game splilt his workers for him.
If it was via cheese, then yeah it just might have tilted the balance in his favor =)
On June 03 2010 05:34 AncienTs wrote: If all data is true, this is definitely bad news because it means the skill gradient just became slightly smaller..
sigh
Lol, yeah. And when some noob beats you, you'll know it was because the game splilt his workers for him.
If it was via cheese, then yeah it just might have tilted the balance in his favor =)
Only if you tried a fancier split and got behind because you didn't do it right. Otherwise, the resources should be even, if the numbers in the OP are right.
This can only be decided by a new UMS called "Hardcore Worker Split Throwdown!!!", supporting up to 8 players in a 3 second game that's based entirely on the opening split of course. Do you have what it takes?
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
Elitism?
Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want. Maybe the split isn't the exact issue, and it probably shouldn't be, but it could be/sort of seems like they intentionally made the split not matter, which would seem an attempt at marginalizing the little things that separate players.
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
On June 03 2010 05:34 AncienTs wrote: If all data is true, this is definitely bad news because it means the skill gradient just became slightly smaller..
sigh
Lol, yeah. And when some noob beats you, you'll know it was because the game splilt his workers for him.
If it was via cheese, then yeah it just might have tilted the balance in his favor =)
Only if you tried a fancier split and got behind because you didn't do it right. Otherwise, the resources should be even, if the numbers in the OP are right.
Well I posted my own numbers on page 4 and I get a 5mineral lead using F1 over the other methods. Today was the first time I used F1 too, maybe I'm just a natural.
If income is the issue, rather than cash on hand, a lot of things become clearer. Imagine building nothing but SCVs until you have 1000 minerals, then taking all your SCVs off mining and continuing to build 20 more SCVs, without sending them to mine. Then, put all of them back to mining and you have the same income that you would have had if you had kept all SCVs mining the whole time.
Thinking about it this way, as long as you build your first SCV as fast as possible when the game starts, then all that matters is that you have no time between the building of that SCV and the second one.
I'm probably just stating the obvious to most people (this isn't directed as an argument to anyone), but not seeing it as an exponential lose certainly opened my own eyes. Makes me feel safer pulling SCVs off to repair :D
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
Elitism?
Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want.
It's two to three clicks + 1 or 2 box selections (or a bunch of F1-clicks) if you go that route. If the advantage exists, it's the most mindless test of mechanical ability in SC2. No one is saying that all mechanical ability should be removed, just that the loss of a single mindless 3-click mechanic test at the start of the game is no big deal. Literally the ONLY thing you are doing at that point in the game is focusing on your split. It's not like other mechanical tests where there are decisions around it + the mechanical test. You're not even trying to manage your attention at this point of the game. It's literally just a test of how quickly and accurately you can click, box select, click, box select, click.
It's a test of something that you do throughout the entire game. Your box select accuracy and ability to click quickly are no less important without worker split.
Imagine it the other way around, if there was no split advantage in BW and suddenly there was one in SC2 no one would be praising the designers for their superior game design skill. People would just think, "WTF that's a pointless change over BW, what a pain."
You are being elitist, it has nothing to do with the level of mechanical skill in the game. You're essentially complaining about removing 1 thimble of water from a gallon jug.
If every moment of the game has to test player skill, then SC already fails at that because there are large gaps of time in the first 9-10 workers where you have nothing to do (hence why people spam).
On June 03 2010 06:00 BlasiuS wrote: I see no split, half split, and F1 split , but what about a Full (i.e. Perfect) Split? Has anyone tested that? Can anyone even do that?
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
Elitism?
Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want. Maybe the split isn't the exact issue, and it probably shouldn't be, but it could be/sort of seems like they intentionally made the split not matter, which would seem an attempt at marginalizing the little things that separate players.
The thing is, some people think it's not reasonable to give an advantage for something so small like a split. Both sides are understandable, and there is no "right" answer.
To be honest, I don't think any pro-level player would be physically incapable of pulling of an awesome split in the first place, which is really all that matters :D
interesting, i was never any good a splitting but in sc2 i dont feel like as much of a failure as when i tried and messed up in bw, i send them all to one patch let auto split take care of the rest and then cue a probe( i play protoss)
Really, the only guys complaining here must be the ones who played BW, because i can not imagine that anyone who hasn't played BW before (like me) could care less for splitting his drones. It's sending your worker to mine. It's nothing more. Get it over with. Yes you've aquired an ability in BW that is now useless in SC2, just like manual surrounding and properly moving your Dragoon from A to B without him getting stuck up his own ass. So what?
There is PLENTY of skill to develop in SC2 and the skill needed (even on the most basic macro level) is most likely much higher than ANY of the SC2 players has right now. There are enough tasks to do and to learn. Splitting Drones is not one of them and if you ask any non-BW player he'll tell you that this should be that way.
On June 03 2010 04:50 Kletus wrote: Further testing reveals that I get: 390 @ 1min with f1 CONSISTENTLY. 385 @ 1min with nosplit with optimal AI outcome. 380 @ 1min with halfsplit with optimal AI outcome.
All tests were on the build order tester map with the terran race.
We're seeing a lot of conflicting data in thread. Kletus' data clearly is showing there is a slight advantage to a good F1 split. Would been nice if someone could perform a study that did 10-20 test runs for each method and wrote up the results. I feel like we need more data before we start panicking here..
On June 03 2010 04:50 Kletus wrote: Further testing reveals that I get: 390 @ 1min with f1 CONSISTENTLY. 385 @ 1min with nosplit with optimal AI outcome. 380 @ 1min with halfsplit with optimal AI outcome.
All tests were on the build order tester map with the terran race.
We're seeing a lot of conflicting data in thread. Kletus' data clearly is showing there is a slight advantage to a good F1 split. Would been nice if someone could perform a study that did 10-20 test runs for each method and wrote up the results. I feel like we need more data before we start panicking here..
I'd also recommend people use the slowest game speed for the tests to minimize small differences in timings.
On June 03 2010 04:51 Jalex wrote: I stopped worker splitting a while back, as I suspected it made no real difference. Not because I sucked and often ended up by mis-clicking and costing myself minerals.
Honest.
I can't tell you how many times I fail at autosplit and click behind the minerals entirely. In any case it's way too often.
wow. I'm so glad the results turned out like that. There's macro, theres micro, and then theres ultra micro.
Macro = buildings, # of workers produced, units produced, expansions Micro = controlling unit commands, positioning, scouting, harass Ultra-micro = splitting scvs, move-shot, individually aiming each unit in an army
I am very glad ultra-micro is gone and this post confirmed it basically. Being able to split scvs should NOT have an impact on your macro otherwise people will gain advantages just because they are a better mouse clicker. If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
So basically, we have people claiming that reducing the rewards of superior mechanics is fine and anyone thinking otherwise is an elitist.. on a forum dedicated to a game that is insanely mechanic dependent. Every minute should reward skill, mechanics and pratice. Of course there are gaps where players can only spam, but let's not try to include even more gaps.
On June 03 2010 06:23 Zamkis wrote: So basically, we have people claiming that reducing the rewards of superior mechanics is fine and anyone thinking otherwise is an elitist.. on a forum dedicated to a game that is insanely mechanic dependent. Every minute should reward skill, mechanics and pratice. Of course there are gaps where players can only spam, but let's not try to include even more gaps.
The people calling elitist, or at least me, are just pointing out that a .5 second input mechanic gap on a game that plays out in 15-30 minutes is really no big deal. It's especially true since it's at the start of the game where all the other gaps occur.
It's not that I'd call for worker split to be removed if it actually made a difference, I'm completely apathetic. I just think it's the most meaningless game mechanic skill test ever, other than being mandatory if it exists; so freaking out over it being removed makes you look stupid.
On June 03 2010 06:23 Zamkis wrote: So basically, we have people claiming that reducing the rewards of superior mechanics is fine and anyone thinking otherwise is an elitist.. on a forum dedicated to a game that is insanely mechanic dependent. Every minute should reward skill, mechanics and pratice. Of course there are gaps where players can only spam, but let's not try to include even more gaps.
I think the point is that sc2 is less about mechanics than scbw. It means players will be able to focus more on strategic play rather than mechanics which is great for everyone, even those that have perfect mechanics. It means that the forums will talk more about strategies to deal with certain scenarios than how to deal with muta micro harass. It means units are not overpowered if intensely microed which means players can focus on the overall game than perfecting a single maneuver. In general it means better, more strategic games, more playability for less perfect players, and more competition in the pro leagues. There might not be any magical play with mutas anymore, but there are units to replace with abilities that are easier to master.
On June 03 2010 03:29 bITt.mAN wrote: As a science major, I must examine your experimental method. How many trials of each method did you do? (Chooses to doubt and fight the results than accept them as they are depressing)
On June 03 2010 03:29 bITt.mAN wrote: As a science major, I must examine your experimental method. How many trials of each method did you do? (Chooses to doubt and fight the results than accept them as they are depressing)
i never did a mathematical analysis, but i just reasoned that the fractions of a second saved by splitting would be wholly useless unless the game was being played by a computer. any person will make hundreds of imperfect moves in any given game. the chance that getting a few minerals a few seconds sooner will end up winning you the game is essentially nonexistent. No, really. Think about it. What if you get your hatchery down at 310 minerals? what if you leave an SCV idle for a few seconds? what if you get supply blocked? there so many thousands of things a player won't do perfectly in a game that the chance of a split making the difference is infinitely small to nonexistent.
Splitting is like the easiest "mechanic" there is. If it did make an appreciable difference, anyone who wanted to could and would get it down flawlessly. The fact that it apparently doesn't makes no difference in the "skill gradient" because the skills you really need to be good at this game are MUCH harder to learn, let alone perfect than some fancy split.
On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: wow. I'm so glad the results turned out like that. There's macro, theres micro, and then theres ultra micro.
Macro = buildings, # of workers produced, units produced, expansions Micro = controlling unit commands, positioning, scouting, harass Ultra-micro = splitting scvs, move-shot, individually aiming each unit in an army
I am very glad ultra-micro is gone and this post confirmed it basically. Being able to split scvs should NOT have an impact on your macro otherwise people will gain advantages just because they are a better mouse clicker. If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Prioritizing roleplay over gameplay won't gain you much ground around these parts.
On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: wow. I'm so glad the results turned out like that. There's macro, theres micro, and then theres ultra micro.
Macro = buildings, # of workers produced, units produced, expansions Micro = controlling unit commands, positioning, scouting, harass Ultra-micro = splitting scvs, move-shot, individually aiming each unit in an army
I am very glad ultra-micro is gone and this post confirmed it basically. Being able to split scvs should NOT have an impact on your macro otherwise people will gain advantages just because they are a better mouse clicker. If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Do you seriously think move-shot and focus firing shouldn't exist? Rofl.
Splitting is one thing, but simple, fundamental micro like that?
On June 03 2010 06:23 Zamkis wrote: So basically, we have people claiming that reducing the rewards of superior mechanics is fine and anyone thinking otherwise is an elitist.. on a forum dedicated to a game that is insanely mechanic dependent. Every minute should reward skill, mechanics and pratice. Of course there are gaps where players can only spam, but let's not try to include even more gaps.
I think the point is that sc2 is less about mechanics than scbw. It means players will be able to focus more on strategic play rather than mechanics which is great for everyone, even those that have perfect mechanics. It means that the forums will talk more about strategies to deal with certain scenarios than how to deal with muta micro harass. It means units are not overpowered if intensely microed which means players can focus on the overall game than perfecting a single maneuver. In general it means better, more strategic games, more playability for less perfect players, and more competition in the pro leagues. There might not be any magical play with mutas anymore, but there are units to replace with abilities that are easier to master.
What made SC1 great was not just the overall strategy, but the ability to actually execute the actions that are required for it. For example, in TvZ, a four-rax Ayumi build hard-counters a three-hatch build (that isn't lings), but if you do a couple micro mistakes when moving out then the Terran is done, at the very least, the timing push is going to fail. Why is having really good mutalisk micro a must in a match-up? Obviously having good mutalisk control allows a player to do more in a matchup in terms of harrassing and/or selecting a strategy to perform.
On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: wow. I'm so glad the results turned out like that. There's macro, theres micro, and then theres ultra micro.
Macro = buildings, # of workers produced, units produced, expansions Micro = controlling unit commands, positioning, scouting, harass Ultra-micro = splitting scvs, move-shot, individually aiming each unit in an army
I am very glad ultra-micro is gone and this post confirmed it basically. Being able to split scvs should NOT have an impact on your macro otherwise people will gain advantages just because they are a better mouse clicker. If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Do you seriously think move-shot and focus firing shouldn't exist? Rofl.
Splitting is one thing, but simple, fundamental micro like that?
Oh man.
Focus fire is an example of normal micro which requires some reaction time and mouse clicking is fine. Inidividually telling each unit in a 25 unit army to attack a specific target which requires like 1000 apm is ultra micro and given that the AI is pretty good in sc2 compared to scbw is something also that is gone.
Lets be honest for the majority of players a spilt didn't even matter in BW D+ and below (prob even C and below) who had a better spilt was not going to be a deciding factor in the game, now it matters so little, F1, 6 at a time 3 at a time, it doesn't matter do whatever you want. Personally I do F1 cause I feel like a balla doing so much when the game just started, but i know it doesn't really matter. Look at white ra some of his game he does them two at a time soooo slow hes still one of the best players out there.
On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: wow. I'm so glad the results turned out like that. There's macro, theres micro, and then theres ultra micro.
Macro = buildings, # of workers produced, units produced, expansions Micro = controlling unit commands, positioning, scouting, harass Ultra-micro = splitting scvs, move-shot, individually aiming each unit in an army
I am very glad ultra-micro is gone and this post confirmed it basically. Being able to split scvs should NOT have an impact on your macro otherwise people will gain advantages just because they are a better mouse clicker. If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Prioritizing roleplay over gameplay won't gain you much ground around these parts.
Well, i guess it's just that I like to think that the game is somewhat realistic
In BW, every high level player split well. They did it in 100% of games, at the same time, everytime. I don't think that qualifies as a reward of superior mechanics when it only serves to level you off with the rest of the players.
I doubt any good player ever watched a replay of theirs and thought "if I had split slightly more optimally, I would have won that!". Even if a player is rushed and loses, the reason would more likely come down to not pulling an SCV off to repair fast enough, or not pulling enough, or building the barracks out of position, or not scouting soon enough, or not bringing enough SCVs along with the counter-attack, or whatever a better player than me could come up with.
Having played a lot of BW, even having enjoyed the little things like splitting, I'm personally happy that Blizzard is getting rid of the things that every player was able to do and capped out on.
People are talking about skill ceilings as if there's only one general ceiling for the entire game, when really there are many. The ones that are bad are the ones that are low enough to be reached. Things like splitting can be taken to a very acceptable level with a small amount (relative to other things) of practice, then performed as good as every other player, with any improvement being insignificant.
Multiple building selection is similar. I saw many FPVODs of BW Korean pros (which, by the way I realize does not make me pro) over many years, and whenever they went to build units, they all did it extremely fast. Over the years, they didn't really become all that much faster (at all) at executing it, they merely (Flash anyone?) got better at remembering to do it. Once you think of doing it, it's just going through the motions. The real, extremely high, skill ceiling is in the mental multitasking required to remember.
Macro is pretty easy in SC2 compared to BW, but just like BW, the game gives the player an enormous amount of control. Over time, players will come up with new ways to exploit that control, resulting in more things to do at any given moment, and more things to keep track of, and therefore higher required mechanics to pull it off. The only things that could ruin the skill ceiling of an RTS are things like squads that don't allow individual unit control, or game design that discourages or prevents expansion, or has an over simplified economy, and so on. Blizzard removed the skill ceilings that were easily attainable, while keeping the challenging ones. We just haven't replaced the lack of redundancy with something useful yet.
On June 03 2010 04:50 Kletus wrote: Further testing reveals that I get: 390 @ 1min with f1 CONSISTENTLY. 385 @ 1min with nosplit with optimal AI outcome. 380 @ 1min with halfsplit with optimal AI outcome.
All tests were on the build order tester map with the terran race.
We're seeing a lot of conflicting data in thread. Kletus' data clearly is showing there is a slight advantage to a good F1 split. Would been nice if someone could perform a study that did 10-20 test runs for each method and wrote up the results. I feel like we need more data before we start panicking here..
I'd also recommend people use the slowest game speed for the tests to minimize small differences in timings.
I'll do 5 each on slowest, I don't have all day you know
On June 03 2010 04:50 Kletus wrote: Further testing reveals that I get: 390 @ 1min with f1 CONSISTENTLY. 385 @ 1min with nosplit with optimal AI outcome. 380 @ 1min with halfsplit with optimal AI outcome.
All tests were on the build order tester map with the terran race.
We're seeing a lot of conflicting data in thread. Kletus' data clearly is showing there is a slight advantage to a good F1 split. Would been nice if someone could perform a study that did 10-20 test runs for each method and wrote up the results. I feel like we need more data before we start panicking here..
I'd also recommend people use the slowest game speed for the tests to minimize small differences in timings.
I'll do 5 each on slowest, I don't have all day you know
You just need it to be on slowest while doing the split, as long as you're using in game time as the benchmark.
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
Elitism?
Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want.
It's two to three clicks + 1 or 2 box selections (or a bunch of F1-clicks) if you go that route. If the advantage exists, it's the most mindless test of mechanical ability in SC2. No one is saying that all mechanical ability should be removed, just that the loss of a single mindless 3-click mechanic test at the start of the game is no big deal. Literally the ONLY thing you are doing at that point in the game is focusing on your split. It's not like other mechanical tests where there are decisions around it + the mechanical test. You're not even trying to manage your attention at this point of the game. It's literally just a test of how quickly and accurately you can click, box select, click, box select, click.
It's a test of something that you do throughout the entire game. Your box select accuracy and ability to click quickly are no less important without worker split.
Imagine it the other way around, if there was no split advantage in BW and suddenly there was one in SC2 no one would be praising the designers for their superior game design skill. People would just think, "WTF that's a pointless change over BW, what a pain."
You are being elitist, it has nothing to do with the level of mechanical skill in the game. You're essentially complaining about removing 1 thimble of water from a gallon jug.
If every moment of the game has to test player skill, then SC already fails at that because there are large gaps of time in the first 9-10 workers where you have nothing to do (hence why people spam).
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
It's not elitist to bemoan Blizzard's assault on these little things.
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
Elitism?
Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want.
It's two to three clicks + 1 or 2 box selections (or a bunch of F1-clicks) if you go that route. If the advantage exists, it's the most mindless test of mechanical ability in SC2. No one is saying that all mechanical ability should be removed, just that the loss of a single mindless 3-click mechanic test at the start of the game is no big deal. Literally the ONLY thing you are doing at that point in the game is focusing on your split. It's not like other mechanical tests where there are decisions around it + the mechanical test. You're not even trying to manage your attention at this point of the game. It's literally just a test of how quickly and accurately you can click, box select, click, box select, click.
It's a test of something that you do throughout the entire game. Your box select accuracy and ability to click quickly are no less important without worker split.
Imagine it the other way around, if there was no split advantage in BW and suddenly there was one in SC2 no one would be praising the designers for their superior game design skill. People would just think, "WTF that's a pointless change over BW, what a pain."
You are being elitist, it has nothing to do with the level of mechanical skill in the game. You're essentially complaining about removing 1 thimble of water from a gallon jug.
If every moment of the game has to test player skill, then SC already fails at that because there are large gaps of time in the first 9-10 workers where you have nothing to do (hence why people spam).
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
It's not elitist to bemoan Blizzard's assault on these little things.
Said what I went into this thread to say perfectly. 110% agreed.
Buddhist, can you try your tests again on different maps, say for example Metalopolis? I made a post earlier about maps possibly playing a major factor, and I think using different maps could change your results.
So there are results both confirming your findings and contradict them, so maybe if we try and make this into an actual research project, where we get multiple people to do a series of these types of tests on multiple maps?
.... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
On June 03 2010 07:03 mcgriddle wrote: .... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
...That's not the point. By doing it on slowest, you are given the opportunity to more optimally run each test.
On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Wait, what? Learning the methods are initially just as important as actually performing the action. Though unfortunately, the reality is that the method of splitting has little impact this time around...
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
Elitism?
Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want.
It's two to three clicks + 1 or 2 box selections (or a bunch of F1-clicks) if you go that route. If the advantage exists, it's the most mindless test of mechanical ability in SC2. No one is saying that all mechanical ability should be removed, just that the loss of a single mindless 3-click mechanic test at the start of the game is no big deal. Literally the ONLY thing you are doing at that point in the game is focusing on your split. It's not like other mechanical tests where there are decisions around it + the mechanical test. You're not even trying to manage your attention at this point of the game. It's literally just a test of how quickly and accurately you can click, box select, click, box select, click.
It's a test of something that you do throughout the entire game. Your box select accuracy and ability to click quickly are no less important without worker split.
Imagine it the other way around, if there was no split advantage in BW and suddenly there was one in SC2 no one would be praising the designers for their superior game design skill. People would just think, "WTF that's a pointless change over BW, what a pain."
You are being elitist, it has nothing to do with the level of mechanical skill in the game. You're essentially complaining about removing 1 thimble of water from a gallon jug.
If every moment of the game has to test player skill, then SC already fails at that because there are large gaps of time in the first 9-10 workers where you have nothing to do (hence why people spam).
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
It's not elitist to bemoan Blizzard's assault on these little things.
I think it's worth pointing out to those thinking that it's being elitist to bemoan the lack of splitting that it's not splitting itself that is creating the disagreement--it's the attitude towards these minute details. Brood War is a game that's all about the minute details. Building placement was critical, timing windows are razor-thin, and games can be decided in the span of seconds by a mis-micro. It's a game where every little thing matters, and where lots of little things that don't look like they matter add up to something that does over a long game. This attitude of "splitting does not matter" is a departure from that. It's not that splitting did not matter in SC1, but that it mattered a little. But the result of an SC1 game is often decided by the sum of many things that "matter very little".
Hmm, this is interesting. I understand that the hardcore love their little minor tests of ability, but for mid-level guys like me (used to be hardcore, but no longer have the time) appreciate having one less thing to worry about. I'd rather pay more attention to more global things than have victory or defeat hinge on tons and tons of little tricks.
Similar with smart-casting and automatic worker distribution. Its obvious you don't need AS MUCH practice to reach the top level anymore, because there's a much shorter list of skills you'll need to develop, but I don't think that's going to make playing at a professional level any less impressive. They're just going to be able to focus their attention on more important shit.
Its the difference between playing a game and having to learn professional plate-spinning just to be able to play it.
On June 03 2010 07:03 mcgriddle wrote: .... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
Its the equivalent of super-human processing, and if a single action at super-human speed is identical to 6 actions at super-human speed, why would you bother trying to do 6 and potentially screwing the whole thing up with a misclick when it isn't going to net you any advantage at all?
On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Errrrm I'd say that keeping the "ultra-micro" is a good thing; it's these little things that made SC BW easy to learn but hard to master, which is a hallmark of all great games. Hopefully in time the nuances of SC2 will come out as it did with SC1 (ie muta micro)
On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: wow. I'm so glad the results turned out like that. There's macro, theres micro, and then theres ultra micro.
Macro = buildings, # of workers produced, units produced, expansions Micro = controlling unit commands, positioning, scouting, harass Ultra-micro = splitting scvs, move-shot, individually aiming each unit in an army
I am very glad ultra-micro is gone and this post confirmed it basically. Being able to split scvs should NOT have an impact on your macro otherwise people will gain advantages just because they are a better mouse clicker. If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Do you seriously think move-shot and focus firing shouldn't exist? Rofl.
Splitting is one thing, but simple, fundamental micro like that?
Oh man.
Focus fire is an example of normal micro which requires some reaction time and mouse clicking is fine. Inidividually telling each unit in a 25 unit army to attack a specific target which requires like 1000 apm is ultra micro and given that the AI is pretty good in sc2 compared to scbw is something also that is gone.
I happen to disagree, but can see where you could get your view from. However, almost no players will tell each unit to attack a seperate unique unit, unless your talking about just all 25 units attacking a specific unit. In which case, that's easy as pie. In the "ultra"micro case, that SHOULD be rewarded. I mean, if you manage to get that good at SC, why wouldn't it be beneficial? If I'm not making any sense, it's probably because I'm not sure what you mean by the "ultra" focus fire.
I think Blizzard should remove the training wheels when you've reached a certain level of play e.g. remove handi caps at certain leagues. It would give the better players more of what they want and allow the newer players to work on other things as they get better.
I usually split 3 - 3, but it took me only like 3 seconds to learn to do quickly on each side of the map (minerals being on bot, top, left, right). I don't think that it's too critical early game. I usually just focus on my build and time it so I have 0 minerals.
.... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
The question is, does a perfect manual split matter or is the difference so little/not exisiting that you should let the AI do it and don't bother with it.
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
You bring up several points that have nothing to do with worker splitting. Placement of Depots? Yes sure, it's a strategic component how your base is structured, even when just talking about depots. Placement of overlords? Sure, beeing a great scout while your supplyunit makes placement very important. Timing of buildings? Well thats essentially what build orders and strategies are all about.
But worker split? I beg your pardon, no. SC2 is not BW. There is no strategic value and no deeper understanding involved. It's just sending your workers to get money. There is no point in making the utmost basic thing in the world complicated. I bet there are millions of things you can improve in your game, which have much much more strategic/tactical value than just establishing basic muscle memory for the ever-same action in the first second of the game. Don't be so stuck in that BW mindset.
If you do a correct split your drones will bring back minerals more consistently in waves. It may not net you more minerals on that alone but it will be effective in being able to create early units faster to bolster your econ--rather than having to wait for that extra 5 minerals because one drone had to be sent in the center then move outside.
EDIT:
On June 03 2010 07:19 deL wrote: I always thought the difference came more very early on so that you get the 50 minerals to make that 8th, 8th, 10th probe that fraction of a second faster.
Guess that makes me a baddy huh bros. Too much work
That being said I kinda miss it. I missed being the baddy with 75 apm in C- who would beat you while drunk. Someone, that mod person, said something about playstyle distinguishing a player, so as a Player who never split, i feel like something has been lost. The ability to distinguish myself as a lazy fuck.
On June 03 2010 06:57 G_G wrote: In BW, every high level player split well. They did it in 100% of games, at the same time, everytime. I don't think that qualifies as a reward of superior mechanics when it only serves to level you off with the rest of the players.
yes.. yes it does.
what you just said contradicts everything i have ever learned about competitive gami.... anything, really.
.... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
The question is, does a perfect manual split matter or is the difference so little/not exisiting that you should let the AI do it and don't bother with it.
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
You bring up several points that have nothing to do with worker splitting. Placement of Depots? Yes sure, it's a strategic component how your base is structured, even when just talking about depots. Placement of overlords? Sure, beeing a great scout while your supplyunit makes placement very important. Timing of buildings? Well thats essentially what build orders and strategies are all about.
But worker split? I beg your pardon, no. SC2 is not BW. There is no strategic value and no deeper understanding involved. It's just sending your workers to get money. There is no point in making the utmost basic thing in the world complicated. I bet there are millions of things you can improve in your game, which have much much more strategic/tactical value than just establishing basic muscle memory for the ever-same action in the first second of the game. Don't be so stuck in that BW mindset.
You misunderstand my examples. The depot example specifically was referring to the placement of depots by the spawn point of the CC which pops the SCV closer to the mineral patches to speed up mining. That is very similar to work splitting as it has the same general idea. The overlord example was specifically referring to positioning on scrap station as pointed out by Day[9] where overlords can check tech from two different directions.
And yes, worker split. Obviously, SC2 is not BW. That's not being contested. What I am saying is that SC2 should be more like BW in this respect. I don't want SC2 to be BW with new graphics, in fact, I really like the game. I part ways with a good many people on this board in not complaining about SC2 as it relates to BW. I think it's a really fun, strategic game. But this is one place where I really take issue with its design; I don't think it's complex enough in this respect.
I completely agree with you that my game, and most people's, can be improved in far more important ways than worker splitting. I'm not contesting there are far more important things than the worker split, and it's something I've said multiple times iirc. But that's also irrelevant to this discussion. I'm saying that while I don't want it to matter a lot, I do want it to matter more than it does.
But worker split? I beg your pardon, no. SC2 is not BW. There is no strategic value and no deeper understanding involved. It's just sending your workers to get money. There is no point in making the utmost basic thing in the world complicated. I bet there are millions of things you can improve in your game, which have much much more strategic/tactical value than just establishing basic muscle memory for the ever-same action in the first second of the game. Don't be so stuck in that BW mindset.
Musicological psychological states dog.
Its mad amusing to watch an accomplished progamer take like five seconds to start mining after completely screwing up a split after losing two or three matches.
Messing up a split puts you back like fifty minerals. Whatever. But it has a far deeper impact both on the player and the audience because it's a simple task set right at the beginning of the game, and is going to put one player at an advantage, and another at a disadvantage, however slight, from there mental states alone, from their ability to preform under pressue and how they take their loses. It says something before anything has been said.
i) Speed was slowest throughout the whole 1min timer; the timer I used was real-time supplied by the build order tester map VERSION 2.3.
ii) This was timed to the second. By that I mean I stopped looking at the minerals once I saw 1:00 so if an scv was JUST about to put in minerals, he gets cut.
iii) Race used was terran.
iv) For F1 split, I started the split from 6th patch from the bottom. Then just clicked down each patch. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
Also, I have noticed a pattern with the F1 selection AI and it can probably be done even more efficiently than just clicking down a line; will investigate this later.
v) For half split, I split the scvs to the patches 2nd from the top and 2nd from the bottom. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
vi) For no split, I simply took all my scvs and right-clicked the fifth patch from the bottom, which is the closest and most centered patch on the beta tester map. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
These are my findings:
Minerals @ 1min
The difference between half and none is truly negligible. The difference between F1 and the rest is maybe a couple of milliseconds, just enough for one scv to finish his trip.
i) Speed was slowest throughout the whole 1min timer; the timer I used was real-time supplied by the build order tester map VERSION 2.3.
ii) This was timed to the second. By that I mean I stopped looking at the minerals once I saw 1:00 so if an scv was JUST about to put in minerals, he gets cut.
iii) Race used was terran.
iv) For F1 split, I started the split from 6th patch from the bottom. Then just clicked down each patch. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
Also, I have noticed a pattern with the F1 selection AI and it can probably be done even more efficiently than just clicking down a line; will investigate this later.
v) For half split, I split the scvs to the patches 2nd from the top and 2nd from the bottom. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
vi) For no split, I simply took all my scvs and right-clicked the fifth patch from the bottom, which is the closest and most centered patch on the beta tester map. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
These are my findings:
Minerals @ 1min
The difference between half and none is truly negligible. The difference between F1 and the rest is maybe a couple of milliseconds, just enough for one scv to finish his trip.
Nice. I'm happy that you found the F1 split superior, because like I said before, I want a reason to keep doing it, it's fun and looks cool :3.
On June 03 2010 07:34 Kletus wrote: Okay, a couple of things to note:
i) Speed was slowest throughout the whole 1min timer; the timer I used was real-time supplied by the build order tester map VERSION 2.3.
ii) This was timed to the second. By that I mean I stopped looking at the minerals once I saw 1:00 so if an scv was JUST about to put in minerals, he gets cut.
iii) Race used was terran.
iv) For F1 split, I started the split from 6th patch from the bottom. Then just clicked down each patch. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
Also, I have noticed a pattern with the F1 selection AI and it can probably be done even more efficiently than just clicking down a line; will investigate this later.
v) For half split, I split the scvs to the patches 2nd from the top and 2nd from the bottom. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
vi) For no split, I simply took all my scvs and right-clicked the fifth patch from the bottom, which is the closest and most centered patch on the beta tester map. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
These are my findings:
Minerals @ 1min
The difference between half and none is truly negligible. The difference between F1 and the rest is maybe a couple of milliseconds, just enough for one scv to finish his trip.
Nice. I'm happy that you found the F1 split superior, because like I said before, I want a reason to keep doing it, it's fun and looks cool :3.
Honestly, whatever the outcome I would keep doing F1 only because it looks sweet and it makes me feel super gosu.
i certainly don't feel any difference in the game from splitting, but why not do it? it's not like there's anything else going on in a game at the under 1 minute mark besides hitting the worker hotkey over and over..
I think you should take this data with a grain of salt, by the way. Having identical minerals at a certain moment would be identical results even if you have 6 workers who had just delivered their minerals, versus 6 workers who are just about to deliver an extra batch.
Its hard to argue that a perfect split isn't going to net you SOME kind of advantage over someone who wastes the time of 5 workers moving that extra distance before they start mining. This new system is just less punishing on complete newbies who don't realize that splitting your workers up nets more resources than sending all four to a single spot (using SCBW as a reference).
i) Speed was slowest throughout the whole 1min timer; the timer I used was real-time supplied by the build order tester map VERSION 2.3.
ii) This was timed to the second. By that I mean I stopped looking at the minerals once I saw 1:00 so if an scv was JUST about to put in minerals, he gets cut.
iii) Race used was terran.
iv) For F1 split, I started the split from 6th patch from the bottom. Then just clicked down each patch. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
Also, I have noticed a pattern with the F1 selection AI and it can probably be done even more efficiently than just clicking down a line; will investigate this later.
v) For half split, I split the scvs to the patches 2nd from the top and 2nd from the bottom. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
vi) For no split, I simply took all my scvs and right-clicked the fifth patch from the bottom, which is the closest and most centered patch on the beta tester map. 7th scv was placed on the nearest non-occupied patch.
These are my findings:
Minerals @ 1min
The difference between half and none is truly negligible. The difference between F1 and the rest is maybe a couple of milliseconds, just enough for one scv to finish his trip.
Nice. I'm happy that you found the F1 split superior, because like I said before, I want a reason to keep doing it, it's fun and looks cool :3.
It's not as though splitting was very hard in the first place once you got the few methods used for various positions to minerals... especially compared to the other mechanics involved in the game. So for all these people saying that BW splitting was bad, or gave an advantage to the skilled player, or put players with poor mouse coordination at an inherent disadvantage from the start, or didn't matter that much anyway... Say that to a Zerg who loses only one ling instead of two or three when doing a runby on a building cannon/s, or a bunker that completes just in time, or a zeal that gets there just in time allowing that last hit on the sunken to save a zealot, letting his shield recharge. The ramifications from a perfect split could be huge, and was essential.
It really wasn't hard. Not to show off because this is basic, but in BW this generally always works: 1) build worker 2)select 4 send to 'far patch' (select 2 higher than closest or 2 lower than closest patch) 3) select first 2 scvs ('first' being the two that spawned closest to patches, left two or right two) 4) send those to closest patch, select manually or de-select one and send it to patch right next to patch selected with first two 5) the other two scvs are still going to the 'far patch' you selected, still, so send the 'third one' to the patch next to the first one you selected.
It's about 4 'task' actions in ~ 4 seconds (100 APM required within the first minute, not even if you're like Flash at the start) 9 actions total (building + selecting scvs + selecting mineral patches). Within 20 minutes I think any SC2 new-to-the-game player can split perfectly 80% of the time, maybe less if you spawn with patches below your 'town hall.'
After this initial 'burst' (not even really hard) of action, you have all the time in the world relative to the rest of the game to think about strategy, starting positions, and possibilities. In the end I feel this finding reinforces people's desire to be lazy and to not practice mechanics at all. Not the mention the rest of the game that generally requires less (and moves arguably a bit slower, especially with animations), so I feel it's only compounding the problem.
.... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
The question is, does a perfect manual split matter or is the difference so little/not exisiting that you should let the AI do it and don't bother with it.
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
You bring up several points that have nothing to do with worker splitting. Placement of Depots? Yes sure, it's a strategic component how your base is structured, even when just talking about depots. Placement of overlords? Sure, beeing a great scout while your supplyunit makes placement very important. Timing of buildings? Well thats essentially what build orders and strategies are all about.
But worker split? I beg your pardon, no. SC2 is not BW. There is no strategic value and no deeper understanding involved. It's just sending your workers to get money. There is no point in making the utmost basic thing in the world complicated. I bet there are millions of things you can improve in your game, which have much much more strategic/tactical value than just establishing basic muscle memory for the ever-same action in the first second of the game. Don't be so stuck in that BW mindset.
You misunderstand my examples. The depot example specifically was referring to the placement of depots by the spawn point of the CC which pops the SCV closer to the mineral patches to speed up mining. That is very similar to work splitting as it has the same general idea. The overlord example was specifically referring to positioning on scrap station as pointed out by Day[9] where overlords can check tech from two different directions.
And yes, worker split. Obviously, SC2 is not BW. That's not being contested. What I am saying is that SC2 should be more like BW in this respect. I don't want SC2 to be BW with new graphics, in fact, I really like the game. I part ways with a good many people on this board in not complaining about SC2 as it relates to BW. I think it's a really fun, strategic game. But this is one place where I really take issue with its design; I don't think it's complex enough in this respect.
I completely agree with you that my game, and most people's, can be improved in far more important ways than worker splitting. I'm not contesting there are far more important things than the worker split, and it's something I've said multiple times iirc. But that's also irrelevant to this discussion. I'm saying that while I don't want it to matter a lot, I do want it to matter more than it does.
Still I think there are important distinctions between the different things you mention. Building the depot or positioning the overlord still involves a strategic decision because there's a trade-off. Putting a supply depot in a given location means you aren't putting it elsewhere. The worker split is completely irrelevant strategically. It's a 100% decision. It's ALWAYS better to split once you learn to do it.
I really agree that the small stuff should matter and add up, it's what really makes the game interesting to keep playing. I just think that in the particular case of a worker split it's a very acceptable loss (good even) since there's 0 strategic element to it and it comes at the start of the game when 100% of your attention can be focused on it. By all means say that you miss having any cool small tricks or that some small stuff should be more interesting. I just think you should pick your battles. A small mechanic test with 0 strategic element is not the type of battle I'd recommend picking.
On June 03 2010 07:42 Bibdy wrote: I think you should take this data with a grain of salt, by the way. Having identical minerals at a certain moment would be identical results even if you have 6 workers who had just delivered their minerals, versus 6 workers who are just about to deliver an extra batch.
Its hard to argue that a perfect split isn't going to net you SOME kind of advantage over someone who wastes the time of 5 workers moving that extra distance before they start mining. This new system is just less punishing on complete newbies who don't realize that splitting your workers up nets more resources than sending all four to a single spot.
Agreed, it's only a couple milliseconds. At best I would say it will help you defend against or execute cheese. At the same time, remember that I was just "clicking down the mineral line" with F1. The F1 selection AI automatically picked the top one each time, then the bottom, then 2nd from top etc. It's something I'll look into for sure because I'm curious.
I actually almost prefer the wc3 approach. Just have a single mining spot that loses mining efficency once you put more than x drones on it (where x is the amount of drones you need to put on your mineral fields in sc2 to lose efficency) to the same degree as now. Exactly same numbers, no splitting, same mining for everyone.
Now of course this doesn't work in sc2 for lots and lots of reasons, since the mineral line and all it's implications on harassing, defending, buildingplacement etc. is an important (_and_ strategic) part of sc2. But for me there seems to be no point to have a) the most basic thing in the game beeing overly complicated b) people getting rewarded for _purely_ mechanical abilites. All the macroing, microing and tactics we do, may they be mechanically as demanding as possible, have always a thought component, always a part where your brain has to take part. This is just not the case with worker splitting.
Another argument is, that there is also no decisionmaking in how to split your workers. It's not like if i do move A it'll be better say at 5 mins and if i do move B it'll be better at 10 mins. It's just split right or go fuck yourself. No game should be demanding in that way. In some cases you can not avoid it (when you have to overcome the weaknesses of an AI f.e.), but BW is so full of these issues it was absolutely necessary Blizzard got rid of it.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
LOL If everyone in the ranks have this same advantage, why would this terrible player surpass anyone, or move up from where he was? Show me one player that was being held back by splitting problems....Drama Queens abound these days; saddest thing ever.
.... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
The question is, does a perfect manual split matter or is the difference so little/not exisiting that you should let the AI do it and don't bother with it.
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
You bring up several points that have nothing to do with worker splitting. Placement of Depots? Yes sure, it's a strategic component how your base is structured, even when just talking about depots. Placement of overlords? Sure, beeing a great scout while your supplyunit makes placement very important. Timing of buildings? Well thats essentially what build orders and strategies are all about.
But worker split? I beg your pardon, no. SC2 is not BW. There is no strategic value and no deeper understanding involved. It's just sending your workers to get money. There is no point in making the utmost basic thing in the world complicated. I bet there are millions of things you can improve in your game, which have much much more strategic/tactical value than just establishing basic muscle memory for the ever-same action in the first second of the game. Don't be so stuck in that BW mindset.
You misunderstand my examples. The depot example specifically was referring to the placement of depots by the spawn point of the CC which pops the SCV closer to the mineral patches to speed up mining. That is very similar to work splitting as it has the same general idea. The overlord example was specifically referring to positioning on scrap station as pointed out by Day[9] where overlords can check tech from two different directions.
And yes, worker split. Obviously, SC2 is not BW. That's not being contested. What I am saying is that SC2 should be more like BW in this respect. I don't want SC2 to be BW with new graphics, in fact, I really like the game. I part ways with a good many people on this board in not complaining about SC2 as it relates to BW. I think it's a really fun, strategic game. But this is one place where I really take issue with its design; I don't think it's complex enough in this respect.
I completely agree with you that my game, and most people's, can be improved in far more important ways than worker splitting. I'm not contesting there are far more important things than the worker split, and it's something I've said multiple times iirc. But that's also irrelevant to this discussion. I'm saying that while I don't want it to matter a lot, I do want it to matter more than it does.
Still I think there are important distinctions between the different things you mention. Building the depot or positioning the overlord still involves a strategic decision because there's a trade-off. Putting a supply depot in a given location means you aren't putting it elsewhere. The worker split is completely irrelevant strategically. It's a 100% decision. It's ALWAYS better to split once you learn to do it.
I really agree that the small stuff should matter and add up, it's what really makes the game interesting to keep playing. I just think that in the particular case of a worker split it's a very acceptable loss (good even) since there's 0 strategic element to it and it comes at the start of the game when 100% of your attention can be focused on it. By all means say that you miss having any cool small tricks or that some small stuff should be more interesting. I just think you should pick your battles. A small mechanic test with 0 strategic element is not the type of battle I'd recommend picking.
Ah, but there is connection. In 'A Legacy of Distinction' I wrote:
A game that is pure is one that has at its core the essence of strategy. Undoubtedly, there is no way for a real-time strategy game to be purely strategy; some technical component must accompany and complement the strategic one. But the physical component should not be considered irrelevant to competitive purity—competitive purity stresses strategic advantages over technical prowess, but technical ability is also a major factor. The prevailing idea behind a purity of competition is that, in the end, the better player must be the one to win, whether or not the play of the victor is defined by technical rather than strategic prowess. The favoring of strategy over technical ability is not a slight to the value of technical play, but rather it is meant to disqualify a game that permits the player who button-crunches faster and harder to always be the victor.
Technical ability and strategic execution are very different functions for a player, as different as the functions of the parts of the brain that control these activities. Without technical ability, the execution of a strategy will inevitably fail. Without a strategy, technical ability is useless. This is to point out that these two must act together; they must be completely and consciously coordinated. It is difficult to quantify or investigate which of these skills is more important to the outcome of a game, and it ought not be a concern for the player. In StarCraft, as in other competitive games, it is the fundamentals of strategy and technical ability that prove most important. Flashy hand motions or micro gimmicks are superficial and irrelevant to game outcome if the fundamentals of strategy and technique are not in place.
So bascially, we pretty much agree, except I believe that the split is one of those things that prevent a strategy from being executed to its fullest, and that is an interesting property of a build order: some miscue on the part of the player unrelated to his mental idea of the strategy can impede its success.
It's just fun to do. Just like spamming early. There's really no point to it, but it just helps you feel better about yourself, and helps your gameplay. I don't like sitting idle... It's counter intuitive to me.
Personally I never split, but I always assumed the people who do either want to look cool (always a positive) or want to prevent a weird AI glitch putting them 1-2 seconds behind. Either way by the data it doesn't matter and that kind of upsets me.
I just tested as well, and can confirm that the F1 split yields 5 more minerals at the 40 sec mark. That 5 minerals isn't going to exponentially increase though, so I suppose it's more a question of preference.
the best split is moving your 6 workers to one half of your 8 mineral patchs targeting the third or fourth one from the end then take the worker furthest away from reaching that mineral and select it and move it to a the closest mineral to your main on the other half.
i do this every game. seems to get out that 8th scv way faster
On June 03 2010 08:28 roymarthyup wrote: the best split is moving your 6 workers to one half of your 8 mineral patchs targeting the third or fourth one from the end then take the worker furthest away from reaching that mineral and select it and move it to a the closest mineral to your main on the other half.
i do this every game. seems to get out that 8th scv way faster
This cool story brought to you by Bro, Inc. Back up your claim. The OP has numbers. You have a super cool story.
Alright! I have further testing with F1. Here is what I gathered:
I originally thought that the F1 selection AI wasn't random, I was wrong. However, 7 out of the 15 games I played ended up with the scvs being selected by this pattern: top, bottom, top, bottom, etc. About 4 times I would get: top, bottom, bottom, bottom, etc. For the rest of the games the selection seemed random.
I ran through the tests(same ones as on page 9) comparing the F1 first pattern to the F1 "click down the minerals" and the difference in negligible; the scv that carries the minerals to raise the count to 145 is just about to hand it in before the timer hits 1:00.
On June 03 2010 09:04 SkCom wrote: if nothing else, the split will at least warm us up for a good match instead of just spamming mindlessly to keep your hands warm
lol
If there really is no difference splitting to warm up would be pretty dumb since people screw it up all the time.
Either way it's really an insignificant change. If I practiced for half an hour I could do a practically-perfect split every times, or at least perfect enough for it not to matter. It doesn't add skill, it just adds a bit of time you have to practice something trivial and useless to get to playing the actual competitive game.
If I do not split, I typically have to wait like, iono, .2 seconds after the first drone hatches before I build the second, and if I do split, I build it right when the drone hatches.
Does it really matter? no. I may be gaining a grand total of .1 minerals. I could probably play 100 billion games and you'd see no connection between me splitting and what not, but I do it anyway
It matters, a fair amount on some maps, an insignificant amount on others.
These tests that were run don't take into account important factors like the start time on your second worker nor the distribution of optimal mineral patches. Using a 3/3 or f1 split on a map that has it's optimal patches on the ends instead of the middle areas is conclusively better than sending all 6 to any one of the patches and letting the AI take over.
auto split/mine and MBS are only expanding the player base. It isn't really going to make a difference in the higher levels of play
By "expanding the player base" you mean "fixing a shitty UI".
High level players didn't have a problem with the UI. I think you are mistaken here.
Agreed, heck I didn't have a problem with the UI and I was C-. Then again I'm currently playing, "warcraft: orcs and humans" and having a blast. 4 unit selection only, have to use hotkeys to move units(right click moves your view, not moves units and I actually prefer this over todays rts games), units/buildings can't be hotkeyed to number keys.
Feels good, wish I could stream it but alas my upload rate sucks.
It could be to do with how workers get minerals. I dont really know how the system worked but in WC3 workers would walk slow or fast between resources and town hall. i guess this is how it kept the income consistent. Perhaps a similar mechanism is used in SC2 whereby once you tell workers to mine a mineral patch, the game knows what the income should be and then alters the mining speed or traveling speed of the workers.
I use a 3-2-1 split, moves all, selects 3 to move to another closer, then move one in the last group before it has to auto-split, and I earn at least a few ms. I've tested it out and it does make a small difference. I think I had a ~5-10 minerals difference while trying out different splits for 1-2 hours, god was it boring though.
Yea, this is about what I expected. Kinda sad that it makes NO difference whatsoever. The intensive micro components that lead to small advantages (remember, very small advantages add up, over the time period of a game...) seem to be being removed. SC2 is becoming (whether intentional or not!) less micro-requiring than a lot of people hoped for..
This is just quibbling over 5-10 minerals, but to those players with the skill and speed to do nice splits, such a miniscule 5-10 mineral reward SHOULD be allocated, I think. It's never going to break or win a game, but micro should be rewarded with small advantages over time.
Just my opinion.
Also, thanks for the charts and tests! I was hoping somebody would get around to this.
I mean honestly, the funniest part of all this is that the position you put your cursor into plus adjustment reaction time more than eclipses any mineral gain.
This was the case in BW as well....
If you juts right click all 4 workers on the same patch, you could either jump a patch (if you're that retarded) or worst case, be back 1 gather.
So the difference there was genuinely up to 24 minerals, where as this you're not down gathers, but simply slowing your total gathers by milliseconds, which are really within the margin of error for the rest of your game.
If your micro/macro is up to where milliseconds of gather made a difference, you wouldn't be worrying about it anyway.
I mean, probably 40 people have commented on how misplaced the elitism over microing workers at the start is, but I think it's worth continuing to state until they stop crying about it.
I'm sorry you guys fail at basic mathematics and timescales in your brains, but it really doesn't make a difference beyond the margin of error of even a single mis-click over the entire game.
I didn't think splits mattered so much because the pathing and ai is pretty decent. I was surprised though with the timing of the first worker built. I guess I can relax at the beginning of the game now.
I just tested it with Zerg in all four spawn points on LT using the build tester.
It seems there is a bit more randomness with zerg, as I got a difference of up to 20 minerals using the exact same method after two minutes. I was always doing 9 OV, drone to 14, and here are my results at the 2 min mark:
- Best score: 770, with a perfect F1 split on slower, having the hatchery facing the mineral line, sending first two drones to empty spot, sending the 2nd drone after OV to a different spot. - Worst score: 725, without split, having the hatchery the wrong way, letting drones go to a single rally point. - Best score on faster: 760. - Best score wrong way: 755, with a perfect split, always sending new drones to empty/favorable spots. - Worst score right way: 750, sending all workers to the same spot, and all to the rally point.
I don't understand how anyone could think this is a positive thing. Why eliminate a little micro trick that used to give a very slight advantage? Of course things like MBS make the game much more hospitable to new players that might struggle with the essential mechanics of the game, but decreasing auto-split efficiency is something casual players would not even notice.
a lot of people don't understand how difficult and beneficial a perfect split was in BW you could get to C and still not get consistent good splits, and when you didn't, you raged like a bitch.
but I apologize to that dude, been moving all day and i'm tired.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
THIS JUST IN: SPENDING TIME TRAINING MUSCLE MEMORY TO SPLIT WORKERS IS ACTUALLY HIGHLY SKILLED.
you try it.
splitting properly is like working on leaving the blocks in a Track race. sure the guy who has the best block form coming out of the gate isn't necessarily the guy who will win but I can guarantee that block form is a telltale sign of the degree of skill of the runner.
On June 03 2010 03:29 mOnion wrote: and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
What's sad is thinking manually splitting a few probes after a loading time which even if done properly only makes you win a fifth of a second is "important".
You moved up in the wannabe ya-me-pr0-cannot be pwnt-micro-omgzuallnubs-noskillz tree at least...
How utterly pathetic is it to get so fired up about something as minor, uninteresting and borderline psychotic ? Get out to drink or get a girl dude.
Firstly, i personally really dont care if splitting workers precisely in SC2 matters economically or not. To be honest i barely care.
But, nothing pisses me off more than these new people who have literally ZERO respect for Broodwar, and flaunt it. Lets be honest. No one can tell you that you have to respect anything in life. In fact you can go through life disrespecting every single thing and there is no law or moral code that can touch you. But i ask you this, can you look at the long and deep history of BW and not at least have minimal respect for the game and its players? Seriously, if you are here on this site, and you are playing SC2 online, and still cant muster any respect for BW or its fans then i dont know what to say to you.
New people should also consider that its not really about what is lost strategically etc when Blizzard removes things like perfect splits etc. Its not really about gameplay at all sometimes. Sometimes its just a symbol for something else. When i see a perfect split in BW, or any of the other tricks that arent easy to do, i know that this player im watching knows the game. I know he has put in the time and effort. If the tiniest actions he takes he puts 150 percent of skill for trivial amount of gain i respect him as a player. I know he knows. You can tell these types of players just by how they move their units in BW. BW is not an easy game to control perfectly. Seeing someone do it right is a symbol of their dedication and familiarity, as well as their ability to turn something difficult to do into something they can control and use rather than whine about.
New people shouldnt try to undermine a game they never really took seriously or played. Im all for moving on to SC2 with all its updated UI and fancy shit, and i do believe in time it will take an unreal level of skill to be the best at. But being purposely ignorant of the depth of BW for forum amusement is just trashy.
And the people saying that all the skills learned in overcoming the UI in BW are now "useless" in SC2 are wrong. The attitude and mindset carries over. Ill take the BW style "it doesnt matter how hard it is, i can learn to do it" approach over the SC2 "thank god i dont have to click anymore" approach any day.
On June 03 2010 12:26 Mellotron wrote: Firstly, i personally really dont care if splitting workers precisely in SC2 matters economically or not. To be honest i barely care.
But, nothing pisses me off more than these new people who have literally ZERO respect for Broodwar, and flaunt it. Lets be honest. No one can tell you that you have to respect anything in life. In fact you can go through life disrespecting every single thing and there is no law or moral code that can touch you. But i ask you this, can you look at the long and deep history of BW and not at least have minimal respect for the game and its players? Seriously, if you are here on this site, and you are playing SC2 online, and still cant muster any respect for BW or its fans then i dont know what to say to you.
New people should also consider that its not really about what is lost strategically etc when Blizzard removes things like perfect splits etc. Its not really about gameplay at all sometimes. Sometimes its just a symbol for something else. When i see a perfect split in BW, or any of the other tricks that arent easy to do, i know that this player im watching knows the game. I know he has put in the time and effort. If the tiniest actions he takes he puts 150 percent of skill for trivial amount of gain i respect him as a player. I know he knows. You can tell these types of players just by how they move their units in BW. BW is not an easy game to control perfectly. Seeing someone do it right is a symbol of their dedication and familiarity, as well as their ability to turn something difficult to do into something they can control and use rather than whine about.
New people shouldnt try to undermine a game they never really took seriously or played. Im all for moving on to SC2 with all its updated UI and fancy shit, and i do believe in time it will take an unreal level of skill to be the best at. But being purposely ignorant of the depth of BW for forum amusement is just trashy.
And the people saying that all the skills learned in overcoming the UI in BW are now "useless" in SC2 are wrong. The attitude and mindset carries over. Ill take the BW style "it doesnt matter how hard it is, i can learn to do it" approach over the SC2 "thank god i dont have to click anymore" approach any day.
Tell me, is worker splitting the ONE THING that REALLY has to be defended, of all things? =/
What's the difference between spending some time perfecting your splitting, then becoming equals with everybody else, and spending less time perfecting your splitting, then becoming equals with everybody else who spent the same amount of time? Are you saying that the person who spends 5 minutes practicing his split is superior to the one who spends 5 minutes practicing his macro?
It's all subjective. Personally, I don't find splitting significant to the point where I would waste my time practicing it.
On June 03 2010 03:29 mOnion wrote: and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
What's sad is thinking manually splitting a few probes after a loading time which even if done properly only makes you win a fifth of a second is "important".
You moved up in the wannabe ya-me-pr0-cannot be pwnt-micro-omgzuallnubs-noskillz tree at least...
How utterly pathetic is it to get so fired up about something as minor, uninteresting and borderline psychotic ? Get out to drink or get a girl dude.
The dude wrote like a handful of lines, i dont know if id call that "fired up". Also, define "minor". Define "uninteresting". What are you even doing on a SC forum reading this topic if caring about the topic is for losers? Seriously, i am suddenly more interested in how someone could come to a SC website, browse forum topics, select "worker splitting" as his topic of choice, then come in and start braggin about how he isnt a nerd because somewhere out there, there is a beer and a female.
On June 03 2010 06:00 BlasiuS wrote: I see no split, half split, and F1 split , but what about a Full (i.e. Perfect) Split? Has anyone tested that? Can anyone even do that?
That's what an F1 split is, lol.
I was under the impression that F1 split is where you repeatedly F1-click each worker one at a time (I don't ever use F1 to split my workers). That's NOT the same as a perfect split.
Perfect split is selecting all 6 workers, tell them to mine, then through whatever way you choose, getting each worker to a separate mineral patch before any of the workers start mining.
I don't see F1 splitting being effectively better at normal (eg, "faster") game speed. That is simply too much idle time even if you can F1+click six times in the fraction of a second (and even if it was f1 click, 6 times in 1 second, isnt that something inhuman like 720 apm?)
And as others mentioned, it really doesn't matter that much to most players. But to someone who has very clean, well thought out play, having 5 minerals 3 seconds earlier means to move that probe out 3 seconds earlier to start that pylon on exact 100 minerals-- not 105, or 110, or 100 but the probe has to shift 2 gridspaces to start it. So while being a minute and small detail, it can also be extremely important to know these things for clean play-- especially once this game leaves its infancy.
On June 03 2010 10:50 3clipse wrote: I don't understand how anyone could think this is a positive thing. Why eliminate a little micro trick that used to give a very slight advantage? Of course things like MBS make the game much more hospitable to new players that might struggle with the essential mechanics of the game, but decreasing auto-split efficiency is something casual players would not even notice.
so i ll exagerate a little to see if people like you can understand. imagine if in sc1 you need to press 20 keys to make a single building, then the sc nerds would look amazed at how the pros who can do it fast, etc. but... is that skill a thing you really want in a Real Time Strategy game?? or just another pathetic brainless skill that need to be trained?? it isnt macro, it isnt micro, its just stupid old engines of an old game. its 100 % perfect and necessary to remove that kind of things.
What the fuck are people discussing BW split for. This thread isn't about how important splitting in BW is. It's about weather or not its worth doing in SC2.
On June 03 2010 12:55 Bosu wrote: What the fuck are people discussing BW split for. This thread isn't about how important splitting in BW is. It's about weather or not its worth doing in SC2.
This. All due respect to BW and the little things that set aside the pros from the amateurs, but I'm just curious as to whether or not this has been completely nerfed or just less efficient.
On June 03 2010 12:55 Bosu wrote: What the fuck are people discussing BW split for. This thread isn't about how important splitting in BW is. It's about weather or not its worth doing in SC2.
This. All due respect to BW and the little things that set aside the pros from the amateurs, but I'm just curious as to whether or not this has been completely nerfed or just less efficient.
Page 9 for my analysis. That's the problem with 11page threads, no one reads anything but the OP. Can't say I blame em though.
i prefer doing a 3/3 split and getting my workers to the outside minerals first, just so there's less bouncing around when i rally my workers on the center minerals. i could care less about the mining efficiency honestly, but i like having all my workers on individual patches at the start
On June 03 2010 12:26 Mellotron wrote: Firstly, i personally really dont care if splitting workers precisely in SC2 matters economically or not. To be honest i barely care.
But, nothing pisses me off more than these new people who have literally ZERO respect for Broodwar, and flaunt it. Lets be honest. No one can tell you that you have to respect anything in life. In fact you can go through life disrespecting every single thing and there is no law or moral code that can touch you. But i ask you this, can you look at the long and deep history of BW and not at least have minimal respect for the game and its players? Seriously, if you are here on this site, and you are playing SC2 online, and still cant muster any respect for BW or its fans then i dont know what to say to you.
New people should also consider that its not really about what is lost strategically etc when Blizzard removes things like perfect splits etc. Its not really about gameplay at all sometimes. Sometimes its just a symbol for something else. When i see a perfect split in BW, or any of the other tricks that arent easy to do, i know that this player im watching knows the game. I know he has put in the time and effort. If the tiniest actions he takes he puts 150 percent of skill for trivial amount of gain i respect him as a player. I know he knows. You can tell these types of players just by how they move their units in BW. BW is not an easy game to control perfectly. Seeing someone do it right is a symbol of their dedication and familiarity, as well as their ability to turn something difficult to do into something they can control and use rather than whine about.
New people shouldnt try to undermine a game they never really took seriously or played. Im all for moving on to SC2 with all its updated UI and fancy shit, and i do believe in time it will take an unreal level of skill to be the best at. But being purposely ignorant of the depth of BW for forum amusement is just trashy.
And the people saying that all the skills learned in overcoming the UI in BW are now "useless" in SC2 are wrong. The attitude and mindset carries over. Ill take the BW style "it doesnt matter how hard it is, i can learn to do it" approach over the SC2 "thank god i dont have to click anymore" approach any day.
This guy's post is spot on, and a lot of new posters need to realize this and stop flaming like complete dickheads =/. Even through the melodrama of us BW veterans, this is a pretty big deal in high-level competitive play. There's nothing more that I can say that wouldn't be reiterating what the post I'm quoting has said.
Actually it's a TINY deal in high-level play. Anyone D+ or higher could split nearly perfectly every time in broodwars anyways.
What I'm interested in is the effect of clicking the different mineral patches for a non-split. And then after that, microing your first workers to move to the FOUR CLOSER PATCHES. And then after that making sure the closer patches get double saturated before the farther patches.
I think that's much more rewarding micro than who can click their initial 5 or 6 workers fastest to the different minerals.
On June 03 2010 13:13 Kletus wrote: Page 9 for my analysis. That's the problem with 11page threads, no one reads anything but the OP. Can't say I blame em though.
LOL, I quit a page too soon! But you're right, it is tiring reading the same thing over and over again, especially when it gets flamed up. Thanks!
It's a matter of a second or so, so alot of people say "Oh no, its only a second off of mineral timing" But in reality, if you say that about so many things, they all add up.
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
Yeah because a good split will guarantee you are a good player.
Dumbass.
Well, it was a strong indicator in BW. I regularly studied replays of B+ level players who couldn't consistently do a perfect split, and B and lower players missed a worker most of the time it seemed :|
To which resource patches did you send your workers when you did manual split? I'm fairly certain if your force your workers to collect from the nearest 4 you can out collect auto split by a small margin (~5-15 minerals).
I'll try to run some tests and see what I come up with.
edit
Are your times in real time or game time? This depends on what version of the build order tester you used. (nevermind with enough tests I could prove it has to be real time)
Also did you build more probes up to supply cap or just leave only 6 mining? (nevermind only read your description you state your probe usage in your table titles.)
Finally did you do multiple tests of each type and average them to account for resource arrival times? (I really doubt multiple tests were run as all data is divisable by 5 suggesting no averaging was done)
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
Yeah because a good split will guarantee you are a good player.
Dumbass.
Well, it was a strong indicator in BW. I regularly studied replays of B+ level players who couldn't consistently do a perfect split, and B and lower players missed a worker most of the time it seemed :|
Yeah, but correlation does not imply causation. I was only a C- player in my short SC:BW career, and my splits were perfect -- but that's because I sat there restarting games for literally hours at a time until I got it right. The thing was, that didn't do anything to improve my play. The reason higher level players can regularly do a perfect split in BW is because the skills required to compete at that level are much greater than that which is required to do something as simple as a worker split. Get good and the perfect worker splits will follow.
For that reason I really think this is being blown out of proportion. That idiot saying B-B-BUT NOW THE BADDIES ARE GONNA GET A FREE PASS is making something out of nothing. Players will rank up because they improve their micro, macro, builds, strategies, etc -- NOT because something as trivial as splitting workers might suddenly be insignificant.
I, as well as Cluck, made a post a few pages back about how map and mineral placement can and do play a huge part in how splits affect your income.
The problem I'm seeing with these kinds of tests, is that the data that is collected is of, and therefore only relevant to, that player. This is why I purpose that those who are actually interested help turn this into a kind of research project. We would need samples from different people, of different skills levels, and of course different maps. This would help prevent misconceptions and one set of findings suddenly becoming fact.
This is probably true but the split didn't matter as much even in bw. You weren't "behind" by sending 2 drones to 1 patch, it always seemed comical when people mentioned it early on. Even if it created 8 mineral difference at some point it was meaningless because it all comes down to when you place your next building/make ovie and 8 minerals never mattered even the slightest (only if you 4 pooled)
In the end, I really doubt it matters. If you send your scout out 1 second too early then it basically negates the insignificant potential bonus that you could have gained from doing a perfect split.
If there is in fact a difference it would effect the start time of your first production building by may be 3-4 game ticks so enough for top pros to make a deal about but not enough for anyone else.
Also I can't seem to replicate Buddhist's data so I'm temped to question it.
On June 03 2010 14:37 condoriano wrote: You weren't "behind" by sending 2 drones to 1 patch...Even if it created 8 mineral difference...
You contradict yourself with the following statement:
...because it all comes down to when you place your next building/make ovie...
You then go on to say
...8 minerals never mattered even the slightest.
not having the correct amount of minerals determined when you could or could not build something. So having 8 minerals sooner meant you could build stuff sooner, and therefore execute your plan sooner.
On June 03 2010 14:46 darmousseh wrote: In the end, I really doubt it matters. If you send your scout out 1 second too early then it basically negates the insignificant potential bonus that you could have gained from doing a perfect split.
Exactly, in bw doing 9 drone scout vs 12 drone scout was infinitely bigger blow to your economy compared to a slight delay of 8 minerals which wasn't even offsetting anything (because you received either 16 or 24 minerals within 1 second while you were placing your first building, so 8 minerals being slightly late didn't affect the timing)
not having the correct amount of minerals determined when you could or could not build something. So having 8 minerals sooner meant you could build stuff sooner, and therefore execute your plan sooner.
Read my post above, you can test it for yourself. If you split at least 3 drones to different patches you will get over a 100 with no delay, because 4th drone carrying 8 minerals being slightly delayed wasn't needed to make your overlord/pool( obviously it has to arrive before the new mining cycle of the first 3 drones ends, which always happens unless you sent your drone behind minerals)
On June 03 2010 03:21 woolly wrote: I suck at splitting anyways, I more often screw it up than get it right. Good riddance!
and another terrible player moves up in the ranks due to Blizzard's pathetic blessing.
Fantastic.
this is like the saddest thing ever.
Yeah because worker splitting made such a fucking huge difference in BW.Cry me a river buddy. You're probably the kind of guy that spends the rest of his free time practicing pencil tricks.
32 is a full cycle of 4 mining drones, then you only need 24 to make another drone so it doesn't matter if your 4th drone was delayed within one cycle. Let's see if you are going 4 pool: 32x6 = 192, 6 cycles, you only need 8 minerals from the new cycle to arrive on time.
This issue is not the actual issue. It is only an indicator of the actual issue. SC:BW was exciting because it had two major gameplay aspects: 1) Strategy 2) Skill
The first of which is shared by almost all RTS games, turn based games, board games, and many games of the like. A portion of Starcraft's gameplay is rooted in this (which is great!) but Starcraft is not a game that requires only a good strategy.
I've heard many an "rts" gamer gripe about Starcraft because they don't think a player should be able to do better in a game because they can click faster. Well, like most hobbies, Starcraft is something that requires mechanical skill to execute properly; skill which can only be gotten with time and practice. This is why I appreciate the game more than I would appreciate a "normal" game.
Mechanisms such as the auto-split and mass unit selection simplify the feats of the game and make what used to be spectacular things just ordinary. True, there are still difficult things that can be accomplished and hopefully many more to be discovered in the future, but the issue that auto-splitting points to is that the reward for accomplishing spectacular things has been marginalized in SC2.
I'm unconvinced this is has been tested enough to truly prove that the is no difference between auto split and manual split.
Using qxc's build order test it is possible using the six original probes and building only one and then stopping probe production to have collected 380 minerals by 1 minute real time
Also since all the data is perfectly divisable by 5 it seems that the original poster only ran the tests once and did not do averaging of multiple tests making the data have a level of error.
What the hell? Are you guys serious (to the people complaining about how "lesser-skilled" players have a better edge now)? Do you people honestly think that the ability to split workers is a valid way to gauge whether or not a player is good? Really? Are you even listening to yourselves?
On June 03 2010 16:19 afiddy wrote: What the hell? Are you guys serious (to the people complaining about how "lesser-skilled" players have a better edge now)? Do you people honestly think that the ability to split workers is a valid way to gauge whether or not a player is good? Really? Are you even listening to yourselves?
You could definitely tell if someone is bad if he couldn't split his workers consistently. It doesn't mean he's good if he splits them well, but it's a good indicator of someones experience, current shape and concentration. Good players almost never fuck their splits up.
And automated mining (and easier split) does give worse players a better edge vs someone decent, it's kind of obvious (not that they going to win because of that but an edge is an edge). Less shit to manage is definitely making things easier.
On June 03 2010 16:23 MrStorkie wrote: I hope this isn't just one big rickroll.
It's good that you added a video to illustrate your point, we almost forgot what a rickroll was.
It makes perfect sense that the difference would be undetectable using this method. If hypothetically probes gather minerals at a rate of 5 minerals/4 seconds (I don't know if an actual number is out there somewhere) and we assumed that a perfect split of workers buys you an additional say .2 seconds on average for each of the five additional workers you commanded. That means the benefit is 5*.2sec*1.25mins/sec which equates to 1.25 minerals. Because you tested the difference by looking at the amount of minerals at the 1 and 2 minute mark (btw the benefit of a perfect split would not vary as time went) and minerals only are collected 5 at a time a difference of 1.25 minerals is undetectable.
A way for you to actually measure how much a split helps you is to see at precisely what time the different methods reach a certain mineral goal. The difference still would not be much, but at least you would see it.
On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha
This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break.
Ideally, every second of the game measures skill.
I can agree with this to some extent, but what's happening in this thread right now is that it's the end of the world not beeing able to get a Very small advantage because of how you split your workers - and it's not like it wasnt apparent from the beggining that splitting wasnt a huge part of the earlygame..
Regardless, I just dont think it's that big of a deal when it comes to This game, since there are plenty of other ways to meassure skill.
For toss, I'm pretty sure that, no matter how you split, as long as you can get 50 mineral before your 7th probe finish, it doesn't matter that much. The rate of gather is the same throughout, except that your last probe or two might be a little "out of phase" in their cycle.
So depends on what time you stop to take a reading, you might be 5 minerals or 10 minerals or not behind at all, which translates to at most a second.
I have to laugh at the people who think your success at a game should be influenced by how fast you can click some stuff within a few seconds at the start of a game. You could train a monkey to do that. You can write a script to do it. Nobody cares that you can split workers quickly, it's not a valuable skill either in computer gaming or in life, it takes no thought, and is only a result of muscle memory and playing tons of games.
ffs, what a joke. Competitive gaming is about thinking, not splitting workers as fast as possible.
We've gotten to the point that all the relevant and useful data has been posted, and no real useful information is being added because no one is actually reading them. This thread as becomes a bunch of people whining. Can we please close this thread or get back on topic?
On June 03 2010 20:44 Zenzou wrote: We've gotten to the point that all the relevant and useful data has been posted, and no real useful information is being added because no one is actually reading them. This thread as becomes a bunch of people whining. Can we please close this thread or get back on topic?
People are having trouble reading past the first post =(. Information posted later on shows proof that there is a difference between no split, half split, and F1 split and imo should be added to the OP.
On June 03 2010 18:48 Soel wrote: I'm sorry to refute "hard evidence" but any sort of common sense would indicate that splitting your workers does make a difference.
you tell them to go to different nodes before they get to that first node. therefor they start mining quicker.
it's a small difference, but of course it is there.
there is some flaw in your research, I have no way of identifying it.
this is so true it also matters where u send ur first build scv to what exact mineral (the one who is closest to urs command center)
hell i even hate that theres automine in the game its just a removing skill from the game its almost impossible to dont have perfect economy unless u miss a supply depot or u miss building and scv and yes it does matter
I don't think I'm going to stop splitting though, just because it's so fundamentally starcraft like, and what else am I going to do in the beginning? Why do people box select their workers, only to do nothing? It's simply spam to keep you fingers warm (although in bw it served a purpose)
@OP: Your test is not accurate, because you are assuming continuous samples while mining happens at discrete intervals. Even though your money is the same at the 2 min mark, doesn't garuantee it's the same at the 2:00:01 mark (arbitrary example). From my experience, having played around with some splits in the build order map, there's a noticable difference between splitting and not splitting, but it's nowhere near being a full mining cycle ahead or anything, it's quite minor.
Now Watch dooooooooooooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me dooooooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me doooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me doooooo Crank Dat Miner Split
Soulja Boy up in it (oh) Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Hoe Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy
Soulja Boy up in it (oh) Watch Me Lean And Watch Me Rock Starcraft Two Dat Hoe Then Watch Me Crank Dat Pro Status Super Fresh, Now Watch Me Jock Jocking On Them Haterz Man When I Do Dat Auto Mine I Lean To The Left And Crank Dat Drone (Now Yuuuuuaaaaaa!) I'm Jocking On Yo Bitch Ass And If We Get The Fightin Then I'm Cocking On Your Void Ray You Catch My MBS At Yo Local Party Yes I Crank It Everyday Haterz Get Mad Cuz I Got Me Some Skillz
[Chorus] Soulja Boy up in it(oh) Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Noob Now Watch Me Yuuuuuaaaaaa! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Worker Split Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split
[Verse 2 I'm Bouncin On My Pro Watch Me Super Soak Dat Pro I'ma Pass It To Arab Then He Gon Crank It Up Fo Stalkers Haterz Wanna Be Me Soulja Boy, I'm The Man They Be Lookin At Base Sayin Its The Tactics Man (Man) Watch Me Do It (Watch Me Do It) Split (Split) Let's Get To It (Let's Get To It) Yep, You Can Do It Like Me Don't, So Don't Try Do It Like Me Folk, I See You Tryna Do It Like Me Man That *Split* Was Ugly
[Chorus] Soulja Boy Off In This Hoe Watch Me Split it Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat High Ground Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Click it Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Strategy Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status
All to fresh up in it Pro Watch me crank, watch me Split Watch me crank that MBS and super soak that Pro Miner Split that Pro Auto Split that Pro MBS that Pro Super soak that Pro Super Soak that Pro Super soak that Pro Super soak that Pro All to fresh up watch me do it Watch me shuffle watch me do it Watch me crank my shoulder and Auto Split (super man do it) Super man do it (super man do it) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh noooooooooooooobs!
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status
Soulja Boy off in this Game watch me crank it watch me roll watch me crank dat Auto Mine then super that Pro now watch me noooooooooooooobs! crank dat Strategy now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Split
Nooooooooooooooooobs
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh yuuuuuaa Nooooooooooooobs
Long story short- anyone that likes auto split, you have no idea what you are talking about. anyone that thinks that the split was not a cool part of the game, you have no idea what you are talking about. Anyone that thinks that you can not look at the skill of a player through the split, has no idea what you are talking about.
Please stop trying to make excuses about how SC2 has a smaller and smaller skill gap. Half of the people in this thread are trying to say- focus more on strategy... lol You all sound just like the kids that yell at startcraft speed settings on fastest. Most of you are young, and have come to this site after learning about sc2. Half of you prob could not walk when SC came out. But hey thanks for all of the input about how a competitive game should play.
Well, I personally hope it doesn't make a difference. What a retarded way to distinguish skill in a strategy game. It's like chess being decided by who can set up the pieces faster...
Anyway, if you want to do the test properly, you have to account for the minute mineral difference as it affects resource investment throughout the game. In simpler terms, does it affect the timing of the first probe built and if so does that affect the timing of the second probe. These things tend to snowball... realistically it should have a similar effect to delaying your mining by a 10th of a second or some minute number...
On June 03 2010 23:22 Goobahfish wrote: Well, I personally hope it doesn't make a difference. What a retarded way to distinguish skill in a strategy game. It's like chess being decided by who can set up the pieces faster...
Anyway, if you want to do the test properly, you have to account for the minute mineral difference as it affects resource investment throughout the game. In simpler terms, does it affect the timing of the first probe built and if so does that affect the timing of the second probe. These things tend to snowball... realistically it should have a similar effect to delaying your mining by a 10th of a second or some minute number...
It's people like you that are slowly sucking all of the substance out of this game. Thanks. Hey goobahfish- should me make some auto macro? because clickling your buildings to build units is almost like seeing how fast you can set up the game in chess.... What a retarded way to distingush skill in a strategy game.
If you don't have good hand eye coordination, and can't move fast enough- don't play sc. Go play go, checkers, chess, ext.
Now Watch dooooooooooooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me dooooooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me doooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me doooooo Crank Dat Miner Split
Soulja Boy up in it (oh) Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Hoe Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy
Soulja Boy up in it (oh) Watch Me Lean And Watch Me Rock Starcraft Two Dat Hoe Then Watch Me Crank Dat Pro Status Super Fresh, Now Watch Me Jock Jocking On Them Haterz Man When I Do Dat Auto Mine I Lean To The Left And Crank Dat Drone (Now Yuuuuuaaaaaa!) I'm Jocking On Yo Bitch Ass And If We Get The Fightin Then I'm Cocking On Your Void Ray You Catch My MBS At Yo Local Party Yes I Crank It Everyday Haterz Get Mad Cuz I Got Me Some Skillz
[Chorus] Soulja Boy up in it(oh) Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Noob Now Watch Me Yuuuuuaaaaaa! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Worker Split Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split
[Verse 2 I'm Bouncin On My Pro Watch Me Super Soak Dat Pro I'ma Pass It To Arab Then He Gon Crank It Up Fo Stalkers Haterz Wanna Be Me Soulja Boy, I'm The Man They Be Lookin At Base Sayin Its The Tactics Man (Man) Watch Me Do It (Watch Me Do It) Split (Split) Let's Get To It (Let's Get To It) Yep, You Can Do It Like Me Don't, So Don't Try Do It Like Me Folk, I See You Tryna Do It Like Me Man That *Split* Was Ugly
[Chorus] Soulja Boy Off In This Hoe Watch Me Split it Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat High Ground Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Click it Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Strategy Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status
All to fresh up in it Pro Watch me crank, watch me Split Watch me crank that MBS and super soak that Pro Miner Split that Pro Auto Split that Pro MBS that Pro Super soak that Pro Super Soak that Pro Super soak that Pro Super soak that Pro All to fresh up watch me do it Watch me shuffle watch me do it Watch me crank my shoulder and Auto Split (super man do it) Super man do it (super man do it) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh noooooooooooooobs!
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status
Soulja Boy off in this Game watch me crank it watch me roll watch me crank dat Auto Mine then super that Pro now watch me noooooooooooooobs! crank dat Strategy now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Split
Thanks for the tests, but from seeing how good ai splits them, it was kinda expected.
Only one variable remains though: whether you build the worker first or send in the starting workers to mine. Even moreso then in SC1 (seeing as you have 6 workers instead of just 4) it is absolutely the best idea to send the workers before building the new one. There is going to be a brief period of time when you hit max supply and can't up your workers for a few seconds with all the races anyways (altho for zerg, the larvae are just going to stack up, but for P and T it's wasted time) and sending 6 workers to mine puts you way more ahead on tempo then building 1 worker does. I've seen plenty of people do it wrong, so I'm just mentioning.
On June 03 2010 23:26 Smu wrote: Thanks for the tests, but from seeing how good ai splits them, it was kinda expected. Only one variable remains though, whether you build the worker first or send in the workers. Even moreso then in SC1 (seeing as you have 6 workers instead of just 4) it is absolutely the best idea to send the workers before building the new one. There is going to be a small period when you hit max 10 or 11 supply with all the races anyways (altho for zerg, the larvae are just going to stack up) and sending 6 workers to mine puts you way moree ahead on tempo then building 1 worker does. I've seen plenty of people do it wrong, so I'm just mentioning.
In SC1 you build your worker then send your drones to mine.
And more people don't read anything but the first post to see that it actually DOES make a small difference...I vote to just close the thread please since there is no discussion going on here, just people saying the same ignorant thing over and over.
OT: For some reason i had a harder time splitting in sc2 instead of sc1, i feel that it didnt have anything to do with the increased amount of workers? Anyone else had the same effect?
Really... the substance... that's the word you describe working splitting. Removing the substance of starcraft.
Every reply I get on this forum seems to make me die a little inside.
Yes, I would like a game where my chance of victory is based mostly on my strategic choices and less on my mastery of menial tasks which can be trivially removed by better programming.
Auto-macro button. I'm not sure how that would work. Can you explain your idea a bit better?
I'm glad it doesn't matter but the purists will wave the "not enough micro" flag. I'd rather focus on army micro/macro than damn worker macro. First two workers I rally to an open patch, after that I rally to the middle and get back to more important tasks. While I respect the old school pros of BW, I remind you, this isn't BW. I'm sure if the AI and pathing capabilities existed 12 years ago, then the same mineral gathering mechanic would have been in place and we'd never have this conversation.
Really... the substance... that's the word you describe working splitting. Removing the substance of starcraft.
Every reply I get on this forum seems to make me die a little inside.
Yes, I would like a game where my chance of victory is based mostly on my strategic choices and less on my mastery of menial tasks which can be trivially removed by better programming.
Auto-macro button. I'm not sure how that would work. Can you explain your idea a bit better?
Then go play chess kid. If you don't like the idea of having fast hands- then just get a computer to do everything for you. Why should you have to build your workers, and click your buildings. Such meaningless tasks. I mean a strategic mind should not have to waste time clicking on buildings and building units, when you could be making a strategical plan.
Why do i need to split my miners- i need to be doing something strategic in the first few seconds of game play. Why must i tell my units to move or attack, hold or patrol. I need to be thinking about strategy, units should be smart enough to figure this stuff on their own. I have strategy to think about.
Your the type of person that is sucking all of the substance from this game.
Now Watch dooooooooooooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me dooooooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me doooo Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me doooooo Crank Dat Miner Split
Soulja Boy up in it (oh) Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Hoe Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me dooooooooo Crank Dat Strategy
Soulja Boy up in it (oh) Watch Me Lean And Watch Me Rock Starcraft Two Dat Hoe Then Watch Me Crank Dat Pro Status Super Fresh, Now Watch Me Jock Jocking On Them Haterz Man When I Do Dat Auto Mine I Lean To The Left And Crank Dat Drone (Now Yuuuuuaaaaaa!) I'm Jocking On Yo Bitch Ass And If We Get The Fightin Then I'm Cocking On Your Void Ray You Catch My MBS At Yo Local Party Yes I Crank It Everyday Haterz Get Mad Cuz I Got Me Some Skillz
[Chorus] Soulja Boy up in it(oh) Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Noob Now Watch Me Yuuuuuaaaaaa! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Worker Split Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Worker Split
[Verse 2 I'm Bouncin On My Pro Watch Me Super Soak Dat Pro I'ma Pass It To Arab Then He Gon Crank It Up Fo Stalkers Haterz Wanna Be Me Soulja Boy, I'm The Man They Be Lookin At Base Sayin Its The Tactics Man (Man) Watch Me Do It (Watch Me Do It) Split (Split) Let's Get To It (Let's Get To It) Yep, You Can Do It Like Me Don't, So Don't Try Do It Like Me Folk, I See You Tryna Do It Like Me Man That *Split* Was Ugly
[Chorus] Soulja Boy Off In This Hoe Watch Me Split it Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat High Ground Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Miner Split Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Click it Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Strategy Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status
All to fresh up in it Pro Watch me crank, watch me Split Watch me crank that MBS and super soak that Pro Miner Split that Pro Auto Split that Pro MBS that Pro Super soak that Pro Super Soak that Pro Super soak that Pro Super soak that Pro All to fresh up watch me do it Watch me shuffle watch me do it Watch me crank my shoulder and Auto Split (super man do it) Super man do it (super man do it) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh noooooooooooooobs!
Soulja Boy Off In This Game Watch Me Crank It Watch Me Roll Watch Me Crank Dat Auto Mine Then Super Man Dat Pro Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Strategy Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS Now Watch Me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Pro Status
Soulja Boy off in this Game watch me crank it watch me roll watch me crank dat Auto Mine then super that Pro now watch me noooooooooooooobs! crank dat Strategy now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat MBS now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Mine now watch me noooooooooooooobs! Crank Dat Auto Split
On June 03 2010 23:32 Kletus wrote: And more people don't read anything but the first post to see that it actually DOES make a small difference...I vote to just close the thread please since there is no discussion going on here, just people saying the same ignorant thing over and over.
I edited the OP to include your findings and a bit more.
These tests are very interesting. However, I would like to see a test based on time, since mineral count only goes up during certain intervals of time, and by multiples of 5.
If you instead did these tests and recorded how long it took in milliseconds to get to a certain amount of minerals (say 150) then you would get more interesting results. Your tests show that splitting does absolutely nothing, but the other test would show precisely how much time you would gain. Which, IMO is a more interesting number.
On June 03 2010 03:26 Krowser wrote: This means I now have a few more seconds to appreciate the nice graphics of this game instead of spending more time destroying my mouse.
On June 03 2010 04:36 Ballistixz wrote: the game auto splits FOR YOU. of course it doesnt matter -_-. ppl that do split is just trying to separate themselves from the "bad players" when in reality it doesn't mean shit if u split workers at start or not.
On June 03 2010 18:48 Soel wrote: I'm sorry to refute "hard evidence" but any sort of common sense would indicate that splitting your workers does make a difference.
you tell them to go to different nodes before they get to that first node. therefor they start mining quicker.
it's a small difference, but of course it is there.
there is some flaw in your research, I have no way of identifying it.
The benefit of splitting is that you'll get to a certain mineral count a fraction of a second before someone who didn't. The only way for us to measure this difference is measuring what that time is and would be undetectable by looking at the minerals gathered at a certain time because it only translate to <5 minerals.
On June 03 2010 23:26 Misrah wrote: It's people like you that are slowly sucking all of the substance out of this game. Thanks. Hey goobahfish- should me make some auto macro? because clickling your buildings to build units is almost like seeing how fast you can set up the game in chess.... What a retarded way to distingush skill in a strategy game.
If you don't have good hand eye coordination, and can't move fast enough- don't play sc. Go play go, checkers, chess, ext.
.....
With the initial shock of getting into the game after the loading screen.. differences in machine hardware and such.. I dunno. This is such a super small part of the game I don't see how it's relevant at all.
You seem to contradict yourself. Good hand/eye and pracitce and some serious mouse skills is clearly required in most of this game... but you point out this is supposed to be a strategy game? Yes. Yes it is. Micro'ing my minors right out the gate.. totally irrelevant imo.
can someone check if 9 overlord, 10 overlord extractor trick, or 10 overlord, or even 10 drone extractor trick overlord make any difference, and if so which one is the best?
On June 03 2010 23:32 Kletus wrote: And more people don't read anything but the first post to see that it actually DOES make a small difference...I vote to just close the thread please since there is no discussion going on here, just people saying the same ignorant thing over and over.
Your tests are still an inaccurate representation of the difference between the splitting methods. you're trying to measure something a few centimeters by rounding up to the nearest decimeter. Yes at the time you measure F1 had 140 vs 135, but just a few milliseconds later the results would be 140 for f1 and half split and 135 for autosplit. then a few milliseconds after that the mineral count would be 140 140 140. The only actual meaningful data would be the values of the milliseconds between each split.
On June 03 2010 03:19 Tone_ wrote: If the split is fast enough (maybe the key component) it must make a different. Just logically?
Shouldn't knowing how to spell the word "difference" in a sentence properly make a difference? "Just logically?"
Anyways, Loooong time reader first time poster and considering what I quoted It was well worth it, (to me).
And no, I don't believe that the worker split (only taking .5 milliseconds of a difference) matter unless both players are of equal skill and they play accordingly to .5 milliseconds and that will effect the game later on.
It was never important, but in bw you can cleary test it properly with 2 players. Both players are the same race because other races first building is different in money, I.e. Zerg 200 spawing pool, Terran and Protoss 150 for a Barracks and Gateway. The player that splits and each worker goes to each patch will have enough money for their first building. This is a face palm (falm) obvious. You didn't need to do all sorts of tests to find this out.
Anyways, I vote B.net 2.0 is crap and will not buy the game until they make it they way it was intended. A socialable game.
Really... the substance... that's the word you describe working splitting. Removing the substance of starcraft.
Every reply I get on this forum seems to make me die a little inside.
Yes, I would like a game where my chance of victory is based mostly on my strategic choices and less on my mastery of menial tasks which can be trivially removed by better programming.
Auto-macro button. I'm not sure how that would work. Can you explain your idea a bit better?
Then go play chess kid. If you don't like the idea of having fast hands- then just get a computer to do everything for you. Why should you have to build your workers, and click your buildings. Such meaningless tasks. I mean a strategic mind should not have to waste time clicking on buildings and building units, when you could be making a strategical plan.
Why do i need to split my miners- i need to be doing something strategic in the first few seconds of game play. Why must i tell my units to move or attack, hold or patrol. I need to be thinking about strategy, units should be smart enough to figure this stuff on their own. I have strategy to think about.
Your the type of person that is sucking all of the substance from this game.
You haven't answered my question. Just given me rhetoric. Please refrain from meaningless posts in future.
I contend that worker splitting doesn't add any substance to the game as it isn't a tactical decision and is not necessary either. Clicking on buildings doesn't add to strategy but is about a simple an interface as can be developed to execute a strategy and thus is necessary to the game.
The original poster didn't conduct his experiment correctly and the rest of the 'debate' if that is what this is called has been sensible people saying, "well one less thing to worry about" and purists claiming the armageddon is coming...
On June 03 2010 23:22 Goobahfish wrote: Well, I personally hope it doesn't make a difference. What a retarded way to distinguish skill in a strategy game. It's like chess being decided by who can set up the pieces faster... .
Dude, you can totally tell that the person who sets up their pieces faster in chess is way more skilled...
Really... the substance... that's the word you describe working splitting. Removing the substance of starcraft.
Every reply I get on this forum seems to make me die a little inside.
Yes, I would like a game where my chance of victory is based mostly on my strategic choices and less on my mastery of menial tasks which can be trivially removed by better programming.
Auto-macro button. I'm not sure how that would work. Can you explain your idea a bit better?
Then go play chess kid. If you don't like the idea of having fast hands- then just get a computer to do everything for you. Why should you have to build your workers, and click your buildings. Such meaningless tasks. I mean a strategic mind should not have to waste time clicking on buildings and building units, when you could be making a strategical plan.
Why do i need to split my miners- i need to be doing something strategic in the first few seconds of game play. Why must i tell my units to move or attack, hold or patrol. I need to be thinking about strategy, units should be smart enough to figure this stuff on their own. I have strategy to think about.
Your the type of person that is sucking all of the substance from this game.
You haven't answered my question. Just given me rhetoric. Please refrain from meaningless posts in future.
I contend that worker splitting doesn't add any substance to the game as it isn't a tactical decision and is not necessary either. Clicking on buildings doesn't add to strategy but is about a simple an interface as can be developed to execute a strategy and thus is necessary to the game.
The original poster didn't conduct his experiment correctly and the rest of the 'debate' if that is what this is called has been sensible people saying, "well one less thing to worry about" and purists claiming the armageddon is coming...
Controlling your units and buildings properly is part of the "substance" of the game. He actually made a completely logical argument which refutes your argument, which is "go play chess". IE. Chess is 100% strategy and tactics. SC2 is not. SC2 is, in a huge part, repetitive tasks, APM, and hand eye coordination. The reason that it SHOULD be that way is because, when you have to focus on doing all of these "menial pointless tasks", you have less time to concentrate on strategy and tactic. Anyone can come up with powerful strategies in SC2, but to actually execute it while doing everything else is something only the best players can do, because only the best players have that much speed and ability to multitask.
A great parallel to splitting (in BW, since it actually matters there) is how you send your units to battle. You can just a-move all of your units, because you think unit control doesn't matter, and all that matters is strategy, but you'll be far more effective if you actually send individual units to individual locations for a better surround, and do things like scoot 'n' shooting. That's exactly the same as, instead of just right click on a mineral patch, telling individual gatherers to go to individual mineral patches for greater effectiveness.
So saying that splitting your workers is meaningless makes as much sense as saying that controlling your units in battle is meaningless. Neither is "necessary", but both require skill, speed, coordination, multitasking, and increase your success in the game.
So really, go play chess if you just want strategy and tactic. Seriously, you should. SC2 is a test of strategy, tactic, speed, coordination, multitasking, and high speed decision making. Only the first two are relevant to chess, and it's only the first two that you seem to care about.
Like I said in the OP, I don't think splitting is something that necessarily should be important in SC2, but your arguments (and other people's) are illogical.
So saying that splitting your workers is meaningless makes as much sense as saying that controlling your units in battle is meaningless. Neither is "necessary", but both require skill, speed, coordination, multitasking, and increase your success in the game.
That is a silly argument.
Just because two things have the same effort, does not mean they have the same consequence. It's a false logical progression. Please argue better.
Moving individual units to gain tactical advantage I approve of. The way you position them represents tactical or strategic advantage. Doing this requires both skill and thought. There is a player decision involved. Building workers, queuing units, repositioning, activating abilities. Again, all are player decisions. Splitting workers gives you a numerical advantage, but not a strategic one. It is something which should roughly be the same every game and requires a lot of effort but no thought. There is not player decision involved, you have to do it or theoretically fall behind. It's just another arbitrary button-pressing exercise which represents a hurdle for new players.
So why have it? If you want something to distract players from actually playing the game, why not remove all the hotkeys? It would up the 'hand-eye-coordination' but wouldn't add depth either. Why not make harvest a non-auto-cast spell. Each time a player wants 5 minerals they have to click for it. Again effort for no added depth.
Worker splitting has effort but no depth. To argue otherwise you would need to prove there was a meaningful player 'decision' involved.
If you want to spam buttons and call it skill, go play "Dance Dance Revolution" ^_^
This was a good change. I never understood why the better player must be decided in the splitting of workers. There are a whole bunch of other things in SC2 to get better at anyway.
So saying that splitting your workers is meaningless makes as much sense as saying that controlling your units in battle is meaningless. Neither is "necessary", but both require skill, speed, coordination, multitasking, and increase your success in the game.
That is a silly argument.
Just because two things have the same effort, does not mean they have the same consequence. It's a false logical progression. Please argue better.
Moving individual units to gain tactical advantage I approve of. The way you position them represents tactical or strategic advantage. Doing this requires both skill and thought. There is a player decision involved. Building workers, queuing units, repositioning, activating abilities. Again, all are player decisions. Splitting workers gives you a numerical advantage, but not a strategic one. It is something which should roughly be the same every game and requires a lot of effort but no thought. There is not player decision involved, you have to do it or theoretically fall behind. It's just another arbitrary button-pressing exercise which represents a hurdle for new players.
So why have it? If you want something to distract players from actually playing the game, why not remove all the hotkeys? It would up the 'hand-eye-coordination' but wouldn't add depth either. Why not make harvest a non-auto-cast spell. Each time a player wants 5 minerals they have to click for it. Again effort for no added depth.
Worker splitting has effort but no depth. To argue otherwise you would need to prove there was a meaningful player 'decision' involved.
If you want to spam buttons and call it skill, go play "Dance Dance Revolution" ^_^
"Just because two things have the same effort, does not mean they have the same consequence. It's a false logical progression. Please argue better."
No one made this argument. I'm sorry if your reading comprehension is poor, but the argument was that, because two things have the same effort, they SHOULD have similar consequences. The argument was never that they DO have similar consequences. In fact, I'm the one who made this thread, and the one who gave data that showed that they DON'T have similar consequences.
"you would need to prove there was a meaningful player 'decision' involved"
The decision is how to split, obviously. Also, which minerals to send the workers to. Yes, that's a decision that you have to make in real time at the start of the game. Essentially, you're arbitrarily distinguishing between a part of the game you don't like and a part of the game you do like, even though they are extremely similar in concept.
"If you want to spam buttons and call it skill, go play "Dance Dance Revolution"" is a ridiculous statement, because I do want strategy and tactics AND speed, coordination, multitasking, and high speed decision making. DDR undeniably does take skill, it just has no strategy or tactic. Again, SC2 has all of these skill requirements, whether you like it or not.
You're the one who's arguing that speed and coordination shouldn't matter in SC2, I never said strategy and tactic shouldn't. I said they all should.
I assumed you just have poor reading comprehension, and that's what lead to you misunderstanding all of my arguments, but you might have just been intellectually dishonest, and if that's the case, stop wasting our time, you aren't going to prove anything.
Again, I don't think splitting specifically is something that should be necessary in SC2, but your arguments are illogical.
He never said that speed and coordination weren't necessary. He even said one should know how to
Building workers, queuing units, repositioning, activating abilities.
It goes without saying he meant this at the same time, which would imply skill.
All he is saying is that the interface should not make menial tasks difficult.
I suppose sc2 is similar to speed chess. Not only do you have to be intimately familiar with all of the pieces and strategies, you also have to be able to make decisions quickly.
I would like to point out that there have been improvements in sports and music, such as the baseball glove (took a while to catch on) or if you want a music example, electric guitars and keyboards, or even carbon fiber string instruments (Yo-Yo Ma owns one).
These are improvements that were meant to make things easier for athletes or musicians. You don't see these people claiming that it will "ruin the substance" of their profession. Likewise, interface improvements should not be held with such disdain.
Building workers, queuing units, repositioning, activating abilities.
It goes without saying he meant this at the same time, which would imply skill.
All he is saying is that the interface should not make menial tasks difficult.
I suppose sc2 is similar to speed chess. Not only do you have to be intimately familiar with all of the pieces and strategies, you also have to be able to make decisions quickly.
I would like to point out that there have been improvements in sports and music, such as the baseball glove (took a while to catch on) or if you want a music example, electric guitars and keyboards, or even carbon fiber string instruments (Yo-Yo Ma owns one).
These are improvements that were meant to make things easier for athletes or musicians. You don't see these people claiming that it will "ruin the substance" of their profession. Likewise, interface improvements should not be held with such disdain.
Why should we have to focus fire the lower HP enemy units? It has no depth. You just right click the one with lower HP. Clearly the interface should get an upgrade so that units automatically focus fire lower HP enemies. Just like the interface automatically splits workers as efficiently as possible.
Again, I don't care about worker splitting, but your argument is invalid. You say that speed, coordination, and decision making should exist, but arbitrarily not for the worker split. Why not for the worker split? You guys haven't given a single reason yet.
Seriously, like I said in the OP, I didn't make the thread to discuss whether or not it's a good thing (that splitting makes no difference in SC2), but your arguments simply make no sense. To split correctly in SC1, you A) have to make a decision, B) have to be highly coordinated, and C) be very fast, and the reward is a marginally higher income.
If you were using your argument to say that MBS is a good thing, I would agree. Nothing is added to the game by being forced to select each building independently. If you were using your argument to say that auto-mining is a good thing, I wouldn't disagree. Obviously there is multitasking and APM difficulty added, when you have to tell each worker to mine, but that really is a thoughtless task.
Splitting workers, however, is a decision and skill based activity, which, logically following other things like it (focus firing for example), should have some impact on the game. Just personally, I don't care about splitting (because it's such a small part of the game).
You have terrible examples. Deciding what units to focus fire is very important. You might want to target lower HP enemies. You might want to target the siege tank behind all the marines. You might want to target an observer or raven if you have Dark Templars. There are a lot of reasons for why you might target specific units. That is tactics.
Worker split does not involve that kind of thinking. There is no either/or. There is no should I blink with my stalkers to be able to target an enemy tank, or should I attack move so that I can focus on building up another army. Or whatever strategic or tactical decision you could be making. With worker split, there is no either/or. I know, it either benefits you or doesn't, but there is no opposing decision to make.
Also, I would never be in favor of workers being automatically sent at the very beginning of the game because there is another decision that can be made. You could decide to cheese and want to send a worker out immediately. You could decide that you want to load your command center with workers and launch to and island. Sure, they may be not be good decisions, (well at least with that terran example), but they are decisions.
We have given reasons, and that reason is the strategic reason. If worker splitting is something that everyone has to do in order to succeed, then why not automate it? There is attack priority in this game because you can't micro everything. And if you want to let your units auto attack while you focus on something else, that is your strategic decision to make. You also might decide that it would be in your favor to forgo macro or another battle and micro certain units - and you may not want them focus firing the lowest HP unit.
Why do you think charge is on autocast? Blizzard gives you the option to turn it off so that you may order your zealots to charge specific units, but I suspect the reason charge is on autocast is because nearly everyone would leave it that way. Why make it more difficult for protoss players to charge? Should they not have the apm and skill and mechanics to charge properly? And the reason blink isn't on autocast? Because you have to make tactical decisions. Of course, if you feel that you are in such great control of your zealots that you would like to micro their charge, go for it. But I suspect you would prefer to turn your attention to your stalkers or sentries instead.
Everyone has to focus fire to be successful. Why isn't that automated? If I a-move with a big blob of units, the ones in the front will attack from max range, and the back rows will run around doing nothing. Why don't my units automatically move up closer so they can all fire? When I send all of my probes to a single mineral patch (in SC1) why don't they automatically split up, instead of some sitting around wasting time? Why doesn't the game do everything for me?
Why don't units have a movement mode (other than m and a) which automatically stops the units long enough to fire once (assuming there is something in range to shoot), then they keep walking, so that the menial, mindless task of stop-firing is automated? You really think stop-firing button mashing shows skill lolololololololololol?
Why don't my units automatically move out of psionic storm when they're attacking? Stupid interface, it should do everything for me.
Why can't I queue up chrono boosts to be used one after another (with no wasted time)?
Why can't I autocast spawn larva by choice?
Why can't I have an auto-pylon option, so a designated probe will build a pylon for me before I get supply capped every time?
Why isn't there a way to have my units automatically follow a build order perfectly? Like, I figure out the timings, and then input them, and then my probes will do all of the menial pointless button pushing for me, because strategy and tactics are all that matter, not doing things like splitting up workers to get a more efficient income at the start of the game. That's archaic and pointless.
But like I said, splitting specifically, I don't care about. It's the overall argument that "you shouldn't have to control your units to do things that you'll obviously want to do" that I disagree with. You're obviously going to want to move all of your units in range to attack when you go into a battle, but you have to manually order your units to attack, move, attack, move, until they're all in range. Just like in SC1, you obviously want to have all of your probes gather at the start, but you have to tell each one to go to its own patch, for maximum efficiency.
But, because some people have a disdain for worker splitting, they will never understand why their arbitrary prejudice in what you should or shouldn't be forced to do manually is illogical.
On June 05 2010 06:43 Buddhist wrote: Everyone has to focus fire to be successful. Why isn't that automated? If I a-move with a big blob of units, the ones in the front will attack from max range, and the back rows will run around doing nothing. Why don't my units automatically move up closer so they can all fire? When I send all of my probes to a single mineral patch (in SC1) why don't they automatically split up, instead of some sitting around wasting time? Why doesn't the game do everything for me?
Like I said, you have to decide which units you want to focus fire. Just because it's wise to do it does not necessarily mean the system can know what units you want to focus fire. Like I said, there is attack priority, which is the systems way of automating your units' attack. But it cannot know what units you want to ff.
I think the system can figure out pretty easily that you want your workers to mine minerals instead of just sitting at your CC.
On June 05 2010 06:53 Buddhist wrote: Why don't units have a movement mode (other than m and a) which automatically stops the units long enough to fire once (assuming there is something in range to shoot), then they keep walking, so that the menial, mindless task of stop-firing is automated? You really think stop-firing button mashing shows skill lolololololololololol?
Why don't my units automatically move out of psionic storm when they're attacking? Stupid interface, it should do everything for me.
They do have patrol, which lets you have your units attack enemy units in an area set by you, and if the enemy leaves that area your units return. This also happens without setting it to patrol. Also, how would the game know that you want your units to fire once and then move, and then fire again. In what direction? This is why you micro those units. The game is not a mind reader.
Also, psionic storm? Your units do move out of psi storm if they are not attacking - such as workers. However, when you have set your units to do something such as workers mining or siege tanks attacking, how would the game know you want them to move out of psi storm? Perhaps you still want your workers to mine. You might want those extra minerals in order to warp in a unit. Or maybe you want your siege tanks to continue sieging their army. You have already given them an order, so how would the game know you want to give a different command now that they are under psi storm? Well, you give the order. The game cannot know your preference in these situations.
The game does know that you want your miners to be mining different patches instead of 6 on one patch.
On June 05 2010 06:59 Buddhist wrote: Why can't I do wireframe spell casting anymore?
Why can't I queue up chrono boosts to be used one after another (with no wasted time)?
Why can't I autocast spawn larva by choice?
Why can't I have an auto-pylon option, so a designated probe will build a pylon for me before I get supply capped every time?
Why isn't there a way to have my units automatically follow a build order perfectly? Like, I figure out the timings, and then input them, and then my probes will do all of the menial pointless button pushing for me, because strategy and tactics are all that matter, not doing things like splitting up workers to get a more efficient income at the start of the game. That's archaic and pointless.
But like I said, splitting specifically, I don't care about. It's the overall argument that "you shouldn't have to control your units to do things that you'll obviously want to do" that I disagree with. You're obviously going to want to move all of your units in range to attack when you go into a battle, but you have to manually order your units to attack, move, attack, move, until they're all in range. Just like in SC1, you obviously want to have all of your probes gather at the start, but you have to tell each one to go to its own patch, for maximum efficiency.
But, because some people have a disdain for worker splitting, they will never understand why their arbitrary prejudice in what you should or shouldn't be forced to do manually is illogical.
Well I suppose there could be a good argument for having autocast for chronoboost. So you could set your nexus to chrono itself whenever it got the chance. However, I suspect the reason Blizzard doesn't do that is because you would waste a ton of energy on chronoboost when you aren't building probes. Then I suppose they could go ahead and program it to only cast when the building being boosted is building. I don't really see anything wrong with that. However, if you ever wanted to switch buildings, you would then have to make sure that you set your autochronoboost back to whatever building you preferred. Maybe Blizzard experimented with this idea and found that protoss players chronoboost such a wide variety of buildings on a regular basis that autocasting chronoboost would result in a higher apm - you have then have to make sure you were set to the right building, what if you forgot to reset it? So maybe Blizzard decided it caused too much trouble for players. Or maybe they just haven't thought of it yet.
Again, autocasting spawn larva doesn't seem so bad. However, then you would not be able to save up energy for other spells - since all would be wasted on autocast larva. So, Blizzard leaves the decision up to you to spawn larva, since autospawn could cause you to have a lack of energy when you actually need it.
Where would the probe build the autopylons? The game cannot know where you would want those. There would also be the problem of spending minerals on pylons when you might actually want it for a zealot instead. How could the game know what you want to do with those minerals? It can't, so it isn't automated.
Same with a build order. Placement of buildings is just as important as when you get them. And maybe some games you might not want to block off your ramp. Or you might want to do it differently. Automating a build order would be impossible, especially because it would not allow for any kind of reaction to your enemy.
It's the same with attack range. Maybe you want to hit and run. Maybe you don't want your units to move to one space away and then start firing. Maybe you want to hit at max range and then retreat. The game cannot know this. So you have to control your units in order to tell them what you want them to do.
The game does know that when you send workers to mineral patches that you want them to be efficient. It does not know that you might want to kite with your reapers instead of attacking the probes. The solution? Well, you tell your reapers to attack probes, and if you want them to kite zealots, you tell them to kite zealots. Kinda the way it is already.
I'm done with this thread. I cannot tell if I'm being trolled, and if I'm not, I'm done with your closed minded thinking.
On June 03 2010 05:43 Gedrah wrote: This data is misleading. Don't let it confuse you into thinking that you can get a bad split and waste mining time and still not lose worker building time after your first worker. Starcraft is a game where every single action echoes through the future and while some actions have much more profound effects than others, it is always in your best interests to help safeguard against unknown factors by maximizing your benefit out of the assets you have. If your 2nd SCV pops out 1 second later than your enemy's does, you are behind... That's all. It's not magic, it's just mathematical fact. It doesn't necessarily mean much at all, but the point is that SC is not usually a game where you can afford to throw away any advantage at all. If you do happen to play a game that ends up being decided by the razor's edge such as 5 minerals worth of unit, and you got a bad split at the beginning, then it's theoretically possible to say you lost that game at the 00:00:00 mark. Even though a thousand other decisions you made might have had more effect on the battle.
On most maps I've been playing, e.g. Kulas and Metalo, if I queue an SCV and instantly move all 6 SCVs to the same, center mineral patch with no split (sometimes a game lags at the beginning, giving me adequate time to perfectly execute whatever split I want and queue my SCV all in the 00:00:00 instant), I will lose almost 1 second of SCV time. It's not a whole second. But it's lost time! It's lost time that is prevented by having a good split; In the same circumstance, if I split my workers to individual patches or even just get a solid half-split, I will have 55 minerals just before my first SCV finishes and comfortably start my second SCV in time to see him in the queue behind the first.
There's really nothing else to do at that point in the game besides edge in whatever perfection you can and use spare moments to think about the map and plan possible tech\upgrade\production\expansion routes out in your head.
Find me a game that was won by a 1 second scv advantage.
The advantage you are talking about is the kind that you squander by readily having your mineral count stay at 1 instead of 0, having a zergling picked off, being a split second late on a production run, queuing a single unit, or building your nexus at 420. Yes, it's that inconsequential.
All I have to say is that patrol is nothing like the move style I described, and that units move out of psionic storm only when they are not attacking, but you'll certainly always want to move them when they are attacking anyway. It's kind of a waste of time to respond to anything else, the point is made. Splitting is like anything else. It requires that you decide how to split and which mineral patches to send your workers to, just like focus firing requires that you decide which unit you want to attack.
It's just ironic that you're calling me closed minded, when all you're doing is arbitrarily distinguishing between something that takes skill that you enjoy, and something that takes skill that you don't enjoy. You have no real reasoning. You just don't like it.
On June 05 2010 06:53 Buddhist wrote: Why don't units have a movement mode (other than m and a) which automatically stops the units long enough to fire once (assuming there is something in range to shoot), then they keep walking, so that the menial, mindless task of stop-firing is automated? You really think stop-firing button mashing shows skill lolololololololololol?
Why don't my units automatically move out of psionic storm when they're attacking? Stupid interface, it should do everything for me.
On June 05 2010 06:59 Buddhist wrote: Why can't I do wireframe spell casting anymore?
Why can't I queue up chrono boosts to be used one after another (with no wasted time)?
Why can't I autocast spawn larva by choice?
Why can't I have an auto-pylon option, so a designated probe will build a pylon for me before I get supply capped every time?
Why isn't there a way to have my units automatically follow a build order perfectly? Like, I figure out the timings, and then input them, and then my probes will do all of the menial pointless button pushing for me, because strategy and tactics are all that matter, not doing things like splitting up workers to get a more efficient income at the start of the game. That's archaic and pointless.
But like I said, splitting specifically, I don't care about. It's the overall argument that "you shouldn't have to control your units to do things that you'll obviously want to do" that I disagree with. You're obviously going to want to move all of your units in range to attack when you go into a battle, but you have to manually order your units to attack, move, attack, move, until they're all in range. Just like in SC1, you obviously want to have all of your probes gather at the start, but you have to tell each one to go to its own patch, for maximum efficiency.
But, because some people have a disdain for worker splitting, they will never understand why their arbitrary prejudice in what you should or shouldn't be forced to do manually is illogical.
Answer to almost all of these: multitasking.
Even in seemingly single-minded decisions like spawning larvae on your hatcheries, there's the implicit choice in the fact that every moment spent looking at your hatcheries is one that's NOT spent managing your armies. If you're stop-firing your workers, it makes it proportionally more difficult to macro at the same time.
Splitting your workers doesn't offer that choice. There's nothing else you could possibly be paying attention to at that stage of the game, unless you're maphacking.
i noticed the OP said he tested clicking f1 then selecting the mineal patch for each woker. on the loading screen try holding CTR and F1 and when the match starts it selects ALL IDLE workers then right click mineral patch and booya.. least ammount of work!
Splitting your workers doesn't offer that choice. There's nothing else you could possibly be paying attention to at that stage of the game, unless you're maphacking.
Oh look, you made a logical argument. I disagree, though, because at the start of the game, you're doing strategy/tactics, ie. thinking. That's how strategy and tactics are done, purely with thought. So needing to split takes your attention away from the strategy you're about to do.
I don't wholly disagree with you here, though. It's something I considered a while ago myself. The thing is, though, that splitting does require several skills to pull off, like coordination and speed. Since when is multitasking NECESSARY for EVERY activity in the game to be included?
Good job for making a logical argument, though.
On June 05 2010 07:46 Fizbin wrote: i noticed the OP said he tested clicking f1 then selecting the mineal patch for each woker. on the loading screen try holding CTR and F1 and when the match starts it selects ALL IDLE workers then right click mineral patch and booya.. least ammount of work!
Yeah, I used to split this way. The only problem is that on live games, you can't do this instantly. For the first few ms of a game, for some reason, it doesn't count those workers as idle. Very annoying.
On June 05 2010 07:55 Buddhist wrote: Oh look, you made a logical argument. I disagree, though, because at the start of the game, you're doing strategy/tactics, ie. thinking. That's how strategy and tactics are done, purely with thought. So needing to split takes your attention away from the strategy you're about to do.
At the point where you're splitting, you haven't seen anything to respond to. If you're playing a properly practiced build, you're basically on autopilot at that stage.
On June 05 2010 07:55 Buddhist wrote: I don't wholly disagree with you here, though. It's something I considered a while ago myself. The thing is, though, that splitting does require several skills to pull off, like coordination and speed. Since when is multitasking NECESSARY for EVERY activity in the game to be included?
I actually agree with you here. I'm not particularly fond of splitting itself, but at the same time, applying the logic of removing splitting to a lot of other actions in the game, and you end up losing a lot of the tiny intricacies that made Brood War such an interesting game. I'm just pointing out that those specific examples do a very poor job of combating the particular argument at hand.
Whoa... there is a lot of rage. I did notice that you were the original poster, though after I had posted. As such, you did your experiment wrong. You are supposed to work out the timing advantage it gives you rather than measure the mineral count at a specific point in time. As such, you write it to record when you have successfully harvested 100 minerals. The mineral count is digital, so taking a fixed time won't give you representative answers. Using minerals as your independent measure allows the time to be more (not truly) analogue at which point you can claim a similarity difference.
OP aside. What am I arguing? I know what you are arguing (amongst other things)
A great parallel to splitting (in BW, since it actually matters there) is how you send your units to battle. You can just a-move all of your units, because you think unit control doesn't matter, and all that matters is strategy, but you'll be far more effective if you actually send individual units to individual locations for a better surround, and do things like scoot 'n' shooting. That's exactly the same as, instead of just right click on a mineral patch, telling individual gatherers to go to individual mineral patches for greater effectiveness. So saying that splitting your workers is meaningless makes as much sense as saying that controlling your units in battle is meaningless.
I apologize if I misinterpreted this to mean a comparison of two actions which have similar effort means that if one action is meaningless, then both are meaningless. They have wildly different input strategically and have wildly different consequence. How was I supposed to interpret this remark? Do you contend that worker splitting should have equal consequence to unit control? That seems silly...
The decision is how to split, obviously. Also, which minerals to send the workers to.
Umm... how to split? Isn't there always an optimal split choice? You send your workers to the corresponding 6 closest mineral patches? As the only consequence of this decision can be measured on a single metric, there really isn't a choice per se, as there is an obvious optimisation. So what is the choice? To play sub-optimally?
You're the one who's arguing that speed and coordination shouldn't matter in SC2
I'm not sure I am? I think the crux of my argument was in my second post.
Yes, I would like a game where my chance of victory is based mostly on my strategic choices and less on my mastery of menial tasks which can be trivially removed by better programming.
Worker splittting as I have explained above, isn't really a decision, it does require effort which makes it menial (effort without thought). That is my argument.
Why should we have to focus fire the lower HP enemy units? It has no depth. You just right click the one with lower HP.
You have clearly lost the plot at this point. Shooting the one with the lowest HP every time would mean you always shoot marines before siege-tanks, zealots before collossi, zerglings before infestors... I get the hyperbole nature of the remark (throw out the baby with the bathwater), but please choose better examples than this next time.
The reason why many of the examples you have posted (focus fire, stop-firing, pylon-supply capped) are not implicit decisions as there are alternatives.
Some of the others are valid questions (wireframe casting specifically). Removal of wireframe castings is akin to removing hotkeys as it would simplify unit control. Spawn Larvae too seems to me to be a poor implementation of a very un-strategic action.
You can assume for the remainder of this thread, that my objection to worker-splitting differences is purely because of the small strategic value added by the extra clicks. This is limited to worker-splitting and not to other more decision-heavy & click-heavy parts of the game.
The argument as explained is that an obvious optimisation exists which is only achievable with a minimum APM level which I'm not convinced is meaningful.
As an aside, I agree that higher APM ought to separate two equally strategically skilled players, but that strategy should in general trump APM. It is a strategy game after all, real time or not.
From the two options:
A) Coordination minimum skill required, edge defined by strategy B) Strategy minimum skill required, edge defined by coordination
So there is a difference 40 seconds in, but this difference does not increase over time. So essentially, you get those 5 minerals with a perfect f1 split milliseconds sooner than without, but there is no exponential increase, so you won't see that difference in the 1 min or 2 min results.
On June 05 2010 23:15 Goobahfish wrote: Whoa... there is a lot of rage. I did notice that you were the original poster, though after I had posted. As such, you did your experiment wrong. You are supposed to work out the timing advantage it gives you rather than measure the mineral count at a specific point in time. As such, you write it to record when you have successfully harvested 100 minerals. The mineral count is digital, so taking a fixed time won't give you representative answers. Using minerals as your independent measure allows the time to be more (not truly) analogue at which point you can claim a similarity difference.
I would like to respectfully point out that Buddhist did in fact briefly discuss the minute (read: small) timing differences after Kletus' findings, so the criticism was unnecessary. I would also like to point out that I've only read the first and last pages, so I don't care to comment on the other debates.
I wonder if Day[9] has seen these test results because he has discussed optimal splits before. Now I'd argue that the fractional difference (a handful of milliseconds) between splitting vs. non-splitting makes the handwork virtually moot.
Wanna know what really matters? Continuous worker optimization. Now that is an early game investment that literally pays dividends. I'm talking the optimization that occurs as you're trying to perfectly time the arrival of each new scv or redirect a wandering scv to a fresh patch. I have a ballpark on worker build% to know which patch to rally to but its certainly not a science yet. I give up once the 3rd scvs start popping out (when returns start to diminish).
Well this is very interesting, but you did leave out a really logical worker split. The way I always split was to send them all to the middle and send however many I could to separate (outer) patches before they hit the middle minerals.
This logically has to help, the auto split does what it says, but only once they hit the mineral patch, if you are sending workers before that to the farthest positions(while they are all headed to the middle patch, first), how can this not help? I think this method needs to be tested.
Sending all (6) of them, then sending half (3) is not the same, 4 of the workers will still have to auto split. If you send all 6, and split 2 off separately, you already only have 3 that will auto split.
On June 24 2010 14:16 v3chr0 wrote: Well this is very interesting, but you did leave out a really logical worker split. The way I always split was to send them all to the middle and send however many I could to separate (outer) patches before they hit the middle minerals.
This logically has to help, the auto split does what it says, but only once they hit the mineral patch, if you are sending workers before that to the farthest positions(while they are all headed to the middle patch, first), how can this not help? I think this method needs to be tested.
Sending all (6) of them, then sending half (3) is not the same, 4 of the workers will still have to auto split. If you send all 6, and split 2 off separately, you already only have 3 that will auto split.
I'm not sure what kinds of differences there are between the F1 split and yours, but the difference would again be in milliseconds. Check out the conclusions from the tests in the first post and you'll know what I'm referring to.
I understand the logic of the ex-BW players being so against this change. You practiced it. You want it to matter. It was a way to very quickly see if somebody was a noob, or at least somewhat competent.
To me, it doesn't make any sense. When are you going to actually gain an advantage by doing your split? The only time you would get an advantage is when you are playing somebody who is far less skillful than you. You are going to beat this person. If they can't split, how can they possibly compete with you?? Are you really afraid that some player who never played BW is going to beat you because they don't have to split their workers? Don't we want to encourage as many SC2 players as possible to not just play the game, but to really dedicate themselves to getting better at the game? We all want SC2 to be huge here.
Autosplitting simply removed a pointless roadblock that new players experience. It's one of those things new players watch pros do, practice a little bit, then decide that the game is stupid, they can never get good enough and they are going to do something else. Sure, if that player would practice some more, they would be just as good at splitting as the pros....but it is seen as such a pointless exercise.
I just wish more ex-BW players could be more welcoming to SC2 players. The attitude seen in these forums is so discouraging. SC2 has been made. It's not going to be converted to BW by constant moans and groans. I'm so sick of hearing these constant "LOW SKILL CEILING" or "SC2 DEMANDS LESS APM" cries in every thread. This thread wasn't even about BW. It was about looking at the advantages of splitting over not splitting and yet the BW veterans who have been a part of this community for much longer than the majority of posters in this thread want to come in here and bash SC2 for not being just like BW. I just don't see how it helps the community in any way.
"In fact, I'm the one who made this thread, and the one who gave data that showed that they DON'T have similar consequences." - Buddhist
I lawled profusely...power trip! THIS IS MY TOPIC!! RAWR!! Dude, you've flipped arguments a few times now and in any case, Gooba is right. You're blinded and not looking at a whole picture. SC2 is more concerned with getting to the point, getting armies clashing. There is still just as much to do but it is more focused on army macro and strategy. SC2 puts your apm elsewhere, but you're so caught up in "I WANNA MOVE MY WORKERS INDIVIDUALLY!" that you refuse to notice OR acknowlege it. Gooba said he wants more strategy, you keep refering to chess, which is exactly how this game is turning out to me. BW said "play chess, but im going to give you some wood and want you carve your own pieces first" SC2 says "play chess, heres the board and pieces, start moving"
to fix your problems budd, just dont auto mine, select individual workers, never use a big group. Just cuz you have tools to fix an engine doesnt mean you can't just bang your head against it like a moron and say "I iz more manly, I no need tools" We'll get the same jobs done right?
On June 24 2010 14:16 v3chr0 wrote: Well this is very interesting, but you did leave out a really logical worker split. The way I always split was to send them all to the middle and send however many I could to separate (outer) patches before they hit the middle minerals.
This logically has to help, the auto split does what it says, but only once they hit the mineral patch, if you are sending workers before that to the farthest positions(while they are all headed to the middle patch, first), how can this not help? I think this method needs to be tested.
Sending all (6) of them, then sending half (3) is not the same, 4 of the workers will still have to auto split. If you send all 6, and split 2 off separately, you already only have 3 that will auto split.
I'm not sure what kinds of differences there are between the F1 split and yours, but the difference would again be in milliseconds. Check out the conclusions from the tests in the first post and you'll know what I'm referring to.
The F1 split doesn't send all of the workers at the same time and then split off while that process is going on. Even if it is in milliseconds, this is probably the only split that would actually increase minerals per min and it hasn't been tested.
On July 19 2010 10:00 Ryalnos wrote: I would guess that the BW players aren't specifically annoyed that splitting doesn't matter any more (seriously, it's a tiny issue).
It's just another reminder to them of how some of the iconic Broodwar mechanics have been removed in the sequel.
You bumped a month old thread just to say something that's been said a dozen times already?
A perfect split does make a fraction of a difference, but I have found that by attempting to split I end up miss-clicking maybe 1 in 30 games (thus slowing down my initial minerals more than the gain would be). I personally think unless you are completely automatic at splitting workers it isn't worth the risk of a mis-click
On September 17 2010 02:14 Krafty wrote: Only on TL.net will you find a 17 page thread on something as menial as "worker splitting".
Only on TL will you find a guy (like me) who will use the "show all" option of the tread and copy paste the whole page in a word file for further reference lol