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Damage point is a variable that affects every attacking unit in Starcraft 2. It represents the time between when an attacking unit attacks, and when it can receive new commands. It may be easier to think of it as a sort of front swing or attack delay. The Ultralisk has the highest damage point in the game at 0.3332. This is an example of damage point working with the animation of a unit, so that the damage is only dealt when the tusks of the Ultralisk actually hit the unit. This high damage point gives the Ultralisk a distinct sluggish feel that acts not only as a weakness of the unit in gameplay, but adds to its character as this massively powerful but slow unit. In contrast, the Mutalisk has a damage point of 0, this means that there is practically no delay between when the Mutalisk is told to attack, and when it can take on another action, such as a move command. Simply put, damage point is a variable that affects how agile and responsive a unit feels.
Currently Damage Point for approximately 75% of all attacking units is set to 0.167 (the default value). It can be very clearly seen on the viking as it looks at the unit it for a bit before firing. It’s like, “The colossus they are coming, fire out shit” “but I am le tired” “alright take a nap, THEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!” A high damage point for an Ultralisk may make a lot of sense, but for the majority of units, damage point could be lowered to 0 to allow for a sharper, more responsive feel across the board.
Maybe even more importantly, lowering damage point also allows for air units to better utilize “Moving Shot”. Moving Shot is a micro technique that takes advantage of an air unit’s deceleration time. By issuing a move command right after the attack command, the unit can shoot while moving. Losing only a little speed instead of coming to a complete stop each time it fires.
This image illustrates how damage point cuts into a unit’s ability to execute an attack and maintain speed. By removing damage point, (and potentially reducing rotation time for units that are intended to feel more agile), moving shot becomes more useful.
This allows players the opportunity to be rewarded for paying close attention to and controlling their units. Making each attacking air unit scale more in power with skill.
An example of a unit in Sc2 that currently scales in power with the skill of the player controlling it is the blink stalker. Some of the most exciting moments in Sc2 games have come from a player with phenomenal blink control allowing them to win fights where all seemed lost by focusing their effort into their control. Fights that any lesser player would easily lose.
Units that can properly execute a moving shot have the same effect, they scale with skill, and they create a display of skill that is easy to notice and understand, even to a spectator new to Starcraft.
When I spoke with Aaron Kirkpatrick about damage point at Blizzcon he mentioned that while some damage points were chosen for specific gameplay reasons, other damage points were chosen to match the attack animations of the units. This is why currently the hydralisk has a different damage point when using its melee attack animation than when using its ranged attack animation. Lowering the damage points of units like these would create strange, non-intuitive scenarios where the damage would be dealt before the attack animation finished. However this does not mean that the hydralisk is stuck with its high damage point. It just means that lowering its damage point would require an adjustment in the attack animation.
My Wish for LotV is: That damage point is reconsidered from the ground up. Starting with all damage points at 0 and making adjustments in animations when the unit feels right but looks wrong, and making adjustments in damage point to intentionally make the unit feel more sluggish as either a necessary nerf to the unit or as something that adds to its character. This has probably already been done from the standard 0.167 damage point, but not from 0.
A responsive unit ought to be the rule, not the exception. But currently in Sc2 the opposite is true. Making 0 damage point the default and then making specific exceptions from that point will increase the capacity for visually apparent micro, give players more opportunities to differentiate their skill in a way that all spectators can intuitively appreciate, and make gameplay in Sc2 feel better for everyone.
The first two are: Zero damage point and zero damage point mod - in these, all units (even the mighty Ultralisk) have 0 damage point. It is very important to keep in mind that the animations can be adjusted to match the damage point so it won’t look so strange. The important part to take note of here is the feel of the unit. Who knows, maybe you’ll really enjoy and hope for 0 damage point across the board after trying it out.
The second two are: delayed damage point and delayed damage point mod - in these, all units have a 0.7 damage point, more than 2 times greater than the current damage point of the Ultralisk. This is helpful for people having a more difficult time noticing the difference between 0 and 0.167 damage point. Its also moderately silly.
The purpose of this discussion is to come up with more specific examples and reasons why certain units ought to have a lower damage point. To begin with, I personally think that all air units ought to have a damage point of 0 to enable moving shot. The hydralisk ought to have 0 damage point for both its melee and ranged attacks as it is a low hp light unit which in my opinion ought to feel more agile. Finally, all other units currently at or below the standard 0.167 damage point ought to have 0 damage point.
Keep in mind that a lowering damage point is a buff to a unit, while raising damage point is a nerf. Because of this it may be necessary to tweak a few stats to compensate. Overall what this does is make the unit slightly stronger for players with good control, and slightly weaker for players with poor control.
Big thanks to Lalush and decemberscalm for helping me understand this variable and its effects on the game.
Zero Damage Point Unit Tester: AM - battlenet://starcraft/map/1/253921 EU - battlenet://starcraft/map/2/177771
Delayed Damage Point Unit Tester: AM - battlenet://starcraft/map/1/254140 EU - battlenet://starcraft/map/2/177944
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Overall what this does is make the unit slightly stronger for players with good control, and slightly weaker for players with poor control. I think it's important to point out that the side-effect of units becoming weaker in the hands of someone with poor control isn't necessarily just a straight nerf to all bronze-league armies, it's more like it will be easier to get an advantage with even slightly better control. If that makes sense.
I'm worried that Blizzard's excuse for not doing this would most likely be "we don't want to make casual, lower league players feel like we're giving them a harder time in the game in order to facilitate hardcore, high league players' skill ceiling." IMO this won't happen with the damage point changes. Most players wouldn't really notice a difference in lower leagues, in particular when both sides of an engagement have similarly mediocre unit control there won't be an inherent advantage to either side that there wouldn't have been otherwise.
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A responsive unit ought to be the rule, not the exception. But currently in Sc2 the opposite is true. Making 0 damage point the default and then making specific exceptions from that point will increase the capacity for visually apparent micro, give players more opportunities to differentiate their skill in a way that all spectators can intuitively appreciate, and make gameplay in Sc2 feel better for everyone. Yes! Not much else to say. JaKaTaK as always on point.
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Awesome that you made a video for one of the simplest change possible about the game that can make it feel more fun.
I certainly missed a visible example though of a clip from 2 units to make it clear how it would affect this and how the units feel/interact. Hydra was okay-ish, but it didnt show that you can actually FREAKING stutterstep/split with hydras at 0 Damage points like you can with the Marine its feels so amazing to suddenly be able to do that.(compared to now, its a world of a difference) Or showing the Marine and mentioning its low dmg point as an example for a unit that feels fun to play and the reason why that is.
Stalker(non blink) also has this weird dmg point delay where it always felt sluggish to me and in the unit test map it feels so much better.
All in all, thanks for your effort man, lets hope Blizzard listens :D
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These are the sorts of changes LOTV needs to make me want to buy it. These types of threads/videos are exactly what the community needs right now, while lotv is still early in the beta.
The only lotv changes so far to excite me have been the economy, which doesn't go far enough, and the testing with slower attack rates, which they seem to have abandoned.
#PleaseBlizzard!
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On March 29 2015 02:05 HewTheTitan wrote: These are the sorts of changes LOTV needs to make me want to buy it. These types of threads/videos are exactly what the community needs right now, while lotv is still early in the beta.
The only lotv changes so far to excite me have been the economy, which doesn't go far enough, and the testing with slower attack rates, which they seem to have abandoned.
#PleaseBlizzard!
And it's by far the easiest to change (no programmers or model designers are needed). Honestly, out of all the things Blizzard have done with Sc2, I have not understood their reluctance to balancing the game around a damage point of 0.
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Well we we already talked about this with the depth of micro video, but Blizzard did not listen. Maybe we can push this hard enough now, with the LotV Beta to get this. I of course am 100% for this suggestions, adjust damage point to 0 for every air unit and only increase it over 0 for certain ground units.
So thanks for the video, I hope it gets lots of attention!
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we need to clone jak's brain and make a team of him that just makes sc2 better. Tweet this to @starcraft on twitter lets get this proposed change some traction!
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I agree with this 100% great idea!
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On March 29 2015 02:55 Musicus wrote: Well we we already talked about this with the depth of micro video, but Blizzard did not listen. Maybe we can push this hard enough now, with the LotV Beta to get this. I of course am 100% for this suggestions, adjust damage point to 0 for every air unit and only increase it over 0 for certain ground units.
So thanks for the video, I hope it gets lots of attention!
I have a feeling they're going to take this more seriously. I did my best to present it in a way that makes them look good for trying it out, whereas the depth of micro video had a lot of "make Sc2 more like bw" feel to it. Keeping my fingers in the crossed position.
edit: damn, no new icon for 2500. I suppose I must wait until 3000. I really like the mutalisk in any case
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I agree with everything you have written JakataK.
One thing I want to point out though is the following:
No damage point doesnt necessarily mean more micro. Warcraft 3, most units had damage point and it is considered a very micro intensive game, as did alot of Brood War units. The trick was to know as an experienced player how your unit behaves, so when it is ready to recieve a new command. It gave every unit a unique feeling. 0 damage point should be the standard, but a high damage point can give a unique feel to certain units.
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No damage point doesnt necessarily mean more micro. Warcraft 3, most units had damage point and it is considered a very micro intensive game, as did alot of Brood War units. The trick was to know as an experienced player how your unit behaves, so when it is ready to recieve a new command. It gave every unit a unique feeling. 0 damage point should be the standard, but a high damage point can give a unique feel to certain units.
Damage values in Wc3 were a ton lower which meant that you had time to pull back injured units - even if they were really unresposnsive. That's not the case in Sc2 on the other hand. In Sc2 units really need maximum level of responsisveness as a general rule. Otherwise your simply gonna stand still during engagements while spamming abilities.
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I approve! I really hope this gets Blizzard's attention! Making the game feel more responsive is always good in my opinion. Sometimes units feel really sluggish while it doesn't at all contribute to the feeling the unit should have, imo. As a zerg, I actually kind of dig the 0 damage point on the hellions. We could compensate for balance by decreasing the firing rate of a unit, while increasing response with this change.
Again, totally approved!
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This is amazing, I've always had an issue with non bio armies being less responsive I guess to control. This seems to be a great solution!
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Some of the points I agree with, some I disagree strongly.
- There is a reason why the standard damage point is not 0 : lag over the internet (especially since there is no LAN in SC2). Because you can expect people having a ping of 50 to 150 ms most of the time, it makes total sense to have a damage point of 0.167. This way, for the overwhelming majority of players, the game always feels the same and they don't feel that their opponent is better because he has a better internet connection. Only when you ping is higher than 167 ms will you feel the game react differently, which is nearly never if you have a decent internet connection. In other words, a DP of 0.167 allows to level the playing field where no one has an advantage for having a better internet connection - Damage point of 0 on long range unit is dumb, as it would allow infinite kiting. There is a reason why there is actually only one unit with built-in DP of 0, the phoenix. The phoenix's moving shot is actually like a perfectly microed unit with DP of 0. And it only works because it's a short range unit. The higher the unit's range, the higher the DP needs to be
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On March 29 2015 13:04 fezvez wrote: Some of the points I agree with, some I disagree strongly.
- There is a reason why the standard damage point is not 0 : lag over the internet (especially since there is no LAN in SC2). Because you can expect people having a ping of 50 to 150 ms most of the time, it makes total sense to have a damage point of 0.167. This way, for the overwhelming majority of players, the game always feels the same and they don't feel that their opponent is better because he has a better internet connection. Only when you ping is higher than 167 ms will you feel the game react differently, which is nearly never if you have a decent internet connection. In other words, a DP of 0.167 allows to level the playing field where no one has an advantage for having a better internet connection - Damage point of 0 on long range unit is dumb, as it would allow infinite kiting. There is a reason why there is actually only one unit with built-in DP of 0, the phoenix. The phoenix's moving shot is actually like a perfectly microed unit with DP of 0. And it only works because it's a short range unit. The higher the unit's range, the higher the DP needs to be
Even without a '0ms' connection you can take advanage of 0 damage point and micro your units more effectively when they have 0 damage point as opposed to .167, it just takes a little more timing.
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There is a reason why there is actually only one unit with built-in DP of 0, the phoenix.
Incorrect. The phoenix has a damage point of 0.167. What your thinking off here is a programmed moving shat that isn't actually the damage point variable.
The only ground unit with a 0 damage point in the game is the Maurauder (as I remember it).
The higher the unit's range, the higher the DP needs to be
No, you can have 0 DP and adjust the movement speed instead.
There is a reason why the standard damage point is not 0 : lag over the internet (especially since there is no LAN in SC2). Because you can expect people having a ping of 50 to 150 ms most of the time, it makes total sense to have a damage point of 0.167
It doesn't work like that either. If you have a general delay all your commands needs to be executed before, which hurts you regardless of damage point. If the damage point is 0.167 and you want to kite then you need to press "right click --> A move ---> right click" every X + 0.167 second. If there is no damage point it's equal to X instead.
The only impact of delay here is that you need to do start the kiting at an earlier point in time, but the frequency at which you wanna do it isn't impacted by the ms.
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Thx a lot Jakatak for tanking the time to explain your point.
I'm not sure I do agree though, basically when your say This allows players the opportunity to be rewarded for paying close attention to and controlling their units. Making each attacking air unit scale more in power with skill.
I'll take the hellion vs zergs example cause it's very common.
Currently the micro fro hellions is something like :
- move away, attack move back (or stop), PAUSE, move away, attack move back (or stop), PAUSE, ...
with 0 DP it would be just :
- move away, attack move back (or stop), move away, attack move back (or stop), ...
So not only 0DP will make hellions powerfull, but also much easier to micro. Same thing applies with the stimed bio, you need to move then attack (or stop) very fast but you need to pause a bit, this pause forces you to be more focused on your units and to have more skills.
IMHO, 0DP would just make the game easier and lower the "skill ceiling", so I'm ok to change the DP of some units here and there, but making 0 as the default value is not the best idea for me.
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I think the example in the video of zerglings chasing hellions shows that you have to be really careful here. At the moment I thing both have an equal chance of coming out on top, so it depends on who has better control. Alter the DP and one side has a clear advantage. So in the end it would reduce micro since you wont see these hellion zergling battles anymore. Overall I agree with making 0 DP the rule. But its not just an easy set-everything-to-zero case.
Edit: too slow-.-
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I'll take the hellion vs zergs example cause it's very common.
Currently the micro fro hellions is something like :
- move away, attack move back (or stop), PAUSE, move away, attack move back (or stop), PAUSE, ...
with 0 DP it would be just :
While your correct that DP does add more skill to Hellion vs Speedlings, your example is incorrect. The amount of time you stop is really irrevalnt for the diffciulty. If anything, when you need to do something more frequent, it's harder.
However, with the current damage point you need to deselect the injured Hellion in the front before you press stop or a-move as it otherwise would diw to the Speedlings. With 0 damagepoint you would simply just kite back with all of your helions and none of them would really die.
Same thing applies with the stimed bio, you need to move then attack (or stop) very fast but you need to pause a bit, this pause forces you to be more focused on your units and to have more skills.
I don't think you really know either what the damagepoint is. I expect you confuse it with the Phoenix moving shot. Marines and Mauruader have a damagepoint of 0.05 and 0 respectively which is very low. The fact that the bio units are so micraoble is a direct result of the low damagepoint.
A 0 damagepoint doesn't imply that the duration which they stand still is 0. There is still an attack animation, but it is just very brief which rewards players who are good enough to move around with them during the engagement.
The hellion vs speedlings is an exception due to the splash-attack, but for "normal" units the skillcap is almost always increased if you balance the game around 0 DP.
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The hellion vs speedling is a good example when damage point is good and where we want to keep it for certain unit behavior. On the other hand with a viking or a roach or an immortal it is really unnecessary and just makes them behave less accurate. On the hydralisk it is plainly bad (because low attack cooldown + damage point means 0.167seconds stopped per attack is very little possible micro).
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To quote a well-known cinematic : it's a worthy effort, but futile. I hope I'm wrong though, it would be awesome to see Blizzard actually paying attention to posts like this one or Uvantak's instead of "listening to the community" by reading random B.net posts.
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I think a lot of units could work well with a 0 DP, but there are some scenarios that would become insanely imbalanced, especially with the scan range changes.
Take stalker vs marine. Atm, stalkers can pick off marines with impunity, but it requires a lot of skill, and you'll very likely take damage, especially in larger scale engagements. With the scan range change, this becomes significantly easier. With the 0 DP change as well, it now becomes unbelievably easy and powerful. Before stim, there is absolutely no reason for a stalker to ever get hit by a marine, and that has incredible balance ramifications. You can't just fix this with a stat change either, because that has very far-reaching affects, whereas the core of this issue is only at the start of the game. Decreasing damage makes vikings even more powerful than the DP change would already make them. Reducing movement speed would screw with the entire concept of the stalker. Reducing it's life would make a late game deathball significantly weaker. There's no good change that would make them not imba vs marines, while making them equally useful for the rest of the game, except for damage point. I know that jakatak said that balance considerations should be made, but I think that the circumstances in which balance is a very strong consideration are more common than the OP insinuates.
However, this would certainly be an excellent change for hydralisks, as there's no need for them to be less microable than marines, and I can't think of any time where this would make them super imbalanced.
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There is a reason why the standard damage point is not 0 : lag over the internet
I guess this theory is worth testing. Thoughts Jak?
ps: #WeWantLAN
pps: I feel like this would get more attention, and fit better, in General rather than Strategy.
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Hellion and Ultra are 2 excellent examples of damage points that probably shouldn't be 0.
Units that have 0 damage point in HotS: marauder, zealot, reaper, baneling, mutalisk
marine has 2nd lowest at 0.05
Maybe this should be moved to general. What do the TL MODS think?
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I'm not a mod, but I think this needs to get as much attention as possible. Not that Blizzard will listen, too busy watching SICK FORCEFIELDS, but if we can at least get people to understand why this is a interesting idea then that's good.
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On March 30 2015 03:36 JaKaTaKSc2 wrote: Maybe this should be moved to general. What do the TL MODS think? I'm not a mod either, but this not only deserves to be in General, but also fits there better than in Strategy. Excellent video btw. If Blizzard implemented the scan range increase because of that video of yours, there's certainly a chance they will at least consider this.
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Take stalker vs marine. Atm, stalkers can pick off marines with impunity, but it requires a lot of skill, and you'll very likely take damage, especially in larger scale engagements. With the scan range change, this becomes significantly easier. With the 0 DP change as well, it now becomes unbelievably easy and powerful.
I would reduce range of Stalkers to 5.5 along with 0 DP. The point here is that 0 DP makes a unit feel a lot more microable and I rather balance the game around with them having slightly weaker core stats while being more microable.
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At 600 APM, you're issuing 10 commands a second, or 100ms in between commands.
How fast would you have to play to actually notice this '0ms' damage point change? Are we suggesting that point attack, and issue a move command, in like 1 ms? Because, most hardware devices can't even keep that rate, let alone the human operating it.
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More mirco able armies means higher skill cap and better for observers. Gotta make this game impressive to watch if you want to succeed in esport steaming. blink stalkers vs marines would be easier for toss, but you know what, so was it in bw and u had to wait for a tank in order to defend. The meta will balance it out.
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On March 29 2015 23:21 OtherWorld wrote: ... instead of "listening to the community" by reading random B.net posts.
Just worth mentioning, that while TL holds itself in high regard, the official forums for Starcraft II, are the B.net forums. Obviously Blizzard reads those forums primarily, they *are* the primary forum for sc2 - it might be worth cross posting this to their, to make it more visible on their radar?
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On March 30 2015 05:58 hZCube wrote: At 600 APM, you're issuing 10 commands a second, or 100ms in between commands.
How fast would you have to play to actually notice this '0ms' damage point change? Are we suggesting that point attack, and issue a move command, in like 1 ms? Because, most hardware devices can't even keep that rate, let alone the human operating it. I'm not sure what you think damage points currently are, but the unit for damage point is seconds. The Adept has a 0.4 damage point, which means it has extra 400 ms delay before it attacks when it has to reacquire a target.
It's definitely not a 0-1 ms difference, it is hundreds of ms. It is noticeable even for players like me, and I'm not remotely good or fast.
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I haven't played the LOTV beta yet, so I don't really know how the Adept will play out. The baseline though, is 167ms? and many units are less than that 50ms for marine for example?
I wonder why the Adept is so high, at 400 - presumably they've done that for a specific reason rather than accidental? - My assumption is that the unit needs something to balance it from being too micro-able, and dominating other units?
[edit]
Also, it strikes me that people are only thinking that Damage Point is a bad thing? Surely it can add micro demands, and can create more useful units. For example, air units being able to do 'moving shot' and constantly move while shooting, isn't necessarily always a better thing. Having a trade off between mobility and damage makes total sense to me. It means you can have powerful units, albeit not highly mobile - but when they aren't damaging, they have increased mobility?
Isn't this what the damage point, particularly for air units, but also units like ultralisk, basically generates? A tradeoff between damage and mobility?
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I know for a fact that damagepoint on units can be good. Broodwar has it, starbow has it.
If i compare no damage point zealot vs hydralisk in starbow to backswing to zealot and hydralisk, the latter feels superior to both play and watch. And imo it increases the skill in how to use the units, it does not lower it.
Its hard to say for sc2 tho since the micro fights are usually imbalaanced. Lets take marine vs zealot for example, the zealot player cant really do any micro cuz of the super slow speed. If zealots had a faster movementspeed, it would be more fair to see how it really interacts with each other.
So those two testmaps are really important to try and stream etc imo.
An example of a unit in Sc2 that currently scales in power with the skill of the player controlling it is the blink stalker. Some of the most exciting moments in Sc2 games have come from a player with phenomenal blink control allowing them to win fights where all seemed lost by focusing their effort into their control. Fights that any lesser player would easily lose.
A bit unfair imo to take the blink stalker as an example since its a one-sided-micro-fest. The opponent cant do any micro against it.
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Having a trade off between mobility and damage makes total sense to me. It means you can have powerful units, albeit not highly mobile - but when they aren't damaging, they have increased mobility?
Well if the unit is too unresponsive, then it needs to be powerful through its stats when amoved. However, imo it becomes a lot more interesting if its highly rewarded too move it around during engagements and then instead it has slightly weaker core stats.
That said, the point here isn't that all units should have maximum mobility and responsiveness, but rather that it should be the default rule, and there should be really good reasons for exceptions.
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I think that's the bit we disagree on - that it should be the 'default rule'.
Strikes me that the 167ms default, isn't arbitrary, and Blizzard had some decent reasons for including it. I've already expressed why I think Damage Point adds value to units, by giving a compromise between damage and mobility.
I don't see any inherent reason why 'it should be the default' - other than opinion on how the game should play. I'm sure Blizzard have tested many permutations, and we certainly aren't privy to their decision making info - but, for me, I think units should have some damage point. It technically doesn't really 'remove' micro opportunity, it just changes it.
You think micro is moving with 0ms delay, I don't. I think you can still micro units even with a DP delay - it's just different.
In fact, DP delay can add micro skill. If you just blindly move instantly after attacking, then you actually 'waste' the attack - DP delay adds micro skill, by requiring the player to delay their action by a specific amount, in order to maximise their damage and still micro.
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On March 30 2015 06:58 hZCube wrote: I think that's the bit we disagree on - that it should be the 'default rule'.
Strikes me that the 167ms default, isn't arbitrary, and Blizzard had some decent reasons for including it. I've already expressed why I think Damage Point adds value to units, by giving a compromise between damage and mobility.
I don't see any inherent reason why 'it should be the default' - other than opinion on how the game should play. I'm sure Blizzard have tested many permutations, and we certainly aren't privy to their decision making info - but, for me, I think units should have some damage point. It technically doesn't really 'remove' micro opportunity, it just changes it.
You think micro is moving with 0ms delay, I don't. I think you can still micro units even with a DP delay - it's just different.
In fact, DP delay can add micro skill. If you just blindly move instantly after attacking, then you actually 'waste' the attack - DP delay adds micro skill, by requiring the player to delay their action by a specific amount, in order to maximise their damage and still micro.
I suggest you go to the starcraft editor and experiment with the variable. It's not very hard to do, and it's very very easy to tell that in situations where micro wasn't rewarded, that it suddenly is now.
Jakatak actually asked why Blizzard added the DP, and the response was to fit with the attack animations.
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Oh, i thought it was a value that affected once the attack begun, how long that unit had to wait before being issued another command?
And if you do issue a command before that time, it will cancel the attack.
In what way am I misunderstanding it?
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On March 30 2015 07:04 hZCube wrote: Oh, i thought it was a value that affected once the attack begun, how long that unit had to wait before being issued another command?
The unit needs to stand still before it attacks. That's the key point. It's not the same as a delay where everything reacts X second later (but the unit still behaves the same way).
This is why bio units are highly microable as you can attack --> move them around --> attack.
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Again, I think we're agreeing to disagree here. I don't think all units as standard should all be equally 'microable' in terms of how bio is micro'd.
It's good that there are more, and less microable units.
Starting as 0ms 'base' only gives you one direction to move in, making them less microable.
Starting at 167ms gives you two directions to work with. You have 'standard' units, and then 'highly microable' units, and 'less microable' units.
*shrug*
Also, not all units need to stand still before attacking, I'd suggest you check in the map editor to test that out. Many units can move while shooting...
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I agree with the basic point that a lot of damage points should be lower, but not that it should be universally set to 0 and rebalanced from there. Yes, Hydralisks should really have lower damage point. No, I don't agree that the same should go for Vikings. Vikings have never really struck me as agile units, being sluggish and armored, with very long range. Banshees could go for 0 damage point, as could the similarly nimble Reaper. But this should be approached on a case-by-case basis, rather than wiping the slate clean and writing in new values.
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On March 30 2015 07:14 hZCube wrote: Again, I think we're agreeing to disagree here. I don't think all units as standard should all be equally 'microable' in terms of how bio is micro'd.
It's good that there are more, and less microable units.
Starting as 0ms 'base' only gives you one direction to move in, making them less microable.
Starting at 167ms gives you two directions to work with. You have 'standard' units, and then 'highly microable' units, and 'less microable' units.
*shrug*
Also, not all units need to stand still before attacking, I'd suggest you check in the map editor to test that out. Many units can move while shooting...
I don't quite understand the argument that some units shouldn't be microable so well. Like, I understand that I don't want siege tanks flying at the speed of boosted medivacs between shots, because that's just retarted for a heavy hitting unit like that. But I don't understand why a roach needs to stand for 0.167 before its attack actually triggers.
The general approach should be: You are the player. Whatever you tell your units, they will do it as soon as you have told them.
There are good points to be made for many units. But many (all?) of them already have higher damage points than 0.167 because they have been designed from scratch to not insta-respond and be "out-microable". For the rest it seems like blizzard had the approach that 0.167 was enough to make them very responsive. But now, 5-10years after those values have been created we have a better understanding and I don't see a good reason why we shouldn't use that knowledge to imrpove the gameplay in specific situations.
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But I don't understand why a roach needs to stand for 0.167 before its attack actually triggers.
Just one suggestion, is that it makes the unit less of a 'kiter'. It has to stand it's ground to attack, rather than constantly doing damage while pulled away.
Therefore, the roach can have reasonably mobility when not fighting, but less mobility when fighting.
That's a perfectly valid reason why it's not 0 right?
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On March 30 2015 08:04 hZCube wrote:Show nested quote +But I don't understand why a roach needs to stand for 0.167 before its attack actually triggers. Just one suggestion, is that it makes the unit less of a 'kiter'. It has to stand it's ground to attack, rather than constantly doing damage while pulled away. Therefore, the roach can have reasonably mobility when not fighting, but less mobility when fighting. That's a perfectly valid reason why it's not 0 right? But why? What unit interaction is better because of that?
Like, I understand the point with hellions and zerglings/banelings. If the hellion had 0damage point, its real game stopping time would be way shorter and with the given movement values it would be much harder to surround it. Micro from the zerg side would mean less, because the hellion either was just a stronger counter, or it would just be slower or weaker as a trade-off.
But when I look at the roach, I don't see a good reason why this should be the case for them. It doesn't have those extreme range or speed interactions. The units that catch them would catch them with 0damage point as well. The units it would kite with 0 damage point it kites with 0.167 as well. The difference is plainly in accuracy of micro and when you are really fast you can get small advantages here and there. Even created statistical imbalances à la kiting a bit more efficiently against chargelots would be very, very easy to balance out with changes to the rather statistical, continuous variables speed and attack cooldown.
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I understand what you're saying - but I think we just disagree.
I think, in general, units should have a movement penalty while fighting. It's completely normal, and helps defender advantage.
If you don't accept that premise, then we'll always agree to disagree
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On March 30 2015 08:27 hZCube wrote:I understand what you're saying - but I think we just disagree. I think, in general, units should have a movement penalty while fighting. It's completely normal, and helps defender advantage. If you don't accept that premise, then we'll always agree to disagree
I think the same way too, but I believe that movement penalty comes natural from the way sc2 attacks are designed. This is a fundamental difference to phoenix-style autoattacking or broodwar moving shot micro which both allow a human player to not stop or slow at all while attacking. But even the very best players in the world in Starcraft 2 would be incabable of preventing stopping (or rather statistical slowing) with the usual SC2 units set to 0damage point. (as we have experienced with bio-play)
That's why I really like this suggestion so much, while having my doubts on e.g. moving shot. I like that there is a movement penalty on attacking. I don't like that the penalty is the same for every skill level beyond a focused gold player. And that it makes my units ignore what I tell them to do. 0 damage point is an almost perfect solution in my eyes, because i -) scales so well with skill -) theoretically means that you could prevent stopping completely (extreme responsiveness of units) -) but practically punishes you for moving and shooting at the same time.
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my units ignore what I tell them to do.
So, you can't cancel the attack during the Damage Point? I thought, if you issued a move command during the Damage Point timing, it would cancel the attack - is that not the case?
Your units ignoring what you tell them, and you telling them to cancel their attack because you issued a move command too soon, are not the same thing.
In fact, I'd argue it takes more skill to wait the exact right amount of time to move, and get efficiency, than it does if you have insta-move and can just mindlessly attack/move without any thought for cadence.
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Keep in mind guys, damage point does not exist in a vacuum in determining a units agility.
Rotation is a HUGE part in how agile a unit is, and how easily it can stutter step. A hydralisk in BW had a VERY low damage point, its ability to stutter step was countered mostly by its turning rate and non-cancelable backswing.
I've come to favor using rotation and non-cancelable backswings for hampering unit agility instead of damage point because it simply feels smoother and more fun to play with.
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On March 30 2015 08:39 hZCube wrote:So, you can't cancel the attack during the Damage Point? I thought, if you issued a move command during the Damage Point timing, it would cancel the attack - is that not the case? Your units ignoring what you tell them, and you telling them to cancel their attack because you issued a move command too soon, are not the same thing. In fact, I'd argue it takes more skill to wait the exact right amount of time to move, and get efficiency, than it does if you have insta-move and can just mindlessly attack/move without any thought for cadence.
That's not what we see. What we see is that you are just going to kite less accurately and less in general with damage point in play, because it is impossible to micro at exactly .167ms with multiple units at multiple ranges in play.
To describe it mathematically: Assuming a skilled player trying to kite at exactly .167 intervalls, what happens is that most of your actions will happen slightly before or after .167. In the case of hitting before you get punished as heavily as possible (no attack). In the case of hitting afterwards you are only slightly less efficient than hitting exactly .167. Hence, it is cleverer to try and hit a safer value to begin with, e.g. 0.300. So instead of ranging from extreme punishment to slight punishment, your actions range from slight punishment to medium punishment. Being accurate is being punished.
In comparison, with 0damage point and no negative reaction time possible (because you cannot click backwards in time ) your micro only differentiates between slight punishment to medium punishment. Being accurate is rewarded.
Hence it is plainly less impressive of a skill to micro those units properly than very fast 0-damage point kiting, as you won't even try to micro as well as possible to begin with.
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What you're describing to me, sounds like a bell curve, centered around your 'aimed' for delay, with varying deviations either side depending on your skill. You're saying part of the bell curve, to the left (less time), beyond a certain deviation, will be 'out of bounds'. I get that.
If you're a bad player, you'll need to go with 0.300 center point on the bell curve, because you have high volatility.
If you're a good player, you'll be able to go with 0.200 center point on the bell curve, because you have a much lower deviation/volatility.
What you're describing actually does benefit more skilled players.
@decemberscalm
I agree that several values are used in conjuction to create movement impairment. But to me, backswing timer, and damage point timer, are effectively one and the same. They should in reality just be summed together to give a total delay time. The only split between the backswing, and the damage point, is to allow the animation to line up.
Strange animation? Less backswing, more damage point. Same overall delay?
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On March 30 2015 09:04 hZCube wrote: What you're describing to me, sounds like a bell curve, centered around your 'aimed' for delay, with varying deviations either side depending on your skill. You're saying part of the bell curve, to the left (less time), beyond a certain deviation, will be 'out of bounds'. I get that.
If you're a bad player, you'll need to go with 0.300 center point on the bell curve, because you have high volatility.
If you're a good player, you'll be able to go with 0.200 center point on the bell curve, because you have a much lower deviation/volatility.
What you're describing actually does benefit more skilled players.
That's exactly what I was thinking of
The thing is, everybody above gold can do 0.3. Top pros can risk to do 0.25. That's it, noone should aim for 0.2 because the punishment for doing 0.15 once is way out of proportion. While with 0damage point, the same players can still do 0.3. If you are better you can do 0.2. If you are even better you can do 0.1. If you play GSL you still get rewarded for trying to do 0.0, even if you are only doing 0.05.
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For anyone still a little foggy on it, here's another way to think about how units 'attack' in SC2:
For the Hellion, if you look at the tooltip that appears on the UI, it says 'weapon speed, 2.5'
That means that one 'firing cycle' (or cooldown period) for the hellion's weapon = 2.5 game seconds
The damage point for its flamethrower is 0.25: this is 'when' during the firing cycle the weapon's effect will actually occur.
It also has checked off in the tags: 'only fire when attacking' (important)
The allowed movement type for this weapon is 'none.' (also important to consider for other units)
Also, weapons do have a 'backswing' value: and this refers to the amount of time it takes before a unit can switch between its weapons if it has more than one. - For the hellion, this is irrelevant of course. But if anyone recalls the campaign upgrade for the Goliath in the WoL campaign - the upgrade effectively makes the backswing of its weapons zero so that the goliath can fire both of its AtG and AtA weapons at once.
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So, let's see how the following timeline works with a hellion:
t = 0s: the hellion is on 'Move command' and is moving along at its full speed of 4.25 units per game second
t = 1s: you issue the hold position/attack command while in range of some zerglings. Since the hellion effectively has instantaneous acceleration / deceleration, it comes to a complete stop immediately. The hellion's weapon scans for valid targets, acquires them and begins the 'firing sequence.'
t = 1.25s: after 0.25 game seconds, the weapon actually 'casts' its effect - in this case, the creation of the linear area of effect that does damage. the hellion can start moving again if it wanted to. The damage point has come to pass.
t = 3.5s: since 2.5 game seconds have passed, the hellion's weapon has completed its firing cycle, and can start a new cycle.
t = 3.75: after 0.25 game seconds, the second flame blast is created and damage dealt
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So, if you were to issue a move command in between 1.00001s and 1.249999s, you would effectively 'cancel' the attack before the 'damage point' [the point in time when the damage effect is created]. The hellion would have begun firing, but since it is no longer in 'attack mode': the weapon stops its firing sequence; the damage point is never reached; the flame is never created; and no damage or animation is done.
*important to note: if a firing sequence is 'cancelled' before the damage point, the internal cooldown of the weapon is reset to zero. So if you were to try a second attack, you would not have to wait for the rest of the 1st cancelled attack period to expire.
- the phoenix's weapon can fire when moving because (among other reasons) its weapon does not require it to be performing an 'attack' action for the weapon to scan and fire
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The mutalisk is a different case from the hellion: 1. It has non-instantaneous acceleration / deceleration 2. Its weapon can begin its firing sequence while 'slowing'
So if a muta is move-commanded and is travelling at its full speed and then tries to 'stop,' it actually takes some amount of time for its speed to be zero. It would take over 1.2 game second to be no longer considered 'moving.'
However, since its weapon allows it to begin firing while 'slowing' (unlike the hellion's which required a full stop), the firing sequence begins immediately. And since its damage point is 0, it can fire immediately.
If you were to take the hellion's weapon and put it on the mutalisk, the mutalisk would have to remain in 'attack mode' [cannot be given a new command] for more than 1.5 game seconds before it could breath fire at enemies.
***
TL;dr: SC2 weapons are complex. Sometimes you need lots of text to describe how they work.
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@hzCube Deciding between putting in the delay for backswing or damage point matters though. The balance between the two gives a very different feeling.
Towards higher damage points you get a more "I'm waiting for my unit to unleash this attack". This feels the most present in hellions, dragoons, reavers, and vikings. It overall gives less impression of your unit being maneuverable (the dragoon and hellion counter this by being able to shoot 360 degrees, but it still defines the personality of the unit). I can only imagine how awful a non-cancel-able backswing would feel on a hellion.
A mix of rotation, very small or no damage point to line up animation, and a non-cancelable back swing give a very fluid smooth feeling unit. This is your BW marine, hydralisk, zealot and zergling. They feel very defined and have a distinct personality to how they fight. For instance, BW marines had a relatively large backswing, but managed to still feel nimble because his attack delay wasn't all put on damage point. Imagine how awkward they would feel if their non-cancelable backswings were traded for damage points. They'd be staring at targets for what just feels like too long, where you'd rather be giving them a move command very quickly after they finish their hit.
Consider a zealot with no damage point and non-cancelable backswing vs a damage point zealot of the same delay. Being able to give a zealot a move command the instant he starts punching a target with his blades just feels smooth, despite him being rooted for the same amount of time a damage point would force on him.
With air units, a BW BC, wraith and muta just felt so right and smooth launching their attack upon getting in range. It gave them a better feeling of microability. Instead we deal with an awkward very brief pause when micro'ing vikings, bc's, and banshees.
Its not just a difference between fundamental nuts and bolts of forcing a unit to stand in place before or after he deals damage. Its also a matter of psychology. For instance, in Starbow we tried giving spells very brief delays but we displayed them by giving the spellcaster a progress bar (like how neural parasite has to show its duration). People HATED this delay. Or at least they thought they did. If you mask a delay in the form of an intuitive windup, say like how a high Templar has a very brief cast animation people all of a sudden no longer hate the delay and find it gives personality.
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Nice post!!! We should not have to live with the current design if the excuse for leaving it is laziness. Yes it would probably require considering changes to attack rate, damage, range, or even health for certain units but in exchange we are rid of the staring time. I can see how this would make kiting back with siege tanks or roach-hydra more cost effective for everyone, but especially for players who take time to master the rhythm. I must add that cool animations are not a good reason to skimp on rewarding skillful micro. My apologies if I have misspoken for people who play sc2 for cool animations.
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I think that with a 0 DP it would be much more difficult to maintain balance both at the pro level and at the lower levels. So far the only response to the problem of "kiting becomes much, much, much more powerful, which screws with balance" has been stat adjustment. This is fine at the top level when the kiting actually is powerful, but in gold, plat, even diamond, kiting won't be as imba and now those adjusted stats make the non-microable units (zealots, zerglings to a degree, hellbats, etc.) too powerful.
If stalkers can now kill 30 pre-stim marines without taking a single point of damage, with moderate micro (as opposed to the near-perfect micro required presently), then they'll have to be nerfed in some way, which makes them useless in other scenarios. Alternatively you can buff marines, but that's obviously not a good idea. You can, of course, make the stalker slower, but there are against obvious issues with this. You could reduce the stalkers life, but then RIP low league players who can't micro it properly. Or you could reduce it's range to 5.5, but that makes them have to extend further to defend colossi from vikings, and really makes them feel very similar to marines (since in my eyes the range difference is what really separates them). Or you could simply make them not able to perfectly kite marines, by making the DP not 0, counting this as one of those special cases where 0 isn't applicable.
The problem is that there are a lot of these special cases. Colossi vs roach/hydra, vikings vs muta (although not perfectly kitable, the moving shot would make vikings potentially viable as a counter, which could be a good thing, just noting that it's affected by the change), thors vs anything (since they have one of the highest DP's and are ranged), hellions vs zerglings, roaches vs lings (which is already a one-sided fight, but now becomes completely insane), roach vs sentry (sounds weird, but I imagine it's much harder to FF the roaches if they don't have to pause to attack), and I'm sure there are many more that I can't think of off the top of my head.
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I actually think damage point and timable (can be timed) attacks/spells can be good and often add more strategic micro. While I think it'd be cool to have a unit like the vulture, I think a problem comes in when trying to balance vs melee units (as mentioned).
But think how cool it'd be if Storm or FF marked where it was going to go, then 0.5 seconds later, placed it. It'd give both sides a chance for micro. A similar argument can sort of be said for other units/basic attacks. When there is no d.p., there is no thought going into the micro. If you can micro it, you will. You wouldn't think "Oh, will my stalker have enough time to get this shot off and escape the range of the marines?"
Still a neat idea and I wouldn't mind seeing a map mod with no dp on. It might be pretty interesting.
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