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There will obviously be balance shifts when gameplay values are changed. Nobody is claiming otherwise. This thread is about the effect these changes have on the clarity and spectator-friendliness of SC2. |
On July 06 2012 05:46 wcr.4fun wrote: Also we're not saying this is the perfect change, it obviously isn't. We're trying to get blizzard to realize that there's something wrong with the deathballing of units. It's not fun to spectate, it's not fun to play against. I want to be able to retreat certain parts of my army without suddenly losing 50 percent of my firepower and getting decimated in half a second. Sc2 can become a lot better, it needs more micro. For the love of god, we need stuff like jaedong's muta's, if you don't like microing, you're a sad boring bastard and all your stories end with "and then I got back to my base and macro'd some more."
It's not a perfect change, in fact it's not much of a change at all. We need much more serious changes to the movement system. As for breaking the deathball up, this change won't do it on its own.
The issue isn't how units clump or don't stay in formation or what have you. The issue is how easily they move around eachother. In BW the movement was much sharper and units couldn't push eachother so a condensed group of units would naturally ungroup because they couldn't get around eachother.
The way this breaks up the deathball and slows down engagements is that units take longer to get into attack range, and more units added to a deathball don't really add any firepower since there's too many units for all of them to get into position. These excess units are better used elsewhere, which makes breaking the deathball up, from a player's perspective, a good move, since there are excess units that can be used in other places. Etc.
The modified movement change isn't enough to create this effect. It may help a little bit, but it's not enough. We need more modified movement.
On July 04 2012 15:06 Rkynick wrote:+ Show Spoiler +This sort of change doesn't really fix the problem, as near as I can tell.
The units still have the same efficient movement, just they are more spread out. The crux of BW design is inefficient movement. Inefficient movement means that units in crowded areas become less and less effective as the area becomes more crowded-- they're too stupid to move around eachother, which is less damage output for your army, as they cannot get in range. This means that there's more 'buffering time' before the engagement actually occurs-- units take longer to move into their positions, which increases the defender's advantage, particularly the power of splash damage and long ranged units, because these units have longer periods of time to attack without being attacked.
With this, as in regular SC2, you just move forward casually and achieve 100% damage output.
Presently, spreading out in SC2 provides a survivability bonus, but not a damage output bonus. Also, there is little time before the engagement reaches its climax and the engagement lasts very little time afterwards.
Because units engage so efficiently, you need every unit to win a fight, and every extra unit you have is extra damage output. This is why deathballs form-- adding more units to them makes them more effective at a rate that doesn't tend to decrease.
If you want to stop the deathballs, then adding more units to a group needs to become less and less effective as the group's size increases. This means a group of x size is just as effective as a group of x + 25 size at a certain point. This means the +25 player could take that 25 and use them elsewhere more effectively than keeping them with.
If you want to do that: 1) powerful splash units & other area control units. Splash units can do more with less, and do much much more damage to over-saturated groups, and thus punish over-saturation. The issue is, as with the colossus, when these units become part of the deathball, rather than destroying it. Tanks are a good example of splash units done right. Psi Storms are also a pretty good example. Splash units are not the end-all-be-all answer to deathballs, however.
2) Inefficient movement mechanics. Units need to be god-awful at getting around eachother, and at moving in general. Things should break down more and more as more and more units are added. Good players can use their units more effectively, allowing them to use larger-sized groups to their full potential, so this both rewards good play and discourages deathballing after a certain 'breakdown' point.
3) essentially, units need to be able to stall. So, engagements should last longer. If a group of units can stall a larger group of units effectively, then a player can afford to break off units from the main group and form smaller groups for multipronged attacks and harassment. Stalling means you can have afford to have troops further and further away from your main forces or bases, as stalling gives you more time to gather your armies in one place, more time to react. Therefore, stalling is a major part of breaking up the deathball.
4) Counters. Counters are another situation where one can do more with less, as being prepared with the right kind of units to combat the enemy's army can give a player more breathing room because they will make more efficient trades. However, hard-counters should be avoided, and most units should be soft-counters. Gameplay which is reliant on counters encourages deathball behavior, as the vulnerable units will need to be protected (and thus surrounded). This is why, for example, we don't see colossus used for harassment. Too many hard counters. Counters, then, should be more along the lines of 'this is what counter unit is good at' rather than 'countered unit is too powerful, so let's give it a vulnerability.' If that makes any sense. Counters are tricky business, the other options are much surer bets.
5) More with less. I keep saying this, but this is the basis of my design hypothesis. If players can do the same with less, then they have excess units which would be put to better use elsewhere. Elsewhere = outside of the deathball. Right now SC2 does have an 'excess unit' point, but it's at around 300 army supply. We need to bring this point down. Way down.
You can look at many parts of the SC2 game design and see features which contribute to these. However, they are simply not enough. When bigger is always better and you can't stall for time, the game is, most of the time, a race to simply be bigger.
So that's all my cents. All of them. I hope you appreciate them. Don't spend them all in one place.
I forgot one: - Control group limits will not solve anything. At all. They just artificially impose a weight on the power of large armies by making the player work harder to use them-- not to position them, or anything strategic and relevant like that, just simply to use them. The power of large armies should be limited by game mechanics, not terrible interface design. Look at Total Annihilation, for instance. It managed to limit the power of large armies (largely through the mechanics I've described above) and players could select an unlimited number of units at once. I believe BW did a lot of things right, but the control group limit really did not contribute to that at all, in my mind.
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Thats not exactly true as the clumping effect is usually so strong that it clumps too fast. Even the best human micro champ has its limits. The clumping is strong enough to heavily reduce you ability to move around quickly. There might be a good compromise though, like somehow lowering the clumping effect. No one claimed this was the best solution, rather its the only one or one of a few. But as folks here showed with some arguments this change would be for the better overall.
Edit: was meant as an answer to BuddhaMonk
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On July 06 2012 06:45 Dahlian wrote: Thats not exactly true as the clumping effect is usually so strong that it clumps too fast. Even the best human micro champ has its limits. The clumping is strong enough to heavily reduce you ability to move around quickly. There might be a good compromise though, like somehow lowering the clumping effect. No one claimed this was the best solution, rather its the only one or one of a few. But as folks here showed with some arguments this change would be for the better overall.
Edit: was meant as an answer to BuddhaMonk
Have you tried the mini map attack move? If you're clicking across the map the units will stay in formation and won't clump. Are you sure you're aware of what I'm referring to?
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This isn't the perfect solution to everything, true. What this does is very specific. It simply makes it so the game doesn't FORCE your army to clump whenever you move. Spectator-wise it looks a lot more natural and less weird. It does nothing more than that. It won't change the way games are played too drastically, except maybe in very open fields. This is a specific solution to a specific issue in SC2. But that doesn't mean we should ignore it. It's the opposite, this should be what we should all ask Blizz to do(assuming you're for it).
One specific change at a time is the way to do it. Telling Blizz and the community that you want to not force units to clump, want them to not go around things that fast, increase their collision size, buff AoE significantly, less minerals in bases, all to change SC2 at the same time won't bring anything. If Blizzard changes anything it's going to be slowly one thing at a time and it should start with the things that wouldn't change the game too drastically, but would still be a change for the better. I think this modification is just that. On top of that, this modification gives the user more freedom, instead of taking freedom away. Increasing unit collision size makes it so you won't clump because you can't. The game won't let you. Then making units go around things slower is making the AI worse, something Blizz is likely to never do. I'm not saying i'm completely against those changes, but limiting user control and making AI act less efficiently is something Blizzard really isn't too crazy about. MM doesn't limit you or make the AI worse. It just gives the player more control and freedom. Spectating seems to be much better, and it doesn't radically change the way the game is played. That sounds like something Blizzard could end up doing if we push for it. Again, i'm not necessarily against other changes, in fact I'm definitely on the side of some of them, but you shouldn't ignore a smaller change because it's not drastic enough. It's part of the big picture of making SC2 better. Focus on the smaller changes first.
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On July 06 2012 12:38 BuddhaMonk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2012 06:45 Dahlian wrote: Thats not exactly true as the clumping effect is usually so strong that it clumps too fast. Even the best human micro champ has its limits. The clumping is strong enough to heavily reduce you ability to move around quickly. There might be a good compromise though, like somehow lowering the clumping effect. No one claimed this was the best solution, rather its the only one or one of a few. But as folks here showed with some arguments this change would be for the better overall.
Edit: was meant as an answer to BuddhaMonk Have you tried the mini map attack move? If you're clicking across the map the units will stay in formation and won't clump. Are you sure you're aware of what I'm referring to? So if it works with the minimap, why cant we have that for the normal screen too?
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Wow I kept hearing people talk about this, but was expecting someone to have just made odd pathfinding ala Red Alert 3 (which I always find odd to look at).
Instead this does look really smooth. I'd really be interested to hear an interview with a Blizz person that asks this question, similar to the "restart dropped game from replay" mod which garnered some interview questions to Dustin Browder (or David Kim...I forget who now...).
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I agree, this could help out Starcraft in the E-Sports world, if balance isn't an issue that is.
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Mmm I like the current army movement and clumping. Even if it's not realistic, I find it easier to control my army as well as enemy HT/infestor wouldn't be clumped for EMPs
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Terrible idea. I love games that are 15-20 minutes of pure macro followed by a 3 second battle into GG.
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One specific change at a time is the way to do it. Telling Blizz and the community that you want to not force units to clump, want them to not go around things that fast, increase their collision size, buff AoE significantly, less minerals in bases, all to change SC2 at the same time won't bring anything. If Blizzard changes anything it's going to be slowly one thing at a time and it should start with the things that wouldn't change the game too drastically, but would still be a change for the better. I think this modification is just that. On top of that, this modification gives the user more freedom, instead of taking freedom away. Increasing unit collision size makes it so you won't clump because you can't. The game won't let you. Then making units go around things slower is making the AI worse, something Blizz is likely to never do. I'm not saying i'm completely against those changes, but limiting user control and making AI act less efficiently is something Blizzard really isn't too crazy about. MM doesn't limit you or make the AI worse. It just gives the player more control and freedom. Spectating seems to be much better, and it doesn't radically change the way the game is played. That sounds like something Blizzard could end up doing if we push for it. Again, i'm not necessarily against other changes, in fact I'm definitely on the side of some of them, but you shouldn't ignore a smaller change because it's not drastic enough. It's part of the big picture of making SC2 better. Focus on the smaller changes first.
I really think the community is deluding itself in a sense about its power to influence Blizzard. True, the community helps get things nerfed and exposes exploits, but this new trend of whining at blizzard and showing their designers how much we'd love this or that feature, pressuring them into changing their game in some democratic way... it's not working. Anybody else notice that Starcraft 2 is over 2 years old and the community still hasn't succeeded in doing anything but motivate balance tweaks and encourage tournaments?
I think the best bet, considering the circumstances, is to simply use the Starcraft 2 map editor to make NEW GAMES. I don't think they should be named "Starcraft Enhanced" or anything like that, but especially with the arcade coming out people could create a modding/design community and also a player community for these mods, which, using the SC2 engine, could exist almost as games in their own rights. If enough of a player base could be built, a player could just log on and see who's playing his favorite SC2-Engine games, and get a game together... much like footmen wars or DOTA in warcraft 3.
Of course, this post will get swallowed up by the hundreds of other posts and never stand out in any way. TL needs to make an exclusive forum of important community contributors (I don't mean myself, but I do mean guys like Barrin and pzea and ironmansc) where smart writing doesn't get drowned out by 14 pages of
I hope the StarCraft 2 guys rapes Flash
banter.
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Players are often praised on their abilities to spread out their army in a snap, having the game do that for them would detract from some of the most impressive plays we've ever seen.
(I'm not talking about marine splitting, but the sudden response to an unexpected engagement where a player re-configures his army for an ideal concave.)
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On July 06 2012 05:46 wcr.4fun wrote: Also we're not saying this is the perfect change, it obviously isn't. We're trying to get blizzard to realize that there's something wrong with the deathballing of units. It's not fun to spectate, it's not fun to play against. I want to be able to retreat certain parts of my army without suddenly losing 50 percent of my firepower and getting decimated in half a second. Sc2 can become a lot better, it needs more micro. For the love of god, we need stuff like jaedong's muta's, if you don't like microing, you're a sad boring bastard and all your stories end with "and then I got back to my base and macro'd some more."
It's not a perfect change, in fact it's not much of a change at all. We need much more serious changes to the movement system. As for breaking the deathball up, this change won't do it on its own.
The issue isn't how units clump or don't stay in formation or what have you. The issue is how easily they move around eachother. In BW the movement was much sharper and units couldn't push eachother so a condensed group of units would naturally ungroup because they couldn't get around eachother.
The way this breaks up the deathball and slows down engagements is that units take longer to get into attack range, and more units added to a deathball don't really add any firepower since there's too many units for all of them to get into position. These excess units are better used elsewhere, which makes breaking the deathball up, from a player's perspective, a good move, since there are excess units that can be used in other places. Etc.
The modified movement change isn't enough to create this effect. It may help a little bit, but it's not enough. We need more modified movement. On July 04 2012 15:06 Rkynick wrote: + Show Spoiler +
this. most definitely this (especially the spoiler, which is a few posts up on this page if it doesnt come out on the quote TT). I read somewhere earlier in this thread a suggestion calling for increased unit collision, and that seems to me like one of the better ideas people have come up with. To the OP, i dont think this change would do too much for gameplay but make the deathball FEEL more spread out, just slightly. But you also have to consider the possibility of this taking away micro aspects of the game.
That being said, it could actually produce micro situations that are better than what they are now, but it needs much more play testing to know for sure...
And it would be nice if Blizz put in seperate ladders next to the standard one where they would impliment these types of changes and people could easily map these types of adjustments out...
EDIT: btw, it would probably make sense to post this on the battlenet forums so that its directly in Blizzards face (if it gets enough support, that is)
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On July 06 2012 13:36 Natespank wrote:Show nested quote +One specific change at a time is the way to do it. Telling Blizz and the community that you want to not force units to clump, want them to not go around things that fast, increase their collision size, buff AoE significantly, less minerals in bases, all to change SC2 at the same time won't bring anything. If Blizzard changes anything it's going to be slowly one thing at a time and it should start with the things that wouldn't change the game too drastically, but would still be a change for the better. I think this modification is just that. On top of that, this modification gives the user more freedom, instead of taking freedom away. Increasing unit collision size makes it so you won't clump because you can't. The game won't let you. Then making units go around things slower is making the AI worse, something Blizz is likely to never do. I'm not saying i'm completely against those changes, but limiting user control and making AI act less efficiently is something Blizzard really isn't too crazy about. MM doesn't limit you or make the AI worse. It just gives the player more control and freedom. Spectating seems to be much better, and it doesn't radically change the way the game is played. That sounds like something Blizzard could end up doing if we push for it. Again, i'm not necessarily against other changes, in fact I'm definitely on the side of some of them, but you shouldn't ignore a smaller change because it's not drastic enough. It's part of the big picture of making SC2 better. Focus on the smaller changes first. I really think the community is deluding itself in a sense about its power to influence Blizzard. True, the community helps get things nerfed and exposes exploits, but this new trend of whining at blizzard and showing their designers how much we'd love this or that feature, pressuring them into changing their game in some democratic way... it's not working. Anybody else notice that Starcraft 2 is over 2 years old and the community still hasn't succeeded in doing anything but motivate balance tweaks and encourage tournaments? I think the best bet, considering the circumstances, is to simply use the Starcraft 2 map editor to make NEW GAMES. I don't think they should be named "Starcraft Enhanced" or anything like that, but especially with the arcade coming out people could create a modding/design community and also a player community for these mods, which, using the SC2 engine, could exist almost as games in their own rights. If enough of a player base could be built, a player could just log on and see who's playing his favorite SC2-Engine games, and get a game together... much like footmen wars or DOTA in warcraft 3. Of course, this post will get swallowed up by the hundreds of other posts and never stand out in any way. TL needs to make an exclusive forum of important community contributors (I don't mean myself, but I do mean guys like Barrin and pzea and ironmansc) where smart writing doesn't get drowned out by 14 pages of banter.
Anyone posting here cares about sc2 not a hypothetical future awesome game somebody may or may not ever make in their free time. Blizzard owns all map IP anyways and the makers would be at the mercy of blizzard to do stuff like add matchmaking and rankings or to promote the game or let them run big tournamets. (problem: this game will need to create it's own big money tournaments and pro scene to replace sc2 for a lot of people in this thread as a spectator sport and make them happy. That will be difficult especially if it has to compete for the same spot as sc2 or LoL at MLG or in Korea.)
it would take years to grow a game to be as good and as popular as sc2 with a very talented and dedicated mapper with a lot of time in charge it might never happen. I agree it would be nice if somebody did make a really great game but I don't think this thread is preventing great games from being made in the editor or elsewhere.
I dont really see the point of your suggestion you might as well just say anyone who dares to suggest improvements to sc2 with their opinion should leave the sc community forever and find something on steam to play instead.
Blizzard obviously doesn't want to make big changes to the game after the release because constantly and dramitcally upsetting the pro or regular player's metagame is not good and they need to save things to sell hots. But blizzard seemed more receptive to community feedback and making bigger changes before and in the beta for WoL so I think it is worth a shot for people to express their opinions on the game design of sc2 right now with hots beta starting soon and see what happens. it's more likely then having a fan design an esport bigger than sc2 in their free time anyways.
Besides why do you want to deny everyone the chance to make Dustin scream about how great their idea was?
TL: To follow that up, what types of challenges do you face when trying to balance the needs of the casual player versus the rage of hardcore players like in the progaming community. You had mentioned the macro mechanics being a big one.
DB: Sure that's definitely a big one – it's a place where we feel we can definitely do better but it then does break other systems. You know a great example I love reading on Teamliquid and elsewhere were not so much that you guys were missing clicks – some people said that and I didn't agree with that – but that we were missing the difference between a macro player and a micro player. That we were destroying the sense of style of the player. I could be playing a micro game and you could be playing a macro game with both the same race, and we are still playing a very different game from one another. And when I saw that I was like “Ohh!” I was opening my eyes like “Thanks! THERE IT IS! That's great! That's genius! That's exactly what we need to try to accomplish”.
I think everyone on teamliquid should get their fair shot to make Dustin yell that for the hots design. David Kim said he read the FRB post at least so we know they are still looking and are not completely ignored.
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On July 03 2012 19:06 papaz wrote: 1. I actually like the death ball
2. Like it or not. Changing it will give Blizzard a balance headache of huge proportions. Suddenly the AoE is kinda worthless. MKP doesn't need to even marinesplit vs banelings. His units won't clump up -> problem solved.
This is one of those things that won't change in SC2.
Because of this aoe will need to be buffed to BW standards 100 damage storm with larger size
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I really think the community is deluding itself in a sense about its power to influence Blizzard. True, the community helps get things nerfed and exposes exploits, but this new trend of whining at blizzard and showing their designers how much we'd love this or that feature, pressuring them into changing their game in some democratic way... it's not working. Anybody else notice that Starcraft 2 is over 2 years old and the community still hasn't succeeded in doing anything but motivate balance tweaks and encourage tournaments?
I think the best bet, considering the circumstances, is to simply use the Starcraft 2 map editor to make NEW GAMES. I don't think they should be named "Starcraft Enhanced" or anything like that, but especially with the arcade coming out people could create a modding/design community and also a player community for these mods, which, using the SC2 engine, could exist almost as games in their own rights. If enough of a player base could be built, a player could just log on and see who's playing his favorite SC2-Engine games, and get a game together... much like footmen wars or DOTA in warcraft 3.
Of course, this post will get swallowed up by the hundreds of other posts and never stand out in any way. TL needs to make an exclusive forum of important community contributors (I don't mean myself, but I do mean guys like Barrin and pzea and ironmansc) where smart writing doesn't get drowned out by 14 pages of
Probably true, but if this ( or some other concept that changes the fundamentals of sc2 ) gets further developed and tested - it might evolve into something so good that large tournament organizers/KeSPA might start to want it - at that point blizzard might give in.
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On July 06 2012 13:36 Natespank wrote:Show nested quote +One specific change at a time is the way to do it. Telling Blizz and the community that you want to not force units to clump, want them to not go around things that fast, increase their collision size, buff AoE significantly, less minerals in bases, all to change SC2 at the same time won't bring anything. If Blizzard changes anything it's going to be slowly one thing at a time and it should start with the things that wouldn't change the game too drastically, but would still be a change for the better. I think this modification is just that. On top of that, this modification gives the user more freedom, instead of taking freedom away. Increasing unit collision size makes it so you won't clump because you can't. The game won't let you. Then making units go around things slower is making the AI worse, something Blizz is likely to never do. I'm not saying i'm completely against those changes, but limiting user control and making AI act less efficiently is something Blizzard really isn't too crazy about. MM doesn't limit you or make the AI worse. It just gives the player more control and freedom. Spectating seems to be much better, and it doesn't radically change the way the game is played. That sounds like something Blizzard could end up doing if we push for it. Again, i'm not necessarily against other changes, in fact I'm definitely on the side of some of them, but you shouldn't ignore a smaller change because it's not drastic enough. It's part of the big picture of making SC2 better. Focus on the smaller changes first. I really think the community is deluding itself in a sense about its power to influence Blizzard. True, the community helps get things nerfed and exposes exploits, but this new trend of whining at blizzard and showing their designers how much we'd love this or that feature, pressuring them into changing their game in some democratic way... it's not working. Anybody else notice that Starcraft 2 is over 2 years old and the community still hasn't succeeded in doing anything but motivate balance tweaks and encourage tournaments? I think the best bet, considering the circumstances, is to simply use the Starcraft 2 map editor to make NEW GAMES. I don't think they should be named "Starcraft Enhanced" or anything like that, but especially with the arcade coming out people could create a modding/design community and also a player community for these mods, which, using the SC2 engine, could exist almost as games in their own rights. If enough of a player base could be built, a player could just log on and see who's playing his favorite SC2-Engine games, and get a game together... much like footmen wars or DOTA in warcraft 3. Of course, this post will get swallowed up by the hundreds of other posts and never stand out in any way. TL needs to make an exclusive forum of important community contributors (I don't mean myself, but I do mean guys like Barrin and pzea and ironmansc) where smart writing doesn't get drowned out by 14 pages of banter.
This is possibly the best post in the entire thread. With the upcoming release of 1.5 Arcade people should check out the SC2 BW MOD and StarBow
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if this was implemented then terran would have to suffer more from nerfs.
why? current game balance revolves around server wide winrates. pretty BS huh, but it's the truth.
This mod is very good but it will create a new game. LotV?
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On July 06 2012 13:38 Dox wrote: Players are often praised on their abilities to spread out their army in a snap, having the game do that for them would detract from some of the most impressive plays we've ever seen.
(I'm not talking about marine splitting, but the sudden response to an unexpected engagement where a player re-configures his army for an ideal concave.)
1) You still have to split your army 2) A split army is still suspectable to flanks 3) You still have to do it quickly if the army is attacking you or you need to attack the army/you are hitting a timing.
IIRC, starcraft 2 still makes your army walk in a line of some sort when you are moving long distances, so that part won't change. It's not like we added in automated unit movement. You still have to pay attention to your units.
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Yes, I don't think this actually changes that much either. All it really does it to give you some control of how your group moves - e.g. if you put your marines in a line they will quickly concave around any force they meet head on, but then they become highly vulnerable at the flanks. Most splash damage happens during engagements, and during engagements you'll find the ranged guys naturally forming a concave with everyone else jockeying for position behind them. This means that there'll still always be a load of bunched up guys to get hit by the arc cannon or stormu.
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