Someone named Rhyme2 found this and posted to Korean SC discussion website. Apparently you can use archon fusing/probe + mineral then spamming patrol to make the units cluster together in a small area, at which point you click recall and bring 2~3 times the usual army size.
Koreans are going crazy about this. Some are saying this completely changes the TvP paradigm.
Mod Edit:
On May 10 2018 18:14 f10eqq wrote: It's definitely possible in 1.16. Here's a video from 2016 well before Rhyme2's post.
If you successfully do one of those recalls into the Terran main, you have literally won the game, because it will take such a long time to clean it up. By the time it is cleared, a new one will come ...
Wow. This is utterly terrifying. I wonder what this is going to do to TvP? I can't see how terrans are going to be able to hold any serious map presence with the constant fear P can drop a 2/3x size recall at home. Either turtle up or keep your base recall-proof with vessels/mines?
even though its supposedly the same engine, i feel like the stacking issue wasnt as severe in 1.16.1.. there definitely was some stacking that could be abused but not to this extent in my opinion :o
The massive flaw in this, is if you start stacking your goons, and your arbiter gets EMPed/killed, you essentially have 50 or whatever supply of goons dancing in circles on top of each other that will take forever to naturally unstuck themselves. To do this safely, you'd need a safety/backup recall, but at that point, wouldn't it be pretty much just as good to try to recall with two arbiters?
On May 09 2018 17:34 Kare wrote: If you successfully do one of those recalls into the Terran main, you have literally won the game, because it will take such a long time to clean it up. By the time it is cleared, a new one will come ...
The more units they recall from their base the weaker they are to a direct counter from units clustered at your rallypoint or somewhere else on the map.
Honestly doubt this will see much use but it's an interesting gimmick
On May 09 2018 17:34 Kare wrote: If you successfully do one of those recalls into the Terran main, you have literally won the game, because it will take such a long time to clean it up. By the time it is cleared, a new one will come ...
The more units they recall from their base the weaker they are to a direct counter from units clustered at your rallypoint or somewhere else on the map.
Honestly doubt this will see much use but it's an interesting gimmick
That is not true. Protoss will have 2-3 "mains" at that time, so the recall will be a killing blow to terran lol. Time to really practice some mid game timings LOL.
Winning the base race while losing your entire production at the same time should be impossible unless P fucks up and stops making units or something. Recalls didn't always win games because there were different scenarios of just how efficiently you traded in T's main. I don't see any way for Ts to be efficient at all with this new trick. Except for a lucky mine hit obviously.
Who are the remaining Protoss in ASL? I think this is not present in the Original BW (not remastered), otherwise, wow 20 year old game still keeping secrets!
On May 09 2018 20:15 Twinkle Toes wrote: Who are the remaining Protoss in ASL? I think this is not present in the Original BW (not remastered), otherwise, wow 20 year old game still keeping secrets!
There are only P left in ASL lol - Mini, Rain, Snow
Someone is going to try this, recall on mines, and make a gigantic puddle of blue goo lol.
Highly doubt this actually changes anything at all though. The arbiter still has to dodge emps, fly through turrets and find a spot without mines like before. Even then you'd need some time and space to set this up in case the terran shows up at your door while you have 20 dragoons crab walking on top of each other.
What do you do as Terran if a massive recall hits your main? If you continue pushing you will lose to a base trade 90% of the time. If you bring your army back by the time you clear the recall protoss would have taken 3 more bases and maxed out again.
On May 09 2018 21:09 EMPaThy789 wrote: Someone is going to try this, recall on mines, and make a gigantic puddle of blue goo lol.
Highly doubt this actually changes anything at all though. The arbiter still has to dodge emps, fly through turrets and find a spot without mines like before. Even then you'd need some time and space to set this up in case the terran shows up at your door while you have 20 dragoons crab walking on top of each other.
You are not right. Especially on maps like CB where terran sits on 4 bases and slowsly moves out with 200/200 2-1, it's very common to recall with 1 or even 2 arbiters (even halu) to really hit that recall. Now when well prepared (at that stage P has time to do it) recall lands with 120 supply rather than 60, it's going to be a game changer.
Wtf? There is a reason why recall has a limited area, so you can't do this kind of shit. How can people think this changes nothing? Play TvP and try cleaning up goons that are killing your supply in a far off corner in your base. Now you have to deal with twice as many units.
I think blizzard will patch this once toss players use it again and again.
If it does break the game it will be pretty easy to just ban it in professional competitions. There's plenty of other banned moves. It's pretty obvious if someone has done it or not and almost impossible to do by accident since no one found it in 20 years.
I'd like to watch a few games where it happended before it got banned but if it breaks the match up get rid of it.
On May 09 2018 21:26 Golgotha wrote: Wtf? There is a reason why recall has a limited area, so you can't do this kind of shit. How can people think this changes nothing? Play TvP and try cleaning up goons that are killing your supply in a far off corner in your base. Now you have to deal with twice as many units.
I think blizzard will patch this once toss players use it again and again.
How do u patch this? Maybe will be forbidden for tournaments.
The crazy part is we are in 2018 and people are still creative enough to introduce new things to bw.wow
yeah I mean I can see it getting banned in comp play, but what about ladder? if people keep doing it on ladder, will blizzard step in? because I feel like that might make goons "smarter" and "change" the "balance". could be blizz's first balance change to bw in decades.
On May 09 2018 21:48 Greg_J wrote: If it does break the game it will be pretty easy to just ban it in professional competitions. There's plenty of other banned moves. It's pretty obvious if someone has done it or not and almost impossible to do by accident since no one found it in 20 years.
I'd like to watch a few games where it happended before it got banned but if it breaks the match up get rid of it.
Quick fix is to recall units as they are.. stacked. No one would use it.
P needs a lot of set up for this to work. In games where T is pushing, has vessels ready, keeping P busy, it's going to be very hard to set up the stacking imo. So there still might be a decent trade off for having such a powerful technique?
What's the time needed to set up a normal recall versus this? If you suddenly dedicate a significant amount of APM and time spent on this technique, just for it to work (and not get EMP'd), it shouldn't be broken.
On May 09 2018 21:26 Golgotha wrote: Wtf? There is a reason why recall has a limited area, so you can't do this kind of shit. How can people think this changes nothing? Play TvP and try cleaning up goons that are killing your supply in a far off corner in your base. Now you have to deal with twice as many units.
I think blizzard will patch this once toss players use it again and again.
How do u patch this? Maybe will be forbidden for tournaments.
The crazy part is we are in 2018 and people are still creative enough to introduce new things to bw.wow
yeah, what an amazing game. I think there will be articles about this pretty soon. "Game changing bug found in a 20 year old game". good for brood war!
I wonder if recall rushing will be a viable strategy now, imagine doing a 2 base all-in where you recall in 100 supply into your opponent's main, maybe it'd even work in PvZ and PvP.
Yeah there is an upper limit. I was playing with some probes while ago (you can easily stack 100 probes on one mineral) but only some of them would recall (there is a maximum size of a box for recall, same supply depots etc limit that area)
What is truly op about this build is that the army is in patrol mode so when you bring it with obs it clears mines faster before they pop. Best recalled his army directly on 7 mines and not a single unit died
lol so rude. PvT is already P favoured, this can only make it so much worse.
The idea is so simple and obvious it's really surprising someone only thought to do this in 2018. We've had bugged units on ramps forever and I never heard of someone recalling them, yet it seems a very obvious thing to try.
Truly the era of Flash is over lol. I guess at best maps could be made to give less safe paths for arbiters to sneak in. Terrans will have to be so on top of their game with EMP, or at least secure their bases perfectly with mines everywhere. Letting P do this on top of your factories definitely means GG in about 20 seconds. Zerg would have the same problem but Zerg counter attack is very strong, and you need lots of corsairs anyway to get rid of scourge. Still, in practice it might be a real problem for Zerg too.
Am I going crazy? Are people acting like unit stacking is a new discovery? Like even the recall thing isn't new. I remember old UMS games where you had to get a bunch of units in 1 recall. Like that was in a 25 tricks version or something. I'm honestly confused about what's going on here, as to why people don't know about this and acting like it's some huge discovery.
On May 09 2018 23:37 Munk-E wrote: Am I going crazy? Are people acting like unit stacking is a new discovery? Like even the recall thing isn't new. I remember old UMS games where you had to get a bunch of units in 1 recall. Like that was in a 25 tricks version or something. I'm honestly confused about what's going on here, as to why people don't know about this and acting like it's some huge discovery.
there was no way to reliably stack a shit ton of units in an open field like near the bridge on FS (what Best did). The patrol spam is new altogether.
I think this is becouse arbiter has range underneath it where it can drop units.Similar to spell range just bigger.I cant test it but If You want to You can try with bigger units , Ultras would do I guess but stacking them might be harder.
There used to be a trick in "Can You do tricks" maps where You would surround arbiter with carriers so that there was no space to recall units...Cant remember what it did tho , I think You were able to infest CC with Queen anywhere on the map...I'm not sure.
Creator of that map used carriers so It has a wide range...
When Best recalled on top of those mines, it seems like the key innovation there was the units were on Patrol before the recall and so they shot immediately (Patrol is the fastest attack in the game in terms of unit AI) and cleared all the mines before the mines could explode. That is INSANE and could be used in smaller recalls as well perhaps? This is almost as important as the stacking itself I think.
On May 09 2018 21:50 Golgotha wrote: yeah I mean I can see it getting banned in comp play, but what about ladder? if people keep doing it on ladder, will blizzard step in? because I feel like that might make goons "smarter" and "change" the "balance". could be blizz's first balance change to bw in decades.
Stacking mutas changed the balance when it was introduced. If this proofs to be valid in comp. play, terrans will have to learn to deal with it.
Also if pvt goes all about recall/defending-recall it's incredibly ugly to watch compared to open field battles, even worst then sc2 deathball. It need to be fixed or banned just like other old exploits such as flying drones, ally mines, etc.
Not a big deal in my opinion, since in the majority of the games you lost anyways if a recall gets in your base. So if more units get recalled, you don't have to cling to the small hope that P forgets to build units and you can just immediately leave the game.
When Best recalled on top of those mines, it seems like the key innovation there was the units were on Patrol before the recall and so they shot immediately (Patrol is the fastest attack in the game in terms of unit AI) and cleared all the mines before the mines could explode. That is INSANE and could be used in smaller recalls as well perhaps? This is almost as important as the stacking itself I think.
So Debaser and I ran some tests with this. We tried Patrol dragoons and Hold Position Dragoons as well as normal.
At first I thought for sure there was an advantage, as the patrol dragoons seemed to be defusing the mines. I took it to a UMS map (available here here) to see if I could figure out if there was for sure a difference or not.
After toying around in the UMS map, it doesn't appear that there is a difference. Seems to be random how fast Dragoons shoot coming out of the recall. Having an observer so you have vision of the mine before it pops up also seems to make no difference.
When Best recalled on top of those mines, it seems like the key innovation there was the units were on Patrol before the recall and so they shot immediately (Patrol is the fastest attack in the game in terms of unit AI) and cleared all the mines before the mines could explode. That is INSANE and could be used in smaller recalls as well perhaps? This is almost as important as the stacking itself I think.
So Debaser and I ran some tests with this. We tried Patrol dragoons and Hold Position Dragoons as well as normal.
At first I thought for sure there was an advantage, as the patrol dragoons seemed to be defusing the mines. I took it to a UMS map (available here here) to see if I could figure out if there was for sure a difference or not.
After toying around in the UMS map, it doesn't appear that there is a difference. Seems to be random how fast Dragoons shoot coming out of the recall. Having an observer so you have vision of the mine before it pops up also seems to make no difference.
Could be Zealot attacks, since they come out much faster. At +2, they kill mines in one hit. Otherwise you need two zealots to attack a mine.
On May 10 2018 04:04 Empyrean wrote: Could be Zealot attacks, since they come out much faster. At +2, they kill mines in one hit. Otherwise you need two zealots to attack a mine.
Someone had checked and they were only +1 I thought in that clip. Could be mistaken.
When Best recalled on top of those mines, it seems like the key innovation there was the units were on Patrol before the recall and so they shot immediately (Patrol is the fastest attack in the game in terms of unit AI) and cleared all the mines before the mines could explode. That is INSANE and could be used in smaller recalls as well perhaps? This is almost as important as the stacking itself I think.
So Debaser and I ran some tests with this. We tried Patrol dragoons and Hold Position Dragoons as well as normal.
At first I thought for sure there was an advantage, as the patrol dragoons seemed to be defusing the mines. I took it to a UMS map (available here here) to see if I could figure out if there was for sure a difference or not.
After toying around in the UMS map, it doesn't appear that there is a difference. Seems to be random how fast Dragoons shoot coming out of the recall. Having an observer so you have vision of the mine before it pops up also seems to make no difference.
Could be Zealot attacks, since they come out much faster. At +2, they kill mines in one hit. Otherwise you need two zealots to attack a mine.
Yeah i think the key to the mine killing is having the right ratio of goons and +2atk zealots.
Wow this is a trully awesome revelation, I think it's going to play a role in how match up is played, this will push meta a little further but will not break the match up, although I'm not 100% sure of anything ofc.
. I find funny how ppl rush to declare it is broke and it should be patched or forbiden like it's and undeniable truth, we the noobs, are already trying and coming with ideas to counter this so the only thning I can say with 100% certainty is that we will have to sit and wait to see how God approaches this before making any undeniable statement.
Lol how this could be banned. It's no different than using 2 probes to glitch over a mineral wall (like outsider) or to glith a vulture over a mineral on destination.
I'm thinking mines on main base should be more mandatory than ever to counter this weapon now. Regarding the units killing the mines before hitting since they are "in patrol" command I think distributing vultures in the mine field or maybe having a control group of vultures inside main ready to chase arbiters and become the target of the units that will be recalled (with the mine field already set) will counter this , maybe someone want to check that out.
Even with an observer in the recall, I think most of the units will tend to focus on vultures, this is because detection takes some fraction of a second to take place, (just like when wraith cloack with detection around they will still dissapear of vision for like half of a second, when some cloacked unit enter a field of detection it will also take that fraction of time for detection to take place, I think many of you have already experienced this), but vultures will already be there before mines "appear" thus goons and zeas will aim for them.
side note: On stream, Flash used this principle to kill mutas scourge that were static on sparkle not so long ago. Even with multiple overlords around he will just ran with mass uncloacked wraith directly to the mutas scourge, then he will cloak the wraiths just after mutas and scourges targets them but before they shot/hit, with all the overlords right there, the result is mutas and scourge just freeze while beeing killed, they take "so long" to finally re-spot re-target and start attacking back the wraiths
Hey, guys, you got me seriously perplexed? Why is every one do surprised by this? This is hardly a new discovery. How stacking works and can be forced: Known since forever. How recalls work: Hardly a secret. And it is definitely not an SC:R idiosyncrasy – it's the same engine and I know you can do all kinds of weird stacking in 1.16.1. Maybe my map making mind is way out of touch with how players think about the game again, but this seems just trivial to me. I have done it. Most notably, it is my goto solution for vortex bugs (turning a debilitating bug into an asset). And I only play Protoss for he lulz sometimes.
So if it turns out there is really no good reason for players not having constantly been doping it before, that's when I will be surprised. I just always assumed it was deemed to unreliable, APM-inefficient or risky for players to do. After all, normal recalls can do enough horrific damage as it is, but can also fail spectacularly, losing all those units. Maybe these are [i]my[/] naive (Zerg player/map maker/mechanics savant) assumptions, but I'd say: If this is new, don't get overly excited about it, because that it would really break the game without any one having introduced it into the meta years ago seems just absolutely improbable to me. (Or maybe this is the ultimate confirmation that Protoss is statistically the weakest race because Protoss players just don't have what it takes )
How do u patch this? Maybe will be forbidden for tournaments.
Forbidding stuff is a bad solution, it's just a band-aid. However, there's already a limitation on how many (regularly stacked) air units can be recalled at once. This would just have to be implemented for ground units as well, or rather the limit would have to be lowered, because I am pretty sure there is one for ground units as well (or one could recall 200 stacked Probes easily)
OMG I'm thinking on another ways to weaken such weapon, this is so much fun!! Of course that in my head I'm only picturing Flash executing all these
Little attitude adjustments and style changes can be made to discourage or punish players for trying this. This move requires time, apm tand a lot of units that not doing anything else, thus Arbiter getting EMP'ed will be proportionally a bigger deal. Game sense, compulsive scouting and Vessel control could grow in importance in Terran's head. High apm, time and unit cost is also the reason why this is more viable in "quiet" games when Terr turtles and slowly pushes as Koget said, so a less Flash buildy approach and a more Terrorist or aggresive approach will definitely make it a lot harder for protoss to pull it off. Still this seems to be a huge deal and someone could say aggresive tvp is less effective than turtle approach, and that's why it's game changing, letting protoss get 4 bases 17 gates, 2/3 starport seems more frightening than ever before with this in hand. I'm kind of hyped I must admit, I just love to see meta game change before my eyes, can't get enough of it tbh and its definitelly coming, soon we will start to see some changes in gameplay to try soften the impact of this Total Recall. K.H.J. can you please send electronic mail to God with my ideas ? LOOL BW Fightiing!
On May 10 2018 05:03 Freakling wrote: Hey, guys, you got me seriously perplexed? Why is every one do surprised by this? This is hardly a new discovery. How stacking works and can be forced: Known since forever. How recalls work: Hardly a secret. And it is definitely not an SC:R idiosyncrasy – it's the same engine and I know you can do all kinds of weird stacking in 1.16.1. Maybe my map making mind is way out of touch with how players think about the game again, but this seems just trivial to me. I have done it. Most notably, it is my goto solution for vortex bugs (turning a debilitating bug into an asset). And I only play Protoss for he lulz sometimes.
So if it turns out there is really no good reason for players not having constantly been doping it before, that's when I will be surprised. I just always assumed it was deemed to unreliable, APM-inefficient or risky for players to do. After all, normal recalls can do enough horrific damage as it is, but can also fail spectacularly, losing all those units. Maybe these are [i]my[/] naive (Zerg player/map maker/mechanics savant) assumptions, but I'd say: If this is new, don't get overly excited about it, because that it would really break the game without any one having introduced it into the meta years ago seems just absolutely improbable to me. (Or maybe this is the ultimate confirmation that Protoss is statistically the weakest race because Protoss players just don't have what it takes )
Woah guys watch out we have a 200 iq badass over here.
On May 10 2018 05:03 Freakling wrote: Hey, guys, you got me seriously perplexed? Why is every one do surprised by this? This is hardly a new discovery. How stacking works and can be forced: Known since forever. How recalls work: Hardly a secret. And it is definitely not an SC:R idiosyncrasy – it's the same engine and I know you can do all kinds of weird stacking in 1.16.1. Maybe my map making mind is way out of touch with how players think about the game again, but this seems just trivial to me. I have done it. Most notably, it is my goto solution for vortex bugs (turning a debilitating bug into an asset). And I only play Protoss for he lulz sometimes.
So if it turns out there is really no good reason for players not having constantly been doping it before, that's when I will be surprised. I just always assumed it was deemed to unreliable, APM-inefficient or risky for players to do. After all, normal recalls can do enough horrific damage as it is, but can also fail spectacularly, losing all those units. Maybe these are [i]my[/] naive (Zerg player/map maker/mechanics savant) assumptions, but I'd say: If this is new, don't get overly excited about it, because that it would really break the game without any one having introduced it into the meta years ago seems just absolutely improbable to me. (Or maybe this is the ultimate confirmation that Protoss is statistically the weakest race because Protoss players just don't have what it takes )
Please show the replay where you used this technique in a real game before, esp. 1.16 and earlier days. Obviously you did not put these two well known ideas together either.
Also, outside of ramps glitching at inconvenient times where it is 100% better to just kill the unit before more get stuck, no, I don't think many people knew you could arbitrarily do this in the middle of and open field. We've seen a few units get stuck in this special collision mode in mineral lines, usually seen as a negative thing for the player's units getting glitched (ie almost always in the context of defence for the player who owns the peons), and very rarely we've seen this happen with archons before in the middle of a field, but no one has had the thought to spam click and actually purposely get your units stuck on each other.
tldr: if you had thought of this you'd have 100% done it and made a thread you damn nerd.
On May 10 2018 05:03 Freakling wrote: Hey, guys, you got me seriously perplexed? Why is every one do surprised by this? This is hardly a new discovery. How stacking works and can be forced: Known since forever. How recalls work: Hardly a secret. And it is definitely not an SC:R idiosyncrasy – it's the same engine and I know you can do all kinds of weird stacking in 1.16.1. Maybe my map making mind is way out of touch with how players think about the game again, but this seems just trivial to me. I have done it. Most notably, it is my goto solution for vortex bugs (turning a debilitating bug into an asset). And I only play Protoss for he lulz sometimes.
So if it turns out there is really no good reason for players not having constantly been doping it before, that's when I will be surprised. I just always assumed it was deemed to unreliable, APM-inefficient or risky for players to do. After all, normal recalls can do enough horrific damage as it is, but can also fail spectacularly, losing all those units. Maybe these are [i]my[/] naive (Zerg player/map maker/mechanics savant) assumptions, but I'd say: If this is new, don't get overly excited about it, because that it would really break the game without any one having introduced it into the meta years ago seems just absolutely improbable to me. (Or maybe this is the ultimate confirmation that Protoss is statistically the weakest race because Protoss players just don't have what it takes )
So the Protoss players RECALLED they could use stacking for Recall armies?
On May 10 2018 06:39 GGzerG wrote: I always was under the impression there was a maxed # of units that could be recalled, I guess this thought was always wrong?
This is true. The trick is that by stacking you get closer to the limit or hit it. A normal recall never comes close to that limit.
On May 10 2018 05:03 Freakling wrote: Hey, guys, you got me seriously perplexed? Why is every one do surprised by this? This is hardly a new discovery. How stacking works and can be forced: Known since forever. How recalls work: Hardly a secret. And it is definitely not an SC:R idiosyncrasy – it's the same engine and I know you can do all kinds of weird stacking in 1.16.1. Maybe my map making mind is way out of touch with how players think about the game again, but this seems just trivial to me. I have done it. Most notably, it is my goto solution for vortex bugs (turning a debilitating bug into an asset). And I only play Protoss for he lulz sometimes.
So if it turns out there is really no good reason for players not having constantly been doping it before, that's when I will be surprised. I just always assumed it was deemed to unreliable, APM-inefficient or risky for players to do. After all, normal recalls can do enough horrific damage as it is, but can also fail spectacularly, losing all those units. Maybe these are [i]my[/] naive (Zerg player/map maker/mechanics savant) assumptions, but I'd say: If this is new, don't get overly excited about it, because that it would really break the game without any one having introduced it into the meta years ago seems just absolutely improbable to me. (Or maybe this is the ultimate confirmation that Protoss is statistically the weakest race because Protoss players just don't have what it takes )
Please show the replay where you used this technique in a real game before, esp. 1.16 and earlier days. Obviously you did not put these two well known ideas together either.
Also, outside of ramps glitching at inconvenient times where it is 100% better to just kill the unit before more get stuck, no, I don't think many people knew you could arbitrarily do this in the middle of and open field. We've seen a few units get stuck in this special collision mode in mineral lines, usually seen as a negative thing for the player's units getting glitched (ie almost always in the context of defence for the player who owns the peons), and very rarely we've seen this happen with archons before in the middle of a field, but no one has had the thought to spam click and actually purposely get your units stuck on each other.
tldr: if you had thought of this you'd have 100% done it and made a thread you damn nerd.
No, why? I never systematically explored the possibilities as a Protoss player. I just used it opportunistically. And I cannot remember ever opening a TL thread that was not map or map making related.
On May 10 2018 06:39 GGzerG wrote: I always was under the impression there was a maxed # of units that could be recalled, I guess this thought was always wrong?
This is true. The trick is that by stacking you get closer to the limit or hit it. A normal recall never comes close to that limit.
That is because Arbiters take units from a 5x5 tile area and move them into a 7x7 tile area. (So that's about 25 goons to 49 goons). So effectively you can about double the unit capacity of a recall by stacking the units. I am not quite sure how it works for air units, though. It's too long since I tested those things systematically, and I cannot remember any air recall ever happening in a normal game.
EDIT: Did some quick in-game testing and it seems to be exactly the same for air units. You can only recall about 8 Carriers at a time simply because they have such humongous collision boxes…
I am not sure that putting units on patrol command before the recall has any influence on how fast they fire after the recall because recall resets unit commands anyway (puts them on stop command).
cool and im not entirely sure that it is imba in pvt and ill give my opinion on why, although someone will prob call me a noob idiot ect ect
assuming both players are max upgrades and 200/200 with unlimited resources for arguements sake recalling such a large army on to a single location scattered with mines would be a massively favorable trade for terran, even if lets say half of the units survived, terran could send a small army to help clean up the remaining troops while counter pushing while protoss has many units in gateways not on the battlefield.
in the same scenario where a protoss recalls a large army into a main or an expand but lets say the protoss does not take any damage from mines and has free reign over that particular base, terran can counter push protoss freely knowing they will have the stronger army and potentially kill expands... but its all situational
Actually come to think of it what's the difference between recalling stacked units and just doing 2 recalls? (Have 2 separate armies and recalling another arbiter with your first army).
In the games I've played Protoss seldom recalls 2 armies so you can think of this as Protoss recalling 2 armies and just focus more on defense with mines + turrets + vessels.
Only significant impact I can think of is if the Protoss rushes to recall first, in this case he can recall a much larger army instead of just the normal size for the FIRST recall. Late game think of it as just Protoss sending 2 recalls instead of 1.
So the StarCraft world is abuzz after some videos showing the Arbiter "total recall", and some people are keen to get our read on the situation, so here's what we think:
What took you guys so long?
Given the current trajectory, we estimate all features of StarCraft will be discovered by the year 2114 (although we expect the final 7 discoveries will be made by super intelligent AI).
OK, OK, more seriously:
Speaking from the dev team's perspective, this is our view at this time:
Since its release, a fine line has existed in BW between exploits and glitches. Some glitches we all accept and they become a part of the core experience. Indeed, you could argue that these glitches define SC. Others become exploits and they are banned from tournaments.
It can take time (sometimes years) to truly understand whether something is a glitch or an exploit - and ultimately that decision needs to be made by the entire community.
We've undertaken to largely take a "hands off" approach to the gameplay of SC.
With all of the above in mind, we see no reason to take immediate action on this issue. It will of course be a decision that individual tournament organizers make as to whether it's permissible in that particular tournament.
From a personal perspective, I think it's amazing that a video game 20 years on can still deliver these kinds of exciting discoveries! StarCraft truly is the game that keeps on giving. Bring on the next 20 years of StarCraft!
On May 10 2018 12:54 prosatan wrote: I've tried in 1 16 and I cannot do it
Maybe you do not understand how it actually works. The trick is to create unit collision first. As Protoss this can be done by drilling Probes, morphing (Dark) Archons next to other units or sometimes with Reavers and Scarabs (possibilities for other races include burrow-stacking, morphing (Lurker) Eggs, laying Spider Mines or sometimes stop -drilling Vultures).
On May 10 2018 20:06 [[Starlight]] wrote: It's a bug. An imbalancing one... as bugs often are, since the designers didn't/can't account for them.
On "normal land maps" where carriers are bad terran has quite the advantage lategame once 2/1 or 3/2 uppgrades hit usually. I think this glitch might bring back more "normal maps" to the ASL and balance out lategame PvT. If we're lucky that is hehe.
excellent example of how knowledge (science) can be forgotten / lost by humanity if not widespread enough. just imagine how many innovations and ideas went to smoke when books were burned.
On May 10 2018 20:06 [[Starlight]] wrote: It's a bug. An imbalancing one... as bugs often are, since the designers didn't/can't account for them.
It's debatable whether this kind of thing really fulfills the criteria for a bug. It's more of an abuse (not necessarily with a bad connotation), as it is a player-side thing. An abuse of what? Could call it a bug, a feature or a glitch (which is essentially just a bug, ascended to feature). It really depends which criteria you apply to determine whether something's a bug.
Lurkers doing double damage when dying during an attack: Definitely a bug, as in: unintended behaviour that was never intentionally programmed and just escaped attention of early game testers. Can't change it now, though, as it would upset balance.
Vortex bugs: Also definitely bugs, because they are malicious engine behaviour that's doing nothing but screw players over.
Air unit stacking: Not a bug but a feature abuse. It's all intentionally programmed into the game.
Worker Drilling: Also just an abuse, as this behaviour is intentional, though originally intended for the purpose of enabling fluent mineral collection only.
Given the above two examples. it's hard to argue that any other unit-collision related issues (like this one or mineral hopping) would constitute bugs. They are only insofar as you consider the unit collision handling routines of the game engine badly designed.
Same with pathfinding and unit behaviour (Scourge not hitting, units wandering off when encountering a blocked passage, Reavers not being able to fire at enemies right in front of them, units taking weird paths around the map, units walking across cliffs or other unwalkable terrain, workers doing crazy things and mining inefficiently). It is by design, though arguably by bad design (which has become probably the most defining feature of the game, though!)
You also wouldn't complain about Siege Tank range being a bug, just because, given the right (or rather wrong) kind of map it is completely gamebreaking. It is an intentional feature, after all, and you would call that bad map design (or, if it could not be balanced by maps alone, bad game design).
On May 10 2018 21:08 Freakling wrote: It's debatable whether this kind of thing really fulfills the criteria for a bug.
Not really. I used to work as a game tester for Sony and Atari... the very definition of a bug is "anything not intended by the game designer". Which fits this to a T.
Now, there is such a thing as a benign bug (aka harmless to the game/gameplay) and even beneficial bugs (rare, but they happen), and one can indeed debate whether this bug is or is not one of those.
But, it is definitely a bug. Anyone in the industry worth their salt would tell you same.
On May 10 2018 21:08 Freakling wrote: It's debatable whether this kind of thing really fulfills the criteria for a bug.
Not really. I used to work as a game tester for Sony and Atari... the very definition of a bug is "anything not intended by the game designer". Which fits this to a T.
Now, there are such things as beneficial bugs, and one can debate whether this bug is or is not that.
But, it is definitely a bug. Anyone in the industry worth their salt would tell you same.
I know that that is the literal definition. My point is that it is a lot more fuzzy than you make it out to be. If you really take it literally, most build orders, unit compositions, really anything that players regularly do that makes up the very game they are playing, would have to be considered a bug as it could not have been predicted with any degree of certainty by the original designers of the game.
I find it hard to really pinpoint the thing that is "unintended" behaviour in this case. Unpredicted maybe (or that it could be used this way), which is one of the reasons for a design that you could call bad and/or incomplete for good reasons.
On May 10 2018 21:08 Freakling wrote: It's debatable whether this kind of thing really fulfills the criteria for a bug.
Not really. I used to work as a game tester for Sony and Atari... the very definition of a bug is "anything not intended by the game designer". Which fits this to a T.
Now, there are such things as beneficial bugs, and one can debate whether this bug is or is not that.
But, it is definitely a bug. Anyone in the industry worth their salt would tell you same.
I know that that is the literal definition. My point is that it is a lot more fuzzy than you make it out to be. If you really take it literally, most build orders, unit compositions, really anything that players regularly do that makes up the very game they are playing, would have to be considered a bug as it could not have been predicted with any degree of certainty by the original designers of the game.
I find it hard to really pinpoint the thing that is "unintended" behaviour in this case. Unpredicted maybe (or that it could be used this way), which is one of the reasons for a design that you could call bad and/or incomplete for good reasons.
I'm just telling you how we do it in the game industry. If you want to have a personal alternate definition, that is your right.
It's not about alternate definitions but about how to apply the generally agreed on one, which you have already given (which is officially not "anything players whine about", thought effectively it might as well be). So what, in your opinion, constitutes the "unintentional behaviour" in this case?
This question is more a purely theoretically one, by the way, because for the more important issue of whether it is bad for gameplay/balance, its classification as a bug or not means bugger all.
Unintentional behavour is a unit ability being completely unbalanced by removing one of its intended limitations. Exactly the same happened with muta stack but the scene was full and prosperous and could afford such meta change. If PvT gets broken now with just remnants of competitive BW still alive, I'm not so sure it would rebound. Many people would lose interest in playing and watching all-Protoss Starleagues.
Way i see it this is a high-risk high-reward move. Imagine having 80% of your army warped somewhere with a chance of getting stuck, flanked by siege units, for example.
A counter-meta could play out such as players can design "traps" for such all-in moves.
So the StarCraft world is abuzz after some videos showing the Arbiter "total recall", and some people are keen to get our read on the situation, so here's what we think:
What took you guys so long?
Given the current trajectory, we estimate all features of StarCraft will be discovered by the year 2114 (although we expect the final 7 discoveries will be made by super intelligent AI).
OK, OK, more seriously:
Speaking from the dev team's perspective, this is our view at this time:
Since its release, a fine line has existed in BW between exploits and glitches. Some glitches we all accept and they become a part of the core experience. Indeed, you could argue that these glitches define SC. Others become exploits and they are banned from tournaments.
It can take time (sometimes years) to truly understand whether something is a glitch or an exploit - and ultimately that decision needs to be made by the entire community.
We've undertaken to largely take a "hands off" approach to the gameplay of SC.
With all of the above in mind, we see no reason to take immediate action on this issue. It will of course be a decision that individual tournament organizers make as to whether it's permissible in that particular tournament.
From a personal perspective, I think it's amazing that a video game 20 years on can still deliver these kinds of exciting discoveries! StarCraft truly is the game that keeps on giving. Bring on the next 20 years of StarCraft!
I feel like the biggest deal is the fact that the units are in patrol mode after being recalled and have a really good chance to take out mines without any losses. This seems to synergize quite well with the larger amount of units recalled. :O
The thing is, recall overwrites whatever command a unit was given so everything recalls in default stop command mode, even units on hold position, just checked it in game.
On May 11 2018 01:49 juvenal wrote: The thing is, recall overwrites whatever command a unit was given so everything recalls in default stop command mode, even units on hold position, just checked it in game.
Does it though? I haven't tried it myself but in the videos ive seen the units react pretty damn quickly to spider mines which leads most people to believe that they are still in patrol mode for a millisecond after recall.
In PvT, every good terran will have his main mined properly, so this 'cluster' recall can easily change into 'cluster disaster' if not performed properly :D
I'd say this makes TvP a lot harder. Terran can't really consistently rely on fast timing pushes and this is simply another tool for protoss to use which terran have to consider. If terran doesn't have perfect defense in place, it's over.
There are of course issues with this that can backfire, mines kill everything or the arbiter get stasised and all units are now a big fat glitching free dinner.
On May 11 2018 02:39 739 wrote: Game changing? I don't think so. Unless it's PvZ.
In PvT, every good terran will have his main mined properly, so this 'cluster' recall can easily change into 'cluster disaster' if not performed properly :D
nah. Movie tried this. he told forgg to mine a LOT 15 mines in one area. Recalled and only one mine goes off
On May 11 2018 03:36 thezanursic wrote: I see this as another tool for protoss to beat flash, without introducing retarded ass maps
ELO-wise the only map that's less than 45% for TvP is Transistor, and Flash won that one. 3rd World favours P by about 5%, Sparkle and Gladiator favour T by about 5% and 0.5% respectively. Source is sponbbang of course.
PvZ is a gong show to be sure, but I think it's a misrepresentation to say that Flash lost to the map.
On May 11 2018 02:39 739 wrote: Game changing? I don't think so. Unless it's PvZ.
In PvT, every good terran will have his main mined properly, so this 'cluster' recall can easily change into 'cluster disaster' if not performed properly :D
nah. Movie tried this. he told forgg to mine a LOT 15 mines in one area. Recalled and only one mine goes off
got a link? this is the only clip i found vs forgg
Obviously this affects PvT balance slightly. One more tactic in P arsenal.
Could having this option affect P negatively in the long run? Nope, because they simply wouldn't use it if it sucks. Could it affect P positively as it will be really fitting in certain scenarios? Yep.
I'm happy to see a change in the life of BW, can't wait for the first time this is used in a televised match. I'm fine if it gets banned from tournaments eventually, the community is grown up enough to recognize threats, and deal with them. Blizzards attitude is great on this matter too.
im waiting for a game where a protoss mindcontrols a scv then build siege tanks then use this trick to recall tons of siege tanks into terran main. you siege them right before the tanks get warped to the base.
On May 11 2018 02:39 739 wrote: Game changing? I don't think so. Unless it's PvZ.
In PvT, every good terran will have his main mined properly, so this 'cluster' recall can easily change into 'cluster disaster' if not performed properly :D
nah. Movie tried this. he told forgg to mine a LOT 15 mines in one area. Recalled and only one mine goes off
got a link? this is the only clip vs forgg i found
Blizzard even talking about fixing this is stupid, because i cannot see how they can do that without changing the game.Which is what they promised not to do.
Either they redraw unit collision boxes for dragoons, they change unit ai or they limit the number of units an arbiter can recall.More zealots can fit into a 5/5 than dragoons.So an all zealot recall would be smaller than before and an all dragoon recall may be larger than before.
On May 11 2018 14:41 Azzur wrote: I went through the whole thread but couldn't find a conclusive answer - is this exclusively as SC:R thing? Could you do this in the old BW 1.16?
No. Same engine, same behaviour. 1.21, 1.16, 1.08 doesn't matter…
Known so far: - works by spamming patrol after units had been forced on top of each other either by a mineral walking probe or HTs merging; - works in 1.16 exactly the same as in SC:R; - patrol command stops working after recall, improved mine clearance likely due to a higher unit density instead; - units get unstuck rather easily if you just move command them away from the vortex; - ladder terrans get triggered 100% of the time, please consider being mannered and don't use this bullshit lol.
On May 11 2018 14:41 Azzur wrote: I went through the whole thread but couldn't find a conclusive answer - is this exclusively as SC:R thing? Could you do this in the old BW 1.16?
if you have gone through the whole thread you would've found a video where this was performed already in 2016
On May 11 2018 14:41 Azzur wrote: I went through the whole thread but couldn't find a conclusive answer - is this exclusively as SC:R thing? Could you do this in the old BW 1.16?
No. Same engine, same behaviour. 1.21, 1.16, 1.08 doesn't matter…
Just because it's the same engine doesn't mean everything behaves identically. If they did, then replays from 1.08 should theoretically still work on 1.21 (as replays from 1.16 do), and since they don't, it's obvious that some subtle things have changed. Maybe nothing terribly important, but saying "because game engine" is wrong.
On May 11 2018 16:40 juvenal wrote: Known so far: - works by spamming patrol after units had been forced on top of each other either by a mineral walking probe or HTs merging; - works in 1.16 exactly the same as in SC:R; - patrol command stops working after recall, improved mine clearance likely due to a higher unit density instead; - units get unstuck rather easily if you just move command them away from the vortex; - ladder terrans get triggered 100% of the time, please consider being mannered and don't use this bullshit lol.
Okay then. Time to let broodwar be broodwar. Don't touch the balance.
On May 11 2018 14:41 Azzur wrote: I went through the whole thread but couldn't find a conclusive answer - is this exclusively as SC:R thing? Could you do this in the old BW 1.16?
No. Same engine, same behaviour. 1.21, 1.16, 1.08 doesn't matter…
Just because it's the same engine doesn't mean everything behaves identically. If they did, then replays from 1.08 should theoretically still work on 1.21 (as replays from 1.16 do), and since they don't, it's obvious that some subtle things have changed. Maybe nothing terribly important, but saying "because game engine" is wrong.
Things like unit and ability stats have been changed (simple data file changes, nothing to do with the engine), some bugs, abuses and other fringe cases have been changed or been worked around (like preventing Siege Tanks from sieging up under landed buildings by making them explode), core engine functionality (such as collision handling, which is what we are talking here) has never been touched post-release.
On May 11 2018 14:24 CHEONSOYUN wrote: People seem to be ignoring the significance of mines being unable to detonate against this tactic;
Recalls in general will become suddenly more difficult to deal with regardless of the number of units sent.
This. Recalling any number of units with impunity is scary as hell.
It is not any number of units, as I have already briefly discussed, only about up to twice the normal amount. There is an actual limit (though it's about 4 control groups, or 100 supply, worth of goons, more for Zealots…)
On May 11 2018 14:41 Azzur wrote: I went through the whole thread but couldn't find a conclusive answer - is this exclusively as SC:R thing? Could you do this in the old BW 1.16?
No. Same engine, same behaviour. 1.21, 1.16, 1.08 doesn't matter…
Just because it's the same engine doesn't mean everything behaves identically. If they did, then replays from 1.08 should theoretically still work on 1.21 (as replays from 1.16 do), and since they don't, it's obvious that some subtle things have changed. Maybe nothing terribly important, but saying "because game engine" is wrong.
Things like unit and ability stats have been changed (simple data file changes, nothing to do with the engine), some bugs, abuses and other fringe cases have been changed or been worked around (like preventing Siege Tanks from sieging up under landed buildings by making them explode), core engine functionality (such as collision handling, which is what we are talking here) has never been touched post-release.
On May 11 2018 14:24 CHEONSOYUN wrote: People seem to be ignoring the significance of mines being unable to detonate against this tactic;
Recalls in general will become suddenly more difficult to deal with regardless of the number of units sent.
This. Recalling any number of units with impunity is scary as hell.
It is not any number of units, as I have already briefly discussed, only about up to twice the normal amount. There is an actual limit (though it's about 4 control groups, or 100 supply, worth of goons, more for Zealots…)
I meant that the mine clearance is dangerous out of proportion to the number of units sent, unless the two are related. A normal size recall that is mine-resistant is a frightening proposition.
(Vote): Yes, they can't afford to get a smaller audience due to Flash getting knocked out early (Vote): No, it will be the new muta stack (Vote): No, but Blizzard will probably patch it anyway if enough people complain
On May 11 2018 14:41 Azzur wrote: I went through the whole thread but couldn't find a conclusive answer - is this exclusively as SC:R thing? Could you do this in the old BW 1.16?
No. Same engine, same behaviour. 1.21, 1.16, 1.08 doesn't matter…
Just because it's the same engine doesn't mean everything behaves identically. If they did, then replays from 1.08 should theoretically still work on 1.21 (as replays from 1.16 do), and since they don't, it's obvious that some subtle things have changed. Maybe nothing terribly important, but saying "because game engine" is wrong.
Things like unit and ability stats have been changed (simple data file changes, nothing to do with the engine), some bugs, abuses and other fringe cases have been changed or been worked around (like preventing Siege Tanks from sieging up under landed buildings by making them explode), core engine functionality (such as collision handling, which is what we are talking here) has never been touched post-release.
On May 12 2018 00:04 TaardadAiel wrote:
On May 11 2018 14:24 CHEONSOYUN wrote: People seem to be ignoring the significance of mines being unable to detonate against this tactic;
Recalls in general will become suddenly more difficult to deal with regardless of the number of units sent.
This. Recalling any number of units with impunity is scary as hell.
It is not any number of units, as I have already briefly discussed, only about up to twice the normal amount. There is an actual limit (though it's about 4 control groups, or 100 supply, worth of goons, more for Zealots…)
I meant that the mine clearance is dangerous out of proportion to the number of units sent, unless the two are related. A normal size recall that is mine-resistant is a frightening proposition.
My two cents regarding that: Right now I am neither here nor there regarding whether units being preset on patrol command helps with the mine clearing.
On the one hand patrol issues an instantaneous attack command to units, which would allow them to diffuse mines before they can explode. On the other hand Recall resets all orders of affected units (puts them on stop), which would cause the first attack to come out slower. Now, depending on the exact order of code execution (frame by frame), it is possible that the following happens: Units are first moved to the new location, then their order status is reset, so that in theory they could be in the old order state for a frame or so, allowing for a fast attack.
I'd suggest the following setup to test this:
Make a control group or two of units (Goons) to be recalled and gather them in a tight pack (no overlapping, just a normal matrix configuration for a standard recall). Make an Arbiter and get the upgrades (all this using cheats or a map editor). Have an enemy Terran minefield laid out at the intended Recall location. Safe the game. Now Alternatively put the Goons on hold position (which also allows for faster attacks) or stop (slower attacks) command before recalling them. Look how many mines get diffused, and how many goons killed. Repeat this a few times (20 times for each setup at least, to get something approaching statistical meaningfulness). Alternatively, or in addition, check the game code (OpenBW) and/or relevant data files (although I think this is probably found on the hard-coded level) how exactly Recall is processed internally.
On May 11 2018 14:24 CHEONSOYUN wrote: People seem to be ignoring the significance of mines being unable to detonate against this tactic;
Recalls in general will become suddenly more difficult to deal with regardless of the number of units sent.
I really think this could be solved by scattering vultures all over the main base along with the minefield or having a control group of vultures ready to chase incoming arbiter so they could be there (along with the minefield already set) by the time protoss units get recalled, I'm pretty sure all protoss units will tend to afocus on vultures rather than mines.
Unfortunately I don't have BW computer operative so I can't test it
The kind of numbers being sent through this tactic is SC2-esque: a deathball that almost instantly decidesthe game, with minimal unit management involved (everything around the blob is value upon destruction).
Unlike a new build or strategy development, this is a black fleet suddenly being introduced that has no real counterplay or drawbacks; the risk is still one arbiter. No, having your army all together is not the biggest nightmare someone can have.
On May 11 2018 14:24 CHEONSOYUN wrote: People seem to be ignoring the significance of mines being unable to detonate against this tactic;
Recalls in general will become suddenly more difficult to deal with regardless of the number of units sent.
I really think this could be solved by scattering vultures all over the main base along with the minefield or having a control group of vultures ready to chase incoming arbiter so they could be there (along with the minefield already set) by the time protoss units get recalled, I'm pretty sure all protoss units will tend to afocus on vultures rather than mines.
Unfortunately I don't have BW computer operative so I can't test it
Think of a typical anti-recall defense vs what's outlined above; recall was very strong and difficult enough to prepare against before this development.
Added f10eqq's post to the OP showing the same behaviour in 1.16 so looks like it's been present for a long time. People should also stop freaking out lol. Doubt we'll see much of this in ASL. Also, just means that terrans should be more careful about recalls in the late game and more active on the map too.
If opening worker glitching/stacking attacks are banned moves, then it's an easy precedent to base a rule banning glitched/stacked army units from being recalled
I think this glitch needs to be banned from competitive BW, for the following reasons:
1. It offers much greater power that a unit (skill) is supposed to have:
It is similar to gas-walk glitch, which is banned in competitive BW. A worker is not supposed to have the ability to walk pass all blocking units, which effectively counters all anti-scout effort.
This is unlike stacked muta, where air units are supposed to have no collision size. Stacked muta is just micro tricks to enable that in an easier way. To some extent, they're closer to clone micro rather than glitches.
Also unlike hold lurkers, where a unit is supposed to choose the best timing to attack (think about DT and wraith). Hold lurker is just like an ordinary ambush, similar to burrowed ling ambush.
2. It can be universally triggered in almost all circumstances.
Unlike mineral walk, which can only be triggered in certain circumstances where minerals are available in the battlefield.
This makes it closer to stacked SCVs, which is also banned in competitive BW.
3. It introduces a new strategy without any effective counters.
Glitch with effective counters is positive to BW scene as it increases the strategic diversity. However, a new strategy without effective counters (mines will be busted right after the recall) will eventually destroy certain matchups.
This is unlike stacked muta, which is countered effectively by vessel (radiation).
Also unlike hold lurker, whose effectiveness reduces with the availability of detectors (vessel, or scan-before-proceed).
4. It is almost impossible to trigger it unintentionally, making the case clear if someone deliberately exploit it.
It is almost impossible the clustered recall could happen accidentally. This is also the reason why it hasn't been discovered for 20 years. This is unlike mineral walk, because in some circumstances it's hard to distinguish mineral walk vs. simply mining the minerals. Thus when this is exploited, the intention is very clear thus there is no gray area regarding whether to disqualify a player because of that.
On May 12 2018 07:03 FuzzyImp wrote: I think this glitch needs to be banned from competitive BW, for the following reasons:
1. It offers much greater power that a unit (skill) is supposed to have:
It is similar to gas-walk glitch, which is banned in competitive BW. A worker is not supposed to have the ability to walk pass all blocking units, which effectively counters all anti-scout effort.
This is unlike stacked muta, where air units are supposed to have no collision size. Stacked muta is just micro tricks to enable that in an easier way. To some extent, they're closer to clone micro rather than glitches.
Also unlike hold lurkers, where a unit is supposed to choose the best timing to attack (think about DT and wraith). Hold lurker is just like an ordinary ambush, similar to burrowed ling ambush.
2. It can be universally triggered in almost all circumstances.
Unlike mineral walk, which can only be triggered in certain circumstances where minerals are available in the battlefield.
This makes it closer to stacked SCVs, which is also banned in competitive BW.
3. It introduces a new strategy without any effective counters.
Glitch with effective counters is positive to BW scene as it increases the strategic diversity. However, a new strategy without effective counters (mines will be busted right after the recall) will eventually destroy certain matchups.
This is unlike stacked muta, which is countered effectively by vessel (radiation).
Also unlike hold lurker, whose effectiveness reduces with the availability of detectors (vessel, or scan-before-proceed).
4. It is almost impossible to trigger it unintentionally, making the case clear if someone deliberately exploit it.
It is almost impossible the clustered recall could happen accidentally. This is also the reason why it hasn't been discovered for 20 years. This is unlike mineral walk, because in some circumstances it's hard to distinguish mineral walk vs. simply mining the minerals. Thus when this is exploited, the intention is very clear thus there is no gray area regarding whether to disqualify a player because of that.
On the other hand, it takes maybe 10 seconds to prepare the "cluster glitch" it seems, and if your arbiter dies/emp you have your entire army glitching, and leave them vulnerable. Idk how easy it is to seperate them but it's probably a hastle. Mines prob still go off more than not and protoss can loose a lot of units.
I think this glitch can be adjusted by balancing the maps, just like we've done against similar glitches (f.e maps with more space for turrets were created when muta glitch was found). if no map change can make arbiter weaker, we can just bring back more 'normal maps' where terran was too strong before in late game, but now it might be close lategame due to the threat of such a recall.
You're calling a ban on something that hasn't yet been used in a professional brood war game, ever?
On May 12 2018 07:03 FuzzyImp wrote: I think this glitch needs to be banned from competitive BW, for the following reasons:
1. It offers much greater power that a unit (skill) is supposed to have:
It is similar to gas-walk glitch, which is banned in competitive BW. A worker is not supposed to have the ability to walk pass all blocking units, which effectively counters all anti-scout effort.
This is unlike stacked muta, where air units are supposed to have no collision size. Stacked muta is just micro tricks to enable that in an easier way. To some extent, they're closer to clone micro rather than glitches.
Also unlike hold lurkers, where a unit is supposed to choose the best timing to attack (think about DT and wraith). Hold lurker is just like an ordinary ambush, similar to burrowed ling ambush.
2. It can be universally triggered in almost all circumstances.
Unlike mineral walk, which can only be triggered in certain circumstances where minerals are available in the battlefield.
This makes it closer to stacked SCVs, which is also banned in competitive BW.
3. It introduces a new strategy without any effective counters.
Glitch with effective counters is positive to BW scene as it increases the strategic diversity. However, a new strategy without effective counters (mines will be busted right after the recall) will eventually destroy certain matchups.
This is unlike stacked muta, which is countered effectively by vessel (radiation).
Also unlike hold lurker, whose effectiveness reduces with the availability of detectors (vessel, or scan-before-proceed).
4. It is almost impossible to trigger it unintentionally, making the case clear if someone deliberately exploit it.
It is almost impossible the clustered recall could happen accidentally. This is also the reason why it hasn't been discovered for 20 years. This is unlike mineral walk, because in some circumstances it's hard to distinguish mineral walk vs. simply mining the minerals. Thus when this is exploited, the intention is very clear thus there is no gray area regarding whether to disqualify a player because of that.
On the other hand, it takes maybe 10 seconds to prepare the "cluster glitch" it seems, and if your arbiter dies/emp you have your entire army glitching, and leave them vulnerable. Idk how easy it is to seperate them but it's probably a hastle. Mines prob still go off more than not and protoss can loose a lot of units.
I think as some pros (like Best, Flash) tried out, it probably doesn't take 10 seconds, perhaps 3~4 seconds. If this is allowed, pros might try very hard to make it very effective. Plus, you don't need 4 ~ 5 X of an ordinary recall army. Perhaps 2 ~ 3 X of the army size might already give you enough competitive advantage.
I think this glitch can be adjusted by balancing the maps, just like we've done against similar glitches (f.e maps with more space for turrets were created when muta glitch was found). if no map change can make arbiter weaker, we can just bring back more 'normal maps' where terran was too strong before in late game, but now it might be close lategame due to the threat of such a recall.
Not sure it's the time to bring back Lost Temple, or other 1.07-era maps which substantially buffs Terran. Even we can buff Terran with maps, then how about TvZ? Also this is not only about balance, this is more about whether a unit could have the un-countered ability that it shouldn't have. Like gas-walk ban, which clearly says workers shouldn't have the ability to "unconditionally" counter all anti-scout effort. Arbiter shouldn't have the ability to recall without an effective counter.
You're calling a ban on something that hasn't yet been used in a professional brood war game, ever?
Things like flying drones / templar, I am not sure whether it's banned before a single use of them in professional scene.
I think Blizzard should apply the following rule: If LancerX can take 1 game out of 700 vs Flash no metter what circunstances then this powerful weapon should be banned from ASL and upcoming OSLs and Scan should be allowed to come back to KCM if he promises he won't talk to Savior ever again Wassap excluded, I can't think of something more fair.
On May 12 2018 07:03 FuzzyImp wrote: I think this glitch needs to be banned from competitive BW, for the following reasons:
1. It offers much greater power that a unit (skill) is supposed to have:
It is similar to gas-walk glitch, which is banned in competitive BW. A worker is not supposed to have the ability to walk pass all blocking units, which effectively counters all anti-scout effort.
This is unlike stacked muta, where air units are supposed to have no collision size. Stacked muta is just micro tricks to enable that in an easier way. To some extent, they're closer to clone micro rather than glitches.
Also unlike hold lurkers, where a unit is supposed to choose the best timing to attack (think about DT and wraith). Hold lurker is just like an ordinary ambush, similar to burrowed ling ambush.
2. It can be universally triggered in almost all circumstances.
Unlike mineral walk, which can only be triggered in certain circumstances where minerals are available in the battlefield.
This makes it closer to stacked SCVs, which is also banned in competitive BW.
3. It introduces a new strategy without any effective counters.
Glitch with effective counters is positive to BW scene as it increases the strategic diversity. However, a new strategy without effective counters (mines will be busted right after the recall) will eventually destroy certain matchups.
This is unlike stacked muta, which is countered effectively by vessel (radiation).
Also unlike hold lurker, whose effectiveness reduces with the availability of detectors (vessel, or scan-before-proceed).
4. It is almost impossible to trigger it unintentionally, making the case clear if someone deliberately exploit it.
It is almost impossible the clustered recall could happen accidentally. This is also the reason why it hasn't been discovered for 20 years. This is unlike mineral walk, because in some circumstances it's hard to distinguish mineral walk vs. simply mining the minerals. Thus when this is exploited, the intention is very clear thus there is no gray area regarding whether to disqualify a player because of that.
On the other hand, it takes maybe 10 seconds to prepare the "cluster glitch" it seems, and if your arbiter dies/emp you have your entire army glitching, and leave them vulnerable. Idk how easy it is to seperate them but it's probably a hastle. Mines prob still go off more than not and protoss can loose a lot of units.
I think as some pros (like Best, Flash) tried out, it probably doesn't take 10 seconds, perhaps 3~4 seconds. If this is allowed, pros might try very hard to make it very effective. Plus, you don't need 4 ~ 5 X of an ordinary recall army. Perhaps 2 ~ 3 X of the army size might already give you enough competitive advantage.
I think this glitch can be adjusted by balancing the maps, just like we've done against similar glitches (f.e maps with more space for turrets were created when muta glitch was found). if no map change can make arbiter weaker, we can just bring back more 'normal maps' where terran was too strong before in late game, but now it might be close lategame due to the threat of such a recall.
Not sure it's the time to bring back Lost Temple, or other 1.07-era maps which substantially buffs Terran. Even we can buff Terran with maps, then how about TvZ? Also this is not only about balance, this is more about whether a unit could have the un-countered ability that it shouldn't have. Like gas-walk ban, which clearly says workers shouldn't have the ability to "unconditionally" counter all anti-scout effort. Arbiter shouldn't have the ability to recall without an effective counter.
Let's look at FuzzyImp's post, just to make a point as to how there can no logical or semantical argument be made about this:
On May 12 2018 07:37 FuzzyImp wrote:1. It offers much greater power that a unit (skill) is supposed to have:
It is similar to gas-walk glitch, which is banned in competitive BW. A worker is not supposed to have the ability to walk pass all blocking units, which effectively counters all anti-scout effort.
On the other hand, all other methods of sliding workers past walls are deemed legal.
This is unlike stacked muta, where air units are supposed to have no collision size. Stacked muta is just micro tricks to enable that in an easier way. To some extent, they're closer to clone micro rather than glitches.
No. Air units actually have a collision size, by the way. That's why they are pushed apart when idling. What is exploited here is magic boxes, which were originally implemented only to distinguish between movement of units in close formations (which keeps the formation) and movement of units far apart (which brings them together in one spot). Muta stacking works by overwriting the standard behaviour for tight unit formations by adding a faraway unit to the control group. This is not how the developers ever expected it to be and therefor, using strict semantics, should be considered a bug and, by your logic, banned.
Also unlike hold lurkers, where a unit is supposed to choose the best timing to attack (think about DT and wraith). Hold lurker is just like an ordinary ambush, similar to burrowed ling ambush.
Hold Lurkers is also unintended behaviour from the devs' point of view. You are not supposed to be able to give Lurkers hold position commands. So you cannot really make a distinction here.
2. It can be universally triggered in almost all circumstances.
Unlike mineral walk, which can only be triggered in certain circumstances where minerals are available in the battlefield.
Some preconditions still need to be met, you need something to trigger collision. Apart from that "can universally be triggered" applies to most behaviours in the game, no matter whether intended by design or bug, legal or illegal.
This makes it closer to stacked SCVs, which is also banned in competitive BW.
Yes. But what is the reason for that?
3. It introduces a new strategy without any effective counters.
Glitch with effective counters is positive to BW scene as it increases the strategic diversity. However, a new strategy without effective counters (mines will be busted right after the recall) will eventually destroy certain matchups.
This is unlike stacked muta, which is countered effectively by vessel (radiation).
Also unlike hold lurker, whose effectiveness reduces with the availability of detectors (vessel, or scan-before-proceed).
At this point this is still all theocrafting, there is no established meta to support this argument.
4. It is almost impossible to trigger it unintentionally, making the case clear if someone deliberately exploit it.
It is almost impossible the clustered recall could happen accidentally. This is also the reason why it hasn't been discovered for 20 years. This is unlike mineral walk, because in some circumstances it's hard to distinguish mineral walk vs. simply mining the minerals. Thus when this is exploited, the intention is very clear thus there is no gray area regarding whether to disqualify a player because of that.
No. There's actually a big problem here. Units can overlap in BW all the time for all kinds of reasons. Archon warps are a possible trigger in this case, which are commonplace events. So if you want to establish a rule that "no units recalled units shall be overlapping", players are likely to violate it by accident. But if you allow a grey area and leave it to the decision of referees, players are going to try to exploit that grey area and judgements will not always be fair.
I think as some pros (like Best, Flash) tried out, it probably doesn't take 10 seconds, perhaps 3~4 seconds. If this is allowed, pros might try very hard to make it very effective. Plus, you don't need 4 ~ 5 X of an ordinary recall army. Perhaps 2 ~ 3 X of the army size might already give you enough competitive advantage.
Potential of this is not actually "unlimited". Again: You can only about double the size of the recalled army. Let's say a Protoss has about 150 army supply. That's 75 goons. With a normal recall, you can recall up to 25 of them (or 1/3 of your army). With pre-stacking you can recall up to about 50 of them (or 2/3 of your army).
In conclusion, this kind of argumentation is futile and cannot lead to good or meaningful conclusions. When you really look at why certain things are banned, you realize it depends on whether they add depth to gameplay or have the game (or certain aspects of it) degenerate into some repetitive one-trick performance.
Stacked Recall probably has the potential to fall on either side, but it's hard to tell without many real games and an established meta around it. Blizzard is right to keep up their hands-off, don't tweak game mechanics, approach. As for Afreeca: They deemed it appropriate to run the current ASL almost exclusively on completely non-standard maps, allegedly to make it more interesting by making it hard on Flash (and any other Terran). If they would ban this outright, that'd be very hypocritical. And there's another problem: Leagues are one thing, but how would you enforce a ban in normal ladder play?
On May 12 2018 19:12 Freakling wrote: Let's look at FuzzyImp's post, just to make a point as to how there can no logical or semantical argument be made about this:
On May 12 2018 07:37 FuzzyImp wrote:1. It offers much greater power that a unit (skill) is supposed to have:
It is similar to gas-walk glitch, which is banned in competitive BW. A worker is not supposed to have the ability to walk pass all blocking units, which effectively counters all anti-scout effort.
On the other hand, all other methods of sliding workers past walls are deemed legal.
This is unlike stacked muta, where air units are supposed to have no collision size. Stacked muta is just micro tricks to enable that in an easier way. To some extent, they're closer to clone micro rather than glitches.
No. Air units actually have a collision size, by the way. That's why they are pushed apart when idling. What is exploited here is magic boxes, which were originally implemented only to distinguish between movement of units in close formations (which keeps the formation) and movement of units far apart (which brings them together in one spot). Muta stacking works by overwriting the standard behaviour for tight unit formations by adding a faraway unit to the control group. This is not how the developers ever expected it to be and therefor, using strict semantics, should be considered a bug and, by your logic, banned.
Also unlike hold lurkers, where a unit is supposed to choose the best timing to attack (think about DT and wraith). Hold lurker is just like an ordinary ambush, similar to burrowed ling ambush.
Hold Lurkers is also unintended behaviour from the devs' point of view. You are not supposed to be able to give Lurkers hold position commands. So you cannot really make a distinction here.
2. It can be universally triggered in almost all circumstances.
Unlike mineral walk, which can only be triggered in certain circumstances where minerals are available in the battlefield.
Some preconditions still need to be met, you need something to trigger collision. Apart from that "can universally be triggered" applies to most behaviours in the game, no matter whether intended by design or bug, legal or illegal.
3. It introduces a new strategy without any effective counters.
Glitch with effective counters is positive to BW scene as it increases the strategic diversity. However, a new strategy without effective counters (mines will be busted right after the recall) will eventually destroy certain matchups.
This is unlike stacked muta, which is countered effectively by vessel (radiation).
Also unlike hold lurker, whose effectiveness reduces with the availability of detectors (vessel, or scan-before-proceed).
At this point this is still all theocrafting, there is no established meta to support this argument.
4. It is almost impossible to trigger it unintentionally, making the case clear if someone deliberately exploit it.
It is almost impossible the clustered recall could happen accidentally. This is also the reason why it hasn't been discovered for 20 years. This is unlike mineral walk, because in some circumstances it's hard to distinguish mineral walk vs. simply mining the minerals. Thus when this is exploited, the intention is very clear thus there is no gray area regarding whether to disqualify a player because of that.
No. There's actually a big problem here. Units can overlap in BW all the time for all kinds of reasons. Archon warps are a possible trigger in this case, which are commonplace events. So if you want to establish a rule that "no units recalled units shall be overlapping", players are likely to violate it by accident. But if you allow a grey area and leave it to the decision of referees, players are going to try to exploit that grey area and judgements will not always be fair.
I think as some pros (like Best, Flash) tried out, it probably doesn't take 10 seconds, perhaps 3~4 seconds. If this is allowed, pros might try very hard to make it very effective. Plus, you don't need 4 ~ 5 X of an ordinary recall army. Perhaps 2 ~ 3 X of the army size might already give you enough competitive advantage.
Potential of this is not actually "unlimited". Again: You can only about double the size of the recalled army. Let's say a Protoss has about 150 army supply. That's 75 goons. With a normal recall, you can recall up to 25 of them (or 1/3 of your army). With pre-stacking you can recall up to about 50 of them (or 2/3 of your army).
In conclusion, this kind of argumentation is futile and cannot lead to good or meaningful conclusions. When you really look at why certain things are banned, you realize it depends on whether they add depth to gameplay or have the game (or certain aspects of it) degenerate into some repetitive one-trick performance.
Stacked Recall probably has the potential to fall on either side, but it's hard to tell without many real games and an established meta around it. Blizzard is right to keep up their hands-off, don't tweak game mechanics, approach. As for Afreeca: They deemed it appropriate to run the current ASL almost exclusively on completely non-standard maps, allegedly to make it more interesting by making it hard on Flash (and any other Terran). If they would ban this outright, that'd be very hypocritical. And there's another problem: Leagues are one thing, but how would you enforce a ban in normal ladder play?
agree mate.Ad the lurker hold yes and no...In theory You're not supposed to use hold possition but You can spamm stop command
Flash lost in ASL before this bugg was discovered "worldwide"...I'm pretty sure somebody found this bugg/feature earlier just couldnt see the potential.
On May 12 2018 19:12 Freakling wrote: Let's look at FuzzyImp's post, just to make a point as to how there can no logical or semantical argument be made about this:
On May 12 2018 07:37 FuzzyImp wrote:1. It offers much greater power that a unit (skill) is supposed to have:
It is similar to gas-walk glitch, which is banned in competitive BW. A worker is not supposed to have the ability to walk pass all blocking units, which effectively counters all anti-scout effort.
On the other hand, all other methods of sliding workers past walls are deemed legal.
This is unlike stacked muta, where air units are supposed to have no collision size. Stacked muta is just micro tricks to enable that in an easier way. To some extent, they're closer to clone micro rather than glitches.
No. Air units actually have a collision size, by the way. That's why they are pushed apart when idling. What is exploited here is magic boxes, which were originally implemented only to distinguish between movement of units in close formations (which keeps the formation) and movement of units far apart (which brings them together in one spot). Muta stacking works by overwriting the standard behaviour for tight unit formations by adding a faraway unit to the control group. This is not how the developers ever expected it to be and therefor, using strict semantics, should be considered a bug and, by your logic, banned.
Also unlike hold lurkers, where a unit is supposed to choose the best timing to attack (think about DT and wraith). Hold lurker is just like an ordinary ambush, similar to burrowed ling ambush.
Hold Lurkers is also unintended behaviour from the devs' point of view. You are not supposed to be able to give Lurkers hold position commands. So you cannot really make a distinction here.
2. It can be universally triggered in almost all circumstances.
Unlike mineral walk, which can only be triggered in certain circumstances where minerals are available in the battlefield.
Some preconditions still need to be met, you need something to trigger collision. Apart from that "can universally be triggered" applies to most behaviours in the game, no matter whether intended by design or bug, legal or illegal.
3. It introduces a new strategy without any effective counters.
Glitch with effective counters is positive to BW scene as it increases the strategic diversity. However, a new strategy without effective counters (mines will be busted right after the recall) will eventually destroy certain matchups.
This is unlike stacked muta, which is countered effectively by vessel (radiation).
Also unlike hold lurker, whose effectiveness reduces with the availability of detectors (vessel, or scan-before-proceed).
At this point this is still all theocrafting, there is no established meta to support this argument.
4. It is almost impossible to trigger it unintentionally, making the case clear if someone deliberately exploit it.
It is almost impossible the clustered recall could happen accidentally. This is also the reason why it hasn't been discovered for 20 years. This is unlike mineral walk, because in some circumstances it's hard to distinguish mineral walk vs. simply mining the minerals. Thus when this is exploited, the intention is very clear thus there is no gray area regarding whether to disqualify a player because of that.
No. There's actually a big problem here. Units can overlap in BW all the time for all kinds of reasons. Archon warps are a possible trigger in this case, which are commonplace events. So if you want to establish a rule that "no units recalled units shall be overlapping", players are likely to violate it by accident. But if you allow a grey area and leave it to the decision of referees, players are going to try to exploit that grey area and judgements will not always be fair.
I think as some pros (like Best, Flash) tried out, it probably doesn't take 10 seconds, perhaps 3~4 seconds. If this is allowed, pros might try very hard to make it very effective. Plus, you don't need 4 ~ 5 X of an ordinary recall army. Perhaps 2 ~ 3 X of the army size might already give you enough competitive advantage.
Potential of this is not actually "unlimited". Again: You can only about double the size of the recalled army. Let's say a Protoss has about 150 army supply. That's 75 goons. With a normal recall, you can recall up to 25 of them (or 1/3 of your army). With pre-stacking you can recall up to about 50 of them (or 2/3 of your army).
In conclusion, this kind of argumentation is futile and cannot lead to good or meaningful conclusions. When you really look at why certain things are banned, you realize it depends on whether they add depth to gameplay or have the game (or certain aspects of it) degenerate into some repetitive one-trick performance.
Stacked Recall probably has the potential to fall on either side, but it's hard to tell without many real games and an established meta around it. Blizzard is right to keep up their hands-off, don't tweak game mechanics, approach. As for Afreeca: They deemed it appropriate to run the current ASL almost exclusively on completely non-standard maps, allegedly to make it more interesting by making it hard on Flash (and any other Terran). If they would ban this outright, that'd be very hypocritical. And there's another problem: Leagues are one thing, but how would you enforce a ban in normal ladder play?
agree mate.Ad the lurker hold yes and no...In theory You're not supposed to use hold possition but You can spamm stop command
Flash lost in ASL before this bugg was discovered "worldwide"...I'm pretty sure somebody found this bugg/feature earlier just couldnt see the potential.
AFAIK spamming the stop command on lurkers won`t do a thing to stop them from attacking.
On May 12 2018 19:12 Freakling wrote: And there's another problem: Leagues are one thing, but how would you enforce a ban in normal ladder play?
Interesting point. I never seen anyone using the shift-gas trick ever in the new ladder, this rule probably embedded in people`s mindso deeply that they never thought about they can use it.
I`m currently undecided about the "total recall", I`m trying to synthethize more opinions on the subject. On the other hand I think we should either allow all engine generated game behaviour bugs/features or none (which counts one though?), probably they aren`t on the same level, but it`s clearly weird that some are allowed and some not, but the issue is definitely not easy.
It's already hard for a medium or low skill terran to move out of his base vs an evenly skilled toss due to apm requirement and now terran players have to focus on main base defence as well... maybe not in the pro scene but tvp balance is even more broken now for the vast majority of starcraft brood war players.
When I do this to tanks and siege, they explode, tossusagi
Sieged Tanks on top of buildings (including geysers and minerals) explode. That's a workaround for an old exploit where players would land a building on top of Tanks to make them harder to kill (cannot attack them with melee units and, depending on exact position, cannot click on them).
I've also been reading into the code a bit, but I do not yet fully understand how the placement of units on arrival around the Arbiter works (that's a section of 170 lines of code I have yet to figure out). However, so far it seems like
Recall targets a square area of 128x128 pixels, centered around the mouse position, if targeted on ground, or, if targeted on a unit, around the unit position.
there is no direct upper limit to how many units can be recalled (however, there is definitely some kind of limit of how much space they are allowed to take up on arrival, but I haven't figured out that part yet)
On May 12 2018 19:12 Freakling wrote: Let's look at FuzzyImp's post, just to make a point as to how there can no logical or semantical argument be made about this:
On May 12 2018 07:37 FuzzyImp wrote:1. It offers much greater power that a unit (skill) is supposed to have:
It is similar to gas-walk glitch, which is banned in competitive BW. A worker is not supposed to have the ability to walk pass all blocking units, which effectively counters all anti-scout effort.
On the other hand, all other methods of sliding workers past walls are deemed legal.
This is unlike stacked muta, where air units are supposed to have no collision size. Stacked muta is just micro tricks to enable that in an easier way. To some extent, they're closer to clone micro rather than glitches.
No. Air units actually have a collision size, by the way. That's why they are pushed apart when idling. What is exploited here is magic boxes, which were originally implemented only to distinguish between movement of units in close formations (which keeps the formation) and movement of units far apart (which brings them together in one spot). Muta stacking works by overwriting the standard behaviour for tight unit formations by adding a faraway unit to the control group. This is not how the developers ever expected it to be and therefor, using strict semantics, should be considered a bug and, by your logic, banned.
Also unlike hold lurkers, where a unit is supposed to choose the best timing to attack (think about DT and wraith). Hold lurker is just like an ordinary ambush, similar to burrowed ling ambush.
Hold Lurkers is also unintended behaviour from the devs' point of view. You are not supposed to be able to give Lurkers hold position commands. So you cannot really make a distinction here.
2. It can be universally triggered in almost all circumstances.
Unlike mineral walk, which can only be triggered in certain circumstances where minerals are available in the battlefield.
Some preconditions still need to be met, you need something to trigger collision. Apart from that "can universally be triggered" applies to most behaviours in the game, no matter whether intended by design or bug, legal or illegal.
3. It introduces a new strategy without any effective counters.
Glitch with effective counters is positive to BW scene as it increases the strategic diversity. However, a new strategy without effective counters (mines will be busted right after the recall) will eventually destroy certain matchups.
This is unlike stacked muta, which is countered effectively by vessel (radiation).
Also unlike hold lurker, whose effectiveness reduces with the availability of detectors (vessel, or scan-before-proceed).
At this point this is still all theocrafting, there is no established meta to support this argument.
4. It is almost impossible to trigger it unintentionally, making the case clear if someone deliberately exploit it.
It is almost impossible the clustered recall could happen accidentally. This is also the reason why it hasn't been discovered for 20 years. This is unlike mineral walk, because in some circumstances it's hard to distinguish mineral walk vs. simply mining the minerals. Thus when this is exploited, the intention is very clear thus there is no gray area regarding whether to disqualify a player because of that.
No. There's actually a big problem here. Units can overlap in BW all the time for all kinds of reasons. Archon warps are a possible trigger in this case, which are commonplace events. So if you want to establish a rule that "no units recalled units shall be overlapping", players are likely to violate it by accident. But if you allow a grey area and leave it to the decision of referees, players are going to try to exploit that grey area and judgements will not always be fair.
I think as some pros (like Best, Flash) tried out, it probably doesn't take 10 seconds, perhaps 3~4 seconds. If this is allowed, pros might try very hard to make it very effective. Plus, you don't need 4 ~ 5 X of an ordinary recall army. Perhaps 2 ~ 3 X of the army size might already give you enough competitive advantage.
Potential of this is not actually "unlimited". Again: You can only about double the size of the recalled army. Let's say a Protoss has about 150 army supply. That's 75 goons. With a normal recall, you can recall up to 25 of them (or 1/3 of your army). With pre-stacking you can recall up to about 50 of them (or 2/3 of your army).
In conclusion, this kind of argumentation is futile and cannot lead to good or meaningful conclusions. When you really look at why certain things are banned, you realize it depends on whether they add depth to gameplay or have the game (or certain aspects of it) degenerate into some repetitive one-trick performance.
Stacked Recall probably has the potential to fall on either side, but it's hard to tell without many real games and an established meta around it. Blizzard is right to keep up their hands-off, don't tweak game mechanics, approach. As for Afreeca: They deemed it appropriate to run the current ASL almost exclusively on completely non-standard maps, allegedly to make it more interesting by making it hard on Flash (and any other Terran). If they would ban this outright, that'd be very hypocritical. And there's another problem: Leagues are one thing, but how would you enforce a ban in normal ladder play?
agree mate.Ad the lurker hold yes and no...In theory You're not supposed to use hold possition but You can spamm stop command
Flash lost in ASL before this bugg was discovered "worldwide"...I'm pretty sure somebody found this bugg/feature earlier just couldnt see the potential.
AFAIK spamming the stop command on lurkers won`t do a thing to stop them from attacking.
On May 12 2018 19:12 Freakling wrote: And there's another problem: Leagues are one thing, but how would you enforce a ban in normal ladder play?
Interesting point. I never seen anyone using the shift-gas trick ever in the new ladder, this rule probably embedded in people`s mindso deeply that they never thought about they can use it.
I`m currently undecided about the "total recall", I`m trying to synthethize more opinions on the subject. On the other hand I think we should either allow all engine generated game behaviour bugs/features or none (which counts one though?), probably they aren`t on the same level, but it`s clearly weird that some are allowed and some not, but the issue is definitely not easy.
Spamming stop command will stop Your lurkers from attacking 100% , I've personally used that many times when occasion appeard out of nowhere.I havent played SC:R but If it's the same engine nothing should've changed...You need to spamm hard tho
On May 12 2018 19:12 Freakling wrote: Let's look at FuzzyImp's post, just to make a point as to how there can no logical or semantical argument be made about this:
No. Air units actually have a collision size, by the way. That's why they are pushed apart when idling. What is exploited here is magic boxes, which were originally implemented only to distinguish between movement of units in close formations (which keeps the formation) and movement of units far apart (which brings them together in one spot). Muta stacking works by overwriting the standard behaviour for tight unit formations by adding a faraway unit to the control group. This is not how the developers ever expected it to be and therefor, using strict semantics, should be considered a bug and, by your logic, banned.
I think in your argument, you have mingled 3 different things together that are supposedly to be orthogonal to each other.
1. The intended characteristic / limitation each unit should have. 2. The viable mechanism to achieve the capability. 3. The default behavior of each unit when it is not explicitly being micro-ed, i.e.: melee mode behavior.
The point I was trying to make is, whether a certain behavior is banned in competitive BW or not, is mostly align with 1 (the intended characteristic / limitation each unit should have) but has little co-relation with 2 and 3.
Let's look at your argument. Air unit are pushed apart when idling. This has zero indication about whether air unit has collision size or not. This is more about category 3) (the melee mode behavior). There is a simple test to determine whether some unit has collision size or not. If unit B is on the moving direction of Unit A, can Unit A pass-through Unit B without changing Unit B's position. If the answer is yes, then either A or B has zero collision size. This is the reason why air unit is intended to be zero collision size.
The melee mode behavior has nothing to do with intended capability. Let's look at another example, in the battlefield of a ZvP match-up, a Zerg unit will rarely choose observer as a prioritized target if not being micro-ed, does it mean if some Player micro the unit to attack observer make it break through the unit's intended limitation? No. Agree with that?
If the intended characteristic for air units is 0 collision size, whether Player can achieve that in the game falls under category 2). Note that, assume there is a super AI playing BW with a very high upper bound of APM, it can achieve stacked muta without the stacked muta trick, because it can just send a large number of move command to do that. With that understanding, you could know, what's the essence of stacked muta trick? It is just a new way of easier micro being discovered. It doesn't breaks through the intended limitation of air unit. It breaks through the limit of a human Play could micro because of an easier micro mechanism has been introduced. This alone won't make the trick banned.
Let's talk about hold lurker then. Should lurker has the ability to hold fire when some enemy is in range. It should have, because most other units have the ability (and it's more logical to have the ability). For most other units (e.g.: dragoon), the player just simply send a move order to make it hold fire. Then it will be quite natural to consider lurker should have this ability as well. Again hold lurker trick can be considered as an easier micro being discovered rather than breaking through a unit's intended limitation.
To finalize my point I will discuss a few notable known glitches:
Observer over Turret: Observer should have the ability to move to any position. Intended. Not banned.
Drops to Defuse Mines: Unit should be able to go on and off dropships. Intended. Not banned.
Mineral Walk: Workers are suppose to have 0 collision size when mining (otherwise they couldn't mine at all). Intended. Not banned. Note that this is a far more complicated case that takes a lot more to get it completely explained. I can probably explain my argument in another thread.
Manner Pylon: Probes should be able to build Pylon wherever it wants. Intended. Not banned.
Lurker Hold Position: Lurkers should have the ability to hold fire when enemies are in range, like most other units. Intended. Not banned.
Flying Drones and Templar: Drones or templars are not intended to fly. Not intended. Banned.
Gas Walk: Workers are not intended to be stacked while not mining. Not intended. Banned.
Cargo Glitch: Workers are not intended to be stacked just for returning to the base. Not intended. Banned.
This will support the argument to ban clustered recall. Because ground units are not intended to be stacked.
In conclusion, this kind of argumentation is futile and cannot lead to good or meaningful conclusions. When you really look at why certain things are banned, you realize it depends on whether they add depth to gameplay or have the game (or certain aspects of it) degenerate into some repetitive one-trick performance.
Stacked Recall probably has the potential to fall on either side, but it's hard to tell without many real games and an established meta around it.
No, this is not the case. As far as I know, for the banned glitches (like gas walk, cargo glitch), I don't think KeSpa has waited long enough for the meta to be completely established. Some (e.g.: carge glitch) is a minor thing which has small impact to the meta.
And there's another problem: Leagues are one thing, but how would you enforce a ban in normal ladder play?
This is quite easy. Once the rule becomes explicit, Blizzard can just ban the account if someone reports willful violation. Alternatively, Blizzard can make units self-explode when clustered recall is attempted.
I think in your argument, you have mingled 3 different things together that are supposedly to be orthogonal to each other.
Why orthogonal? These things are strongly correlated.
1. The intended characteristic / limitation each unit should have. 2. The viable mechanism to achieve the capability.
(1) is completely determined by (2), unless you are a mind reader that knows every little thing that went through the devs' heads at the time.
3. The default behavior of each unit when it is not explicitly being micro-ed, i.e.: melee mode behavior.
To idle on stop command? There is no specific melee mode behaviour for any unit, what are you even talking about?
The point I was trying to make is, whether a certain behavior is banned in competitive BW or not, is mostly align with 1 (the intended characteristic / limitation each unit should have) but has little co-relation with 2 and 3.
So units within a magic box moving in formation is not an "intended characteristic/limitation" to you? Units glitching through minerals or workers going through units blocking ramps via mineral walk is not a breaking of the same?
Let's look at your argument. Air unit are pushed apart when idling. This has zero indication about whether air unit has collision size or not.
Now you are making an error in conflating the existence of a collision box with its effect on unit behaviour. The latter is simply different for air and ground units.
This is more about category 3) (the melee mode behavior).
Again, there is no such thing, it's a nonsensical term.
There is a simple test to determine whether some unit has collision size or not. If unit B is on the moving direction of Unit A, can Unit A pass-through Unit B without changing Unit B's position.
Now you are proving yourself wrong. If you move one air unit through a position occupied by another, idling one, the idling one will get pushed aside. As another example: Mining workers can walk through other (stationary) units without pushing them aside, because collision for workers (with non-building ground units) is disabled during mining (the engine simply ignores all collisions with non-building ground units). However, other ground units cannot just walk through mining workers because their collision is on and worker still have a collision box!
If the answer is yes, then either A or B has zero collision size. This is the reason why air unit is intended to be zero collision size.
tldr: You need to distinguish between collision box size and collision status (enabled/disabled) as well as between ground and air unit collision handling. By the way, even if a unit actually had a collision box size of 0 it would still have a 1x1 px sized collision box, so it would actually collide with other units.
The melee mode behavior has nothing to do with intended capability.
Again that term… And I am wondering why you even bring it up/invent it, when it's got nothing to do with the topic.
Let's look at another example, in the battlefield of a ZvP match-up, a Zerg unit will rarely choose observer as a prioritized target if not being micro-ed, does it mean if some Player micro the unit to attack observer make it break through the unit's intended limitation? No. Agree with that?
Of course. I am not the one arguing for banning use of a predictable behaviour of the engine because of foregone conclusions and some wishy-washy reasons.
If the intended characteristic for air units is 0 collision size,
Which it is not.
whether Player can achieve that in the game falls under category 2).
And what is (2) for you exactly? What it really is or what the devs originally intended it to be?
Note that, assume there is a super AI playing BW with a very high upper bound of APM, it can achieve stacked muta without the stacked muta trick, because it can just send a large number of move command to do that. With that understanding, you could know, what's the essence of stacked muta trick? It is just a new way of easier micro being discovered. It doesn't breaks through the intended limitation of air unit.It breaks through the limit of a human Play could micro because of an easier micro mechanism has been introduced. This alone won't make the trick banned.
What point are you even trying to make here? How is this any different from the micro trick discussed in this topic?
Let's talk about hold lurker then. Should lurker has the ability to hold fire when some enemy is in range. It should have, because most other units have the ability (and it's more logical to have the ability). For most other units (e.g.: dragoon), the player just simply send a move order to make it hold fire.
And Lurkers cannot move. In fact, the ability to just hold fire is absolutely unusual and unintended for any unit.
Then it will be quite natural to consider lurker should have this ability as well. Again hold lurker trick can be considered as an easier micro being discovered rather than breaking through a unit's intended limitation.
The Lurker cannot move and likewise dies not have a hold position ability on its own. This was conscious decision made by the devs (although it is just the default for burrowed units, so probably no deeper considerations went into it). How can you argue then that this does not break any "intended limitations" of the game or the unit?
To finalize my point I will discuss a few notable known glitches:
Observer over Turret: Observer should have the ability to move to any position. Intended. Not banned.
And Turrets should have the ability to attack any air unit in their attack range. So this is a bug, a very clear breaking of the intended behaviour of the game. And it was not always legal.
Drops to Defuse Mines: Unit should be able to go on and off dropships. Intended. Not banned.
Well, this is just micro, not important for the topic…
Intended. Not banned. Note that this is a far more complicated case that takes a lot more to get it completely explained. I can probably explain my argument in another thread.
And originally it was just intended as an easy workaround to solve the mining issue. Everything else that comes from it, worker drilling, mineral hopping, unit stacking, are just byproducts that happen to be powerful tools within the game through which players can achieve new feats and new map mechanics become possible. But there is no objective argument to be made here which one of these abuses is "withing the intended game mechanics" or not. They all are when you take the game mechanics as a de-facto basis, none of them are if you consider the game mechanics just a means to achieve a certain goal.
Manner Pylon: Probes should be able to build Pylon wherever it wants. Intended. Not banned.
Again, this is a trivial example of micro and decision making, not of actual or perceived breaking of game mechanics, so not related to the topic…
Lurker Hold Position: Lurkers should have the ability to hold fire when enemies are in range, like most other units. Intended. Not banned.
Already had that example…
Flying Drones and Templar: Drones or templars are not intended to fly. Not intended. Banned.
This is hard to achieve (so it does very rarely happen accidentally) and breaks map limits, so of course it is banned. (it's also been patched out a long time ago, at least for the most part).
Gas Walk: Workers are not intended to be stacked while not mining. Not intended. Banned.
It is banned because it has been proven to be completely imba and degenerative to gameplay, though. That's the salient difference.
Cargo Glitch: Workers are not intended to be stacked just for returning to the base. Not intended. Banned.
What exactly constitutes a "cargo glitch" anyway? If it is just normal worker drilling using return cargo, then it is actually very much within the game mechanics (it is just worker drilling) and I don't think it is even illegal
This will support the argument to ban clustered recall. Because ground units are not intended to be stacked.
In conclusion, this kind of argumentation is futile and cannot lead to good or meaningful conclusions. When you really look at why certain things are banned, you realize it depends on whether they add depth to gameplay or have the game (or certain aspects of it) degenerate into some repetitive one-trick performance.
Stacked Recall probably has the potential to fall on either side, but it's hard to tell without many real games and an established meta around it.
No, this is not the case. As far as I know, for the banned glitches (like gas walk, cargo glitch), I don't think KeSpa has waited long enough for the meta to be completely established. Some (e.g.: carge glitch) is a minor thing which has small impact to the meta.
Kespa decisions have not always been the epitome of wisdom. They also had a very different scene to work off with all the team houses testing such things and giving them feedback before any televised games. The current streaming scene could do the same, but give it a few weeks or months.
And there's another problem: Leagues are one thing, but how would you enforce a ban in normal ladder play?
This is quite easy. Once the rule becomes explicit, Blizzard can just ban the account if someone reports willful violation. Alternatively, Blizzard can make units self-explode when clustered recall is attempted.
[/quote]Needless to say, a report & banhammer system is always a bad solution. It is inefficient and frustrating for every one involved and should be reserved for the most severe issues, such as hacking. Exploding units (just like for sieged tanks under buildings) would be a more acceptable workaround. They could just add some sort of fixed unit number limit(s) to the recall code, though.
In conclusion, this kind of argumentation is futile and cannot lead to good or meaningful conclusions. When you really look at why certain things are banned, you realize it depends on whether they add depth to gameplay or have the game (or certain aspects of it) degenerate into some repetitive one-trick performance.
Stacked Recall probably has the potential to fall on either side, but it's hard to tell without many real games and an established meta around it. Blizzard is right to keep up their hands-off, don't tweak game mechanics, approach.
Very well said, this summarises it pretty damn well. I think anyone who gives some thinking time to the metter should arrive to a similar conclusion, but don't forget you are trying to make sense to someone who calls "Irradiate" "Vessel radiation" and is asking to bring Lost Temple back to buffer Terran (omg!)
I tried splitting the army (pure goons, as I assumed it would ensure maximum retardation) after stacking them - which would happen in case of failed recall - and it's not hard at all. I just used a mix of stop and move commands away from the center stacking point. It seems that in 3-4 seconds they are unstacked.
I'm assuming this will be banned from tournaments after it's been used in one or a couple of high publicity matches.
PvT is slightly skewed in P favor, this might tweak it a percent or two more.
As people practice this tactic, it might make the cornerstone of some strategies.
On May 16 2018 07:09 niteReloaded wrote: I tried splitting the army (pure goons, as I assumed it would ensure maximum retardation) after stacking them - which would happen in case of failed recall - and it's not hard at all. I just used a mix of stop and move commands away from the center stacking point. It seems that in 3-4 seconds they are unstacked.
I'm assuming this will be banned from tournaments after it's been used in one or a couple of high publicity matches.
PvT is slightly skewed in P favor, this might tweak it a percent or two more.
As people practice this tactic, it might make the cornerstone of some strategies.
So as far as I understand it right now recall takes units positioned inside a 64 px square (~4 by 4 tile area) and moves them inside a 256x256 px (about 8x8 tiles) area, if they fully fit into available walkable, unoccupied space in that area. Note that this does not quadruple the capacity, though, as the origin area only takes unit position (~unit centre) into account, so for Dragoons they effectively can occupy up to 5x5 tiles (25 Goons in tightest square packing, recall on central Goon). On arrival, the units have to fully fit into the destination area, though (their collision box boundaries must not overlap the search area boundaries), and search starts from the Arbiter position in the centre. So when the area is unobstructed statistically about half a unit dimension will go to waste on each edge (so one unit dimension overall). So with Dragoons you end up with a 7x7 tile square (49 goons) for unobstructed target space, as I already empirically found.
Let's look at Zealots: Their collision size is 23x19 px. 129/23 = 5 (truncated), 129/19 = 6. So you can fit up to 6x7 = 42 Zealots into a recall without stacking (that's 3.5 control groups or 84 supply). Furthermore, 5.5 · 23 = 126.5 < 127 and 19 · 6.5 = 123.5 < 127, so up to 11x13 = 143 Zealots could theoretically be recalled with stacking. This obviously blows the supply limit, and the unit placement might actually not be so optimal as to allow it, but it's probably safe to say that if your whole army supply in in Zealots, you should be able to recall you whole army with this.
Probes are 23x23 px in size. So with analogous calculations one gets up to 11x11 = 121 Probes in one recall. Testing this is trivial, so excuse while I do it
edit: As predicted, actual maximum recall capacities are quite a bit lower than the ideal, due to inefficiencies in the unit placement algorithm, one of them being that no unit is actually moved directly to the Arbiter position. You can actually only recall 80 Probes at once. Realistically, you can probably get about 100 Zealots, which is still a maxed out supply (without anything else!), though.
On May 16 2018 07:09 niteReloaded wrote: I tried splitting the army (pure goons, as I assumed it would ensure maximum retardation) after stacking them - which would happen in case of failed recall - and it's not hard at all. I just used a mix of stop and move commands away from the center stacking point. It seems that in 3-4 seconds they are unstacked.
I'm assuming this will be banned from tournaments after it's been used in one or a couple of high publicity matches.
PvT is slightly skewed in P favor, this might tweak it a percent or two more.
As people practice this tactic, it might make the cornerstone of some strategies.
OK, so it's not like that anymore? : ))
I'm not following closely in recent times. I know Flash is killing everyone, but are other Ts > P??
On May 11 2018 14:41 Azzur wrote: I went through the whole thread but couldn't find a conclusive answer - is this exclusively as SC:R thing? Could you do this in the old BW 1.16?
No. Same engine, same behaviour. 1.21, 1.16, 1.08 doesn't matter…
Just because it's the same engine doesn't mean everything behaves identically. If they did, then replays from 1.08 should theoretically still work on 1.21 (as replays from 1.16 do), and since they don't, it's obvious that some subtle things have changed. Maybe nothing terribly important, but saying "because game engine" is wrong.
Things like unit and ability stats have been changed (simple data file changes, nothing to do with the engine), some bugs, abuses and other fringe cases have been changed or been worked around (like preventing Siege Tanks from sieging up under landed buildings by making them explode), core engine functionality (such as collision handling, which is what we are talking here) has never been touched post-release.
On May 12 2018 00:04 TaardadAiel wrote:
On May 11 2018 14:24 CHEONSOYUN wrote: People seem to be ignoring the significance of mines being unable to detonate against this tactic;
Recalls in general will become suddenly more difficult to deal with regardless of the number of units sent.
This. Recalling any number of units with impunity is scary as hell.
It is not any number of units, as I have already briefly discussed, only about up to twice the normal amount. There is an actual limit (though it's about 4 control groups, or 100 supply, worth of goons, more for Zealots…)
I meant that the mine clearance is dangerous out of proportion to the number of units sent, unless the two are related. A normal size recall that is mine-resistant is a frightening proposition.
My two cents regarding that: Right now I am neither here nor there regarding whether units being preset on patrol command helps with the mine clearing.
On the one hand patrol issues an instantaneous attack command to units, which would allow them to diffuse mines before they can explode. On the other hand Recall resets all orders of affected units (puts them on stop), which would cause the first attack to come out slower. Now, depending on the exact order of code execution (frame by frame), it is possible that the following happens: Units are first moved to the new location, then their order status is reset, so that in theory they could be in the old order state for a frame or so, allowing for a fast attack.
I'd suggest the following setup to test this:
Make a control group or two of units (Goons) to be recalled and gather them in a tight pack (no overlapping, just a normal matrix configuration for a standard recall). Make an Arbiter and get the upgrades (all this using cheats or a map editor). Have an enemy Terran minefield laid out at the intended Recall location. Safe the game. Now Alternatively put the Goons on hold position (which also allows for faster attacks) or stop (slower attacks) command before recalling them. Look how many mines get diffused, and how many goons killed. Repeat this a few times (20 times for each setup at least, to get something approaching statistical meaningfulness). Alternatively, or in addition, check the game code (OpenBW) and/or relevant data files (although I think this is probably found on the hard-coded level) how exactly Recall is processed internally.
You be the testing guru around this thread, so I won't argue on anything related to the exact mechanism. So far, I gather, it's just an observation that's been tested independently by some pros and presumed to be true until disproven. But it's a mechanic, let's call it that way, that can have a significant impact on the meta - one of the ways to deal with a recalling protoss goes down the drain. Leaving your base as terran with current rough timings where you reach a critical mass of upgraded mech and you assume the opposition has recall capabilities is suddenly much riskier. You either have to invest resources and space in turrets, possibly screwing your timing, or you have to invest APM directly or indirectly (through minimap awareness) on vessel defense. And if the stacked unit recall, even in normal size, has improved mine clearing abilities, then a unit cap on recalls won't bring the meta back where it was (then again, it could force protoss to be pickier in choosing which units they want to recall lest they leave behind a shuttle full of templar or an observer etc.).
I'm very purposefully not mentioning balance, because it is much too early to tell if it would affect balance or rather just the meta. Most of the newer posts around here are almost ethical in nature and I won't get into that, but since I can't follow streams lately, I have no idea if the protoss players have gone from testing to actually using the trick in sponsored matches, the most competitive field we have outside tournaments. If anyone has any info on that, please share.
I highly approve of blizzard's decision on following the matter through and not intervening in any way. We don't even know if the trick will impact the meta, though I assume it will. The big difference would come, as several people have already pointed out, from the way it impacts the meta. If the end result is terran players happily readjusting their timings with a uber-turtly style involving dozens of turrets, making the matchup highly predicable (or by forcing all the terran players to do earlier timing pushes unless they want to lose the game), then an intervention is maybe justified. If it improves the richness of the matchup, then by all means, keep it as it is. The effects on balance are even harder to estimate - it requires statistics with a rather consistent player base (comparable skill or adjusting for ELO) and mappool as well as quite some time to build a reasonably large sample. BW has evolved way beyond the wildest developer dreams and the player base has been instrumental in that, the developers just provided an amazing foundation for creativity to thrive. They know to leave it alone disregarding any intentions they had when designing unit behaviour. Please, have faith in the scene.
Tl; Dr: please don't advocate changes based on some observations from noncompetitive environment and extensive theorycrafting. We just don't have data.
On May 17 2018 05:13 TaardadAiel wrote:You be the testing guru around this thread, so I won't argue on anything related to the exact mechanism. So far, I gather, it's just an observation that's been tested independently by some pros and presumed to be true until disproven.
Well, most people don't really make any effort to get over their biases, so they tend to observe what they believe anyway, not what is really true. I made multiple tests under controlled conditions, and none of them suggests that unit orders before the recall make any difference in post-recall attacks. Furthermore I looked at the game code (OpenBW) and it resets the movement state (clears all movement orders in queue and sets on stop command AFAIK) for all units before relocating them, so movement state before the recall cannot have any effect. My guess is that some combination of the following effects is responsible for a (perceived or real) higher mine clearance success rate:
Just having more tightly packed stuff attacking makes it more likely a mine will be killed before it can explode (more attacks, higher chance they succeed)
More recalled units cover a bigger area making it more likely mines will get stuck directly below a unit, bugging out their movement and thus preventing them from reaching their target and exploding (unless they happen to pick the unit they are under as target)
Even if the "normal" amount of mines actually goes off and kills/damages stuff, with a bigger recall there will be left more afterwards, in both absolute and relative terms. Recall 20 Goons and have 10 die to mines immediately – half your recall's dead and the rest probably critically damaged. Have 40 Goons in a wider area and have 10 of them around the edge immediately blown to smithereens – well, you still got 30 goons and probably half of them still undamaged.
But it's a mechanic, let's call it that way, that can have a significant impact on the meta - one of the ways to deal with a recalling protoss goes down the drain. Leaving your base as terran with current rough timings where you reach a critical mass of upgraded mech and you assume the opposition has recall capabilities is suddenly much riskier. You either have to invest resources and space in turrets, possibly screwing your timing, or you have to invest APM directly or indirectly (through minimap awareness) on vessel defense. And if the stacked unit recall, even in normal size, has improved mine clearing abilities, then a unit cap on recalls won't bring the meta back where it was (then again, it could force protoss to be pickier in choosing which units they want to recall lest they leave behind a shuttle full of templar or an observer etc.).
Again: stacking before the recall has no effect on unit position after the recall, unit orders before the recall simply get reset. So a 20 stacked Goon recall does not behave any different from a regular 20 Goon recall.
On May 16 2018 07:09 niteReloaded wrote: I tried splitting the army (pure goons, as I assumed it would ensure maximum retardation) after stacking them - which would happen in case of failed recall - and it's not hard at all. I just used a mix of stop and move commands away from the center stacking point. It seems that in 3-4 seconds they are unstacked.
I'm assuming this will be banned from tournaments after it's been used in one or a couple of high publicity matches.
PvT is slightly skewed in P favor, this might tweak it a percent or two more.
As people practice this tactic, it might make the cornerstone of some strategies.
OK, so it's not like that anymore? : ))
I'm not following closely in recent times. I know Flash is killing everyone, but are other Ts > P??
[B]On May 17 2018 05:44 Freakling wrote:Again: stacking before the recall has no effect on unit position after the recall, unit orders before the recall simply get reset. So a 20 stacked Goon recall does not behave any different from a regular 20 Goon recall.
I just called the total recall a stacked unit recall, but the observed mine clearance improvement is correlated (not implying causation) to the stacking technique, right?
If there is an actual effect and not just observer bias, my guess is that it is simply correlated to the number of recalled units. So it is only correlated with stacking insofar as stacking allows you to fit more units into the target area.
On May 17 2018 17:18 Freakling wrote: If there is an actual effect and not just observer bias, my guess is that it is simply correlated to the number of recalled units. So it is only correlated with stacking insofar as stacking allows you to fit more units into the target area.
Ok, I might have missed it, but has this been tested? Recalling equal numbers (and compositions) of units "conventionally" and using stacking in the same mine field?
The units will be placed without overlap upon arrival, so whether they have been stacked or not beforehand makes absolutely no difference.
EDIT: I updated my test map to now also include a normal (25 goons) and big (50 goons) stack as well as a more sophisticated mine layout (now quite effective at blowing up all the goons). I still haven't added any other combat units or Observers into the mix. A short test run indicates that on average a normal sized recall (stacked or not) directly kills about 3 to 4 of 16 mines, whereas an enhanced recall (from the big stack) clears about 5 to 6 mines on average.
EDIT 2: Might actually be more like 7 to 8 mines for the big stack recall.
EDIT 3: Did some further modification to the map. Stacking is now fully automated, giving you a very reliable setup. The big stack is now 100 goons. I added a counter for recalled goons (gas value). I found that 56 goons can consistently fit into a single recall (112 supply, 4+ control groups). With those huge recalls, average mine clearing rate is about 8, double that of a conventional recall.
On May 17 2018 22:31 Freakling wrote: The units will be placed without overlap upon arrival, so whether they have been stacked or not beforehand makes absolutely no difference.
EDIT: I updated my test map to now also include a normal (25 goons) and big (50 goons) stack as well as a more sophisticated mine layout (now quite effective at blowing up all the goons). I still haven't added any other combat units or Observers into the mix. A short test run indicates that on average a normal sized recall (stacked or not) directly kills about 3 to 4 of 16 mines, whereas an enhanced recall (from the big stack) clears about 5 to 6 mines on average.
EDIT 2: Might actually be more like 7 to 8 mines for the big stack recall.
EDIT 3: Did some further modification to the map. Stacking is now fully automated, giving you a very reliable setup. The big stack is now 100 goons. I added a counter for recalled goons (gas value). I found that 56 goons can consistently fit into a single recall (112 supply, 4+ control groups). With those huge recalls, average mine clearing rate is about 8, double that of a conventional recall.
good job. i can't test it now. does it matter if the mines are close to each other or separated? no terran will have time to plant 10+ mines to all areas in the base...
Just having more tightly packed stuff attacking makes it more likely a mine will be killed before it can explode (more attacks, higher chance they succeed)
More recalled units cover a bigger area making it more likely mines will get stuck directly below a unit, bugging out their movement and thus preventing them from reaching their target and exploding (unless they happen to pick the unit they are under as target)
Even if the "normal" amount of mines actually goes off and kills/damages stuff, with a bigger recall there will be left more afterwards, in both absolute and relative terms. Recall 20 Goons and have 10 die to mines immediately – half your recall's dead and the rest probably critically damaged. Have 40 Goons in a wider area and have 10 of them around the edge immediately blown to smithereens – well, you still got 30 goons and probably half of them still undamaged.
On May 17 2018 22:31 Freakling wrote: EDIT: I updated my test map to now also include a normal (25 goons) and big (50 goons) stack as well as a more sophisticated mine layout (now quite effective at blowing up all the goons). I still haven't added any other combat units or Observers into the mix. A short test run indicates that on average a normal sized recall (stacked or not) directly kills about 3 to 4 of 16 mines, whereas an enhanced recall (from the big stack) clears about 5 to 6 mines on average.
Could it be that also the stacked recall is better at not dieying to mines because since there are more units and thus, a larger area for mines to hit, it is less likely that 2 or more mines would hit in the same area? regardless of the amount of mines that a big (stacked) recall and a regular small one are able to kill, let's say I have 10 mines succesfully hitting the recall, I imagine those 10 mines would statistically tend to kill more units if the recall happens to be a small one since they have more chances of having 2 or 3 mines hitting the same unit/area (wich is necesary to kill any protoss unit except HT). Freakling, what are your thoughts on this? Maybe some of the test you run showed something like this? I'm thinking on a "mines perfomance chart": deaths/hits comparing recall vs Total Recall.
Just having more tightly packed stuff attacking makes it more likely a mine will be killed before it can explode (more attacks, higher chance they succeed)
More recalled units cover a bigger area making it more likely mines will get stuck directly below a unit, bugging out their movement and thus preventing them from reaching their target and exploding (unless they happen to pick the unit they are under as target)
Even if the "normal" amount of mines actually goes off and kills/damages stuff, with a bigger recall there will be left more afterwards, in both absolute and relative terms. Recall 20 Goons and have 10 die to mines immediately – half your recall's dead and the rest probably critically damaged. Have 40 Goons in a wider area and have 10 of them around the edge immediately blown to smithereens – well, you still got 30 goons and probably half of them still undamaged.
On May 17 2018 22:31 Freakling wrote: EDIT: I updated my test map to now also include a normal (25 goons) and big (50 goons) stack as well as a more sophisticated mine layout (now quite effective at blowing up all the goons). I still haven't added any other combat units or Observers into the mix. A short test run indicates that on average a normal sized recall (stacked or not) directly kills about 3 to 4 of 16 mines, whereas an enhanced recall (from the big stack) clears about 5 to 6 mines on average.
Could it be that also the stacked recall is better at not dieying to mines because since there are more units and thus, a larger area for mines to hit, it is less likely that 2 or more mines would hit in the same area? regardless of the amount of mines that a big (stacked) recall and a regular small one are able to kill, let's say I have 10 mines succesfully hitting the recall, I imagine those 10 mines would statistically tend to kill more units if the recall happens to be a small one since they have more chances of having 2 or 3 mines hitting the same unit/area (wich is necesary to kill any protoss unit except HT). Freakling, what are your thoughts on this? Maybe some of the test you run showed something like this? I'm thinking on a "mines perfomance chart": deaths/hits comparing recall vs Total Recall.
That's pretty much my point 3 from above list. If you want to do more testing my test map is still up for downloading. Feel free to modify it any way you'd like to test additional scenarios.
On July 08 2018 23:52 Jae Zedong wrote: Am I correct in assuming this didn't make it into the mainstream high level Korean meta? If not, why?
Speculating but, its kind of hard to set up, mines could fuck up a lot of those units, recalls are mostly meant as distractions/snipe upgrades-- maybe over committing in a super recall is very situational? I honestly havent even seen a pro try it.