StarCraft 2 definitely has some big shoes to fill, and at this point the fans of
StarCraft know significantly more about the game than its creators. As such, veterans of
StarCraft have begun using their knowledge to pick apart
StarCraft 2 in the form of posts, topics, and articles such as
this.
Speaking of that article, I have a few bones to pick with it.
Point 1: High ground should offer an advantage
Agreed - there is no contesting this point what-so-ever. The question, though, is whether or not
StarCraft 2’s high ground advantage is sufficient enough as it is, or if further changes need to be made. In response to this question I must point out that the main difference between high ground in
StarCraft and high ground in
StarCraft 2 is that units in
StarCraft 2 do not reveal themselves to units on lower ground when they fire.
The effect this has on stopping attacks is significant. First, it’s impossible to return fire unless you have an air unit or a scan. Secondly, since the units do not reveal themselves, you’re unable to determine what kind of upgrades they have, or even the actual force composition that’s on the high ground. In short, you’d be attacking blind, and if you press the attack, you will have
zero means of returning fire.
Additionally, the nature of high ground means high ground units will always get the first shot, and they will have the opportunity to score several shots against melee units until the melee units access a ramp to get to them.
Is this enough of an advantage? The answer to that question depends on whether the attacking player properly reveals the high ground before attacking and they have some sort of persistent air unit to provide line of sight. If the player doesn’t have line of sight, then the high ground advantage is actually SIGNIFICANTLY better in
StarCraft 2 than in
StarCraft. And by significantly better, I mean
significantly better.
However, let’s assume players are smart and let’s even assume unrealistic expectations that they have line of sight on every edge of every cliff where they either have a base or want to attack, 100% of the game such that high ground never has a chance to get the first shot off. Is the high ground advantage good enough then?
The answer ultimately is “no” given that there is no mechanic in place to give a tangible advantage to units on the high ground when fog of war is not in their favour.
Point 2: Miss chance percentage adds more depth
While I agree that miss chance percentage isn’t as game-crippling luck-based as most people make it out to be, there is luck involved. The author of the article then raises two points about why miss-chance percentage is actually better than damage reduction specifically because of this luck.
The first of these points is that miss chance percentage adds more depth:
Unpredictability in battles is definitely not bad for the depth of the game either. The more unpredictable a battle is, the more decisions a player needs to make. When there is a fixed damage reduction, the only decision players need to make is "Will I win this battle if I attack now?" to which the answer will be either yes or no. If there is an unpredictable element, the player needs to constantly answer the following questions "Am I winning the battle?" "Are my chances to win good enough to persevere?" "Should I retreat, or wait a bit before retreating?". Even the question of whether to attack or not is more complex "I should win the battle, but is it worth taking the risk now?" or, "I probably won't win this battle, but is gambling in the hopes of getting lucky my best chance at winning the game?." As such, unpredictability (in moderation) in battles is not bad for the depth of the game.
Source: TeamLiquid There are quite a few holes in these questions. The first is the assertion that the only decision players need to make is “will I win this battle if I attack now” when there is a fixed damage reduction. Even asking that question is silly because there is no way the human mind can calculate whether they have sufficient firepower + armour to win a battle. Go ahead and calculate your total health + total damage output of a 100/200 army and then compare it to your opponent’s, in a split second. You can’t, so there’s no point in even raising this question. The way the decision to attack is made is ultimately an educated guess anyway. This guess gets more accurate the more experience you have, but it’s still just a guess.
The second statement is if there are unpredictable elements, then the player needs to constantly answer the following question (along with the myriad other questions that the author somehow thinks become irrelevant with fixed damage reduction): “Am I winning the battle?”. Well guess what? There’s this thing called micromanagement and ever-changing decisions from the other player that adds significantly more unpredictability to a battle than a miss chance percentage does. Thus even if we’re talking about a damage reduction, you are still going to have to ask yourself “Am I winning the battle?"
Besides, the whole point of predictability isn’t to make decision making easier, it’s to make decision making more accurate and to reward players with superior knowledge/experience.
Point 3: Miss chance percentage is easier to balance
The argument here is that fixed damage reduction will have different effects depending on which unit match-up we’re talking about. As adequately illustrated in this comment from the original article:
Let’s say they go with -50% dmg shooting uphill:Thor 90 dmg attack vs. Hydralisk 90 hp.
On level ground Thor kills hydra in 1 attack.
Shooting uphill Thor would only do 45 dmg. So Thor shoots hydra, hydra goes down to 45 hp, but before Thor can shoot again hydra has regend’s 1 hp and is now at 46 hp, Thor shoots again hydra at 1 hp, now Thor needs a 3rd shot to kill the hydra, thus meaning a simple 50% dmg reduction is taking the Thor 3x as many shots as normal.
On the other hand let’s do Thor vs. Zergling.
Level ground Thor kills Zergling in 1 attack. Shooting uphill Thor's dmg is reduced to 45, Thor still only takes 1 attack to kill, thus leaving no advantage/disadvantage for either team.
Basically what I'm saying is that certain unit matchups are favoured over others, Thor gets completely screwed attacking hydras with a 50% dmg loss. On level ground Thor kills both hydras and Zerglings in 1 hit. But lowering his dmg 50% makes him take 3 shots to kill hydras, and still only 1 shot to kill Zerglings.
With 50% miss rate:Thor can still kill Hydralisk on his first shot (no advantage/disadvantage for either team).
He could even miss 10 times in a row then kill hydra on his 11th attack, or he could just as easily kill 10 Hydralisks in his first 10 attacks. The odds of him missing 10 shots in a row are the same as him hitting 10 shots in a row.
While there can still be no advantage/disadvantage, odds are the attacker will be at a disadvantage but with good luck.. can still kill just as fast as on level ground.
But this reveals an interesting piece of information: the high ground advantage then becomes
variable, but in a predictable way that could add significant depth to the game. If we look at
StarCraft 2 as something that rewards players with greater knowledge, then this system will reward players with the knowledge of which unit matchups are more favourable than others in a cliff exchange. It means players then must make decisions about
which units will be better on the high ground, rather than simply assuming all units will be better.
Furthermore, describing this as a balance problem is inaccurate anyway. At the end of the day the only balance that really matters is whether Zerg, Protoss, and Terran have an equal chance of beating each other on every map given equal player skill. Thus balance involves a lot more than the dynamics of cliff combat. It involves accessibility of air units/scouts, accessibility of ranged units, the range of the units in question, their movement speed, rate of fire etc.
Lastly, miss chance percentage is equally dependent on unit matchup as firepower reduction anyway. Let’s compare Siege Tanks with Marines (shitty example, but it illustrates the point). Siege Tanks have high damage per shot but low rate of fire, while Marines have the opposite. What this means is if a Marine misses, it will still fire more shots in a given period of time than a Siege Tank allowing the law of averages to work more in its favour. A Siege Tank, meanwhile may never even get a chance to do damage at all if its first shot misses – it could be killed before it can fire a second shot. This is where luck
does become a major deciding factor in battles, especially in small-scale battles where fewer shots are fired.
Summary and Conclusion
Ultimately I think a lot of what the author has said in favour of miss-chance percentage can be turned around and applied to damage reduction as well. The specific dynamics would be different, but the overall result would be a game with more depth, and ultimately a game where the high ground
does have an advantage.
Still the big picture question is whether or not defenders have enough of an advantage in
StarCraft 2 to warrant a change at all, and ultimately that question will boil down to combat dynamics involving line of sight and the defender protecting his fog of war adequately. For now one thing is certain: if you take aerial scout units out of the picture,
StarCraft 2’s high ground is most definitely a significant advantage.
Discuss this article here.
