Medivac AI

[Caliban113]

but you can only go so far back into the stone age where you independently tell each unit to move here and attack this unit, to the point the human mind and ability to keep up will stagger behind.

Well, I dont know if we have to get that extreme about it. but I get what you're saying - Again, I'm not asking to go back to a BW level UI - or even suggesting that every unit on screen wait specifically for my commands in order to act when they see enemies or are attacked. - That said...

IMO, the 'Follow' command (c/o WC3) is more than sufficient to help the player take care of these types of unit positioning problems. I'm sticking to my guns on this - the guy who took the time to properly compose and position his units (even before the battle) should win out every time over the guy who just 'A-clicked' his ball of units from one map location to the other.

As Hammy touches on in his post tho, this is just a trend in RTS's in regards to micro that I tend not to like. This feature wont break the game in any way, but neither will challenging the player to go through the extra micro steps. If it were a checkbox on some settings/preferences page, for me, that box would be empty.

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[pure.Wasted]

Caliban, I agree with the sentiment, but I think you're gunning for the wrong target.

What we're seeing now is that in certain situations in SC, as long as the units are not stupid (Medics in SC1 were, Medivacs in SC2 are not), there are actually very few opportunities for great shows of micro in a given battle, which makes micro skill less relevant.

The way to go about solving this problem is not to dumb Medivacs back down, but to examine M&M&M (or SC2 gameplay in general) to find ways to add micro into the game. On the unit-scale, that might be adding new activated abilities that require great micro to use well. If the problem is not exclusive to M&M&M, the solution ought to be wider in scale, ie. introducing a cover system into the game.

[Caliban113]

Okay, good point, same as the concept behind the Macro Mechanics - which is a good direction - but for something like this, I'm not sure what can be done exactly - Conceptually, I'll admit this is in one of those grey areas; wont hurt to keep it and wont hurt to leave it. (I suppose) But still, stuff like this for me, is up there for with the whole, 'random events in RTS' argument...and I think eventually, it's going to mess up a game for one unforseen reason or another, and by then, it'll be too late.

Admittedly, since I have not tried it for myself, I can't really say how it responds exactly - For example, will there be situations where you actually don't want Medevacs sticking around MnMs under fire? Outside of completely turning off 'Auto-heal', will I need to fight the Medevacs 'urge' to heal when I absolutely want them to just drop and leave?

I was thinking, maybe to compensate for the new ease of use, maybe take the 'auto' out of 'autoheal' (?) and instead make it manual......then I imagined the uproar that would ensue and quickly forgot it....

In WC3, I regularly use the 'follow' command with preists to ensure they dont get caught in a bad situation by being too close to, or ahead of Riflemen, but can anyone remember whether or not they stick around forces in this manner? - I've never really, 'a-clicked' them with the rest of my forces - just lessons I've learned from SC. (?)

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[Norfindel]

Caliban, I agree with the sentiment, but I think you're gunning for the wrong target.

What we're seeing now is that in certain situations in SC, as long as the units are not stupid (Medics in SC1 were, Medivacs in SC2 are not), there are actually very few opportunities for great shows of micro in a given battle, which makes micro skill less relevant.

The way to go about solving this problem is not to dumb Medivacs back down, but to examine M&M&M (or SC2 gameplay in general) to find ways to add micro into the game. On the unit-scale, that might be adding new activated abilities that require great micro to use well. If the problem is not exclusive to M&M&M, the solution ought to be wider in scale, ie. introducing a cover system into the game.

I suggest removing the autocasted slow on the Marauders, and add it as an AoE ability. It's 50% slow, it's too cheap to have it autocasted on every shot with AoE!!

Something that i also notice, is that Terran players seem to neglect Marines in TvP early game. The Marauder should act as support vs Zealots in this case, buying time for the Marines to deal the real damage.

Another possibility is to focus the Marauder more against Armored targets. I know what they did say about rock-paper-scissors gameplay, but in this case i think it's better to encourage a mixed army than to allow the Marauder to be used by itself. The Stalker seems to not help vs Marauders much, either.

I think that the early game should be tweaked a little more, and try to make everyone use a mixed force. That's one of BW's strong points: a bunch of identical units aren't generally as good as a group of mixed units.

[Maul]

Lol wtf? If you can honestly say you want your dropships to keep going forward, ignoring the need to heal the units below, then fine, you have an argument for removing it's AI.

Otherwise what the hell? If you're worried about the game baby sitting the players too much then you're just being a nit.

Sounds like people are against change just because it's change.

[Hammy]

Makes perfect sense to me though,

If your army is firing at something, they are likely going to be attacked if they aren't being attacked already.

What's more, if your army is shooting at something, they are NOT moving forward, hence if the medivac moves forward, it's alone with no units around to heal if sh!t goes down, and even worse - it's undefended in that case scenario.

In the Extreme circumstance you have your main army split up, while one holds off an enemy attack while the other moves further into a base or to attack something else then you have to consider;

A) The group attacking enemy's needs to have the healing anyways, while likely the army advancing to do damage to buildings/SCVs/Drones/Probs wont be at threat to be attacked.

B) If the group that is split up attacks a building while the other group advances to fight an army, the medivacs will stay on the ones firing first (in this case the buildings) and your army fighting the enemy's troops will be helpless; however - if this is the case, you click the medivacs you want to move and force move them to the other group.

It all boils down to micro anyways people, there is NOTHING I see worth complaining. Medics in SC1 needed to be micro'd effectively, but with this mechanic, you STILL need to micro them well to keep them with the group you fear will be needing them.

It's working in all regards the same if not better then medics, and by same I' mean if you aren't paying attention, like in SC1 then you will end up hurting your self.

The feature is built for noobies; advanced players will learn to baby sit the unit like they did in SC1 - win/win from what I've seen.

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Yeah sure, all of this is true. All I'm saying is that in my opinion in the extreme situation you stated it should work the other way around: If you army is split and part of it goes to the front (closer to where you a-moved), that's where your medivacs should be headed, because that's where you told them to go. This is really a very biased choice.
Again, my problem here isn't that the AI is too smart (I'm not afraid of this silly little change making SC2 stupid and any less micro intensive). All I'm saying is that I dislike the fact that units don't do what you tell them to do, and even in your example you say that if you want them to move forward you need to "force command them". I don't see why .
I can't argue a big part of the community will be happy with this change though, and that it doesn't harm the rest of the community anyways. Again, I just don't like the concept very much.

I think in this case, the AI is making a reasonable assumption of the player's intent. Ordering them to 'attack+move' alongside infantry suggests that you'd want them to move to that point as a group. If you want the computer to blindly follow your orders, you should also be against smart cast in all forms since the computer assumes you only want to cast one of said spell rather than spam it with all your units. This 'problem' carries more legitimacy than the Medic following your troops in that there are actually more situations where you would genuinely be wanting all your units to spam said spell.

A valid point, but I think that the most important thing is that these rules be consistent. You're right, smart casting goes against your wishes and lets only one of your units (the closest one), cast the spell. I think this works because it applies to all spells (except one iirc, but I'll get to that in a second).
On the other hand, this Medivac AI is unique to the medivac although many other units could benefit from it. Why do your infestors/HT run into the middle of your opponents army if you don't group them seperately? It seems to a bit inconsistent to have the medivac act as an "easy to use caster", while others are for more experienced users. Sure it's different because the medivac auto-heals your units, but it's also the same because in the end they are all caster units that assist your army and are useless alone.

Another example of the computer making a reasonable assumption is the Stalker's Blink. When used as a group, the entire group Blinks to the rough area you clicked (more or less maintaining its formation, if I'm not mistaken). If the AI interpreted your command literally, only one Stalker should be able to successfully Blink since that exact point you had clicked is now occupied by the lead Stalker. They shouldn't be allowed to Blink to the point next to that lead Stalker since that's not where you clicked in the first place! Except, it's a reasonable assumption that Blinking next to it is perfectly appropriate (even though this might accidentally put it in range of enemy fire/sight where the lead Stalker didn't).

Blink is the spell I was talking about. I think Blizzard had no choice but to make it an exception to the rules of smart casting because otherwise the spell would be completely different. In this case, it's really making an exception to enhance gameplay, without hindering the other spells in comparison.

I think that the stalker's blink follows the SC1 magic boxes rule, which is fantastic, and very consistent!

Regarding "unit placement", well when you don't rally a building anywhere units always spawn at the same spot (bottom left corner). But if that location is already taken, they just spawn right next to it don't they?

I think I get your point though, and all I can respond is there wasn't much of a choice here... and refer you to my previous paragraph^^

Caliban, I agree with the sentiment, but I think you're gunning for the wrong target.

What we're seeing now is that in certain situations in SC, as long as the units are not stupid (Medics in SC1 were, Medivacs in SC2 are not), there are actually very few opportunities for great shows of micro in a given battle, which makes micro skill less relevant.

Just wanted to add that players making a medic wall in the middle of a fight against zerglings is amazingly badass, and not so rare (even amongst foreigners).

[pure.Wasted]

Just wanted to add that players making a medic wall in the middle of a fight against zerglings is amazingly badass, and not so rare (even amongst foreigners).

Medics took more micro to use all-around, that was actually my point. They had to be babysat because they were "dumb," and there were micro tricks that could be done with them like the one you describe.

Medivacs on the other hand are smart... and that's (according to this thread) a problem. There's no need to babysit them, therefore reduced need for micro from the Terran player.

What I said, and Caliban agreed with, is that dumbing down units is not the answer. If there is a lack of micro, then new micro ought to be injected.


P.S. I'm not actually convinced that the premise (Medivacs are too easy to use) is true. They're air units now, which makes hitting them easier, which means microing them mid-battle is still necessary... at least in theory.

[Caliban113]

What I said, and Caliban agreed with, is that dumbing down units is not the answer. If there is a lack of micro, then new micro ought to be injected.

I endorse this statement

Plus, I completely forgot the most glaring micro issue of all in this example - In the original SC, Medics could not pick up and drop-off units! This can provide all kinds of micro shenanniganz when using Medevacs to support your MnM - - Medevacs can potentially pick up units that are beyond saving due to heavy focus-fire, and move those units to the rear of the group as they get healed up by other Medevacs...definitely some challenging micro