Starcraft 2 autocasting

http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=sc-general&t=215432&s=new&#new

He talks about autocasting and what is happening with it.

bonus 300 minerals for a great post

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

Wait, what? Medics? So Medics are confirmed in SC2 now?

He mentions autocast only on SCV repair and medics. SCV's didn't have autocast repair in SC1 so maybe he did an oopsie and kinda confirmed medics? ;D

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

Yes, exactly what I thought. So, Medics are back then?

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

oooooo autorepair for the scv??? nice! owerup:

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

I think it means medics are probably back, but not confirmed. It definitely means they are testing with them, I'm sure we'll find out at blizzcon.

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

The only question I have about auto/smart casting is this:

If I have twelve Battlecruisers selected, and cast Yamato on a target, will all twelve fire, or will smart cast make only one fire? I always found it annoying in SC original when I accidently locked down a target with multiple ghosts, plagued the same target multiple times, etc.

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

Yes that would be a great addition.
Same with scourges, if you send 6 and the first 2 kill the target, the other 4 should survive.

It also allows you to shift-click targets. And it won't mean the game gets any easier, because your opponent can use this too against you... it will just make the game more intuitive.

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

Nice find! owerup:

haha. i just posted on another thread how helpful it would be to have SCVs autocasting, and how pointless it would be to take it out after WC3

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

That is a great find. Those really are the only abilities that autocast makes sense for in my opinion. If you have autocast on anything else, and it auto fires on a target you didn't want, you'll probably not have enough energy to make up for its mistake and hit the right target. So good work, Blizzard.

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

so they have made repair an autocast ability interesting....

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

I personally think that without medics, Terrans can't survive in matches like Zerg vs. Terran. No medics, no one can heal the 10 hp lost from stimpacking. And you can defend from lots of others, like zerglings.

 

Re: Cavez at Battle.net forums talks about SC2's autocasting

awesome!! medics are back. I hope they either ditch the abilities other than heal or make them revamped, such as optical flare and restoration.
also, thank god they're not making everything auto cast like in wc3.

 

autocasting on scv!!! awesome
cant wait to see what a medic looks like

 

I still think the issue Blizz needs to address is Smart Casting, not Auto Casting.
Auto cast was necessary in WCIII, for all the reasons outlined above, and wouldn't fit SC2 for the same reasons.
However, the ability to smart cast (choose between one unit in a control group or every unit) is very important for SCII. I suggested a method much earlier where you choose by the way you click on the ability button: to have every unit cast, you would left-click, to have a single unit cast, and cycle through the units, you'd right click.
This way you have on the fly control over how many and which units cast.

I was also thinking, as I played a game, that I never actually click on the buttons, so that wouldn't work as well for me. So I just thought up a hot key addition to the left/right click method:
To have all units cast it, just hit the hotkey (let's use Yamato Cannon. press "y"), and click the target. Or, to have a single unit cast it, and cycle, you'd hit Shift-Hotkey (Again for Yamato, you'd hit "shift-Y").
This is a quick and easy way to select and choose.

 

i like that smart casting idea (they had something like that in wc3, but it would choose all or just 1 unit casting depending on the ability) but wouldnt it make more sense to have (using your example) y cast 1 yamato and shift-y cast all, just so you dont waste accidently?

 

I was going more for it to be an add-on. Yes, it would make far more sense that way, and I had originally thought that, but players would go "OMG!!! THAT TAKEZZZ All dah skillz outta playing!!! WTFW OMG LYK!"
So instead I changed it to be this way, because as in SC1, the standard hot-key would make every unit cast it, but if you did some extra thinking and another key press, it would be single fire.
Shoot, Blizzard could easily even make that a setting... In Controls "Hot key modifier to have all units cast: ..." and "Hot key modifier to have one unit cast and cycle: ..."

 

Yeah, a smart cast would be more useful than autocast. It always pissed me off when I was going BC vs. BC and I'd accidentally use the Yamatos on one BC, and the opponent would just wipe me out.

 

auto casting on a few units that need it is ok. like Meds, reavers and tempest would be a good add to that auto cast group. I just wanna know how the smart-cast system will play into the game and what units will it work best for.

 

Autocasting SCV's!! I was playing terran one day and was like "OMG I wish they'd repair those stupid battlecruisers!"
I'm soo glad medics are back (hopefully) since they eventually became one of the main elements in a marine attack, aside from marines (duh).
Smart casting.... This sounds a lot like sub-selection to me. I always wanted to be able to select a battlecruiser from the main list without losing track of which is which. They always liked to float underneath eachother and become un-selectable.

 

There should be no problem with autocasting. Maybe make it a status setting, or whatever that hold, attack, stop, patrol, move thing was. put autocast on there, and when you have it on for that unit, it will use whatever ability is applicable, whenever it has a chance.

e.g. a ghost with snipe upgraded and autocast on will automatically snipe the first unit to enter its range.

This probably wouldn't work so well with AoE things, they should probably remain user only, otherwise you'd be losing psi storms (nukes maybe?) on a single zergling.

There's no real argument that it removes skill from the game, as you, by having autocast on, are sacrificing the ability to choose which target. It would result in stupid things like interceptor lockdowns, so skilled players could still have an advantage in choosing their targets.