Targeting abilities - the yamato cannon

In starcraft, when you had 12 battlecruisers selected, and you fired a yamato cannon, all of them would fire. I found this very annoying because during big battles I would be unable to micro my cruisers effectively without creating several small groups.

This discussion applies for all abilities really, but I would like to use the yamato cannon as the best example, since multiple casts on the same target are usually ineffective.

so here is my question, do you think that blizzard will keep the same system, or only have one spell fire for every click?

Also did anyone else notice that battlecruisers in the demo would fire 2 yamato cannons in a relitivley short amount of time?

 

They are most probably going to keep the same system where all the BCs fire when you click on fire from the yamato. It can be annoying because you lose all those energy. But it's the only way, because one of the purpose is to test out the player's micro skills. Just like the high templar's psionic storm.
And I don't usually send out BCs to big battles because they usually die pretty quick

 

I hope they implement the WCIII/TFT system. In those two games, it would automatically cycle through units selected who had the ability you wanted available.
Using the BG/Yamato example.
With the WCIII system, if you had 12 BCs selected, you would click Yamato, and one BC would fire. Click it again, and a second would fire. So on and so forth.
In the (bad) SC1 system, it would all fire at once, as outlined above.

 

yeah, that annoyed me. I hope they change it to the WC3 system. The stalkers blink ability provides evidence otherwise, but there are some situations where it makes more/less sense.

 

Very good example, I hadn't realized that. There are definitely certain cases where spells should cast individually, and others where it is group oriented.
I'd say all movement commands could be programmed to be cast as a group, but all damage/buff/etc spells be cast cyclic and individually.
It's definitely feasible, just a question of Blizzard's opinion on the matter

 

I liked how spider mines all went at once.Yamatos didn't make sense at all though...there needs to be a middle ground.

 

Perhaps they could sort it out by:
left-clicking on the ability single-uses and cycles, while right clicking uses the whole group or somesuch.

 

You can simply group the fleet of 12 battlecruiers into 6 groups, each containing 2 BC. Group them to numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Now number 1 is reserved for grouping all of the 12 BCs.
Now if you want to take down a spore colony we can easily select one of the groups from 2-7 and use yamato. Well with missle turrets and photon cannons you can take them down with 1 yamato.
Finally number 1 is when you want to move the entire fleet.

 

Unnecessary quote removed. Do not quote the entire text of a parent post.

Yes, and I do this, but SC2 is supposed to be about even bigger battles! If you use up 7 hot keys just for your BC fleet, and then you need four other fleets to harass the enemy, you need 11 hot keys...
If Blizzard wants to put the emphasis on epic battles, then a smart hotkey system could solve a few of thei woes.

 

it will be the warcraft system, but they will probably find a way of making it even better, they do it each rts, they may have even been the ones to ahve invented the selection box (at least in game terms)

warcraft orcs and humans
now with selection box

 

Well, let's say that you see a Mothership heading towards you, and you have 4 battlecruisers. You'd want to blast it with all of those Yamatos. But, by the time you hit the Yamato Cannon button the second time, the mothership has already black-holed you and killed all your BCs! Oh noes!

I'm sure Blizzard will find some system that works most of the time. And even if it doesn't, we'll surive. I hope.

 

I like this one. Simple, clean, but highly effective.

 

The good thing here is that it takes a while for the blackhole to suck in the Battlecruisers. While the BCs are being sucked into the blackhole, they can still fire yamatos at the mothership. In fact any unit can still fire whilst being sucked in.

Blizzard would probably launch this special keyboard that's specifically designed for playing starcraft. And we know that everyone in Korea is going to buy one

 

nice thread.


well, as anyone else who likes to post, i got just a little thought.

one of the reasons i feel the current micro for the yamamamato (in original SC) is balanced is because it does considerable damage. If all 12 cruisers could fire at independant targets, they would be VERY powerful units.

if they all auto casted the yamamamato, they could be used to EASILY break through turret lines, and would reduce almost any incoming attack to nothing. if a player had 20 BC's that all auto casted, it would eb VERY unbalanced.

now theres all sorts of arguments that could be mend, but i would like to propose something rather than argue about it.

a band-aid if you will.


Using my good ol gambit system (its not really mine tho is it....), players could AUTO SET the YAMAMATO ect.
THE DRAW BACK would be that by setting it up so that the BC auto casts in a certain situation, it loses a portion of the damage it may incur.

this way, the player would be rewarded for microing the yamamato attack, and could also use the limited-autocast ability in other ways that do not require a single-high-damage shot.



anyways.....

 

or even simpler yet.


with your group of units selected, you can cycle through them by pressing a button the the keyboard, say like Caps lock or something....

then its just a matter of pressing the hot key for Yammamato and clicking the enemy, so you could be like

CAPS Y CLICK, CAPS Y CLICK..... decently fast, 1,2 3!!! tap tap click, good because you can do it with two fingers on the left hand, and one lick with the right.

 

Yes, but if you blasted the Mothership with enough Yamatos fast enough, it would never be able to black-hole you at all. So you'd still have your battlecruiser fleet.

jamaylott - You can use the "modify" button instead of posting twice in a row... it helps to keep the forum clean.

 

The gameplay video didn't incorporate microing much. Except perhaps the stalkers and maybe very slightly the reapers the units did not play smartly. Warp rays attacked marines, BC's yamatoed phoenix's instead of the mothership etc etc. The terrans could well have destroyed the mothership at the first BC encounter with it.

 

i think the tab button will be useful here. like in warcraft when you control your heroes etc. example each battlecruisers should be identify as a hero (warcraft) so that you can tab on each and use its abilities etc.

 

an interesting idea, But from what I remember, tab in warcraft 3 would just cycle through the unit types you had mixed into your group. So tab probably wouldnt work. I like the idea of the left click / hot hey for a single fire, and the right click on the ability for everyone to fire. Its very simple and effective. Props to T-man.

 

enabling BCs to fire Yamato Guns automatically may have some disadvantages as well. for example, the enemy player could send several low cost flyers like the zerg "scourge" as target, and then proceed to confront your BCs when they run out of energy.