Unit Formations?

THats why yoyu have to regroup b4 attacking, if you go in in a straight line your f*cked.

 

Sending units in a linear fashion is inevitable, you can not change that.

Formations sound like a good idea for the most part, but if implemented in StarCraft, I believe it would dilute the very essence that made StarCraft! Micro management... I have seen no other RTS game even come close to what StarCraft had to offer on that scale.

 

Well damn, I kept getting an error message last night that said that it wasn't posting. I guess that it was indeed posting afterall. My apologies. I cleaned it up.

 

I think formations are good. What people are talking about, with the Microing.....That be Warcraft son. StarCraft is about macromanagement. With the as-of-yet unlimited unit selection cap, you'll need formations in some form. Can you imagine trying to send 200 'lings followed by 200 Hydras? Pff, they'll mill around for five minutes first.

Actually, now that I think more on it.....The Terrans should most definitely have formations, as we humans do in this day and age. The Protoss should have some, but different than Terran. Maybe based one a wedge shape. The Zerg should NOT. They're a Swarm. You don't put swarms into formations.

 

Yeah, the zerg don't need formations, that's true... Though, I don't want them going in a single file line so some sort of order would be nice.

 

Yeah that was exactly what I was thinking about the Zerg too..but then... There is the hive mind idea so they should be completely organized too so even the swarming should be efficient but not look organized. The Lings aren’t going to be gooses stepping into battle but they aren’t going to be making lines and leaving the hydra’s behind either.
I still cant get over the thought that some kind of editable formations would be so fun. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done. Have any of you? Were they done well?
If done right it could really help distinguish an advanced players army from a rookie’s just like in real strategic warfare. Each race would have different capabilities still. Some organization just wouldn’t be possible with zerg for instance and you could have the character of some units just not work well in formation or specific formations. (ei don’t play nice with others, don’t like being the front line.) That kinda goes with the personality of the original game where each unit would talk and talk back if you messed with them. Just thinking out loud here.

 

Please keep unnecessarily quoting in bulk and double posting to a minimum, thank you.

As to the main topic, I believe what is really needed is better pathing A.I.

When a large number of units are ordered to pass through chokes, units in the back shouldn't run around everywhere trying to find a different path around when the rest of their buddies are all marching in one direction.  Even if they just simply waited, it would at least be slightly more organized that how it is now.

Units being attacked from high ground going out of their minds to find a way up that isn't there was also stupid.  At the very least the units could just lean up to the wall and wait for further input from the player.

They really need to upgradee the pathing A.I. in SC2 quite a bit, it needs to be a lot more complex than how it was in SC1.  I'm hopeful that we will see some big improvements.

 

AI has progressed worlds in the last couple of years, in all fields but especially gaming. I don’t think most people recognize how amazingly fast its coming along. For example, It took many years for Deep Blue to beat the world chess champion. And just two years to have multiple finishers of the DARPA Grand Challenge which was a lot more complex then chess. AI in a gamming environment, even though its controlled can be almost as complex as with real life robotics but the field has advanced so much and the computing power of the average Pc is so much stronger all those AI problems should be a thing of the past.
With all that said strategic skills are still going to have to be cheated on to get good game play out of a pc. We're not there yet.

 

i had the exact same idea!!! that u could somehow set up your own formations and use them in battle
it would make it very interesting and a good formation could be the key to winning a battle, but then i realized that at the same time it kinda takes away the element of micro managing

if u have a formation where the medics r in line behind the marines, u never have to move them
if the order goes melee, short range, long range, u never have to shift your army around manually

micro managing was important in SC1 and even though AOE is not crap, their formations kinda made micromanaging not important

i say if anything they could use some specific preset army commands like "disperse" if they happen to nuke or have seige tanks with heavy area effect
and maybe one to do the opposite to pull your army together and get those stragglers back into the group
etc...

 

I don't know about creating your own formations, but some default ones would be cool.

Aren't there a couple of those in WC3?

Just have one for skirmish (units spread out to cover a large area, good for scouting, searching for units, avoiding AoE fire).

One for harden (Melee units in front, range in back).

And one for column (units form up in 3 lines and make an orderly march).

 

sounds good to me

 

formations might be nice. too many a times has my zealots ran up in a line or my goons went in front of my lots.

 

I'd say unit formations would be cool, but I agree that splash damage would do tons to units in a unit formation. Imagine a Thor perched on a cliff and spotting a marine formation,the person with the marines does not know the Thor is up there. I'm pretty sure ANYONE would artillery them, whether they were moving or whatever (since you'd just artillery a few feet where you obviously know there going and boom, also don't forget the delay for the barrels to get into position.) Or siege tanks, if someone was in a formation with zealots or something remember what you did in SC1 when you saw a tank blast hit your units? You'd make them separate so that the splash wouldn't kill most of them. If they had a "disperse" button, that would make it easier but eliminates the fact that you don't need skills anymore to macro your units for those situations.

 

I wouldn't mind having the Unit Formation but SC1 already had no Unit Formation right? but i like to have the Unit Formation in SC2 like in Wc3

 

Unit formations are something i never really found to usefull in other rts games (rise of nations for example) but in starcraft's case maybe the terrans could get afew formations and only the terrans (it would make the races more unique) plus it would make micro for terran more simple as a maybe one of these formations could be designed with m and m in mind where the medics automaticly line up behind the marines, this would make microing medics far easier.

 

I'd like unit formations as well, but no bonuses or anything associated with them. Just as a handy tool to keep them in order.

 

Even something basic would be nice. It seems that everyone is tired of their zerglings lining up into a wonderful death line when they could form a zergling hoard. Something as simple as being able to manually set up a formation then put on a lock where they will stay in that formation until attacking would be nice. Then you can set it up yourself. Of course a delta box and line abreast formations would be useful too.

I think they should have some basic formations but also have a way for you to design your own formations. Anything to keep all your units at the same speed when not in combat and not have then line up to die. Line abreast is the most useless formation in an RTS.

 

i dont really like the idea of formations,but i want to see "clever" unit disposition.thats to say,when marching zealots stay at the front and stalkers at the back,etc.and maybe spread formation,but im not sure on it.i mean starcraft is not meant to be a massive-unit game like other rts,and i dont feel there is a need for formations.

 

I have to agree with eskudero there, it would be nice if the medics like stayed in the middle with the marines not running in the front for example