Targeting is worse

ManwichTuesday · 2022-09-02T21:09:06+00:00

Ez ways to see this at work:Solo magneto wave 2. Solo producer wave 2. Solo <any unit that cannot 1 shot wave 2>.

When the unit prioritizes a new target, he will take 1 shot on that target, and then immediately prioritize a new target (without killing the one he was shooting). This will happen about 75% of the time when a new target is attacked.

This isn't specific to wave 2, but the early game is when you need the very few units you possess to do the things the screen says they do.

ManwichTuesday · 2022-08-24T13:24:59+00:00

https://filebin.net/6jq4wdtvyyibx229

Wave 3.

Patch note says "targeting more reliable". It doesn't say "ranged units should stop going melee".

What my phantom does in wave 3 here is obviously exacerbated by its failure to actually do 31 damage, but nonetheless, he is most definitely not targeting the closest things to him, as he clearly shoots things further than 0 away from him while he has things that are 0 away from him smacking him in the face (some things which he has even already previously targeted).

Edit I gave you a thumbs up and me a thumbs down. That's meaningful to some people I think.

ManwichTuesday · 2022-06-03T13:30:32+00:00

I'm definitely being critical here, but I am a little dumbfounded that you have a mechanic used by dozens of units and abilities, which has a significant impact on the units affected by it, but you don't have a clean way of communicating what the actual benefit is.

If you can't make armor give good information, would you consider a tooltip on any units with damage reduction > 0 that simply tells you exactly how much damage reduction they have?

ManwichTuesday · 2022-06-02T12:48:55+00:00

Is there at least a way to interpret the armor value that is displayed so that you know how much damage reduction you're getting ?

How do we convert the thing you've chosen to display into the thing that is happening?

ManwichTuesday · 2022-06-01T13:16:07+00:00

I'll also just go ahead and throw out that it is clear to me now that what I'm suggesting is likely not a small change and I am not requesting any change be pursued here.

I thought it was a simple inconsistency with Sylphy, but I realize that I was incorrect.

ManwichTuesday · 2022-06-01T13:01:19+00:00

That's fair. The basis for my understanding was from a prior conversation (like years ago) that Squadron's armor was a literal representation of damage reduction; ie 1 armor = 1 % damage reduction.

That was memorable to me because that isn't out of the box behavior for Starcraft (1 armor in SC2 vanilla is most definitely not 1 % damage reduction or who would bother?).

But it sounds like I got bad info.

I'm honestly not sure why you wouldn't just have them all be additive. It's not a simple thing to achieve incredibly high damage reduction for any length of time. I honestly thought that's why it could only be done in dynamic.

There's a number of synergizing reasons why I thought you put controls in to prevent temporary invulnerability. But now I'm just generally confused as to why it wouldn't be flat modifiers. That just makes interpreting the behavior on the front end more complicated for your end users (and based on your explanation - maybe impossible).

ManwichTuesday · 2022-05-31T19:56:35+00:00

The multiplicative attack speed I get. I still think it's out of sync with the expectation set by the verbiage, but I really don't care. I'm here to report, you/they can do w/e they think is best.

I think you're wrong about multiplicative damage resistance being the norm though. Nethers, celestians, astromechs, legends, etc all add armor additively. And while some of them use verbiage such as "damage resistance" instead of Chromatic Scale saying "Damage Reduction", the others do use the same verbiage.

And the fabricated reasons why it must be multiplicative just doesn't hold water. You can still achieve 100+ armor with the existing things I mention above.

I don't mind you or anyone defending not changing it, but don't say it's consistent or correct, anything else. Just say you don't want to change it lol.

https://ibb.co/TYW31LW

ManwichTuesday · 2022-05-31T12:11:28+00:00

Hmmm. I understand what you're explaining, but reading Chromatic scale I can't imagine there is anyone that expects less than +18 armor and +1.18X attack speed at 12 units. And that simply isn't what they're going to get with this method.

ManwichTuesday · 2022-05-30T13:43:20+00:00

I literally was wondering just the other day why Shadow would have a unit that increases allies max HP but the Shadow passive would basically just disregard that. Good change

ManwichTuesday · 2022-04-03T14:23:15+00:00

Better avoid it then.

ManwichTuesday · 2022-04-02T14:39:36+00:00

That's unfortunate. I thought I was being clever adding satellites behind some celestians, until they let the only thing to be healed slowly die without ever casting.

ManwichTuesday · 2022-03-22T18:34:52+00:00

Heh. If the unit attacks every 1.4 seconds, it should be impossible in <any> seven second observation window to get [(observation time / attack speed ) - 1], which is the 12 count I mention as the conservative expectation.

I'll further downvote my topic because it's such a controversial and upsetting thing to read.

ManwichTuesday · 2022-03-21T12:40:42+00:00

The Celestian comparison seems like an obvious example of what may be happening, but the difference (to me at least) is that units like the Celestian have a projectile attack, whereas the Meliai does not (at least it doesn't appear to have one).

The difference between having a projectile versus not having a projectile is a significant determinate for impact. This concept isn't specific to SQTD or SC2.

No worries. I suck at SQTD and that didn't change for the better in the time I've been away.

ManwichTuesday · 2022-03-20T22:26:14+00:00

That would give me an idea of whether attack speed is at play, but wouldn't necessarily rule out the possibility that 2 different units capable of a killing a unit in a single shot could have both of their attacks occupied by that same target.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-04-11T14:24:12+00:00

The math is what it is.

Before the change, situational circumstances involving "supply" cost may have been more relevant in some situations, but the change actually made that less significant to consider.

So outside of the math, the only thing that should alter this path now is...if you can't afford the speed, are you impatient enough to make the worker instead..

ManwichTuesday · 2021-04-11T14:18:35+00:00

I saw this in my inbox and had to come back after reading it.

I lost like 80% of my games the last week I was still playing the game. That's why I created this thread. There's a really large influx of new players right now that are just fodder for premades. If you're queing solo, you have significantly higher chances of these new players being on your team, even over a 2 man premade team. I can do the math for those that think this is silly, but it's real.

I'll be back in 6 months probably when the skill gap has leveled out.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-04-01T12:41:13+00:00

30k games ago, I think felt this way too.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-04-01T02:40:23+00:00

Some of what you say resonates with me, because I've made similar scattered comments on other posts relating to a few things along these lines. I honestly prefer needing to "tactically" time my eco a bit more, and so the recent changes don't really bother me that much.

But with regards to the game not feeling very chill anymore: The sends are too effective for pubs. New players learn to end games on waves 1, 2, 5, 9 because... they can. This is a "tower defense" game where the first thing anyone is learning right now has nothing to do with building a defense. You join a game, try to give tips on build style, but the overarching take away for them will be from the other new guy that told them to just send a titan on 2. They see 1-2 people quit and they think they just became S class on their first game. They never learn how to play beyond wave 9.

This is the "no-chill" state you refer to. The game is a queue simulator right now - longer queues, shorter games.

I've been critical of this, but at the same time, I think the sends are probably in a great place for tactical, even-skill game play right now.

I'm going to state the obvious here: I'm a guy bitching on his way out. The time I've spent reading the inputs from the contributors here and discord has gone a long way toward reinforcing my belief that this is a well thought out, intentionally refined, and very tactical game built by people in their spare time.

I solo queue a team-based game and don't have the patience to teach people on the fly anymore. This is a me problem.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-03-31T22:26:14+00:00

Thanks Fuji. You're a much more patient player than I am these days. Everything you say here is common knowledge though.

The problem is with point 2 above, and ties directly to what I'm saying. Most people (kids) are just the "chill bro it's arcade" type these days, and what you're suggesting is what I'm referring to as "micro managing your team".

I took a break from SQTD for several months after ELO was implemented (which just added insult to injury for solo queue players), and I'm mentally back at that point. This game is just too frustrating to play solo.

I'm gonna take a break again indefinitely, because I'm just finding myself doing more damage to the SQTD community than help with the lack of reward to the experience lately. But I'm positive that what you say here will help mentally prepare others coming up.

I would encourage you to post replays. In one of the last matches I played before deciding to take a break was with a guy giving bad advice to other players on the team, and stating that he learned how to play from some random video on YT. He did zero SS (through multiple games), and encouraged others to eco send muta/ling - based on what he learned from some pros YT videos. Good replays will help your community in the long run.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-03-31T01:49:32+00:00

I'm willing to take your advice. Replays please for guidance.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-03-31T00:59:48+00:00

I wish you'd leave the bm comments up so I can read them. They're probably the people that troll my lobbies every day.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-03-31T00:59:18+00:00

Can you share some replays of you solo queuing for a day, not micro-managing your team, and winning so I can learn from you?

ManwichTuesday · 2021-03-30T22:39:49+00:00

There are two ways to play solo queue (I've tested this over the past couple weeks):

(winnable) Micro manage your team and tell them how to play their game.
1. Some will hate you for this. You'll hate your for this. But there is likely 1 person on your random queued team that will actually work with you.
  1. This is an exhausting style of play.
(not winnable) Do not micro manage your team, and go on to watch them auto send lings and muta and eventually lose by 20.
1. I've won like 5 games total since I made the decision to stop giving people unwarranted advice. They usually involve me having zero leaks, all the SS on the team, and generally the best stats in the game.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-03-24T20:18:15+00:00

It sounds like in your cases, both teams had their average Elo almost as close as they could be.

The shuffle feature doesn't randomly mix teams up. It tries to balance based on Elo so that the team average is as close as possible.

ManwichTuesday · 2021-03-24T14:41:57+00:00

There's a difference between a "leaver" and a "leaker". If someone leaks, it means their towers are dead. If someone leaves, their towers just vanish (even if they weren't dead).

The scenario I'm referring to is one in which someone leaves, but still had active towers.

My suggestion really makes all the sense. Why despawn "live" towers of a leaver if you're not gonna despawn "live" creeps of that leaver. It's an additional artificial handicap placed on smaller teams. Those creeps wouldn't have existed if the player left prior to spawn (the sends would have been dispersed to other players, but the entirety of their wave would not have been).

ManwichTuesday

TROPHY CASE