Explanations on GAMBITTING!

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if blizzad works the way i think they do, then they build on every last rts in terms of control, i am sure that starcraft 2 will have rally points and shift clicking like warcraft3 does, autocast is another matter.

 

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Rally point like WC3 would mean workers will auto gather resources.

It's a feature that has always been needed in SC, I really doubt that they won't include it in SC2.

 

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i think thats what i said, but no worries ;D

im sure gambits could be useful in big team battles of 8 players or more, bigger numbers and harder micro, it could be a whole new game type for big team

an idea i jsut had about this.
instead of setting up gambits in game you set up gambits out of game, and implement them in game.
so the game would come with some preset ones, and gives you the ability to make your own.
then you should also be able to trade between players, so over time the best and most thought out ones would become also the most used.
If you watch a replay, then you also be able to dowload the gambit there using as well.

It would be a move towards a game with pure stratagie, but maybe not for starcraft2

 

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Sorry if I repeated what you said. I just wanted to mention auto gathering just in case someone else reading didn't play WC3.

And all in all, I'm still quite uncomfortable about the thought of handing unit control over to A.I. in StarCraft. A lot of things can only be accomplished with good micro in SC. I don't really want to fight a single battle without micromanaging my units.

 

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holy cro, 24 posts and couting, !!!!


okay, so here it is.

Perhaps, with a little more thought, Gambitting COULD be a great asset to SC. It would be nice to see thouse 15 Battle cruisers all fire simultaneously on those heavy protoss air units (all at diferent ones), and it could also be kind of cool to watch tanks auto retreat from a guardian wipe.......

IT COULD, also, be cool to add this sort of "trading" strategies between players, and remember..... for EVERY gambit, there is a counter gambit, which is what SC is all About.

and exaple would be if a player had his units auto collecting resources, you could just park a heavy air unit out of range of a marine/Lisk, and just pepper the gather-ers from a distance. So if the player didnt turn off that gambit, it could cost him HUUUGE money.


I just wouldn't want to see Gambits take away from the Micro, but rather, Add to the intesnsity of it.....

KEEP POSTING, maybe one day this will be a good thread

 

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jamaylott, I don't know how much time you got on your hand, but maybe its a idea to make a sc1 a.i. conversion with all your gambit ideas?

 

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i agree, make a game where this actually works, so we can see it in action.
to convince us.

 

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okay, well.... you have all heard the gambit (Who, What ,When, Where) - of this.... hehe, get it.


Heres what i have so far.

* ideas and a limited, but peripheral knowledge on how to write the code,
* The best artist ive known in my life, who also happens to be my friend
* Some cool drawings of some units that appeared in the SC2 invite
annd,
*Contacts at SantaMonicaStudio in california (david jaffe, GOW 1/2)

Heres what i need:


1)Resources that will let me get my hands on the RAW code WITH COMMENTS, (for those of you who have taken Computer Science, say, Java, at the university level will know wtf a comment is. Whith this piece alone, (the "mineral" if you will), I could begin testing it out.

2) Permission to build off the engine

3) Two volunteers


Heres the problems:

Currents, the only part of the code that is available (with my knowledge that is) to the public, is the part that allows you to midify what you see visually, and unit specs.

There isnt any code that will let me rewrite the AI..... thats all that needs to be done.

Is someone basically show me the part of the 30,000 lines of code and say "This compwnent will allow you to controll what the AI does when you encounter it).

When we play AI against the computer, it is run entirely on gambits.

Creating an interface for the user to use COULD be simplified if the user had to enter in the code themselves.... ie: Tribes 1, players could press ~ to bring down the window and hack into the game.

so, if you had a list ready in a window outside of the game, you could simply just copy the lines of code. OR...

Rewrite the code in Short-hand.

in other words.

Science Vessel would be SV, zergling = ZL, Hydralisk = Hy, Zealot = LOT

as for teh commands, it could be as simple as

SCV : Min : NV : Gat

so, the SCV* would go to the Min*eral patrch that was Nearest*Visible and Gat*her the minerals. The nest part that isnt really necessary is the gambit which we ALREADY use in game, and that is for the SCV to bring the minerals back to the base.


You see? Eventhought THERE IS a command for the player to micro to make the SCV return to teh base, the SCV automatically does it.

THATS what the gambit is all about, Teensey-Weansey, scale tapping! nuances that would just add, in my opinion, GREAT FLAVOUR...

I mean, OBVISOULY any human will be able to counter ANY gambit, but wouldnt it be more challenging, and KIND of sweet, if rather than clicking EACH individual BC to fire on EACH each enemy air unit (because other wise you waste like 250 damage).

they could do it them selves, all the while you are building turrets..... i dunno.

what do you guys think?

i would LOVE any input, and WELCOME anyone who would like to put something together, i got about 2 great guys onboard, the artist and a code money.


see ya!

 

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I dont really know anything about code and things like that, i cant really even draw on a computer, but if you need some one to playtest, or to do concept drawrings (jsut in case you want to expand this outside of starcraft) thta i am happy to help.

Im sure if you write a formal and coperative letter to blizzard they may let you use there engine, or give you some advice, my only worry is taht if you wirte as a single person they may not take you seriusly, so maybe form a small company (yes this is getting a little big now..) and then maybe you might get a better response.

if you can seriusly manage resources, then why not jsut simply build a game of this idea, get to gether with a computer prgrammer and a finacial advisor and draw up a buisness plan or something.

for a menu to run gambits in i suggest having a series of buttons to the left above the mini map. each button has a type of gambit on it, you simply jsut press the button and the thing goes into operation, that or using one of the f keys, in warcraft they are used for heros, but waht about starcraft? theres some space there i believe.

 

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That was an excellent and very helpful post, Gold:
owerup:

 

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having the computer do all these things for you, you might as well just make it play for you.

Just my 2c =P

 

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weve already more or less each said that maybe this isnt right for starcraft2, and although there is alot the computer does do for you its still very hard to find a point where it isnt doing to much, but thats no reason not to evolve the idea regardless of sc2

 

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well I think the "line" was pretty much drawn perfectly in starcraft. If you add this system, you pretty much take away what we players call "micro" and allow the computer to do that for you. I don't see any reason to change it, because what you are asking is to remove the skill portion of the game and make it a chess battle.

 

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i dont think there is a line, somethings are jsut plain annoying and take away from the game.
like not being able to group simillar buildings and build from all of them at the same time.
yes it makes the game harder to play and makes it so there is a large difference in player skills, but it takes away from what the game is actually about and thats fighting battles.
but tahts more my personal preferene than fact, there was a big problem with autocast which many starcraft players didnt like, like i said before its finding that balance between fun and skill.
if the game is to hard and you spend all your time mining minerals, then thats not fun, but neither is having a computer do it all for you.
But once again thats my personal opinoiun.

this idea here is jsut a good, different idea.

 

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Wow,

you guys are great.


this has been a terrific thread, and i hope will continue to be.  People are making VERY valid arguments, and, if you all will be so kind; and considering i happend to be the wretched troll who brought this whole "gambit" thing up in the first place, i would like to address some of these TERRIFIC comments and replies.

I would like to start with Meloku:

Which is more skillful in your terms......  Repeating an action that you have done hundreds of times before, in order to perfect a certain ritual which many other players have.


Or,  using a combinatoin of keyboard-mouse dexterity and, - as you so jolly-well presumed i had no clue was - "micro", to defeat an opponent who is not handicapped because they simply HAVENT SPENT AS MANY HOURS as an expert, say like you, has.


Gold, you may be 100% confident of my accord.  I too really wish that there was a way to find a balance that allowed me to focus on certain things too.  Perhaps, i dunno, this idea might WAY suck, but here goes.



WHAT IF, using a gambit slightly affected that units "preformance"  not its EFFICIENTCY, it would be VERY EFFICIENT, but would lack in specific ways.

For example, if an SCV was gambited to collect resources, it would only gather 80% as many resources as it would if the player had microd it.

or, if a player had a certain unit to (say like a HT) to autocast against an enemy as soon as it was visible (rather than that wimpy psi-ttack) it WOULDNT DO AS MUCH DAMAGE.  so the player using HT's for defence would have to spend more money producing the HT so that the player could use the PSI-STORM gambit as a defence manouver.  

Essentially, it would make for a terrific defence manouver, but would cost significant resources to manage. you see? its not that cheap, but it COULD add something? does this sound at all fair?

or, if you had scvs to repair terran units, it took 50% more than if you commanded them too on your own.
Same with yamamatos, rather than do 250, they only do 175 if its gambitted.


Do you see now?  WOULD THIS ACCTUALLY give some balance to this whole crazy idea of mine, or is it just weak?  so in a nutshell:

if you gambit, your units wont be as good, and you would therefore recive a BONUS if you micro'd all on your own?


I have a FEW more ideas but I will get to them later i guess....


please, more discussion, this has been a GREAT think-tank owerup:



sorry for all the typos, and SORRY FOR ALL THE ENTER-PUSHING, bad hhabbit, and i like some of my bad-habbits i guess

 

Re: more on GAMBITTING!!!

Resource penalty for gambitting and resource reward for microing will face lots of objections from fans. The whole idea of this RTS game is to test a player's skills on macro, micro and multiskilling. So if a player cannot micro properly, he's already being penalized by the fact that the SCVs won't go and gather resources at all.

 

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Interesting, but I always thought that micro was more about reflexes and speed, which in my experience doesnt get better with time- it gets worse (over the years... ha ha.) But an interesting point. I believe you are speaking about micro in terms of KNOWING what should be targeting what, and that does indeed take hours of mastering the game to understand. Those of us who have watched the gameplay trailer 20 times are simply learning these lessons the easy way.

Whats that saying, the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle?

 

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Why shouldn't hard practice pay off again?  I'm sorry but I think I missed that part.

What you get out of a game should always depend on how much you are willing to put into it.  This is true from both the developers' and gamers' point of view.  Why would players keep playing a game if hard time spent isn't rewarding in the end?  StarCraft is the game it is because it take such a long time to be able to understand its intricacies, as well as how much room for improvement it provides in terms of micro.

A game isn't fun for the hardcore fan base if anyone could just play a few hard months and have just as much chance to bring down a 5 year veteran who put in sweat and blood.  It is for that reason that Blizzard is placing development focus based on hardcore players over focus on casual players for SC2.  It is the hard core crowd that will hold the game up 10 years later.

Top athletes are where they are because they have the talent as well as the time put into hard training.  It makes no sense to dumb down a sport so most people can compete on even terms, while negating people's natural talents and hard training.  If you wanna be at a competitive level in sports, it is only fair that you put in the hard work.

Micro is skill.  I'm sick of hearing people throw out some cheap two dollar excuse to degrade the importance of micro because they're too lazy to practice.  It is the same thing as saying maphacks are legitimate because moving units around to scout isn't true skill, and people with real skill should do well when the whole map is revealed to everyone.

Unit control has always been a huge part of SC since the very beginning.  It isn't gravy on the side that you could take off to your liking.  Anyone who doesn't like the idea of practicing to get better at micro should just be content that they are just a casual gamer and have fun at that level.

 

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i can see what you mean, I still dont think this idea is for starcraft, as remy summed up quite nicely, the player really needs to do the work for the game to be good. Having a computer fighting your battles is never going to be something good for starcraft.

and as vague as the line is between playability and skill, i think your idea maybe a bit to much for starcraft, but like i said, it is still a good idea, and you should definetley evolve it, get it to work maybe using starcraft as a platform, then see where you can go from there.

 

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wow gold... all I have to say is lol@u for quoting his entire post XD

and I believe that this gambitting business will never exist, as it would pretty much take all the fun out of starcraft.