Selecting Units is Highly specific

[GorillaSnacks]

When playing heroes like Enigma, who require tight micro when farming the jungle, I've noticed that selecting each eidolon is very finicky. After some investigation, I've realized why I was having such trouble. When selecting units in Dota 2, you must place a box over 70% or more of the unit. Otherwise, your hero remains selected. For comparison (this is what I'm used to, as I'm sure a lot of other players are): In Blizzard's engine, any unit that is inside, or is colliding with the box are selected, which allows for players to quickly and easily grab the units they want and micro them.

I'm not sure if the way units are selected is intentional or not, but it makes certain heroes feel VERY clunky and frustrating to play.

Edit: Illustrative examples and screenshots in this thread.

[blash365]

thanks for pointing that out.
multiunit control still needs some refinement.
gonna add this one to the sticky.

it would be nice if you could add a few screenshots though.

[FoxCharge]

YES!! I've always noted that multiunit selection and micro was really clunky in Dota 2, but I could never really describe why. I just tested it out, and you're exactly right - the selection box has to almost completely cover the units' collision boxes in order to select them, otherwise they're left unselected. Obviously it's a bit more obvious on larger units. For instance, if you use Chen's Holy Persuasion on Wildkin Warchief, it is much easier to demonstrate the issue than on, say, Enigma's Eidolons.

I'll try to grab some screenshots in a bit, but it's sort of hard to illustrate.

[Mowlay]

Wow, I had always thought that always was something wrong with micro in dota 2 but didn't know excactly what it was.

[GorillaSnacks]

Vertical Selection Box
Horizontal Selection Box
Neither of these selection boxes will select Enigma. Another thing I noticed, is that Enigma's model is much smaller than it appears. His actual body narrows down into a sort of "tail" inside the cloud on the ground. The cloud does not contribute to the 60-70% of the model required to select him, which makes quickly selecting him, that much more confusing. Same goes for his eidolons.

[jypn682]

+1 This small difference makes microing units incredibly cumbersome. In the middle of a battle, the game often fails to register your unit selection, and if you draw exaggerated boxes large enough to encompass the unit you want, it often ends up including other units and selecting the wrong ones. The lack support for precision control is a huge issue.

[Bogdan_X]

+1 needs a fix.. man this mechanic bugs keep getting freaking ignored an passed on.

Dev please have a look and remove this pesky bugs that plague Dota 2, make this game better.

[kop^-]

You sir are my hero. Noticed it from the 1st day I played Enigma. Specially for him feels really wrong and weird (eidolons), but also generally for neutrals and other units.

[MuDDy_PaNDa]

trying to grab one eidelon when playing enigma and converting the small creep on wildkins is very troublesome, and makes me not able to select it and micro it back in time before it dies.

Pretty frustrating

[Doombunny]

copied from other thread:
Here are some nice screenshots of games from the last twelve years that implemented box-selecting properly.

http://imgur.com/a/LaFlx

It should be pretty clear what's wrong here, especially in the case of the box that just selects the ranged creep. The bottom line is that it's more difficult than it should be to click on or box-select individual units, towers, and heroes. I can select about 45% of the visible area of a tower with a vertical box before the tower is selected, and that's awful.

A feature I would like to see Dota 2 add is control groups for Brewmaster, Meepo, and heroes with summons (Invoker, Enigma, Prophet, Lone Druid, Warlock, Visage, Arc Warden, maybe TA, maybe Chen and maybe Enchantress) or reliably created illusions (Shadow Demon, Chaos Knight, Naga Siren, Morphling) that are persistent between games. This would allow me to set my earth panda to control group 2 and my storm panda to control group 3 in a bot game, and then keep those settings so that the first time I ult in my next game as Brewmaster, I already have my hotkeys set up and don't have to set control groups while I'm trying to click on my pandas.

[jypn682]

This issue also makes it more difficult to micro low health Meepos back, especially when 4-5 are running around.

[blindsniper]

Unit selection is so cumbersome and more difficult than it should be! I know this is Valve's first RTS but they should look at the way WC3 selects units at least and try to mimic that. That should fix this frustrating gameplay problem!

[rednoyeb]

WOW so that's why the micro in dota 2 is so weird...I was wondering why it was so fluid and easy in blizzard games, now i get the answer. Please fix this !

[teen]

this has been reported many many times, with images

[Doombunny]

In this thread I posted some screenshots illustrating this issue quite nicely.