Movement and Turnspeed

[smokedsalmon]

I have seen this topic mentioned briefly before, but have never seen it confirmed as to whether or not it is intended. If it has already been formally addressed, let me know.

One small nuance of movement in WC3 was the interaction between turning and moving. I suspect that the current interaction may be a limitation of this platform, and unable to be changed. It seems like it would be a fairly significant change if it were to be implemented.

In WC3, a unit would, after receiving a command to move to a location not directly in front of it, turn as it moved. They would strafe in that direction not quite immediately, but sooner than units currently move. Units in Dota 2 are currently required to face their intended direction before beginning movement.

Observe the difference in movement:

The video is not particulary good, but it can be seen that the unit begins to move in a targeted direction before it faces that direction.

Turn speed seems to be faster in Dota 2 as well, possibly to compensate for the lack of strafing movement. It seems odd to me that people had previously posted comments about turn speeds being to slow, as Dota 2's turn speed seems to be faster than that of WC3 DotA. It was brought up in a previous post mentioning this, that some balance issues are related to turn speed, most noticeably Sticky Napalm's effects on units.

Because unit movement in Dota 2 has been as it is currently for the entirety of the beta from what I have seen, it seems as though it may not be changed. Either way, I'd like to know.

Also, I wasn't sure if this should be in a different section of the forum. It doesn't seem to be a bug, but rather a basic difference in mechanics between the games. From the description in the sticky labeled "Purpose", it seemed to fit here.

[DLRevan]

Try casting dual breath with THD while turning around in circles. You'll notice that insofar as spell animations are concerned, the model doesn't actually reflect what direction THD is really facing. It is possible to have him fire dual breath in a completely opposite direction from where his model is facing, but in Dota 2 the model will always accurately reflect the right direction.

Also, try casting 10 stacks of batrider's napalm on him. You'll notice that in WC3, units must still turn first before moving in another direction, its just more noticeable when the turn rate is slowed down. The time it takes to start moving in the opposite direction with 10 stacks is (by roughly eyeballing it) is the same in both games. In fact, with 10 stacks you'll notice there's a little strafe in D2 as well.

That's not to say there isn't any difference at all, but from my pasts tests on this, I concluded that the difference is mostly visual. Both games are functionally the same.

[smokedsalmon]

I hadn't noticed the disconnect between direction of models and casting animation. Looking at WC3 units under the effects of Sticky Napalm does seem to make it more clear that a unit is required to face a direction before moving. Thanks for the response.

[SlyGoat]

As far as I can recall, unit turning in WC3 was meant to partially mask command delay, because units begin turning locally before the command is received by the host and sent to the other users. It wasn't originally meant to inhibit movement because even ladder games had a noticeable command delay, so units would generally be fully turned before they started moving anyway. When people started using fake LAN and bot hosting to minimize delay, however, the commands would be sent fast enough that turn rates wouldn't sync up properly and so you get the strafing effect, which is of course most noticeable in singleplayer or a game you hosted, where you could pull off the infamous moonwalk. This is also what would cause the effect of units firing off abilities in directions they weren't apparently facing. Since everything in Dota2 is server side, the turn rates are reflected more accurately to every user, as well as angle of abilities being fired.

[Robzor]

As far as I can recall, unit turning in WC3 was meant to partially mask command delay, because units begin turning locally before the command is received by the host and sent to the other users. It wasn't originally meant to inhibit movement because even ladder games had a noticeable command delay, so units would generally be fully turned before they started moving anyway. When people started using fake LAN and bot hosting to minimize delay, however, the commands would be sent fast enough that turn rates wouldn't sync up properly and so you get the strafing effect, which is of course most noticeable in singleplayer or a game you hosted, where you could pull off the infamous moonwalk. This is also what would cause the effect of units firing off abilities in directions they weren't apparently facing. Since everything in Dota2 is server side, the turn rates are reflected more accurately to every user, as well as angle of abilities being fired.

Warcraft 3 had a value which affected how fast the model turns where the value was chosen from 8 predetermined patterns, all which are completely independent from the actual turning speed of the unit. To properly understand why it was possible to use abilities in directions you weren't facing there are several aspects you need to take into consideration, but the most important as well as prominent one is that the in-game model you view and the actual direction the unit is facing do seldom correspond correctly which is solely due to the cosmetics of the model turning.

The model turning will slow down to match the actual angle the unit is facing, but never the opposite, which seldom is an intriguing case though as more often than not the unit will turn faster than the model.