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Hoes does the Replicant feels?
Hi everyone.
I'd like to see more desing discussion in the comunity, and I believe that discussing the player's experiences with the Replicant would lead to some desing talk. I don't mean talking about balance though; HotS demo was obviously unbalanced, but maybe it shows the design philosophy and solutions that Starcraft's dev team is taking.
(Actually, I personally believe there is a good chance there will be no Replicant in HotS at all. Reasons
+ Show Spoiler + You see, Dustin said himself they had nothing ready for Blizzcon. They just said “let's pick this, this and this, show to the community, and pay attention to their feedback”. I think the Replicant was never a solid unit; it was a fun/interesting concept they'd been thinking about. If they wanted feedback from the community about an orthodox unit like the Warhound, of course they'd like to see what we think about a crazy one, even if they weren't convinced of putting it in HotS. With the community's feedback – and I'm not talking about people disliking it, but about people showing design flaws – and further testing, it is quite possible the Replicant is no more.
So I'd like to know about what are the experiences of people who had been playing the HotS custom. Of course I'm curious to know if the new units work as intended, but I think that discussing the changes that the Replicant impose to the game – and oh the metagame! - would give readers (like moi) more insight of what is each units (specially the “old” units) part in the game's general design.
Let's cut the crap and go to it... I've been hearing a lot that every race got some unit that would give (sucessful or unsuccesful) alternatives to the death ball. Terrans got the Shredder and Zergs the Swarm Host and Abduct. It seems the Replicant counters specifically the Terran deathball. But the sexy thing about it is that it also opens the door for dozens of other strategies.
As far as I could understand, the most “replicable” units are Siege Tanks, Ravens and Banshees (maybe Medivacs, sometimes? against Terran and Infestors and Vipers agains Zerg. That would be only units that would be copied and that would pay for those 200m200g.
How is the sinergy of Protoss units with these units? How have people been using them? Do Terran and Zerg players refrain from using them afraid that there are Replicants somewhere? Do you morph the Replicants in your base or wait for the battle for a surprise element, or do you improvise sometimes?
I know there must be some “exploits” (like cloning a SCV, building a single CC and having an army of medics to heal Immortals and Colossi) but those will either be balanced or will make Blizzard give up on balancing the Replicant (Browder aproximate words: “If there are one rule about this unit it's ok, like you can't replicate massives. If there are two rules it becames less interesting, for example can't do massives and workers. But if it can't replicate say, massives, and workers, and energy-using units, so this unit became too hard to understand”). So how about “regular” strategies using Replicants? Because “regular” strategies tell us about the Replicant and also about other units, but “exploits” just show reasons to restraint or cut the Replicant off, something that maybe has already happened.
 
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I just think it was silly idea in general that the designers themselves see Protoss faring SO badly that the ONLY solution is to copy units from another race, because Protoss alone apparently can't win haha.
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I really don't get why it would be good. You are paying more for the unit then it is worth, one single unit is not good (think about one siege tank).So I agree with you that it probably is not going to be in hots (at least I hope not). Protoss really needs an harass unit, not the unit where you can delay mining (don't know unit name, but it looks like a flying sentry  ). So far the units do not really impress me  but I have faith!
btw now I think about it, it will be pretty hard to copy the units O.o
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I think it would be intresting if it could replicate massive units then you could come up with some strategy like going zealot archon while slowly building your replicant numbers then doing a massive tech switch to immediatly get like 6 collosi. Right now it seems it would only be usefull for holding of timing attacks maybe.
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I do not think you will ever can replicate a unit which cost less then the replicator. And I don't know if you can replicate ur own units and how long it takes to make replicator, but wouldn't it be faster to make these colossus instead of replicator?
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Colossi are massive, the Replicant does not replicate massive units AFAIK.
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On April 11 2012 00:32 topschutter wrote:
I do not think you will ever can replicate a unit which cost less then the replicator. And I don't know if you can replicate ur own units and how long it takes to make replicator, but wouldn't it be faster to make these colossus instead of replicator?
Your missing the point the idea is to catch the opponent off guard with the sudden tech switch. you would have to come up with a build that is safe against timings while building up the replicator count (not an easy task). Its a moot point since you cant do it to massive units but from all reports ive seen you replicate your own units.
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I sincerly hope you are right about the replicant, it's such a "gimicky" idea.
I recall shortly after Blizzcon White-Ra made some off hand comments about how he didn't like the new Protoss units and thought what P really needed was some stronger mid-game units. I believe he was 100% correct. The cause of the protoss "deathball" IMO is the stalker. High DPS but in small groups a handfull of zerglings or a few mutas can easily whipe them out. So what we end up with is P having to group all their stalkers together in one single ball to avoid dying and still be able to counter mutas. Same principle with stalker collosi against terran, breaking off any part of that group means instant death for protoss player. That's what needs to be addressed; not the need for wacky shape shifting units stolen from Star Gate.
Wish I could remember where I read those comments from White-Ra, may have been an MLG interview 
-edit: sp
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I just continued on the comment given by iamperfection . He said ''if''
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On April 11 2012 00:42 TheToast wrote:I sincerly hope you are right about the replicant, it's such a "gimicky" idea. I recall shortly after Blizzcon White-Ra made some off hand comments about how he didn't like the new Protoss units and thought what P really needed was some stronger mid-game units. I believe he was 100% correct. The cause of the protoss "deathball" IMO is the stalker. High DPS but in small groups a handfull of zerglings or a few mutas can easily whipe them out. So what we end up with is P having to group all their stalkers together in one single ball to avoid dying and still be able to counter mutas. Same principle with stalker collosi against terran, breaking off any part of that group means instant death for protoss player. That's what needs to be addressed; not the need for wacky shape shifting units stolen from Star Gate. Wish I could remember where I read those comments from White-Ra, may have been an MLG interview -edit: sp
That is such a hard problem to fix. HoTS would be the oppourtunity to do it but i dont see it happening.
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On April 11 2012 00:40 iamperfection wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2012 00:32 topschutter wrote:
I do not think you will ever can replicate a unit which cost less then the replicator. And I don't know if you can replicate ur own units and how long it takes to make replicator, but wouldn't it be faster to make these colossus instead of replicator? Your missing the point the idea is to catch the opponent off guard with the sudden tech switch. you would have to come up with a build that is safe against timings while building up the replicator count (not an easy task). Its a moot point since you cant do it to massive units but from all reports ive seen you replicate your own units.
The problem is that you are making expensive units. Still I do not see what is the difference between secretly building up 6 void rays or building up 1 void ray and 5 replicators. How is the last alternative more catching ur opponent off guard then the first one?
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The Replicant can't copy Massive units. Maybe they'll add more rules to that, like "can't copy workers" or "can't copy casters".
I think theorycrafting can be fun, but has anyone played the Custom? My computer is not loading Starcraft lately.
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On April 11 2012 00:49 topschutter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2012 00:40 iamperfection wrote:On April 11 2012 00:32 topschutter wrote:
I do not think you will ever can replicate a unit which cost less then the replicator. And I don't know if you can replicate ur own units and how long it takes to make replicator, but wouldn't it be faster to make these colossus instead of replicator? Your missing the point the idea is to catch the opponent off guard with the sudden tech switch. you would have to come up with a build that is safe against timings while building up the replicator count (not an easy task). Its a moot point since you cant do it to massive units but from all reports ive seen you replicate your own units. The problem is that you are making expensive units. Still I do not see what is the difference between secretly building up 6 void rays or building up 1 void ray and 5 replicators. How is the last alternative more catching ur opponent off guard then the first one?
Because you have them all at once. Late game when you have all options open to you would be able to suddenly switch the tech you have. It just isnt at strong since you cant replicate massive. You would shit you pants as terran if all of sudden 6-8 collosi are on the field when you only expected 1 or 2.
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On April 11 2012 00:56 iamperfection wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2012 00:49 topschutter wrote:On April 11 2012 00:40 iamperfection wrote:On April 11 2012 00:32 topschutter wrote:
I do not think you will ever can replicate a unit which cost less then the replicator. And I don't know if you can replicate ur own units and how long it takes to make replicator, but wouldn't it be faster to make these colossus instead of replicator? Your missing the point the idea is to catch the opponent off guard with the sudden tech switch. you would have to come up with a build that is safe against timings while building up the replicator count (not an easy task). Its a moot point since you cant do it to massive units but from all reports ive seen you replicate your own units. The problem is that you are making expensive units. Still I do not see what is the difference between secretly building up 6 void rays or building up 1 void ray and 5 replicators. How is the last alternative more catching ur opponent off guard then the first one? Because you have them all at once. Late game when you have all options open to you would be able to suddenly switch the tech you have. It just isnt at strong since you cant replicate massive. You would shit you pants as terran if all of sudden 6-8 collosi are on the field when you only expected 1 or 2.
It still takes time to make replicators (and in addition the unit you want to replicate so in my example you need robo and stargate) and it takes still supply. So how you cant just have them all at once. Late game it is the same.
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On April 11 2012 00:44 iamperfection wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2012 00:42 TheToast wrote:I sincerly hope you are right about the replicant, it's such a "gimicky" idea. I recall shortly after Blizzcon White-Ra made some off hand comments about how he didn't like the new Protoss units and thought what P really needed was some stronger mid-game units. I believe he was 100% correct. The cause of the protoss "deathball" IMO is the stalker. High DPS but in small groups a handfull of zerglings or a few mutas can easily whipe them out. So what we end up with is P having to group all their stalkers together in one single ball to avoid dying and still be able to counter mutas. Same principle with stalker collosi against terran, breaking off any part of that group means instant death for protoss player. That's what needs to be addressed; not the need for wacky shape shifting units stolen from Star Gate. Wish I could remember where I read those comments from White-Ra, may have been an MLG interview -edit: sp That is such a hard problem to fix. HoTS would be the oppourtunity to do it but i dont see it happening.
Nor do I. I am quite fearful that what we are going to get are are dumb gimick units that Blizzard will try to use as bandaids to solve individual problems in the matchup. But there really needs to be a whole re-think of the protoss army. It's far too fragile.
It's easy to forget how powerful the dragoon was in BW, 100 hit points with 80 sheild compared to 40 hit points for the marine. Meant the dragoon had over 4 times the health of the marine. In SC2 stalker is 80/80 armored while the marine is 45 hit points. Once terran gets combat sheild and stim, suddenly the stalker doesn't have such and advantage over the marine in terms of defence and actually has LOWER ground DPS than the marine. This is why protoss are forced into the deathball, because if they don't they die. Immortal is nice, but since it has no aa it's useless versus a zerg going muta and has limited use when going colossi versus terran where taking out vikings is key.
If Blizzard really wants to fix the deathball, give protoss back their powerful mid game unit.
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This thread feels extremely weird, blizzcon's reveals were months ago and there's a high possibility that everything we saw there has been changed significantly. In fact, I'd 100% guarantee that.
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In fact, I'd 100% guarantee that
Me too, but still I'd like to know how it is the experience of playing with or against the replicant.
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I think it's a cop out for Blizzard to try to balance a race without actually putting any effort in.
Blizzard thinking: "Hmmm, what could Protoss use to make them not lose as much? Fuck it, let's just give them every unit in the game."
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i've been thinking about 1-1-1-ing terrans running from seeker missiles
still, the replicant seems like a stupid idea that doesn't fit to the starcraft universe. on the other hand, there are draenei in wow, so blizzard doesn't seem to care much about such things
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Goddamn it's like I was completely right or something.
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EPT
