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Eraz0rZ
Netherlands47 Posts
Reapers are fine, terran doesnt need even more stuff lategame unless there are some hardcore nerfs or different playstyles available. I think the game right now is simply stagnating and people are getting bored of the same old stuff. And terran complaining about no creativity, lol, The last patch you literally killed HT openers and unbalanced the entire game. You force us into one build, and you dare to talk about creativity. the nerve. | ||
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johnbongham
451 Posts
On October 27 2014 20:56 Eraz0rZ wrote: I could say the same thing about oracles. It does some damage early game and lategame its just a sprinkle dusting fairy. Wich actually gets overshadowed by much more usefull observer placement and such. Reapers are fine, terran doesnt need even more stuff lategame unless there are some hardcore nerfs or different playstyles available. I think the game right now is simply stagnating and people are getting bored of the same old stuff. And terran complaining about no creativity, lol, The last patch you literally killed HT openers and unbalanced the entire game. You force us into one build, and you dare to talk about creativity. the nerve. You can't unbalance something that was already unbalanced. | ||
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Spect8rCraft
649 Posts
On October 27 2014 20:56 Eraz0rZ wrote: I could say the same thing about oracles. It does some damage early game and lategame its just a sprinkle dusting fairy. Wich actually gets overshadowed by much more usefull observer placement and such. Reapers are fine, terran doesnt need even more stuff lategame unless there are some hardcore nerfs or different playstyles available. I think the game right now is simply stagnating and people are getting bored of the same old stuff. And terran complaining about no creativity, lol, The last patch you literally killed HT openers and unbalanced the entire game. You force us into one build, and you dare to talk about creativity. the nerve. ...You do realize Terrans asking for more creativity does not exclude Protoss from asking the same, pre- or post-patch? | ||
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Scrubwave
Poland1786 Posts
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SatedSC2
England3012 Posts
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JCoto
Spain574 Posts
Sometimes, a nerf in bonus attack speed given by Stim has also been mentioned. I also remember reading something about nerfing base damage by 1 (5) and buffing att speed to compensate. Lategame is unstable because it's fragile and expensive compared to midgame. That is what Terrans teaches us everyday. Regarding mines, it's true, they overextended with the mine buff, both in TvZ and TvP. Giving it again a 50% damage zone (1,25-17.75) and buffing tanks a bit could have been a better idea, trying to fix 2 units with similar role in TvZ in order to balance things a bit. With 33% splash instead of 25%, tanks can 3 shot banelings from splash, while Zerglings survive. It becomes really tight fight if the zerg has +1 armor. Now tanks are useless as mines are simply much better siege weapons and wreck in all matchups. 2 mine shots and everything is gone. | ||
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Meavis
Netherlands1300 Posts
On October 27 2014 21:10 SatedSC2 wrote: But why? What problem does making Reapers useful later in the game solve? What deficiency does late-game Terran have that requires the Reaper to be different? It does its job. It doesn't need to be useful throughout the whole game. Plenty of units aren't useful throughout the whole of a game, or are only used situationally in response to a specific enemy composition. But why? What problem does making Templar useful earlier in the game solve? What deficieny does early-game Protoss have that requires the Templar to be different? It does its job. it doesn't need to be useful throughtout the whole game. Plenty of units aren't useful throughout the whole of a game, or are only used situationally in response to a specific enemy composition. jokes aside, this game just need more strategical variety, anything does really, I want to see something different than meak marien maroodah and yolo drop or meak colossus and deathball every game. | ||
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BurningRanger
Germany303 Posts
Back in WoL it was too slowly producable and too expensive to be used as a core fighting unit. When I heard about a rework I had high hopes. And then in HotS they came up with... it being faster produceable, ok, but still too expensive and on top of that just plain garbage as core fighting unit. In WoL the Marine was too good overall already and has been one of the root causes for balancing issues (e.g. some counter units being very strong, because the other races needed something to deal with mass Marines). Yet the Marine needs to be that strong or any Terran will die to earlygame stuff (e.g. Zergling or Zealot rushes). In a Bio army the Marine is the anti-light (and anti-air) unit and the Marauder the anti-armored. Back in WoL the Reaper had pretty nice anti-light damage, but because of the jetpack it needed to be expensive and slow-producable to not make it op. So it couldn't be used to replace the Marine as core anti-light unit. Now in HotS it just doesn't deal enough damage anymore. So, my suggestion would be: Give the Reaper back its WoL anti-light damage. Change the cost to 75/25. Take away the jetpack and make it an expensive research in Rax TL, unlocked after Starport. There you have a core anti-light fighter that could replace the Marine. Then you can nerf the Marine (less HP, slower attackspeed, etc.). The Marine is still needed as Bio anti-air, but you can't just mass produce them, because they're too weak. You need the right mix depending on the opponents units. It also opens up more strategic choices. BCs, Carriers and BLs are not hardcountered by a T1 unit anymore. Opponents going for quick air units can catch Reaper/Marauder producing Terrans off guard. With the late jetpack research the Reapers can be used for harassment. These are just a few possibilities. | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On October 27 2014 20:18 SatedSC2 wrote: Are people really complaining about the Reaper? The Reaper allows Terran players to get very reliable scouting information in the early-game. The information that the Reaper gets before it is forced to leave (either by the first Stalker or by Queens) should give the Terran plenty of time to respond to something blatantly cheesy. For example, against Protoss it should always see if the second Pylon has been proxied (if a scouting SCV didn't realise that already) and it then has the speed required to go hunting down common proxy locations in order to snuff out the cheese before it even gets going. The unit does exactly what it's designed to do. I have so many counter-responses, I don't even know where to start. First, can we acknowledge and clarify that the Reaper is entirely useless in TvP, almost completely useless in TvT (except the rare rush), and so might as well only exist in TvZ? So to start, the unit you and Thieving Magpie are calling well designed is one that only has a valuable function in one out of the three MUs. I already disagree that that's good design. I think that's horrible design. At that point, we might as well actually start restricting units by MU -- no Thors in TvP! No Ghosts in TvZ! For all intents and purposes, the Reaper could be a TvZ exclusive unit now. Now, within that one MU where it has an invaluable role... it's true, the Reaper's scouting is very important. The problem is, the Reaper doesn't actually need to be a unit to get that scouting done. If the Barracks simply allowed a Terran to purchase an additional scan for the same price as a Reaper in the early game, it would actually fulfill the exact same function in 9/10 games, where Reapers don't get any Drone kills or do anything of significance. The Reaper isn't a good unit, it's a good mechanic for the way the TvZ has come together, and its role could literally be supplanted by a spell. That gets a tiny bit trickier with the role surviving Reapers tend to play with follow-up Hellion pressure, but not enough, I think, to dilute my point. Make the "Reaper scan" a bit cheaper so the Terran can get out another 2 Hellions, and it'll be as though the Reaper had never even existed. That's atrociously bad design to my mind. That the Reaper isn't as useful later on in the game is a shame, but what role is Terran actually missing later on in the game? MMM is incredibly versatile and already has the supporting units required to deal with any enemy composition that gets thrown at it. Colossi or Brood Lords? Add Vikings. Templar? Add Ghosts. Mutalisks? Add Thors or Widow Mines. I fail to see why the Reaper needs to be more useful in the late-game... Why bother having Ravens in the game, then? If Terran needs detection, he can just scan or build Turrets. "But Terran needs mobile detection." Does he? Does he really need it? Make Banshees a little bit tougher to use in TvT, make SH a little bit tougher to use in TvZ, and the unit is almost 100% obsolete. Why bother having Battlecruisers in the game? The only MU they add to is TvT, which is balanced with or without them. Why bother having Banshees? If Terran wants to harass, he can just harass with Medivac drops. "But what if he wants to harass differently? What if he wants to exploit a cool timing?" Well, t2/3 useful Reapers could also harass differently and exploit cool timings, but that doesn't matter, so we don't need Banshees either. I'm just taking your argument to its logical extreme. 50/50 isn't the only important thing to making this game a good eSport. Plenty of people were getting straight up bored of MMMWM in every single TvZ in the first half of 2013. I don't personally agree with that view, but that has a lot to do with the fact that I think mechanical skill and multitasking are the most impressive types of skill in SC2. I understand that other spectators don't place the same emphasis on those skills that I do. Your approach runs the risk of completely alienating a huge chunk of the viewerbase who don't want to see the same BOs over and over. | ||
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Clonester
Germany2808 Posts
bad unit design: The bad unit design and how to solve it is not directly connotated to the balance problems, but both can be solved at the same time: A "perfectly balanced" ( thats never gonna be achieved ) game could suffer from bad unit design so much, that it still would be boring and not entertaining. For example: If we could achieve a perfect balance between MMMM and Ling/Bling/Muta, TvZ would still tend to be boring, why? Because all games would play the same, all would use the same units, never change the compositions. When we talk about the reaper, being usless after you build 1/2/3 or 5 at the beginning, it is not a idea to make bio compositions stronger by adding a buffed reaper ( or T2/T3 Upgrades for it). It is about making the game better while keep the balance, not change it, not buff the bio but make it more interesting. The same goes for other bad designed units like the immortal, the carrier, the mothership, the battlecruiser and so on. These units shouldnt be buffed to hell so that we create ne imbalance, they should become more exciting, more usefull while not throw up the balance. When we talk about a T2 ( or T2,5 with armory ) Upgrade for Reaper, a buffed base armor for this massive, 900 crew strong battlecruiser, for this planetdestroying mothership or other new possible things for bad desgined units, we do not want to destroy the balance at all, we want to make the game better while keep the balance. And thus we should talk about these things and dont play Eraz0rZ like. Making examples of underused, underrepresentated or generally bad designed units and how we could make them better designed while keep the balance or even improve it. And thus we return to the reaper and see, that it is poorly designed, while it could make up interesting games by giving it for example the anti building dmg back. Or giving it the upgrade it has in StarBow thus let it throw its detonations on the ground. Shure this needs to be testet along time, because it could destroy everything we call today balance, but without talking about these things, many units will keep their life as usless scrub been designed as ultimate hardcounters and nothing else or being completly useless. | ||
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JCoto
Spain574 Posts
If we want flexibility, It should be all about adding some shades, studying some changes at the same time instead of individually, as things are linked. Before rethinking the use of the reaper, I would like to see the big units and air play much more viable. If the game design was more polished, we could then rework some units that aren't giving any problem in order to give them more use. But with a logical mind, solving actual problems is prioritary. | ||
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
I think the biggest issue with the reaper is their cost. Comparable to their dmg output and combat potency, they just cost too much, gas specifically. Terran would rather spend it on upgrades, medivacs, widow mines, vikings. So if you want it to be used, you'll have to buff them enough that a terran player would rather build two reapers than a medivac, but at that point, wouldn't they be too strong for reaper all-ins? As for the last paragraph, I don't think changing the reaper increases the skill or mechanical ceiling, you're just substituting one form of harass with another. I think the majority of players would prefer the early-game utility that the reaper offers over lategame viability any day (Ref. moving jetpack to upgrade). | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On October 27 2014 21:47 TokO wrote: pure.Wasted, I think you're painting an inaccurate picture. In PvT, the reaper basically takes away two economic openings, Nexus First and Gateway expand (It is possible to do this, but reaper will get free reign over probe line for a long time, and I don't think it ever ends up being advantageous). It gets to count all the pylons, and can therefore very easily spot if there is a proxy. It's the quickest scout for proxies pre 6:30. In other words, a solid use of a single unit takes away a lot of strategic diversity from the Protoss. Doesn't mean that proxies don't happen, it just means that their risks are greatly increased, as they should be. However, this is not the same as being "entirely useless in TvP". If we want to have a constructive discussion, we should avoid these hyperboles. You know what, to be honest I actually forgot that people open one Reaper in TvP. That's my bad. But I feel like more than my bad, it's the Reaper's bad. That's how small a role the Reaper plays in my experience as a spectator. That doesn't mean it doesn't deliver a Terran valuable info... but, again, do we really need an entire unit for that? And is there a reason that unit can't also be doing other things for the game? I think the biggest issue with the reaper is their cost. Comparable to their dmg output and combat potency, they just cost too much, gas specifically. Terran would rather spend it on upgrades, medivacs, widow mines, vikings. So if you want it to be used, you'll have to buff them enough that a terran player would rather build two reapers than a medivac, but at that point, wouldn't they be too strong for reaper all-ins? I wouldn't recommend outright buffing the Reaper (although changing its stats, perhaps). I think a tier2+ upgrade would make a lot more sense. As for the last paragraph, I don't think changing the reaper increases the skill or mechanical ceiling, you're just substituting one form of harass with another. I think the majority of players would prefer the early-game utility that the reaper offers over lategame viability any day (Ref. moving jetpack to upgrade). You're focusing too narrowly on how the game is precisely at this moment, I think. If we buffed Reaper stats and took away jetpack until late game research, imagine that in so doing we make the Reaper totally OP in TvP past the "first Colossus" mark. Would Terrans really lament the loss of their scout? Or would they be OK with a slight economy hit in the early game which would be made up for by the Reaper's cost efficiency in the later stages? I'm not saying that's good design (although a lot of SC2 already functions like that). I'm just saying that anything can eventually be balanced. Not everything can eventually be made fun, or exciting for a spectator to watch. | ||
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SatedSC2
England3012 Posts
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TokO
Norway577 Posts
I didn't mean to imply that you meant outright buffing the reaper. I was aware that the suggestions going around involved some rework that wouldn't necessarily change the balance in the game. What I meant to say was that, with respect to several points; 1. Original purpose (early-game scout), 2. Opportunity costs (When is a reaper a better choice than anything else in the Terran arsenal), 3. Balance (How do we solve 2. without creating scaling issues with regards to early-midgame all-ins); changing the reaper becomes really difficult. I'm just trying to explain that most conceivable ways that we could change the reaper, would probably lead to Terran's whining over a bunch of unscoutable all-ins. Some Terran's already do, even with the reaper. I'm not saying it's impossible, I might be wrong. I think Terran player's should voice their opinion on whether they would like to have it changed. I feel like the Reaper is one of those units that occupy a specific niche, and that's really good. It doesn't do a lot in straight up combat, but it offers so much in terms of information and in terms of setting up the game in favour of the Terran. | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On October 27 2014 22:36 SatedSC2 wrote: SCV pulls. Next question. If you truly believe this then nothing else you've written is even worth considering =/ Nope, I'm underslept and made a mistake. I don't play the game, I only watch it, so the significance of a Reaper's scouting intel is something I've never personally felt and so didn't immediately think of. Please feel free to respond to the rest of the post! | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7031 Posts
If you delay jetpacks until late-game then what's actually the point of the unit? It will just overlap with the medivac and won't have a purpose of its own. Currently the reaper is a mini-medivac that does its job. The cliff-jumping is cool, but overpowered early game. Late-game the protoss already has a cliff-walking unit, terran doesn't need it, zerg probably does. (idea for LotV perhaps) Also, if zerg can't get lurkers because they overlap with banelings, then we should question the existence of the reaper. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25082 Posts
Yeah it's not a pressing concern by any means, but more interesting strategies and tactics could be opened up which should always be the goal. | ||
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Thezzy
Netherlands2117 Posts
Increases their range to 6 and restores their original WoL attack. (with +light damage and their building attack) Requires +2 infantry weapons to be completed before it can be researched at 150/150. Would make Reapers a fast lategame threat against worker lines and tech buildings. | ||
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DinoMight
United States3725 Posts
 .But generally, I'm a firm believer in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" way of game design. As I see it, the biggest problem right now is Protoss needing to open Colossus vs. both Terran and Zerg. Vs. Terran because Widow Mines + Bio and vs. Zerg because the new buffed Hydras just require it (and there's no infrastructure required for Hydras, beyond the Den really, so they can just show up whenever if you don't). Because P units have clearer counters than T and Z, Protoss should be the race that tries to deny scouting and force a reaction from their opponents through tech choices but lately playing P feels like it's either very all-in (and coinflippy) or extremely reactionary. Meanwhile, Z and T have very good all-purpose units like the Marine/Marauder/Ling/Roach/Hydra but they're the ones forcing P into certain decisions. | ||
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EPT
