Sniper scouts overhaul

Issues dealing with gameplay balance.
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Oddnerd
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Oddnerd » Tue 23 Jan, 2018 4:09 pm

Didn't this same point come up in the population values thread?

What's the point of having a game with asymmetrically balanced race rosters if you're going to force units of similar design to measure up stat-wise to one another across rosters? Units are balanced in the context of their respective rosters.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Tue 23 Jan, 2018 5:22 pm

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Forestradio
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Forestradio » Tue 23 Jan, 2018 5:36 pm

you need to consider factors beyond cost including upgrades vs whole new squad, unit/gen timings, build orders in different matchups, particularly difficult matchups (KN vs eldar!), map control, gen bashing, bleeding, hero wargear and synergies, scaling, etc etc etc
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Dark Riku » Tue 23 Jan, 2018 10:33 pm

Kvn wrote:I know this is a mistake, but wow. Riku, I didn't know that someone could miss so many of my points in one argument. I'm... actually kind of impressed that you you did that. Not going to debate that anymore with you, as you're pretty clearly not listening.
Preaching to the choir here mate XD


Kvn wrote:...
The rest of your post is just cringe worthy. Let's consider only 1 aspect of a unit! Herpydhur. The whole picture is not needed at all! Dhuuur.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby LOCALgHOST » Tue 23 Jan, 2018 10:48 pm

snipers and rangers just fine now.
Atlas

Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Atlas » Wed 24 Jan, 2018 1:54 am

Kvn/Dark Riku GRUDGE go!
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby PhatE » Fri 26 Jan, 2018 1:18 am

It's good to be reminded that no matter what length of time (months, or years), some people can never change. Even if it meant that they could have friends that aren't just brown-noser's.

This was nostalgic.
Stream - http://www.twitch.tv/phatness_

Since everyone forgets, my timezone is AEST (UTC/GMT) +10 hours. AEDT is (UTC/GMT) +11 hours. Hopefully no-one tells me what time any tournament is on.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Mon 12 Feb, 2018 1:38 pm

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Tex
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Tex » Mon 12 Feb, 2018 4:08 pm

I'm blown away...
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Tinibombini » Mon 12 Feb, 2018 4:24 pm

Antandron wrote:What is the rationale for restricting Eldar detection to a T1.5 unit?


This is not a serious question right?
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Mon 12 Feb, 2018 6:33 pm

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Atlas

Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Atlas » Mon 12 Feb, 2018 6:47 pm

Antandron wrote:What have I done?

Do a quick survey of where the detection is for other races. Most of it is in T1.5 with the exception of Kommandos and the Lictor subcommander iirc.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Mon 12 Feb, 2018 7:51 pm

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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Dark Riku » Mon 12 Feb, 2018 9:03 pm

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Oddnerd
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Oddnerd » Mon 12 Feb, 2018 11:46 pm

Were you around at the time of DAs having detection with their exarch? It was fucking cancer.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 12:37 pm

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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Adeptus Noobus » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 1:54 pm

Been there, done that. It brought a whole myriad of problems. Why would you ever get Rangers if Dire Avengers can easily detect?! Also, binding detection, hp boost and the plasma grenade/shield to a 15 power upgrade would be repeating the mistakes of buffing the IST Sarge into insanity for 15 power.

You also seem to operate under the assumption that "making your opponent buy something" and then punishing him for it is an abusive mechanic when quite the opposite is true and imo a fundamental aspect of RTS games.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 2:00 pm

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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Adeptus Noobus » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 5:51 pm

What about the Sorc or the LA?
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Forestradio » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 6:11 pm

well you cannot just add costs to battle equipment and add detection, it would break much more than it "fixed"
adding power costs or req costs messes up timings for other upgrades like shees aspect or hero gear, eldar power costs in t1 are high enough already
there are more MU than just sorc, kn, la that use detection... and adding detection to da makes them immune to traps, mines, burrows or lets them do things like guarding shuries against stealthed scout grenades or revealing infiltrated ogryns from the inquisitor which would be quite imbalanced

you have to consider more than just 3 mu

KN is a brutal eldar matchup not just due to infiltration--it also deals with high burst dmg in t1, and the shotgun dealing lots of bleed in t2... and invalidating prisms in t3 with the rokkit
and la is similar due to model sniping and general la trolling, don't think i need to expand on that
sorc is not really a problem these days--only with teleport+SoF, and if you have problems with worship, play fs and spam farsight, no rangers needed in t2+

so it is fine to have detection tied to rangers--and they have a low pop/cost so they may be purchased in t2 or even t3 and provide detection, spotting, and the occasional disruption if the eldar player needs it

as for replays, if you want a giant change like adding detection to a unit that shows up in every gaem, provide them yourself
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 8:09 pm

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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Forestradio » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 9:31 pm

...care to address the rest of what i said?

by "provide replays" i mean you show some games of eldar against some infiltration tactics and showing how they just absolutely cannot deal with it to the degree they need permanent t1 detection on DA

which is also never going to happen btw

now everyone go back to arguing about scout snipers vs rangers, always funny to read afterall
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Adeptus Noobus » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 9:36 pm

Antandron, lay out what you want Rangers to be. If you truly believe that a squad with long-range disruption and harrassment potential that can infiltrate and synergizes amazingly well with the rest of the entire army roster is a "bad purchase" for 210/20 and sub-standard upkeep, I just don't know what to say anymore.

At this point I don't even know wether you think Rangers are OP or need buffs.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 9:48 pm

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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 10:28 pm

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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Adeptus Noobus » Tue 13 Feb, 2018 10:46 pm

Trust me, when it comes to the Sorc it REALLY matters which Eldar hero he is up against. Don't forget that the LA and Sorc have a low hp pool and that Rangers deal extra dmg vs commander armor. They also deal extra dmg vs heavy infantry which means they shit on synapse creatures as none of them can come close to Rangers, ever. The onus is on you to come to where the Eldar is to stop Rangers from bleeding your precious hp. If the Sorc teleports, so be it, Banshees and Hero support = dead Sorc. The LA can at least punish Banshees once he gets into melee combat, which of course he won't as Nids have no other tool than Raveners in T1 to close in. Rangers vision range is just that awesome. You won't get flanked easily.
The KNob is most definitely a very tough matchup for Eldar in general but that has lots to do with his weapon as well as Shootas having insane dmg in T1.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Kvn » Wed 14 Feb, 2018 1:48 am

Gonna preface this by saying that I'm in full agreement that giving DA detection on Battle Equipment is a bad idea. Either the price wouldn't change, and it would be very overpowered, or the price would change, and Battle Equipment would become significantly less useful due to the increased power sink. In either case, it's not the way to go.

Adeptus Noobus wrote:Trust me, when it comes to the Sorc it REALLY matters which Eldar hero he is up against. Don't forget that the LA and Sorc have a low hp pool and that Rangers deal extra dmg vs commander armor. They also deal extra dmg vs heavy infantry which means they shit on synapse creatures as none of them can come close to Rangers, ever.


This I cannot agree with, however. Mathing things out for a second, Rangers deal 60 damage per shot +30% vs HI adding up to 80, firing once every 5 seconds. Warriors have a base 340 hp per model. That means, as a minimum, it takes 5 shots for Rangers to kill a model if they all hit the same one (which they won't because Rangers) which adds up to 25 seconds of continuous uninterrupted fire. In a more reasonable case, taking into account the random shot spread that tends to happen with snipers, you're looking at probably between 8 to 10 shots depending, adding up to 40 to 50 seconds of constant fire. Add that to the fact that Rangers will never get constant fire due to their nature and the nature of Eldar as a whole and it becomes even longer. Call me crazy, but this really doesn't sound like it will "shit on synapse creatures" when compared to much more generally useful units.

As for the other point, unless the commander in question is at critical hp, they won't apply much pressure there either. Heck, even back when they were dealing more than double the damage they do now it was considered a complete waste. I remember some rather unpleasant moments of being banned from certain lobbies for "wasting sniper shots on the enemy leader" when I was first starting out.
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Dark Riku » Wed 14 Feb, 2018 2:52 am

Antandron wrote:My thinking about detection is that it is easy to exploit by a canny opponent. For example, player A goes for stealth unit 1 and forces player B to buy detector unit 2. Now player A can deliberately use a build that detector unit 2 is inefficient against if such a build exists. If player B was SM then spending 75/25 on a Sergeant is never really a bad idea considering the utility of his other abilities and Orks have a near no-brainer purchase of a Shoota Nob for 75/25. But with Eldar, I found that vs a KNob I would be forced into a 210/20 purchase of Rangers when I would have prefered a SWP. Once the KNob player sees the Rangers he can avoid the purchase of units which Rangers counter (Lootas for example) which is a dynamic that does not apply to SM, CSM (as Tic Champ is often useful) or Orks. In conclusion, detection would be better added to Battle Equipment instead (Rangers can keep their detection if warranted) while Rangers are reverted to their "fair" value which is certainly not 210/20 and 6 pop. Battle Equipment providing detection solves the problem of Eldar detection and as I understand this was the main reason given for the discounted Ranger cost. An additional effect of this would be to disincentivise cancerous Ranger spam in team games.
In which situation is such a long range vision and detection AND a KB on demands useless though for only 210/20? Never if you ask me. They are ALWAYS useful.


Antandron wrote:How about this?:
Battle Equipment: additional health plus energy shield.
Detection Equipment: additional health plus detection.
grenades and FoF are gone? :)
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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Antandron » Wed 14 Feb, 2018 9:04 am

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Re: Sniper scouts overhaul

Postby Torpid » Wed 14 Feb, 2018 9:42 am

Scout snipers are ALWAYS going to be inferior on a holistic side by side comparison to rangers because rangers are economical suicide to loads of compositions. In a 1v1 when the heck can you afford dual rangers? It's super rare. Sniper scouts far less so. Why? Because you always lead 2 scouts or even 3. You can go for snipers vs ranged forces and SUTs or shotties vs jump units/melee. You have that additional versatility and those scouts aren't a direct t1.5 purchase either so the whole timing is just so mcuh better on the SM side.
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