Snerp Herders

RundarRundar Member
edited August 25 in General Discussion

Heyo! I had a thought or two on this particular unit, and I had one or two other testers say that my feedback for this unit would be a good idea to post about. So, without further ado!

My observations
1. You can only have two, which impacts your Snerp count early game, and other upgrades make buying the upgrade not really worth it early game, even though for this unit having the upgrade is a huge boon. You buy it during the mid to late game stages, and at this point you can have a lot of Snerps out at once if you are mindful. The radius increase is also helpful for catching more of the enemy's army.
2. The Snerps themselves offer a lot of sight all the while staying invisible, kind of a free ward that will die when enemies trigger it.
3. They have a large delay, which technically allows for a lot of units to get caught in their slow.
4. The slow is 90% for 5 seconds, which technically can give a lot of breathing room.
5. The placement range for Snerps is super short.
6. The Snerp goes out of stealth as soon as an enemy travels within the slow radius.
7. Cosmetically, the Snerp itself is super cute. The herder looks pretty good as well. When the Snerp activates, a frost circle is created on the ground around the Snerp.

My thoughts
1. The limit of having two feels good. When you combine the unit limit with the ideal time for buying the upgrade, Snerp spam is avoided till the later half of the game. The radius increase feels good as well.
2. This sight from the Snerps feels sooooo good, and I feel that it's balanced by losing them once enemies go into the slow radius.
3. This delay is necessary for getting large groups of enemies slowed, which is what the Snerp is designed to do.
4. This slow is amazing when you catch someone inside it. You practically stop whatever unit it is, for 5 seconds. Bonkers good that is.
5. The Snerp placement range feels....well very meh to me. My Herder often has to travel all the way through my army up to where I need the Snerp. While this isn't a huge huge point for me, I have found myself in more than one game wanting my Herder to be able to throw the Snerp a short distance, or farther than it currently is at least.
6. The Snerp going immediately out of stealth makes avoiding the trap rather easy. In bot games it isn't a problem since the AI goes right through the slow radius regardless, but real players outright avoid them with ease.
7. Love the Snerp's appearance. The frost circle for the slow kind of makes sense, but feels out of place coming from the Snerp itself. Same with the icon, though now that I think about it, probably all placeholder stuff. Still wanna mention it though as I love giving UI/art feedback.

My solutions for improving the Snerp Herder
-- Adjust the placement range. Give the Herder a very small throw range (farther than it currently is) for placing the Snerp and I think that will make placing the Snerp feel better.
-- The Snerp going out of stealth immediately is the main issue I think. Going out of stealth right away makes avoiding the slow super easy. I think to fix this, the slow delay should stay the same. The stealth shouldn't go down unless the slow is like 0.1-0.4 seconds from going off, or when enemies travel within a minimum range of the Snerp (like right on it for example)
-- This last point isn't really for the balancing devs, but really for the art devs XD (and yes I figure these are placeholder items, but I love art). The frost circle for the Snerp feels out of place. Same with the Deploy Snerp Trap icon. The frost circle should be something more organic instead, like slime or goop or even webbing. The icon should showcase whatever slowing medium the Snerp ends up getting, and the Snerp itself. Otherwise, adorable unit, one of my favorites to come from you guys.

Hopefully this feedback makes sense. Great work guys, looking forward to the open Alpha!
-- Rundar

Comments

  • TreiskTreisk Member, Administrator
    edited August 25

    Love love love this post! Some quick notes on your points:

    • The slow zone art is super placeholder (and is basically the same placeholder used on Frozen Orb). Eventually we'll get around to arting that properly.
    • The Snerp coming out of stealth as it does is mostly so the opponent knows, as soon as they step into the area, what's about to happen; but in my experience, it happens quickly enough that the opponent has a hard time changing direction fast enough to not be slowed. And if they do, I think rewarding that reaction time is kinda cool. To be clear, though, this is not to say the timing is perfect -- it's purely functional right now and, as with a lot of things, could use some love, for sure.
    • The range is deliberately very low to encourage players to control them separately from their army. This is similar to the way players might use Engineers or Juggernauts. We have thought about toying with a version of it that has a bit more range though, and we might follow through with that eventually when we've got a bit more bandwidth.

    Thanks for this post! :D

  • RundarRundar Member

    NP! Glad to of been helpful! XD

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