Skulk vs. marine - suggestion
Alpha.
Join Date: 2011-01-04 Member: 76186Members
Join Date: 2011-01-04 Member: 76186Members
Hi
I saw twitter update about 'why skulks are ripping marines apart?'. I play at least 5 hours a day - I think I know the answer.
As far as I know asymmetry of NS2 implies that, in general, if marine is fighting skulk from a distance - rine usually wins; if it's a close combat - skulk wins. In this build (160) only the second part is true. Main reason is that killing skulk in a reasonable amount of time is nearly impossible; it can run at You across 20 meter long hallway, kill You, Your two friends and manage to run away alive to heal up! I do this all the time, all experienced players do. And it's wrong. I assume it is caused by one of three reasons: too low LMG damage, too low LMG accuracy, or lag - you see skulk, you shoot it, but server thinks it's actually not there. Fast solution, just for the next patch (before resolving lag issues) - is to make LMG more accurate, to cause more injuries or both.
But what will happen then? Basically marines will win most of the games. Why? Because of the strafe jumping. And here is the suggestion. Backpedal speed is lowered, pretty much like NS1, do the same to strafe speed. I, myself can now jump around alone (having flamer) vs. 2 fades - and kill them if they don't run away. I'm sure every experienced player will agree with me that it shouldn't be possible. Yes - to pro-strafe jumping like in NS1, where it was DIFFICULT, but possible to avoid one, maybe two or three alien attacks. No - to just jumping around with a or d pressed and being nearly invincible.
Thank you for your time reading this.
Regards
Mike
I saw twitter update about 'why skulks are ripping marines apart?'. I play at least 5 hours a day - I think I know the answer.
As far as I know asymmetry of NS2 implies that, in general, if marine is fighting skulk from a distance - rine usually wins; if it's a close combat - skulk wins. In this build (160) only the second part is true. Main reason is that killing skulk in a reasonable amount of time is nearly impossible; it can run at You across 20 meter long hallway, kill You, Your two friends and manage to run away alive to heal up! I do this all the time, all experienced players do. And it's wrong. I assume it is caused by one of three reasons: too low LMG damage, too low LMG accuracy, or lag - you see skulk, you shoot it, but server thinks it's actually not there. Fast solution, just for the next patch (before resolving lag issues) - is to make LMG more accurate, to cause more injuries or both.
But what will happen then? Basically marines will win most of the games. Why? Because of the strafe jumping. And here is the suggestion. Backpedal speed is lowered, pretty much like NS1, do the same to strafe speed. I, myself can now jump around alone (having flamer) vs. 2 fades - and kill them if they don't run away. I'm sure every experienced player will agree with me that it shouldn't be possible. Yes - to pro-strafe jumping like in NS1, where it was DIFFICULT, but possible to avoid one, maybe two or three alien attacks. No - to just jumping around with a or d pressed and being nearly invincible.
Thank you for your time reading this.
Regards
Mike
Comments
It's caused by server-to-client lag which is a bug. There's no point in nerfing everything in sight (especially core movement nerfs which make gameplay less fun) because a bug makes servers not register hits on moving targets. The reason you are invincible when jumping around? Server-client lag causing the skulk attack hits to miss. Just wait for UW to straighten out their netcode, they are working on it.
Should probably do a video to demonstrate, since most "veterans" have no clue how it was in NS1 and NS2 fanatics refuse admit how bad it looks in NS2.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9w2AafcfZg" target="_blank">Marine Retreat</a>
Things you should notice besides terrible video quality are less predictability, game speed and the fact the one of them is continuous other repeated.
Not in this case. Strafe-jumping should be slowed just like backpedal.
what the hell do you mean "not in this case?" it's true in every case where something in the game is moving rapidly. the server isn't keeping the player up to date on where the target is, so they are shooting where it was 300ms ago instead of where it is. fact. nerfing core movement is not an intelligent response to the problem of server-client lag.
I mean that lag is an issue when You're trying to shoot skulk. When hitting marine with fade swipe - strafe jumping is an issue. Thats my opinion.
Should probably do a video to demonstrate, since most "veterans" have no clue how it was in NS1 and NS2 fanatics refuse admit how bad it looks in NS2.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9w2AafcfZg" target="_blank">Marine Retreat</a>
Things you should notice besides terrible video quality are less predictability, game speed and the fact the one of them is continuous other repeated.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1 to this. You have great movement mechanics established in NS1, use them and of course if possible, improve them.
That is exactly my point
So you're saying only skulks are hard to hit with server-client lag, and all of the other characters are lag-free? I don't think you understand what we're talking about. When a character moves, that information is sent to a server, and then sent to you. Before it's sent to you, there is a large delay, due to a bug. So when your trying to hit a marine jumping around, you are aiming at a spot where he was, not where he is, and therefore you miss. Fact.
<!--quoteo(post=1822290:date=Jan 7 2011, 10:10 AM:name=TrC)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TrC @ Jan 7 2011, 10:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1822290"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The movement is terrible compared NS1.
Should probably do a video to demonstrate, since most "veterans" have no clue how it was in NS1 and NS2 fanatics refuse admit how bad it looks in NS2.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9w2AafcfZg" target="_blank">Marine Retreat</a>
Things you should notice besides terrible video quality are less predictability, game speed and the fact the one of them is continuous other repeated.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's impossible to tell what point you're trying to get across with that video. Why are you constantly swinging the mouse around for no reason?
Keeping momentum, which is not quite possible in NS2
ah I see, then I would say it's a good thing that it isn't possible in NS2 because that looks frawking annoying.
Should probably do a video to demonstrate, since most "veterans" have no clue how it was in NS1 and NS2 fanatics refuse admit how bad it looks in NS2.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9w2AafcfZg" target="_blank">Marine Retreat</a>
Things you should notice besides terrible video quality are less predictability, game speed and the fact the one of them is continuous other repeated.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe its just me, but its looks terrible in both parts. Its a terrible game mechanic that UWE had to kludge in NS1 to make up for the fact that they were restrained by the Source engine. Now that they are using their own engine, I guess I (wrongly) assumed they could balance marine/skulks correctly without gimping marine movement.
Also, the lag isn't the reason skulks are dominating marines, its merely amplifying the underlying imbalance to absurd proportions. Its not like only the marine side is experiencing the lag, yet skulks find a way to munch marines to death with greater frequency. The fundamental problems, as I see them, are
<ol type='1'><li>Current test maps are small, favoring close combat over long</li><li>Skulks have a smaller hit profile than the marines</li><li>Skulks have a de facto unlimited and uninterrupted weapon (i.e. they never run out of ammo nor have to reload like the marines)</li><li>Skulks have a de facto autoheal system (natural healing + crag + gorge healing spray) without an effective marine counterpart (armory has no area healing effect and the low res rate means that comms rarely have the resources to spend dropping health packs)</li><li>Movement game mechanics that require constant, nonintuitive movement to hit a moving target (i.e. the backwards movement reduction)</li><li>Skulks can use the 3D environment while marines can only use the 2D environment (e.g. marine movement is heavily chokepointed and predictable)</li></ol>
I'd say (1) will eventually be fixed with the planned larger maps and (6) is a feature rather than a bug (to help create asymmetrical gameplay) but (2)-(5) are essentially huge advantages for the skulks that, as far as I can tell, aren't being addressed. Also, less lag will do absolutely nothing to solve any of these problems.
The basic idea is to take a 90 degree turn left while holding the strafe left key and jump simultaneously. The smoother the turn, the better. After that you should be lauching yourself somewhere backwards from your original direction. The same works with right strafe and right turn, whatever feels more natural for you.
Go ahead and experiment. It's a bit like riding a bike; you can't feel it through a video. Once you learn it, it becomes a wonderful second nature that both can be developed further and refined. It gives you some new and interesting options while playing NS.
I would guess that the "lag" (i.e. server->client delay) accounts for 99-100% of the difficulty killing skulks. But we'll see in the next build! Be sure to update when you test it out in build 162, let us know if skulk vs marine balance is significantly improved by the animation change.
If you are walking back to a powernode, and bite in front, you hit the powernode.
As i was spectator i saw sparks at the ass of a skulk as he bite a powernode...very weird.
Same with wallrunning, it looks like the game don't know where are your legs, front and stuff.
question: are there bunnyhoppers from NS1 in here -without- using any scripts?
I bet there are, infact most use mwheel to bunny. It is much more effivicient since you can use it on block script servers and there no need to time the jumps. You can do it by binding these keys
bind mwheelup +jump
bind mwheeldown +jump
bind mouse3 +jump
I hope you Guys won't tell me, it's possible to bunnyhop in this game. Actually it would look really bad, if a lot of marines are suddenly jumping around a corner and having more movement speed than a skulk.
Also I see the problem that the skulk vs marine brings up, but like some people already said. LET'S WAIT. We are in Closed Beta, we are here to help fixing things, and to test them. Let UWE do their part by fixing the "netcode" or whatever is related to this "imbalance".
Like it's common said in the internet: When it's done.
I hope you Guys won't tell me, it's possible to bunnyhop in this game. Actually it would look really bad, if a lot of marines are suddenly jumping around a corner and having more movement speed than a skulk.
Also I see the problem that the skulk vs marine brings up, but like some people already said. LET'S WAIT. We are in Closed Beta, we are here to help fixing things, and to test them. Let UWE do their part by fixing the "netcode" or whatever is related to this "imbalance".
Like it's common said in the internet: When it's done.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since they nerfed marine backward speed movement, bunny hopping has become a necessity. I find myself frequently using a strafing-bunny hop movement when fighting skulks and fades. Its completely silly, but a necessity now that we can't walk back and fire as effectively.