Please increase alien spawn time
Wilson
Join Date: 2010-07-26 Member: 72867Members
Join Date: 2010-07-26 Member: 72867Members
I feel like this build favours aliens more than the last. I don't understand some of the changes as the game already favoured the aliens greatly. I feel like the alien spawn time needs to be increased. I think there needs to be a timer after aliens die (10 seconds or so) before they can respawn, even if eggs are available, or a gestation time after choosing your spawn egg.
When playing marine it feels like you never get a break and skulks just come in constant waves over and over. There is very little punishment for the alien team dying as they respawn so fast. It makes it practically impossible for the marines to push the alien start hive early in the game. Even attacking the RTs can be difficult because you need to fight off 3-4 waves of skulks.
I also don't understand not getting armour upgrades until you respawn as marine. I also feel the arms lab buildings HP is too low. It's easy for a lerk to fly into the base and pick it off then fly away, costing the marines 20 res and losing all their upgrades for the duration it's down. This along with frenzy now working has pushed the balance even more towards aliens.
I feel like with just a couple of tweaks the game would play a lot better. Simple things like hives cost increased and only 1 being able to be built at a time, along with an increase in spawn time would help to balance things out. If the game remains this way in the NS2HD tournament then I predict some matches going on for a looooong time as aliens will just keep winning over and over.
When playing marine it feels like you never get a break and skulks just come in constant waves over and over. There is very little punishment for the alien team dying as they respawn so fast. It makes it practically impossible for the marines to push the alien start hive early in the game. Even attacking the RTs can be difficult because you need to fight off 3-4 waves of skulks.
I also don't understand not getting armour upgrades until you respawn as marine. I also feel the arms lab buildings HP is too low. It's easy for a lerk to fly into the base and pick it off then fly away, costing the marines 20 res and losing all their upgrades for the duration it's down. This along with frenzy now working has pushed the balance even more towards aliens.
I feel like with just a couple of tweaks the game would play a lot better. Simple things like hives cost increased and only 1 being able to be built at a time, along with an increase in spawn time would help to balance things out. If the game remains this way in the NS2HD tournament then I predict some matches going on for a looooong time as aliens will just keep winning over and over.
Comments
There are no eggs on the ground inside the hive.
When a player dies, he sees a glowie in 3rd person perspective, that goes to the ground and evolves into an egg. Press space to go to a glowie at another hive location.
A hive starts with 0 glowies and can grow a maximum of <# of players on aliens> glowies.
It takes 10 seconds for a glowie to grow.
It takes 5~ seconds for a glowie to evolve into an egg that people can spawn from.
Glowies are killable, they fly around the hive, and retreats a bit if shot at. Half the health of an egg.
This will decrease the endless waves of skulks aliens can get at the moment.
It removes instant respawning as aliens, and makes it more dynamic.
It scales with number of players on team. Works with 6v6, and 16v16.
It would require modelled glowies though I think :P
I understand that skulks can mass rush constantly but with the right defense it should put a halt to that pretty quickly.
So with the right defense, the only way to get in and survive is to evolve. Evolving IMO takes an extremely long time vs say a marine who spawns, runs up to the Armory and grabs a shotgun,grenades,FT, etc and their off to the Alien hive.
Depending on the location of the hive, the Marine is capable of making it to the hive much quicker than the Alien is able to evolve and make it to the Marine base.
I understand that skulks can mass rush constantly but with the right defense it should put a halt to that pretty quickly.
So with the right defense, the only way to get in and survive is to evolve. Evolving IMO takes an extremely long time vs say a marine who spawns, runs up to the Armory and grabs a shotgun,grenades,FT, etc and their off to the Alien hive.
Depending on the location of the hive, the Marine is capable of making it to the hive much quicker than the Alien is able to evolve and make it to the Marine base.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a VERY valid point that was missed from the OP. However it does not change the fact that with T2 tech Aliens > Marines
Marines not getting upgrades until they respawn is a bug and will be fixed.
The Arms Lab has the same amount of health in NS2 as it did in NS1 (2,200) so I'm not sure what the problem is there (could be Lerk spikes but haven't noticed that personally).
I've been hearing quite a few reports about Frenzy though and I'm sure that will need lowering.
<b>Update:</b> I think I see what you mean with the Arms Lab and Lerk spikes. Am buffing it a bit.
I like the idea of multiple aliens spawning at once as well, but I think there needs to be a time period between dying before being able to respawn or else there is no risk in being really aggressive because when you die it's no big deal. It's hard to put pressure on the alien eggs and RTs when they just keep spawning over and over.
On summit as marines if you were to try and put early pressure on the alien RT in reactor and all the marines died, you would be giving up control of Data Control and would almost certainly lose at least 1 RT of your own. In other words, there is a disadvantage to dying as you give up map control and allow the aliens to pressure your RTs easily.
As aliens if you put early pressure on ventilation and die, then you can respawn before the marines even get to reactor. It's easy to defend your nodes because you can spawn faster than the marines can push up. Because of this, lone skulks can continue to harass your nodes in flight control and ventilation and even if you kill them there is no disadvantage for the alien team. They aren't a player down for any length of time like the marines would be. You never seen lone marines trying to take down extractors because when they die it's a huge loss to the team, as it takes them so long to get back to forward positions on the map.
IMO there needs to be some sort of "down time" for the aliens in order to balance things out and give the marines a chance to push up. I don't think it should be as long as marines spawn time (as I feel that marines are actually more favoured in combat).
This problem is not only vs the arms lab, it's a problem against all marine buildings.
You need to nerf Lerk spikes against buildings somehow, it should be the weakest alien against buildings.
This is a huge problem at the moment, and makes many teams just go "all lerk" and cloak rush the base.
You need to nerf Lerk spikes against buildings somehow, it should be the weakest alien against buildings.
This is a huge problem at the moment, and makes many teams just go "all lerk" and cloak rush the base.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thought Fades were weakest against buildings?
I agree that there should be consequences on dying as alien too. The alien respawn system is probably the biggest cause of unbalance right now.
<!--quoteo(post=1879335:date=Oct 11 2011, 06:22 PM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Flayra @ Oct 11 2011, 06:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879335"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't like the idea of marines "never getting a break". However, I do like the idea that aliens spawn very fast when there are eggs around, but that marines can gain momentum by killing eggs. I feel like the current system does this reasonably well, although the numbers probably need tweaking. If you really have to fight off 3-4 waves of skulks when attacking a Harvester, that's certainly a problem (but that doesn't seem clear to me).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I definately agree that the new system would work well if the numbers were tweaked. Adding a constant spawn time would make the teams more symmetrical which is a bad thing. Also allowing aliens to spawn in groups makes teamplay easier which is crucial in public games to be fun.
I also have a suggestion to the alien spawning system. When the egg spawning times will be balanced it will become a feasible strategy for the marines to rush and kill all the eggs. With only one hive this might get ridiculously easy and aliens have absolutely no counter for this. To prevent this i think there should be something like distress beacon for aliens. It could be a chamber ability or a hive ability. To enhance the asymmetricity maybe this skill should use hive energy to spawn couple of eggs in 3 seconds or so.
What do you guys think? Am I the only one who thinks that egg killing might become too easy and uncounterable strategy when numbers are tweaked? Do you think it should be solved with something like distress beacon? Do you guys have any ideas to develop the idea further?
<!--quoteo(post=1879344:date=Oct 11 2011, 07:13 PM:name=swalk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (swalk @ Oct 11 2011, 07:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879344"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This problem is not only vs the arms lab, it's a problem against all marine buildings.
You need to nerf Lerk spikes against buildings somehow, it should be the weakest alien against buildings.
This is a huge problem at the moment, and makes many teams just go "all lerk" and cloak rush the base.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah. Lerk rush is pretty much uncounterable strategy at this moment. Lerks kill all buildings including CCs way too fast, this combined the fast movement of lerk the marines just can't react to this in any way.
Here's a commentated scrim to illustrate how the situation is now: <a href="http://youtu.be/o62erxiLSVk" target="_blank">http://youtu.be/o62erxiLSVk</a>
Edit: Too bad i have no videos of all the lerk rushes that have worked out without any possibility for marines to resist. The marine play here is phenomenal, not many teams can actually pull that off.
Huh? It's kind of hard to run in as a Skulk and destroy things with turrets and trigger happy marines all around (unless it's early game); with the Lerk you can keep a safe distance and still cause some chaos. This is needed in my opinion; and shouldn't be nerfed much if at all. At this point the Fade is absolutely useless when it comes to destroying structures (hes a player killer not a bulldozer) that is what the Lerk and Skulk are for....it's just slightly easier as a Lerk than a Skulk.
You need to nerf Lerk spikes against buildings somehow, it should be the weakest alien against buildings.
This is a huge problem at the moment, and makes many teams just go "all lerk" and cloak rush the base.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm going to have to side with UWE on this and support their decision to have Fades the weakest against Marine structures. It takes a Lerk 2 full energy depletions of spikes to take down a Marine Power Node/RT. That's pretty reasonable, but, with any Kharaa class, the more you have attacking, the better. That is also the purpose of investing in the swarm upgrade.
The Lerk is meant to scout the map and harass the Marines with its speed and agility. The only thing I see being altered/changed is how powerful the secondary fire is. Have is take 1 extra shot for each level of armor/melee and it with turn more into a skill based shot than a "spam" and kill weapon (in close combat of course). Nothing can prevent a Lerk from sneaking up on a lone Marine and taking him down before he turns. The only resolution for that is to work in squads which will "most likely" not happen in public gaming for Natural Selection.
They are, right now. But in my opinion that should be the lerk. I agree with the fades current dmg to buildings, the lerk should be weaker.
<!--quoteo(post=1879524:date=Oct 12 2011, 02:53 PM:name=vizionz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (vizionz @ Oct 12 2011, 02:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1879524"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm going to have to side with UWE on this and support their decision to have Fades the weakest against Marine structures. It takes a Lerk 2 full energy depletions of spikes to take down a Marine Power Node/RT. That's pretty reasonable, but, with any Kharaa class, the more you have attacking, the better. That is also the purpose of investing in the swarm upgrade.
The Lerk is meant to scout the map and harass the Marines with its speed and agility. The only thing I see being altered/changed is how powerful the secondary fire is. Have is take 1 extra shot for each level of armor/melee and it with turn more into a skill based shot than a "spam" and kill weapon (in close combat of course). Nothing can prevent a Lerk from sneaking up on a lone Marine and taking him down before he turns. The only resolution for that is to work in squads which will "most likely" not happen in public gaming for Natural Selection.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not so much concerned about the adrenaline drain, more the rate that a lerk or two can take down a building.
It takes about 1,3 adrenaline bar to take down an extractor as the lerk at the moment, not 2 bars. Observatory down in a matter of seconds.
A flying, hard-to-hit creature should not be this good against buildings(at range, not even melee like the fade/skulk). I agree that the fade vs structures nerf was good, but the same needs to be done with the lerk somehow, imo.
They need to do less dmg to structures, they are a fast harass class and still about as good as a skulk to take down buildings. Just that lerks do it from range, while skulks have to get close and bite. This needs change.
And as you say, SG spikes also needs a nerf(cooldown/adrenaline/dps). Right now a lerk can pick off two marines with a0 before running out of adrenaline with SG spikes.
But in return its currently still hard to properly aim/shoot aliens for many players (me included in most cases) due to perormance issues. So killing a skulk/lerk/fade is even harder and this might also lead to a lot of problems as those performance issues seem to affect aliens to a lesser extent.
Also, things like the Exo are still missing so its hard to predict how one or two Exos might change infantry combat.
But still I think that respawn times are what largely contributes to the early game alien dominance that Marines in most of the cases are unable to recover from as by then Aliens simply "outressource" them.
Granted our players weren't very good, me included, but I still feel that something is a bit amiss here.
Lets say as soon as the hive reached 16 eggs it stops spawning new one till all or a smal number of egg are gone, then it starts producing eggs till there are again 16.
The result would be that the Marines would have to fight 2-3 bigger waves and then smaler ones. Aliens would have 2-3 chaces to clear the situation.
I disagree. If it's a small map then both marines and aliens will be able to cross it quickly and vice versa for big maps. If the spawn time was balanced then the map size wouldn't matter as both teams would be effected equally. That "cycle time" you are talking about is mainly determined by the spawn time.
Aliens simply spawn too fast at the moment. For the most part they don't need to worry about the marines pushing their extractors or hive as they can spawn so quickly to defend them. This allows them to be really aggressive and just constantly harass the marines non-stop.
Once the second hive goes up aliens then get instant spawns for skulks and can just completely overrun the marines.
While we were shooting the hive we must have killed 20 skulks, their was just a never ending supply of them, was so so crazy that our commander ran out of PR to keep dropping the ammo we were using up at a huge rate of knotts.
I was also shooting as many eggs as I could on our side of the hive. Think the 3 of us ended up on something like 18-1, 15-1, 14-1.
Aliens have far far to much PR is this game compared to marines, most of the time the marines are not able to buy weapons, as soon as an alien gets to 50 res (2nd hive), they can literally stay Fade untill the end of the game (considering how long they usually stay alive for, plus the PR they get for killing marines).
How about we keep the current alien spawn system, but make it cost 5PR to res? This would stop the crazy unending skulk rushes against a marine base and might help the balance of not only the Skulk, the Fade as well (would take longer to get to Fade)
TLDR - Costs 5PR for an Alien to Spawn.
Resource for Kills (res for kill). You get between 1-3 resources for every kill
1 extractor gives .125 res per second, so 1/8seconds, OMG, you might need to wait 16secs to spawn, Is this so far off how long it takes marines to spwan when their are 8 dead and only 2 IPs?
I'm ok with that, and lets be honest, how many times do you have 0 res as an Alien?
I'm ok with that, and lets be honest, how many times do you have 0 res as an Alien?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You assume that you have at least one extractor, that's not a given. Loosing an AS extractor is rare, but still.
You also can't compare it to the marine spawn delay, because they can build several IPs and use beacon to spawn all the team for free.
However I don't think it is too far from the right spot, so far this patch we (duplex) have had our best marine games, winning a few. I think that with a reduction in how many eggs a hive can hold (for example 10 in a 6v6 match) it would allow marines to hold areas much more easily (assuming they were dominating the alien team in kills).
There is another problem, however, which is that at two hives the problem reappears again. This means that the aliens have a near constant supply of eggs and can approach from different directions easily. Making the task as a marine virtually impossible and entirely unreasonable. I am not sure how you can resolve this and still maintain the gameplay style we have currently for aliens.
However I don't think it is too far from the right spot, so far this patch we (duplex) have had our best marine games, winning a few. I think that with a reduction in how many eggs a hive can hold (for example 10 in a 6v6 match) it would allow marines to hold areas much more easily (assuming they were dominating the alien team in kills).
There is another problem, however, which is that at two hives the problem reappears again. This means that the aliens have a near constant supply of eggs and can approach from different directions easily. Making the task as a marine virtually impossible and entirely unreasonable. I am not sure how you can resolve this and still maintain the gameplay style we have currently for aliens.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Touching on this, if 1 hive can have 10 eggs, why cant 2 hives have 5 eggs each, aliens still get to pick where they spawn, but dont have countless eggs in any one location.
the problem currently about fades: they are almost invincible. Lowering the hitpoints did actually not much, after people got used to it they simply retreated a little bit earlier, but with frenzy they can still tank way too good. For the fade problem i suggest 2 changes: make the blink timer triggered when you blink out, instead of blink in. this guarantees the marines a 1 second time frame were they can deal damage to the fade. secondly change frenzy to not give health back instantly, but over time. that will allow fades to still kill solo marines as easy as it is now, but limits their gameplay to harass groups of marines, instead of running berserk and KILL groups of marines...
about the alien respawn: i guess that problem would be solved when we simply add a 4 seconds death timer. that means once you die, you have to wait at least 4 seconds before you are allowed to respawn. in 10 vs 10 games, this will not make much of a difference i guess, but for lower player counts it prevents instant respawn, which is kinda annoying. killing an enemy should give you a tactical advantage (also killing at the hive location) and punish the enemy for dying. but currently dying at the hive is not really a draw back, as long as you have eggs available, which you usually have since marines are busy killing the respawning skulks to not die and keep the pressure up (Argathor described that pretty good).