First impressions and complaints
Dari
Join Date: 2008-09-23 Member: 65067Members
Join Date: 2008-09-23 Member: 65067Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Topics: Cysts/energy, Fades, CC</div>First time playing NS2 since very early unplayable beta and I have some complaints.
I maybe haven't given these things enough time, and butcher it too fast, but these are the thoughts I got from playing a few rounds:
I'm talking out of my love for and experience of NS 1.
<b>Cysts and hive energy</b>
The Alien commander concept interested me so I started by trying it out.
I noticed how easy it was for a (or a couple of) marines to ruin my cysts and my creep spread extremely quickly.
And they can kill my drifters, meaning it's risky to build things far away from your hive.
You can't increase the energy gain at all, and it's quite low. <- This might be a balance issue, but I don't see the purpose of this resource, just make things cooldown-based if the resource is gained at a constant rate any way. (Like, you can place a cyst every x sec, and drifters spawn around your hive every y sec.)
^ All these things combined encourages the alien team to:
1. Advance slowly
2. Play carefully
3. and not spread too much
I think this mentality is wrong because I think the aliens
1. Are supposed to be the quick race,
2. Often have more to gain from being offensive and punish careless marines,
3. Being quick and offensive makes aliens cover much of the map.
Basically, aliens had (ns1) great mapcontrol by mobility (preventing their advancement), and marines kept mapcontrol by defending key positions.
The mapcontrol aspect of the alien team seems gone, or reduced greatly, and that makes me sad :/
<b>Fade</b>
Leaving how interesting the new blink is, I don't see why the fade's speed had to be so reduced. I mean, before you could tap blink and jump (or even bunnyhop) from one end of the map to another in a very short range of time. I loved the mobility of NS and feel a bit sad seeing less of it in NS2. Sure you can use it to move across the map, but you also need the energy to fight, so you need to keep your energy at max if you'd run into some marines.
My problem is that before a fade could have great mobility across the map etc, with very little energy.
But now, using a little of energy makes no difference, since you travel 1 meter and then walk like normal again.
I feel stupid walking around the map as a fade.... it has more potential than simply walking -.-
<b>Command Chair</b>
Is it just me, or is it waaay to easy to kill a CC? 2-3 skulks kill it <u>very</u> fast.
Why encourage rush strategies? I don't see anything positive with it.
If you give a reply, please declare which subject you're talking about.
If anything is unclear or too lightly explained etc please ask :)
I maybe haven't given these things enough time, and butcher it too fast, but these are the thoughts I got from playing a few rounds:
I'm talking out of my love for and experience of NS 1.
<b>Cysts and hive energy</b>
The Alien commander concept interested me so I started by trying it out.
I noticed how easy it was for a (or a couple of) marines to ruin my cysts and my creep spread extremely quickly.
And they can kill my drifters, meaning it's risky to build things far away from your hive.
You can't increase the energy gain at all, and it's quite low. <- This might be a balance issue, but I don't see the purpose of this resource, just make things cooldown-based if the resource is gained at a constant rate any way. (Like, you can place a cyst every x sec, and drifters spawn around your hive every y sec.)
^ All these things combined encourages the alien team to:
1. Advance slowly
2. Play carefully
3. and not spread too much
I think this mentality is wrong because I think the aliens
1. Are supposed to be the quick race,
2. Often have more to gain from being offensive and punish careless marines,
3. Being quick and offensive makes aliens cover much of the map.
Basically, aliens had (ns1) great mapcontrol by mobility (preventing their advancement), and marines kept mapcontrol by defending key positions.
The mapcontrol aspect of the alien team seems gone, or reduced greatly, and that makes me sad :/
<b>Fade</b>
Leaving how interesting the new blink is, I don't see why the fade's speed had to be so reduced. I mean, before you could tap blink and jump (or even bunnyhop) from one end of the map to another in a very short range of time. I loved the mobility of NS and feel a bit sad seeing less of it in NS2. Sure you can use it to move across the map, but you also need the energy to fight, so you need to keep your energy at max if you'd run into some marines.
My problem is that before a fade could have great mobility across the map etc, with very little energy.
But now, using a little of energy makes no difference, since you travel 1 meter and then walk like normal again.
I feel stupid walking around the map as a fade.... it has more potential than simply walking -.-
<b>Command Chair</b>
Is it just me, or is it waaay to easy to kill a CC? 2-3 skulks kill it <u>very</u> fast.
Why encourage rush strategies? I don't see anything positive with it.
If you give a reply, please declare which subject you're talking about.
If anything is unclear or too lightly explained etc please ask :)
Comments
<!--quoteo(post=1902648:date=Feb 14 2012, 01:18 AM:name=Dari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dari @ Feb 14 2012, 01:18 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1902648"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>Cysts and hive energy</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only place where I really agree with you there is that forward outposts aren't really viable for the alien team at the moment.
Drifters are cheap. Losing one or two is far less costly than it was to lose an early gorge in NS1.
Your concerns about expansion speed and cyst vulnerability are largely addressed by smart placement and co-operating with your gorges. Put cysts in vents and around corners, keep them cloaked, and get your gorges to plonk down a few hydras while you place a few whips... And use your mic. The hydras and whips are not there to kill marines, they are to buy time for your team to arrive on the scene (which they wont do if you don't tell them where the action is!).
You can also expand much more quickly by asking gorges to run ahead of your drifters and place some mini-cysts around a res-node (so that your drifters can build there) while your cyst chain catches up.
Aliens still have a massive upper-hand on the mobility front, it just requires a bit of team-work to make it show.
<!--quoteo(post=1902648:date=Feb 14 2012, 01:18 AM:name=Dari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dari @ Feb 14 2012, 01:18 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1902648"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>Fade</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds like they're thinking about lettings fades keep their momentum coming out of a blink, that should help with your map traversal concerns.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Like, you can place a cyst every x sec, and drifters spawn around your hive every y sec.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
sounds like a valid idea but i guess they want to give the commander more possible choices. (s)he has a tradeoff between spreading (cysts) and fortifying (drifter+buildings). if there was cooldown, you'd have a linear rate of both, eliminating this choice.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->^ All these things combined encourages the alien team to:
1. Advance slowly
2. Play carefully
3. and not spread too much<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1. the slow advance is only for infestation/buildings (it might be faster than you think: gorges placing mini-cysts can make a huge difference!). so they are still the "quick race" in terms of combat, also because the skulks don't need to build the placed structures.
2. in terms of hives, they have to be careful and/or lucky when placing them, yes. otherwise, they are usually mobile enough to intercept any attackers (you see enemies standing on infestation on your map). if you are refering to 1on1s, i think skulks are really supposed to be sneaky (to make up for their lack of range).
3. the same goes for marines right? actually, i think harvesters have a much more easier time to survive than extractors (see point 2).
as for fade, you might not be aware that there is a minimum cost for blinking: it gets more effective if you use it for few long periods instead of many short ones.
as for CC's health, there is already another topic discussing this. personally i think there are enough counter measures such as mines and beaconing. however, the recent increase in serverslots might require some adjustments. anyway, they already plan to add an initial infantry portal for marines to make them more resistant to rushes.
I'm totally with you here, but I think a better solution is to make energy costs, cost personal resources.
That would make the alien commander actually use personal resources, just like the marine commander.
That means; less hydras/less lifeforms on the field.
I think the game needs less hydras and less amount of lifeforms on the field.
It is a balance issue.
I go more into detail on the subject, <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115515" target="_blank">here</a>.
As for the fade:
We need the <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115631" target="_blank">fade momentum mod</a>, the devs are currently looking into it.
Yes, the CC is way too easy to kill.
Back when random spawns was implemented, the CC and Hive HP was significantly nerfed, which results in way too many 2minute spawncamp games.
Not only that, but comparing the CC to NS1, it is waaay bigger now, and alot easier for skulks to hide behind it.
More on why all these short games happen so often, <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115904" target="_blank">here</a>.