fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->what do your posts to me constitute as? :-/<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I never said I have good discussion etiquette. I wasn't even annoyed at your lack of it, as I prefer more unrestrained conversations, at least within reason. It was an observation; when one is constantly remanding others for their lack of discussion etiquette, as you have, it looks pretty silly when you fail at it yourself.
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->so i will attempt to improve - but i will ask you for the same, as attempts at insults such as "experience which you lack" are not conducive to "discussions"..<b> in fact they just derail them. </b>Remember that you choose to respond to my posts, just as i do to you,<i> so lets keep it civil.</i><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Bear in mind that I'm not actually trying to be inflammatory. That just happens to be the only way to back up some arguments based on experience.
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Finally, your wealth of experience, though it may be so - derives down to tactics, aim, and familiarity with a previous product...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'd like to think I have a bit of experience with this game as well by now, and contrary to what some people say, the two aren't that dissimilar.
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->but putting thousands of hours into a game is not generally something that makes a good game designer, <b>imo</b>. I wouldn't even believe the world's best FPS player could design a half decent game, considering most of their time/experience is spent aiming.. not designing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I wouldn't be a good game designer, and probably couldn't design a good game even if given a wealth of resources. That is not in contention. I can, however, tell when something in this particular game is very likely to lead to poor gameplay -- at least what I define as poor gameplay.
<!--quoteo(post=1948460:date=Jul 2 2012, 03:40 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jul 2 2012, 03:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1948460"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ranged spores were tried when the game was in its infancy - the majority of the mechanics that are in it now were not in it then. So much is different, and people still identify the same core design flaws that are tied to cropduster spores. Are all of them wrong just because you had ranged spores when there was no onos in the game and there was 1 map?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1948461:date=Jul 2 2012, 03:50 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 2 2012, 03:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1948461"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The core design isn't an issue, it's the lack of adjustments to it like I mentioned above.
And to answer your question directly: yes. The onos not being implemented or whatever feature that wasn't present has no bearing on the reason why it was removed - it purely had to do with lerk to marine interaction. I know I've explained exactly what this was to you in the past, Internet explorer, so searching for that discussion again will be easy :-)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1948463:date=Jul 2 2012, 03:52 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jul 2 2012, 03:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1948463"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Link me to it :)</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Any chance of that? I'd really rather shoot down your bad argument about ranged spores than see you try to be a big man around fana..
Faking your way through this discussion to "become" the better person doesn't make NS2 less of a bad game.
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 06:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 06:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As mentioned by myself, its been reasoned by the devs already <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->[and they are infallible]<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When the game ends up to be a disaster, you can thank this mindset!
<!--quoteo(post=1949280:date=Jul 6 2012, 12:25 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jul 6 2012, 12:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949280"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When the game ends up to be a disaster, you can thank this mindset!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> unfortunately it won't be a disaster because of the low expectations the mass of FPS 'gamers' have now adays. They'll just play ns2 for a while, get bored of it, buy the next cod while expecting ns3 to be released next year and it'll seem like the natural order of life to them.
<!--quoteo(post=1949031:date=Jul 4 2012, 06:18 PM:name=Tweadle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tweadle @ Jul 4 2012, 06:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949031"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Gosh you are so frustratingly full of it (etiquette).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
These forums in general are full of it, and it is not necessarily etiquette.
Ok, having played a bit more with less lag (a difficult task, this build is terribly laggy for me) I am happy to rescind most of my complaints about the spikes, they are deadly and encourage exciting and close engagements (mostly because it seems they got a significant damage buff). While ones lack of range does mean you get owned by shotties you are not helpless and can still harass them at a net gain from a middling range. However to be perfectly frank I do not particularly mind having to avoid engaging SGs on my own, its only fair that the lifeforms should have their limits and specializations and the lerk can still play a solid support role in an engagement featuring shotguns (you just cant be the first one in).
In 6 to 8 months when none of that is true any more and the lerk has been painted into a corner, what will you have to say for this discussion?
What seems like a "solid support role" right now is actually just you getting away with flying around doing nil damage to everything because they can't shoot back at 20 fps and 9 ticrate. Since nobody's going to burst your bubble right now, you'll just have to take my word for it. But it sure would be nice if some of the people beta testing this game could recognize things like this instead of trying to create a real life product based entirely on their fantasies..
<!--quoteo(post=1949312:date=Jul 6 2012, 04:03 AM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jul 6 2012, 04:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949312"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But it sure would be nice if some of the people beta testing this game could recognize things like this instead of trying to create a real life product based entirely on their fantasies..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm more disconcerted only a few understand that there exists a clear deadline, and relative to the overall development-time of the game, we're right on top of it. Yet people keep coming with new ideas for features, and changes to try and make existing _broken_ features work, while there really isn't any time left for that anymore. We've been playtesting this for 2 years now, the prototyping-phase has come to an end, polishing is what we should be doing at this point, yet we're still arguing over the rudimentary feature-set of the game. Judging by the forum-conversations alone you'd think this game still had 6-12 months of development-time left to go.
Don't mean to say we should stop arguing over whether spikes are any good (I think they're terrible), but more an expression of confoundment that the devs decided to add such a game-breaking feature so close to release. Taking bets that they're going to point to other broken games to excuse their own release-disaster. The game should be in a good state at release, not half-way in an alpha like it is right now. I'm also going to wager they'll tell people to mod the (broken) game if they're not happy with it (in fact they say that continuously already). Making a moddable game is fantastic, something few game-companies today are doing, but using the mod-community to rectify internal development-blunders leaves a decidedly sour taste.
[EDIT] Should add I thought I was in the alien-comm spike-ability thread, not the lerk spike-thread, but they're both botched features so I guess the argument stands. Commander-spikes need to go away altogether, and the lerk close-range spike won't work well for the same reasons the cropduster won't work well.
Thanks for that Angelusz, you did a great work on the other lerk thread.
My constructive recommendation for the next build:
- Return spikes to their previous state (lower spread, and better sound). - Make spikes the first ability so that the lerk as at least one ranged attack. - Remove carapace slowdown (or make it insignificant) and set cara value to something more reasonable. - Make celerity a flat speed increase, remove screen blur. - Remove poison on bite, increase a bit bite damage maybe. - Add momentum to the spores (if possible performance wise).
AngeluszHarmonic entropistJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18072Members, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester
<!--quoteo(post=1949348:date=Jul 6 2012, 11:51 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Jul 6 2012, 11:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949348"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Thanks for that Angelusz, you did a great work on the other lerk thread.
My constructive recommendation for the next build:
- Return spikes to their previous state (lower spread, and better sound). - Make spikes the first ability so that the lerk as at least one ranged attack. - Remove carapace slowdown (or make it insignificant) and set cara value to something more reasonable. - Make celerity a flat speed increase, remove screen blur. - Remove poison on bite, increase a bit bite damage maybe. - Add momentum to the spores (if possible performance wise).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you take all your points (except the last one), you pretty much summed up what I'd personally like to see when playing the lerk. I found the lerk more fun to play when spikes were more efficient. Then again, as a marine I absolutely hated fighting one, since it was so strong. It's a tough decision really, because you have to take the 'vanilla' marines into account as well.
In the end, I fear the lerk won't get long-range spikes back soon; from what I understand the design intends aliens to be melee oriented all round, marines ranged.
<!--quoteo(post=1949350:date=Jul 6 2012, 08:58 PM:name=Angelusz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Angelusz @ Jul 6 2012, 08:58 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949350"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><snip>because you have to take the 'vanilla' marines into account as well.,snip><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I grabbed this as we hear it a lot for balance...and to be honest after about 3-4 minutes in most games marines are not as "vanilla" as they once where. When we talk vanilla at what point in the game are we referring to? I see a lerk as a mid game lifeform as it costs 30 res, so I would consider vanilla marine to mean l2 for atleast weapons..if not armour also. This I would assume means we need to consider shotties being on the playing field and part of what lerks are expected to face and have some level of survivability to.
Currently when I lerk all I do is soften up marines for the skulks/ fades...heck even gorges to actually kill (DoT seems to work really well for my team mates getting kills). Flying around simply gassing an area is not overly fun (clipping is a nightmare) and does not result in many kills...biting does so little damage now and spikes are unreliable at dealiing decent damage unless I am pretty much within biting distance.
Angelusz...I hope your wrong and a shared fear is avoided. I mean if marines are meant to be ranged and aliens melee can we please remove butt smacking and axes from the marine arsenal? If the asymmetry does not have to extend that far then there is no reason for aliens not to have a halfway decent ranged attack.
AngeluszHarmonic entropistJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18072Members, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester
Good point. My reference was to marines without any extra items. That is with a normal rifle and any amount of armor/dmg upgrades. The difficulty is that the rifle is fairly ineffective at long range, only the handgun is. Lerks could basically 'outrange' a marine with their spikes earlier. That was not intended.
When the same marines have JP's, for instance, they have a way to actually chase the marine down. A running marine will have a really hard time doing that with a quick, long-ranged unit.
As for our hopes, all I can say is what I always say - I have faith in UWE and their choices. They'll figure something out. :)
<!--quoteo(post=1949348:date=Jul 6 2012, 03:51 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Jul 6 2012, 03:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949348"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Thanks for that Angelusz, you did a great work on the other lerk thread.
My constructive recommendation for the next build:
- Return spikes to their previous state (lower spread, and better sound). - Make spikes the first ability so that the lerk as at least one ranged attack. <b>- Remove carapace slowdown (or make it insignificant) and set cara value to something more reasonable. - Make celerity a flat speed increase, remove screen blur.</b> - Remove poison on bite, increase a bit bite damage maybe. - Add momentum to the spores (if possible performance wise).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I would agree with these two. I like the idea of a DOT poison bite, but a good marine comm makes it useless. I would prefer if it was a set timer (say 5 seconds of poison) and not cured by medpack, instead of curable and DOT until low health.
On topic of spikes, I've already said I like the current build since the damage is much more noticeable with spikes. I feel like I can finally get kills with it, and I'm constantly dying to lerk spikes as a marine now. However I can understand the desire to have a longer ranged attack as a lerk, and ultimately I don't play lerk enough to have a good opinion.
<!--quoteo(post=1949363:date=Jul 6 2012, 09:53 PM:name=Angelusz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Angelusz @ Jul 6 2012, 09:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949363"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Good point. My reference was to marines without any extra items. That is with a normal rifle and any amount of armor/dmg upgrades.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> But how realistic is that given that by the time a lerk is on the field (once the starting res does get dropped) you should have atleast w1 and a1 up at the very least. So a vanilla marine straight out of that IP now has w1 a1.
So a vanilla marine at the point in the game where a lerk is likely to pop up (at the cost of 30+ res) is not the vanilla marine that the lerk is being balanced/compared against if your using a totally un-upgraded marine in comparison as they dont exist in the game at that point.
This I think is part of the issue with the balancing and why lerk see saws so much. Vanilla aliens remain the same all game...you have to pay and wait after spawning to get ANY upgrades from the lifeform you got at the very start. Marines automatically get better, as such lifeforms for aliens should be seen as happening at certain time periods based on the P-res accrual rates, these should then be balanced against the most teched up weapons and armour the marines could possible get.
Comments
I never said I have good discussion etiquette. I wasn't even annoyed at your lack of it, as I prefer more unrestrained conversations, at least within reason. It was an observation; when one is constantly remanding others for their lack of discussion etiquette, as you have, it looks pretty silly when you fail at it yourself.
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->so i will attempt to improve - but i will ask you for the same, as attempts at insults such as "experience which you lack" are not conducive to "discussions"..<b> in fact they just derail them. </b>Remember that you choose to respond to my posts, just as i do to you,<i> so lets keep it civil.</i><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bear in mind that I'm not actually trying to be inflammatory. That just happens to be the only way to back up some arguments based on experience.
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Finally, your wealth of experience, though it may be so - derives down to tactics, aim, and familiarity with a previous product...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd like to think I have a bit of experience with this game as well by now, and contrary to what some people say, the two aren't that dissimilar.
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 11:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->but putting thousands of hours into a game is not generally something that makes a good game designer, <b>imo</b>. I wouldn't even believe the world's best FPS player could design a half decent game, considering most of their time/experience is spent aiming.. not designing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I wouldn't be a good game designer, and probably couldn't design a good game even if given a wealth of resources. That is not in contention. I can, however, tell when something in this particular game is very likely to lead to poor gameplay -- at least what I define as poor gameplay.
<!--quoteo(post=1948461:date=Jul 2 2012, 03:50 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 2 2012, 03:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1948461"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The core design isn't an issue, it's the lack of adjustments to it like I mentioned above.
And to answer your question directly: yes. The onos not being implemented or whatever feature that wasn't present has no bearing on the reason why it was removed - it purely had to do with lerk to marine interaction.
I know I've explained exactly what this was to you in the past, Internet explorer, so searching for that discussion again will be easy :-)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1948463:date=Jul 2 2012, 03:52 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jul 2 2012, 03:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1948463"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Link me to it :)</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Any chance of that? I'd really rather shoot down your bad argument about ranged spores than see you try to be a big man around fana..
Faking your way through this discussion to "become" the better person doesn't make NS2 less of a bad game.
<!--quoteo(post=1949030:date=Jul 4 2012, 06:13 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jul 4 2012, 06:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1949030"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As mentioned by myself, its been reasoned by the devs already <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->[and they are infallible]<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When the game ends up to be a disaster, you can thank this mindset!
unfortunately it won't be a disaster because of the low expectations the mass of FPS 'gamers' have now adays. They'll just play ns2 for a while, get bored of it, buy the next cod while expecting ns3 to be released next year and it'll seem like the natural order of life to them.
These forums in general are full of it, and it is not necessarily etiquette.
Ok, having played a bit more with less lag (a difficult task, this build is terribly laggy for me) I am happy to rescind most of my complaints about the spikes, they are deadly and encourage exciting and close engagements (mostly because it seems they got a significant damage buff). While ones lack of range does mean you get owned by shotties you are not helpless and can still harass them at a net gain from a middling range. However to be perfectly frank I do not particularly mind having to avoid engaging SGs on my own, its only fair that the lifeforms should have their limits and specializations and the lerk can still play a solid support role in an engagement featuring shotguns (you just cant be the first one in).
What seems like a "solid support role" right now is actually just you getting away with flying around doing nil damage to everything because they can't shoot back at 20 fps and 9 ticrate.
Since nobody's going to burst your bubble right now, you'll just have to take my word for it. But it sure would be nice if some of the people beta testing this game could recognize things like this instead of trying to create a real life product based entirely on their fantasies..
I'm more disconcerted only a few understand that there exists a clear deadline, and relative to the overall development-time of the game, we're right on top of it. Yet people keep coming with new ideas for features, and changes to try and make existing _broken_ features work, while there really isn't any time left for that anymore. We've been playtesting this for 2 years now, the prototyping-phase has come to an end, polishing is what we should be doing at this point, yet we're still arguing over the rudimentary feature-set of the game. Judging by the forum-conversations alone you'd think this game still had 6-12 months of development-time left to go.
Don't mean to say we should stop arguing over whether spikes are any good (I think they're terrible), but more an expression of confoundment that the devs decided to add such a game-breaking feature so close to release. Taking bets that they're going to point to other broken games to excuse their own release-disaster. The game should be in a good state at release, not half-way in an alpha like it is right now. I'm also going to wager they'll tell people to mod the (broken) game if they're not happy with it (in fact they say that continuously already). Making a moddable game is fantastic, something few game-companies today are doing, but using the mod-community to rectify internal development-blunders leaves a decidedly sour taste.
[EDIT]
Should add I thought I was in the alien-comm spike-ability thread, not the lerk spike-thread, but they're both botched features so I guess the argument stands. Commander-spikes need to go away altogether, and the lerk close-range spike won't work well for the same reasons the cropduster won't work well.
My constructive recommendation for the next build:
- Return spikes to their previous state (lower spread, and better sound).
- Make spikes the first ability so that the lerk as at least one ranged attack.
- Remove carapace slowdown (or make it insignificant) and set cara value to something more reasonable.
- Make celerity a flat speed increase, remove screen blur.
- Remove poison on bite, increase a bit bite damage maybe.
- Add momentum to the spores (if possible performance wise).
My constructive recommendation for the next build:
- Return spikes to their previous state (lower spread, and better sound).
- Make spikes the first ability so that the lerk as at least one ranged attack.
- Remove carapace slowdown (or make it insignificant) and set cara value to something more reasonable.
- Make celerity a flat speed increase, remove screen blur.
- Remove poison on bite, increase a bit bite damage maybe.
- Add momentum to the spores (if possible performance wise).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you take all your points (except the last one), you pretty much summed up what I'd personally like to see when playing the lerk. I found the lerk more fun to play when spikes were more efficient. Then again, as a marine I absolutely hated fighting one, since it was so strong. It's a tough decision really, because you have to take the 'vanilla' marines into account as well.
In the end, I fear the lerk won't get long-range spikes back soon; from what I understand the design intends aliens to be melee oriented all round, marines ranged.
I grabbed this as we hear it a lot for balance...and to be honest after about 3-4 minutes in most games marines are not as "vanilla" as they once where.
When we talk vanilla at what point in the game are we referring to? I see a lerk as a mid game lifeform as it costs 30 res, so I would consider vanilla marine to mean l2 for atleast weapons..if not armour also.
This I would assume means we need to consider shotties being on the playing field and part of what lerks are expected to face and have some level of survivability to.
Currently when I lerk all I do is soften up marines for the skulks/ fades...heck even gorges to actually kill (DoT seems to work really well for my team mates getting kills). Flying around simply gassing an area is not overly fun (clipping is a nightmare) and does not result in many kills...biting does so little damage now and spikes are unreliable at dealiing decent damage unless I am pretty much within biting distance.
Angelusz...I hope your wrong and a shared fear is avoided.
I mean if marines are meant to be ranged and aliens melee can we please remove butt smacking and axes from the marine arsenal?
If the asymmetry does not have to extend that far then there is no reason for aliens not to have a halfway decent ranged attack.
When the same marines have JP's, for instance, they have a way to actually chase the marine down. A running marine will have a really hard time doing that with a quick, long-ranged unit.
As for our hopes, all I can say is what I always say - I have faith in UWE and their choices. They'll figure something out. :)
My constructive recommendation for the next build:
- Return spikes to their previous state (lower spread, and better sound).
- Make spikes the first ability so that the lerk as at least one ranged attack.
<b>- Remove carapace slowdown (or make it insignificant) and set cara value to something more reasonable.
- Make celerity a flat speed increase, remove screen blur.</b>
- Remove poison on bite, increase a bit bite damage maybe.
- Add momentum to the spores (if possible performance wise).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would agree with these two. I like the idea of a DOT poison bite, but a good marine comm makes it useless. I would prefer if it was a set timer (say 5 seconds of poison) and not cured by medpack, instead of curable and DOT until low health.
On topic of spikes, I've already said I like the current build since the damage is much more noticeable with spikes. I feel like I can finally get kills with it, and I'm constantly dying to lerk spikes as a marine now. However I can understand the desire to have a longer ranged attack as a lerk, and ultimately I don't play lerk enough to have a good opinion.
But how realistic is that given that by the time a lerk is on the field (once the starting res does get dropped) you should have atleast w1 and a1 up at the very least. So a vanilla marine straight out of that IP now has w1 a1.
So a vanilla marine at the point in the game where a lerk is likely to pop up (at the cost of 30+ res) is not the vanilla marine that the lerk is being balanced/compared against if your using a totally un-upgraded marine in comparison as they dont exist in the game at that point.
This I think is part of the issue with the balancing and why lerk see saws so much. Vanilla aliens remain the same all game...you have to pay and wait after spawning to get ANY upgrades from the lifeform you got at the very start.
Marines automatically get better, as such lifeforms for aliens should be seen as happening at certain time periods based on the P-res accrual rates, these should then be balanced against the most teched up weapons and armour the marines could possible get.
Anyway we can only dream.....