Complete Noob-Frontiersman with Questions

Red Destiny

INCOMING WALL OF TEXT~! A TL;DR will be bolded at the bottom of my post for convenience's sake.

I am a noob, if there are counters to what I have posted, please, please, please, let me know so I can stop dying to these. :D

Okay, so after playing for a couple of days as a Frontiersman, I've noted down some of (imo) the bigger issues that I, personally, encounter when facing the Khaara:

1) Gorges, and their deployable fortresses. This is a problem in the early game because:
a) I don't see a way for frontiersman, that only have assault rifles at this point, to break the fortress (hydras + those blocks + Gorge healing) so...
b) There is a section that is completely walled off with no early-game counter(?), making a Gorge...
c) More effective than a small squad of marines at holding a choke point, meaning that player Gorge is more effective than an equivalent player on the Marine side (imbalance, perhaps?).

2) Fades, and speaking as a Fade player, the ONLY reason why I ever died (next to accidentally walking off the platforms and falling into the abyss) was...
a) Flamers. Even then, if I saw a stream of fire, I just ran like hell (flamers sap energy, making extended fighting dangerous).
b) Problem is Flamers cost 30 res, and if alone, that marine is pretty screwed (hopefully player smart enough to not be alone). Jetpacks cost 10 res, so equal 40 res, which is what Fades cost(?), but Fades can be researched a LOT more quickly than flamers + jetpacks.
c) If against a squad of 3, maybe 4, marines that only have assault rifles, those marines are going down. Maybe not all at once, but Fade regen will ensure they die soon enough.
d) A flamer + jetpack marine will most likely not be able to kill 4 Skulks, making the same resource input not have the same effectiveness.

3) Marines are supposed to work together in teams, Khaara are supposed to use guerilla tactics. Problem is:
a) Teams are even, which means that if a Skulk will very likely kill a Marine 1v1, that essentially means that the Khaara have a more effective force-multiplier, i.e. 1 Gorge can lock off an entire section, majority of skulks on the other (right) side, and a lone skulk can harass the left side. If there is a single marine guarding the left side, he/she will most likely lose as Khaara have advantage in 1v1 situations(?).
b) So a team of 6 marines vs a team of 6 Khaaras will be in favor of Khaaras in the early-game, giving the aliens an advantage that they can carry to the end as opposed to both sides being even.

Some things that I have read on the forums to support this:
1 armor = 2 HP, Skulk initially 50 HP + 20 armor (40 HP) = 90 HP
Carapace Upgrades (researched early, and very frequently, it appears):
70 HP + 50 armor (100 HP) = 170 HP, nearly DOUBLE effective HP for ONE upgrade, whereas Marines have multiple armor upgrades.

Some other minor gripes (feel free to skip over these):
- Khaara can quickly regenerate anywhere, whereas Marines have to get commander help or an armory (minor since commanders can theoretically insta-heal marines, albeit using res)
- weird glitching effect affect Skulks on the majority of servers that I play, resulting in 'mini-Fades' where the Skulk model is incredibly hard to aim at (probably a bug with the patch that will hopefully be fixed)
- the power node in the ONOS BAR has a vent right next to it, which essentially means that a <u>single</u> Gorge can effectively Bile Bomb the node constantly from safety and deny power to the entire area unless more power structures are built there
- the fact that skulks can cling to ceilings despite the fact that they essentially have knives for hands/feet (try grabbing on to something with a knife), I'm actually surprised that those things can balance themselves and stand up at all

<b>OKAY SO HERE IT IS:

TL;DR

1 Marine << 1 Kharra (of any kind)

Marines may have tech-advantage late-game, but costs a lot of resources that they may not have due to imbalance in early-game.</b>

Flame away at my noobishness/stupidity if you must, any feedback is better than none~!

Katana-

Here is the thing:

2 marines >> 2 skulks.
6 marines >> 6 Kharra of any kind. (when upgrades / load out is of equal tech level)

This is the way it worked in ns1, and is the way it is leaning in ns2. Marines get dramatically better in groups because they can focus fire way more effectively, and with later game tech have dramatically more dps then aliens. Aliens can counter this by useing hit and run tactics and mobility to pressure many places on the map at once, forcing marines to split up.

Red Destiny

So Marines = late-game
Khaara = early-game?

Having more mobile Khaara attacking multiple locations to force marines to split up makes sense, but...

1 Fade >>> 3-4 assault-rifle marines, maybe even if a shotgun was in the mix (depends on user)

If marines were ever in a position where grenade launchers/flamers were unavailable, it's automatically a meat-grinder for marines when against a Fade. I've seen ridiculous games where Fades can go 70+ kills, and 2 deaths. They just walk all over marines without jetpacks/flamers/shotguns.

Your response is good, but it also doesn't explain how to get past Gorge barricades. Is it possible for, say, 2 chokepoints to have Gorge-fortresses at both, and just have skulks constantly streaming out from vents?

Kouji_San

I'll try and address them :)

1) Master Gorge and his Minecraft stuff.

The thing is that once the Gorge is indeed doing this, there will be one less Skulk on the field early game to help defend outposts further out and attack/harass marines out on the map . So with his static defensive location he can help out the alien commander defend and set up expansions in mostly one location. But if the marines play their cards right, they will outflank it and take down the Gorge from another attack angle. Or simply take over more of the map due to more marines out on the battlefield, a Gorge fort is a good fallback point though for aliens for some healing and cover.

Besides most of the time you an simply run past his defences, most marines are too afraid to charge in I think and take down the Gorge. Sure it is risky, but it is doable :)


2)Fades and their shenanigans

Early in the game the direct Fade counter are armor upgrades and shotguns, however the Fade is still a beastly monster. Especially with the current FPS issues, which affect marines more. The new adrenaline cost and no more cara+regen did slow it down some, further balancing is required. I'd rather see the balancing take place when FPS is more consistent though.


3)Kharaa more powerful then marines

This is a bit of a hard thing to explain with just the game telling you what to do.

If marines stick together and check their corners and have a commander that is good with his medpack/ammo/nanoshielding, aliens are in for pain. The thing is though, I see it way to many times when new marines just wander off to get killed by a single Skulk. This is the way it is supposed to be, equal skill Skulk vs Marine should favour the alien.

Now if marines split up into groups, ie: 6v6 one attacker team of 3 and one resource gathering team of 2 that also get the main base structures online (1 marine). The marines should be doing fine, however most of the time marines are not sticking together or are simply bunching up instead of forming a line with a point man.

Bunched up marines is mostly a nono with rifles, because it is utter chaos when aliens ambush them. Which favours the attacking aliens. If you have a point man that gets ambushed, youre buddies in the rear can shoot at your feet, taking down the Skulk(s). And the marine commander can focus on keeping the point man alive, instead of seeing a cluttered mess of combat and as a result having trouble keeping any marine alive (medspam helps, but is rather expensive :P)


4)Carapace is a bit too powerful right now on the Skulk and will be tweaked (most things are actually)

Sops

1. Ignore the hydras and kill the gorge.
2. Jetpack plus shot gun can counter a fade very easily, even if you only have a shotgun you can keep them at bay.
3. The game is based on asymmetry, I don't know what you are really asking here but two marines in a forward base can defend against 2-3 aliens.

As far as upgrades go it is also really easy to marines to sneak into the hive and wipe them out. This means aliens need to spend the res to research them all over again where as taking out an arms lab only removes the upgrades until a new one is built.

To your grip on regen, marines can med pack spam anywhere on the map, this is incredibly powerful, then they added nano shield just to make marine even more powerful.

Some power node placement should probably be adjusted but this is not a major issue IMO

Please tell me you are not suggesting wall walking should be removed from the game.

In summery the game is based on asymmetry, just because team X can do something doesn't mean team Y should be able to do it as well. This patch is actually pretty well balanced.

elodea

<!--quoteo(post=1961214:date=Aug 12 2012, 05:13 AM:name=Red Destiny)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Red Destiny @ Aug 12 2012, 05:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1961214"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

1) Yes this is a general problem. UWE has been taking steps to lessen this by making hydra's cost res and switching their damage to light (4 times less against armour). As a marine there are several ways to attempt to counter them which require team work and some use of the brain. You may
a) Flank the gorge from behind
b) Have one marine jump over the hydra wall and shoot the gorge. If the gorge jumps back over, the other marine/s shoot the gorge.
c) Do b with nanoshield.
d) Concentrate fire on one hydra after another.

3) I think i would disagree here and say that 1 marine is infact generally > 1 skulk and this trend will increase as performance does. I think we'll start seeing 1 marine generally beating 1 skulk as the game becomes older and players become more experienced. Tracking/predicting skulk movement is a very different skillset for new players and isn't acquired from most popular FPS's.

4) Scaling of tech power and costs. Yes, it costs marines res to get upgrades, but it also costs aliens res to get upgrades. This is the assymetrical part of the game which is kinda hard to balance. I'm not saying the game is balanced throughout early to late game nor would i know what the magic numbers are, but that its a bit more complicated than the way you've tried to think about it.

Also, welcome to NS2, have fun. Not all of us flame newbs to well done/charred.. I like mine medium rare anyway.

CobraCommander

<!--quoteo(post=1961214:date=Aug 11 2012, 12:13 PM:name=Red Destiny)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Red Destiny @ Aug 11 2012, 12:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1961214"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->1) Gorges, and their deploy-able fortresses<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Lmao, got a good laugh outta that, I like that name :)

ScardyBob

In NS1, it worked roughly like this
1 skulk > 1 marine
2 skulk = 2 marine
3 skulk < 3 marine

Which is why sticking together was a good idea. Additionally, classes like the fade were pretty op, such that they could take on several marines at once. It was balanced by the fact that aliens required gorges to build things, meaning that at any given time aliens were usually at a numbers disadvantage in combat because 1-4 gorges (depending on playercount) were behind the lines building hives, RTs, chambers, etc.

Unfortunately, when they implemented the alien comm, they left the fade largely intact from NS1, making it the marine slayer it is today. However, I don't think the solution is to get rid of the alien comm (which is what many NS1 vets suggest), but to give marines a viable counter that allows a marine to solo a fade (so we don't run into the numbers imbalance issue). My original suggestion was to make getting jetpacks quicker and cheaper (by making it so you can build a proto without the advanced armory with a reduced proto cost), because JP + SG is a pretty good counter to fades. However, if they reduced the FT cost and upped the damage a bit, I think that would work too.

Red Destiny

Ah, I didn't realize there were FPS issues, I generally attribute that to server lag when the screen fills up with particles, players, and chaos. If most of the Fade prowess right now comes from people having technical issues that prevent marines from aiming properly, then Fade changes should wait, as you said.

In response to tactics against Gorge-walls, I usually see them built over small doorways, with a hole at the top for Skulks to push through, but are generally inaccessible to marines unless they have a jetpack. Furthermore, I've tried just bull-charging a 4-hydra wall at full health/armor, just to see if I would make it... nope. Coupled with Gorge spittle, and the 4 Hydras, it's like trying to charge an MG nest. However, if the hydras cost res in the next patch, great.

Beyond Fades, and Gorges setting up Hydra nests whenever they want (free of charge), I have nothing else to add to this interesting game.

Appreciate the input so far, can't wait to see Exo-skeletons. XD

Fudgie

You can't definitively say that 1 skulk or any other alien life form is more powerful than 1 standard marine. So much of this game relies on player skill level.

If you are playing skulk rushes marine then perhaps the marine has the advantage, but if you are playing skulk ambushes marine you are in a different playing field.