i'd also like to see some consistency from the glancing bites. a lot of times i feel like i didn't get an accurate bite in, but i'll get the full 75 damage, and sometimes i'll bite with the marine completely in the center of my screen and i'll get 50 or 25. it may have to do with hit prediction moreso, but still is somewhat annoying.
<!--quoteo(post=2007903:date=Nov 3 2012, 09:41 AM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 3 2012, 09:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2007903"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Glancing blows also lend a huge amount of survivability to jetpacking marines because they just become that much harder to kill. Since they usually have A3 at that point anyway, it's almost like 'why bother'?
Some people don't get it, so this is why I described it as a massive nerf against the aliens. It just makes crackhopping marines that much more effective. The top diamond is the old bite pattern from NS1. If you hit a marine, you did the damage you were supposed to, and the game was balanced around that.
The second diamond is what we have now. Poor bite accuracy is punished, which effectively means your aim must be MUCH better than it used to be to do the SAME DAMAGE THE GAME IS BALANCED AROUND. I'm not saying that bite accuracy shouldn't matter, but the problem was balancing the game around everyone hitting the 'perfect bites'. Glancing blows do so little damage that against A3 marines you might as well not even bother attacking at all.
If you actually wanted to reward accuracy, then the bite pattern on the bottom is what you'd want. A perfect, solid bite would do EXTRA damage, mitigating the impact of glancing blows, and rewarding an alien with good accuracy.
This point is moot, however, because of how terrible the balance currently is anyway. Jetpack marines can already outmaneuver almost every alien, and skulks with leap cannot even jump high enough to reach a jetpack that's around the top of your average room. Trying to kill an A3 jetpack marine with skulk bites is nearly impossible because it's that much harder to land a "good bite" against them.
Likewise, Marines aren't punished for hitting a Fade's legs, arms, claws, or the space in between, are they? The answer is they are not. MISSING is not the same as a glancing blow. Missing is missing, and a skulk who misses a bite does zero damage, same as a marine.
All this has done is encourage marines more than ever to leap around like imbeciles when skulks show up, because it's that much harder to land a bite that actually does the damage you're supposed to be doing.
Do you want to know what the marine equivalent of this would be? Making people score headshots to do their listed gun damage, with bodyshots doing reduced damage, and arm / leg shots doing very poor damage. Skulks are almost bigger than they used to be, and they're slower as well. This nerf was not necessary and is partly why skulks completely lose all effectiveness when marines get A2 and above.
Even if you had a point about skulks being small and hard to shoot and thus making it a tradeoff, this argument completely loses all water when you talk about the Fade or Onos. They are literally impossible to miss due to their size, and therefore it makes zero sense to punish them for less than optimal accuracy while marines just get a free ride to hitsville.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
sorry to be blunt, but it sounds like you want a 0 res skulk to beat a 30 res shotgunning jetpack marine.
putting that into context, it's like expecting a sc2 zergling to beat a siege tank. the mere fact that it's possible at all is an exemplicification of the gameplay depth in NS.
fact is, the glancing system is in place and the game is balanced around that. if you don't understand that, then consider a change where marines were effectively 'punished' for accuracy by giving headshots 100% more damage. that way, your wish is granted! oh wait..
<!--quoteo(post=2008188:date=Nov 3 2012, 11:18 AM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 3 2012, 11:18 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008188"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->sorry to be blunt, but it sounds like you want a 0 res skulk to beat a 30 res shotgunning jetpack marine.
putting that into context, it's like expecting a sc2 zergling to beat a siege tank. the mere fact that it's possible at all is an exemplicification of the gameplay depth in NS.
fact is, the glancing system is in place and the game is balanced around that. if you don't understand that, then consider a change where marines were effectively 'punished' for accuracy by giving headshots 100% more damage. that way, your wish is granted! oh wait..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
to be fair it's a lot easier for a 0 res LMG marine to kill a 30 res lerk than it is for a 0 res skulk to kill a 30 res jp/shotty.
<!--quoteo(post=2008242:date=Nov 3 2012, 04:11 PM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Nov 3 2012, 04:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008242"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->to be fair it's a lot easier for a 0 res LMG marine to kill a 30 res lerk than it is for a 0 res skulk to kill a 30 res jp/shotty.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
depends what the lerk is doing. i could say the same for the jp/shotty if he's a newbie who can't aim for jack.
whenever i fly through a marine-filled room at top speed, if i take hits then i've always been able to turn around and escape - even without carapace. regeneration kicks in and you're full hp and armor in seconds. try again. obviously there have been times where i over commited, underestimated the marine presence or got stuck - but that's my own fault.
a lerk hovering about trying to kill a marine with bite/spikes is asking to get killed. but just swooping down maintaining top speed and dropping spores all over the place (extra adrenaline trait), then escape to regenerate while the marines are choking to death, then keep returning to chip the marines down... i don't see how the marine has a chance. anything less than top level competitive marine aim will not dissuade the lerk.
I have got to say I love the glancing bite in the game as it is just now ,, the better you get the more damage you do. I feel just now skulk vs A lvl 0,1,2 is fine lvl 3 I will anyways have problems with has I think lvl 3 in general is OP as it requires marines not to hold another tech point
It seems like so many people are complaining about "glancing blows" when what they really are mad about is the small bite radius cone.
The guy who posted this: <a href="http://imgur.com/Kotzh" target="_blank">http://imgur.com/Kotzh</a> has it right. Glancing blows are not taking away anything from good skulks, they in fact provide more damage. Prior to glancing blows, anything outside the 75dmg cone would have been a complete miss. The only thing you could complain about is that it makes it harder for new players to get a feel for a full-damage bite, but it also makes that learning process less frustrating, since don't spend so much time hitting absolutely *nothing* as a skulk.
Any new players complaining about this don't know what it was like to play as a skulk 3-4 builds ago. Yes, it took 5 skulks literally 10 seconds to kill a single non-jetpack marine.
The only change I would entertain being made is to make the full-damage bite radius wider, not making the overall bite radius less by removing the glancing blows.
<!--quoteo(post=2008441:date=Nov 3 2012, 07:04 PM:name=ScardyBob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Nov 3 2012, 07:04 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008441"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Glancing bite mechanism is similar to headshots in other games. It rewards accuracy. I think it works pretty well in that respect.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think you need to look up what the definition of a reward is. Doing the damage you're supposed to do isn't much of a reward.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->it's an annoying mechanic. I play ns1 regularly and bites would land there only land as glancing blows in ns2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is why I say it's a nerf. I don't care if the bite cone was smaller in earlier beta builds, compared to NS1 it feels smaller, or the hit detection is way off, and when I hit a glancing blow instead of a real hit that should've landed, all it's done is mean I've wasted that much time and adrenalin and the guy I'm trying to hit still isn't dead.
<!--quoteo(post=2008449:date=Nov 3 2012, 07:15 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 3 2012, 07:15 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008449"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think you need to look up what the definition of a reward is. Doing the damage you're supposed to do isn't much of a reward.
This is why I say it's a nerf. I don't care if the bite cone was smaller in earlier beta builds, compared to NS1 it feels smaller, or the hit detection is way off, and when I hit a glancing blow instead of a real hit that should've landed, all it's done is mean I've wasted that much time and adrenalin and the guy I'm trying to hit still isn't dead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
wtf is "the damage you're supposed to do" ??
the game is what it is... it's supposed to be what it currently is in the current build of the game. ergo you're supposed to get a glancing blow if you 'glance', and you get a full hit if you're able to aim properly. this is only not a 'reward' for superior aim if you've made up some bogus rules on what you subjectively believe the full hit radius should be.
<!--quoteo(post=2008573:date=Nov 3 2012, 09:05 PM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 3 2012, 09:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008573"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->wtf is "the damage you're supposed to do" ??<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The damage the skulk was entirely balanced around doing. Parasite + 2 bites. Whoops, hitcode is wonky, here's some pity damage that makes you require a third attack.
It only gets worse when Marines have armor upgrades, and once they have jetpacks you can almost forget it, good luck getting solid hits on those guys.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the game is what it is... it's supposed to be what it currently is in the current build of the game. ergo you're supposed to get a glancing blow if you 'glance', and you get a full hit if you're able to aim properly. this is only not a 'reward' for superior aim if you've made up some bogus rules on what you subjectively believe the full hit radius should be.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> In an FPS game, a headshot is the reward for good aim - you hit a tiny area, here, have some bonus damage. Not a torso shot. Seriously wtf.
Glancing blows are not a penalty. They're a consolation prize for when you didn't aim properly. As for comparing it to NS1, it's a different game with different balance. NS1 has always had knockback on skulk bites, which IIRC is completely removed in NS2. Buffing the direct hit damage as you suggest is equivalent to buffing skulk damage across the board which is not called for in the current game balance.
<!--quoteo(post=2008587:date=Nov 3 2012, 10:15 PM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 3 2012, 10:15 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008587"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The damage the skulk was entirely balanced around doing. Parasite + 2 bites. Whoops, hitcode is wonky, here's some pity damage that makes you require a third attack.
It only gets worse when Marines have armor upgrades, and once they have jetpacks you can almost forget it, good luck getting solid hits on those guys.
In an FPS game, a headshot is the reward for good aim - you hit a tiny area, here, have some bonus damage. Not a torso shot. Seriously wtf.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
2 hits + 1 parasite is what you need to kill a lvl0 marine.
if you need more, is because you need to aim better. And you need to learn now, as there are newbies, because if you encounter some1 that knows how to aim and to move you need that extra precision to survive. Today, for the ones that used aliens in these builds where there was the only 75 dmg cone, it's easy to do 12-4 as skulk, and also do multiple kills ramboing. against noobs. Or the usual 6-12 (or similar) against good players.
I would really like glancing blows to be removed. I am a seasoned player who is frustrated by this mechanic. I can't count my bites any more because of the threshold of damage. A3 marnes take FOREVER to kill anyways, couple that with a few low damage bites. Very frustrating. I can tell you from the last couple days playing on pubs new players are baffled by this. They get frustrated fast and go to the marines.
Marines do not suffer from this by having to aim for any "more damaging" hit boxes. So transition into marine play is easy. I find myself running into a lot of good shots.
This brings me to another point. I would love to see Skulk bite damage increased and skulk armor increased to 25. W0-3 shotgun can 1 shot a cara skulk with 100% accuracy. This needs to change. I dont want shotguns nerfed because they need damage against higher lifeforms. Buff the aliens =) Fade could use 100 more life as well.
<!--quoteo(post=2008719:date=Nov 3 2012, 02:50 PM:name=RisingSun)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RisingSun @ Nov 3 2012, 02:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008719"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would really like glancing blows to be removed. I am a seasoned player who is frustrated by this mechanic. I can't count my bites any more because of the threshold of damage. A3 marnes take FOREVER to kill anyways, couple that with a few low damage bites. Very frustrating. I can tell you from the last couple days playing on pubs new players are baffled by this. They get frustrated fast and go to the marines.
Marines do not suffer from this by having to aim for any "more damaging" hit boxes. So transition into marine play is easy. I find myself running into a lot of good shots.
This brings me to another point. I would love to see Skulk bite damage increased and skulk armor increased to 25. W0-3 shotgun can 1 shot a cara skulk with 100% accuracy. This needs to change. I dont want shotguns nerfed because they need damage against higher lifeforms. Buff the aliens =) Fade could use 100 more life as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Glancing blows were 100% buff to Aliens. Marines don't have glancing shots, they hit or miss.
Comments
<a href="http://i.imgur.com/CkEAk.png" target="_blank">http://i.imgur.com/CkEAk.png</a>
Some people don't get it, so this is why I described it as a massive nerf against the aliens. It just makes crackhopping marines that much more effective. The top diamond is the old bite pattern from NS1. If you hit a marine, you did the damage you were supposed to, and the game was balanced around that.
The second diamond is what we have now. Poor bite accuracy is punished, which effectively means your aim must be MUCH better than it used to be to do the SAME DAMAGE THE GAME IS BALANCED AROUND. I'm not saying that bite accuracy shouldn't matter, but the problem was balancing the game around everyone hitting the 'perfect bites'. Glancing blows do so little damage that against A3 marines you might as well not even bother attacking at all.
If you actually wanted to reward accuracy, then the bite pattern on the bottom is what you'd want. A perfect, solid bite would do EXTRA damage, mitigating the impact of glancing blows, and rewarding an alien with good accuracy.
This point is moot, however, because of how terrible the balance currently is anyway. Jetpack marines can already outmaneuver almost every alien, and skulks with leap cannot even jump high enough to reach a jetpack that's around the top of your average room. Trying to kill an A3 jetpack marine with skulk bites is nearly impossible because it's that much harder to land a "good bite" against them.
Likewise, Marines aren't punished for hitting a Fade's legs, arms, claws, or the space in between, are they? The answer is they are not. MISSING is not the same as a glancing blow. Missing is missing, and a skulk who misses a bite does zero damage, same as a marine.
All this has done is encourage marines more than ever to leap around like imbeciles when skulks show up, because it's that much harder to land a bite that actually does the damage you're supposed to be doing.
Do you want to know what the marine equivalent of this would be? Making people score headshots to do their listed gun damage, with bodyshots doing reduced damage, and arm / leg shots doing very poor damage. Skulks are almost bigger than they used to be, and they're slower as well. This nerf was not necessary and is partly why skulks completely lose all effectiveness when marines get A2 and above.
Even if you had a point about skulks being small and hard to shoot and thus making it a tradeoff, this argument completely loses all water when you talk about the Fade or Onos. They are literally impossible to miss due to their size, and therefore it makes zero sense to punish them for less than optimal accuracy while marines just get a free ride to hitsville.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
sorry to be blunt, but it sounds like you want a 0 res skulk to beat a 30 res shotgunning jetpack marine.
putting that into context, it's like expecting a sc2 zergling to beat a siege tank. the mere fact that it's possible at all is an exemplicification of the gameplay depth in NS.
fact is, the glancing system is in place and the game is balanced around that. if you don't understand that, then consider a change where marines were effectively 'punished' for accuracy by giving headshots 100% more damage. that way, your wish is granted! oh wait..
Effectively it's just a big nerf.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You mean buff, right?
Aliens now get 25 and 50 damage bites that used to be complete misses.
putting that into context, it's like expecting a sc2 zergling to beat a siege tank. the mere fact that it's possible at all is an exemplicification of the gameplay depth in NS.
fact is, the glancing system is in place and the game is balanced around that. if you don't understand that, then consider a change where marines were effectively 'punished' for accuracy by giving headshots 100% more damage. that way, your wish is granted! oh wait..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
to be fair it's a lot easier for a 0 res LMG marine to kill a 30 res lerk than it is for a 0 res skulk to kill a 30 res jp/shotty.
depends what the lerk is doing. i could say the same for the jp/shotty if he's a newbie who can't aim for jack.
whenever i fly through a marine-filled room at top speed, if i take hits then i've always been able to turn around and escape - even without carapace. regeneration kicks in and you're full hp and armor in seconds. try again. obviously there have been times where i over commited, underestimated the marine presence or got stuck - but that's my own fault.
a lerk hovering about trying to kill a marine with bite/spikes is asking to get killed. but just swooping down maintaining top speed and dropping spores all over the place (extra adrenaline trait), then escape to regenerate while the marines are choking to death, then keep returning to chip the marines down... i don't see how the marine has a chance. anything less than top level competitive marine aim will not dissuade the lerk.
The guy who posted this: <a href="http://imgur.com/Kotzh" target="_blank">http://imgur.com/Kotzh</a> has it right. Glancing blows are not taking away anything from good skulks, they in fact provide more damage. Prior to glancing blows, anything outside the 75dmg cone would have been a complete miss. The only thing you could complain about is that it makes it harder for new players to get a feel for a full-damage bite, but it also makes that learning process less frustrating, since don't spend so much time hitting absolutely *nothing* as a skulk.
Any new players complaining about this don't know what it was like to play as a skulk 3-4 builds ago. Yes, it took 5 skulks literally 10 seconds to kill a single non-jetpack marine.
The only change I would entertain being made is to make the full-damage bite radius wider, not making the overall bite radius less by removing the glancing blows.
I think you need to look up what the definition of a reward is. Doing the damage you're supposed to do isn't much of a reward.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->it's an annoying mechanic. I play ns1 regularly and bites would land there only land as glancing blows in ns2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is why I say it's a nerf. I don't care if the bite cone was smaller in earlier beta builds, compared to NS1 it feels smaller, or the hit detection is way off, and when I hit a glancing blow instead of a real hit that should've landed, all it's done is mean I've wasted that much time and adrenalin and the guy I'm trying to hit still isn't dead.
This is why I say it's a nerf. I don't care if the bite cone was smaller in earlier beta builds, compared to NS1 it feels smaller, or the hit detection is way off, and when I hit a glancing blow instead of a real hit that should've landed, all it's done is mean I've wasted that much time and adrenalin and the guy I'm trying to hit still isn't dead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
wtf is "the damage you're supposed to do" ??
the game is what it is... it's supposed to be what it currently is in the current build of the game. ergo you're supposed to get a glancing blow if you 'glance', and you get a full hit if you're able to aim properly. this is only not a 'reward' for superior aim if you've made up some bogus rules on what you subjectively believe the full hit radius should be.
The damage the skulk was entirely balanced around doing. Parasite + 2 bites. Whoops, hitcode is wonky, here's some pity damage that makes you require a third attack.
It only gets worse when Marines have armor upgrades, and once they have jetpacks you can almost forget it, good luck getting solid hits on those guys.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the game is what it is... it's supposed to be what it currently is in the current build of the game. ergo you're supposed to get a glancing blow if you 'glance', and you get a full hit if you're able to aim properly. this is only not a 'reward' for superior aim if you've made up some bogus rules on what you subjectively believe the full hit radius should be.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In an FPS game, a headshot is the reward for good aim - you hit a tiny area, here, have some bonus damage. Not a torso shot. Seriously wtf.
It only gets worse when Marines have armor upgrades, and once they have jetpacks you can almost forget it, good luck getting solid hits on those guys.
In an FPS game, a headshot is the reward for good aim - you hit a tiny area, here, have some bonus damage. Not a torso shot. Seriously wtf.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
2 hits + 1 parasite is what you need to kill a lvl0 marine.
if you need more, is because you need to aim better.
And you need to learn now, as there are newbies, because if you encounter some1 that knows how to aim and to move you need that extra precision to survive.
Today, for the ones that used aliens in these builds where there was the only 75 dmg cone, it's easy to do 12-4 as skulk, and also do multiple kills ramboing. against noobs. Or the usual 6-12 (or similar) against good players.
Marines do not suffer from this by having to aim for any "more damaging" hit boxes. So transition into marine play is easy. I find myself running into a lot of good shots.
This brings me to another point. I would love to see Skulk bite damage increased and skulk armor increased to 25. W0-3 shotgun can 1 shot a cara skulk with 100% accuracy. This needs to change. I dont want shotguns nerfed because they need damage against higher lifeforms. Buff the aliens =) Fade could use 100 more life as well.
Marines do not suffer from this by having to aim for any "more damaging" hit boxes. So transition into marine play is easy. I find myself running into a lot of good shots.
This brings me to another point. I would love to see Skulk bite damage increased and skulk armor increased to 25. W0-3 shotgun can 1 shot a cara skulk with 100% accuracy. This needs to change. I dont want shotguns nerfed because they need damage against higher lifeforms. Buff the aliens =) Fade could use 100 more life as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Glancing blows were 100% buff to Aliens. Marines don't have glancing shots, they hit or miss.