Aliens feel advantaged in pubs right now
metcomposite
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170743Members
Join Date: 2012-11-13 Member: 170743Members
Let me just preface this by saying: this is not a "early Onos drop" topic. I know there's a lot of discussion about that build right now; that's not what this topic is about.
So...let's review what we know about the metagame:
<b><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Marines should be on more res nodes than aliens<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
<b>In a clan match</b>, 4 nodes to 2 nodes is considered a fairly even game, for instance.
<b>In a pub</b>, however, my general experience is that both teams generally claim about half of the map; so you end up with like...Marines on 5 nodes, and Aliens on 5 nodes.
And there are some very solid reasons for why marines generally need more nodes. For instance, what's the marine endgame. Exos? I've taken down a solo Exo as a solo Skulk. Can you imagine a solo 0 p-res marine taking out a solo Fade? A solo Onos? Alternatively, maybe you feel Jetpack Shotgun is the marine endgame. Still something a solo Skulk can kill. Maybe not every time, but if a jetpack shotgun marine is trying to attack your hive, you'll get a few chances thanks to respawns.
<b><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Marines by design are offence oriented, Aliens defense oriented<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
You can happily leave your base with all your marines knowing that you can just beacon them home. You can place a phase gate next to an enemy hive. Medpack spam and Nano-shield are extremely offence-oriented. (On defence you could just use an armory for free).
And Alien buildings exaggerate how much aliens need to defend. Harvesters have half the health of Extractors. Disconnect anything from the cyst chain and it slowly dies. Upgrades for aliens are incredibly fragile (as low as 400 HP--less than one marine LMG clip) and tend to represent about a 30 t-res investment. Hive drops are 40 t-res, and if you catch one while it's building it has pretty low HP.
<b>In clan matches</b>, the entire metagame revolves around this; this is why clans tend to drop a hive instantly and immediately send a Gorge to heal it--any later, and marine pressure might make it impossible to drop a hive. This also is why clans often shy away from easily sniped upgrade buildings (celeirty, carapace).
<b>In pubs</b> it's rare to have an early attack, or if there is they usually come in small disorganized groups. And 90% of the time marines get distracted by the first cist they see, and hack away at the 1 res target alerting the alien team to their presence (instead of running past it to the 30-40 res low-HP targets like upgrades and newly planted hives). Also, if there is an early attack, people whine. It's the old Starcraft newbie mentality of "10 min no rush".
<b><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Putting this all together<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
Wanna know my "build order" that tends to win most pub matches?
1. Run around as skulk for 30 seconds (and die because I suck)
2. Realize that there's no commander, facepalm, jump in command chair
3. Drop ~4 res nodes. 70% of the time these won't be attacked.
4. Drop a hive. Chances are this also won't be attacked either.
5. Get some upgrades. (Carapace/Celerity, Leap)
6. Take/retake some more res nodes
7. Whatevs, I'm like a 6 res node 2 hive alien commander who hasn't lost any 30-40 res investments; time to take requests from my team members. ("Oh, you want adrenaline, blink, regeneration, and spores? Uhh...sure, coming right up--have fun. =D")
And this generally wins.
--------------------------------
This isn't some isolated balance issue associated with one build; this is something inherent to the game design. When one race is balanced around having lots of highly expensive but low HP early investments ripe for the killing, and the other race is based around very aggro oriented com abilities that burn t-res to sustain a push, the racial balance is going to be skewed if you're playing with newbies who are too afraid or too uncoordinated to move out early.
So...let's review what we know about the metagame:
<b><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Marines should be on more res nodes than aliens<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
<b>In a clan match</b>, 4 nodes to 2 nodes is considered a fairly even game, for instance.
<b>In a pub</b>, however, my general experience is that both teams generally claim about half of the map; so you end up with like...Marines on 5 nodes, and Aliens on 5 nodes.
And there are some very solid reasons for why marines generally need more nodes. For instance, what's the marine endgame. Exos? I've taken down a solo Exo as a solo Skulk. Can you imagine a solo 0 p-res marine taking out a solo Fade? A solo Onos? Alternatively, maybe you feel Jetpack Shotgun is the marine endgame. Still something a solo Skulk can kill. Maybe not every time, but if a jetpack shotgun marine is trying to attack your hive, you'll get a few chances thanks to respawns.
<b><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Marines by design are offence oriented, Aliens defense oriented<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
You can happily leave your base with all your marines knowing that you can just beacon them home. You can place a phase gate next to an enemy hive. Medpack spam and Nano-shield are extremely offence-oriented. (On defence you could just use an armory for free).
And Alien buildings exaggerate how much aliens need to defend. Harvesters have half the health of Extractors. Disconnect anything from the cyst chain and it slowly dies. Upgrades for aliens are incredibly fragile (as low as 400 HP--less than one marine LMG clip) and tend to represent about a 30 t-res investment. Hive drops are 40 t-res, and if you catch one while it's building it has pretty low HP.
<b>In clan matches</b>, the entire metagame revolves around this; this is why clans tend to drop a hive instantly and immediately send a Gorge to heal it--any later, and marine pressure might make it impossible to drop a hive. This also is why clans often shy away from easily sniped upgrade buildings (celeirty, carapace).
<b>In pubs</b> it's rare to have an early attack, or if there is they usually come in small disorganized groups. And 90% of the time marines get distracted by the first cist they see, and hack away at the 1 res target alerting the alien team to their presence (instead of running past it to the 30-40 res low-HP targets like upgrades and newly planted hives). Also, if there is an early attack, people whine. It's the old Starcraft newbie mentality of "10 min no rush".
<b><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Putting this all together<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
Wanna know my "build order" that tends to win most pub matches?
1. Run around as skulk for 30 seconds (and die because I suck)
2. Realize that there's no commander, facepalm, jump in command chair
3. Drop ~4 res nodes. 70% of the time these won't be attacked.
4. Drop a hive. Chances are this also won't be attacked either.
5. Get some upgrades. (Carapace/Celerity, Leap)
6. Take/retake some more res nodes
7. Whatevs, I'm like a 6 res node 2 hive alien commander who hasn't lost any 30-40 res investments; time to take requests from my team members. ("Oh, you want adrenaline, blink, regeneration, and spores? Uhh...sure, coming right up--have fun. =D")
And this generally wins.
--------------------------------
This isn't some isolated balance issue associated with one build; this is something inherent to the game design. When one race is balanced around having lots of highly expensive but low HP early investments ripe for the killing, and the other race is based around very aggro oriented com abilities that burn t-res to sustain a push, the racial balance is going to be skewed if you're playing with newbies who are too afraid or too uncoordinated to move out early.
Comments
In a clan match, 4 nodes to 2 nodes is considered a fairly even game, for instance.
In a pub, however, my general experience is that both teams generally claim about half of the map; so you end up with like...Marines on 5 nodes, and Aliens on 5 nodes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds like pub players are still learning that aliens need to be restricted in how much they are allowed to cap.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->For instance, what's the marine endgame. Exos? I've taken down a solo Exo as a solo Skulk. Can you imagine a solo 0 p-res marine taking out a solo Fade? A solo Fade? Alternatively, maybe you feel Jetpack Shotgun is the marine endgame. Still something a solo Skulk can kill. Maybe not every time, but if a jetpack shotgun marine is trying to attack your hive, you'll get a few chances thanks to respawns.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds like terrible marine players. All of these tech are endgame.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Marines by design are offence oriented, Aliens defense oriented<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'd say both are pretty offense, but aliens don't require as many nodes so can exist in a defensive state far better than marines can - reacting to enemy attacks. However alien turtle is nothing compared to marine turtle.
All of your issues seem to be that pub players are a bit thick and conceed too much territory to aliens. Matches with good teams usually end up with aliens on 3 res nodes, marines on 6 and neither side taking the nodes inbetween because they die too easy. Everyone rushing for quick res node kills.
Now I suppose you could argue that both sides should be balanced for equal res node requirements - it would make it much easier for newbies to realise they are winning or losing simply by looking at the map.
However the alien tech tree is extremely flat, with very little alien commanders can spam res on like medpacks, so alien commander usually have loads of res for eggs.
Alien comm by nature is more relaxed, and aliens are not required to build structures like the marines. As such, aliens are geared for offense from the get-go, and most players get that idea pretty quickly.
Give it time, people will get it eventually.
Which is entirely correct.
I'd also like to see relocates to random areas of the map again (Mr. Bill, where art thou?) but I've learned to accept that this will never happen again =[
the game just takes too much aim to play marines competently and the crappy engine isn't helping that situation
so there are two really huge things which make everything one-sided
I also feel that your central thesis is a bit off, as far as pub balance is concerned. Aliens need fewer harvesters in competitive play because you can expect that when someone goes onos or fade, they won't die for ten minutes. In a pub, newer players tend to run out and get their brand new fade blown away by a shotgunner because, well, they're new and fade is hard to use. Maybe archaea doesn't get stuck on the tiny bits of props that stick out everywhere when blinking/charging away, but you can rely on players doing it in pubs. Because the aliens are now counting on having so much res, it's exceedingly rare that I see an alien team down 2-4 or 5-3 in extractors win.
This makes me facepalm every time: you try to organize a push with your fellow marines, walk a bit along a hallway, look back and nobody is following you, there's marines left and right axing random cysts. One of the worst aspects of creep. (this problem was solved by making the cyst cloaked and weak btw).
So look at this for a good half an hour ok, then post again.
<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/cache/thumbnails/WinLoss_450x375.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Good, maybe more players will learn how to use aliens.
If you don't pressure aliens' RTs, aliens will win. Nothing really dramatic there.
If you don't pressure aliens' RTs, aliens will win. Nothing really dramatic there.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
only if it was that simple, you can never allow aliens have more than 1rt or it's lost game, or another option is they have max 2-3rt's and never allow them to build second hive, in public game this is just asking too much, to have your marines do 3 things at the same time, 1. and most important thing, snipe enemy rt's and upgrades and hives 2. expand and build those rt's and then get the puck out. 3. defend phasegates, there is no resources to build bases, all you can place to "key locations" is 1phasegate and rt, nothing else, armory is waste of resources because you can just either weld friend or phase to base for healing. And you need those w3 and jetpacks / sg's ASAP, and preferably a3 too, building com stations / armrories / observatory slows researches by A LOT.
not to mention you need pro commander to organize this, and even if commander alone is good it isn't enough, most of the times marines in public games only semi-listens you, they don't follow your orders by the book, commander always needs to scan possible rt's, upgrades and hives and then organize striketeams to snipe these out, if marines fail to snipe, they fail the game and it's lost. Biggest problem i see in public games and you try to organize marines to snipe rt's / upgrades etc is they get distracted, if 1 skulk attacks them they hold and hold's the ground for 1minute to make sure no more skulks are coming, they stop to hack cysts with axes, they stop to shoot the eggs / resource tower or something they are not ordered to kill, and if you pressure them too much to kill something you want killed, they start to ignore skulks and basicly 1 skulk kills whole team.
Actually sometimes "pro commander" is worse for the team than turtlecommander, because marines just isn't good enough to stop aliens taking over earlygame, if this is true then turtlecommander can keep marines in the game longer, but nevertheless game is over anyways, it just lasts longer.
this is asking too much from public games, can marines do this ? yes they can if they're good, but most of the aliens just always have that 3rt's and second hive at 5mins of the game, if this happens it's gameover for marines.
marine should win at least 7:3 against an equal skilled skulk. with assault rifle and keen senses this is easily possible, because there's no recoil, skulks have low hp and they can't sneak up behind or ambush you if you're constantly looking around.
i've been marine commander a few times where a skulk enters a room against 5 marines and kills them all. the skulk is not especially good, it's just that the marines are exceptionally bad. last night i played a 40 minute game on veil as alien, and had about 20 kills 3 deaths as a skulk - often winning 1v2 or killing 2 in a 1v3 and then escaping then flanking the 3rd guy (the game only took 40 mins because we didn't even have a second hive until 20 mins and leap/blink etc were at about 35 minutes, because our commander was a massive deaf and mute newbie.
frankly, you cannot balance the game to compensate for players who are worse than you thought feasibly possible all stacking onto the marine team.
what we need to fix this is a mod for the ready room which blocks off the alien/marine door and force everyone to use the random door. this worked in counterstrike.
this can ONLY happen if aliens are a LOT worse players than marines, and therefore doesn't count for a damn thing, i had a marine team that hold 50% of resourcenodes, killed 3 onoses and still lost.
problem is with onos, once it comes out, you're forced to play defencive in order to kill that onos, if you try to rush onos down to his hive, skulks can EASILY rush marinebase at ease, if commander beacons, well then that hunt trip was for nothing now wasn't it ? Not to mention if that onos comes out with support of gorge and few skulks well your hunting party just dies there, since there is no IP nearby you are very unlikely to get reinforcments.
even when you finally manage to kill that onos, usually the damage is just too big to have any chance to save the game, usually another onos egg is on the way by that time.
So look at this for a good half an hour ok, then post again.
<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/cache/thumbnails/WinLoss_450x375.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is this from 228 or 229?
The marines' only hope in this situation is that the aliens research a shift hive. Then all skulks take camo and wait for hours clinging on ceilings waiting for a marine.
However new skulk players also tend to jump at fortified marines and exo trains with their skulks dieing in a fraction of a second, instead of attacking undefended positions. If the game develops into a mid game stalemate marines win unless a semi competent player gets an onos, semi competent meaning “is able to run back once his health reaches 50%â€
problem is with onos, once it comes out, you're forced to play defencive in order to kill that onos, if you try to rush onos down to his hive, skulks can EASILY rush marinebase at ease, if commander beacons, well then that hunt trip was for nothing now wasn't it ? Not to mention if that onos comes out with support of gorge and few skulks well your hunting party just dies there, since there is no IP nearby you are very unlikely to get reinforcments.
even when you finally manage to kill that onos, usually the damage is just too big to have any chance to save the game, usually another onos egg is on the way by that time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
not true... there are a couple of options (assuming no jetpack/exo tech).
1. get fast phase gate up in each base (and an observatory if your team is dumb), then onos can't do sh*t without running into 5-6 marines. marines should have control of 2 tech points by the time onos comes out - so just aggressively take a 3rd tech point (you don't need the command station, just a staging area to control it), phase gate up and hold what you have.
2. spread out like crazy and attack 4-5 places at once. the onos might kill a couple of you, but you still stopped the onos attacking your base and you probably killed 3-4 harvesters and loads of cysts. if the onos decides to attack your base, use beacon.
both of these strategies allow you to defend effectively against onos until you can get full upgrades and jetpacks... you should usually be able to restrict an 'equal skilled' alien team to less than 50% of the map, through pressuring the RT's and using phase gate/beacon to defend a counter attack.
obviously the alien team can still outplay you and win, i'm just saying that it's perfectly possible for marines to hold.
1. get fast phase gate up in each base (and an observatory if your team is dumb), then onos can't do sh*t without running into 5-6 marines. marines should have control of 2 tech points by the time onos comes out - so just aggressively take a 3rd tech point (you don't need the command station, just a staging area to control it), phase gate up and hold what you have.
2. spread out like crazy and attack 4-5 places at once. the onos might kill a couple of you, but you still stopped the onos attacking your base and you probably killed 3-4 harvesters and loads of cysts. if the onos decides to attack your base, use beacon.
both of these strategies allow you to defend effectively against onos until you can get full upgrades and jetpacks... you should usually be able to restrict an 'equal skilled' alien team to less than 50% of the map, through pressuring the RT's and using phase gate/beacon to defend a counter attack.
obviously the alien team can still outplay you and win, i'm just saying that it's perfectly possible for marines to hold.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
are you serious ? really ?
let's get something clear here, it's not 1onos vs rest of the marines, it's 1onos and 6 other aliens vs 7 marines, you can't spread out, because then onos would just STOMP you, you'd be suprised how FAST onos moves from place to place, no, marines can't be aggressive, and again, there is those 7 other aliens also defending and harassing marine bases.
secondly, if onos goes anywhere near marine base with commandcenter and observatory, onos is a failure player, first onos that comes for the team plays DEFENCIVE, holding 4-5rt's for the team, if marines play dumb and go fortify each techpoint then they are only slowing the inevetable loss, with 4-5rt in alien team it takes 2minutes to have second onos and whoo boy, does it get hard for marines to even hold techpoints anymore, these 2 onos can EASILY rush secondary marine base OR defend the whole map for aliens, until aliens get YET ANOTHER onos, and this goes on until aliens win, yes marines can win this game if a ###### picks onos egg and goes straight for marine bases, but like i said, that can't even counted for a loss, because aliens were doomed the minute game started thanks to brilliant team.
only way to counter earlyonos is to DOMINATE early game, wich for marines is possible in even teams but requires insane ammount of teamplay wich is basicly impossible for public games. And that tactic is when that early onos haven't even spawned yet, so only way to counter earlyonos is not to allow them have it early stage of the game, wich is INSANELY HARD, because all aliens need really is to hold ONLY 3rt's and 2 hive's, that means 2 tech points and 1 rt point, that's 30% from the map, it's not hard for aliens to def this, atleast in public games.
As all new players press into Marine team, more experienced players tend to go into the Alien team because they feel more comfortable to play Alien then the new players.
I think this tends to result in teams that are not balanced skill-wise and in the end Alien win not because of gameplay balance but because of having the more experianced players.
This problem should at least partially solve itself by new players gaining more experiance...
As all new players press into Marine team, more experienced players tend to go into the Alien team because they feel more comfortable to play Alien then the new players.
I think this tends to result in teams that are not balanced skill-wise and in the end Alien win not because of gameplay balance but because of having the more experianced players.
This problem should at least partially solve itself by new players gaining more experiance...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
nah.... atleast early onos won't get solved by time, if anything it can only get worse as these "new players" learn that you don't just jump into marinebase to die as onos, making aliens lose games even less.
So look at this for a good half an hour ok, then post again.
<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/cache/thumbnails/WinLoss_450x375.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
in build 229 it's 61.82% to 38.18% win ratio in favor of aliens (wins per team - 163:84)
<!--QuoteBegin-source+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (source)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--><a href="http://ns2stats.org/all/index" target="_blank">http://ns2stats.org/all/index</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There are a huge number of factors that are uncontrolled which create this situation.
You can have a 50% overall winrate by adding a 100% biased marine map and a 100% alien biased map.
<a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv3ocf_229-shift-rush-tram#.UKSNXMW5CM8" target="_blank">http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv3ocf_22...am#.UKSNXMW5CM8</a>
Costs are down on evolutions too. . .
You can get both upgrades from a single hive and not feel like you're jeopardizing the midgame
You can have a 50% overall winrate by adding a 100% biased marine map and a 100% alien biased map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Overall win ratio is always important.
Personally, the marine team is stronger, but a variety of mis-steps are causing problems:
1) It is easier to be a bad marine commander than it is to be a bad alien commander.
As an alien commander - you either need celerity/carapace by the point onos start to appear, or you want to rush onos. Other than that, just manage harvesters etc, and your team will have the opportunity to win the match (whether they manage it or not is another story).
As a marine commander, it is much more interactive. There are multiple decisions to be made, and it is extremely easy for commanders to get stuck in turtle-mode with only 1 or 2 hives.
2) Jetpacks are being hugely under-rated by many commanders/players.
A marine with an LMG and jetpack is far better than a typical marine with a shotgun/gl/flamethrower.
3) Sentries are being used as 'resource dumps', and positioned poorly.
A responsible marine with jetpack, welder and nearby cc with phasegate is far better than a set of sentries that you rebuild every 5 minutes. Alternatively, mines...
4) Exos are over-used in the wrong way.
1 exo with 2-3 supporting marines/robots is far better (and cheaper) than 3 exos.
5) A lot of players are 'much better aliens than they are marines'.
The shotgun is a bit of a curse here - a lot of players struggle with the weapon (me included), whilst a few are crazy-good. Otherwise, I find being a skulk a lot easier than trying to shoot one.
In NS1 the experienced players needed to take charge on pubs. I don't believe NS2 will be any different in this regard. Having a server community helped get the information out faster, IMHO new players learn slower when random pubbing for the best ping.
You don't just wander into NS from your standard FPS and pick it up right away. You have to learn cooperation and long term strategy, which your standard FPS doesn't teach.
Why not just gather two buddies and start inciting base rushing on start? Lead by example?
<!--quoteo(post=2024313:date=Nov 15 2012, 08:56 AM:name=Zero7)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zero7 @ Nov 15 2012, 08:56 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024313"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->(Mr. Bill, where art thou?)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He's Billocated too well this time.
let's get something clear here, it's not 1onos vs rest of the marines, it's 1onos and 6 other aliens vs 7 marines, you can't spread out, because then onos would just STOMP you, you'd be suprised how FAST onos moves from place to place, no, marines can't be aggressive, and again, there is those 7 other aliens also defending and harassing marine bases.
secondly, if onos goes anywhere near marine base with commandcenter and observatory, onos is a failure player, first onos that comes for the team plays DEFENCIVE, holding 4-5rt's for the team, if marines play dumb and go fortify each techpoint then they are only slowing the inevetable loss, with 4-5rt in alien team it takes 2minutes to have second onos and whoo boy, does it get hard for marines to even hold techpoints anymore, these 2 onos can EASILY rush secondary marine base OR defend the whole map for aliens, until aliens get YET ANOTHER onos, and this goes on until aliens win, yes marines can win this game if a ###### picks onos egg and goes straight for marine bases, but like i said, that can't even counted for a loss, because aliens were doomed the minute game started thanks to brilliant team.
only way to counter earlyonos is to DOMINATE early game, wich for marines is possible in even teams but requires insane ammount of teamplay wich is basicly impossible for public games. And that tactic is when that early onos haven't even spawned yet, so only way to counter earlyonos is not to allow them have it early stage of the game, wich is INSANELY HARD, because all aliens need really is to hold ONLY 3rt's and 2 hive's, that means 2 tech points and 1 rt point, that's 30% from the map, it's not hard for aliens to def this, atleast in public games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
but you should almost never be killed in a 1v1 against a skulk. therefore without the onos (and fade to a significantly lesser extent), skill balanced teams the marines would faceroll and win with absolutely no hope for alien. i have never seen a <10min onos in pub, after 72 hours... even for commanders who know the strategy, it's too risky that a noob could take the onos and die giving the marines a free win.
i'm not talking about 6min onos btw, which is indeed annoying to stop, but uwe have already implied that it's going to be fixed so that other alien build orders are viable - and that egg drop was never intended to be anything more than a resource dump (how often do you see marine commander drop shotguns etc in early game?).
i'm not talking about 6min onos btw, which is indeed annoying to stop, but uwe have already implied that it's going to be fixed so that other alien build orders are viable - and that egg drop was never intended to be anything more than a resource dump (how often do you see marine commander drop shotguns etc in early game?).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
then you really don't know the size of this problem, really, because i appearently play in servers where people DO have a clue what to do, aliens wins 50% of the game WITHOUT onos drop egg, i have tested this strategy over 20 times and i have NEVER lost, unless like i have said million times, alien team simply doesn't know how to play, but then again they would lose whatever tactic used, or if extremely bad player picks up the egg, only times when i have lost using this strategy is games where players ask me "what is an onos egg ?" or "we can't afford to evolve to onos yet" when i ask someone to get onos egg.
and i disagree, i win almost everytime 1v1 fight with a skulk, i'm not kidding, mayby i have been just lucky not to encounter any good marine, but i think marine is in disadvantage position when 1v1 fight, however when it's 4marine vs 4skulks, i think marines wins almost everytime, this is because there can be 1 guy to lure skulks and 3 shoots them from afar, same goes when I play as marine, i always lose to a skulk 1v1 battle but when i go with team i can easily aim and shoot them from afar.
and you can have onos at 4mins if you dominate earlygame, at the time 6min you can have onos AND leap, cara and cele, with "only" 3rt's you can add 2mins to each, that's 6min to first onos, 8mins to upgrades.
Or mayby it's because you play in 20+p servers ? because there i can imagine 1onos making a less impact than in 16p servers, mayby i should give these 20-24p servers a try.
Truly a honest measure of balance.