Glancing bites. For/against? Why?
HeatSurge
Some Guy Join Date: 2012-09-15 Member: 159438Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Some Guy Join Date: 2012-09-15 Member: 159438Members, Reinforced - Supporter
I liked the idea when they were introduced, and it seemed to work fine in the late beta. However, lately I'm starting to think that glancing bites are contributing significantly to the perceived "ease" of playing aliens and "difficulty" of playing marines online nowadays, and the significant win ratio of aliens on pubs.
Missing bites that were off the center of the screen was frustrating to other people, and a lot of people whined about "if you get close to the marine, you should have a significant advantage/be able to land bites easily" but personally I never really minded too much. It was one of those things to learn and practice, a lot like learning and practicing shooting as a marine.
As a result of glancing bites, techniques such as "1 para, 2 bites" early game have also lost their appeal, which is a bit unfortunate, because I personally enjoyed that. Additionally, armor research has been convoluted and deprecated, because the distinction of "how many bites it takes" to bring a marine down is unclear. Before it was perfectly clear: 3 bites at armor 0/1, 4 at 2, and 5 at 3 (not sure, but something like that, maybe it's 4 at 3 as well). Now, even I as commander don't see a clear advantage to researching armor beyond 1 at all. The perception is that "if a skulk gets to you, you're as good as dead anyway." The fights between marines and skulks have also decreased in length. If the skulk doesn't die before he gets to a marine, usually the marine dies pretty quickly. The fights before glancing bites seemed to take somewhat longer to be resolved.
In summary, I think it might be good to consider the complete removal of glancing bites in 233 - maybe as an experiment, if nothing else. Alien win rates are still up with the largely meaningless/unnecessary changes in 231/232 except the camo turning into invisibility and onos egg removal which were the only significant changes (imo). It's my theory that the removal of glancing bites will bring higher skill requirements to playing aliens, while it will leave serious games largely unaffected due to the players' already high skill.
P.S. As a side-note, I would love to see official crosshairs for EVERY weapon on marine and alien side. You need to know where the center of your screen is, at least horizontally, even with weapons like bite, bile bomb, and grenade launcher. I have no idea why official crosshairs aren't included for those. If you think they'll look tacky on alien side, you can make them faint, but visible... or a toggle in the options.
P.P.S. I also think the reintroduction of camo silhouettes, at CLOSE range (1-2m), or in a flashlight beam, would be good for pub balance. Camo teams continue to win pubs extremely easily, and I see camo on the first hive about 50% of the time where I play. However, Charlie seems to like camo where it is, so I acknowledge that this probably won't be changed. I can dream though :-P .
Missing bites that were off the center of the screen was frustrating to other people, and a lot of people whined about "if you get close to the marine, you should have a significant advantage/be able to land bites easily" but personally I never really minded too much. It was one of those things to learn and practice, a lot like learning and practicing shooting as a marine.
As a result of glancing bites, techniques such as "1 para, 2 bites" early game have also lost their appeal, which is a bit unfortunate, because I personally enjoyed that. Additionally, armor research has been convoluted and deprecated, because the distinction of "how many bites it takes" to bring a marine down is unclear. Before it was perfectly clear: 3 bites at armor 0/1, 4 at 2, and 5 at 3 (not sure, but something like that, maybe it's 4 at 3 as well). Now, even I as commander don't see a clear advantage to researching armor beyond 1 at all. The perception is that "if a skulk gets to you, you're as good as dead anyway." The fights between marines and skulks have also decreased in length. If the skulk doesn't die before he gets to a marine, usually the marine dies pretty quickly. The fights before glancing bites seemed to take somewhat longer to be resolved.
In summary, I think it might be good to consider the complete removal of glancing bites in 233 - maybe as an experiment, if nothing else. Alien win rates are still up with the largely meaningless/unnecessary changes in 231/232 except the camo turning into invisibility and onos egg removal which were the only significant changes (imo). It's my theory that the removal of glancing bites will bring higher skill requirements to playing aliens, while it will leave serious games largely unaffected due to the players' already high skill.
P.S. As a side-note, I would love to see official crosshairs for EVERY weapon on marine and alien side. You need to know where the center of your screen is, at least horizontally, even with weapons like bite, bile bomb, and grenade launcher. I have no idea why official crosshairs aren't included for those. If you think they'll look tacky on alien side, you can make them faint, but visible... or a toggle in the options.
P.P.S. I also think the reintroduction of camo silhouettes, at CLOSE range (1-2m), or in a flashlight beam, would be good for pub balance. Camo teams continue to win pubs extremely easily, and I see camo on the first hive about 50% of the time where I play. However, Charlie seems to like camo where it is, so I acknowledge that this probably won't be changed. I can dream though :-P .
Comments
It may not be needed for the higher lifeforms, but glancing bite on the Skulk is the only way many of our alien players have to contribute to their team. I'd rather see six skulks swarming around a skilled Marine and slowly pecking him to death than six skulks swarming around him doing no damage at all, any day of the week.
Some people have expressed an issue with identifying their glancing bites and differentiating them from full hits. That can be easily solved by adding in a whiff noise of some kind.
"How come you kill me in two bites, I can't kill you in two bites!!!"
I've heard that one quite often :P
I don't know if it's the servers I play on, but I've had another weekend where marine/alien wins were something like 20/80, without any exaggeration.
As far as accessibility, I really don't think it's necessary - anymore at least. Accessibility for bites is as needed as aim assistance on marine side IMO... because that's kind of what it is, really.
A skulk doing 25 damage will at least feel like they are making a contribution to the team by damaging marines. A skulk doing 0 damage because they can't land a solid hit (look the pings be high!) will feel...frustrated. Though I suppose removing glancing bites is a good way of ensuring NS2 will have an insular community. Nothing like having a high barrier of entry to ensure the continuing presence of fresh blood.
I'd rather have a "flood of angry players wondering why they are missing their bites constantly" than constant alien stacking and 80/20 win ratio. But maybe it's just me?
You know how many people are going to stay with this game if the current trend continues? Not many.
Also, you seem to forget that by the time marines have a3w3, aliens have multiple oni in a balanced game. Skulks have always been and should always be useless or nearly useless in the end-game. That's the way it was in the beta and guess what... I think it worked splendidly. Yes, people complained that they had to land many hits on a marine that can one-shot them with a w3 shotgun, but that's the way it is. Lose your higher life-forms and your late-game utility is very limited.
I'd rather have a "flood of angry players wondering why they are missing their bites constantly" than constant alien stacking and 80/20 win ratio. But maybe it's just me?
You know how many people are going to stay with this game if the current trend continues? Not many.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'll stay.
I typically find the "everyone will leave and this game will die if you don't implement <b>my</b> idea" argument to be incredibly empty. Unless you come from the future, it's just as much speculation as anyone else's opinion.
Yeah, I try to summon WELDER MAN some games, and the issue is usually getting on to the Marine team, not the Alien one. Always, in fact, unless I go random early or jump in before everyone loads.
I'd rather have a "flood of angry players wondering why they are missing their bites constantly" than constant alien stacking and 80/20 win ratio. But maybe it's just me?
You know how many people are going to stay with this game if the current trend continues? Not many.
Also, you seem to forget that by the time marines have a3w3, aliens have multiple oni in a balanced game. Skulks have always been and should always be useless or nearly useless in the end-game. That's the way it was in the beta and guess what... I think it worked splendidly. Yes, people complained that they had to land many hits on a marine that can one-shot them with a w3 shotgun, but that's the way it is. Lose your higher life-forms and your late-game utility is very limited.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Playability? I'm playing the game just fine and while there are a few kinks here and there, the glancing bite mechanic isn't one of them.
80/20 win ratio? I would like to see these numbers please. And team stacking will happen regardless of aliens or marines. I've been stomped by both marine stack and alien stack. A mechanic won't change the fact that a group of players will stack one team to dominate the other.
NS2 will be lucky to retain a few hundred players several months down the road. This isn't the type of game to gain mainstream popularity and I'll be surprised if current player numbers hold months down the line. A high barrier of entry will certainly dissuade most new players from playing the game in my opinion.
You think a skulk being useless late game is perfectly acceptable, I find it completely deplorable. Having to get 5 full bites to kill an a3 Marine when they can wreck you in 1-hit with a shotgun isn't FUN. It's already an annoying state of affairs once Marines get their tech going and you want to make it worse? Just because it worked in beta with only a few hundred players doesn't mean it will work with close to 10x that number now.
And I find it hard to buy into your argument when you imply that it's perfectly fine to have your default 0 res AR Marine capable of being an asset to the team while the lowly 0 res Skulk being "useless or nearly useless" in the end-game. I don't know about you, but right now the Skulk is the best counter to an Exo besides bile bomb right? Though I suppose by your logic that should change as the skulk should be "useless or nearly useless" at that stage of the game.
I've noticed this too, heck even during a winning alien game I often notice marines have an extra player.
And as far as I know for glancing bites it's not like an alien misses, they still nommed the marine, they just didn't get the middle. When I first started playing and there were no glancing bites it was the weirdest thing to play a skulk, you feel like you nommed a marine but... nothing. I didn't realize you had to hit the center of a marine so I thought it was just lag or something odd. This coupled with dieing around corners made the game seem a lil lame. Luckily I hadn't played lerk yet.
Of course, it's only my opinion and I can never know for sure.
I'm just surprised the games which I've seen over and over throughout the weekend aren't repeated in other servers. Maybe people in EU/AU intentionally stack marines or something?? I have no idea.
The servers I played on in the last few days though, it was bad. Like I said 80/20 alien/marine wins without exaggeration. That can't continue as is, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe I just have terrible luck or need to find some new places to play.
Glancing bite was a buff to skulk bite I believe as they widened the bite range, but kept the previous sweet spot the same
I think it's good because it makes it so if your aim is terrible as an alien the marine commander doesn't have to drop 2 perfect medpacks every bite
this. I have never liked glancing hits.
I typically find the "everyone will leave and this game will die if you don't implement <b>my</b> idea" argument to be incredibly empty. Unless you come from the future, it's just as much speculation as anyone else's opinion.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080911160202/bttf/images/5/57/WhatdidItellyou-HQ.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
the game doesn't die, and your mom tried to sleep with me
AFAIK there will be improvements on user feedback of glancing hits (bite/poison/swipe).
Now we have a mechanic that rewards you for missing.
removing glancing bite does not imply a nerf. the reason to change it would be because glancing bite is a bad mechanic. just because Skulks are doing well with the current bad mechanics does not mean that the bad mechanics should stay in.
agreed - combat text shouldn't update, except maybe for structures, or as a cvar. it's confusing for shotgun (even with maxed out fire rate it randomly adds, possibly due to lag) and bite. TF2 is the only other game I know of with combat text and I don't think it adds damage.
customizable combat text would be nice, as you pointed out seeing orange numbers kick up on an orange opponent isn't exactly useful.
Things like the weird collision and poor feedback should be fixed regardless, and don't really have anything to do with the glancing mechanic.
Let's put it this way, I'd support removing glancing bites if marines are denied the ability to fire while jumping (or jump while firing). I've always thought it was silly to see marines jumping around like they saw a mouse while firing an automatic weapon at a skulk.
Skulks are fine IMHO.
Some people have expressed an issue with identifying their glancing bites and differentiating them from full hits. That can be easily solved by adding in a whiff noise of some kind.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This, basically. Glancing bites are okay, BUT there really needs to be a clear distinction between full hits and glancing.
Suggestion: 25%, 50% and 100% bites read as Green, Yellow, Red -lined text with Drawdamage.
Do you honestly think that glancing bites is truely the reason for your experienced 80/20 Alien/Marine win ratio? "From a couple servers"? Do tell how glancing bites totally wrecked your JP/SG mobility/firepower. Do tell how glancing bites was the reason a skulk 1v1'd you in a double exo. If this is the case, the problem is you. Get better. End of story.
"But After, it will make players play more skillfull." Wrong. The reward is still there regardless or not. Of course I'd rather hit for 75 damage compared to 25. But when you're leaping/jumping around trying to bite a JP/SG w3/a3, as well as dodge his shots, I'll take whatever I can get.
In my opinion, this is a shallow argument.
Suggestion: 25%, 50% and 100% bites read as Green, Yellow, Red -lined text with Drawdamage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We need more than text colours; not everybody uses them or can keep track of them. A slight whooshing noise or teeth clicking together or something would be great.