Team Balancing
skitzo
Join Date: 2013-01-25 Member: 181914Members
Join Date: 2013-01-25 Member: 181914Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Aliens OP</div>This game could be a lot more enjoyable if rushing was not so OP. Not sure if my opinion makes much difference, but Aliens seem to have huge advantage at the beginning stages of the game. The whole idea of the commander being able to expand, gain resource towers and build hives without any help from players is a huge advantage. Anyway maybe its just me and I am the only one who notices this. In my games Aliens win about 90% of the time vs the whole 10% of the time Marines do.
Comments
reasons for this have been readily discussed, if you wish to look at the forums at all for the last 2 years. but this is your first post, so i'll assume you didn't. there are a few fundamental flaws in the game for how aliens are able to dominate map control early in contests.
1) alien respawn rate, which has been constantly tweaked by developers to make it so that rushing as aliens isn't a necessarily good strat. no res when dead, lower egg count etc.
2) alien hit reg, i.e. how marines are able to hit aliens, esp. when on walls and ceilings, improvements went in the most recent patch.
TBA:
3) drifters allowing the need for aliens to spread out and scout has been completely removed by these beautiful little suckers. they are a brilliant tool for aliens, but potential OP
4) continued work on hit registration
5) overall bitecone was buffed EXTREMELY in the patches before release and has not been changed since then. my main thought it to remove the 25 damage bite cone, and replace the 50 damage bitecone with only 25 damage. reducing overall cone by 33% and damage also by the same amount. rewarding skill for actually biting, rather than spam, spam, spam.
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still the marines best way to win, which isn't used often in pubs (high and steep learning curve for NS/NS2). attack alien resource towers (for some reason called harvesters in NS2/boggles the mind) and also pressure on hives. heard today that apparently commanders should use different strats in competitive games compared to public games, because apparently the strats that are best in NS2 don't work for bad players. which like, yeah... played basketball at the park, passing the ball never wins? only pros pass the ball?
Because Marines move slower and have to build things, you NEED to trade much better than 1:1 for the first 5 minutes or you will never take control of more than 2 tech points or even have a chance at killing an alien res node.
I think you are wrong here. I haven't looked it up in the changelogs but I'm pretty certain the bite cone was severely tightened a few builds back (must have been 334 or 335). If I have the time I will go look into the changelog and see if I can find anything.
All I know is that after the mentioned build was released I really had to adapt my skulk play as most of my bites wouldn't land anymore. Ppl on the servers agreed on this at the time.
reasons for this have been readily discussed, if you wish to look at the forums at all for the last 2 years. but this is your first post, so i'll assume you didn't. there are a few fundamental flaws in the game for how aliens are able to dominate map control early in contests.
1) alien respawn rate, which has been constantly tweaked by developers to make it so that rushing as aliens isn't a necessarily good strat. no res when dead, lower egg count etc.
2) alien hit reg, i.e. how marines are able to hit aliens, esp. when on walls and ceilings, improvements went in the most recent patch.
TBA:
3) drifters allowing the need for aliens to spread out and scout has been completely removed by these beautiful little suckers. they are a brilliant tool for aliens, but potential OP
4) continued work on hit registration
5) overall bitecone was buffed EXTREMELY in the patches before release and has not been changed since then. my main thought it to remove the 25 damage bite cone, and replace the 50 damage bitecone with only 25 damage. reducing overall cone by 33% and damage also by the same amount. rewarding skill for actually biting, rather than spam, spam, spam.
__
still the marines best way to win, which isn't used often in pubs (high and steep learning curve for NS/NS2). attack alien resource towers (for some reason called harvesters in NS2/boggles the mind) and also pressure on hives. heard today that apparently commanders should use different strats in competitive games compared to public games, because apparently the strats that are best in NS2 don't work for bad players. which like, yeah... played basketball at the park, passing the ball never wins? only pros pass the ball?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're leaving out quite a bit. While the OP's statistic is overly dramatic, I can tell you, aliens win by a large enough margin consistently that changes are coming.
You are definitely not the only person seeing this. I have made numerous posts on the topic myself. Most agree, they are winning too much. Not by 90% though. A website that tracks quite a few servers called NS2Stats.org shows them winning about 60% of "public" games and 68% of "competitive" games. "Competitive" is defined by some flag you can put on your server during "official" matches. The important take-away with comparing the two is, with the seemingly good NS2 players, aliens win even more.
I have even been keeping my own stats, basically so I can get a justification for the frustration I feel when the marines get wiped out game after game. The actual stats keep my anger in check when I start to think aliens are winning 99.9% of the time. My stats are about 70% aliens winning, after 71 games. More than enough to make me quite upset at the game right now.
One thing you will get ABSOLUTELY NO CONSENSUS ON WHATSOEVER FORGET ABOUT IT is "why aliens are winning so much". And an even uglier path to take with your post is suggesting how to fix it. Anyway, my 2-cents.
The fun in this game is in that, hate simetrical games where the two sides or three only have diferent skins and names for their abilitites.
So yeah i feel its easier to win as a alien, but that only drives me to:
As a marine - "fight against the odds" try my best, make my bullets count and prove you can win lot of times as a marine.
As a alien - i try equally harder, just because i dont want to be part of the noob alien team that just lost a game against the marines :P
However...
I really don't want to see skulks messed with right now. They really feel like they are in the right place as far as deadliness is concerned. In NS1 it was a joke with missed bites when you're looking right at a marines ass. So I don't have a problem with the skulk bite cone. Fix the hit registration issue and this will be fine. People are tired of standing around looking at one another after the FIVE of them are unable to kill a skulk hopping around after unloading a full clip. There is no way anyone can suggest that someone is so bad at aiming that they can't connect with 3-4 bullets in one CLIP. These are not rookies either. Yet at other times skulks die like butter. There is something happening here, and once we fix it we'll see thing even out. I'd rather fix hit registration than change skulk damage to deal with a bug.
I would suggest seeing weapons/lifeforms limited so you don't see more than 2-3 Oni at a time, the same with shotguns, exos, grenade launchers, flamethrowers, etc.
Alternatively, give marines an elephant gun (which we know is coming in the form of the Railgun). Once marines have a good counter to the Onos, we'll see marines start winning more.
Coincidentally, I've been winning most of my marine matches lately by acting as a continuing source of communication, both in the comm chair and out. The marine commander doesn't have to be an omnipotent mastermind if everyone else is pulling their map awareness weight.
Focus on those lerks, you see the top teams doing this in the match replays.
I would suggest seeing weapons/lifeforms limited so you don't see more than 2-3 Oni at a time, the same with shotguns, exos, grenade launchers, flamethrowers, etc.
Alternatively, give marines an elephant gun (which we know is coming in the form of the Railgun). Once marines have a good counter to the Onos, we'll see marines start winning more.
Coincidentally, I've been winning most of my marine matches lately by acting as a continuing source of communication, both in the comm chair and out. The marine commander doesn't have to be an omnipotent mastermind if everyone else is pulling their map awareness weight.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The whole point of marine gameplay is to make sure aliens can't survive without investing pres into gorge/hydra/lerk/fade as well as losing some harvesters.
If Alien hold more rts than Marines and dont need to go lerk/fade marines can as well concede there and then because they are outskilled and have no chance to win.
I see 90% of marines pub teams just grab 3-4 res and go for the " Just hold our territory " strategy.. It's the best way to loose. Just send 2 guys maybe more just pushing alien res node at the start and keep doing that the all game, this way u keep aliens busy on alien territory ( and u see less aliens biting ur res nodes because they are too busy to defend).
good offensive it's the best way to defend ! And please i'm tired to see so many marines comm never drop ammo and meds. don't spam just drop the minimum for keep up ur guys alive and ready to fight ! (No armory !!! just meds and ammo, armory just make ur marines stop pushing !)
Stop going for sentry first, and exo.. it's worst strategy ever. and never forget to get arms lab FAST ! even before phase gate if u see ur marines struggle on fight.
My 2 cents
Ps : sorry for my english :)
Long story short, we still lost that game because we could not manage to kill the last hive. Even had a pg there... as long as the alien com can spam whips, your marines have to get a very coordinated push going on. The fight over their last hive continued on until they somehow got enough res for one alien to go onos. Onos destroys pubs. We had jetpacks, flamethrowers and exos way before they had 2 hives, no use if the marines are scrubs. An alien in an onos body on the other hand is always usefull, if only to soak up bullets.
I see 90% of marines pub teams just grab 3-4 res and go for the " Just hold our territory " strategy.. It's the best way to loose.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The fact that I heard a commander say: "Let them take a 3rd hive, that won't stop us from arcing it all later" reinforces this immensely.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=127301" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=127301</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=127302" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=127302</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=127497" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=127497</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=127520" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=127520</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=127479" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=127479</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=127439" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=127439</a>
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And if both teams can't get their sh*t together, the aliens win.
the game werent even fun to most, else dun tell me why you need a discount so soon and the player count shrink again. how about starting to make the game less monotonous as if it is a res-deny or one-sided-rape game?
I think this is important to note. When you Comm Marines (pub) you'll see most games you will have 1 or 2 Rambos who think attempting to solo the Alien bases will win us the game when the rest of the team is dying at our main.
Anyway, I think the most imbalanced thing is that aliens can get onos without any upgrades and only one hive. So if there are one good player, he can win by himself even with not so good comm. Marines, on the other hand, have to has a good comm in order to get exos or jet packs soon enough to deal with onoses.
Those marines needed to l2p, no question. But the aliens were not a bit better. In fact the marines even had me on their team with a k/d of about 30/5, having axed multiple rts and a hive myself.
Maybe it is the performance, letting marines miss more than aliens? I am just so dumbfunded, and I think whether I should quit the game or not.
If Alien hold more rts than Marines and dont need to go lerk/fade marines can as well concede there and then because they are outskilled and have no chance to win.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It has less to do with skill and more to do with the way a lot of pub players see lifeforms. Occasionally, you'll see them go Gorge, or Fade if they're feeling it... but most of the time none of the alien team spends their pres until they can get an Onos. As long as they can manage to hold on long enough, their team will all go Onos.
It's not a matter of marines teching up before aliens and ending the game. If both teams are on equal footing, that Onos rush will be coming eventually, and it will turn the game around.
This will likely change when marines get railguns, but until then, all I expect to see is Onos spam.
First off, as OP said, even though overestimating alien wins, is pretty much correct in my experience.
But there is a catch. Even while losing as a marine against good alien team, I rarely get frustrated unless I'm talking about those organized pub stomps where elite players hug and kiss over and over in same team ("learn to play hurrrr"). As an alien, while losing against a good marine team, I want to rip my hair out. I feel cheated when I die to a good marine player almost instantly, then get egglocked and then get oneshoted 2-3 times (at least once in vents), oneshoted by a stray grenade and, of course, lets not forget a fun death to a good placed mine in vents. Progression is even more fun: Ok so this guy is, quite obviously, FAR more experienced, judging by the way he blasted 4 skulks in a row with a shottie, SO let me just choose a below 75res life form that hell blast to hell with 2 shots.
When I get a shottie(in ns2, its power is closer to friggin' flak cannon), I know that 30 res lerk is as good as dead from one good blast and I know if I fail to do that, it comes from my own inexperience. I wont even mention a fade who is much easier to feed a good round. Even a marine player with GL who sports a drool cup on his table among other inventory on his table is almost guaranteed to dish out deaths to aliens in most amusing and unexpected ways just by spamming grenades randomly. Upgraded grenade droolers learn to shoot in his teammates feet laughing as hordes of skulks die horribly regardless of personal skill of skulk player. I don't want to get started about frustration that upgraded jetpacker can produce for aliens.
In short: Yes aliens win more but I don't see a problem with it. Id rather lose more as a marine than as a alien, there is so much more ways to have fun as a marine and for me, its all abut fun. Even when losing you can have fun in blasting aliens, even the best of players will accidentally run into your stream of fire. Not the case when losing as a alien and having to pray for divine intervention to kill a marine AND watch his equipment be wasted (not picked up).