Let's talk about structure damage

durdenns2

One of the biggest rifts between marines and aliens has to do with damaging structures and how they repair them. Bile bomb is effective against marine structures and will wipe out any macs in the area along with it. When you go in and bile a base you will ALWAYS feel good about the damage you are doing. It is a pain in the ass as a marine to fix it for the players and the commander.

On the other hand, marines have grenade launchers which are somewhat effective. They are semi-hard countered though by whips and made almost completely useless if they're are crags in the area.

The problem is that bile bomb instantly gives marines a huge chore and headache while the 'marine bile bomb' just isn't effective. Imagine if marines had a crag (for healing buildings, Macs suck and are taken care of with bile so don't mention them) or if nade launchers weren't countered so easily. Arcs are another 'marine bile bomb' and they're darn good, but they're also taken out by bile bomb. Bile hitting anything is always a huge chore and is never not effective. You can say 'protect the arcs or protect the base', but you're missing the point. When grenade launchers or rifles hit a hive or alien structure you don't feel the same sense of "I'm doing something" because they are EASILY healed up by crags or the hives inert heal.

Closing the gap between how the two factions keep up structures will have a huge benefit in balancing the game.

Or maybe I'm way off, but I'm fairly certain. That's why other ideas in this forum have become popular like 'sentries should shoot down bile' or what have you.

semihandy

I would say Flamethrowers are more like bile bomb than grenade launchers, as they deal 300% damage to alien structures (at least from what the wiki says, not sure how accurate that is now), although their spread isn't as large as bile bomb. But then, marines have arcs, which can clear out a whole tech point within a minute.

I honestly haven't been able to make complete sense of where the imbalance between the two teams lies. But, you do have a point regarding how each team handles repairs. It's much easier for the alien comm to waste 10 res and drop a crag by an RT, than send a Mac out there (much weaker in comparison), that will likely not even make it if it's too far out in the field. And it's far more likely for a Harvester to be healed by a Gorge, than it is for an Extractor to be welded. I feel that losing a gorge for ~30 seconds is a lot less detrimental to the alien side, than a marine sitting there welding an Extractor, when he could be out in the field.

It's a shame that marines can be so unforgiving to play, though. Losing the first few engagements can make or break the rest of the game for marines. Whereas, for aliens, those engagements will have very little impact. I guess in that sense it has to do with map control and movement speed. A skulk pack that gets wiped out can be back on the pressure team within less than a minute. In veil, for example, you can lose an engagement in Skylights, and be back in the fight in System Waypointing. Sorry, took this a bit off-topic but those are just some of my thoughts on imbalance in the game.

Locklear

I would say that Marines really struggle right now in cracking Alien Hives when high lifeforms are still up with the current "standard" of 1 shift + 3 Crags at a Hive. With only Skulks on the field obviously the Hive defense is pretty slim but if there's still at least 1 good fade, maybe a Lerk and some Gorges.. it gets pretty difficult to do some damage to a Hive. The Crags are constantly healing themselves and everything else not to mention the heal waves that do massive healing per second. This would be fine in my opinion if it didn't require so much effort to break it at the highest level of play atm.

Even if the Marines aren't being picked in the push it often ends up doing no damage without GLs or ARCs, and with GL's only effective without the presence of a whip and ARCs really vulnerable to Gorges (also super expensive with 3-4+) it can be really unforgiving for Marines to push a Hive.. whereas Aliens have it.. well.. easy. 1 Gorge (add 2 Gorges and it can be a complete disaster if done right) can hit the main or somewhere else and even with a quick response he can get some serious damage done.. if the response is anywhere near slower he can almost win the game on his own. Whereas you could say a Marine attempting the same thing with a GL.. his damage would be negligible even though he is much more expensive just by Tres/Pres costs alone.

I would propose removing whips or changing what they do and reducing GL player damage (turn up the structure damage a bit).. that way Marines can actually work down structures during a push before ARCs and possibly win a push without just shotgunning everything into oblivion which is basically what is required currently. The GL player is vulnerable to attacks anyways since he can't really defend himself so imo, that should be the soft counter.. not hard countered by whips.

For Marines to push a hive when high lifeforms are up they really have to be able to take the hive down at range, they can't sacrifice positioning chasing the Fade behind the hive or whatever is up in order to take him down.. they have to catch him on the exit path of his defense of the hive or hope that he could be lifeform blocked prior and taken out of the situation. With the GL doing it's job in pushes the Marines wouldn't need to charge straight in to the alien favored areas near Crags/Hive/Eggs and sacrifice a lot of good positioning in order to take down the Hive. Which currently in some Hive locations.. it is required to even have a shot on the Crags/Gorge that are cutting down a lot of the DPS.

The only other option is ARCs which are super expensive and can work but it should not be the ONLY viable option.

In conclusion, things are somewhat balanced (with somewhat being a sad 33% winrate for Marines) atm in the regard of the effort/resources each team needs to make base/hive pushes but I feel Marines have the short end of the stick in close games where aliens have the tech available to "hard counter" Marine pushes.. sometimes leaving Marines without much option on breaking a hive. I would like to see the Grenade Launcher become a more effective anti-structure weapon and no longer do much player damage as with the physics and the way you accomplish it currently.. it's not that "skillful" anyways.

durdenns2

"fixed Whips being able to whack grenades through walls." - Build 238

Welp, that's one small step in the right direction. I think more needs to be done to close the gap between how the factions maintain their bases. Both constructing and repairing are far more costly for marines. And aliens have the most effective tool to damage structures.