Bile bomb should apply a damage multiplier to structures, that normal damage units can take advantage of.
I would go half way and say that gorges bile could do armour damage, but only give damage multiplier on health. That way they keep their usefulness against exo's.
Power nodes aside, I have no problem with bile bomb. If you can't gather enough intel on the map to see a push coming and aren't able to mount your attacks over paths that aliens have to use to get to your base, it's your own fault. You got scan. You can monitor enemy movements. And you can lead your marines at paths that don't allow aliens to sneak into your base most of the time.
2 gorges and 1 onos need to be hunted down. You can't mount an attack at a hive at this time. And (power node aside) a single gorge leveling a base is very rare.
If anything we need to think about power nodes. Not bile bomb.
And (power node aside) a single gorge leveling a base is very rare.
If anything we need to think about power nodes. Not bile bomb.
There must be two different NS2's because in my one you can bet $100 in servers of more than 8+ there will be one guy gorging outside marine base once bile is up nearly all game because he can (10 pres) and it works (60% of the time every time).
I don't know if anyone has come up with this idea before.
What if nano-shield completely nullified the effects of bile bomb? This way as long as the commander is paying attention, and spends the resources, he can delay a gorge bile rush for at least a few secons. If that's not long enough for marines to come to the rescue, then fail.
I don't know if anyone has come up with this idea before.
What if nano-shield completely nullified the effects of bile bomb? This way as long as the commander is paying attention, and spends the resources, he can delay a gorge bile rush for at least a few secons. If that's not long enough for marines to come to the rescue, then fail.
Would stop a lot of power rushes but bile would still be very powerful.
If you've gotten to the point where you can be repeatedly rushed by an onos with two bilebombing gorges, then you've already lost.
Going to have to disagree with you there. For example I was commanding on Docking, we held locker room, departures and marine start (forget the name) and we were constantly harassed by 2-3 gorges grouping up and bilebombing our base. Impossible to defend unless you have 1 or 2 marines constantly in your base watching for it. Extremely frustrating and we definitely had the upper hand in the game.
Another annoying spot is directly above the command station in warehouse on Tram, people go gorge across the beams and just ruin your base, not a lot you can do to prevent it.
As others have suggested it definitely needs tweaking a bit somehow.
The moment the marines try to push and leave their base you know what happen? 2 gorges, one onos if they want to be fancy and boum don't even have time to beacon unless you stick your nose on the goddamn power node it's ridiculous.
That means that not only you need to leave at least 2 marines at all time at your base but you also have to keep 15 ressources for 1 nano and one beacon because of course the moment the marines get a bit too far away from a phasegate aliens just have to attack with a minimum of manpower to level your base. Ho and the 2 marines left at base? They either walk away without saying a word forcing you to direct your troops like a real asshole or they get killed in 2 secs by a lerk and a skulk.
Perhaps consider attacking through the direction the aliens keep launching their attacks from.
Either you successfully make progress, or you successfully defend the base, either way, you are alleviating the problem.
For bonus points, send a jetpack marine or two the other way to take advantage of the tied up aliens.
I would like to see Gorges having to charge the Bile Bomb for a longer range throw. You can still push out Bile Bomb at the usual rate, but then it won't travel all that far and you have to get closer to the action. If you want to make a long ranged assault, you effectively have to pay for it with a reduced rate of fire.
The reason Gorges are disposable is not just because they cost 10 res, it's because they have nothing else to spend res on. Even the 9 res hydra pack is not very useful in the mid to late game, and that's all they have. Last I heard gorge tunnels and babblers will both cost res to drop, so a Gorge should have some more incentive to stay alive. (plus, hive 3 bile...???)
Honestly I almost never see a commander nanoshield the power node. Like literally 1 in 10 games if that. I don't think many comms realize you can do that - for some reason it just hasn't reached public awareness yet even after all these months. Maybe it's because most comms don't even see them as a structure to interact with, since they're map props that drop automatically.
E-D. I do it all the time, especially for PGs and Power Nodes. Maybe nanoshield can be buffed to reduce bile damage to 30% instead of the straight 50% damage reduction for all damage types.
20 res gorge is the way to go.
Late game rushes where you are ahead would still be very affordable, but where you are behind and low on resources they would be very risky.
It would also delay gorges locking down areas at the start of the game which would be great as they'd have to wait for some hydra res and it would remove hillarious starting gorge rushes where you hydra up the marine spawn.
the pub games where gorges rush are far from marine losses. its a way for the aliens to dictate the game when they are being pushed. 2 or 3 gorges bile the power on the weak side to force the beacon. Once the beacon'ed the rest rush the unsupported exos or the empty bases' pg.
Their range and splash radius are ridiculous. Right now its low risk, high reward - especially since many nodes are easy to hit from hallways.
The sentries are another topic but when majority of commanders think its a waste of money why is it even in the game then? Let them upgrade damage with W1,2,3. Lose the battery but still limit a room to 3 sentries.
At any rate the bile bomb needs to be tweaked and so does the sentries.
If you've gotten to the point where you can be repeatedly rushed by an onos with two bilebombing gorges, then you've already lost.
Going to have to disagree with you there. For example I was commanding on Docking, we held locker room, departures and marine start (forget the name) and we were constantly harassed by 2-3 gorges grouping up and bilebombing our base. Impossible to defend unless you have 1 or 2 marines constantly in your base watching for it. Extremely frustrating and we definitely had the upper hand in the game.
Another annoying spot is directly above the command station in warehouse on Tram, people go gorge across the beams and just ruin your base, not a lot you can do to prevent it.
As others have suggested it definitely needs tweaking a bit somehow.
I've always said this... the best way to stop a bile rush is to see it coming. If the aliens have a 2nd hive, bile bomb is on the way. If your base has 3 entrances, which of those entrances is most likely to be the point of attack? Do you have obs up to give yourself enough advance warning of a gorge rush, of ANY rush? Do you occasionally do a scan of areas where it is likely that gorges are gathering (ie. Transit near Smelting in ns2_refinery)? Read the link in my sig (defending against bile rush). Play a bunch of games as a bile gorge and you will soon learn the ways of the ninja gorge, and also learn how to defend against it.
For starters, let's use your example on Docking. Terminal is the marine start. Suppose the gorges kept coming after Terminal, there are 3 entrances into Terminal that are likely to be rushed:
1) East Wing - least likely because you hold Departures, and if you place your starting obs like most commanders do on Docking, you put it near the row of plants to the north of the Comm Station and you will see the rush coming.
2) Courtyard - most likely because most commanders never place a second obs at the res node to cover that hallway. Gorges can gorge it up in Courtyard then run straight in without being detected on the map until it is too late.
3) Landing Pad - Nearly as popular as Courtyard, aliens can reach Landing Pad from Central Access through a vent, sneak walk onto Landing Pad, gorge up and rush straight in.
Most of the time, 2 obs will be enough to cover most of the danger zones in any base (although I do want the passive scan to actually show me what lifeform those red dots represent).
As for your problem with Warehouse on Tram...use proper obs placement and warn your team that bile rushes are coming. I have rushed many bases as a bile gorge from all sorts of places, and so the ceiling in Warehouse was familiar to me. I commed on marines 2 nights ago and we started in Warehouse, I placed my first obs in such a way as to cover the ceiling beam. Later that game, I noticed a red dot slowly sneaking up and I immediately called it out, telling my team that there was a gorge on the ceiling in Warehouse. Throughout the game, my obs detected red dots sneaking around my base (especially in Hub outside Repair Room and in the vent leading to Ore Processing) and thankfully marines responded to shut down those gorge rushes before they happened.
Few things are more demoralizing than to organize a gorge rush and get shut down by nanoshield and marines waiting to pump your gorge hide full of bullets. I know... I've played enough bile gorge to have experienced failure against competant and alert marines.
That brings me to my point - bile bomb is fine the way it is. It succeeds with amazing results because most marines (and the marine comm) simply don't see it coming, or they blissfully believe that "if it isn't happening right now, then it will not happen" - stupid as that may sound.
And (power node aside) a single gorge leveling a base is very rare.
If anything we need to think about power nodes. Not bile bomb.
There must be two different NS2's because in my one you can bet $100 in servers of more than 8+ there will be one guy gorging outside marine base once bile is up nearly all game because he can (10 pres) and it works (60% of the time every time).
That's the low risk high reward i'm talking about.
Going to have to disagree with you there. For example I was commanding on Docking, we held locker room, departures and marine start (forget the name) and we were constantly harassed by 2-3 gorges grouping up and bilebombing our base. Impossible to defend unless you have 1 or 2 marines constantly in your base watching for it. Extremely frustrating and we definitely had the upper hand in the game.
Another annoying spot is directly above the command station in warehouse on Tram, people go gorge across the beams and just ruin your base, not a lot you can do to prevent it.
As others have suggested it definitely needs tweaking a bit somehow.
I suppose I made it seem more absolute than it should have been, but something like 90% of the repeated gorge bilebomb rush situations I've seen occur after the marines have essentially lost. On a few occasions I've seen aliens pull off a victory as a result of bilebomb rushing, but those matches were usually much closer than is typical in many NS2 matches.
I think the solo gorge taking down power is a good punishment for not paying attention and not having people in the right position on the map. On the other hand, bad comms are more common than good ones, and it's a frustrating mechanic for your average player to deal with game-in game-out. I'm not sure there is an easy answer. Power certainly gets a bad rap from most of the public voicechat I've heard, and I tend to agree. It seems a rather strained mechanic, at times, although I understand its purpose.
edit: This is just about bile-bombing power. Bile itself is fine in every other way (imho).
Not SureJoin Date: 2013-01-06Member: 177758Members
As someone who's commanded marines a ridiculous amount of times, I'm pretty sure all I want to feel good about bile bomb is a consistent warning system for power nodes under attack for those times when you (somehow) miss that 2 seconds of advanced warning you need to respond.
I hope all the comments and suggestions will help marine commanders to face that particuliar aspect of the game.
I'll break a few facts that I think are important from what I've read so far:
- The number of players seems to play an important role in the currect context. Games with more then 7-8 players require a hell of a lot more attention to a marine commander than an alien one.
- The ressources and manpower needed to prevent or counter even a simple decent bilebomb rush on a power node seems quite important. So again it all come down to the capacity of marines to organise themselves, look at their map and anticipate that particuliar risk. Bottom line: pass the word.
- The maps themselves shouldn't be kept from having good place for aliens to make bile rush. After all, marines can get arcs which are amazing by themselves.
- Generaly I've seen aliens recover from losing a base much more easily then marines even if it can indeed prove fatal nonetheless.
And one suggestion: You risk to ignore players requests at critical moment because you need to watch from one to 3 power nodes at all time. Aliens commanders can easily see the red dot when cysts get killed for a ninja gate. Maybe a priority warning on one place of the map?
The downside to being a gorge is that you suck at killing anything that moves.
If the Marines are leaving their bases wide open with no defense, why exactly is it a bad thing for one player to disrupt the base? I mean, a skulk on the powernode works just as well as a Gorge and it's free.
This seems like a gripe against power nodes more than it's a gripe against Bile Bomb. It's the one good thing Gorges get, and while it doesn't require certain upgrades it is certainly far under performing without adrenaline or carapace.
Gorges are easy for a Marines player to kill. Why is it that people focus on 'beacon or die' instead of having the guy that's already inside your base (namely the commander) get out and shoot for a minute? Aliens commanders get out all the time, often as a gorge, to try and defend a hive. A marines commander can drop himself the best gun available, tons of health, and ammo on top of it. If that isn't enough to kill a gorge or two I'd say you have larger problems than bile bomb. Especially when he can nanoshield the power node just before he gets out.
While we're on the subject, if a single Marine was in the Aliens hive with a flamethrower and no aliens players came to stop him, should the flamethrower be nerfed to accommodate terrible team work?
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edited February 2013
Game after game after game I suicide ninja gorge the main base, and win for our team. I don't even have to go for the power. Unless I'm under fire from the very start of the attack, I can take down the ips and armory even if a marine respawns in the middle. It doesn't immediately end the game, a smart comm will beacon and set things back up, but even at its least effective, it ends any marine push, costs the marines lots of res, and pretty much ensures that the aliens eventually win. I can do this as a single player, and even the most coordinated response from the marines sets them back significantly.
There are a lot of ways to balance this that wouldn't involve nerfing it entirely. A few options. I'd like to see the gorge cost increased, hp decreased, and the adrenaline cost of bilebomb increased. It can still be a base wrecking ability, it just needs to be harder to pull off.
I love this strategy. I use it every game. But it is way too easy.
With the concept of Gorge suicide in mind, wouldn't it be just as effective to save that P.Res and go Lerk or Fade or Onos? Is anyone seriously saying they'd be willing to pay just a smidgen less than a Lerk for a life form that's way worse at killing players? I mean, if you want to play hide and seek at the Marines main base all game that's cool I suppose, but really if the Marines hunted you down and killed you how well did that work out? You could have made just as big of an impact in distracting the Marines as a skulk doing virtually the same thing. Or gone Lerk a little later and annihilated the Marines team while gaining tremendous map control.
Yeah, Bile Bomb works and keeps the Marines on their toes. Marines that don't need to worry about their rear positions are Marines that will win consistently. The only advantage Aliens really have is speed and surprise, removing that in any serious way isn't going to be pretty.
Game after game after game I suicide ninja gorge the main base, and win for our team. I don't even have to go for the power. Unless I'm under fire from the very start of the attack, I can take down the ips and armory even if a marine respawns in the middle. It doesn't immediately end the game, a smart comm will beacon and set things back up, but even at its least effective, it ends any marine push, costs the marines lots of res, and pretty much ensures that the aliens eventually win. I can do this as a single player, and even the most coordinated response from the marines sets them back significantly.
There are a lot of ways to balance this that wouldn't involve nerfing it entirely. A few options. I'd like to see the gorge cost increased, hp decreased, and the adrenaline cost of bilebomb increased. It can still be a base wrecking ability, it just needs to be harder to pull off.
I love this strategy. I use it every game. But it is way too easy.
Mod parent up. This is usually my experience from the Marine side. The gorges that skulk up to the rafters then evolve are especially infuriating.
The downside to being a gorge is that you suck at killing anything that moves.
If the Marines are leaving their bases wide open with no defense, why exactly is it a bad thing for one player to disrupt the base? I mean, a skulk on the powernode works just as well as a Gorge and it's free.
This seems like a gripe against power nodes more than it's a gripe against Bile Bomb. It's the one good thing Gorges get, and while it doesn't require certain upgrades it is certainly far under performing without adrenaline or carapace.
Gorges are easy for a Marines player to kill. Why is it that people focus on 'beacon or die' instead of having the guy that's already inside your base (namely the commander) get out and shoot for a minute? Aliens commanders get out all the time, often as a gorge, to try and defend a hive. A marines commander can drop himself the best gun available, tons of health, and ammo on top of it. If that isn't enough to kill a gorge or two I'd say you have larger problems than bile bomb. Especially when he can nanoshield the power node just before he gets out.
While we're on the subject, if a single Marine was in the Aliens hive with a flamethrower and no aliens players came to stop him, should the flamethrower be nerfed to accommodate terrible team work?
If the flamer cost 10 res, could kill the hive at almost LOS range in less than 20 seconds and depower all alien upgrades. Yes, I'd agree. Although in that case, I believe that's an issue with the Infestation node system and the bugged alien warning system than all the problems being on the flamethrower side.
Comments
I would go half way and say that gorges bile could do armour damage, but only give damage multiplier on health. That way they keep their usefulness against exo's.
2. big dps
3. damage stacking with other gorges
Pick two.
And you thusly have a support siege attack option.
2 gorges and 1 onos need to be hunted down. You can't mount an attack at a hive at this time. And (power node aside) a single gorge leveling a base is very rare.
If anything we need to think about power nodes. Not bile bomb.
There must be two different NS2's because in my one you can bet $100 in servers of more than 8+ there will be one guy gorging outside marine base once bile is up nearly all game because he can (10 pres) and it works (60% of the time every time).
"You yadda yadda'd over the best part." - Seinfeld
What if nano-shield completely nullified the effects of bile bomb? This way as long as the commander is paying attention, and spends the resources, he can delay a gorge bile rush for at least a few secons. If that's not long enough for marines to come to the rescue, then fail.
This thread is not about power nodes. Nerfing bile bomb because of a problem with power nodes can't be the solution.
Would stop a lot of power rushes but bile would still be very powerful.
Another annoying spot is directly above the command station in warehouse on Tram, people go gorge across the beams and just ruin your base, not a lot you can do to prevent it.
As others have suggested it definitely needs tweaking a bit somehow.
Perhaps consider attacking through the direction the aliens keep launching their attacks from.
Either you successfully make progress, or you successfully defend the base, either way, you are alleviating the problem.
For bonus points, send a jetpack marine or two the other way to take advantage of the tied up aliens.
E-D. I do it all the time, especially for PGs and Power Nodes. Maybe nanoshield can be buffed to reduce bile damage to 30% instead of the straight 50% damage reduction for all damage types.
Late game rushes where you are ahead would still be very affordable, but where you are behind and low on resources they would be very risky.
It would also delay gorges locking down areas at the start of the game which would be great as they'd have to wait for some hydra res and it would remove hillarious starting gorge rushes where you hydra up the marine spawn.
Their range and splash radius are ridiculous. Right now its low risk, high reward - especially since many nodes are easy to hit from hallways.
The sentries are another topic but when majority of commanders think its a waste of money why is it even in the game then? Let them upgrade damage with W1,2,3. Lose the battery but still limit a room to 3 sentries.
At any rate the bile bomb needs to be tweaked and so does the sentries.
tada;
edit: like with whips and grenades.
I've always said this... the best way to stop a bile rush is to see it coming. If the aliens have a 2nd hive, bile bomb is on the way. If your base has 3 entrances, which of those entrances is most likely to be the point of attack? Do you have obs up to give yourself enough advance warning of a gorge rush, of ANY rush? Do you occasionally do a scan of areas where it is likely that gorges are gathering (ie. Transit near Smelting in ns2_refinery)? Read the link in my sig (defending against bile rush). Play a bunch of games as a bile gorge and you will soon learn the ways of the ninja gorge, and also learn how to defend against it.
For starters, let's use your example on Docking. Terminal is the marine start. Suppose the gorges kept coming after Terminal, there are 3 entrances into Terminal that are likely to be rushed:
1) East Wing - least likely because you hold Departures, and if you place your starting obs like most commanders do on Docking, you put it near the row of plants to the north of the Comm Station and you will see the rush coming.
2) Courtyard - most likely because most commanders never place a second obs at the res node to cover that hallway. Gorges can gorge it up in Courtyard then run straight in without being detected on the map until it is too late.
3) Landing Pad - Nearly as popular as Courtyard, aliens can reach Landing Pad from Central Access through a vent, sneak walk onto Landing Pad, gorge up and rush straight in.
Most of the time, 2 obs will be enough to cover most of the danger zones in any base (although I do want the passive scan to actually show me what lifeform those red dots represent).
As for your problem with Warehouse on Tram...use proper obs placement and warn your team that bile rushes are coming. I have rushed many bases as a bile gorge from all sorts of places, and so the ceiling in Warehouse was familiar to me. I commed on marines 2 nights ago and we started in Warehouse, I placed my first obs in such a way as to cover the ceiling beam. Later that game, I noticed a red dot slowly sneaking up and I immediately called it out, telling my team that there was a gorge on the ceiling in Warehouse. Throughout the game, my obs detected red dots sneaking around my base (especially in Hub outside Repair Room and in the vent leading to Ore Processing) and thankfully marines responded to shut down those gorge rushes before they happened.
Few things are more demoralizing than to organize a gorge rush and get shut down by nanoshield and marines waiting to pump your gorge hide full of bullets. I know... I've played enough bile gorge to have experienced failure against competant and alert marines.
That brings me to my point - bile bomb is fine the way it is. It succeeds with amazing results because most marines (and the marine comm) simply don't see it coming, or they blissfully believe that "if it isn't happening right now, then it will not happen" - stupid as that may sound.
That's the low risk high reward i'm talking about.
edit: This is just about bile-bombing power. Bile itself is fine in every other way (imho).
I'll break a few facts that I think are important from what I've read so far:
- The number of players seems to play an important role in the currect context. Games with more then 7-8 players require a hell of a lot more attention to a marine commander than an alien one.
- The ressources and manpower needed to prevent or counter even a simple decent bilebomb rush on a power node seems quite important. So again it all come down to the capacity of marines to organise themselves, look at their map and anticipate that particuliar risk. Bottom line: pass the word.
- The maps themselves shouldn't be kept from having good place for aliens to make bile rush. After all, marines can get arcs which are amazing by themselves.
- Generaly I've seen aliens recover from losing a base much more easily then marines even if it can indeed prove fatal nonetheless.
And one suggestion: You risk to ignore players requests at critical moment because you need to watch from one to 3 power nodes at all time. Aliens commanders can easily see the red dot when cysts get killed for a ninja gate. Maybe a priority warning on one place of the map?
If the Marines are leaving their bases wide open with no defense, why exactly is it a bad thing for one player to disrupt the base? I mean, a skulk on the powernode works just as well as a Gorge and it's free.
This seems like a gripe against power nodes more than it's a gripe against Bile Bomb. It's the one good thing Gorges get, and while it doesn't require certain upgrades it is certainly far under performing without adrenaline or carapace.
Gorges are easy for a Marines player to kill. Why is it that people focus on 'beacon or die' instead of having the guy that's already inside your base (namely the commander) get out and shoot for a minute? Aliens commanders get out all the time, often as a gorge, to try and defend a hive. A marines commander can drop himself the best gun available, tons of health, and ammo on top of it. If that isn't enough to kill a gorge or two I'd say you have larger problems than bile bomb. Especially when he can nanoshield the power node just before he gets out.
While we're on the subject, if a single Marine was in the Aliens hive with a flamethrower and no aliens players came to stop him, should the flamethrower be nerfed to accommodate terrible team work?
There are a lot of ways to balance this that wouldn't involve nerfing it entirely. A few options. I'd like to see the gorge cost increased, hp decreased, and the adrenaline cost of bilebomb increased. It can still be a base wrecking ability, it just needs to be harder to pull off.
I love this strategy. I use it every game. But it is way too easy.
Yeah, Bile Bomb works and keeps the Marines on their toes. Marines that don't need to worry about their rear positions are Marines that will win consistently. The only advantage Aliens really have is speed and surprise, removing that in any serious way isn't going to be pretty.
Mod parent up. This is usually my experience from the Marine side. The gorges that skulk up to the rafters then evolve are especially infuriating.
If the flamer cost 10 res, could kill the hive at almost LOS range in less than 20 seconds and depower all alien upgrades. Yes, I'd agree. Although in that case, I believe that's an issue with the Infestation node system and the bugged alien warning system than all the problems being on the flamethrower side.