The skulk has greater DPS, but how likely it to hit when the marines can pretty much hit as far as they can see while the skulk can't do any damage at all until they are >.5m of their target.
That's the thing though. Marines get that advantage, but they get lower overall DPS. Aliens (with a few exceptions) are melee based and are structured around ambush and closing the gap.
Skulks should never be 'rushing' a marine. Any marine you rush at head on is going to have the advantage. Yet any marine you get the jump on (from surprise) is a marine the SKULK gets the advantage on. A skulk can deliver two bites in 9/10ths of a second. An armor 0 marine can be dead in under ONE SECOND.
The difference?
The skulk who gets the marine hopping around like a rabbit just demolishes his ability to aim. So there is little if any chance he'll be able to land all 9 bullets into the skulk before he is dead. This is the advantage for the skulk. And that advantage is always there. When marines get armor 1, a skulk needs 3 bites for a kill. Well a skulk can deliver those three bites in all of 1.35 seconds.
Once the marine gets armor 2/armor 3 it will take a skulk four bites to make a kill. Those four bites can be delivered in 1.8 seconds. While it may seem like forever, count to TWO in your head. That's how fast a skulk can kill a marine.
So what about marines with weapon upgrades? At worst, with weapons 3, versus a skulk without carapace it only takes 7 weapons 3 bullets to kill a non-carapace skulk. Yet at this point in the game - when marines have weapons 3 an alien team should be sitting on 2 or 3 hives, and one will be a crag hive. So then, what are we looking at with a weapons 3 marine versus a carapace skulk? In this matchup it's 10 bullets.
Here's the thing though...
Take a look at the stats from ANY game. Now look at accuracy for marines. What do you see? Well if you look at a competitive NSL match like this or this, you'll see that competitive players average marine accuracy between 20-25%. That means it's not taking them 10 bullets with weapons 3 to score that skulk kill, it's taking them 40 bullets. Now take a look again at those NSL match stat links I posted above. Note some of the accuracy levels for aliens. You'll note that some players can reach ~50% accuracy. So even if you miss half your bites you may still beat a weapons 3/armor 3 marine.
It all comes down to who gets the jump on whom though. If the marine sees you coming, then the skulk has given up his advantage. If he hides and ambushes the marine, all of a sudden things are quite different. While that weapons 3/armor 3 marine is hopping around and missing all his shots, the skulk is landing bites.
tldr; The tools are there for skulks to remain competitive all game long. The issue is that they need to be a lot more tactical in how they attack marines in the later game. However, the numbers support the case that skulks can still be competitive in the late game.
edit: redacted timings until I can get verification
The more I play the patch, the more I like it. I didn't play alien too much before the patch since I could run around getting kills while eating a sandwich. The challenge just wasn't there.
That challenge is back.
Skulks actually have to 'look before they leap', if you'll pardon the pun. I think @Gorgenapper said it best when he remarked:
Basically, to put it bluntly, alien easy mode has been turned OFF. What you're seeing and experiencing are withdrawal symptoms. ... Skulks were always designed around ambush tactics, hiding above doorways, in vents and such. They have 70h/10a, just NINE bullets should be able to kill one.
Another part of the problem people are facing is that they have unintentionally made people who play marines that much more skilled by nature of the alien superiority. Given how hard it was to play, most people playing marines have developed far more tactical skill than aliens - who essentially just ran around the map and killed stuff with ease.
Aliens need to work as a TEAM now, something that some may not be used to. So instead of throwing up your hands, step up to the challenge.
Step up your game.
Yeah, its a "challenge" to only have a 1/5 chance to win a game. So exciting and fun to know what the game outcome is gonna be in advance.
The skulk has greater DPS, but how likely it to hit when the marines can pretty much hit as far as they can see while the skulk can't do any damage at all until they are >.5m of their target.
That's the thing though. Marines get that advantage, but they get lower overall DPS. Aliens (with a few exceptions) are melee based and are structured around ambush and closing the gap.
Skulks should never be 'rushing' a marine. Any marine you rush at head on is going to have the advantage. Yet any marine you get the jump on (from surprise) is a marine the SKULK gets the advantage on. A skulk can deliver two bites in 9/10ths of a second. An armor 0 marine can be dead in under ONE SECOND. Guess what? That same marine could kill a non-carapace skulk in 9/10ths of a second as well with perfect aim.
The difference?
The skulk who gets the marine hopping around like a rabbit just demolishes his ability to aim. So there is little if any chance he'll be able to land all 9 bullets into the skulk before he is dead. This is the advantage for the skulk. And that advantage is always there. When marines get armor 1, a skulk needs 3 bites for a kill. Well a skulk can deliver those three bites in all of 1.35 seconds. What about skulks with Carapace? Well it would take a marine 1.3 seconds of perfect aim to score a kill.
Once the marine gets armor 2/armor 3 it will take a skulk four bites to make a kill. Those four bites can be delivered in 1.8 seconds. While it may seem like forever, count to TWO in your head. That's how fast a skulk can kill a marine.
So what about marines with weapon upgrades? At worst, with weapons 3, versus a skulk without carapace it only takes 7 weapons 3 bullets to kill a non-carapace skulk. Yet at this point in the game - when marines have weapons 3 an alien team should be sitting on 2 or 3 hives, and one will be a crag hive. So then, what are we looking at with a weapons 3 marine versus a carapace skulk? In this matchup it's 10 bullets, or 1 second of perfect aim.
Here's the thing though...
Take a look at the stats from ANY game. Now look at accuracy for marines. What do you see? Well if you look at a competitive NSL match like this or this, you'll see that competitive players average marine accuracy between 20-25%. That means it's not taking them 10 bullets with weapons 3 to score that skulk kill, it's taking them 40 bullets. That's a full FOUR seconds, versus a possible 1.8 seconds for a skulk with good aim. Now take a look again at those NSL match stat links I posted above. Note some of the accuracy levels for aliens. You'll note that some players can reach ~50% accuracy. If you apply that accuracy to a skulk, that 1.8 seconds becomes 3.6 seconds at 50% accuracy. So even if you miss half your bites you will *still* beat a weapons 3/armor 3 marine.
It all comes down to who gets the jump on whom though. If the marine sees you coming, then the skulk has given up his advantage. If he hides and ambushes the marine, all of a sudden things are quite different. While that weapons 3/armor 3 marine is hopping around and missing all his shots, the skulk is landing bites.
tldr; The tools are there for skulks to remain competitive all game long. The issue is that they need to be a lot more tactical in how they attack marines in the later game. However, the numbers support the case that skulks can still be competitive in the late game.
Hahah, gooooood lord....
Why don't you just watch those matches or a competitive match and see how the skulk/marine fights are going, instead of some bizarre hypothetical world you create in your own head.
Why don't you just watch those matches or a competitive match and see how the skulk/marine fights are going
I did. Of the 16 games yesterday 12 of them went 2-0 for one team, and only 4 were 1-1 ties. Kinda tells me that balance isn't as bad as people say it is, or else all of the games would be 1-1 ties.
If you watched the games you would see the comp players were QUITE able to kill marines as skulks.
So, let me sum that up. Skulks do 75 DPS throughout the game (one bite per second, as default alien attack rate is 1 providing no other rate is provided, and no other rate is provided for Bite) Skulks do 166.6... DPS throughout the game (2.2... bites a second) while Marines do 125 DPS on W0, 137.5 DPS on W1, 150 DPS on W2, and 162.5 DPS on W3. Skulk effective health starts at 90 and can increase to a total of 130. Marines start with 160 effective health, which increases to 200 on A1, 240 on A2, and 280 on A3.
A marine can kill a skulk in one second assuming perfect accuracy throughout the game thanks to scaling (this is on paper, not in practice). To kill a Marine (any marine except Exos) as a Skulk, it requires three bites at the very least from the start. As marine armor scales it takes 3 bites at A1, 4 bites at A2, and 4 bites at A3. This is, again, assuming perfect accuracy.
No matter what stage of the game, a marine will still outclass a skulk completely on paper in terms of damage and health.
The problem brought up is that skulks do not scale into the end-game. If your suggestion is for skulks to be cannon fodder to draw fire, then ask yourself this question: Is that any fun?
No, it's generally not. Nobody likes being one shot, and Marines have plenty of ways to do just that to the Alien team without the Alien team having a way to do the same.
Where's the fun in that?
EDIT: Oh, and Savant, please stop posting numbers without evidence. I'd rather enjoy not having to make these posts over and over.
Metal ManJoin Date: 2011-11-13Member: 132717Members
edited March 2013
How about focus. The marine has many ways to increase his armor (Armor upgrades, exos) and damage (weapon upgrades and new weapons). The skulk just can't get any stronger in terms of DPS. Carapace and the many mobility upgrades available to them do little to preventing getting one shotted later in the game. So, later in the game when the marines' skins turn to iron, and when skulks finally do get into biting range, their damage should be more significant. I think this applies closely to fade gameplay as well.
It would be a cool tradeoff early game allowing for more chamber diversity. All i know is I really miss it
I've played some more, and a big part of the problem is Marine bunnyhopping. Any decent Marine, even if standing still, when you you sneak up to him and start biting, he will just jump, turn around, and shoot you right in the face. IF you're not dead then already, he will just jump again. The most ridiculous thing is that they are faster than Skulks in that situation, so you can't keep up (not sure if that is the known Skulk acceleration bug).
A question about the patch:
What has really changed in regards to Marine accuracy? The only thing mentioned in the changelog is "Skulk movement adjustments" and "Fixed bug causing Skulk hitbox and worldmodel to be misaligned on some vertical surfaces (Makes the buggers easier to hit)".
But it feels like there is a HUGE general hitreg buff for Marines.
Don't get me wrong, this was absolutely, 100% necessary. Shooting Skulks now feels skill based and is no longer "hey I did hit that! WTF?" dice throwing. But it totally killed the existing game balance (talking about Skulks mostly, but it applies to any lifeform!).
Upgrades are basically useless now because, no matter which you choose, as a Skulk they won't help you anyway (this is not how you should make all upgrade choices equally viable).
Situations that were critical as a Marine now are a joke (e.g. you hardly have to reload in fight any more, 1v2 Situations are easily won, ...).
Shotguns one-shot you all the time and rarely miss.
Hallways that were no-brainers before are now death traps where a single Marine can easily deal with 2 or more incoming Skulks.
Every time we played against a decent Marine team we couldn't even hold one RT next to our base.
In 90% of the games I've played (10% were just shitty Marines who didn't expand at all or were just clearly worse), suddenly nearly every single Marine has a mid-game KDR of something like 12-4 or 20-6 (before any base attack siege/bash happens which increases the ratio).
If you frantically (wall)jump around, circle around and bite a single lone Railgun Exo, he will still hit and kill you with the first or second shot.
Even when Aliens clearly had the upper hand (e.g. Marines have 2 bases and one extra RT, Aliens had everything else) after a long fight Aliens are overwhelmed (often at 2 places at the same time) by Exo/Railgun/Shotgun balls of death.
It feels like a HUGE change has happened that totally screwed the existing balance, especially discontinuous events like waiting for the Marine to reload, barely surviving a fight, etc. What is the matter with this?
So, let me sum that up. Skulks do 75 DPS throughout the game (one bite per second, as default alien attack rate is 1 providing no other rate is provided, and no other rate is provided for Bite) while Marines do 125 DPS on W0, 137.5 DPS on W1, 150 DPS on W2, and 162.5 DPS on W3. Skulk effective health starts at 90 and can increase to a total of 130. Marines start with 160 effective health, which increases to 200 on A1, 240 on A2, and 280 on A3.
A marine can kill a skulk in one second assuming perfect accuracy throughout the game thanks to scaling (this is on paper, not in practice). To kill a Marine (any marine except Exos) as a Skulk, it requires three bites at the very least from the start. As marine armor scales it takes 3 bites at A1, 4 bites at A2, and 4 bites at A3. This is, again, assuming perfect accuracy.
No matter what stage of the game, a marine will still outclass a skulk completely on paper in terms of damage and health.
The problem brought up is that skulks do not scale into the end-game. If your suggestion is for skulks to be cannon fodder to draw fire, then ask yourself this question: Is that any fun?
No, it's generally not. Nobody likes being one shot, and Marines have plenty of ways to do just that to the Alien team without the Alien team having a way to do the same.
Where's the fun in that?
EDIT: Oh, and Savant, please stop posting numbers without evidence. I'd rather enjoy not having to make these posts over and over.
1 second skulk attack speed.... i think you're misinterpreting the code.
Time for me to step in and correct some misconceptions thrown about in this thread! Hooray![/code]So, let me sum that up. Skulks do 75 DPS throughout the game (one bite per second, as default alien attack rate is 1 providing no other rate is provided, and no other rate is provided for Bite)
Swing and a miss. Since you (and those that blindly 'awesomed' your post) are unfamiliar with the code, enter a game. Join aliens. Now press M1 - AND LISTEN - count in your head (onethousandone). Come back and tell me you are biting once a second. The Lerk bites once a second. Go ahead and compare.
Please come back and tell me how the devs intentionally coded the game so that the animation would be out of sync with the damage. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear your 'bug report'.
Swing and a miss. Since you (and the lemmings that 'awesomed' your post) have trouble with code, enter a game. Join aliens. Now press M1 - AND LISTEN - count in your head (onethousandone). Come back and tell me you are biting once a second. The Lerk bites once a second. Go ahead and compare.
Please come back and tell me how the devs intentionally coded the game so that the animation would be out of sync with the damage. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear your 'bug report'.
Well, calling them lemmings is more than a little rude. Also, I fail to see the accuracy of your "one thousand one" method. It's about as accurate as "one hippopotamus". We're not in grade school, anymore (at least, I assume that for the majority of folks here), and I think I've got a better test than that outside of searching the files again.
It's called recording the skulk bites and measuring the RoF based on the frames.
Now, I fully intend to do that after another dive into the lua files, but I see you're not willing to do either of them. You are, however, willing to attack others, and I do not appreciate that.
Now I'm off to do the actual work to get the information. Feel free to join me.
EDIT: Fun fact. I just learned that the Skulk apparently weights approximately 100 pounds.
There is no code in any other related file that denotes a specific attack speed for Bite which means it defaults to 1.
I know you mean well, but you are wrong. Attack speeds are defined in the animation graphs of the weapons, not lua. If there are attack speeds in lua they are usually leftovers from the day when the attack speed was defined there. The reason this is so is because its easier to make the attacks sync perfectly with the actual attack speed.
Also, I fail to see the accuracy of your "one thousand one" method. It's about as accurate as "one hippopotamus".
Fair enough, break out your stopwatch then. I'll hide the real answer below in case you want to try and time it.
(answer - skulk bite attack rate is 0.45)
Now, I fully intend to do that after another dive into the lua files, but I see you're not willing to do either of them.
That's because it's not *IN* the LUA files.
You are, however, willing to attack others, and I do not appreciate that.
I haven't attacked anyone, but I have rebutted your accusation that I'm "posting numbers without evidence". If you weren't so gleeful about thinking you had 'one upped' me, and boastfully declared that everything I posted was wrong, then perhaps I might have been a bit less brusk.
Edit: I'll make you a deal - you revise your post that tries to make me look the fool, and I'll revise mine that calls you out for doing it
Time for me to step in and correct some misconceptions thrown about in this thread! Hooray!
[snip]
No matter what stage of the game, a marine will still outclass a skulk completely on paper in terms of damage and health.
The problem brought up is that skulks do not scale into the end-game. If your suggestion is for skulks to be cannon fodder to draw fire, then ask yourself this question: Is that any fun?
No, it's generally not. Nobody likes being one shot, and Marines have plenty of ways to do just that to the Alien team without the Alien team having a way to do the same.
Where's the fun in that?
EDIT: Oh, and Savant, please stop posting numbers without evidence. I'd rather enjoy not having to make these posts over and over.
I don't think your numbers can be taken as significant evidence when they're clearly being misinterpreted in some fashion. I strongly suggest you try timing the bite speed ingame because it is definitely a lot faster than one bite per second.
As for Skulking late-game not being fun, well, being a cannon fodder Marine because the other team is Fades and Oni but you can't afford anything better than what you spawn with isn't really much fun either. Still, you can support your team. I've seen Skulks get some good kills by using the Oni as a distraction, allowing them to get behind the Marines and bite them while they try focusing their fire on the larger threat. There's still a purpose to Skulks, but I can't understand why anyone would expect a Skulk to be a significant threat against late-game Marines with shotguns, jetpacks, and Exos. A basic Marine, even with W3/A3, has never been a significant threat against an Onos. You can't go toe-to-toe with enemies that represent 50+ res, but you can still contribute.
Personally, while I can see how Skulk movement could be fixed to get rid of the momentum issue, I absolutely can not understand comments like:
Yeah, its a "challenge" to only have a 1/5 chance to win a game. So exciting and fun to know what the game outcome is gonna be in advance.
If any skulk kills a marine in a 1v1 situation, the marine is **** terrible. With the current state of balance, this should simply never happen.
Any decent Marine, even if standing still, when you you sneak up to him and start biting, he will just jump, turn around, and shoot you right in the face. IF you're not dead then already, he will just jump again.
Are we playing the same game? Because I've been playing a game where Skulks jumping out around corners or from the ceiling have mauled me before I even know what's going on. A Skulk at point blank is a dog-sized monster from hell that is hard enough to hit in motion to begin with, let alone when I'm flinching from damage and desperately trying to keep track of it.
On the other hand, the idiots who come running at me down a corridor and think hitting jump every once in a while is sufficient get a magazine to the face.
I've had games since the patch where Marines stomp all over aliens. I've had games where the aliens danced around every bullet and absolutely destroyed our team. As a Marine, I've killed bad Skulks and been killed by good Skulks. And as an alien, I've gotten my share of kills as a Skulk- and I certainly haven't experienced Marines instantly turning 180 and putting ten rounds into my skull the instant I bite them. I'm not a good player by any means but as an alien I can still hold my own.
Marines have the advantage at a distance, while Skulks have the advantage up close. Previously, a Skulk could come running down a corridor, jumping, strafing, and wall-jumping, and unless the Marine has excellent accuracy still manage to get close enough relatively undamaged to be able to kill the Marine. Now, that's no longer viable, but you can still murder Marines in the dark, from the ceiling, with a group, around a corner, and so on and so on. You just have to play a little smarter- considering the Marines are likely going to be distracted by construction early-game, it's not that hard.
What IS wrong with Skulk movement is how playing as intended, with wall jumping and dodging as quickly as possible, causes you to lose momentum and become a sitting duck. Skulks are supposed to be fast and agile- they're still fast, but can't combine it with agility. If you go fast, you can't dodge. If you dodge, you can't go fast. This is why I've seen the better players relying on group tactics and ambush more often, where they can focus on either beginning the fight at point blank or can make a beeline straight for the Marine in a group. This is something that needs to be addressed.
There are legitimate concerns to be had with the current state of the game but WTF ALIENS SUCK ONLY AN IDIOT MARINE COULD POSSIBLY LOSE is stupid hyperbole that does nothing to support your case.
I know you mean well, but you are wrong. Attack speeds are defined in the animation graphs of the weapons, not lua. If there are attack speeds in lua they are usually leftovers from the day when the attack speed was defined there. The reason this is so is because its easier to make the attacks sync perfectly with the actual attack speed.
Thank you for providing useful information. Now I would know where to look if I had the tools.
I haven't attacked anyone, but I have rebutted your accusation that I'm "posting numbers without evidence". If you weren't so gleeful about thinking you had 'one upped' me, and boastfully declared that everything I posted was wrong, then perhaps I might have been a bit less brusk.
Edit: I'll make you a deal - you revise your post that tries to make me look the fool, and I'll revise mine that calls you out for doing it
You have been attacking people, and you haven't been very subtle about it. Also, I'm not "one upping" anyone; I'm taking the time to go out of my way and gather as much data as possible to paint a clear picture. I prefer having solid numbers and evidence before talking about something.
Now, I can admit to being wrong about skulk attack speed because somebody posted before you with helpful information as opposed to snarky comments, but will you admit to being wrong about the rifle?
I don't think your numbers can be taken as significant evidence when they're clearly being misinterpreted in some fashion. I strongly suggest you try timing the bite speed ingame because it is definitely a lot faster than one bite per second.
As I said earlier, Asraniel gave me the information I needed for that particular issue. However, the rest of the numbers are correct.
Coincidentally, I just located the tool I need.
EDIT: In the end, it turns out that a marine still only needs one second to kill an alien while a skulk needs two to kill a marine.
I've played some more, and a big part of the problem is Marine bunnyhopping. Any decent Marine, even if standing still, when you you sneak up to him and start biting, he will just jump, turn around, and shoot you right in the face. IF you're not dead then already, he will just jump again. The most ridiculous thing is that they are faster than Skulks in that situation, so you can't keep up (not sure if that is the known Skulk acceleration bug).
This, to an extent. With some of the better marines it just doesn't matter if you get the jump on them, they can literally run rings around skulks. They could do this before the skulk nerf, it's just even easier for them now. Skulk movement just doesnt feel quick/responsive enough.
@Timarius
You don't understand what you are dealing with.
You are either with Savant - or you are with the terrorists lemmings.
Wait! Those grandiose (totally not insulting) reasoning "skills" didn't convince you already?
Rest assured, he will continue to spam this thread until you lose interest and declare himself the winner afterwards, because he's all to willing to repeat himself once more.
As a bonus, he will track your every post on this forum and flag it to "one up" you.
To quote Ash (the android from the first Alien film):
"I can't lie to you about your chances, but … you have my sympathies."
Also, I'm not "one upping" anyone; I'm taking the time to go out of my way and gather as much data as possible to paint a clear picture. I prefer having solid numbers and evidence before talking about something.
...
Now, I can admit to being wrong about skulk attack speed because somebody posted before you with helpful information as opposed to snarky comments
Like I said, I responded in kind. Had you politely asked me about the skulk bite rate, I would have been happy to clarify it. Instead you decided to make a big show with grand proclamations of how wrong I was, and it ends up in the post where you say all of my numbers are wrong that it is all of *your* numbers that are wrong. Ironic, isn't it?
but will you admit to being wrong about the rifle? ... As I said earlier, Asraniel gave me the information I needed for that particular issue. However, the rest of the numbers are correct.
I redacted my marine timings since I want to double check it, however I believe I was thinking about the pistol ROF and not the LMG ROF.
However, the LMG is not 0.08 - that much I remember. Now that I think of it I think it's somewhere between 0.05 and 0.06 - as noted above, the timings are NOT in the LUA. So all of your numbers are wrong.
As for your argument, I think catbarf said it best:
There are legitimate concerns to be had with the current state of the game but WTF ALIENS SUCK ONLY AN IDIOT MARINE COULD POSSIBLY LOSE is stupid hyperbole that does nothing to support your case.
The point behind my post is that skulks still remain competitive in the late game. You're free to disagree of course.
@Timarius
You don't understand what you are dealing with.
You are either with Savant - or you are with the terrorists lemmings.
Wait! Those grandiose (totally not insulting) reasoning "skills" didn't convince you already?
Rest assured, he will continue to spam this thread until you lose interest and declare himself the winner afterwards, because he's all to willing to repeat himself once more.
As a bonus, he will track your every post on this forum and flag it to "one up" you.
To quote Ash (the android from the first Alien film):
"I can't lie to you about your chances, but … you have my sympathies."
Like I said, I responded in kind. Had you politely asked me about the skulk bite rate, I would have been happy to clarify it. Instead you decided to make a big show with grand proclamations of how wrong I was, and it ends up in the post where you say all of my numbers are wrong that it is all of *your* numbers that are wrong. Ironic, isn't it?
Yes, I looked back. I was very snarky and sarcastic when I made the grade school remarks about the "one thousand one" counting method. Sorry about that, but it is a very poor system to go by.
I redacted my marine timings since I want to double check it, however I believe I was thinking about the pistol ROF and not the LMG ROF.
However, the LMG is not 0.08 - that much I remember. Now that I think of it I think it's somewhere between 0.05 and 0.06 - as noted above, the timings are NOT in the LUA. So all of your numbers are wrong.
As for your argument, I think catbarf said it best:
There are legitimate concerns to be had with the current state of the game but WTF ALIENS SUCK ONLY AN IDIOT MARINE COULD POSSIBLY LOSE is stupid hyperbole that does nothing to support your case.
The point behind my post is that skulks still remain competitive in the late game. You're free to disagree of course.
Actually, that is the correct RoF. Time your clip, and watch it empty in four seconds.
Skulks do NOT scale into late-game and are, in fact, cannon fodder. Yes, it's possible to get kills with it, but in any case of equal skill, it's not very likely. Your role is purely cannon fodder or distraction as a skulk at the end of a match, and that isn't fun.
Of course, if skulks remained competitive in the end-game, we'd have tons of marine players with the bias you've shown screaming in outrage as skulks manage to leap into their faces as they attempt to fly away with their jetpack and gnawing it off. And they'd be angry because, "I spent X Pres, and that 0 Pres skulk just killed me!"
It's unfortunately not likely that we'll see Focus again since Oni would come dangerously close to one shotting and Fades would become extremely deadly.
Now, I'll say this to conclude... I play both sides. I admit, I don't play them equally. I prefer Aliens, as I have since my Gorge days of NS1. However, I don't like the new skulk movement on either side. It feels terrible as an alien, and it's too easy to kill as a marine.
The only time an alien is able to kill me is when I get an errant keypress that causes my strafe jump to literally stop in the air. Of course, that's not always errant keypresses. It's more often a cause of bad collision.
When the skulk is fun to play again, and it feels fast and ferocious rather than a scared animal, then I'll enjoy it again. Until then, I'm going to stick to Gorging, playing marines, and commanding either side.
Skull >> Dog + rabbit >> if you get bite just take a vacc....
oh wait there is no doctor behind me >> MEDIC
why you guys piss off about this game ? its fun with out hats like Teamfortress 2
anyway if this game have pocket medic like TF2 , aliens gonna cry........ )
This whole argument that skulks play a different role is garbage.
Its like saying marines will play a different role and not be able to kill lerk/fades/Onos unless they have a JP or exo.
Screw asymmetry it is simply not fun to play a skulk after about 5-7 minutes into a game or when w2/3 comes up.
This problem is not new, it was around for most of the last half of the beta...marines getting multiple players going 3-1 or better and aliens barely having anyone with a positive ratio by the end of a game.
Even when losing you will see marines close to a 1 - 1 ratio...yet aliens will struggle to break even when losing.
This means that even when your winning as alien you feel like your losing and dieing more often is not fun.
Late game skulk play is a blight on the game, xeno doesn't even kill an a3 marine.... this sums up just how much is wrong with skulk and alien game play.
You have multiple ways to 1 shot skulks and lerks....yet not even a tier 3 ability can 1 shot a marine....
are you one of the guys who said skulks were too weak in b239?
i play random in every game, had no problem killing marine as skulk before b240 (no problem killing skulk as marine either, in optimal positions i'd say it was a 50/50 encounter before shotgun/jetpacks). additionally, there were no skulk whine posts on the forum. it was only post-b240 when skulk whining re-emerged for the first time since the onos rush nerf.
lategame skulk is okay unless you're in one of those hopeless cascading positions where marines are dominating. that's a symptom of RTS gameplay. in high level play there is obviously going to be concerns over the nerf/bug, but i guarantee you that it's a non-issue in pub play.
if you can't handle the RTS gameplay, then i don't know what else to advise other than to try tf2 or cs for a more traditional FPS experience.
are you one of the guys who said skulks were too weak in b239?
i play random in every game, had no problem killing marine as skulk before b240 (no problem killing skulk as marine either, in optimal positions i'd say it was a 50/50 encounter before shotgun/jetpacks). additionally, there were no skulk whine posts on the forum. it was only post-b240 when skulk whining re-emerged for the first time since the onos rush nerf.
lategame skulk is okay unless you're in one of those hopeless cascading positions where marines are dominating. that's a symptom of RTS gameplay. in high level play there is obviously going to be concerns over the nerf/bug, but i guarantee you that it's a non-issue in pub play.
if you can't handle the RTS gameplay, then i don't know what else to advise other than to try tf2 or cs for a more traditional FPS experience.
Weak before Gorgeous? Sure, if you call me going plaid and murdering everything in a room regardless of what weapon or armor it had, yeah. Yeah, they were totally weak.
A skulk's power is its speed, and prior to this patch, it had plenty of speed.
Also, I don't like your tone at the end of that post. Did you miss the part where I've been here since NS1? Love Natural Selection. Absolutely LOVE IT. One or two, doesn't matter.
I just don't like the changes to the skulk's movement. Hitbox and animation fixes? LOVE IT! Movement changes that ruin the fun and ferocious skulk's feel? HATE IT.
This whole argument that skulks play a different role is garbage.
Its like saying marines will play a different role and not be able to kill lerk/fades/Onos unless they have a JP or exo.
Screw asymmetry it is simply not fun to play a skulk after about 5-7 minutes into a game or when w2/3 comes up.
This problem is not new, it was around for most of the last half of the beta...marines getting multiple players going 3-1 or better and aliens barely having anyone with a positive ratio by the end of a game.
Even when losing you will see marines close to a 1 - 1 ratio...yet aliens will struggle to break even when losing.
This means that even when your winning as alien you feel like your losing and dieing more often is not fun.
Late game skulk play is a blight on the game, xeno doesn't even kill an a3 marine.... this sums up just how much is wrong with skulk and alien game play.
You have multiple ways to 1 shot skulks and lerks....yet not even a tier 3 ability can 1 shot a marine....
more conjecture.
what are the 'multiple ways' to 1 shot a lerk?
also, i get great kdr on pub alien and have a lot of fun - usually about 3:1 as skulk and 20:1 as lerk/fade. therefore i'll save time and just blanket disagree with everything you said.
Point blank shotgun blast, grenade, charged railgun shot. Those will do the trick, usually. Grenade launcher not so much after the radius nerf, and the charged railgun is a two shot assuming carapace. Still, they effectively "kill" a lerk regardless by forcing it out of the battle.
Point blank shotgun blast, grenade, charged railgun shot. Those will do the trick, usually. Grenade launcher not so much after the radius nerf, and the charged railgun is a two shot assuming carapace. Still, they effectively "kill" a lerk regardless by forcing it out of the battle.
Charged railgun doesnt 1 shot a Lerk without cara.
Lerk has 225/275hp and the railgun does 200 damage.
And if I watch my data for the sg. 10 bullet, 17 damage=> total damage= 170*1.3 (w3)=221 damage so, technically speaking, You need a second shot. =P
Comments
Skulks should never be 'rushing' a marine. Any marine you rush at head on is going to have the advantage. Yet any marine you get the jump on (from surprise) is a marine the SKULK gets the advantage on. A skulk can deliver two bites in 9/10ths of a second. An armor 0 marine can be dead in under ONE SECOND.
The difference?
The skulk who gets the marine hopping around like a rabbit just demolishes his ability to aim. So there is little if any chance he'll be able to land all 9 bullets into the skulk before he is dead. This is the advantage for the skulk. And that advantage is always there. When marines get armor 1, a skulk needs 3 bites for a kill. Well a skulk can deliver those three bites in all of 1.35 seconds.
Once the marine gets armor 2/armor 3 it will take a skulk four bites to make a kill. Those four bites can be delivered in 1.8 seconds. While it may seem like forever, count to TWO in your head. That's how fast a skulk can kill a marine.
So what about marines with weapon upgrades? At worst, with weapons 3, versus a skulk without carapace it only takes 7 weapons 3 bullets to kill a non-carapace skulk. Yet at this point in the game - when marines have weapons 3 an alien team should be sitting on 2 or 3 hives, and one will be a crag hive. So then, what are we looking at with a weapons 3 marine versus a carapace skulk? In this matchup it's 10 bullets.
Here's the thing though...
Take a look at the stats from ANY game. Now look at accuracy for marines. What do you see? Well if you look at a competitive NSL match like this or this, you'll see that competitive players average marine accuracy between 20-25%. That means it's not taking them 10 bullets with weapons 3 to score that skulk kill, it's taking them 40 bullets. Now take a look again at those NSL match stat links I posted above. Note some of the accuracy levels for aliens. You'll note that some players can reach ~50% accuracy. So even if you miss half your bites you may still beat a weapons 3/armor 3 marine.
It all comes down to who gets the jump on whom though. If the marine sees you coming, then the skulk has given up his advantage. If he hides and ambushes the marine, all of a sudden things are quite different. While that weapons 3/armor 3 marine is hopping around and missing all his shots, the skulk is landing bites.
tldr; The tools are there for skulks to remain competitive all game long. The issue is that they need to be a lot more tactical in how they attack marines in the later game. However, the numbers support the case that skulks can still be competitive in the late game.
edit: redacted timings until I can get verification
Yeah, its a "challenge" to only have a 1/5 chance to win a game. So exciting and fun to know what the game outcome is gonna be in advance.
Hahah, gooooood lord....
Why don't you just watch those matches or a competitive match and see how the skulk/marine fights are going, instead of some bizarre hypothetical world you create in your own head.
If you watched the games you would see the comp players were QUITE able to kill marines as skulks.
whiny conjecture.
First, NUMBERS!
For Aliens/Skulk:
For Marines:
kRifleDamage = 10 kRifleDamageType = kDamageType.Normal kRifleClipSize = 50 kWeapons1DamageScalar = 1.1 kWeapons2DamageScalar = 1.2 kWeapons3DamageScalar = 1.3 function Rifle:GetPrimaryEffectRate() return 0.08 endSo, let me sum that up. Skulks do 75 DPS throughout the game (one bite per second, as default alien attack rate is 1 providing no other rate is provided, and no other rate is provided for Bite) Skulks do 166.6... DPS throughout the game (2.2... bites a second) while Marines do 125 DPS on W0, 137.5 DPS on W1, 150 DPS on W2, and 162.5 DPS on W3. Skulk effective health starts at 90 and can increase to a total of 130. Marines start with 160 effective health, which increases to 200 on A1, 240 on A2, and 280 on A3.
A marine can kill a skulk in one second assuming perfect accuracy throughout the game thanks to scaling (this is on paper, not in practice). To kill a Marine (any marine except Exos) as a Skulk, it requires three bites at the very least from the start. As marine armor scales it takes 3 bites at A1, 4 bites at A2, and 4 bites at A3. This is, again, assuming perfect accuracy.
No matter what stage of the game, a marine will still outclass a skulk completely on paper in terms of damage and health.
The problem brought up is that skulks do not scale into the end-game. If your suggestion is for skulks to be cannon fodder to draw fire, then ask yourself this question: Is that any fun?
No, it's generally not. Nobody likes being one shot, and Marines have plenty of ways to do just that to the Alien team without the Alien team having a way to do the same.
Where's the fun in that?
EDIT: Oh, and Savant, please stop posting numbers without evidence. I'd rather enjoy not having to make these posts over and over.
It would be a cool tradeoff early game allowing for more chamber diversity. All i know is I really miss it
A question about the patch:
What has really changed in regards to Marine accuracy? The only thing mentioned in the changelog is "Skulk movement adjustments" and "Fixed bug causing Skulk hitbox and worldmodel to be misaligned on some vertical surfaces (Makes the buggers easier to hit)".
But it feels like there is a HUGE general hitreg buff for Marines.
Don't get me wrong, this was absolutely, 100% necessary. Shooting Skulks now feels skill based and is no longer "hey I did hit that! WTF?" dice throwing. But it totally killed the existing game balance (talking about Skulks mostly, but it applies to any lifeform!).
Upgrades are basically useless now because, no matter which you choose, as a Skulk they won't help you anyway (this is not how you should make all upgrade choices equally viable).
Situations that were critical as a Marine now are a joke (e.g. you hardly have to reload in fight any more, 1v2 Situations are easily won, ...).
Shotguns one-shot you all the time and rarely miss.
Hallways that were no-brainers before are now death traps where a single Marine can easily deal with 2 or more incoming Skulks.
Every time we played against a decent Marine team we couldn't even hold one RT next to our base.
In 90% of the games I've played (10% were just shitty Marines who didn't expand at all or were just clearly worse), suddenly nearly every single Marine has a mid-game KDR of something like 12-4 or 20-6 (before any base attack siege/bash happens which increases the ratio).
If you frantically (wall)jump around, circle around and bite a single lone Railgun Exo, he will still hit and kill you with the first or second shot.
Even when Aliens clearly had the upper hand (e.g. Marines have 2 bases and one extra RT, Aliens had everything else) after a long fight Aliens are overwhelmed (often at 2 places at the same time) by Exo/Railgun/Shotgun balls of death.
It feels like a HUGE change has happened that totally screwed the existing balance, especially discontinuous events like waiting for the Marine to reload, barely surviving a fight, etc.
What is the matter with this?
1 second skulk attack speed.... i think you're misinterpreting the code.
Please come back and tell me how the devs intentionally coded the game so that the animation would be out of sync with the damage. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear your 'bug report'.
There is no code in any other related file that denotes a specific attack speed for Bite which means it defaults to 1.
Well, calling them lemmings is more than a little rude. Also, I fail to see the accuracy of your "one thousand one" method. It's about as accurate as "one hippopotamus". We're not in grade school, anymore (at least, I assume that for the majority of folks here), and I think I've got a better test than that outside of searching the files again.
It's called recording the skulk bites and measuring the RoF based on the frames.
Now, I fully intend to do that after another dive into the lua files, but I see you're not willing to do either of them. You are, however, willing to attack others, and I do not appreciate that.
Now I'm off to do the actual work to get the information. Feel free to join me.
EDIT: Fun fact. I just learned that the Skulk apparently weights approximately 100 pounds.
I know you mean well, but you are wrong. Attack speeds are defined in the animation graphs of the weapons, not lua. If there are attack speeds in lua they are usually leftovers from the day when the attack speed was defined there. The reason this is so is because its easier to make the attacks sync perfectly with the actual attack speed.
Edit: I'll make you a deal - you revise your post that tries to make me look the fool, and I'll revise mine that calls you out for doing it
errr you could use a stopwatch/clock and observe that the skulk's bite takes <1s?
Rather than having to ensure that you know what the frame rate conversion from your recording is, and assuming that has no errors... ^_^
I don't think your numbers can be taken as significant evidence when they're clearly being misinterpreted in some fashion. I strongly suggest you try timing the bite speed ingame because it is definitely a lot faster than one bite per second.
As for Skulking late-game not being fun, well, being a cannon fodder Marine because the other team is Fades and Oni but you can't afford anything better than what you spawn with isn't really much fun either. Still, you can support your team. I've seen Skulks get some good kills by using the Oni as a distraction, allowing them to get behind the Marines and bite them while they try focusing their fire on the larger threat. There's still a purpose to Skulks, but I can't understand why anyone would expect a Skulk to be a significant threat against late-game Marines with shotguns, jetpacks, and Exos. A basic Marine, even with W3/A3, has never been a significant threat against an Onos. You can't go toe-to-toe with enemies that represent 50+ res, but you can still contribute.
Personally, while I can see how Skulk movement could be fixed to get rid of the momentum issue, I absolutely can not understand comments like:
Are we playing the same game? Because I've been playing a game where Skulks jumping out around corners or from the ceiling have mauled me before I even know what's going on. A Skulk at point blank is a dog-sized monster from hell that is hard enough to hit in motion to begin with, let alone when I'm flinching from damage and desperately trying to keep track of it.
On the other hand, the idiots who come running at me down a corridor and think hitting jump every once in a while is sufficient get a magazine to the face.
I've had games since the patch where Marines stomp all over aliens. I've had games where the aliens danced around every bullet and absolutely destroyed our team. As a Marine, I've killed bad Skulks and been killed by good Skulks. And as an alien, I've gotten my share of kills as a Skulk- and I certainly haven't experienced Marines instantly turning 180 and putting ten rounds into my skull the instant I bite them. I'm not a good player by any means but as an alien I can still hold my own.
Marines have the advantage at a distance, while Skulks have the advantage up close. Previously, a Skulk could come running down a corridor, jumping, strafing, and wall-jumping, and unless the Marine has excellent accuracy still manage to get close enough relatively undamaged to be able to kill the Marine. Now, that's no longer viable, but you can still murder Marines in the dark, from the ceiling, with a group, around a corner, and so on and so on. You just have to play a little smarter- considering the Marines are likely going to be distracted by construction early-game, it's not that hard.
What IS wrong with Skulk movement is how playing as intended, with wall jumping and dodging as quickly as possible, causes you to lose momentum and become a sitting duck. Skulks are supposed to be fast and agile- they're still fast, but can't combine it with agility. If you go fast, you can't dodge. If you dodge, you can't go fast. This is why I've seen the better players relying on group tactics and ambush more often, where they can focus on either beginning the fight at point blank or can make a beeline straight for the Marine in a group. This is something that needs to be addressed.
There are legitimate concerns to be had with the current state of the game but WTF ALIENS SUCK ONLY AN IDIOT MARINE COULD POSSIBLY LOSE is stupid hyperbole that does nothing to support your case.
Thank you for providing useful information. Now I would know where to look if I had the tools.
You have been attacking people, and you haven't been very subtle about it. Also, I'm not "one upping" anyone; I'm taking the time to go out of my way and gather as much data as possible to paint a clear picture. I prefer having solid numbers and evidence before talking about something.
Now, I can admit to being wrong about skulk attack speed because somebody posted before you with helpful information as opposed to snarky comments, but will you admit to being wrong about the rifle?
As I said earlier, Asraniel gave me the information I needed for that particular issue. However, the rest of the numbers are correct.
Coincidentally, I just located the tool I need.
EDIT: In the end, it turns out that a marine still only needs one second to kill an alien while a skulk needs two to kill a marine.
This, to an extent. With some of the better marines it just doesn't matter if you get the jump on them, they can literally run rings around skulks. They could do this before the skulk nerf, it's just even easier for them now. Skulk movement just doesnt feel quick/responsive enough.
You don't understand what you are dealing with.
You are either with Savant - or you are with the terrorists lemmings.
Wait! Those grandiose (totally not insulting) reasoning "skills" didn't convince you already?
Rest assured, he will continue to spam this thread until you lose interest and declare himself the winner afterwards, because he's all to willing to repeat himself once more.
As a bonus, he will track your every post on this forum and flag it to "one up" you.
To quote Ash (the android from the first Alien film):
"I can't lie to you about your chances, but … you have my sympathies."
I redacted my marine timings since I want to double check it, however I believe I was thinking about the pistol ROF and not the LMG ROF.
However, the LMG is not 0.08 - that much I remember. Now that I think of it I think it's somewhere between 0.05 and 0.06 - as noted above, the timings are NOT in the LUA. So all of your numbers are wrong.
As for your argument, I think catbarf said it best: The point behind my post is that skulks still remain competitive in the late game. You're free to disagree of course.
I can, at the very least, attempt to be civil.
Yes, I looked back. I was very snarky and sarcastic when I made the grade school remarks about the "one thousand one" counting method. Sorry about that, but it is a very poor system to go by.
Actually, that is the correct RoF. Time your clip, and watch it empty in four seconds.
Skulks do NOT scale into late-game and are, in fact, cannon fodder. Yes, it's possible to get kills with it, but in any case of equal skill, it's not very likely. Your role is purely cannon fodder or distraction as a skulk at the end of a match, and that isn't fun.
Of course, if skulks remained competitive in the end-game, we'd have tons of marine players with the bias you've shown screaming in outrage as skulks manage to leap into their faces as they attempt to fly away with their jetpack and gnawing it off. And they'd be angry because, "I spent X Pres, and that 0 Pres skulk just killed me!"
It's unfortunately not likely that we'll see Focus again since Oni would come dangerously close to one shotting and Fades would become extremely deadly.
Now, I'll say this to conclude... I play both sides. I admit, I don't play them equally. I prefer Aliens, as I have since my Gorge days of NS1. However, I don't like the new skulk movement on either side. It feels terrible as an alien, and it's too easy to kill as a marine.
The only time an alien is able to kill me is when I get an errant keypress that causes my strafe jump to literally stop in the air. Of course, that's not always errant keypresses. It's more often a cause of bad collision.
When the skulk is fun to play again, and it feels fast and ferocious rather than a scared animal, then I'll enjoy it again. Until then, I'm going to stick to Gorging, playing marines, and commanding either side.
oh wait there is no doctor behind me >> MEDIC
why you guys piss off about this game ? its fun with out hats like Teamfortress 2
anyway if this game have pocket medic like TF2 , aliens gonna cry........
Its like saying marines will play a different role and not be able to kill lerk/fades/Onos unless they have a JP or exo.
Screw asymmetry it is simply not fun to play a skulk after about 5-7 minutes into a game or when w2/3 comes up.
This problem is not new, it was around for most of the last half of the beta...marines getting multiple players going 3-1 or better and aliens barely having anyone with a positive ratio by the end of a game.
Even when losing you will see marines close to a 1 - 1 ratio...yet aliens will struggle to break even when losing.
This means that even when your winning as alien you feel like your losing and dieing more often is not fun.
Late game skulk play is a blight on the game, xeno doesn't even kill an a3 marine.... this sums up just how much is wrong with skulk and alien game play.
You have multiple ways to 1 shot skulks and lerks....yet not even a tier 3 ability can 1 shot a marine....
are you one of the guys who said skulks were too weak in b239?
i play random in every game, had no problem killing marine as skulk before b240 (no problem killing skulk as marine either, in optimal positions i'd say it was a 50/50 encounter before shotgun/jetpacks). additionally, there were no skulk whine posts on the forum. it was only post-b240 when skulk whining re-emerged for the first time since the onos rush nerf.
lategame skulk is okay unless you're in one of those hopeless cascading positions where marines are dominating. that's a symptom of RTS gameplay. in high level play there is obviously going to be concerns over the nerf/bug, but i guarantee you that it's a non-issue in pub play.
if you can't handle the RTS gameplay, then i don't know what else to advise other than to try tf2 or cs for a more traditional FPS experience.
Weak before Gorgeous? Sure, if you call me going plaid and murdering everything in a room regardless of what weapon or armor it had, yeah. Yeah, they were totally weak.
A skulk's power is its speed, and prior to this patch, it had plenty of speed.
Also, I don't like your tone at the end of that post. Did you miss the part where I've been here since NS1? Love Natural Selection. Absolutely LOVE IT. One or two, doesn't matter.
I just don't like the changes to the skulk's movement. Hitbox and animation fixes? LOVE IT! Movement changes that ruin the fun and ferocious skulk's feel? HATE IT.
Simple as that.
more conjecture.
what are the 'multiple ways' to 1 shot a lerk?
also, i get great kdr on pub alien and have a lot of fun - usually about 3:1 as skulk and 20:1 as lerk/fade. therefore i'll save time and just blanket disagree with everything you said.
Point blank shotgun blast, grenade, charged railgun shot. Those will do the trick, usually. Grenade launcher not so much after the radius nerf, and the charged railgun is a two shot assuming carapace. Still, they effectively "kill" a lerk regardless by forcing it out of the battle.
Lerk has 225/275hp and the railgun does 200 damage.
And if I watch my data for the sg. 10 bullet, 17 damage=> total damage= 170*1.3 (w3)=221 damage so, technically speaking, You need a second shot. =P