Skulks post 240 feels extremely weak and just weak after 241
Comrade Suhov
Join Date: 2012-12-29 Member: 176626Members, Reinforced - Diamond
Join Date: 2012-12-29 Member: 176626Members, Reinforced - Diamond
I bought NS2 during Steam Christmas sale and invested 127 hours into the game as for today (just to compare, BF3 I bought at 2011 only have 82 hours played). I enjoy playing both Marines and Haara depending on my mood. But since 240 I found marine gameplay more enjoyable.
I've read 240 patch notes several times but I still don't get what exactly happened to skulks - the base footman of Haara army. From the feels of it, hitbox of skul now is half-size of Onos hitbox and there is something wrong with speed. Teribly wrong I can say. 241 made it a bit better but still skuls is a joke at most fights. Skulk's hitbox was already fixed a month ago and it indeed was fixed, not enlarged to monstrious size as devs did now.
Skulk is most alien type I play and I know all of it's tricks well. In any build prior to 240 I could easily kill two marines if ambushed right, maybe three if they are green and not very experienced. Since 240 I barely can kill one marine if there are two or more of them. Since 241 I can sometimes kill one marine and bite second one but it's mostly random luck rather than skill. It's no fun to play skulk when I sweating like hooker in the church © from all the effort I have to put in to be able to compete with marines. I also find skulk rush strategy to command station in groups of 3-4 is somewhat not effective at all since 240. 2-3 marines at base could easily stop that rush unless entire alien team including commander are rushing.
And here is a report from the other side. As I said half of the time I play marines too. Since 240 I can easily, one-on-one kill 2 skulks with not upgraded riffle. With some upgrades 3 dead skulks is a not rare possibility. With commander support of Nano shield of medkits it's even easier. With jetpack it's pieace of cake. However before 240 build I hardly was able to compete agains 2 skulks alone, and sometimes one upgraded skulk was enought to take me down. So marines have to keep temwork up and move in groups of two or more. Now skilled marine could simply go John Rambo style and became real pain in the gorge's butt. From marine perspective skulks (even when they are strafing) are just like target dummies. With mouse in 600dpi mode (default for all games I play) aiming is so easy I thought Unknown World have added aiming support.
New stealth effect, while not only affecting skulks, is also a bit let down. I do agree it looks better but in reality it's making stalking and ambushing annoying rather than enjoyable. Before marines only felt safe near radar at base, not they feel safe everywhere since very few players find it fun to remain immobile to be invisible.
P.S.
I've read 240 patch notes several times but I still don't get what exactly happened to skulks - the base footman of Haara army. From the feels of it, hitbox of skul now is half-size of Onos hitbox and there is something wrong with speed. Teribly wrong I can say. 241 made it a bit better but still skuls is a joke at most fights. Skulk's hitbox was already fixed a month ago and it indeed was fixed, not enlarged to monstrious size as devs did now.
Skulk is most alien type I play and I know all of it's tricks well. In any build prior to 240 I could easily kill two marines if ambushed right, maybe three if they are green and not very experienced. Since 240 I barely can kill one marine if there are two or more of them. Since 241 I can sometimes kill one marine and bite second one but it's mostly random luck rather than skill. It's no fun to play skulk when I sweating like hooker in the church © from all the effort I have to put in to be able to compete with marines. I also find skulk rush strategy to command station in groups of 3-4 is somewhat not effective at all since 240. 2-3 marines at base could easily stop that rush unless entire alien team including commander are rushing.
And here is a report from the other side. As I said half of the time I play marines too. Since 240 I can easily, one-on-one kill 2 skulks with not upgraded riffle. With some upgrades 3 dead skulks is a not rare possibility. With commander support of Nano shield of medkits it's even easier. With jetpack it's pieace of cake. However before 240 build I hardly was able to compete agains 2 skulks alone, and sometimes one upgraded skulk was enought to take me down. So marines have to keep temwork up and move in groups of two or more. Now skilled marine could simply go John Rambo style and became real pain in the gorge's butt. From marine perspective skulks (even when they are strafing) are just like target dummies. With mouse in 600dpi mode (default for all games I play) aiming is so easy I thought Unknown World have added aiming support.
New stealth effect, while not only affecting skulks, is also a bit let down. I do agree it looks better but in reality it's making stalking and ambushing annoying rather than enjoyable. Before marines only felt safe near radar at base, not they feel safe everywhere since very few players find it fun to remain immobile to be invisible.
P.S.
I'm not complaining about this one as it have some reasonable points (like braindead commander who won't leave comm stantion under attack) but marines still can get at the top of alien hive and be unaccessible for Fades (w/o Blink), Onoses and Gorge's attack. Either fix it properly or don't fix what is not broken.Disabled wall walking on Command Stations.
Comments
The difference is in the acceleration. 240 skulks were slow, sure, but this could be remedied by sneaking up on your opponent and engaging only when in close proximity. However in 241, the problems begin when I get into melee range. The moment you go for a bite on an experienced marine, he will quickly jump to avoid you, while you are left floating in the air like a cloud, unable to change your direction, or avoid your fate.
Playing as a marine is simply too easy now. A quick one two leaves skulks flying off in all directions as if on a conveyor belt.
Whilst the resetting of speed when you hit the floor made it harder to get close...it was only ever half the issue (though the most obvious to most people)...the second part was the accel changes which have resulted in marines with 0 accel delay...and skulks with a greater accel delay than in 239 (241 and 240 have been teh same unless I missed something).
This means that marines can now easily dodge anything but an elite skulk....heck even I can dodge skulks now...and that speaks fathoms...especially to those who have played against me as a marine (never was a very good marine).
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2090472#Comment_2090472
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2091757/#Comment_2091757
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2091790/#Comment_2091790
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/2091663/#Comment_2091663
- Skulks' hitboxes were fixed. Not sure if this is all, or there was an overall hitreg fix/improvement not mentioned in the patch notes (quite frankly it feels ***VERY*** much like that)
- Skulks' acceleration was halved, meaning that a Skulk gains (and possibly loses, think of breaking for a turn) speed at half the rate
- Skulks' ground friction was halved, meaning slower Skulk reaction (basically everything is twice as slippery for Skulks)
The first item is a good thing, but it leads to Skulks getting killed easier from a distance, when approaching Marines in the open.The last two points lead to what strofix just said.
I believe UWE is watching their statistics to see what they should do, but we have no reason to stop complaining until there is a change (promised) :P
Well, the marines I'm playing against are the same marines I've been playing against for the past 6 months. Nothing has changed there. Same players, same skill level.
It does truly perplex me though. If the skulk slow down bug was the only thing changed in 241 regarding marine/skulk combat, then the patches impact is very puzzling indeed. On the server I play on, patch 240 was probably the best thing for balance we had seen so far. Every game was very close, and I would say the win ratios were almost exactly 50/50. Since 241, I have seen about 3-4 alien victories, out of a total of about 30-40 games played. This, considering that in total, the server I play on has probably seen about 60 games.
Every game is just a walkover of untold proportion. Even in games where both teams acknowledge that the teams are stacked in favor of the aliens.
Considering the balance bombs that have been dropped in the past, I would say that the assessment of what is a "fairly subtle change" may not be entirely accurate.
Skulk hitbox was ALREADY FIXED in build 236. Now it's dumbed down to unreasonable amount. But since anyone hardly play competive multiplayer with gamepad it's a big nerf to skulk.
It's not from me, it's from Victor Sullivan.
Prior to 240, I had frequent situations where the bullets seemed to go straight through the skulk, doing nothing. I was happy to find out that there was an actual technical problem with the hitbox. It's only logical that people will complain, because what worked before does not work anymore, because when you are hit, you actually take damage. Seems only fair to me.
The other thing was the insane acceleration that created the "quantum skulk" effect, an area where the skulk might/might not actually be, and the marine just had to shoot into the probability cloud and pray some of the bullets will hit.
Basically, the typical encounter was - a skulk running against a marine in a straight line, jumping and mashing a + d keys, dodging miraculously most of the bullets. And in close range, it was over for the marine, because due to the insane back and for acceleration, network lag and limited FPS of the client, it was extremely difficult to constantly track the rampaging skulk.
The actual state seems much more fair to me, I have seen both skulks and marines dominating in the early encounters, I play skulk too, and I don't find it underpowered.
I have also noticed that when players play the alien team, they communicate much less, perhaps because aliens are perceived as solitary, silent hunters, but the aliens have to communicate and coordinate their attacks just as much.
It's true that I play only on pub servers, in the super-skilled pro circles the balance not be so great, but you cannot reject the more casual player base altogether. In asymmetric games, greater skill will always translate into different increase of actual combat effectiveness in various roles.
The skulk will perhaps get a minor boost eventually, but I perceive the latest corrections as progress.
Please, do watch official NS2 video I put above. All situations when you shoot skulk and bullets go through was fixed more than a month ago in 236 build. That have something to do with it's hitbox while skulk is on wall or celling and jumps.
Only situation you could miss at skulk after 236 if you actually missed or shoot between it's thin legs. I aim at the neck-back area and since 240 I hardly miss at all even is skulk strafing like heroine addict.
I'd like to see video of this, slowed down in slo-mo. I've never once honestly felt that I missed shots due to a hitbox bug, even when before it was "fixed".
literally the only difference is that you had a little bit more air control, which meant you weren't punished for jumping in the wrong direction. i don't even believe this was an intended nerf; it was a fix to turning 180 degrees in the air without losing any forward momentum.
marines are more fun, but the problem lies deeper than skulk air control.
Then perhaps they got distracted with rail gun exo's and lost that way?
I have found skulk play bad and its was always the ground accel changes (never been the best wall jumper) that effected gameplay more (well once I got in bit range).
I do spend most of my time playing as a kharaa (and skulk) so I have felt these changes heavily...I have actually now started playing marine almost 50% of the time now...to ensure I still have some fun whilst playing.
What your seeing with the acknowledged stack sounds like marines who have learnt to play (aka the marines during most of the aussie beta) and realise their offensive superiority...especially now as they dont have to fear melee range anywhere near as much as 239.
I would also be guessing the comms are now knowing what not to do...which pretty much eliminates how most alien victories come about (marine comm stuffing up strats/upgrades/generally).
@ Tarquinbb....I guess we will have to wait and see if marines have their accel changed...I dont see how this could be accidental given they had previously removed this from marines totally (hence we no longer hear about how woeful marine movement is anymore...).
Fortunately, we can begin to say how much the skulk-as-brick thing mattered, by comparing data from 239, 240 and 241. Using ns2stats and splitting pub/comp games, we get
Alien winrate, ns2stats, comparing 239-241
pub
239 52% (500 games)
240 45% (1100 games)
241 48.5% (480 games)
comp
239 67% (460 games)
240 53% (350 games)
241 58% (150 games)
... which looks pretty reasonable especially for comp games. For what's ns2stats is worth, at least.
Note that ns2stats is very influenced by KKG games which are 24 player servers. Isolating them and comparing them to the rest, you get an idea of just how much teamsize matters:
24 player servers (KKG)
239 55% (1500 games)
240 31% (410 games)
241 43% (160 games)
Stats WITHOUT KKG servers
239 55% (2000 games)
240 48% (600 games)
241 51% (320 games)
A plausible explanation for why teamsizes didn't matter in 239 and matters so much in 240/241 is just that the biggest influence is the sub-optimal egg spawning algorithm; when skulks starts to die a lot more, alien egg spawning starts to dominate the win/loss ratio, as the aliens can't afford to buy enough eggs to offset their death rate anymore.
Win/loss ratios may be in a better place now overall, but nerfing the skulk wasn't the way to go about it imo. It just feels wrong to have a close combat unit so easily out maneuvered in close combat by a supposed ranged unit.
The client side, blood, pain sounds, pain animations and crosshair hit indicator are probably throwing you off. The only thing you can rely on are the scrolling combat text values and probably the death of an aliens :P.
I've recorded video of shooting fast moving aliens with the pistol and examined those video's per frame. Pistol is easier to examine btw. The hitreg is in its current state (build240+) is pixel perfect on my 2500k @ 4.2Ghz. If you're experiencing hitreg issues, please show us in a video. It would at the very least be interesting to examine
NS2stats is nice but unfotunatelly only 10% of servers or so run it. And looks like my nickname is not in the database of theirs (as I'm trying to avoid moded servers), so I'll suggest not to rely on their info that much.
I can't tell how it's changed in last few days (since http://ns2stats.org/ not working on both IE8 and IE9) but on work PC I've checked few graphs there and it clearly showed that after 240 aliens lose 60% of time during first 10-20 minutes, and then gain a huge advantage (then upgrades and Onoses came).
Also, a valid point of yours is the 24 players servers which I hate too. They are too messy and unbalanced in every way possible. And I have to admit, that on 16 player servers skulks feels even worse than on 20 player ones. Skulk rush most of the time give only problems in the terms of eggs shortage and since skulks now die faster that became a problem. Looks like two fixes stacked with each other and creating big unbalance situation for Khaara. Either skulks can't be efficient as they used to be and they can no longer die like lemmings.
All of these make a feeling that skulks are greatly underpowered and as for now I feel less happy playing as Khaara as I used to be. Like Desther said, skulk vs. LMG marine is the core of NS2 gameplay and tiny change on this scene imbalance the whole game.
I do always feel like skulks should be much more dangerous in CQC. It does somewhat let down your fun balloon when you're a clever, little, sneaky skulk and you do all the work get all up close and behind a marine, bite him once and then have to start this weird, balletic dance-like courting ritual replete with mid-air pirouettes and tucked jumps: A Dance to the Death, which feels awfully close to having a 50/50 chance of survival.
It does feel like they've tried to balance the whole game by balancing skulk-on-marine CQC, which is where skulks *should* have an advantage: I'm not saying they have done that, it just sometimes feel like that.
---The hitbox fix was absolutely needed. No, it's not as large as that of an onos now - it's representative, as it should be. This does mean that skulks using old tactics will die more these days, but that's only because they're a bit used to not getting shot when they should've been. It was most apparent when tracking skulks on vertical surfaces.
---The quantum skulk effect was very frustrating, and I always used it to my advantage when combating marines. The acceleration change was important for this reason; skulk movement appears more biomechanically plausible now, and less like a glitchy string of animation. I can still do very well as a skulk, but I have to be more tactically minded when I get into skirmishes.
---The ground deceleration issue was a bug and is now fixed. As far as I can tell, walljumping is back to what it was. I have no problems pulling it off, at least.
The latest corrections absolutely represent progress.
Concerning skulks (just a few ideas):
All skulks need is an improved walljump mechanic, in my opinion. Maybe an additional 5-10% speed boost on the initial jump, and perhaps a smoother way to chain jumps together.
Alternately, drop celerity to a flat 25%-35% of its original effect in combat (rather than 0% of its original effect, as things are now).
Alternately, have celerity diminish gradually in combat as function of damage taken in a short period (determined by how much is lost as a % of overall health) rather than the current, strict drop to 0% when any damage is given or taken.
(To explain by way of example: celerity would start off at an initial 65% efficacy when you made your first bite, and would then only drop off in combat only as you TOOK more damage in a given period of time. The lower floor would be normal speed and the upper ceiling - with no damage taken - would be 65% celerity (or some other value established by the devs).
In this scenario, skulks would maintain their speed the longer they could effectively dodge, and even the fully-slowed skulk would be going no slower than he is right now. It rewards marines for doing bursts of damage, and it rewards skulks for ambushing and dodging, and it keeps celerity viable in combat.)
Lots of credit goes to BIGTICKET for the initial idea in how to start testing some of this stuff, and GLISS in being the skulk for testing (gliss also came up with a GREAT hitreg test that you'll see in the full video) . As a short preview, one of the more egregious examples from the 20-30 minutes of recording:
You can see the ret directly on the skulk the entire time, and yet only 5 out of 9 bullets in the clip hit. Be sure to set the video to 1080p so you can clearly see the reticle.
Alternately, have celerity diminish gradually in combat as function of damage taken in a short period (determined by how much is lost as a % of overall health) rather than the current, strict drop to 0% when any damage is given or taken.
Ideas worth looking into, IMO.
Yea, ns2stats is biased (the three 24-player KKG servers make up 40% of the games played) compared to the average servers, but for the purpose of comparing how 239/240/241 has changed the gameplay, they are still useful, and confirms the "feel" of the last three patches that you get from playing.
And the comp games stats are also very useful.
Well, in this case, hitreg/movement of skulks arguably DID inbalance the game pre-240, and with the fixes, the balance is now better.
That this has made playing skulk much more frustrating is a problem; it is very frustrating to be used to be able to do things that are now suddenly basically impossible. But ... frankly, playing skulk was easy-mode on pre-240.
And the better balance in early gameplay should allow for other parts (like egg-spawning/celerity in combat) to finally get fixed, rather than staying around because fixing them would cause the balance to tip over even more to the alien side.
It's hard to tell with youtube videos, 'cause you can't frame by frame so easily, but it does look like it's possible for a brief sec the ret was between the skulks legs. Also, are you accounting for bullet spread? Actually, what is the bullet spread of the LMG like, anyhoo?
The bullet spread on the LMG is extremely minimal. The skulk could be across the room and you'd still hit every LMG bullet without a problem. The ret was on the skulk for the entire time as well. That clip is just a preview for a larger thread that shows the same test consistently missing anywhere from 1-4 bullets (along with another test).
Simple pausing on the Youtube video reveals a number of times that the crosshair is right on the furthest edge of the skulk's model. It's very plausible that any amount of spread would lead to a couple missed bullets in that case.
If you really want to test this I recommend doing it with single shots from the pistol.
Test the spread yourself on a stationary skulk at that range - you will not miss bullets. The spread simply isn't big enough. Sorry.
The broader takeaway point that *should* be obvious here. If the netcode is such that you can miss skulks while perfectly tracking them as they go in a predictable line, what does that say about actual game shots when the skulks are moving more erratically, and your tracking is more on the margins of the skulk model? If you can miss while aiming dead center, the likeyhood of registration errors around the margins of the model would no doubt be considerably higher.
And on the angle note - why in the world is it acceptable that accurate shots at an angle should simply miss? That makes no sense whatsoever.
edit: Also, that's just one of many, many shots taken over a 30 minute period. The repeatability of the straight line test (in terms of missing at least 1 bullet), and the other test we conducted is very, very high.
If your aim was perfectly dead center on a skulk at that range moving perpendicular to you and you missed shots, then that might be a little concerning. Testing hitregistration in that method however is probably not the most effective way, unless there is a specific animation hitch or bug you are trying to isolate.