More playable but also more unforgiving. If you run out of energy with the live fade, you will die. You no longer have the old shadowstep crutch to get out of tight spaces. When W3/A3 and exos come out, even the best fades can die easily if mistakes are made.
@Matso, I love the idea of more pres sinks for aliens, simply because I love having more options and diversity. However, like some people mentioned, these sinks into life-forms would have to come with some visual clue to let the enemy know what they are dealing with. Also I believe it was mentioned somewhere that 3-D rendered models are rather expensive and time-consuming. My only offering in this would be that you might simply be editing an already existing model instead of creating a new one from scratch.
I have to disagree with the OP since all I've ever practiced since the new patch has been the fade. Without Shadow Step the fade is much easier to predict, making it much easier to kill. If the marines know where the fade is coming from, that fade is going to have a bad day. The fade without SS is going to rely heavily on suprising the marines and keeping them confused. The more marines there are, the less time said fade will have before the marines begin to lock on basically. Best way to outlive a Fade, stay in a group, call for meds, and weld each other. I can barely even risk attacking a group of marines for long, one swipe at most then I'm gone because that's just how I perceive the fade now.
If the marines are as skilled at aim as the 40:1 fade then he will never get to 40:1. The scores like 40:1 are primarily the result of a massive gulf in skill (many competitive players play on pub servers and they tend to be pretty damn good) more so than the fade being too good. For a 40 res lifeform it HAS to be good, and when that is combined with a massive gulf in skill its almost unstoppable and feels cheap to boot. But the same would go for that fade player going jp/shotgun (ive seen enough marines go 50:6 or somesuch, with 35 of those kills and only 1 death in the jp full late game).
As for actually killing the fades, focus fire them, fire in bursts when you are actually aiming at them and camp the doors in and out of a room (which they will have to pass). To kill something as stupidly mobile as the fade you have to outmaneuver cause you are certainly not going to catch it on foot. Also be sure to spread out, that way it is easier to track the fades (and harder for them to juke you) as they attack your teammates and you are less likely to block each other's bullets and movement.
Oh and look up, its the favorite tactic of many good fades to blink up out of sight and come down behind you.
Above me is a perfect example of why people think fades are OP, someone who understands how to use them vs people who aren't very good.
why do you think the marines there are not good? a fade with high kill-death ratio doess not only get kills because of weak marines. maybe it is too easy to get such high stats with fades. did you ever think of that? i think a good marine is not so strong like a good fade with the same skill-level. or did you ever see a marine with 89:2? imo there should be no class in ns2 that can reach stats like that. that stats shows superiority and unbalancing. not even onos can reach such stats. and do you really think the game of shinigaml was fun? i think not all marines can be so weak. maybe the fade is ways too strong
Yea I wasn't saying Gosu isn't good cause he is, but if he was playing against players of equal skill or really any of the division 1 players he definitely wouldn't be going like 89-1 or 90-2.
Yea I wasn't saying Gosu isn't good cause he is, but if he was playing against players of equal skill or really any of the division 1 players he definitely wouldn't be going like 89-1 or 90-2.
That's for damn sure lol. I've played in Div 1, I know I wouldn't go 89-1 let alone 30-1.
skulks fades and lerks should all be approximately the same strength, with different life forms providing synergy rather than being upgrades.
this is an incredibly obvious and basic solution, but apparently everyone is stuck thinking in terms of how ns1 did it, which, unfortunately, is quite poor.
That's not how it works in RTS games, even though there are some "x is ineffective against y" relationships - which are present in NS2 as well. I believe you're talking about converting ns2 to a "class based shooter" above.
That's how it works in good rts games. A battlecruiser isn't necessarily better than a marine, once you factor in marine price and opportunity cost to tech and build battlecruisers.
In an fps, you need to do something different, because clearly you can't easily control a horde of skulks to balance things out. You incentivize getting higher lifeforms because they synergize well with lower lifeforms, i.e. 2 skulks and 2 fades is better than 4 skulks or 4 fades.
Unfortunately, NS2 wasn't built this way since skulks and marines are free, so there's no cost to "building" skulks, except time of course... It would be a very interesting game if you had to pay p.res to respawn as skulk or marine though. It would also spiral even faster than it does now :-) .
Redesigning the entire game would mean that everything on marine side would have to be also redesigned to "introduce synergy" rather than "being in most terms overall better than the previous tech," since, as it is now, fade/lerk teams and oni are the only sensible response to jetpacks/exos respectively - and biomass/carapace to armor/weapon upgrades. How do you suggest this "synergy" would actually work anyway? The weapons / health / characteristics of the lifeforms would have to be completely replaced/redesigned... as well as marine upgrades/weapons.
Overall, "classes" rather than "higher life forms / upgrades" is an interesting idea, but I don't think it's gonna happen to the base game at this point. It's an idea for a different game or a mod.
P.S. Man, gosu's screenshots above are awesome. Suck amazing stækkæjj - it's like a team of 8 above average players against 1 or 2 decent marines. And the second screenshot - the enemy team is cycling through players (join server/meatgrind/quit server). LOL! A picture really is worth a thousand words. And that, my franz, is why NS2 is slowly "dying." It's happening a bit now, but it'll be more pronounced soon - the player base will be so small that when a stækk emerges, the enemy team will quit before the game starts. You can't find næbs to grind when there are none playing the game :-) .
I think that people are knee-jerking a little too hard here.
Marines have had some massive buffs to aspects of play not yet fully engaged with because of how different things are now. Also, I've noticed that flamethrowers have had some staggering effects on Fade's in terms of their energy sapping effects.
If there is a problem with Fades there may be a simpler fix re: the shotgun or flamer than what is currently be worried about.
Give the marines time to fully utilize their options and see what happens.
90% of people are terrible at fade and just save for an onos when they realize they can't play fade well. 10% of players are so good at fade that the game is effectively over once they evolve into a fade.
I notice the same thing with marines. Most marines are terrible shots, but there's always one guy on the server whose aim is nearly perfect and leads the marines to victory.
Unlike a true RTS, this game is unbalancable because the FPS skill levels are just too wide.
what you have to realize is that people can learn how to play fade (at the pub level) with enough practice and a fast PC (I can go 50-0, but as a marine I'll routinely lose to skulks 1v1)
as a marine, they will never learn how to aim better. hand eye coordination is a hard cap on your skill ceiling as a marine. the visual clutter and crappy engine don't help the situation...
and at the lower end of the scale, +forward +attack is fine as a marine. it's not perfect, but your life isn't worth anything to begin with... so you spend more time than usual with a rifle. that still does a lot of damage.
but when aliens go +forward +attack, it's bad.
NS2 is not balanced and it will never be balanced because of that asymmetry
what we play is a game of accidental balance:
- at very high skill levels the hand-eye coordination is very good and there's enough teamwork to trap fades and drop meds / use nano
- at low skill levels the aliens throw away lifeforms and the higher player counts help marines
and then some dev throws together charts that say "look. 50% win rate in public and competitive play. this is working!"
[quote="Rammler;131083"
on the other side if you disagree i would really like to hear how you can get rid of these fades. because this is a big problem in public. especially in midgame.
PS: i really want to discuss this problem. i had many thoughts about this topic and some discussions with other public-gamers who completly agreed with my facts. so this is NOT a whiner-post ;-)[/quote]
Shotguns + accuracy = dead fade. Same goes for lerk & onos. Marine weapons will rip through EVERYTHING now if you can aim at it and left click. 2-3 marines can easily solo an onos now.. thats ridiculous IMO.
Fade is very powerful in the right hands - I think what you saw was a good fade playing against marines who cannot aim.
If the marines are as skilled at aim as the 40:1 fade then he will never get to 40:1. The scores like 40:1 are primarily the result of a massive gulf in skill (many competitive players play on pub servers and they tend to be pretty damn good) more so than the fade being too good. For a 40 res lifeform it HAS to be good, and when that is combined with a massive gulf in skill its almost unstoppable and feels cheap to boot. But the same would go for that fade player going jp/shotgun (ive seen enough marines go 50:6 or somesuch, with 35 of those kills and only 1 death in the jp full late game).
As for actually killing the fades, focus fire them, fire in bursts when you are actually aiming at them and camp the doors in and out of a room (which they will have to pass). To kill something as stupidly mobile as the fade you have to outmaneuver cause you are certainly not going to catch it on foot. Also be sure to spread out, that way it is easier to track the fades (and harder for them to juke you) as they attack your teammates and you are less likely to block each other's bullets and movement.
Oh and look up, its the favorite tactic of many good fades to blink up out of sight and come down behind you.
Shhhhhhhhhh. Don't give away the only strat blink fades have to confuse people. I mean cmon, can't a fade have some guilty pleasure in watching a marine look up to find you when you are already right behind him. lol fully agree with your post and while the fade may be the most mobile of all the lifeforms, without shadowstep it is currently the most predictable as well.
Yea I wasn't saying Gosu isn't good cause he is, but if he was playing against players of equal skill or really any of the division 1 players he definitely wouldn't be going like 89-1 or 90-2.
That's for damn sure lol. I've played in Div 1, I know I wouldn't go 89-1 let alone 30-1.
It's a whole different ball park.
Good for you on being man enough to admit the kill farming.
Next level up in life comes when you learn to avoid doing it.
It is very, VERY easy to survive for incredible amounts of time as a fade (while intelligently engaging in combat). Getting a large number of kills on the other hand is much more difficult and dependant on the skill of both you and the marine team (and to a lesser extent your own team).
Doing swipe and runs is all it really takes. Blink in, swipe, blink out, don't come back in for a second swipe until you get around a corner with full health. It would take a barrage of 3-5 shotgunners or like 10 LMGs to actually kill you before you get a chance to get away, and if you blink into a room like that you deserve to die.
No the fade is much weaker in 250. The only thing that gives aliens more power is carapace lvl 3 giving more hp. Fade has half the speed in 250 and is broken.
AT LEAST, we can all agree that 250 broke the game right?
Offensively the fade is weaker because of a slower walk speed and less reach. Those two basically FORCE you to use blink to close distance after every swipe, which greatly slows down how fast you can kill a marine. On the other hand, pro fades already pretty much did this in one form or another because walking is suicide in most situations against not-terrible marines. Forcing fades to blink all the time means that even the mediocre fades, once they learn they can't just walk in combat (knowledge not skill) are going to be MUCH harder to kill.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2013
Today i saw one going fade and i said: "hey, do you want some tips for better fading?" - No answer
I take a look @ the scoreboard, he was a skulk again.
Offensively the fade is weaker because of a slower walk speed and less reach. Those two basically FORCE you to use blink to close distance after every swipe, which greatly slows down how fast you can kill a marine. On the other hand, pro fades already pretty much did this in one form or another because walking is suicide in most situations against not-terrible marines. Forcing fades to blink all the time means that even the mediocre fades, once they learn they can't just walk in combat (knowledge not skill) are going to be MUCH harder to kill.
Kinda... you really only use blink to gain speed or change the direction you are going. Aside from that its all strafe hopping or plain w+space hopping.
IMO: with the current shotgun RoF, fades are finally in a good place.
Offensively the fade is weaker because of a slower walk speed and less reach. Those two basically FORCE you to use blink to close distance after every swipe, which greatly slows down how fast you can kill a marine. On the other hand, pro fades already pretty much did this in one form or another because walking is suicide in most situations against not-terrible marines. Forcing fades to blink all the time means that even the mediocre fades, once they learn they can't just walk in combat (knowledge not skill) are going to be MUCH harder to kill.
Kinda... you really only use blink to gain speed or change the direction you are going. Aside from that its all strafe hopping or plain w+space hopping.
IMO: with the current shotgun RoF, fades are finally in a good place.
I think RoF is too slow for the damage output. Mistakes aren't punished enough just yet, and with 3-4 fades together they need to be. (remember EVERYONE is still new and only going to get better at fading. (Competitively and publically)
I do think base fade speed should be equal to marines though. It's possible now exploiting strafes and mouse movement, but I'm not a big fan of it
Offensively the fade is weaker because of a slower walk speed and less reach. Those two basically FORCE you to use blink to close distance after every swipe, which greatly slows down how fast you can kill a marine. On the other hand, pro fades already pretty much did this in one form or another because walking is suicide in most situations against not-terrible marines. Forcing fades to blink all the time means that even the mediocre fades, once they learn they can't just walk in combat (knowledge not skill) are going to be MUCH harder to kill.
Kinda... you really only use blink to gain speed or change the direction you are going. Aside from that its all strafe hopping or plain w+space hopping.
IMO: with the current shotgun RoF, fades are finally in a good place.
Outside of combat is irrelevant. In combat you are having to blink every time the marine jumps away
I still say fades are too hard to kill. Basically they are impossible to kill unless they screw up. Shotguns do not one-shot you, so unless you run into 3 shotguns at the same time, you have plenty of time to get in, swipe, and get out before they even fire a second shot. Accuracy isn't even a question, they could be aimbotting but by the time the gun fires twice you are on the other side of the room.
On the other hand it's plenty easy to chase a fade off and deny him any kills. One of the reasons Aura is so powerful is the fade can come in and pick off a marine with just one swipe left and leave without actually risking himself.
Offensively the fade is weaker because of a slower walk speed and less reach. Those two basically FORCE you to use blink to close distance after every swipe, which greatly slows down how fast you can kill a marine. On the other hand, pro fades already pretty much did this in one form or another because walking is suicide in most situations against not-terrible marines. Forcing fades to blink all the time means that even the mediocre fades, once they learn they can't just walk in combat (knowledge not skill) are going to be MUCH harder to kill.
Kinda... you really only use blink to gain speed or change the direction you are going. Aside from that its all strafe hopping or plain w+space hopping.
IMO: with the current shotgun RoF, fades are finally in a good place.
Outside of combat is irrelevant. In combat you are having to blink every time the marine jumps away
I still say fades are too hard to kill. Basically they are impossible to kill unless they screw up. Shotguns do not one-shot you, so unless you run into 3 shotguns at the same time, you have plenty of time to get in, swipe, and get out before they even fire a second shot. Accuracy isn't even a question, they could be aimbotting but by the time the gun fires twice you are on the other side of the room.
On the other hand it's plenty easy to chase a fade off and deny him any kills. One of the reasons Aura is so powerful is the fade can come in and pick off a marine with just one swipe left and leave without actually risking himself.
Wow this post is a shining example of why nothing good comes out of these forums. Just complete inaccuracies and over exaggerations based on emotion of the poster.
Wow this post is a shining example of why nothing good comes out of these forums. Just complete inaccuracies and over exaggerations based on emotion of the poster.
I'm still waiting for a thread dedicated to being about OP gorges. I must try harder......
Offensively the fade is weaker because of a slower walk speed and less reach. Those two basically FORCE you to use blink to close distance after every swipe, which greatly slows down how fast you can kill a marine. On the other hand, pro fades already pretty much did this in one form or another because walking is suicide in most situations against not-terrible marines. Forcing fades to blink all the time means that even the mediocre fades, once they learn they can't just walk in combat (knowledge not skill) are going to be MUCH harder to kill.
Kinda... you really only use blink to gain speed or change the direction you are going. Aside from that its all strafe hopping or plain w+space hopping.
IMO: with the current shotgun RoF, fades are finally in a good place.
Outside of combat is irrelevant. In combat you are having to blink every time the marine jumps away
I still say fades are too hard to kill. Basically they are impossible to kill unless they screw up. Shotguns do not one-shot you, so unless you run into 3 shotguns at the same time, you have plenty of time to get in, swipe, and get out before they even fire a second shot. Accuracy isn't even a question, they could be aimbotting but by the time the gun fires twice you are on the other side of the room.
On the other hand it's plenty easy to chase a fade off and deny him any kills. One of the reasons Aura is so powerful is the fade can come in and pick off a marine with just one swipe left and leave without actually risking himself.
Wow this post is a shining example of why nothing good comes out of these forums. Just complete inaccuracies and over exaggerations based on emotion of the poster.
And what, in particular, is wrong about my post?
Everything I've said comes from experience, both against and AS fade, generally in 24 man pubs where marines have every possible advantage against a solo fade. I have killed many a fade, but every last one of them occurred because of a screwup (including flagrantly bad play) on their part rather than deliberate positioning by my team.
It's not about killing the Fade, it's about forcing him to retreat and heal up.
Everything's fine.
If a Fade really gets disturbing, it's up to the com to make it a team-goal to kill that one. Cause, you know, you need team-play to kill in NS2.
If anything, the Fade is actually too weak in my opinion. If you actually say that the Fade is too easy to play, show us our 80-2 stats. Or even 30-2.
I have killed many a fade, but every last one of them occurred because of a screwup (including flagrantly bad play) on their part rather than deliberate positioning by my team.
Yes, fades have to screw up to die. It's the same with JPs and Exos.
It's that thin line you are walking on. It's not easy, because you can make errors.
You don't have to kill the Fade, just get him out of your way to reach your goal.
I have killed many a fade, but every last one of them occurred because of a screwup (including flagrantly bad play) on their part rather than deliberate positioning by my team.
Yes, fades have to screw up to die. It's the same with JPs and Exos.
It's that thin line you are walking on. It's not easy, because you can make errors.
You don't have to kill the Fade, just get him out of your way to reach your goal.
Not true for JPs and exos. In fact the only other lifeform that can possibly avoid death regardless of the enemy teams efforts (without simply hiding all game) is the Lerk, but it's much easier to make a mistake with a lerk because a single shotgun you didn't see coming can either kill or so severely wound you you die to scratch damage.
JPs can be killed by fades, lerks, and Xenocide. If the alien team wants a JPer dead no place is safe, it's just a question of how long. Exos require even more of the enemy team working against them, either to destroy their escorts or just rush them in base, but their survival still isn't solely in their own hands like the fade. About the only way the marine team could kill a fade by choice is while assaulting the aliens final hive and base and thus leaving the fade no where to heal, but at that point it doesn't matter anyway.
It's not about killing the Fade, it's about forcing him to retreat and heal up.
Everything's fine.
If a Fade really gets disturbing, it's up to the com to make it a team-goal to kill that one. Cause, you know, you need team-play to kill in NS2.
If anything, the Fade is actually too weak in my opinion. If you actually say that the Fade is too easy to play, show us our 80-2 stats. Or even 30-2.
I could go on, but I don't want to make this into a boast post. Like I said, I'm a distinctly AVERAGE fade, but even I am capable of those scores. Your point, sir, is disproved.
Comments
I have to disagree with the OP since all I've ever practiced since the new patch has been the fade. Without Shadow Step the fade is much easier to predict, making it much easier to kill. If the marines know where the fade is coming from, that fade is going to have a bad day. The fade without SS is going to rely heavily on suprising the marines and keeping them confused. The more marines there are, the less time said fade will have before the marines begin to lock on basically. Best way to outlive a Fade, stay in a group, call for meds, and weld each other. I can barely even risk attacking a group of marines for long, one swipe at most then I'm gone because that's just how I perceive the fade now.
As for actually killing the fades, focus fire them, fire in bursts when you are actually aiming at them and camp the doors in and out of a room (which they will have to pass). To kill something as stupidly mobile as the fade you have to outmaneuver cause you are certainly not going to catch it on foot. Also be sure to spread out, that way it is easier to track the fades (and harder for them to juke you) as they attack your teammates and you are less likely to block each other's bullets and movement.
Oh and look up, its the favorite tactic of many good fades to blink up out of sight and come down behind you.
Well actually I've been 67-0 as a marine before.
It's a whole different ball park.
Unfortunately, NS2 wasn't built this way since skulks and marines are free, so there's no cost to "building" skulks, except time of course... It would be a very interesting game if you had to pay p.res to respawn as skulk or marine though. It would also spiral even faster than it does now :-) .
Redesigning the entire game would mean that everything on marine side would have to be also redesigned to "introduce synergy" rather than "being in most terms overall better than the previous tech," since, as it is now, fade/lerk teams and oni are the only sensible response to jetpacks/exos respectively - and biomass/carapace to armor/weapon upgrades. How do you suggest this "synergy" would actually work anyway? The weapons / health / characteristics of the lifeforms would have to be completely replaced/redesigned... as well as marine upgrades/weapons.
Overall, "classes" rather than "higher life forms / upgrades" is an interesting idea, but I don't think it's gonna happen to the base game at this point. It's an idea for a different game or a mod.
P.S. Man, gosu's screenshots above are awesome. Suck amazing stækkæjj - it's like a team of 8 above average players against 1 or 2 decent marines. And the second screenshot - the enemy team is cycling through players (join server/meatgrind/quit server). LOL! A picture really is worth a thousand words. And that, my franz, is why NS2 is slowly "dying." It's happening a bit now, but it'll be more pronounced soon - the player base will be so small that when a stækk emerges, the enemy team will quit before the game starts. You can't find næbs to grind when there are none playing the game :-) .
Marines have had some massive buffs to aspects of play not yet fully engaged with because of how different things are now. Also, I've noticed that flamethrowers have had some staggering effects on Fade's in terms of their energy sapping effects.
If there is a problem with Fades there may be a simpler fix re: the shotgun or flamer than what is currently be worried about.
Give the marines time to fully utilize their options and see what happens.
I notice the same thing with marines. Most marines are terrible shots, but there's always one guy on the server whose aim is nearly perfect and leads the marines to victory.
Unlike a true RTS, this game is unbalancable because the FPS skill levels are just too wide.
as a marine, they will never learn how to aim better. hand eye coordination is a hard cap on your skill ceiling as a marine. the visual clutter and crappy engine don't help the situation...
and at the lower end of the scale, +forward +attack is fine as a marine. it's not perfect, but your life isn't worth anything to begin with... so you spend more time than usual with a rifle. that still does a lot of damage.
but when aliens go +forward +attack, it's bad.
NS2 is not balanced and it will never be balanced because of that asymmetry
what we play is a game of accidental balance:
- at very high skill levels the hand-eye coordination is very good and there's enough teamwork to trap fades and drop meds / use nano
- at low skill levels the aliens throw away lifeforms and the higher player counts help marines
and then some dev throws together charts that say "look. 50% win rate in public and competitive play. this is working!"
on the other side if you disagree i would really like to hear how you can get rid of these fades. because this is a big problem in public. especially in midgame.
PS: i really want to discuss this problem. i had many thoughts about this topic and some discussions with other public-gamers who completly agreed with my facts. so this is NOT a whiner-post ;-)[/quote]
Shotguns + accuracy = dead fade. Same goes for lerk & onos. Marine weapons will rip through EVERYTHING now if you can aim at it and left click. 2-3 marines can easily solo an onos now.. thats ridiculous IMO.
Fade is very powerful in the right hands - I think what you saw was a good fade playing against marines who cannot aim.
Shhhhhhhhhh. Don't give away the only strat blink fades have to confuse people. I mean cmon, can't a fade have some guilty pleasure in watching a marine look up to find you when you are already right behind him. lol fully agree with your post and while the fade may be the most mobile of all the lifeforms, without shadowstep it is currently the most predictable as well.
Good for you on being man enough to admit the kill farming.
Next level up in life comes when you learn to avoid doing it.
Doing swipe and runs is all it really takes. Blink in, swipe, blink out, don't come back in for a second swipe until you get around a corner with full health. It would take a barrage of 3-5 shotgunners or like 10 LMGs to actually kill you before you get a chance to get away, and if you blink into a room like that you deserve to die.
lol
I take a look @ the scoreboard, he was a skulk again.
But im sure he felt OP for 40 sec.
Kinda... you really only use blink to gain speed or change the direction you are going. Aside from that its all strafe hopping or plain w+space hopping.
IMO: with the current shotgun RoF, fades are finally in a good place.
I think RoF is too slow for the damage output. Mistakes aren't punished enough just yet, and with 3-4 fades together they need to be. (remember EVERYONE is still new and only going to get better at fading. (Competitively and publically)
I do think base fade speed should be equal to marines though. It's possible now exploiting strafes and mouse movement, but I'm not a big fan of it
Outside of combat is irrelevant. In combat you are having to blink every time the marine jumps away
I still say fades are too hard to kill. Basically they are impossible to kill unless they screw up. Shotguns do not one-shot you, so unless you run into 3 shotguns at the same time, you have plenty of time to get in, swipe, and get out before they even fire a second shot. Accuracy isn't even a question, they could be aimbotting but by the time the gun fires twice you are on the other side of the room.
On the other hand it's plenty easy to chase a fade off and deny him any kills. One of the reasons Aura is so powerful is the fade can come in and pick off a marine with just one swipe left and leave without actually risking himself.
Wow this post is a shining example of why nothing good comes out of these forums. Just complete inaccuracies and over exaggerations based on emotion of the poster.
I'm still waiting for a thread dedicated to being about OP gorges. I must try harder......
And what, in particular, is wrong about my post?
Everything I've said comes from experience, both against and AS fade, generally in 24 man pubs where marines have every possible advantage against a solo fade. I have killed many a fade, but every last one of them occurred because of a screwup (including flagrantly bad play) on their part rather than deliberate positioning by my team.
It's not about killing the Fade, it's about forcing him to retreat and heal up.
Everything's fine.
If a Fade really gets disturbing, it's up to the com to make it a team-goal to kill that one. Cause, you know, you need team-play to kill in NS2.
If anything, the Fade is actually too weak in my opinion. If you actually say that the Fade is too easy to play, show us our 80-2 stats. Or even 30-2.
Yes, fades have to screw up to die. It's the same with JPs and Exos.
It's that thin line you are walking on. It's not easy, because you can make errors.
You don't have to kill the Fade, just get him out of your way to reach your goal.
Not true for JPs and exos. In fact the only other lifeform that can possibly avoid death regardless of the enemy teams efforts (without simply hiding all game) is the Lerk, but it's much easier to make a mistake with a lerk because a single shotgun you didn't see coming can either kill or so severely wound you you die to scratch damage.
JPs can be killed by fades, lerks, and Xenocide. If the alien team wants a JPer dead no place is safe, it's just a question of how long. Exos require even more of the enemy team working against them, either to destroy their escorts or just rush them in base, but their survival still isn't solely in their own hands like the fade. About the only way the marine team could kill a fade by choice is while assaulting the aliens final hive and base and thus leaving the fade no where to heal, but at that point it doesn't matter anyway.
I am a distinctly average player.
Here's one
Here's one
Here's a curtailed one
Here's one
Here's one
Here's a good one
I could go on, but I don't want to make this into a boast post. Like I said, I'm a distinctly AVERAGE fade, but even I am capable of those scores. Your point, sir, is disproved.