@sewlek
The "realism" argument isn't really good. In "reality" Marines and Skulks would not be rigid, but elastic/soft body objects, so when a Marine is hit by a jumping Skulk the two would "overlap" for a certain time. Then, when the Skulk stops the horizontal movement and falls down, he would still overlap with the Marine for a while (less and less when the Marine starts to move) and the next bite would still connect. So there would be a certain minimum amount of time during which the two players are overlapping, which is usable for more biting.
Unlike in the game, where immediately after the collision the Skulk has a distance to the Marine and the next bite misses.
You could simulate the "overlapping" by increasing the Skulk forward bite range for a moment after a bite was landed (so the Marine can't simply move 0.00000000000001 m and the second bite does not hit due to "distance" to the Skulk), for example.
Alright normally I'm not active in these forums, I don't care much what's going outside of the game.
However, I feel I need to say something about this strafe jumping.
It needs to go.
Really, I don't know what was so bad about the movement post-250 (iirc). We went through this earlier, skulks we're nerfed to the speed of a goat, skulking became absolutely disgusting to play, Sewleks mod came around, big success (I feel mainly due to movement changes) and now you change it back again? I might have missed it, but was there any justification other than 'muh winrates'?
It's absolutely bonkers that a marine can indefinitely jump away faster than a skulk and there is nothing the skulk can do other then 'ambush'. Yea, I know how to ambush, but when you get two bites off, the marine suddenly zooms away in any direction, there is no point even in ambushing. Even with celerity, it becomes nigh impossible to take out a good marine, let alone two. Before, at least you could time your bites but apparently teleporting marines was not enough so now thanks to the 'Deus Ex on steroids' filter, I can't see jack s**t.
Why was this necessary?
Is this gonna stay this way, because I'm pretty much done then. Alien is my favorite to play, but due to the one-shots, ARC camps and nade spams AND now just unfair 1v1 for the whole early game, not much fun can be had as alien. Just know that I can't even imagine how frustrating this must be for average players and you're basically killing the playerbase with this. I love the game, I loved NS1, I love the effort you're all putting into this, but these kind of gameplay changes shouldn't be this radical, or at least justified.
Ideally the collisions would be more 'solid' then they are now - IE you crash straight into a stationary marine, and you stop hard and cleanly - no slowdown or deflection.
Ideally, when a running skulk collides with a stationary marine, the marine should fall on the ground where the skulk would tear him apart. Well, in another game, maybe.
@sewlek
The "realism" argument isn't really good. In "reality" Marines and Skulks would not be rigid, but elastic/soft body objects, so when a Marine is hit by a jumping Skulk the two would "overlap" for a certain time. Then, when the Skulk stops the horizontal movement and falls down, he would still overlap with the Marine for a while (less and less when the Marine starts to move) and the next bite would still connect. So there would be a certain minimum amount of time during which the two players are overlapping, which is usable for more biting.
Ideally the collisions would be more 'solid' then they are now - IE you crash straight into a stationary marine, and you stop hard and cleanly - no slowdown or deflection. However in that same sense if you run into the back of a moving marine, you should not stop completely, more be slowed to match (thereabouts) the speed of what you collided with. The rubber banding effects of the current collisions definitely have drawbacks, but they are better than the old collisions where each object was more akin to a marble on impact.
[EDIT] http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/109015/team-collisions/p1
Consider implementing some form of soft collision. Instead of players being blocked and stopping upon collision with other players, have them gently push away from each other. Valve have implemented this in Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead
yadayadado: I feel the exact same way. I'm just so indifferent to playing my favorite game right now.
I support every other change balance test has implemented so I find it hard to complain at such a 'small' detail.
I'll try get round to testing balance test mod tomorrow and provide some feedback on the most recent movement changes.
Ideally the collisions would be more 'solid' then they are now - IE you crash straight into a stationary marine, and you stop hard and cleanly - no slowdown or deflection.
Ideally, when a running skulk collides with a stationary marine, the marine should fall on the ground where the skulk would tear him apart. Well, in another game, maybe.
That would be ridiculously overpowered. Just because a Skulk gets the first bite in, it doesn't mean he is entitled to the kill. Ambushing players is easy, finishing them off is the skillful part.
Ideally the collisions would be more 'solid' then they are now - IE you crash straight into a stationary marine, and you stop hard and cleanly - no slowdown or deflection.
Ideally, when a running skulk collides with a stationary marine, the marine should fall on the ground where the skulk would tear him apart. Well, in another game, maybe.
That would be ridiculously overpowered. Just because a Skulk gets the first bite in, it doesn't mean he is entitled to the kill. Ambushing players is easy, finishing them off is the skillful part.
Disagree. Try sneaking in Tram/Elevator for example (lots of pillars and options) against some Cyborg eye Marine. Or try playing on some pro combat server. You'll change your mind fast enough to scratch that.
It's equal skill. Ambush isn't waiting all day long on some spot. Whoever get first in the room (Marine/alien) it needs skill to sneak in (last one to enter) or staying undetected (first arrived).
With decent marine it all change from back to white. In fact the easy part becomes the biting.
Ofcourse they shouldnt be guaranteeded a kill just because they drop on a marine, that's just silly. There should be room for adapting to the situation, on both sides.
Ideally, when a running skulk collides with a stationary marine, the marine should fall on the ground where the skulk would tear him apart. Well, in another game, maybe.
This game exists. It's called AvP Multiplayer. Lots of insta-kills. Very boring. But I think you would like it.
In case you happened to miss it, Kamamura didn't mean it literally. It's just as ridiculous as xDragon's suggestion of brick wall marines (gameplay wise).
As a side note: first ever response from a dev to this issue! hail sewlek
Not much of a feat when it's a following to a comparison of realism and a video game. Unless one of you has in real life a composed handbook of an alien race and how they interact with humanbeings in a universe thats set to a distant future. It would be a smart thought to focus on what makes the game more balanced than trying to fit into some odd pretext of realism.
Ofcourse they shouldnt be guaranteeded a kill just because they drop on a marine, that's just silly. There should be room for adapting to the situation, on both sides.
What's silly is the fact that before strafe jump was introduced Skulks were in no way "guaranteed" kills when ambushing... It actually took skill... skill as an Alien to finish off the kill, and skill as a Marine to evade the ambush and kill the Skulk.
It was perfect before the change...
Yadayadado really said it best.
Is this gonna stay this way, because I'm pretty much done then. Alien is my favorite to play, but due to the one-shots, ARC camps and nade spams AND now just unfair 1v1 for the whole early game, not much fun can be had as alien. Just know that I can't even imagine how frustrating this must be for average players and you're basically killing the playerbase with this.
I'd also like to know if things are staying this way. If so I think I'm also done, and even worse it will pretty much eliminate my interest in NS3.. I'm all for balance changes and improvements, but they need to be well thought out changes that improve the game.
I honestly wonder what the hell they were thinking... what made them think Marines needed more mobility... they were already pretty mobile in the first place.
Whatever people are complaining about, aliens still have a higher win-rate.
I think the strafe jump was a good balancing feature for early game marines who are too easily overwhelmed by the massive mobility and too high respawn rates that aliens have been gifted with. Skulks should not be 1v1 winning against a marine, and they should not be on the ground when launching an attack. They should be in pairs at least so that if a marine strafe jumps one way the partner can bite him where he lands, and they should be on the walls/roof so that they can get the drop on the marine.
I thought ground skulking was the preserve of the rookies, but it looks like many whiners here still haven't gotten past that phase.
I am enjoying NS2 more than in the past because it feels more like marines have a good chance of winning or at least being on par with aliens at every stage of the game now, even though the statistics still show a clear advantage for aliens at every time point.
It is quite perplexing to see 12 pages of nonsense demanding removal of one feature which only really helps marines for about the first 2-3 minutes before lerks appear (and not at all once fades appear at 6mins) and which most marine players don't use, and despite all the advantages in research costs, resource income, spawn rates, mobility (speed, and gorge tunnels), and inherent ridiculousness (onos faster than a jet pack marine! A single skulk can take out an exo?!) which the aliens can and should exploit in order to win.
Since strafe jump came in we've had no complaints about jetpacks, because the same horde of whingers have become distracted. Despite the jetpack nerfs, marine players rose to the challenge. Despite exo nerfs, marine players rose to the challenge. But so many people just want to sit on the ground and chomp marines for free. But if strafe jump is removed, don't think for one second that the alien players won't immediately jump back on their anti jetpack/anti exo/ anti ARC bandwaggon.
Really tiring to see this thread keep going on with the same nonsense being reiterated by a small alien stacking cabal. Ultimately, this is a learn to play issue. Perhaps you guys should get off your usual server and spend some time in a higher skill server, such as some of the European ones, and see how things are done by highly skilled skulks. If you are on the east coast, the pings are manageable.
People, we have much more important things to discuss -- performance optimization, and attracting more players to grow this community. Stop this nonsense.
Who says a 1v1 between skulk and marine has to be fair? It is a false assumption that (even an ambushing) skulk should always be able to kill a marine. Even 50:50 chance of winning the engagement was maybe never a goal. Aliens have a much higher mobility, hence they are able to group up and should attack together. They are supposed to work in a group, too. Watch a competitive game, skulks don't engage a marine 1v1 if they don't absolutely have to, good players group up and get as close as possible before they come out of cover.
When you say "One bite and the marine jumps away, I have no chance because of strafe jump.", this is no reliable statement:
- how experienced are you (playtime, skill level, do you ambush, do you hit all your bites, do you jump to dodge bullets, do you use your surrounding, etc.)
- how experienced is your opponent (are the teams stacked? do you get anihilated by a pro gamer all the time?)
- what upgrades to marines have? W3/A3? W0/A0?
- what upgrade do you have? Carapace?
This game wasn't, isn't and will never be realistic, and in most shooters there are certain movement techniques everybody has to use to be really good, for example bunnyhopping in CS, the jumping in Quake, rocket jump in Team Fortress etc. - in NS2, it's the strafejump for marines.
I don't say strafe jump is a must have, but I think it is not the core problem and many people maybe just rage about it instead of adapting and work on their personal technique to cope with it. If you simply remove strafe jump, this is a massive nerf for marines, and you have to compensate for it to keep the balance. I had never problems with a strafe jumping marine progamer, every time I die to one I either didn't ambushed well enough, didn't hit every bite or - most important - didn't attack together with my team.
If an entire marine team strafe jumps all at the same time (this means the comm will have to leave the chair) it should have the same effect on a hive that an arc would.
on a serious note, I like the strafe jump... I play aliens mostly. It's pretty easy to gauge where the marine will land after said jump and meet them at that point for some bites.
Really tiring to see this thread keep going on with the same nonsense being reiterated by a small alien stacking cabal. Ultimately, this is a learn to play issue. Perhaps you guys should get off your usual server and spend some time in a higher skill server, such as some of the European ones, and see how things are done by highly skilled skulks. If you are on the east coast, the pings are manageable.
People, we have much more important things to discuss -- performance optimization, and attracting more players to grow this community. Stop this nonsense.
Whiners?!.. If you read the actual posts you would see a lot of people who have never complained (like myself) are posting. As a fairly average player- like the VAST majority of people who own and play the game. Having a marine jump over my average skulk and fly off in some random direction just makes me not want to play the game anymore. There's more interesting and fair ways to balance the game. Good luck growing the community when basic mechanics like marine movement are borked.
If you're going to be rude I suggest you do go off and discuss 'performance optimization', I'm sure max is just waiting for your all-knowing insight into engine programming.
Whatever people are complaining about, aliens still have a higher win-rate.
That doesn't mean anything, and it certainly isn't a good reason for balance changes. I see a lot of really bad players flocking to Marines because Aliens is much harder to play effectively, and that causes the Marine team to lose far more often. If balance was done by win rate, then nerfing Aliens/buffing Marines would only make Aliens harder to play, making the situation worse.
I played a game just now as Marines, and those guys were awful. They weren't covering each other, they weren't covering the entrances to our forward bases (resulting a lot of wasted res from lost buildings), they were blocking each others shots with pointless strafing (makes me wish friendly fire was turned on) and most of them couldn't aim for shit. I had one guy stood right in front of me welding my armour while I was covering an entrance, and everytime I sidestepped to keep my LoS, he moved as well, continuing to block me. I had to tell him to weld me from the side as he was blocking my view.
With play like that, it is no wonder Aliens win more games.
Who says a 1v1 between skulk and marine has to be fair?
Nobody says it has to be fair (and it never really was, and nobody complained, and it is location/situation dependent anyways). But it must be fun, not frustrating for one side.
The problem isn't Marine jumping per se, it's the fact that Skulks can't reasonably follow, even if they were as close as possible to the Marine (landed a bite) and even though they are melee and Marine is ranged. So it's a relative problem.
My personal solution would be fixing the collision issue (bites not connecting/Skulks bouncing off Marines) and improving Skulk forward jump acceleration (which is just so weaksauce that jumping seems slower than running on the ground). Then Marines can keep their bunny ways as much as they want.
as i wrote in the past to put things into perspective:
1 Aliens can walk on walls
2 Aliens can walk on ceiling
3 Aliens can bellyslide
4 Aliens can fly
5 Aliens can teleport
6 Aliens can charge
___________________________
1 Marines can jump
(But sure lets take that away from them so aliens can enjoy the free marine turtel victory vs no mobility marines that stands there stationary)
And even after that are you gonna whine for being killed by marines that cannot jump too? what are we gonna do next? put all marines in wheelchairs so they cannot walk?
as i wrote in the past to put things into perspective:
1 Aliens can walk on walls
2 Aliens can walk on ceiling
3 Aliens can bellyslide
4 Aliens can fly
5 Aliens can teleport
6 Aliens can charge
___________________________
1 Marines can jump
(But sure lets take that away from them so aliens can enjoy the free marine turtel victory vs no mobility marines that stands there stationary)
And even after that are you gonna whine for being killed by marines that cannot jump too? what are we gonna do next? put all marines in wheelchairs so they cannot walk?
Yes, obviously nerfing strafejump would result in making marines completely stationary. Good of you to put things into perspective like that.
as i wrote in the past to put things into perspective:
1 Aliens can walk on walls
2 Aliens can walk on ceiling
3 Aliens can bellyslide
4 Aliens can fly
5 Aliens can teleport
6 Aliens can charge
___________________________
1 Marines can jump
(But sure lets take that away from them so aliens can enjoy the free marine turtel victory vs no mobility marines that stands there stationary)
And even after that are you gonna whine for being killed by marines that cannot jump too? what are we gonna do next? put all marines in wheelchairs so they cannot walk?
Wow that is such a one sided list it's not even funny.
You break down every form of movement across all alien life forms and compare them to the marine jump, (in order to make it one sided) then try to imply that it's the regular jumping that is the problem.
The main basis of the problem lies in Skulk vs Marine play... The belly slide, flying, teleporting, charging... these are all higher life forms that move differently, and none of which have a problem vs Marines... It's only the Skulk where bites that should connect (and did before the change) suddenly don't. Whether it's the strafe jump itself, or some other coding issue (collision, skulk movement, idk) doesn't matter.
Nice jab trying to make it sound like we want Marines to be unable to jump at all.... because this couldn't possibly be a legitimate complaint, we all must just suck right?
as i wrote in the past to put things into perspective:
1 Aliens can walk on walls
2 Aliens can walk on ceiling
3 Aliens can bellyslide
4 Aliens can fly
5 Aliens can teleport
6 Aliens can charge
___________________________
1 Marines can jump
(But sure lets take that away from them so aliens can enjoy the free marine turtel victory vs no mobility marines that stands there stationary)
And even after that are you gonna whine for being killed by marines that cannot jump too? what are we gonna do next? put all marines in wheelchairs so they cannot walk?
Obviously you biased your argument to make it look better.
Correction
* Skulk can walk glued on walls and ceiling (the glue ability)
* Gorge can bellyslide (for what it's worth)
* Lerk can fly (well... we can make one that walks)
* Fade can blink. It's no teleport as you can be hit by bullet during blink.
* Onos can charge. That's right they should belly slide.
* Whips are just gay right now.
On class, one ability.
* Marine can be the grasshopper of a fight. Wait! who's the skulk -the green one -ha ok.
* Jet pack can fly and go for a "ninja pg".
* D-Exo can kill alone a hive in less than a minute. And Exo are fast too.
* Marines also have Phase Gates... while alien have limited number of tunnels (depending on how many gorge do it - so it sacrifices/delays lerk or fade for it).
* Multiple base with the great IP. If a marine team has enough IPs; it can look like a swarm "pouring" outside the base. It should be an alien trait but we're not so exigent about logic and realism in NS2 isn't it ?
Those abilities (and i omitted a lot of them) can't be compared without considering the type of weapon used by both teams.
Alien = melee. They desperately need speed, maneuvers, stealth and such.
Marine = ranged weapon. Marine need aim, proper checking/positioning and TEAMWORK.
Marine should avoid melee and shoot from a distance. When you do that you don't need SJ. Proper marines did that before SJ buff and still do now. SJ is for ppl who behave like Rambos in some CS game. Marine that play with a bit of teamwork (meaning stick together for example) get rewarded. It's NS2, personal scores mean nothing if the whole team lose, get over it.
Not to mention that any of these moves (including WJ and BH) rely on prediction and by doing so on lag. What makes ppl crazy (including myself) is that the game contained enough things that was depending on lag. SJ was another addition in that direction. It makes things grow worse.
Well, I've played a small match and I can say this: Marine Strafe jump is based purely on anticipating your next bite, so the best counter would be to anticipate his jump and where he'll land. Once he lands you can jump (or walljump) and bite him. I've been able to win a few engagements using this tactic and I can definitely tell you it works against SJ (although, the alienvisionreloaded mod makes it easier to aim).
When you bite you should try to anticipate his jump and the fact you're shorter will help when jumping around. If you just hold down the bite button your vision will be obscured and you won't be as accurate.
(ambushing)
I bite, jump back, strafe, jump in and bite him again. It's also important to lock the marine in a corner (they tend to lock themselves if you and him are pussyfooting with para and ar) so if he jumps he can't jump against you and dodge. Run away if you're at 50hp or lower. It is important to put some distance so you can hide behind objects. I don't think I need to remind anyone that you need to parasite first before going in, do I?
Ha, some truly hilarious posts up there. Too bad the valid points made in the first 12 pages aren't immediately nullified by a few more 'L2P!' posts, no matter how long or articulate they appear to be.
It's not a L2P issue, but let's keep pretending it is. You can always learn to be a better skulk, but the point is, yet again:
It's not a good way to balance the game, it's frustrating as hell, and there are better ways to do it. Also, most people agree it wasn't necessary. UWE are talented enough to figure out a better solution, and concerned players are holding them to this standard. They've delivered on it so far.
And the realism comments still, ffs, really? Yes, I think we all understand that it's a sci-fi video game, so the brilliant revelation that "it's never going to be real, durrr" absolutely misses the point. The game represents certain things, like military humans fighting space monsters in space, with guns. There are bullets, wounds, medical effects, destroyable buildings, etc... GAMES ARE A MIMICRY OF REAL LIFE. Part of the fun of the game is that you get immersed, you actually feel like a human doing this! Wow! Isn't that neat? Now, when you're losing yourself in this great sci-fi adventure, it's nice to know that most of the time the graphics and mechanics of the game attempt to mimic reality. This not only brings the player into the game, but allows people to play naturally, as if they were actually there, and have believable results. We all make exceptions for games, obviously (read: freaking OBVIOUSLY) but depending on the type of game, we want those exceptions to be at a minimum. This one was both unnecessary and very glaring.
With the marines jumping around like this, it doesn't matter if it's balanced or not, it simply looks ridiculous from both points of view. It takes me out of the game, and it obviously takes other people out of the game- a game that strives to build a believable universe.
So again, in response to 'realism doesn't matter,' sorry that's still wrong just like it was wrong the first time someone said it. Realism is a very important factor and matters a metric crapload in this game. It's the entire basis for enjoying it, for some people, and it helps create the atmosphere and flow of the gameplay. There are a million other shooters out there, but you play this one for the experience it offers, an experience which is greatly enriched by Natural Selections believable but gritty world. It's just not that type of game.
Tl;dr - It's still not L2P, sorry. Realism matters big time. Please, please for the love of god, come up with something new to say.
Comments
The "realism" argument isn't really good. In "reality" Marines and Skulks would not be rigid, but elastic/soft body objects, so when a Marine is hit by a jumping Skulk the two would "overlap" for a certain time. Then, when the Skulk stops the horizontal movement and falls down, he would still overlap with the Marine for a while (less and less when the Marine starts to move) and the next bite would still connect. So there would be a certain minimum amount of time during which the two players are overlapping, which is usable for more biting.
Unlike in the game, where immediately after the collision the Skulk has a distance to the Marine and the next bite misses.
You could simulate the "overlapping" by increasing the Skulk forward bite range for a moment after a bite was landed (so the Marine can't simply move 0.00000000000001 m and the second bite does not hit due to "distance" to the Skulk), for example.
However, I feel I need to say something about this strafe jumping.
It needs to go.
Really, I don't know what was so bad about the movement post-250 (iirc). We went through this earlier, skulks we're nerfed to the speed of a goat, skulking became absolutely disgusting to play, Sewleks mod came around, big success (I feel mainly due to movement changes) and now you change it back again? I might have missed it, but was there any justification other than 'muh winrates'?
It's absolutely bonkers that a marine can indefinitely jump away faster than a skulk and there is nothing the skulk can do other then 'ambush'. Yea, I know how to ambush, but when you get two bites off, the marine suddenly zooms away in any direction, there is no point even in ambushing. Even with celerity, it becomes nigh impossible to take out a good marine, let alone two. Before, at least you could time your bites but apparently teleporting marines was not enough so now thanks to the 'Deus Ex on steroids' filter, I can't see jack s**t.
Why was this necessary?
Is this gonna stay this way, because I'm pretty much done then. Alien is my favorite to play, but due to the one-shots, ARC camps and nade spams AND now just unfair 1v1 for the whole early game, not much fun can be had as alien. Just know that I can't even imagine how frustrating this must be for average players and you're basically killing the playerbase with this. I love the game, I loved NS1, I love the effort you're all putting into this, but these kind of gameplay changes shouldn't be this radical, or at least justified.
Ideally, when a running skulk collides with a stationary marine, the marine should fall on the ground where the skulk would tear him apart. Well, in another game, maybe.
@Sewlek Verlet Integration!
[EDIT] http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/109015/team-collisions/p1
Consider implementing some form of soft collision. Instead of players being blocked and stopping upon collision with other players, have them gently push away from each other. Valve have implemented this in Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead
I support every other change balance test has implemented so I find it hard to complain at such a 'small' detail.
I'll try get round to testing balance test mod tomorrow and provide some feedback on the most recent movement changes.
That would be ridiculously overpowered. Just because a Skulk gets the first bite in, it doesn't mean he is entitled to the kill. Ambushing players is easy, finishing them off is the skillful part.
Disagree. Try sneaking in Tram/Elevator for example (lots of pillars and options) against some Cyborg eye Marine. Or try playing on some pro combat server. You'll change your mind fast enough to scratch that.
It's equal skill. Ambush isn't waiting all day long on some spot. Whoever get first in the room (Marine/alien) it needs skill to sneak in (last one to enter) or staying undetected (first arrived).
With decent marine it all change from back to white. In fact the easy part becomes the biting.
This game exists. It's called AvP Multiplayer. Lots of insta-kills. Very boring. But I think you would like it.
As a side note: first ever response from a dev to this issue! hail sewlek
What's silly is the fact that before strafe jump was introduced Skulks were in no way "guaranteed" kills when ambushing... It actually took skill... skill as an Alien to finish off the kill, and skill as a Marine to evade the ambush and kill the Skulk.
It was perfect before the change...
Yadayadado really said it best.
I'd also like to know if things are staying this way. If so I think I'm also done, and even worse it will pretty much eliminate my interest in NS3.. I'm all for balance changes and improvements, but they need to be well thought out changes that improve the game.
I honestly wonder what the hell they were thinking... what made them think Marines needed more mobility... they were already pretty mobile in the first place.
I think the strafe jump was a good balancing feature for early game marines who are too easily overwhelmed by the massive mobility and too high respawn rates that aliens have been gifted with. Skulks should not be 1v1 winning against a marine, and they should not be on the ground when launching an attack. They should be in pairs at least so that if a marine strafe jumps one way the partner can bite him where he lands, and they should be on the walls/roof so that they can get the drop on the marine.
I thought ground skulking was the preserve of the rookies, but it looks like many whiners here still haven't gotten past that phase.
I am enjoying NS2 more than in the past because it feels more like marines have a good chance of winning or at least being on par with aliens at every stage of the game now, even though the statistics still show a clear advantage for aliens at every time point.
It is quite perplexing to see 12 pages of nonsense demanding removal of one feature which only really helps marines for about the first 2-3 minutes before lerks appear (and not at all once fades appear at 6mins) and which most marine players don't use, and despite all the advantages in research costs, resource income, spawn rates, mobility (speed, and gorge tunnels), and inherent ridiculousness (onos faster than a jet pack marine! A single skulk can take out an exo?!) which the aliens can and should exploit in order to win.
Since strafe jump came in we've had no complaints about jetpacks, because the same horde of whingers have become distracted. Despite the jetpack nerfs, marine players rose to the challenge. Despite exo nerfs, marine players rose to the challenge. But so many people just want to sit on the ground and chomp marines for free. But if strafe jump is removed, don't think for one second that the alien players won't immediately jump back on their anti jetpack/anti exo/ anti ARC bandwaggon.
Really tiring to see this thread keep going on with the same nonsense being reiterated by a small alien stacking cabal. Ultimately, this is a learn to play issue. Perhaps you guys should get off your usual server and spend some time in a higher skill server, such as some of the European ones, and see how things are done by highly skilled skulks. If you are on the east coast, the pings are manageable.
People, we have much more important things to discuss -- performance optimization, and attracting more players to grow this community. Stop this nonsense.
When you say "One bite and the marine jumps away, I have no chance because of strafe jump.", this is no reliable statement:
- how experienced are you (playtime, skill level, do you ambush, do you hit all your bites, do you jump to dodge bullets, do you use your surrounding, etc.)
- how experienced is your opponent (are the teams stacked? do you get anihilated by a pro gamer all the time?)
- what upgrades to marines have? W3/A3? W0/A0?
- what upgrade do you have? Carapace?
This game wasn't, isn't and will never be realistic, and in most shooters there are certain movement techniques everybody has to use to be really good, for example bunnyhopping in CS, the jumping in Quake, rocket jump in Team Fortress etc. - in NS2, it's the strafejump for marines.
I don't say strafe jump is a must have, but I think it is not the core problem and many people maybe just rage about it instead of adapting and work on their personal technique to cope with it. If you simply remove strafe jump, this is a massive nerf for marines, and you have to compensate for it to keep the balance. I had never problems with a strafe jumping marine progamer, every time I die to one I either didn't ambushed well enough, didn't hit every bite or - most important - didn't attack together with my team.
on a serious note, I like the strafe jump... I play aliens mostly. It's pretty easy to gauge where the marine will land after said jump and meet them at that point for some bites.
Whiners?!.. If you read the actual posts you would see a lot of people who have never complained (like myself) are posting. As a fairly average player- like the VAST majority of people who own and play the game. Having a marine jump over my average skulk and fly off in some random direction just makes me not want to play the game anymore. There's more interesting and fair ways to balance the game. Good luck growing the community when basic mechanics like marine movement are borked.
If you're going to be rude I suggest you do go off and discuss 'performance optimization', I'm sure max is just waiting for your all-knowing insight into engine programming.
That doesn't mean anything, and it certainly isn't a good reason for balance changes. I see a lot of really bad players flocking to Marines because Aliens is much harder to play effectively, and that causes the Marine team to lose far more often. If balance was done by win rate, then nerfing Aliens/buffing Marines would only make Aliens harder to play, making the situation worse.
I played a game just now as Marines, and those guys were awful. They weren't covering each other, they weren't covering the entrances to our forward bases (resulting a lot of wasted res from lost buildings), they were blocking each others shots with pointless strafing (makes me wish friendly fire was turned on) and most of them couldn't aim for shit. I had one guy stood right in front of me welding my armour while I was covering an entrance, and everytime I sidestepped to keep my LoS, he moved as well, continuing to block me. I had to tell him to weld me from the side as he was blocking my view.
With play like that, it is no wonder Aliens win more games.
The problem isn't Marine jumping per se, it's the fact that Skulks can't reasonably follow, even if they were as close as possible to the Marine (landed a bite) and even though they are melee and Marine is ranged. So it's a relative problem.
My personal solution would be fixing the collision issue (bites not connecting/Skulks bouncing off Marines) and improving Skulk forward jump acceleration (which is just so weaksauce that jumping seems slower than running on the ground). Then Marines can keep their bunny ways as much as they want.
Would like more comprehensive data concerning win ratios in different time intervals.
1 Aliens can walk on walls
2 Aliens can walk on ceiling
3 Aliens can bellyslide
4 Aliens can fly
5 Aliens can teleport
6 Aliens can charge
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1 Marines can jump
(But sure lets take that away from them so aliens can enjoy the free marine turtel victory vs no mobility marines that stands there stationary)
And even after that are you gonna whine for being killed by marines that cannot jump too? what are we gonna do next? put all marines in wheelchairs so they cannot walk?
Yes, obviously nerfing strafejump would result in making marines completely stationary. Good of you to put things into perspective like that.
Wow that is such a one sided list it's not even funny.
You break down every form of movement across all alien life forms and compare them to the marine jump, (in order to make it one sided) then try to imply that it's the regular jumping that is the problem.
The main basis of the problem lies in Skulk vs Marine play... The belly slide, flying, teleporting, charging... these are all higher life forms that move differently, and none of which have a problem vs Marines... It's only the Skulk where bites that should connect (and did before the change) suddenly don't. Whether it's the strafe jump itself, or some other coding issue (collision, skulk movement, idk) doesn't matter.
Nice jab trying to make it sound like we want Marines to be unable to jump at all.... because this couldn't possibly be a legitimate complaint, we all must just suck right?
So biased...
Obviously you biased your argument to make it look better.
Correction
* Skulk can walk glued on walls and ceiling (the glue ability)
* Gorge can bellyslide (for what it's worth)
* Lerk can fly (well... we can make one that walks)
* Fade can blink. It's no teleport as you can be hit by bullet during blink.
* Onos can charge. That's right they should belly slide.
* Whips are just gay right now.
On class, one ability.
* Marine can be the grasshopper of a fight. Wait! who's the skulk -the green one -ha ok.
* Jet pack can fly and go for a "ninja pg".
* D-Exo can kill alone a hive in less than a minute. And Exo are fast too.
* Marines also have Phase Gates... while alien have limited number of tunnels (depending on how many gorge do it - so it sacrifices/delays lerk or fade for it).
* Multiple base with the great IP. If a marine team has enough IPs; it can look like a swarm "pouring" outside the base. It should be an alien trait but we're not so exigent about logic and realism in NS2 isn't it ?
Those abilities (and i omitted a lot of them) can't be compared without considering the type of weapon used by both teams.
Alien = melee. They desperately need speed, maneuvers, stealth and such.
Marine = ranged weapon. Marine need aim, proper checking/positioning and TEAMWORK.
Marine should avoid melee and shoot from a distance. When you do that you don't need SJ. Proper marines did that before SJ buff and still do now. SJ is for ppl who behave like Rambos in some CS game. Marine that play with a bit of teamwork (meaning stick together for example) get rewarded. It's NS2, personal scores mean nothing if the whole team lose, get over it.
Not to mention that any of these moves (including WJ and BH) rely on prediction and by doing so on lag. What makes ppl crazy (including myself) is that the game contained enough things that was depending on lag. SJ was another addition in that direction. It makes things grow worse.
When you bite you should try to anticipate his jump and the fact you're shorter will help when jumping around. If you just hold down the bite button your vision will be obscured and you won't be as accurate.
(ambushing)
I bite, jump back, strafe, jump in and bite him again. It's also important to lock the marine in a corner (they tend to lock themselves if you and him are pussyfooting with para and ar) so if he jumps he can't jump against you and dodge. Run away if you're at 50hp or lower. It is important to put some distance so you can hide behind objects. I don't think I need to remind anyone that you need to parasite first before going in, do I?
It's not a L2P issue, but let's keep pretending it is. You can always learn to be a better skulk, but the point is, yet again:
It's not a good way to balance the game, it's frustrating as hell, and there are better ways to do it. Also, most people agree it wasn't necessary. UWE are talented enough to figure out a better solution, and concerned players are holding them to this standard. They've delivered on it so far.
And the realism comments still, ffs, really? Yes, I think we all understand that it's a sci-fi video game, so the brilliant revelation that "it's never going to be real, durrr" absolutely misses the point. The game represents certain things, like military humans fighting space monsters in space, with guns. There are bullets, wounds, medical effects, destroyable buildings, etc... GAMES ARE A MIMICRY OF REAL LIFE. Part of the fun of the game is that you get immersed, you actually feel like a human doing this! Wow! Isn't that neat? Now, when you're losing yourself in this great sci-fi adventure, it's nice to know that most of the time the graphics and mechanics of the game attempt to mimic reality. This not only brings the player into the game, but allows people to play naturally, as if they were actually there, and have believable results. We all make exceptions for games, obviously (read: freaking OBVIOUSLY) but depending on the type of game, we want those exceptions to be at a minimum. This one was both unnecessary and very glaring.
With the marines jumping around like this, it doesn't matter if it's balanced or not, it simply looks ridiculous from both points of view. It takes me out of the game, and it obviously takes other people out of the game- a game that strives to build a believable universe.
So again, in response to 'realism doesn't matter,' sorry that's still wrong just like it was wrong the first time someone said it. Realism is a very important factor and matters a metric crapload in this game. It's the entire basis for enjoying it, for some people, and it helps create the atmosphere and flow of the gameplay. There are a million other shooters out there, but you play this one for the experience it offers, an experience which is greatly enriched by Natural Selections believable but gritty world. It's just not that type of game.
Tl;dr - It's still not L2P, sorry. Realism matters big time. Please, please for the love of god, come up with something new to say.
Remove strafe jump. It adds nothing of value to the game.
Thx.