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.
DO you realise that MOST people who play computers games do not have the skills to become good at computer games? Sure, go around shouting Learn To Play, like some elitist moron, but the vast majority of people who game do not have the necessary, Hand-eye co-ordination, or the tactical awareness, or the speed of thought required, or any one of a number of attributes required to get good at computer games.
What? Someone has a certain skill deficit (or apparently every skill deficit in your case) and those that are better have to take the blame for it? Ever heard about trying harder and improving yourself? Dumbing down games (or anything else) that some find hard does not bring improvements to anybody's life.
I would rank myself as an average player. I have seen single skulks easily take down SJ marines, mainly on European servers, so I suggested that maybe those whining now could just take a few minutes to watch and learn from them.
So you are saying, lets make sure NS2 stays as a game that only 20% of the player base can play well and have any fun with, all you people who aren't good at games, but bought NS2, go and take a jump.
I never said that and you know it. And I have never said the game should be only for the elite. You have constructed a straw man argument. Anyone here can see that I have consistently been on the side of the majority of players, but whining about one game mechanic as the root of all evil just makes you look pathetic, especially when you resort to personal attacks -- if hand eye coordination is such a problem for you, then perhaps you should stop playing games altogether as this is a basic prerequisite of all of them.
Wow, you are such a nice person...
This, from the guy who calls me a moron for expressing my opinion? Look in the mirror and hang your head in shame.
My basic point probably chimes with @Roobubba. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with strafe jump. The problem basically is to do with freeloaders who had an OP skulk experience now unable to continue ground-skulking, and who refuse to correct their mistakes, with no desire to become better. As Roobubba has said, even if SJ is taken out, the underlying problem is lack of teamwork and understanding of gameplay mechanics, and the same people will whine about everything else the marines have (JP, ARC, EXO, shotguns, grenades, phase gates).
SJ is a buff to the skilled marine, it is most useful against skilled skulks. As such the implementation of SJ suggests that skilled marines vs skilled skulk was imbalanced in favour of aliens. I however believe that this is not true, and that the skilled marine has the advantage.
LTP does not apply because noob marines do not use SJ properly, and marines don't need SJ against noob aliens.
I am against this because the skilled marine already has a huge advantage against skulks, this buff is not needed and borders on OP.
Skilled marines vs skilled skulks see almost 0 impact from this mechanic, please don't suggest it negatively impacts balance at levels anywhere above public play. The actual reasons why marine vs skulk early game is marine favored has already been described and detailed, and changes are being tested to resolve that without returning marines to being gimps. There are various reasons why early game balance at all skill levels has been difficult, and why it will continue to be so, with or without the 'dodge' jump.
Skilled marines vs skilled skulks see almost 0 impact from this mechanic, please don't suggest it negatively impacts balance at levels anywhere above public play. The actual reasons why marine vs skulk early game is marine favored has already been described and detailed, and changes are being tested to resolve that without returning marines to being gimps. There are various reasons why early game balance at all skill levels has been difficult, and why it will continue to be so, with or without the 'dodge' jump.
There is an impact at introduction of the mechanic. Skilled marines and skilled skulks will adjust, while others will stay static to old mechanics.
Skilled marines vs skilled skulks see almost 0 impact from this mechanic, please don't suggest it negatively impacts balance at levels anywhere above public play. The actual reasons why marine vs skulk early game is marine favored has already been described and detailed, and changes are being tested to resolve that without returning marines to being gimps. There are various reasons why early game balance at all skill levels has been difficult, and why it will continue to be so, with or without the 'dodge' jump.
How can increasing a marines dodge ability have no impact? This suggests that skilled marines do not use SJ, or that SJ has no value. You maybe arguing that a skilled skulk can adapt, but you can not logically argue for 0 impact.
SJ is a buff. SJ raises the skill ceiling as better players can use it while maintains accuracy... Any time you raise the skill ceiling the better players are the ones who fully capitalise. Since it only affects marines it buffs skill marines. As such in skill marine gets better and skilled skulk stays the same. Basic math demands that balance shifts in favour of marines.
It takes little skill to press strafe and jump... My real point is that against good skulks, jumping is the last thing you want to do generally. There are times when jumping into a skulk as a foo strat works, but you really only want to jump after you successfully dodge a skulk.. which at that point you already have a decent advantage which if used correctly would allow you to get the kill with or without strafe jump. Strafe jump doesnt really raise the skill ceiling, its a two button mechanic with almost 0 depth. Its actually more of a skill floor increase - it makes playing marines at a lower level easier, since its so easy to execute.
One of the games I was comp level in was quake 2, and you're still not actually engaging my argument, nor is the following:
Now for the L2P argument.
I know myself and many other skulks are not having big problems fragging marines with strafe jump. We are considered as highly skilled but I struggle to believe that we've only just hit the skill level required to kill strafe jumping marines. Just as you complain that you can't hit them, we are saying that we can. You say that it's too hard, we say it's not as bad as you say it is. We are proof that it's not impossible and that if you were to improve, you'd be seeing results too.
Nowhere have I said I have a personal problem with killing marines. I don't, actually, I regularly top alien scoreboards as permaskulk. But I'm setting aside my personal anecdotal experience to look at a larger picture, which is that marines did not need an early game combat buff, and that strafe jump contradicts a basic design principle between the two basic units of both sides. Like I mentioned before this creates binary outcomes where usually whichever faction takes the largest advantage of the window where they are most relatively potent (0:00-6:00 for rines and 7:00-12:00 for aliens) wins the game.
Remove strafejump and even out the alien's tech tree to prevent the really overpowering burst they have at 8-10 minutes in, the win rate will stay where it is but we'll see much more back and forth in both early and mid game.
I know myself and many other skulks are not having big problems fragging marines with strafe jump. We are considered as highly skilled but I struggle to believe that we've only just hit the skill level required to kill strafe jumping marines. Just as you complain that you can't hit them, we are saying that we can. You say that it's too hard, we say it's not as bad as you say it is. We are proof that it's not impossible and that if you were to improve, you'd be seeing results too.
So your calling Asmodies a noob
Yeah sure. There are loads of people better than Asmodies who can kill SJ marines, not just me and my friends.
So if there are lots of people who can do it....
He must not be as good as them....
I don't believe it's because we're uber pr0000zors....
So he must be a noob.
The problem with this argument is that now people go into "game is catered for pro players" and "ur 2 noob lol" modes where both sides just slag each other off.
So now your a hypocrite
I never said I wouldn't say that. I explained this is what's happening and going to happen. I was sign posting my paragraph to say that
We are proof that it's not impossible and that if you were to improve, you'd be seeing results too
to help the argument of L2P rather than just insult one side and then the other.
While I do think that strafe jump is OP, it is not a game breaking mechanic.
derp
It's overbalanced, needs to be toned down a bit, not removed. We're seeing much more balanced games in public. Far fewer wins than the 70% aliens were used to. Perhaps everyone's perceptions has been warped of what 50-50 wins feels like because aliens have been so dominant over the last 4 months (at least)
Might wanna actually read the posts in the thread before making a post. I don't have a problem killing people as I said in the post *directly* above yours. Aliens never had a 70% win rate, not even in pubs aside from very short patches that happened quite a while ago. The current percents are likely in the 60-40 range, and like I point out above these win %'s shouldn't even be the focus. SJ is a bad mechanic, I've explained why I assert that twice in the past two pages.
So you might want to stop asserting I'm disagreeing because I'm a bad player when I've said twice now, in no small amount of detail, why SJ is bad and should be removed entirely along with other changes.
It's overbalanced, needs to be toned down a bit, not removed. We're seeing much more balanced games in public. Far fewer wins than the 70% aliens were used to. Perhaps everyone's perceptions has been warped of what 50-50 wins feels like because aliens have been so dominant over the last 4 months (at least)
Hmmmm... Mainly because the marine in public games have a clearly different behavior. Basically alien have to organize more as some ppl have to gorge to cover the gold. Especially in big games.
No marine has to choose what to do in early game except find and kill. So they all do the same: "Ramboing", never cover, never organize (like 3 welding a PN, then the extractor...). SJ encourage it.
That's the main reason they usually don't hold the early game (or badly) in pub. Once you have organized marine, things change drastically and the game becomes a long game as both sides struggle for key locations (sometimes forgetting other locations). Then SJ becomes a problem for aliens in early game.
Pls dev : Remove. Economy (previous post) or anything is a better way to reach balance.
Might wanna actually read the posts in the thread before making a post.
I was just adding to the L2P argument which you said had no basis. I presented a basis for an L2P argument.
The summary goes along the lines of this: Some people, yourself included it appears, don't have a problem killing skulks so it's not game breaking.
Here's a separate point. It's actually a lot of fun as a marine. It doesn't bother me at all as a skulk. Sure I die more, but that makes games a tiny bit more interesting than the usual stomp. I still believe it should be tuned down a little because I do understand that a lot of players have issues with it.
Summary of this point: Fun mechanic for marines. Can understand frustration for a lot of people. Tone it down.
Obviously that's a subjective point but it's a subjective argument.
When it does get removed (which is fine by me, sj makes no difference), can we get a special badge for all the whiners in this thread that says 'I thought strafe jumping was the problem.'
I was just adding to the L2P argument which you said had no basis. I presented a basis for an L2P argument.
The summary goes along the lines of this: Some people, yourself included it appears, don't have a problem killing skulks so it's not game breaking.
Here's a separate point. It's actually a lot of fun as a marine. It doesn't bother me at all as a skulk. Sure I die more, but that makes games a tiny bit more interesting than the usual stomp. I still believe it should be tuned down a little because I do understand that a lot of players have issues with it.
Summary of this point: Fun mechanic for marines. Can understand frustration for a lot of people. Tone it down.
Obviously that's a subjective point but it's a subjective argument.
Except that SJ contradicting the design intent for skulk and marine encounters isn't subjective, and while I'll have to go look the data up again neither is the binary position win rates are in due to early marine potency and mid alien potency. As designed aliens are suppose to be the faction that uses movement and close quarters to their advantage, not marines, but SJ facilitates that. While I can still deal with SJ marines it gives them another platform to be generally more formidable early game, and it gives them a potent response to ambushes that is unavoidable if playing against skilled marines.
The design intent is that ranged is greater than melee at range, and melee is greater than ranged in melee. That's the only way these two units can work and be balanced unless we take economic incentives for the lesser side into account, which we shouldn't. If marines can dodge in melee, to however big or small a degree you think it functions, it will no matter what weaken that design principle. Also, while I said that I need to get the stats again on this, marines have a *MUCH* higher chance to win if they dominate early game, and aliens have a *MUCH* higher chance to win if they control the mid game. I'm not talking about the marines egg locking or taking the whole map, but I mean taking another tech point and holding 6 res while taking out skulks and killing structures. Alternatively if aliens can stick it out and get control mid game by the same definition, they have a much larger chance to sweep the map.
Get rid of SJ, tone down alien mid-game, and stick to the design principles the game shipped with instead of throwing everything into a 50% win-rate focused blender.
Ok so nerf marine early game and then nerf alien mid game? That just sounds like it would be even worse.... What do aliens have midgame that is op? This thread is so far from the true balance of the game it actually surprises me.. I can understand people thinking strafejump is the mechanic causing early game problems for skulk, but to think the alien mid game is OP? Uhhh are we playing the same game? Or is midgame from like 8 minutes to 30 minutes? Or some other crazy thing I am missing?
Unless you count whips + echo + drifter jizz as the midgame, idk what to say.
If you're not aware of alien potency mid-game then no, we are not playing the same game. Mid game is 7-12 minutes, mostly because that's 2nd and 3rd hive, standard fade timing, and early/standard onos timing. This is also just before JP/Exo, the fade burst is what really swings things for aliens, especially if the early/mid game lerks survived. Both pub and comp games see aliens with the most ability to come back/extend control.
This wont make much difference vs the amount of complaining. Bad skulks will still have problems tracking jumping Marines and landing successful bites on them.
- new experimental code for player vs. player collision
What comp game do you see the third hive ever mattering?... Fades are hardly scary even when if you have just an LMG... And 12 minute onos is basically impossible? Unless your stomping the marines... That is the point when you see aliens start to expand true, but the aliens are hardly OP at that timeframe currently... There is a big difference between public and comp play currently and basing balance feedback on public games at this time is a really poor idea...
I was just adding to the L2P argument which you said had no basis. I presented a basis for an L2P argument.
The summary goes along the lines of this: Some people, yourself included it appears, don't have a problem killing skulks so it's not game breaking.
Here's a separate point. It's actually a lot of fun as a marine. It doesn't bother me at all as a skulk. Sure I die more, but that makes games a tiny bit more interesting than the usual stomp. I still believe it should be tuned down a little because I do understand that a lot of players have issues with it.
Summary of this point: Fun mechanic for marines. Can understand frustration for a lot of people. Tone it down.
Obviously that's a subjective point but it's a subjective argument.
Except that SJ contradicting the design intent for skulk and marine encounters isn't subjective, and while I'll have to go look the data up again neither is the binary position win rates are in due to early marine potency and mid alien potency. As designed aliens are suppose to be the faction that uses movement and close quarters to their advantage, not marines, but SJ facilitates that. While I can still deal with SJ marines it gives them another platform to be generally more formidable early game, and it gives them a potent response to ambushes that is unavoidable if playing against skilled marines.
The design intent is that ranged is greater than melee at range, and melee is greater than ranged in melee. That's the only way these two units can work and be balanced unless we take economic incentives for the lesser side into account, which we shouldn't. If marines can dodge in melee, to however big or small a degree you think it functions, it will no matter what weaken that design principle. Also, while I said that I need to get the stats again on this, marines have a *MUCH* higher chance to win if they dominate early game, and aliens have a *MUCH* higher chance to win if they control the mid game. I'm not talking about the marines egg locking or taking the whole map, but I mean taking another tech point and holding 6 res while taking out skulks and killing structures. Alternatively if aliens can stick it out and get control mid game by the same definition, they have a much larger chance to sweep the map.
Get rid of SJ, tone down alien mid-game, and stick to the design principles the game shipped with instead of throwing everything into a 50% win-rate focused blender.
Isn't the design intent proven by the fact that AR bullets do 10dmg and skulk bite does 75. The AR damage is compounded by the time it takes the skulks to travel the distance and the skulk bite, well, the high DPS makes up for the damage taken by the skulk in travelling to the marine. That shows that ranged > melee at ranged, melee > ranged at melee.
Adding in a strafe jump mechanism doesn't break the design intent. It only serves to aid marines with poor aim who can't make 9-13 bullets hit at ranged in tight combat. Skulks got a mighty buff in b250. Their speed in massively increased and the removal of glancing bites with a wider 75 cone made them OP. Marines lost a lot of that early game dominance because of those features. Skulks could too easily get to close combat weakening the "design intent" of ranged power. So they balanced that with a little help in manoeuvrability in close combat.
Both features, skulk wall jumping and momentum conservation, and marine strafe jump, adds skill and fun to the game and if you can adjust the two features to balance each other so neither race dominates, you have success. And I think they have given marines a tiny bit too much power which is why I'm happy they are toning down the strafe jump and not removing it.
Isn't the design intent proven by the fact that AR bullets do 10dmg and skulk bite does 75. The AR damage is compounded by the time it takes the skulks to travel the distance and the skulk bite, well, the high DPS makes up for the damage taken by the skulk in travelling to the marine. That shows that ranged > melee at ranged, melee > ranged at melee.
DMG is not the same as DPS. The LMG does about 180 dps. Skulks do about 170 dps. Marines have 160 ehp at a0. Skulks have 80 ehp at cara0. In ideal conditions assuming the skulk starts at melee range, a marine will kill a skulk at t~=0.5s and a skulk will kill a marine at t~=0.9s.
TTK = time to kill
In fact, the skulk vs marine TTK is almost double even when ignoring ranged advantage.
So clearly the skulk's advantage in melee range is NOT DPS based, but I'd say it is ease-of-use based. It's easier for a skulk to land every bite than it is for a marine to land every bullet. Thus, skulk has an advantage in melee range. It's really important not to forget that marines actually dominate skulks on damage output and survivability throughout the entire game. And as individual skill increases, skulks can only mitigate the power gap through team skill increases. There is a very brutal softcap on individual skulk skill.
I think it is a reasonable argument that strafe jumping does in fact break the design intent as you have laid out, where you claim ranged > melee at range and melee > ranged at melee. I've already proven that marines have more theoretical power in melee when compared to skulks. If you add even a single strafejump to these equations, then you're likely adding at least another bite's worth of time to the TTK just by shear distance generated from the strafe jump. That is bumping the skulk vs marine TTK up to around three times that of the marine vs skulk TTK.
I don't think strafe jumping adds any skill to the game. There isn't much skill in executing it and there's no tradeoff. This is not like the UT dodge where you becoming predictable for a split second was a big detriment to your TTK. The predictability is unimportant because the benefit of strafe jump is distance and distance trumps predictability. It doesn't matter if you can predict the marine's movements 0.2s from now if he's simply out of range. You can't predict that distance away because strafejump is too long. And everyone, pro or noob, benefits greatly from the distance gained. Strafe jump definitely impacts high level play and further skews the skulk vs marine balance in favor of marines.
This can be band-aided by nerfing the SJ. I just don't think there's much point in having it. It's just another mechanic that doesn't really fix anything, looks kind of dumb, and pisses a group of players off.
uhhh forget about parasite? skulk vs marine at point blank range will end with skulk winning, he can para 2 bite faster than a marine can land the 9/10 (depending on luck) bullets to kill him.
If you predict the marines movement the additional ~1 meter from strafe jump is pretty meaningless.. If he was out of range before the jump was executed then you already messed up, not really an accurate comparison.
Strafe jump is not the problem, its just a scapegoat in a complex interaction of many factors.
I didn't forget parasite, and it doesn't change the outcome. Theoretically a marine will still kill the skulk before he can parasite + 2 bite. At best it's just about even and this obviously scales into the marine's favor more and more as the game goes on.
You can't out predict the fact that strafe jump puts a marine out of a skulk's melee range for a non-zero amount of time. The skulk's ability to predict certainly decreases that time, but similarly a marine's prediction of the skulk's prediction can increase it. If the marine is out of range before the jump was executed (ie strafe jumping while the skulk is closing distance), then strafe jump further increases the distance. You can try to argue that it doesn't matter a whole lot, but it is certainly nonzero. In many situations, the extra quarter of a second it buys can be the difference between winning and losing. In other situations, it doesn't change the outcome.
I don't think strafe jump is the problem. I just think it's a stupid mechanic with a minor net negative impact on "balance" and "fun."
There is a big difference between public and comp play currently and basing balance feedback on public games at this time is a really poor idea...
And still the pub players keep the game alive and not the comp.
Isn't it enough reason to change something if you see Alien's skipping Skulks to Gorge the minute they join the game? I did encounter it every pub game I played now. More than half of the team goes Gorge because Skulks are not really fun anymore.
If the marine starts shooting and the skulk starts biting at the same time, the skulk's TTK is equal to the time between two bites, which is less than half a second.
If you add even a single strafejump to these equations, then you're likely adding at least another bite's worth of time to the TTK just by shear distance generated from the strafe jump.
So in conclusion:
Even after closing the distance gap, the melee team is still disadvantaged by a 100% increase in TTK.
Comments
What? Someone has a certain skill deficit (or apparently every skill deficit in your case) and those that are better have to take the blame for it? Ever heard about trying harder and improving yourself? Dumbing down games (or anything else) that some find hard does not bring improvements to anybody's life.
I would rank myself as an average player. I have seen single skulks easily take down SJ marines, mainly on European servers, so I suggested that maybe those whining now could just take a few minutes to watch and learn from them.
I never said that and you know it. And I have never said the game should be only for the elite. You have constructed a straw man argument. Anyone here can see that I have consistently been on the side of the majority of players, but whining about one game mechanic as the root of all evil just makes you look pathetic, especially when you resort to personal attacks -- if hand eye coordination is such a problem for you, then perhaps you should stop playing games altogether as this is a basic prerequisite of all of them.
This, from the guy who calls me a moron for expressing my opinion? Look in the mirror and hang your head in shame.
My basic point probably chimes with @Roobubba. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with strafe jump. The problem basically is to do with freeloaders who had an OP skulk experience now unable to continue ground-skulking, and who refuse to correct their mistakes, with no desire to become better. As Roobubba has said, even if SJ is taken out, the underlying problem is lack of teamwork and understanding of gameplay mechanics, and the same people will whine about everything else the marines have (JP, ARC, EXO, shotguns, grenades, phase gates).
That's fucking embarrassing. A 14 page thread complaining about a gimped, half-assed version of strafe jumping is pretty fucking funny.
LTP does not apply because noob marines do not use SJ properly, and marines don't need SJ against noob aliens.
I am against this because the skilled marine already has a huge advantage against skulks, this buff is not needed and borders on OP.
I have no intention of stooping as low as some of the cretins in this thread.
/out.
There is an impact at introduction of the mechanic. Skilled marines and skilled skulks will adjust, while others will stay static to old mechanics.
But I agree with the rest of your statement...
How can increasing a marines dodge ability have no impact? This suggests that skilled marines do not use SJ, or that SJ has no value. You maybe arguing that a skilled skulk can adapt, but you can not logically argue for 0 impact.
SJ is a buff. SJ raises the skill ceiling as better players can use it while maintains accuracy... Any time you raise the skill ceiling the better players are the ones who fully capitalise. Since it only affects marines it buffs skill marines. As such in skill marine gets better and skilled skulk stays the same. Basic math demands that balance shifts in favour of marines.
Now for the L2P argument.
Nowhere have I said I have a personal problem with killing marines. I don't, actually, I regularly top alien scoreboards as permaskulk. But I'm setting aside my personal anecdotal experience to look at a larger picture, which is that marines did not need an early game combat buff, and that strafe jump contradicts a basic design principle between the two basic units of both sides. Like I mentioned before this creates binary outcomes where usually whichever faction takes the largest advantage of the window where they are most relatively potent (0:00-6:00 for rines and 7:00-12:00 for aliens) wins the game.
Remove strafejump and even out the alien's tech tree to prevent the really overpowering burst they have at 8-10 minutes in, the win rate will stay where it is but we'll see much more back and forth in both early and mid game.
Yeah sure. There are loads of people better than Asmodies who can kill SJ marines, not just me and my friends.
So if there are lots of people who can do it....
He must not be as good as them....
I don't believe it's because we're uber pr0000zors....
So he must be a noob.
I never said I wouldn't say that. I explained this is what's happening and going to happen. I was sign posting my paragraph to say that to help the argument of L2P rather than just insult one side and then the other.
It's overbalanced, needs to be toned down a bit, not removed. We're seeing much more balanced games in public. Far fewer wins than the 70% aliens were used to. Perhaps everyone's perceptions has been warped of what 50-50 wins feels like because aliens have been so dominant over the last 4 months (at least)
So you might want to stop asserting I'm disagreeing because I'm a bad player when I've said twice now, in no small amount of detail, why SJ is bad and should be removed entirely along with other changes.
Hmmmm... Mainly because the marine in public games have a clearly different behavior. Basically alien have to organize more as some ppl have to gorge to cover the gold. Especially in big games.
No marine has to choose what to do in early game except find and kill. So they all do the same: "Ramboing", never cover, never organize (like 3 welding a PN, then the extractor...). SJ encourage it.
That's the main reason they usually don't hold the early game (or badly) in pub. Once you have organized marine, things change drastically and the game becomes a long game as both sides struggle for key locations (sometimes forgetting other locations). Then SJ becomes a problem for aliens in early game.
Pls dev : Remove. Economy (previous post) or anything is a better way to reach balance.
I was just adding to the L2P argument which you said had no basis. I presented a basis for an L2P argument.
The summary goes along the lines of this: Some people, yourself included it appears, don't have a problem killing skulks so it's not game breaking.
Here's a separate point. It's actually a lot of fun as a marine. It doesn't bother me at all as a skulk. Sure I die more, but that makes games a tiny bit more interesting than the usual stomp. I still believe it should be tuned down a little because I do understand that a lot of players have issues with it.
Summary of this point: Fun mechanic for marines. Can understand frustration for a lot of people. Tone it down.
Obviously that's a subjective point but it's a subjective argument.
I'd wear that badge with pride.
Haters gonna hate.
Except that SJ contradicting the design intent for skulk and marine encounters isn't subjective, and while I'll have to go look the data up again neither is the binary position win rates are in due to early marine potency and mid alien potency. As designed aliens are suppose to be the faction that uses movement and close quarters to their advantage, not marines, but SJ facilitates that. While I can still deal with SJ marines it gives them another platform to be generally more formidable early game, and it gives them a potent response to ambushes that is unavoidable if playing against skilled marines.
The design intent is that ranged is greater than melee at range, and melee is greater than ranged in melee. That's the only way these two units can work and be balanced unless we take economic incentives for the lesser side into account, which we shouldn't. If marines can dodge in melee, to however big or small a degree you think it functions, it will no matter what weaken that design principle. Also, while I said that I need to get the stats again on this, marines have a *MUCH* higher chance to win if they dominate early game, and aliens have a *MUCH* higher chance to win if they control the mid game. I'm not talking about the marines egg locking or taking the whole map, but I mean taking another tech point and holding 6 res while taking out skulks and killing structures. Alternatively if aliens can stick it out and get control mid game by the same definition, they have a much larger chance to sweep the map.
Get rid of SJ, tone down alien mid-game, and stick to the design principles the game shipped with instead of throwing everything into a 50% win-rate focused blender.
Unless you count whips + echo + drifter jizz as the midgame, idk what to say.
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=130391092
This wont make much difference vs the amount of complaining. Bad skulks will still have problems tracking jumping Marines and landing successful bites on them.
- new experimental code for player vs. player collision
That might make a difference though.
Isn't the design intent proven by the fact that AR bullets do 10dmg and skulk bite does 75. The AR damage is compounded by the time it takes the skulks to travel the distance and the skulk bite, well, the high DPS makes up for the damage taken by the skulk in travelling to the marine. That shows that ranged > melee at ranged, melee > ranged at melee.
Adding in a strafe jump mechanism doesn't break the design intent. It only serves to aid marines with poor aim who can't make 9-13 bullets hit at ranged in tight combat. Skulks got a mighty buff in b250. Their speed in massively increased and the removal of glancing bites with a wider 75 cone made them OP. Marines lost a lot of that early game dominance because of those features. Skulks could too easily get to close combat weakening the "design intent" of ranged power. So they balanced that with a little help in manoeuvrability in close combat.
Both features, skulk wall jumping and momentum conservation, and marine strafe jump, adds skill and fun to the game and if you can adjust the two features to balance each other so neither race dominates, you have success. And I think they have given marines a tiny bit too much power which is why I'm happy they are toning down the strafe jump and not removing it.
DMG is not the same as DPS. The LMG does about 180 dps. Skulks do about 170 dps. Marines have 160 ehp at a0. Skulks have 80 ehp at cara0. In ideal conditions assuming the skulk starts at melee range, a marine will kill a skulk at t~=0.5s and a skulk will kill a marine at t~=0.9s.
TTK = time to kill
In fact, the skulk vs marine TTK is almost double even when ignoring ranged advantage.
So clearly the skulk's advantage in melee range is NOT DPS based, but I'd say it is ease-of-use based. It's easier for a skulk to land every bite than it is for a marine to land every bullet. Thus, skulk has an advantage in melee range. It's really important not to forget that marines actually dominate skulks on damage output and survivability throughout the entire game. And as individual skill increases, skulks can only mitigate the power gap through team skill increases. There is a very brutal softcap on individual skulk skill.
I think it is a reasonable argument that strafe jumping does in fact break the design intent as you have laid out, where you claim ranged > melee at range and melee > ranged at melee. I've already proven that marines have more theoretical power in melee when compared to skulks. If you add even a single strafejump to these equations, then you're likely adding at least another bite's worth of time to the TTK just by shear distance generated from the strafe jump. That is bumping the skulk vs marine TTK up to around three times that of the marine vs skulk TTK.
I don't think strafe jumping adds any skill to the game. There isn't much skill in executing it and there's no tradeoff. This is not like the UT dodge where you becoming predictable for a split second was a big detriment to your TTK. The predictability is unimportant because the benefit of strafe jump is distance and distance trumps predictability. It doesn't matter if you can predict the marine's movements 0.2s from now if he's simply out of range. You can't predict that distance away because strafejump is too long. And everyone, pro or noob, benefits greatly from the distance gained. Strafe jump definitely impacts high level play and further skews the skulk vs marine balance in favor of marines.
This can be band-aided by nerfing the SJ. I just don't think there's much point in having it. It's just another mechanic that doesn't really fix anything, looks kind of dumb, and pisses a group of players off.
If you predict the marines movement the additional ~1 meter from strafe jump is pretty meaningless.. If he was out of range before the jump was executed then you already messed up, not really an accurate comparison.
Strafe jump is not the problem, its just a scapegoat in a complex interaction of many factors.
You can't out predict the fact that strafe jump puts a marine out of a skulk's melee range for a non-zero amount of time. The skulk's ability to predict certainly decreases that time, but similarly a marine's prediction of the skulk's prediction can increase it. If the marine is out of range before the jump was executed (ie strafe jumping while the skulk is closing distance), then strafe jump further increases the distance. You can try to argue that it doesn't matter a whole lot, but it is certainly nonzero. In many situations, the extra quarter of a second it buys can be the difference between winning and losing. In other situations, it doesn't change the outcome.
I don't think strafe jump is the problem. I just think it's a stupid mechanic with a minor net negative impact on "balance" and "fun."
Isn't it enough reason to change something if you see Alien's skipping Skulks to Gorge the minute they join the game? I did encounter it every pub game I played now. More than half of the team goes Gorge because Skulks are not really fun anymore.
This is fact.
Just keeping track from the sidelines here:
TTK for skulk = 0.5s
TTK for marine = 0.5s
TTK for skulk with SJ involved = 1s*
*A conservative minimum based on
So in conclusion:
Even after closing the distance gap, the melee team is still disadvantaged by a 100% increase in TTK.