And thats if no mistake is made, which is hardly ever the case.
In the current state I feel like a single mistake by a skulk lowers it's chance of victory a lot more than a single mistake by a marine. The increased maneuverability (increased acceleration, SJ) has pushed things a little too far in their favour.
And that is presuming a near ideal situation during an ambush where the rines doesn't get a single shot on the target until the first bite happens. This is also presuming w0 and no cara, if rines get w1 before lerks start coming out and aliens went anything other than crag these numbers skew even worse.
Even in really favorable situations for a skulk melee is at a disadvantage, the obvious counterargument is "well never 1v1", but TTK numbers apply to *all* engagements. SJ gives good marines enough time to come out of a situation that is suppose to be a disadvantage and turn it into an advantage.
sigh... a strafe jump doesn't just instantly teleport you away from a skulk... if a skulk bites you once and hits his parasite and your not yet moving... YOU CANNOT get out of range even with a strafe jump at that point if the skulk keeps following you... Its like you suddenly forget that the skulk can accelerate just like the marine can, and also has a higher max speed. Strafe jump adds only 1 m/s to the direction you jump in, or .5m over the half second to the second bite... which is about 1/3 the bite range iirc. Please stop making things up about strafe jump, its really getting old.
People miss bites now because marines can change directions quickly with their higher accel, and because weird collisions can leave you slowed down when colliding with entities... but that is generally only when ambushing a marine moving directly away from you. Many alien players are having a much harder time predicting the marines movement - If you go left and the marine goes right, strafe jump is not responsible for that, YOU as a player are. Before it was much easier to see that and correct yourself because the marines accel was so low, now its not nearly as forgiving.
potential simple fix: disable jumping for marines for 1 second after taking damage. if their snuck up on, they deserve the disadvantage, and need to be able to turn and shoot at point blank in a split second just as skulks need to, and without even having the 'teeth' covering their vision.
as an aside, I've hated marines jumping like rabbits in combat since NS 1, and think it looks obnoxious, as well as making little sense, particularly how high they jump.
marines keep jumping outside fighting or before being hit, while aliens can have a melee advantage. thoughts?
And that is presuming a near ideal situation during an ambush where the rines doesn't get a single shot on the target until the first bite happens. This is also presuming w0 and no cara, if rines get w1 before lerks start coming out and aliens went anything other than crag these numbers skew even worse.
It went from skulks running around marines to confuse them to marines running around the aliens.
sigh... a strafe jump doesn't just instantly teleport you away from a skulk... if a skulk bites you once and hits his parasite and your not yet moving... YOU CANNOT get out of range even with a strafe jump at that point if the skulk keeps following you... Its like you suddenly forget that the skulk can accelerate just like the marine can, and also has a higher max speed. Strafe jump adds only 1 m/s to the direction you jump in, or .5m over the half second to the second bite... which is about 1/3 the bite range iirc. Please stop making things up about strafe jump, its really getting old.
People miss bites now because marines can change directions quickly with their higher accel, and because weird collisions can leave you slowed down when colliding with entities... but that is generally only when ambushing a marine moving directly away from you. Many alien players are having a much harder time predicting the marines movement - If you go left and the marine goes right, strafe jump is not responsible for that, YOU as a player are. Before it was much easier to see that and correct yourself because the marines accel was so low, now its not nearly as forgiving.
If you want to assert Ironhorse is making things up about TTK, then I don't know what to tell you. I guess you're just not playing against marines that can strafe jump before/as the second bite lands. It was also already shown that the acceleration of strafe jump is in fact faster than skulk walk speed, and can put you the distance of a full command chair away. Feel free to research actual metrics and in-game measures to try to debunk this, but just saying "nuh uh" to stats that have been researched isn't a valid counter-argument.
local kStrafeJumpForce = 1
local kStrafeJumpDelay = 0.7
function Marine:ModifyJump(input, velocity, jumpVelocity)
local isStrafeJump = input.move.z == 0 and input.move.x ~= 0
if isStrafeJump and self:GetTimeGroundTouched() + kStrafeJumpDelay < Shared.GetTime() then
local strafeJumpDirection = GetNormalizedVector(self:GetViewCoords():TransformVector(input.move))
jumpVelocity:Add(strafeJumpDirection * kStrafeJumpForce)
jumpVelocity.y = jumpVelocity.y * 0.8
self.strafeJumped = true
else
self.strafeJumped = false
end
jumpVelocity:Scale(self:GetSlowSpeedModifier())
end
Care to explain how a strafe jump alone is faster than the accel of a skulk, or can magically move a marine out of range that you are correctly predicting and following as a skulk?
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.
With these numbers you are assuming the following things:
1) The marine starts shooting at the exact same time as the first bite lands, i.e. reacts in a time of 0,00s to an ambushing skulk
2) The marine doesn't miss a single bullet
3) The skulk is bad at prediction and cannot predict where the marine is about to jump
So in effect, you're assuming that the marine has aimbot and FTL reflexes, while the skulk just sits there pressing W and M1.
You can't argue with the balance - the balance is maybe intended as it is right now, so you're getting forced to group up as alien. It's like argueing in Starcraft "The bezerker is so much stronger than the zergling" - right so, but zerglings move in groups.
Imo the only valid argument is that SJ just looks and feels a little awkward / "unrealistic" (realism is no argument either tho). But without SJ, the game loses a significant part of the "archievable skill ceiling", the game becomes "easier" and the distinction between good / bad players becomes smaller (because you simply take away a technique that mostly only advanced players use).
Result: If you take out SJ, give marine something else that has to be "learned" or "trained", and the balance has to be maintained. We should really start to talk about what that could be.
sigh... a strafe jump doesn't just instantly teleport you away from a skulk... if a skulk bites you once and hits his parasite and your not yet moving... YOU CANNOT get out of range even with a strafe jump at that point if the skulk keeps following you... Its like you suddenly forget that the skulk can accelerate just like the marine can, and also has a higher max speed. Strafe jump adds only 1 m/s to the direction you jump in, or .5m over the half second to the second bite... which is about 1/3 the bite range iirc. Please stop making things up about strafe jump, its really getting old.
People miss bites now because marines can change directions quickly with their higher accel, and because weird collisions can leave you slowed down when colliding with entities... but that is generally only when ambushing a marine moving directly away from you. Many alien players are having a much harder time predicting the marines movement - If you go left and the marine goes right, strafe jump is not responsible for that, YOU as a player are. Before it was much easier to see that and correct yourself because the marines accel was so low, now its not nearly as forgiving.
Care to explain how a strafe jump alone is faster than the accel of a skulk, or can magically move a marine out of range that you are correctly predicting and following as a skulk?
Yes i care. You forget one thing : The almighty LAG and prediction system.
I follow them correctly and regularly see teleportation. I have a Core I7 (close to 150fps in RR), good pings (30-80), many servers. Same syndrome for all players using SJ.
These things have been explained on this thread page 11 (me and Kamamura).
@UncleCrunch: I'm out of this thread, but just wanted to suggest that you might want to look into your installation of NS2. I have an old i7 860 running at 3.8GHz, and I don't see any of these teleportation issues that you describe on my setup. And I'm running at rock solid 120fps @120Hz with lightboost, so I *really would* see it if there was something not smooth happening...
You can't argue with the balance - the balance is maybe intended as it is right now, so you're getting forced to group up as alien. It's like argueing in Starcraft "The bezerker is so much stronger than the zergling" - right so, but zerglings move in groups.
What a crappy analogy. In Starcraft, you forgot to add, Zergs have always numerical superiority due to cheaper, fast producible units. On the other hand, NS2 is a competition of even teams, so if you have a "balance" where 2 basic skulks are needed to kill 2 basic marines, then you, sir, have a problem, not "balance".
As for grouping, I thought that everybody and their cat understands that the larger the group, the greater the marine advantage.
FPS numbers have nothing to do with the game logic, so good fps means nothing here. You can have 1000 fps and still have lag, bugs or server performance issues.
@UncleCrunch: I'm out of this thread, but just wanted to suggest that you might want to look into your installation of NS2. I have an old i7 860 running at 3.8GHz, and I don't see any of these teleportation issues that you describe on my setup. And I'm running at rock solid 120fps @120Hz with lightboost, so I *really would* see it if there was something not smooth happening...
Your problem is that you fail to understand that almost nobody plays on 120Hz, so their problems with lower framerates in twitchy, messy close combat NS2 offers are greatly exaggerated.
Yes i care. You forget one thing : The almighty LAG and prediction system.
I follow them correctly and regularly see teleportation. I have a Core I7 (close to 150fps in RR), good pings (30-80), many servers. Same syndrome for all players using SJ.
Yeah, there are a lot of servers that push their player limit beyond what their server can handle. It gives the game a bad rep, as most people think it's just related to the game. There are a handful of well known servers that have been suffering from stuttering/rubber banding/teleporting for months and months, and you know what's sad? They're almost always full. The performance label on the server browser doesn't do a good job of warning users either, which ironically I think it's there for. They need to change it so that it shows an average result over a period of time instead of a real-time value. Then maybe people would stop gathering on these awful servers.
@UncleCrunch: I'm out of this thread, but just wanted to suggest that you might want to look into your installation of NS2. I have an old i7 860 running at 3.8GHz, and I don't see any of these teleportation issues that you describe on my setup. And I'm running at rock solid 120fps @120Hz with lightboost, so I *really would* see it if there was something not smooth happening...
FPS numbers have nothing to do with the game logic, so good fps means nothing here. You can have 1000 fps and still have lag, bugs or server performance issues.
I was just suggesting: "no it's not a CPU problem not network etc..."
Tested with another player. We see the same kind of things. so...
I'm not saying you don't have the problem with it, but I AM saying that I don't: that means it's not a 100% universally true problem with the game. I may be an exception here (though then you'd have to ask why...).
Your problem is that you fail to understand that almost nobody plays on 120Hz, so their problems with lower framerates in twitchy, messy close combat NS2 offers are greatly exaggerated.
I don't fail to understand it at all, I have only recently moved over to 120Hz or 144Hz from 60Hz.
The problems that people face with the game are exacerbated by running at 60Hz. One solution is to slow down *everything* in the game such that it is all smooth at 60Hz. I don't think anyone in their right mind would suggest that that is a good idea. It's a twitch FPS game after all...
However, it is unfair for people to blame NS2 itself for problems that arise solely as a result of using a slower refresh rate in a fast-paced game.
If the teleporting problem you describe turns out to be an issue that is purely a result of not seeing enough frames, then it's really a hardware issue at the user's end and nothing that UWE can do anything about, short of slowing down absolutely everything (especially including aiming/turning speed).
Now please don't get me wrong here, more performance is needed and would be welcomed by ALL players. If teleporting is a problem that arises due to client performance, then it's unreasonable for UWE to say 'buy a better computer' if it has worked okay in the past (which I assume it has). In which case, improved performance is the answer and the criticism is fair.
None of this has anything to do with SJ, which (from this thread) most people would be happy to lose or see nerfed, for a variety of reasons (right or wrong). As has been said already, Sewlek's mod has already incorporated a nerf. There's really not a lot more to say.
You can't argue with the balance - the balance is maybe intended as it is right now, so you're getting forced to group up as alien. It's like argueing in Starcraft "The bezerker is so much stronger than the zergling" - right so, but zerglings move in groups.
What a crappy analogy. In Starcraft, you forgot to add, Zergs have always numerical superiority due to cheaper, fast producible units. On the other hand, NS2 is a competition of even teams, so if you have a "balance" where 2 basic skulks are needed to kill 2 basic marines, then you, sir, have a problem, not "balance".
As for grouping, I thought that everybody and their cat understands that the larger the group, the greater the marine advantage.
Skulks can always group up and attack the marines, or if all the marines are in the same place, attack somewhere where the marines aren't. Marines cannot group up and attack the aliens because the skulks will then just go somewhere else to do damage. Of course there are situations where the marines can attack a position with full force to which the aliens have to respond, but that's due to poor scouting or some other form of being outplayed, not due to balance.
@Kamamura
That's what people don't understand when they talk about "balance". Skulks are much faster, can use vents. If there are two seperate marines and two skulks, the skulks should always take out one marine together and then the second one together.
Please also consider my other points. Simply taking out SJ is a massive nerf and lowers the skill ceiling, you have to compensate for this. I also disagree that SJ is "easy to learn", just take a look at pub games. SJ can also be "mastered", if you follow the top teams 1st person you can see them SJ by turning extremely fast away and back on target in maybe ¼ sec.
Throwing more skulks at marines only works if you have more skulks than marines to throw, or if one is wandering around by themselves. Saying "duh just use more skulks" is not a valid argument, mostly because the counter argument is "duh, what if they just use more marines". This is why we're speaking on a 1:1 basis as these are the basic units of the game are probably the only units that are suppose to have any sort of 1:1 potency outside of economy so that initial economy advantage is determined by skill and not unit potency.
Also SJ is stupid easy to use, it does not raise the skill ceiling of the game. If we're going by pub games that means that we should view concepts like harassing RT's, or making a gorge fort "esoteric".
The term "packplay" usually refers to aliens.... the key is higher mobilty, as stated several times already now.
SJ is not easy, you have to break your line of sight, predict the alien movement, know in what direction you have space left, and - most importantly - keep your crosshair on the target while constantly jumping arround. Without strafejump you lose these aspects, marine will become easier to play / easier to "master".
Not saying SJ is "the best option", but simply taking it out without an alternative is maybe not the best option as well.
Throwing more skulks at marines only works if you have more skulks than marines to throw, or if one is wandering around by themselves. Saying "duh just use more skulks" is not a valid argument, mostly because the counter argument is "duh, what if they just use more marines". This is why we're speaking on a 1:1 basis as these are the basic units of the game are probably the only units that are suppose to have any sort of 1:1 potency outside of economy so that initial economy advantage is determined by skill and not unit potency.
Skulks have magnitudes of more say in where the fights happen than marines do, especially when this 'problem' usually occurs before marines have secured phase gates.
Consider a 6vs6 game (applies to any player number though)
- 5 marines pushing the hive or an RT? 5 skulks attack the marine base or a PG. If scouted early (as it should), the skulks will reach the marine position before the marines reach their target, forcing the marines to fall back or lose assets. Fight: 5 skulks vs 0 marines
- 4 marines pushing? 5 skulks attack the base or a PG. Same as above. Fight: 5 skulks vs 1 marine.
- 3 marines pushing? Here you have to make a decision. Depending on how well fortified (mines, turrets?) a marine base is, it can be wiser to deal with the push or deal damage elsewhere. Fight: 5 skulks vs 3 marines or 5 skulks vs 2 marines.
- 2 marines pushing? Group up and kill the attackers. Fight: 5 skulks vs 2 marines.
- 1 marine pushing? Group up and kill the attacker. Fight 5 skulks vs 1 marine.
- 0 marines pushing? Marines lose because of lack of map control and alien RT harassment.
There are all kinds of things to mix this table up, like skulks biting RTs, marines capping RTs, dual-pronged pushes or players from either team being out of position i.e. outplayed, but the bottom line is that the skulks are more often than not the ones who decide the aliens:marines ratio of an engagement, and the fact that both teams only have the same amount of field players has nothing to do with individual battles.
@Asmodies: The fact that aliens can move around the map so much faster than marines means that they CAN put more skulks than marines in any position at any time, as Therius says. For this reason, they are weaker in combat on a per unit basis to make up for the fact that they have higher mobility.
And whoever disagreed with my previous post, what the literal? There's nothing in there that's factually incorrect or even arguable. If you disagree with what I said, have the guts to say why.
@Asmodies: The fact that aliens can move around the map so much faster than marines means that they CAN put more skulks than marines in any position at any time, as Therius says. For this reason, they are weaker in combat on a per unit basis to make up for the fact that they have higher mobility.
And whoever disagreed with my previous post, what the literal? There's nothing in there that's factually incorrect or even arguable. If you disagree with what I said, have the guts to say why.
Wrong. Once gates are up, Marines move the fastest and can cover the most ground the quickest. And then there are those things the marines have, what are they called again? Oh yeah, Jetpacks.
Well, against a jetpacker, strafe jump is your smallest problem.
Edit: For some reason I can't add a new post so I will just add: Simply consider the point that skulks are -supposed- to be inferior to marines, because they are -supposed- to group up for an effective attack, based on their higher mobility. In this whole thread, I yet have to read anything that can refute this point.
Well, against a jetpacker, strafe jump is your smallest problem.
I agree, but I was making one of my points, that a Marine can be just as fast as an Alien with a jetpack. Matter of fact, one of my favorite things to do is chase down Aliens after a beacon when I have a jetpack. It's also a common tactic called out by most commanders if the Aliens retreat from a beacon.
Yes i care. You forget one thing : The almighty LAG and prediction system.
I follow them correctly and regularly see teleportation. I have a Core I7 (close to 150fps in RR), good pings (30-80), many servers. Same syndrome for all players using SJ.
Yeah, there are a lot of servers that push their player limit beyond what their server can handle. It gives the game a bad rep, as most people think it's just related to the game. There are a handful of well known servers that have been suffering from stuttering/rubber banding/teleporting for months and months, and you know what's sad? They're almost always full. The performance label on the server browser doesn't do a good job of warning users either, which ironically I think it's there for. They need to change it so that it shows an average result over a period of time instead of a real-time value. Then maybe people would stop gathering on these awful servers.
That would not even be possible to do for all servers and, most it would do is show 98%. Because 98% of the time a server is at 30 ticks a second
sigh... a strafe jump doesn't just instantly teleport you away from a skulk... if a skulk bites you once and hits his parasite and your not yet moving... YOU CANNOT get out of range even with a strafe jump at that point if the skulk keeps following you... Its like you suddenly forget that the skulk can accelerate just like the marine can, and also has a higher max speed. Strafe jump adds only 1 m/s to the direction you jump in, or .5m over the half second to the second bite... which is about 1/3 the bite range iirc. Please stop making things up about strafe jump, its really getting old.
People miss bites now because marines can change directions quickly with their higher accel, and because weird collisions can leave you slowed down when colliding with entities... but that is generally only when ambushing a marine moving directly away from you. Many alien players are having a much harder time predicting the marines movement - If you go left and the marine goes right, strafe jump is not responsible for that, YOU as a player are. Before it was much easier to see that and correct yourself because the marines accel was so low, now its not nearly as forgiving.
Its not just that marine acceleration was buffed, but since 249 skulk acceleration has been nerfed. The skulk gained momentum, meaning it cannot physically turn to bite a marine faster. If you are honestly arguging that its ok the skulk hasd to pick a random direction that the marine will also jump in, then thats insane. But even then, marine accels faster than skulks, impossible to win that fight sorry you lose the argument.
Comments
In the current state I feel like a single mistake by a skulk lowers it's chance of victory a lot more than a single mistake by a marine. The increased maneuverability (increased acceleration, SJ) has pushed things a little too far in their favour.
Even in really favorable situations for a skulk melee is at a disadvantage, the obvious counterargument is "well never 1v1", but TTK numbers apply to *all* engagements. SJ gives good marines enough time to come out of a situation that is suppose to be a disadvantage and turn it into an advantage.
People miss bites now because marines can change directions quickly with their higher accel, and because weird collisions can leave you slowed down when colliding with entities... but that is generally only when ambushing a marine moving directly away from you. Many alien players are having a much harder time predicting the marines movement - If you go left and the marine goes right, strafe jump is not responsible for that, YOU as a player are. Before it was much easier to see that and correct yourself because the marines accel was so low, now its not nearly as forgiving.
as an aside, I've hated marines jumping like rabbits in combat since NS 1, and think it looks obnoxious, as well as making little sense, particularly how high they jump.
marines keep jumping outside fighting or before being hit, while aliens can have a melee advantage. thoughts?
It went from skulks running around marines to confuse them to marines running around the aliens.
If you want to assert Ironhorse is making things up about TTK, then I don't know what to tell you. I guess you're just not playing against marines that can strafe jump before/as the second bite lands. It was also already shown that the acceleration of strafe jump is in fact faster than skulk walk speed, and can put you the distance of a full command chair away. Feel free to research actual metrics and in-game measures to try to debunk this, but just saying "nuh uh" to stats that have been researched isn't a valid counter-argument.
local kStrafeJumpForce = 1 local kStrafeJumpDelay = 0.7 function Marine:ModifyJump(input, velocity, jumpVelocity) local isStrafeJump = input.move.z == 0 and input.move.x ~= 0 if isStrafeJump and self:GetTimeGroundTouched() + kStrafeJumpDelay < Shared.GetTime() then local strafeJumpDirection = GetNormalizedVector(self:GetViewCoords():TransformVector(input.move)) jumpVelocity:Add(strafeJumpDirection * kStrafeJumpForce) jumpVelocity.y = jumpVelocity.y * 0.8 self.strafeJumped = true else self.strafeJumped = false end jumpVelocity:Scale(self:GetSlowSpeedModifier()) endCare to explain how a strafe jump alone is faster than the accel of a skulk, or can magically move a marine out of range that you are correctly predicting and following as a skulk?With these numbers you are assuming the following things:
1) The marine starts shooting at the exact same time as the first bite lands, i.e. reacts in a time of 0,00s to an ambushing skulk
2) The marine doesn't miss a single bullet
3) The skulk is bad at prediction and cannot predict where the marine is about to jump
So in effect, you're assuming that the marine has aimbot and FTL reflexes, while the skulk just sits there pressing W and M1.
Imo the only valid argument is that SJ just looks and feels a little awkward / "unrealistic" (realism is no argument either tho). But without SJ, the game loses a significant part of the "archievable skill ceiling", the game becomes "easier" and the distinction between good / bad players becomes smaller (because you simply take away a technique that mostly only advanced players use).
Result: If you take out SJ, give marine something else that has to be "learned" or "trained", and the balance has to be maintained. We should really start to talk about what that could be.
Yes i care. You forget one thing : The almighty LAG and prediction system.
I follow them correctly and regularly see teleportation. I have a Core I7 (close to 150fps in RR), good pings (30-80), many servers. Same syndrome for all players using SJ.
These things have been explained on this thread page 11 (me and Kamamura).
and here for the distances
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/132450/keep-marine-strafejumping/p3
What a crappy analogy. In Starcraft, you forgot to add, Zergs have always numerical superiority due to cheaper, fast producible units. On the other hand, NS2 is a competition of even teams, so if you have a "balance" where 2 basic skulks are needed to kill 2 basic marines, then you, sir, have a problem, not "balance".
As for grouping, I thought that everybody and their cat understands that the larger the group, the greater the marine advantage.
Your problem is that you fail to understand that almost nobody plays on 120Hz, so their problems with lower framerates in twitchy, messy close combat NS2 offers are greatly exaggerated.
Yeah, there are a lot of servers that push their player limit beyond what their server can handle. It gives the game a bad rep, as most people think it's just related to the game. There are a handful of well known servers that have been suffering from stuttering/rubber banding/teleporting for months and months, and you know what's sad? They're almost always full. The performance label on the server browser doesn't do a good job of warning users either, which ironically I think it's there for. They need to change it so that it shows an average result over a period of time instead of a real-time value. Then maybe people would stop gathering on these awful servers.
I was just suggesting: "no it's not a CPU problem not network etc..."
Tested with another player. We see the same kind of things. so...
I don't fail to understand it at all, I have only recently moved over to 120Hz or 144Hz from 60Hz.
The problems that people face with the game are exacerbated by running at 60Hz. One solution is to slow down *everything* in the game such that it is all smooth at 60Hz. I don't think anyone in their right mind would suggest that that is a good idea. It's a twitch FPS game after all...
However, it is unfair for people to blame NS2 itself for problems that arise solely as a result of using a slower refresh rate in a fast-paced game.
If the teleporting problem you describe turns out to be an issue that is purely a result of not seeing enough frames, then it's really a hardware issue at the user's end and nothing that UWE can do anything about, short of slowing down absolutely everything (especially including aiming/turning speed).
Now please don't get me wrong here, more performance is needed and would be welcomed by ALL players. If teleporting is a problem that arises due to client performance, then it's unreasonable for UWE to say 'buy a better computer' if it has worked okay in the past (which I assume it has). In which case, improved performance is the answer and the criticism is fair.
None of this has anything to do with SJ, which (from this thread) most people would be happy to lose or see nerfed, for a variety of reasons (right or wrong). As has been said already, Sewlek's mod has already incorporated a nerf. There's really not a lot more to say.
Skulks can always group up and attack the marines, or if all the marines are in the same place, attack somewhere where the marines aren't. Marines cannot group up and attack the aliens because the skulks will then just go somewhere else to do damage. Of course there are situations where the marines can attack a position with full force to which the aliens have to respond, but that's due to poor scouting or some other form of being outplayed, not due to balance.
This is extremely basic.
That's what people don't understand when they talk about "balance". Skulks are much faster, can use vents. If there are two seperate marines and two skulks, the skulks should always take out one marine together and then the second one together.
Please also consider my other points. Simply taking out SJ is a massive nerf and lowers the skill ceiling, you have to compensate for this. I also disagree that SJ is "easy to learn", just take a look at pub games. SJ can also be "mastered", if you follow the top teams 1st person you can see them SJ by turning extremely fast away and back on target in maybe ¼ sec.
Also SJ is stupid easy to use, it does not raise the skill ceiling of the game. If we're going by pub games that means that we should view concepts like harassing RT's, or making a gorge fort "esoteric".
SJ is not easy, you have to break your line of sight, predict the alien movement, know in what direction you have space left, and - most importantly - keep your crosshair on the target while constantly jumping arround. Without strafejump you lose these aspects, marine will become easier to play / easier to "master".
Not saying SJ is "the best option", but simply taking it out without an alternative is maybe not the best option as well.
Skulks have magnitudes of more say in where the fights happen than marines do, especially when this 'problem' usually occurs before marines have secured phase gates.
Consider a 6vs6 game (applies to any player number though)
- 5 marines pushing the hive or an RT? 5 skulks attack the marine base or a PG. If scouted early (as it should), the skulks will reach the marine position before the marines reach their target, forcing the marines to fall back or lose assets. Fight: 5 skulks vs 0 marines
- 4 marines pushing? 5 skulks attack the base or a PG. Same as above. Fight: 5 skulks vs 1 marine.
- 3 marines pushing? Here you have to make a decision. Depending on how well fortified (mines, turrets?) a marine base is, it can be wiser to deal with the push or deal damage elsewhere. Fight: 5 skulks vs 3 marines or 5 skulks vs 2 marines.
- 2 marines pushing? Group up and kill the attackers. Fight: 5 skulks vs 2 marines.
- 1 marine pushing? Group up and kill the attacker. Fight 5 skulks vs 1 marine.
- 0 marines pushing? Marines lose because of lack of map control and alien RT harassment.
There are all kinds of things to mix this table up, like skulks biting RTs, marines capping RTs, dual-pronged pushes or players from either team being out of position i.e. outplayed, but the bottom line is that the skulks are more often than not the ones who decide the aliens:marines ratio of an engagement, and the fact that both teams only have the same amount of field players has nothing to do with individual battles.
This is all extremely basic.
And whoever disagreed with my previous post, what the literal? There's nothing in there that's factually incorrect or even arguable. If you disagree with what I said, have the guts to say why.
Wrong. Once gates are up, Marines move the fastest and can cover the most ground the quickest. And then there are those things the marines have, what are they called again? Oh yeah, Jetpacks.
Edit: For some reason I can't add a new post so I will just add: Simply consider the point that skulks are -supposed- to be inferior to marines, because they are -supposed- to group up for an effective attack, based on their higher mobility. In this whole thread, I yet have to read anything that can refute this point.
I agree, but I was making one of my points, that a Marine can be just as fast as an Alien with a jetpack. Matter of fact, one of my favorite things to do is chase down Aliens after a beacon when I have a jetpack. It's also a common tactic called out by most commanders if the Aliens retreat from a beacon.
That would not even be possible to do for all servers and, most it would do is show 98%. Because 98% of the time a server is at 30 ticks a second