Comp Strategy - Marine Limitations vs. Kharaa

DeskLamp

It seems to be watching competitive matches that there is a discrepancy between a wide usage of Kharaa capabilities vs. a narrow focus on Marine capabilities.

By this I mean that you see Aliens use a variety of strategies, every single lifeform gets a look in with a variety of combinations, and each Hive type and drifter ability is used to varying degrees.

However I have rarely (if ever) seen in competitive play the use of flamethrowers, grenades, exo-suits, grenade launchers etc. It will always boil down to upgrades vs. phases, shotguns a must, jetpacks as the closer with the potential option of late arcs and/or early sentries.

What I am wondering is...

Is this a result of these items not being viable strategic options given the others available? And if so, how could these be improved to provide a greater level of variety?;

or

Is this a result of a lack of experimentation on the part of competitive teams to explore the potential for these options?

Ren26

Im not convinced Aliens have as much upgrade variety as you say.

Shade is mostly redundant at this point, although I will admit the choice between crag/shift hive is a balanced one.

Lifeform upgrades arent fair either: fade spells are much weaker than gorge or lerk spells.

And shells/spurs are generally a better investment than lifeform upgrades because they benefit all lifeforms, so you will generally see those as a higher priority in each game.

Stuff like exos and grenades are expensive and not incredibly valuable for that expense. Flamers are cool but a shotgunner is generally more valuable.

Roobubba

There is the occasional use of grenade launchers and flamethrowers in comp play, but predominantly it is shotguns. The bottom line is that in order to make a flamer or GL *really* worth going for in 6v6, it would have to be good enough against lifeforms such that you wouldn't need 2-3 others guarding that player while they do the structure damage. Then what would happen in pubs? Everyone would get flamers and rape face continually as they'd be way too overpowered in higher player count servers.
Both flamers and grenade launchers do have a niche use, and if deployed carefully can be very effective, but it really is a niche use. 5 shotguns decimates most things very quickly. 4 shotguns and a flamer is fantastic in a hive push to stop whips, healing, hydras etc, but outside of that hive push it's less useful...
Exos are just a liability. They can be effective in large servers where you have enough bodies to maintain map control, but in 6v6 there isn't enough mobility for them to be useful, plus each one needs at least 1 support guy with a welder or it will get swarmed VERY fast.

joshhh

Flamethrowers are trumped by a shotgun every time. Grenade launchers are EXTREMELY situational. Exos are too much of a Tres/Pres investment. It's a put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket kind of strat which is why most teams do not choose it. Hand grenades are slowly making their grand appearance in the comp scene. Gas grenades are a adequate counter to mucous spam when facing lots of PvE.

Ups + SG into gates seems to be the staple of comp marine play since it simply trumps all other options.

Jekt

Catalyst packs >> AA + Proto + Jet Research
Flamethrowers are garbage, GLs are so situational they're barely ever worth getting an AA for.
Exosuits are a disaster zone. Would take some serious tinkering to make them properly viable at a high level. Like being able to replace that damn fist with a welder.

As for alien strategy. There's probably more lifeform diversity than ever before right now. But all the alien commander boils down to is if you're going to be spamming enzyme or muccous today. And which whip to build first.

Actual evolution tech paths, like getting bio+bio+hive+bio+shift+lerk upgrades for an early umbra isn't going to be happening anytime soon in a match.

Neoken

Now, having one guy with a GL or flamethrower can be useful when you're doing a big 5-man push on a hive. But in all other situations than that though, they're a waste of res because they're just not good at killing lifeforms, not compared to shotties or just plain LMGs.

On pubs, where playercounts are bigger and skill levels of alien players are lower, one flamethrower/GL guy can be quite useful to throw in the mix, but in the comp 6vs6 format it would just be a liability for most of the time.

Gas grenades are all right though imo (cluster and pulse not really). And exos are not mobile/flexible enough and very expensive (pres and tres wise), making them again too much of a liability in 6vs6 matches, as compared to pub play.

Benson

IMO flamethrowers are VERY powerfull since they counter lerk abilities, make running away as a fade MUCH harder, pretty much remove gorges as a threat (even healing), and disable structures.

But yeah, when there are only 5 field players, all that doesn't really count for much since 5 shotguns can wipe that team and really have to worry about several groups of aliens attacking from different directions or waves. Basically, its great for public (18+ player) games, but not small (comp) games.

This is the same deal (IMO) with most marine tech that is unused in comp. Each player's general damage output and survivability is far too important to sacrafice for a more specialized role of anti-structure or support.

It would be great to see this change, but I don't see how without making the unused tech ridiculous for public games.

Mouse

Ren26 wrote: »

Shade is mostly redundant at this point, although I will admit the choice between crag/shift hive is a balanced one.

I've mostly (read: only) found shade to be useful when you're fielding 3+ lerks.

Benson

Shade:

Silence is OP as early skulks.

Ots

Flamethrowers are useful if you are behind and you're making big pushes against lifeform balls. The only downside is you need to be extremely good aim to track lerks/fades for the energy drain to be effective. We've had quite a few games where we've been screwing our early game unbeliavably and using jp/sg with one jp/flame in late game. So, i guess the word you're looking for is.. situational?

Grenades are usefull on hive pushes or against pve, and at least we use them quite often.

There was a great deal of 'doing the same thing' in comp scene few months back but there's been quite a lot of varying things being tried out, among the many the uprising of catalysts to counter lifeforms instead of jetpacks. But in general, theres only so many upgrade paths you can take.

b1.se

I'm terrible at balance issues, but here's two different options..

a) When GL/FLAMER is bought, let the marines LMG be placed on his back and be switchable with a cooldown.
b) Give the marines the option of replacing their GL/FLAMER to get their LMGs back from an amory, like a weapons locker.

Grissi

GL and Flamer have been brought up to competitive level before but they ended up way to powerful in public. Its pretty hard to balance them for both and Sewlek had to put it for hold to focus on other things. The simple reason is that marines don't have the manpower to spend on a weapon that can't fend of aliens effectively in 1v1.

The amount of things that is happening around marines can also be hard to spot since their positioning and tactical movement is such a huge part of their play. Marines don't have the mobility aliens have so their positioning is more unforgiving when engagements start. Mistiming a rotation and you can easily get picked off wasting a lot of valuable time for your team and loss of resources.

Exo-suits would be used if they could either build structures or use phase gates. If their fist would be a welder it would also make them pretty effective. Even if they have huge firepower the aliens can out maneuver pretty easily and wait for a chance to pick them off alone. Exo's are really strong if you can get a full push with them but that is very situational.

maD_maX_

Bring back Gl attachment for lmg!! And give whip back grenade smack.

amoral

Benson wrote: »

Shade:

Silence is OP as early skulks.

but better than Cara or enzyme+ echo?

Benson

@amoral

better than Cara? maybe....maybe

Better than enzyme+echo....NOPE, but maybe thats part of why shade is always last?

amoral

Benson wrote: »

@amoral

better than Cara? maybe....maybe

Better than enzyme+echo....NOPE, but maybe thats part of why shade is always last?

forgot mucus. hallucination just doesn't cut it.

Scatter

Why does the shade ability have to have the shade theme necessarily? Does anyone at this point require this to be an ability that maintains immersion and thematic consistency?

turtsmcgurt

i'm sure if the collision on the GL's grenades were fixed that it could potentially be viable. right now the client and server do not match up visually, making it hard to reliably hit fast moving targets with. not to mention to high interp

meatmachine

Scatter wrote: »

Why does the shade ability have to have the shade theme necessarily? Does anyone at this point require this to be an ability that maintains immersion and thematic consistency?

Good question

Neoken

b1.se wrote: »

I'm terrible at balance issues, but here's two different options..

a) When GL/FLAMER is bought, let the marines LMG be placed on his back and be switchable with a cooldown.
b) Give the marines the option of replacing their GL/FLAMER to get their LMGs back from an amory, like a weapons locker.

I really like this idea of being able to carry both actually. If the flamethower/GL would be a secondary weapon purchase, to replace your pistol, I can see them being used far more often, seeing as you don't have to be as vulnerable anymore when running from point A to point B. You'd be a lot more flexible and less of a liability. Of course it would need some tweaking to not make them OP.

Roobubba

Neoken wrote: »

b1.se wrote: »

I'm terrible at balance issues, but here's two different options..

a) When GL/FLAMER is bought, let the marines LMG be placed on his back and be switchable with a cooldown.
b) Give the marines the option of replacing their GL/FLAMER to get their LMGs back from an amory, like a weapons locker.

I really like this idea of being able to carry both actually. If the flamethower/GL would be a secondary weapon purchase, to replace your pistol, I can see them being used far more often, seeing as you don't have to be as vulnerable anymore when running from point A to point B. You'd be a lot more flexible and less of a liability. Of course it would need some tweaking to not make them OP.

Yup, like nerfing the damage to lifeforms!

Benson

Neoken wrote: »

b1.se wrote: »

I'm terrible at balance issues, but here's two different options..

a) When GL/FLAMER is bought, let the marines LMG be placed on his back and be switchable with a cooldown.
b) Give the marines the option of replacing their GL/FLAMER to get their LMGs back from an amory, like a weapons locker.

I really like this idea of being able to carry both actually. If the flamethower/GL would be a secondary weapon purchase, to replace your pistol, I can see them being used far more often, seeing as you don't have to be as vulnerable anymore when running from point A to point B. You'd be a lot more flexible and less of a liability. Of course it would need some tweaking to not make them OP.

Nerf like having an animation for putting away the weapon (draw in reverse?), then play the animation for drawing the LMG? That would eliminate the fast switching from Flamer to Shotgun (assuming you could still have a SG) or GL to LMG and still make the marine carrying them an easy target since they couldn't fire for a few seconds after trying to switch to an actual combat weapon.

Also, no more pistol for sniping and last ditch fighting.

I think this could work.

Geekavenger

Honestly I am pretty happy with both watching comp games as is, and playing in Pubs but if I had to do something to balance.

I feel like an alternate side arm, like a sub machine gun. Basically an LMG with a smaller clip (you could even justify decreasing the bullet damage, although i think normal bullet damage would make sense (just not pistol damage)) might make it more viable in the comp sphere... although then that is an even bigger res sink. But it would definitely switch things up, and make Flammer/GL purchases more reasonable for small teams.

Again with the Balancing for different communities though, this might be OP for 8v8+ games.

twiliteblue

GL and FT are particularly good counters against certain alien tech that are rarely used, such as Babblers, Umbra, Spores and Hallucinations. If those alien tech become more popular, then both teams would have more diverse gameplay.

Allowing marines to carry more than one primary weapon would be ridiculously overpowered. Marines already carry sidearms, pistols and axe (plus optional grenades) to fill all the roles (with varying effectiveness depending on their primary weapon of choice).

Personally, I'd rather see a tweaked Hypermutation (removed Shift upgrade) become available to all aliens.
While marines can switch weapons with teammates, and now even eject from Exos,
Aliens currently suffer from role stagnation, since there is little incentive (or resource) for anything above the Gorge to switch any other lifeform.

elodea

flamethrowers are pretty underated. Great way to become invisible

So tactics

current1y

I'll go as far as to say they are OP in pubs. Flamer with a jetpack can easily kill groups of skulks. Lerks, fades and onos are also on the menu. The main OP part is due to how fast they burn GROUPS of structures. 1 flamer walks into a forward base that has everything and as long as they keep all the objects on fire they are just lumps and don't do anything. At that point 7 seconds later....there goes 50 alien tres.

To fix it I would want the damage to aliens slightly nerfed (say 15%), magazine size reduced by 1/3 and burning alien buildings instead of loosing 100% of usage make them only work like 33% of the time or 50%.

EDIT: totally didn't see this thread was about "comp strategy". I guess I shoudl read the OP before i spout off responding to some ones post lol..

Locklear

You also can lower your opponents FPS by ~100 in combat depending on his graphical settings and how much of the effect he's experiencing :>

Scatter

So what happens to fps when alien buildings are critical and flinching like crazy ?

Locklear

Doesn't really lower any more than the video I posted.

BeerTent

All admit, I do find competitive play boring. Boring to watch, boring to play. (More-so boring to play with dull NSL maps, but that's a complaint for another day.) I've done a few PUG's, but 6v6 is just not enough to allow the wider variety for marine equipment. As others have said, the Grenade launcher requires someone to protect him. We get that no problem on 20 man servers, but in 6v6, you're down to 4 other players that can either cover other areas of the map, or cover you. Sure, you're important, but you ain't THAT important!

I've always figured, looking at the game, that 8v8 would be more natural, and allow for the largest host of strategies. But what do I know? I'm not a comp player, I just know game design.

joshhh

Exos, FT, and GL are really the only pieces of equipment that do not get used in comp. Comp play relies on a lot more individual responsibility to preform compared to pubs, which makes it seem dry to some.

Locklear wrote: »

You also can lower your opponents FPS by ~100 in combat depending on his graphical settings and how much of the effect he's experiencing :>

Now run through Vanilla tram south tunnel and do this. FPS COUNTER: -5