Xeno Spam
Armymonger
The spacebearing Country of America Join Date: 2014-04-04 Member: 195135Members
The spacebearing Country of America Join Date: 2014-04-04 Member: 195135Members
Its probably been said before, and it probably has been given a good discussion...
But I hate Xenos.
In my regular NS2 games, I hardly see xenos for good reasons, WASTE OF RES WHEN SPAMMED.
Why bother turning yourself into a walking bomb that May or may not Kill a large group of rhines, When you could do the same thing with a skilled Fade, lerk, or Onos at much longer survival rates?
However in NS2 COMBAT MOD, Well great, the shoe is on the other foot. Let games and players progress long enough and then Alien players can Xeno themselves up, Run right into a group, And go Kersplat for the rest of the game. At No cost.
Its a Free Xenocide!
I don't know if this needs some sort of limit to avoid frusterations and to show how much of a jerk you are at being Kamikazing master, because this kinda fits along the lines of CAMPING.
Its a valid strategy, just its very annoying.
Does anyone feel this needs a limit of some sort?
But I hate Xenos.
In my regular NS2 games, I hardly see xenos for good reasons, WASTE OF RES WHEN SPAMMED.
Why bother turning yourself into a walking bomb that May or may not Kill a large group of rhines, When you could do the same thing with a skilled Fade, lerk, or Onos at much longer survival rates?
However in NS2 COMBAT MOD, Well great, the shoe is on the other foot. Let games and players progress long enough and then Alien players can Xeno themselves up, Run right into a group, And go Kersplat for the rest of the game. At No cost.
Its a Free Xenocide!
I don't know if this needs some sort of limit to avoid frusterations and to show how much of a jerk you are at being Kamikazing master, because this kinda fits along the lines of CAMPING.
Its a valid strategy, just its very annoying.
Does anyone feel this needs a limit of some sort?
Comments
Oh you just spent 38 res on jp/sg? Allow me to use my free lifeform and blow you and your fellow friends up.
Over and over and over and over
There is a server or mod called "Competitive Combat" that removes flamers/gl/xeno
Marines also get the advantage of spawning as their lifeform in combat(jp, exo, all their upgrades) they can move out as soon as they spawn, aliens typically have to find a safe spot to egg(if main hive is under fire, then go lerk/fade/onos.
2 things. Xeno costs you as a skulk absolutely nothing. There is no waste of res at all. So, you've got it quite backwards between combat and vanilla. Skulk upgrades dont cost anything. So you get your celerity, your aura, and your cara all for free, then blow yourself up in a group of rines. This costs them money for whatever weapon/accessory they had.
2nd thing. It takes at least four upgrade points in combat to unlock xeno. Thus, it does tax the player more, however the benefit is that if you successfully xeno, no marines will get points for your death.
There is really no reason to complain about xeno IMO. It's a MUCH NEEDED ability for 3 and 4 hive aliens who are not able to crush a marine turtle. That late in the game, the snowball effect should be taking over already and the marines should be on a slippery slope to defeat anyways. So if you're getting xeno'd all over the place... weld your buddies, dont stand in bunches, and kill the skulks before they get into xeno range. If you can't combat it, then you deserve to lose. That's just what xeno's for.
I would argue that the solution would be to give marines a reason to have 3rd tech point that would end game winners of the same power can calibur as xeno or contaminate. A super weapon or ability.
Perhaps the ability to fill a room with nanites that repair any marine unit or structure in a large area (counterpart to contaminate).
Not sure what the counterpart to xeno would be, maybe everyone spawns equipped with hand grenades? Or maybe some devastating ability.
They need to be game enders is what I'm saying, and it creates a desperate struggle to get that third tech point. From marine perspective, xenocide is demoralizing. For aliens there is nothing (that costs free) that would worry aliens other than map control.
And no exo is not a game ender.
Marines already have good end game tech and aliens don't turtle well. Arcs are great end game tech. Exo's if used properly are good end game tech, and with this one I refer to exo thread where you have posted. A shotgun jp is really hard to kill already, especially if they rush together.
Marines need better teamwork not better tech. Better tech would make marines with teamwork OP.
Oops, My bad, I kinda refrain from playing aliens, So I assumed there was a cost, Im not being biased or anything.
I was under the impression that Xenos costed something because I see it Spammed More in Combat mod than Regular games so I came to the assumption that it was Free in Combat and Pricy in Regular.
And yeah, at that point the game is pretty much a Complete loss for Rhines.
Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly enough. 3 (fully upgraded) Hives for aliens doesn't guarantee a win for aliens, but it generally means the aliens are at advantage and there is a lot of work for the marines to come back from it.
Arcs don't need 3 tech points to build, are expensive, and require defending to make use of, if they were as powerful as you describe then every game would be won by marines if this was true.
Xeno costs nothing and increases the skulks potential greatly, they also get Contaminate at 9 Biomass and it behaves much like a super weapon nuke with whips. These are things that are straight benefits the lowest demoniator and opens up a very powerful commander ability to end games and break stale mates.
Exos? No. Just No.
Teamwork, assuming both teams are performing equal "amounts of teamwork" that argument doesn't hold up.
I for one would like to see the aliens something to fear should the marines get a 3rd tech point, other than another phase gate/beacon location.
If you look at other RTS's like C&C or SC. There are usually High Tech Nukes or Game Enders. Aliens have this, marines don't.
Has this ever been tried for NS2? Like a cool nuclear-BOOM-thing with a 3 min-public-viewable timer?
I think it would be cool to introduce (as a mod i guess).
Maybe:
Iron-curtain for aliens
Particle cannon for marines
Edit: or actually, maybe it should be centered around a player, not so much commander-spam. Like an Exo carrying a huge mine or a red-hot gorge going supernova.
when xeno appears the marines just concede
I remember it being explained that would be no 'end-game' tech for any team. While the balance will shift in their favour the more they have, there was never meant to be an RTS style 'END NOW' button.
End now button for aliens:
Anyways Contaminate can be countered by arcs sure, but for the aliens it's low risk assault that compliments well with an sizable attack or to hit two bases at once.
Marines don't really have anything that they can deploy with as much ease. They need to commit man power and resources to take out an entrenched hive location. And it's usually slow.
An interesting counterpart would be like a time bomb. Teleport it into alien base. Aliens can bile or attack it to stop it, and has a fixed timer (say max 30 sec) and it requires 3 tech points. On the other hand the longer it stays there the more damage it does when detonated. Making for a similar yet different game play as contaminate.
Contaminate is sustained but this would be burst damage.
3 CC is too low of a requirement for end game tech, 3 CC = 30 res. You can have that within one minute if team splits and rushes for two tech points. Aliens need 230 res to get to biomass 9, not even mentioning time it takes to grow hives and upgrade biomass.
Now, if it would require upgrade on every CC (like biomass for hives), that has fair price and long upgrade time, that'd be whole different story.
If somebody asked me, I'd like endgame tech to be there just for lolz, say for both teams, it requires all tech points on map excluding one (3 for veil and eclipse, 4 for other official maps), then it costs a lot of tres to research and it take very much time. Then, marines can buy speical end game exo, and aliens can by special end game onos, both cost 100 pres. End game exo has no weapons but fists, but he carries damn nuke with it, and end game onos has no speical abilities, but onocide. Purpose for both is to rush into enemy base and go boom, exploding everything in the room. Preferably, with some nice special effects.
skip to 20secs.
I want a Spider tank as Endgame... for rhines
It's not rocket science.
Marines turtling on 1 base?
Cyst the entire map. Cap all harvesters. Get healing/shift/shade stations both sides of marine spawn. Target any exos and JP marines as a priority: you need to kill the marine pres and these units cannot be recycled. Get plenty of oni, some gorges a lerk for umbra and a decent fade or two to mop up stragglers, and rush the CC.
Aliens on 1 hive?
Get all extractors. Cover all lines out of the hive. Set up obs around the map to cover cheeky gorge tunnel locations and ensure any res-biting skulks are cleaned up by 1-2 JP/SG marines on scouting duty. The rest of the team is dedicated to ensuring that no alien escapes the hive location. Set up arcs and turrets to help. If you can't arc the hive easily, get entire team of JP/SG marines and rush the hive with nerve gas support, or go for egg-lock.
If the opponent has more map control than this, then your aim is to reduce their map control. You don't need a nuke to win the game, you just need some teamwork.
NUKES! NUKES! NUKES! NUKES!
:P
I don't think the problem is ending the game... but how long it takes sometimes.