So the roadmap for NS2 is, all the comp stuff and anything the CDT member made as mods? :-?
Can you imagine lerk lift and bile bomb, do you guys remember the beta version of lerks with bile? Oh my god.
Im looking forward to seeing @meatmachine in action with Metabolize. Better start practicing my aim.
Lerk lift + bile would be hilarious! Also, no I have not read the rant about gorges in vents. I do often go into vents as a gorge though so it's probably a rant againt what I do
I don't understand the argument that lerk is getting the short straw, or that lerk isn't the best lifeform, because it definitely is the most important lifeform in the game right now in the right hands. You would be pretty silly not to go with regen on the lerk even after the nerf. Carapace doesn't provide much benefit, and if you are worried about taking a shotgun to the face as lerk with regen you are playing the lerk wrong.
You answered it yourself there - cara doesn't provide much benefit, just like how poorly the lerk scales with biomass compared to other lifeforms.
The lerk has only received nerfs since launch, in evasion viability, speed and accuracy (besides the bite rate increase which is aimed towards making it redundantly share a RT harass role) despite it being the most difficult class for players to learn.
Part of that difficulty is the role confusion at hand with bite being on Left Mouse Button players think they are skulks with wings and they just throw away their 25 pres (shotguns not needed for this to occur) and the other part is the fragility of the lifeform preventing enough time for users to learn how to use it properly.
So forgive me but I feel like the most used combat upgrade being useless, biomass not equally scaling, almost exclusively receiving nerfs since launch, and expecting the entire playerbase to avoid using the primary fire in most cases, ... is a lifeform getting the short end of the stick in balance as well as design.
This doesn't imply their usefulness when in a capable player's hands, however. It's just noting the unfortunate situation..
I don't understand the argument that lerk is getting the short straw, or that lerk isn't the best lifeform, because it definitely is the most important lifeform in the game right now in the right hands. You would be pretty silly not to go with regen on the lerk even after the nerf. Carapace doesn't provide much benefit, and if you are worried about taking a shotgun to the face as lerk with regen you are playing the lerk wrong.
You answered it yourself there - cara doesn't provide much benefit, just like how poorly the lerk scales with biomass compared to other lifeforms.
The lerk has only received nerfs since launch, in evasion viability, speed and accuracy (besides the bite rate increase which is aimed towards making it redundantly share a RT harass role) despite it being the most difficult class for players to learn.
Part of that difficulty is the role confusion at hand with bite being on Left Mouse Button players think they are skulks with wings and they just throw away their 25 pres (shotguns not needed for this to occur) and the other part is the fragility of the lifeform preventing enough time for users to learn how to use it properly.
So forgive me but I feel like the most used combat upgrade being useless, biomass not equally scaling, almost exclusively receiving nerfs since launch, and expecting the entire playerbase to avoid using the primary fire in most cases, ... is a lifeform getting the short end of the stick in balance as well as design.
This doesn't imply their usefulness when in a capable player's hands, however. It's just noting the unfortunate situation..
Hmm yet I think the best and most important lifeform in the game still is the lerk... So if that is the short straw idk what to say.
You can't talk about other issues with NS2 that are not specific to the lerk either. Learning curve is hardly an argument for a lerk buff.
Lerk bite is extremely situational, even more so with the recent lerk noise addition, but that doesn't mean you are discouraged to use it. There is always a place and time to lerk bite, which requires skill on the play and coordination with team mates. \
Regen or no regen, carapace or no carapace, it doesn't matter. Lerk is strong regardless.
And even if lerk has been nerfed so much, it still is the strongest, most crucial/important, powerful lifeform in the meta at the moment.
What I think we can agree on however, is that there is, always has been and probably always will be a design flaw with most of the lifeforms and what we like to call 'intuitive movement/gameplay' leading into a misunderstanding of how to play the lerk and what its purpose is, as you said in your comment above. Not only this, but I do think Lerk has the highest skill ceiling of any singular entity in the game, and requires an extreme amount of skill in terms of movement, aim, positional awareness and combat awareness. Which maybe is why people would like to see the lerk buffed.
There are other anomalies like hitreg, server perf, client perf, server setup, exploits in models/interp that make the lerk way way stronger as well in the right hands.
So the roadmap for NS2 is, all the comp stuff and anything the CDT member made as mods? :-?
Only initially, because a ton of work has gone into these, it would be silly of us not to use the best bits to our advantage and roll them into the game.
However our roadmap is far bigger and more ambitious in both tech and gameplay, as you've seen with the performance improvements in the last patch, and loading improvements in 268. Good things ahead! :-)
@sebb, I think most people are overexxagerating the basis of a lifeform that is needed, to a lifeform that is the most important. I can't think of a "balanced" round to be played with out the aliens needing all lifeforms to be used. In the same way that you need lerks to win rounds, you will need fades, and sometimes onos at a later time in the round, to have a fighting chance.
So how do you really regard the most important? The lerk just because it's the first? The fade because it can potentially end the round for you? Or Onos because it's the ultimate lifeform you can get, and making it easier(in most cases) to win rounds/stay in the game?
In most cases with the meta we have, or you could say with the teams we have, the lerks are our best players simply because they are the best players, not because of the lifeform they play. And that makes the "public view" a bit skewed.
And regarding a lerk without an upgade, sure you can do some damage with it but it's so much better with celerity/regen/scent, one of those things again that makes the gap between lifeforms even larger, fade without upgrades is meh, but still usefull. Onos.. not so much.
ps. Stop being a lerk fanboi, be a kitten fanboi *hint*.
@sebb, I think most people are overexxagerating the basis of a lifeform that is needed, to a lifeform that is the most important. I can't think of a "balanced" round to be played with out the aliens needing all lifeforms to be used. In the same way that you need lerks to win rounds, you will need fades, and sometimes onos at a later time in the round, to have a fighting chance.
So how do you really regard the most important? The lerk just because it's the first? The fade because it can potentially end the round for you? Or Onos because it's the ultimate lifeform you can get, and making it easier(in most cases) to win rounds/stay in the game?
In most cases with the meta we have, or you could say with the teams we have, the lerks are our best players simply because they are the best players, not because of the lifeform they play. And that makes the "public view" a bit skewed.
And regarding a lerk without an upgade, sure you can do some damage with it but it's so much better with celerity/regen/scent, one of those things again that makes the gap between lifeforms even larger, fade without upgrades is meh, but still usefull. Onos.. not so much.
ps. Stop being a lerk fanboi, be a kitten fanboi *hint*.
The lerk appears early enough in the game to start denying marines expansion/resources/pushing before they have higher tech (shotguns/ups). Marines will always struggle a bit when lerks are up unless the lerks are garbage.
The lerk appears early enough in the game to start denying marines expansion/resources/pushing before they have higher tech (shotguns/ups). Marines will always struggle a bit when lerks are up unless the lerks are garbage.
@Ots This is exactly why the lerk is the most important lifeform. The game is won or lost at lerk timing. (pretty much anyways) There is some wiggle room in there of course. Good teams adapt to lerks just like lerks adapt to higher tech (shotguns, w1,2 etc.)
I agree with your point about requiring the other lifeforms definitely. You 95% of the time need the higher lifeforms to finish off the game (basically if it isn't a stomp at lerk timing) but I never said you only needed lerks, I just said that lerks are the most important.
Also, remember that all of this is in the past few months with the recent/current meta. Remember it didn't always used to be like this in the b250 days with fade balls. All of this changes with balance updates and such.
Yeah it's a matter of opinion which you value the most, the turning point or the aspect that nails the coffin.
The aspects i've seen in some games being played(or have played in) are those exceptions, where mistakes happen and the other team is allowed to continue their tech, in those type of situations lerks loose their edge, and to me the fact that those situations can happen, that teams can in some way force themselves to get back into the game, shove the whole "most important lifeform" idealogy to the bin.
The aspects i've seen in some games being played(or have played in) are those exceptions, where mistakes happen and the other team is allowed to continue their tech, in those type of situations lerks loose their edge, and to me the fact that those situations can happen, that teams can in some way force themselves to get back into the game, shove the whole "most important lifeform" idealogy to the bin.
Of course, everyone that plays is human after all, and a good team will exploit mistakes, such as a lerk out of position or getting too close or something. If anything though that just reinforces the importance of the lifeform because if you lose it, marines gain an advantage, both in the longterm macro of pres and in engagements with higher tech vs skulks.
Lerks and Fades are important in the same way but in different timeframes, if Lerks flash, it will be hard for Fades to come out and do the job against higher tech, as marines will be able to push and deny resources, on the other hand, if Lerks survive but Fades flash, the team is pretty much screwed again because the Lerks cannot engage that late into the game in the same way since marines will have higher upgrades and shotguns.
Lerks are just the first important lifeform, and since that will define how the rest of the game goes (to get Fades up, etc)... well, it is pretty damn important...
I'd put lerk on the same level as fade in terms of importance: if you lose your fade(s) as soon as they pop, you're just as screwed as if your lerk(s) flash. It's just that the lerks pop sooner (and are quite frankly a whole lot more squishy) that it happens more often that a team loses due to bad/unlucky lerk fails than because of the fades.
Prem div lerks playing in gathers show how strong the lerk *can* be (and in the right hands, oh god it can be strong), but I don't think that means that the lerk should be generally considered as strong: with equivalent skilled marines, the lerks don't go on total rampages and win the game outright most of the time, and lower div lerks such as me don't go stomping lower div marines all the time.
Therein lies the ultimate difficulty: no-one sane would be in favour of lowering the skill ceiling on the lerk, but the consistent nerfing the lerks have had since release has left the typical pub lerks, and to some extent the low div comp lerks, with very limited gameplay styles. Biting can be done under only very limited sets of conditions, otherwise it's spike from a safe location with cover and an easy escape route, and that gets really boring.
I can't think of a simple solution to make the lerk more viable for lower skilled players without making it even more horrifically terrifying when in the hands of the 5 or 6 players who *really* know how to use it properly.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
And Roo nails it.
Getting the "short end of the stick" never once implied the skill ceiling or highest potential that a lerk can achieve - in fact it has mostly received nerfs *because* of its high potential.. Not because of what actually occurs with your average lerk, which is a far cry from that.
And like Roo said you can't simply buff the lerk to fix its issues for lesser skilled players without making it op exclusively at one end of the spectrum. Even fixing cara could have a major impact on comp.
This is what I meant by bringing up design as well, when getting the short stick, the lerk is a square peg being forced into a circular hole and at this point we just all accept it because it's too late for a redesign and the good players are comfortable using it.
Agreed that lerk have been needed too often. In ns1 you had more projectiles, now you have to be in closer combat... even though the lerk is a long ranged fighter (or so I thought). Now, there's too much confusion to attack at melee range by pancaking and all kinds of stuff. Hard to learn, I think.
But comp lerk... idk how you do it. Maybe I need to be shown how to lerk without getting disoriented.
Just need to press the triggers to do a barrel roll, fox.
As a pub player i have to ask myself: If the lerk is supposed to predominantly spike and not bite, why did bite speed increase so much and why has spike accuracy been nerfed? I mean.... yeah, balance, but isnt that also sending the wrong message?
Cause it took longer to take down buildings, as far as i remember lerk is now on par with skulk for taking down buildings. Besides, bite speed has little to do actual engagements, it's more about landing the bites than rate of fire. Spiking itself is accurate enough as it is atm, so not a huge deal..
As a pub player i have to ask myself: If the lerk is supposed to predominantly spike and not bite, why did bite speed increase so much and why has spike accuracy been nerfed? I mean.... yeah, balance, but isnt that also sending the wrong message?
they nerfed the fade's structure damage to make the fadeball less viable, & buffed lerk bite speed around the same time iirc.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that it's OP or underpowered or anything like that, I'm saying that the basic function of the skill is bad from a design standpoint.
It's a button that you want to press on cooldown with little regard to anything else going on. If not for the fact that Metabolize took up (potential) swipe animation time, the ideal way to use it would be an autohotkey spam macro. Even with the animation time it still feels like just spamming it might be the way to go.
According to the natural selection wiki, which is probably the least accurate source of information ever written but it will do for what I'm going to say here, old NS1 Metabolize was a trade of energy for health. Rather than being something you spammed, it was something you used strategically when needed, which is exactly what an ability should be. I'm not really saying that NS2 metabolize should be the same, I'm just saying that from a design standpoint this sort of thing would be better for the game. If something is just supposed to be a passive upgrade, that's what it should be, but we have Regeneration and Adrenaline for that already.
Metabolize is intended to help fades with maintaining energy. It is implemented almost identically to he NS1 metabolize, with the exception of the HP gain being separated into a second upgrade. I imagine that the wiki is referring to the initial energy cost - 25% energy is required to activate metabolize, and 35% energy is returned, a net increase of 10% energy.
As Flash said, it's intended to help with energy management. And as such adrenaline is the only thing you can compare it with, as the heal from metabolize is very low and it makes more sense to have it tied to metabolize instead of making regeneration even more powerful.
So yeah, i can agree that in the design aspect it's fundamentally giving "adrenaline" for all fades, making that upgrade even more useless. Maybe it's time to remove/improve adrenaline as it is it's only serving as a go-to upgrade to use when you're a rookie and just learning how to manage your energy.
Metabolize is intended to help fades with maintaining energy. It is implemented almost identically to he NS1 metabolize, with the exception of the HP gain being separated into a second upgrade. I imagine that the wiki is referring to the initial energy cost - 25% energy is required to activate metabolize, and 35% energy is returned, a net increase of 10% energy.
OK so the original was almost as bad. With a 25% initial cost there is at least the downside that you can't use it at low energy, but I doubt that has any impact.
I just want to reiterate that I don't think that the ability isn't useful. I can understand why fades would want it at the very least. My point is that the use of the skill boils down to "spam this button whenever possible", which runs counter to what all other active abilities set out to achieve.
You could just as easily make Metabolize passive, simply adding whatever energy boost and regen it would normally give automatically as long as the ability is unlocked. The net change on gameplay would be that fades don't have to mindlessly spam shift every 4 seconds, which would be an overall improvement. Turning lifeform abilities into passives though seems like a bad precedent.
Another option would be to give it a larger energy boost on a much longer cooldown. Instead of being something to spam it would be an emergency button instead. The health boost wouldn't translate as well because you don't want to give anyone the ability to regen half their HP in an instant.
Comments
Lerk lift + bile would be hilarious! Also, no I have not read the rant about gorges in vents. I do often go into vents as a gorge though so it's probably a rant againt what I do
The lerk has only received nerfs since launch, in evasion viability, speed and accuracy (besides the bite rate increase which is aimed towards making it redundantly share a RT harass role) despite it being the most difficult class for players to learn.
Part of that difficulty is the role confusion at hand with bite being on Left Mouse Button players think they are skulks with wings and they just throw away their 25 pres (shotguns not needed for this to occur) and the other part is the fragility of the lifeform preventing enough time for users to learn how to use it properly.
So forgive me but I feel like the most used combat upgrade being useless, biomass not equally scaling, almost exclusively receiving nerfs since launch, and expecting the entire playerbase to avoid using the primary fire in most cases, ... is a lifeform getting the short end of the stick in balance as well as design.
This doesn't imply their usefulness when in a capable player's hands, however. It's just noting the unfortunate situation..
But if elements have been balanced around it previously, then they should be adjusted - that was my only point.
By the power of CDT, YOU HAVE THE POWERRRRR!
(means plz make lerk scale better, and you will be loved forever
Hmm yet I think the best and most important lifeform in the game still is the lerk... So if that is the short straw idk what to say.
You can't talk about other issues with NS2 that are not specific to the lerk either. Learning curve is hardly an argument for a lerk buff.
Lerk bite is extremely situational, even more so with the recent lerk noise addition, but that doesn't mean you are discouraged to use it. There is always a place and time to lerk bite, which requires skill on the play and coordination with team mates. \
Regen or no regen, carapace or no carapace, it doesn't matter. Lerk is strong regardless.
And even if lerk has been nerfed so much, it still is the strongest, most crucial/important, powerful lifeform in the meta at the moment.
What I think we can agree on however, is that there is, always has been and probably always will be a design flaw with most of the lifeforms and what we like to call 'intuitive movement/gameplay' leading into a misunderstanding of how to play the lerk and what its purpose is, as you said in your comment above. Not only this, but I do think Lerk has the highest skill ceiling of any singular entity in the game, and requires an extreme amount of skill in terms of movement, aim, positional awareness and combat awareness. Which maybe is why people would like to see the lerk buffed.
There are other anomalies like hitreg, server perf, client perf, server setup, exploits in models/interp that make the lerk way way stronger as well in the right hands.
Only initially, because a ton of work has gone into these, it would be silly of us not to use the best bits to our advantage and roll them into the game.
However our roadmap is far bigger and more ambitious in both tech and gameplay, as you've seen with the performance improvements in the last patch, and loading improvements in 268. Good things ahead! :-)
So how do you really regard the most important? The lerk just because it's the first? The fade because it can potentially end the round for you? Or Onos because it's the ultimate lifeform you can get, and making it easier(in most cases) to win rounds/stay in the game?
In most cases with the meta we have, or you could say with the teams we have, the lerks are our best players simply because they are the best players, not because of the lifeform they play. And that makes the "public view" a bit skewed.
And regarding a lerk without an upgade, sure you can do some damage with it but it's so much better with celerity/regen/scent, one of those things again that makes the gap between lifeforms even larger, fade without upgrades is meh, but still usefull. Onos.. not so much.
ps. Stop being a lerk fanboi, be a kitten fanboi *hint*.
The lerk appears early enough in the game to start denying marines expansion/resources/pushing before they have higher tech (shotguns/ups). Marines will always struggle a bit when lerks are up unless the lerks are garbage.
@Ots This is exactly why the lerk is the most important lifeform. The game is won or lost at lerk timing. (pretty much anyways) There is some wiggle room in there of course. Good teams adapt to lerks just like lerks adapt to higher tech (shotguns, w1,2 etc.)
I agree with your point about requiring the other lifeforms definitely. You 95% of the time need the higher lifeforms to finish off the game (basically if it isn't a stomp at lerk timing) but I never said you only needed lerks, I just said that lerks are the most important.
Also, remember that all of this is in the past few months with the recent/current meta. Remember it didn't always used to be like this in the b250 days with fade balls. All of this changes with balance updates and such.
Thanks for the disagrees @coolitic rofl.
Sorry for the lerk appreciation day derail but if nothing else I hope someone learns something I guess
The aspects i've seen in some games being played(or have played in) are those exceptions, where mistakes happen and the other team is allowed to continue their tech, in those type of situations lerks loose their edge, and to me the fact that those situations can happen, that teams can in some way force themselves to get back into the game, shove the whole "most important lifeform" idealogy to the bin.
It's a fantasy at times, but it's possible
ps. I'll disagree with you @sebb for kicks.
My opinion is that the game is way too complex to single out a single life form as the "most important".
Fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion. But NS2 isn't complex fundamentally. Mechanically yes though.\
Of course, everyone that plays is human after all, and a good team will exploit mistakes, such as a lerk out of position or getting too close or something. If anything though that just reinforces the importance of the lifeform because if you lose it, marines gain an advantage, both in the longterm macro of pres and in engagements with higher tech vs skulks.
Except gorges right? Gorges are the rulers of all Khraadom.
Lerks are just the first important lifeform, and since that will define how the rest of the game goes (to get Fades up, etc)... well, it is pretty damn important...
Prem div lerks playing in gathers show how strong the lerk *can* be (and in the right hands, oh god it can be strong), but I don't think that means that the lerk should be generally considered as strong: with equivalent skilled marines, the lerks don't go on total rampages and win the game outright most of the time, and lower div lerks such as me don't go stomping lower div marines all the time.
Therein lies the ultimate difficulty: no-one sane would be in favour of lowering the skill ceiling on the lerk, but the consistent nerfing the lerks have had since release has left the typical pub lerks, and to some extent the low div comp lerks, with very limited gameplay styles. Biting can be done under only very limited sets of conditions, otherwise it's spike from a safe location with cover and an easy escape route, and that gets really boring.
I can't think of a simple solution to make the lerk more viable for lower skilled players without making it even more horrifically terrifying when in the hands of the 5 or 6 players who *really* know how to use it properly.
Getting the "short end of the stick" never once implied the skill ceiling or highest potential that a lerk can achieve - in fact it has mostly received nerfs *because* of its high potential.. Not because of what actually occurs with your average lerk, which is a far cry from that.
And like Roo said you can't simply buff the lerk to fix its issues for lesser skilled players without making it op exclusively at one end of the spectrum. Even fixing cara could have a major impact on comp.
This is what I meant by bringing up design as well, when getting the short stick, the lerk is a square peg being forced into a circular hole and at this point we just all accept it because it's too late for a redesign and the good players are comfortable using it.
But comp lerk... idk how you do it. Maybe I need to be shown how to lerk without getting disoriented.
Just need to press the triggers to do a barrel roll, fox.
they nerfed the fade's structure damage to make the fadeball less viable, & buffed lerk bite speed around the same time iirc.
Noooo our core values are noob-shaming and being so pr0 you solo the entire enemy team
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that it's OP or underpowered or anything like that, I'm saying that the basic function of the skill is bad from a design standpoint.
It's a button that you want to press on cooldown with little regard to anything else going on. If not for the fact that Metabolize took up (potential) swipe animation time, the ideal way to use it would be an autohotkey spam macro. Even with the animation time it still feels like just spamming it might be the way to go.
According to the natural selection wiki, which is probably the least accurate source of information ever written but it will do for what I'm going to say here, old NS1 Metabolize was a trade of energy for health. Rather than being something you spammed, it was something you used strategically when needed, which is exactly what an ability should be. I'm not really saying that NS2 metabolize should be the same, I'm just saying that from a design standpoint this sort of thing would be better for the game. If something is just supposed to be a passive upgrade, that's what it should be, but we have Regeneration and Adrenaline for that already.
So yeah, i can agree that in the design aspect it's fundamentally giving "adrenaline" for all fades, making that upgrade even more useless. Maybe it's time to remove/improve adrenaline as it is it's only serving as a go-to upgrade to use when you're a rookie and just learning how to manage your energy.
OK so the original was almost as bad. With a 25% initial cost there is at least the downside that you can't use it at low energy, but I doubt that has any impact.
I just want to reiterate that I don't think that the ability isn't useful. I can understand why fades would want it at the very least. My point is that the use of the skill boils down to "spam this button whenever possible", which runs counter to what all other active abilities set out to achieve.
You could just as easily make Metabolize passive, simply adding whatever energy boost and regen it would normally give automatically as long as the ability is unlocked. The net change on gameplay would be that fades don't have to mindlessly spam shift every 4 seconds, which would be an overall improvement. Turning lifeform abilities into passives though seems like a bad precedent.
Another option would be to give it a larger energy boost on a much longer cooldown. Instead of being something to spam it would be an emergency button instead. The health boost wouldn't translate as well because you don't want to give anyone the ability to regen half their HP in an instant.