Long, Cramped Corridor Stalemates (balance Issue)

Necrosis · October 2003

I can read it. It just means you HAVE to read it, rather than skimreading past the big blocky quote sections <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Anyhow, if it makes you REALLY HAPPY

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QUOTE (Forlorn @ Oct 9 2003, 06:49 PM)
So you admitting that if the aliens make one slip up, then the marines will win?

Sounds a lot like failing to prevent/stop a JP/HMG of 1.04 to me. Skulks aren't going to be 100% succesfull at stopping marines from getting to just ONE area. If it were that easy for the skulks, then this game would be horribly unbalanced.

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No. I'm not saying that at all. I haven't said that at any point. I am saying that if aliens slip up by letting marines take and lame hard to break areas, then the aliens deserve to lose. Which is lengthier and is a bit different from "aliens slip up and marines will win". It depends very much on the slip up. I think anyone who drops no IPs as marine probably deserves to lose as well - and thats only one slipup.

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And another point:

This game is about res and hives. If the aliens get 2/3 hives, and only 2 out of the total amount of nodes on the map are marine controlled, then the aliens deserve to lose? Something is not right. And, the part that is not right is crappy map design. Every area should have a weak point for both kharaa and marines.
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Not really. If every area had a weakpoint, it'd be impossible to hold locations as you've spend 90 percent of your res on location defence. Some areas are better than others, and indeed should be, otherwise your opponent has no incentive to counter.

If every area had a genuine weak point, why counter early when you could counter later at your leisure?

BTW Gem, long posts don't make people winners. I'd a great discussion about the lerk in another thread, it ran to several thousand words, and ended in a mutual agree to disagree. Tho this thread comes close, with my last post just a snip off 5000 words.

Geminosity · October 2003

I know that silly, I was there. Remember? <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>
It was the thread I made my first ever post in lol

Long posts don't make winners but they're a great excuse to make silly posts about them ^^

Kenichi · October 2003

This is just 1 giant thread about the marines using tactics that work. Good job marines. Way to play the game the way it was meant to be played. Taking strategic positions (easier to defend) is what its all about.

ZERG · October 2003

I read some of this thread. I am not that good at speed reading yet. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'> Who posted that monster of a post on that last page? <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>

Anyway, marines 9/10 times will relocate to cargo. This is the same ns_nothing we had since 1.0 minus a node (cargo = triple node location in 1.0). So you can prevent it because its so predictable.

If you can't it is pretty simple to counter. I think someone mentioned it already in this thread, but I will try to clarify.

#1 If the marines are hold up in Room with Things, it is doubtful that they have any base extended to the RTs. Most likely these RTs are on the outskirts of the base. Kill these nodes. If these nodes are defended with turrets, clear them and get the RT.

#2 Get the third hive. Most likely they will not have anything in the hive room itself. Swimming in res you should build the hive. They will probably scan, but do not give them LOS. A comm with 1 obs can afford 4 scans. If he had 2 siege cannons he will kill the hive. To counter this make OCs to draw the siege fire so the comm wastes his scans. What will counter this is 2-3 obs. If they have that then I don't know what you have been doing the rest of the game to allow them to have that many obs, but if that happens, you should be able to continue building up the hive until all scans are depleted. If all players had enough for onos that is 2 hives per person. Then you have the problem if he had many obs and many seiges cannons. In that case the comm is one smart mofo to know that you planned on doing that. 1 scan + many sieges = obliterated hive room.

In that <i>worse case</i> scenario, your objective is to single out the obs and siege cannons for destruction. This can be done with constant skulk rushes and bile bomb rushes (these will own structures). Remember that pressure has to be constant enough or else they will weld any damage. Obs are easy to kill so no excuses. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>

Fieari · October 2003

I'd just like to add that when you discovered that multiple onos couldn't attack at the same time, that should have been your cue to vary your evolutions. Lerks, gorges, fades, and skulks too. Having 100 res doesn't mean you must go Onos. Variety, and beyond that, variety IN CONCERT works wonders. 1 onos backed up by three gorges (two healspraying on bile bombing) with a lerk providing umbra support should make a dent in the structures. Sure, you'll all be killed, but you have all the nodes. Just do it again... with a mere minute between assults of this nature, you should have been able to crack the nut. I know it's possible, because I've done iit even in 2.0, with grenade spam to boot.

SlayerOfSkulks · October 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Necrosis @ Oct 10 2003, 02:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> There's a long version, and a short version.

Short version first -

You're still dragging the topic OT, as I predicted. You've nothing productive to offer as a real solution to whats evidently a situation that arose due to poor play. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Yeah, it's fairly obvious at this point that you're choosing to argue against any point I say without bothering to read it on it's merits, without bothering to acknowledge some of the more important points, so at this point, I'm choosing not to continue this. If you ever decide to debate based on fact, not on trying to rip someone's character, e-mail me, because your diversion tactics are tiresome, and something I can't be bothered to wade through.

And just to give an exmaple of what I'm talking of, there was this lovely section...

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>"What we KNOW is that, even if we assume"

Know...... assume.......... how odd.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Where you took what I said completely out of context, just for the opportunity of making a little dig.

im_lost · October 2003

Why not have a lerk peek around the corner to spike one turret at a time? They can have an onos with them to prevent the marines from charging out and a gorge for heal-spray. This can be done on both sides, or put 2 lerks on 1 side to spike the same turret (this works out perfectly for a 6 vs. 6 game). You will take out the turrets eventually, and the marines will have to come out and attack you. If needed, use the onos as a shield from gl fire so the lerk can spike in peace. In this case maybe 2 onos should be used, and 2 lerks or 2 gorges, leaving just 1 fade on the other side (a decent one; if you don't have a decent fade then you probably shouldn't be doing this well anyway, or the marines suck so it doesn't matter) to know if they try and leave. I don't know how well this would work. Honestly, I have only played one game that ended in a stalemate, and that only lasted about 15 minutes at MS. However, it doesn't take a lot of skill, just a little bit of teamwork, and that can be planned out ahead of time without too much pressure.

Possible marine counters: welder marine right at the front lines welding the turrets; too much gl-spam. If there is a marine with a welder at the front of the battlefield, then attack them and get rid of the welder. Target them with spikes, spores if they don't have HA (although they probably do). If they aren't crouched behind the turrets, have your good fade go in and blink-slash to kill them. This will be easier than other scenarios described because it is right at the front turrets instead of blinking past all of the turrets. If there is a lot of gl-spam, then there probably isn't much welding, especially on the front turrets.

RyoOhki · October 2003

Something that is coming up a lot in here is the belief that it is easy to stop a relocation. This is not true.

If the marines are committed to a relocation strat from the start, they will immediatly move as a single group to the location they wish to relocate to. Destroying groups like that in the first few minutes of the game is very difficult; focused fire and teamwork means that most skulks will get mowed down before they even get close to biting range. If the marines are relocating, stopping them is very difficult. A lot of the time, the marines will succeed. From that point, you can try and contain them at their new location. Probably the best thing to do if the marines do relocate is eat their spawn res before it goes electric.

Don't get me wrong, relocates can and do fail. But the succeed quite often as well, because stopping them is extreamly difficult. The Cargo Hive position has come up before, and like has been said, aim for the res nodes. If you lose an onos or two getting one node down, you still have a net profit that will really hurt the marines.

3-D · October 2003

Sound strategic decisions != balance issues.

I've noticed a really bizarre attitude in the community that anytime someone else comes up with a good strategy that works well, it's gotta be a balance issue. If that's the case, then nobody should be able to win. And if THAT is the case then what's the point of having a contest at all, eh?

When I'm playing aliens and I run into marines that just march through us with a smart relocation then a blitzkrieg to all the hives, I normally just say "Damn, they're good." Sounds like in the case of the original post, the marines used the time tested strategy of putting your back to a couple walls so you can tell where your attackers will come from, and showing all the tenacity of a bulldog trying to fight their way out. I commend a commander that can locate a place like that, then hold it without giving up. Better than a commander that stays at the main base, gets owned in 5 minutes, and F4s to the next game. Makes it a lot more exciting to have a long tough game than a short easy one.

If you see a commander try a strategy that works, watch for them to try it again and make sure you don't let any other commanders pull it. Learn and evolve, survival of the fittest. Natural selection and all that Darwin stuff, ya dig? <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Forlorn · October 2003

If relocating to an exploitable part of the map(ie: Easy to camp, narrow hallways, heavy armor to protect from spores, nades to kill anything less than onos fade)

Then this is BS, because aliens could not do anything of the such to hold up a game.

I know that if I were to play any RTS, and the enemy won because he holed up at his base in an area that not even my top level tech could not kill, I would take the game and put it in the trash, where it belongs.

There is <b>no skills to moving to a part of the map that is so easy to defend, all one must do is press the '+fire' button to do. I believe that FPS is greater than RTS in NS, but FFS, you don't even have to aim. You are firing in a straight little corridor that requires you line up your aim so the bullets wont hit the wall, and you'll hit the alien.</b>

If this is good tatics, then so is hacking. Both require no skill to do and exploit the game to it's max.

These are obvious area's of the map that are impossible to assult as aliens due to grenade spam and heavy armor. Aliens cannot do the same with their highest level tech, and it makes no sense why the marines can also do so.

ns_nothing's cargo bay area needs a serious fix and is an absolute bore as well to play against.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I am saying that if aliens slip up by letting marines take and lame hard to break areas, then the aliens deserve to lose.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

This is absolutly terrible gameplay logic. More so to the point, it is wrong. No team should lose for "little slip-ups". And I wouldn't call not building an IP a little slip up either. I'd call that a monumental error of giagantic proportions and immediate ejection of the comm should follow.

You are basically saying:

There is one skulk left to defend the room with things. There is one marine left to build the comm chair dropped for him. The skulk has about 19 hp left for killing all of the other marines. The marine has 100 due to getting medspam from the comm. The marine walks to the comm chair. The skulk ambushes him, getting a free hit. The marine turns, quickly while jumping around, and the skulk misses his second bite, while the marine hits with two bullets. The marines take the room with things. The aliens made one slip-up by missing one bite. Anyone could have made that error.

And for this, it's GG aliens? What kind of crap is that? That isn't fun at all. There is definantly an issue with cargo bay on ns_nothing, and it needs to be fixed.

Julien · October 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Oct 10 2003, 08:52 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>If relocating to an exploitable part of the map(ie: Easy to camp, narrow hallways, heavy armor to protect from spores, nades to kill anything less than onos fade)

Then this is BS, because aliens could not do anything of the such to hold up a game.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
That's because marines and aliens are <b> different </b>. Marines can turtle, aliens can't. Turtling forever will only mean eventual loss. The trick is to know when and how to push out when you can. As they did in the original post.

Yes, different strengths and weaknesses on both teams means imbalance in the strictest sense. This is unavoidable, unless you want to play TFC where the only difference is color and player skill. If both teams have a reasonable chance of winning when skill/aim (player factor), res (strategic factor), and tech (strategic factor again) are similar, then it is balanced enough. Blind luck will also screw things up once in a while to complicate this whole balance issue too.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> These are obvious area's of the map that are impossible to assult as aliens due to grenade spam and heavy armor. Aliens cannot do the same with their highest level tech, and it makes no sense why the marines can also do so. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Never impossible. A lot of people suggested strategies worth trying out. Blinking fades, combined arms, working on marine rts, whatever. Aliens have 8 res, they have superior res flow to play with. Assuming equal skill on both sides (which may not have been the case in the original post), aliens would have dented marine res flow eventually and won if they didn't give up.

Maps are made to have easily defendable points and the opposite. If not, you may as well play on one flat open level with four walls for ultimate "balance," no? Both teams can take advantage of them if they got to them first.

Cxwf · October 2003

Necrosis: Despite spewing thousands of words to attempt to prove that Slayer is an idiot and that the Alien team made horrible mistakes that cost them the game, you have come up with exactly one thing the Aliens failed to accomplish that would have made any difference:

At the VERY BEGINNING OF THE GAME, when EVERY MARINE EXCEPT THE COM RUSHED CARGO BAY, the alien team couldn't get through the medspam fast enough to kill them all and stop the relocate.

Now, granted, relocations can be stopped, and often are, but you seem to have missed the very simple concept that when an alien and a marine fight, <b>sometimes the marine can shoot the alien and kill him</b>, even without turrets for backup. Simply getting the alien team to attack Cargo bay (roughly the same skill required as getting the Marines to relocate to cargo bay, which, while a smart move, is by no means a high level elite tactic signifiying great skill by the commander) does not guarantee by any means that you will stop the relocation.

Once the marines have built room with things as their base, if they decide to start laming up the place (arguably one of the worst strategic decisions they could make there), there is no conceiveable way for the aliens to prevent it unless they first spend time gathering res and climbing their own tech tree. All marines in base building defenses = low level aliens cannot get in. If they could, every game would be ended by a skulk rush on marine spawn very quickly.

And by your logic, once they lame up room with things, the Marines deserve to win simply because "they were skilled enough to choose a defensible location to relocate to"?? Trust me, it does not take much skill to realize that a particular corridor that is very famous as a great relocation spot might be an ok place to drop a com chair. Nor does it take much skill to remember that redroom is also a decent place to put up sieges. Now, actually getting into redroom to build the sieges takes some skill, but if you will recall, the marines did not actually manage to do that for TWO HOURS!! On two res nodes, it doesn't take nearly that long to tech everything out even while periodically replacing defenses, and so that means the marines sat around unable to get out or take redroom, even with jetpacks, for most likely well over an hour, before one marine FINALLY managed to sneak past the defenses and clear out redroom.

You have also repeatedly assumed that redroom was completely undefended. Nowhere in the original post does it say that. There may well have been an OC or three in redroom, which the courageous JPer took out with a Grenade launcher before setting up his turrets. Its not a horrible tactical mistake by the aliens every time a marine team wins a battle--sometimes its a very close fight that the aliens barely win.

But EVEN IF leaving redroom open was a flat-out stupid mistake, its a mistake that had NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on the ability of the aliens to win the game. If the aliens had sealed up redroom tigher than a drum, they still were unable to break the marine defenses at Cargo hive, and if they couldn't do that, they couldn't win. In fact, the aliens best chance to win was probably while the marines were setting up redroom seiges, simply because that left so much less marine activity and com attention at the cargo hive. If they could have taken down cargo hive right then, the marines would have lost, even with redroom, because they would be reduced to zero resnodes.

Aelius · October 2003

I'm sorry to disagree with all "unbalanced game" addicts, but I have to agree with Necrosis.

There is no excuse for bad play from either team. EVER. Prevention is the key to success in this game and it will guarantee a win (at a certain degree ofcourse, but it's more like a rule than an exception).

Too many times in NS, I've been playing with a team that was oriented on the "immediate quick-fix", i.e. fixing an imminent problem at hand while, instead of actively preventing getting into that problem. I still think that controlling and knowing what's happening in every corner of the map and like someone said, "detecting patterns" and reacting to those IS the way to win this game.

Forlorn · October 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Julien @ Oct 10 2003, 01:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> That's because marines and aliens are <b> different </b>. Marines can turtle, aliens can't. Turtling forever will only mean eventual loss. The trick is to know when and how to push out when you can. As they did in the original post.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
You are completely incorrect on your assumption of how different the marines and aliens are. No where is there any evidence that marines are allowed to turtle. To prove my point, look at game design:

You have bilebomb, designed to wipe out clusters of buildings.
Gore, which kills buildings in under 5 seconds.
Spores which are supposed to deny marine movement.

And every single 3 hive ability is anti-turtle, hell, it is just anti-marine in general. However, we are at 2 hives only please remember.

Turtling forever in most maps will mean an eventual loss. However, <b>certain</b> area's of certain maps do not mean an eventual loss. Imagine only a battle field where up to one onos or two fades could enter at a time to HMG fire. No umbra. Not to mention they have to charge through grenades. And past turrets.

There is no trick, no skill to turtling. It is like saying it takes skill for aliens to run. Or for marines of 1.04 to stay crouched in vents as a tatical position. Or unlimited jetpacks took skill besides a nice graphics card.

/me rolls meh eyes

Turtling is meant to stop the lesser lifeforms or unupgraded aliens.

This is so that the focus remains on players.

I'll say it once, I'll say it again; maps should be designed so there aren't any area's where a defense is freaking tough as a diamond.

Also, your idea of a perfectly balanced map, big open space with four walls, is hardly balanced.

Necrosis · October 2003

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"Yeah, it's fairly obvious at this point that you're choosing to argue against any point I say without bothering to read it on it's merits, without bothering to acknowledge some of the more important points, so at this point, I'm choosing not to continue this. If you ever decide to debate based on fact, not on trying to rip someone's character, e-mail me, because your diversion tactics are tiresome, and something I can't be bothered to wade through."
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Sorry, I believe you're talking about your own posts - with the heavy off topic bias, refusal to acknowledge the Comm's intelligence ("it was good but just luck") and blind insistence on "imbalance". I've cited many examples of games with differing races and how you cannot consider balance to be a black and white issue - but you just don't want to know. Or can't understand.

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Ryo

"Something that is coming up a lot in here is the belief that it is easy to stop a relocation. This is not true."
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I partially agree - a dedicated relocate will work, sooner or later. But if you persist in attacking it, rines are bled dry of res. If they've dropped a CC, or IPs, perhaps a TF, then they become COMMITTED to holding that area in order not to "lose" the res invested.

Thus even if they DO successfully relocate after 20 mins, by that time you can have the hives, chambers, and most of the res on the map. Whereas rines will have their relocate, and little else.

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Forlorn

I know that if I were to play any RTS, and the enemy won because he holed up at his base in an area that not even my top level tech could not kill, I would take the game and put it in the trash, where it belongs.
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I know that if I were to play any RTS, and I let the enemy win by digging into a defensive position that my top level tech could not win, then I would have been beaten by a more intelligent player. The whole goal of RTS gaming and strategic play in general is putting yourself in a stronger position.

If I'm playing chess, and lose all my pieces bar the king, I don't turn around and say "omfgzor chess is teh sux", and then claim a balance issue, demanding a change so that the King can win on its own............. no, I instead ACCEPT THAT I PLAYED STUPIDLY.

FINDING a good spot and HOLDING it against an allegedly informed and aware opponent is nothing remotely like hacking. If I'm skulk and I get shot by an LMG, I don't whine that I need to have guns - I accept that the skulk is a CC unit and thus must AVOID rine guns. Likewise any alien player worth his salt should know that relocations near hive are BAD.

How in the hell does a marine team get enough res to hole up with HA and enough GLs to make spam realistic? There's a plan involved, obviously. Aliens couldn't break it, because they played into rine hands by allowing the relocate to happen and not acting sooner. I've seen it happen when I've been on alien teams where the cooperative play has been NON EXISTENT. And tbh teaming up in the last few minutes just to umbra some onos DOES NOT CUT IT.

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QUOTE
I am saying that if aliens slip up by letting marines take and lame hard to break areas, then the aliens deserve to lose.
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This is absolutly terrible gameplay logic. More so to the point, it is wrong. No team should lose for "little slip-ups". And I wouldn't call not building an IP a little slip up either. I'd call that a monumental error of giagantic proportions and immediate ejection of the comm should follow.
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And as I took the time to explain, letting rines LAME UP WHERE YOU FIND IT HARD TO BREAK THEM is NOT A SMALL SLIP UP. Its like losing your IPs and CC - one mistake that can cost a game. Letting rines DO WHAT THEY DO BEST is ONE slipup but its also the BIGGEST.

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You are basically saying:

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No, YOUR INCORRECT INTERPRETATION is:

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There is one skulk left to defend the room with things. There is one marine left to build the comm chair dropped for him. The skulk has about 19 hp left for killing all of the other marines. The marine has 100 due to getting medspam from the comm. The marine walks to the comm chair. The skulk ambushes him, getting a free hit. The marine turns, quickly while jumping around, and the skulk misses his second bite, while the marine hits with two bullets. The marines take the room with things. The aliens made one slip-up by missing one bite. Anyone could have made that error.

And for this, it's GG aliens? What kind of crap is that? That isn't fun at all. There is definantly an issue with cargo bay on ns_nothing, and it needs to be fixed.

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Where's the rest of the team? Why don't they rush the relocation again now that the only marine there is in the CC? Why not upgrade with the RFK from the marines? There are so many followups that its not funny. If aliens don't bother their backsides following up their attacks then yes, they deserve to lose. You don't give the enemy a break - you keep the pressure on so that they have no time to adjust their plans. This is elementary shock assault theory.

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Cxwf

Necrosis: Despite spewing thousands of words to attempt to prove that Slayer is an idiot and that the Alien team made horrible mistakes that cost them the game, you have come up with exactly one thing the Aliens failed to accomplish that would have made any difference:

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If you can't be bothered to read a considered and thoughout reply, then you shouldn't be posting in a forum. Take the time to read my replies, not skip them because you find their size intimidating.

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At the VERY BEGINNING OF THE GAME, when EVERY MARINE EXCEPT THE COM RUSHED CARGO BAY, the alien team couldn't get through the medspam fast enough to kill them all and stop the relocate.
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Assuming thats what happened....... rines wasted a ton of res. Keeping them under skulk pressure would have meant more expenditure, with relatively little income. Skulks would gain RFK for no loss. Economically its great for the aliens. While the rines are still pressured in their attempted relocate, other aliens can close, perhaps putting up an OC, or fast-track to fade in order to make a decisive attack. ESPECIALLY WHEN THE MARINES ARE ON A HIVE'S DOORSTEP.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
you seem to have missed the very simple concept that when an alien and a marine fight, sometimes the marine can shoot the alien and kill him, even without turrets for backup.
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So you just give up, is that it? Five rines pile into a room, some turrets drop, so the aliens should just pull back and let them build? Not in my games. The rine shows up, you try to kill him. You tell the team, the team reacts. If the team neither reacts or cares, then it'll soon be GG due to THE SHEER LACK OF ALIEN TEAMPLAY.

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Simply getting the alien team to attack Cargo bay ... does not guarantee by any means that you will stop the relocation.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

It'll stall it. Push it back. It may happen eventually, but it'll cost marines more than aliens - especially when 5 aliens can rush the relocate while the 6th can cap nodes unimpeded. The marines either keep going at their relocate, or write it off as a loss and fall back. Aliens can do the same - but when you're OUTSIDE A HIVE, the only intelligent option is to attack.

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Trust me, it does not take much skill to realize that a particular corridor that is very famous as a great relocation spot might be an ok place to drop a com chair.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

So what does that say for the alien team which fails to spot it? What does it say for the alien team who let it happen? What does it say for the alien team who left this relocate alone until endgame?

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Now, actually getting into redroom to build the sieges takes some skill, but if you will recall, the marines did not actually manage to do that for TWO HOURS!!
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In a slow res situation, with no upgrades, it could take some time to research and employ JPs. We can only speculate on the exact timescale because we have so little details. All we can say is that the marines did not ATTEMPT to try it for two hours. And who knows what was attempted in that time?

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On two res nodes, it doesn't take nearly that long to tech everything out even while periodically replacing defenses, and so that means the marines sat around unable to get out or take redroom, even with jetpacks, for most likely well over an hour, before one marine FINALLY managed to sneak past the defenses and clear out redroom.
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Laming up a base, teching up the weaponry and armor, researching.... it could take a while. How long DID the "stalemate" last? In his first statement, the ACTUAL GAME TIME was 2 hrs, not the stalemate. We don't have much info on the marine team's actions, do we?

And all this is dancing around the issue that aliens permitted the relocation to take place.

"You have also repeatedly assumed that redroom was completely undefended."

The original poster has not countered this. He has not commented on any defenses. Considering however that the marines were permitted to lame up in (by your own admission) a well known location, its reasonably valid to say that redroom was either lightly defended or completely undefended. And there's not much difference between the two.

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But EVEN IF leaving redroom open was a flat-out stupid mistake, its a mistake that had NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on the ability of the aliens to win the game.
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It's been cited as an example of flawed alien play. Reading the first post gives the idea of inexperienced play. The bare basics are known. Perhaps 1-2 good players. But no idea of good solid teamwork or reaction to the relocate - all we hear is a story about a final coordinated assault on a relocation near hive. Not IN hive, because hives are easy to penetrate, but NEAR hive, in an extremely defensive location.

The aliens did not try to exploit the marine movement to redroom. They just sat back, when a competent alien player would have realised that their forces were split.

So we have a TWO HOUR GAME, which started with some failed marine strat, moved to heavy defensive and teching up, (all weapons, all armour, then the expansion, and probably enough res to be able to afford to expand) and then ended very quickly because marines made a decisive lightning strike. I don't see an imbalance, other than the quality of strategy.

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Forlorn

You are completely incorrect on your assumption of how different the marines and aliens are. No where is there any evidence that marines are allowed to turtle. To prove my point, look at game design
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Not allowed - ABLE. They CAN turtle, but you shouldn't ALLOW them to. Very different words with very different meanings. You cite examples of turtle countering weapons..... do you not find that odd? Yet you would claim that the person is "incorrect" when he says marines CAN turtle.

At second hive, you still have enough weapons to stall enemy movement. If you take those turrets down and force rines out of LOS of the hive, then they HAVE to leave their turtle nest, or rely on a rather risky Obs and spam ping. Stomp will catch rines as they leave to build. Bile bomb will catch anything going up. Leap can jump the defences and keep rines in spawn. Metabolise is useful if you have MC and SC. Marines get pushed out of hive, the hive goes UP, and then SC is dropped. Gorges can healspam the hive between pings. You've third hive, so xeno skulks rape marine relocation very quickly and easily, using MC to move to the hive nearest the relocate. Once the relocate is sparsely populated, gorges can bile spam or onos can charge/gore, then fall back while the skulks and spores hammer the relocate relentlessly.

Its a fairly obvious strat.

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There is no trick, no skill to turtling
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Yes, actually there IS a skill to making an unbreakable defence. The French thought they had it made during WW2, but their unbreakable defence was flawed. Germany didn't last long when it tried to turtle either. I assure you that it DOES take skill to turtle SUCCESSFULLY.

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I'll say it once, I'll say it again; maps should be designed so there aren't any area's where a defense is freaking tough as a diamond.

Also, your idea of a perfectly balanced map, big open space with four walls, is hardly balanced.
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See, true balance IS a big blank map, with IDENTICAL teams. Its a flat 50 50. Thats balance. Strategic balance is when one team has an edge in CC, but the other has ranged effectiveness. Perhaps one side is lightly armoured, but the other is tough. One side works best in swarms, the other can allow for lone supermen. Strengths and weaknesses that balance out. If you pick the CC team, then whine about not being able to shoot, its not an imbalance but your basic inability to utilise your team's strengths.

Again, for examples play most strategy wargames, RPGs, Starcraft, Conquest: Frontier Wars, ST: Armada, C&C, Emperor: Battle for Dune.... etc.....etc.......etc....

Cxwf · October 2003

Lets see...where do I begin...I'll start by saying that I have seen FAR more evidence of twisting words. taking things out of context, and not reading all of your opponents post in your arguments than in Slayers. That said, lets move on to what seems to be your biggest absurdity, and then to what you said to me.

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Forlorn

I know that if I were to play any RTS, and the enemy won because he holed up at his base in an area that not even my top level tech could not kill, I would take the game and put it in the trash, where it belongs.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

I know that if I were to play any RTS, and I let the enemy win by digging into a defensive position that my top level tech could not win, then I would have been beaten by a more intelligent player. The whole goal of RTS gaming and strategic play in general is putting yourself in a stronger position.

If I'm playing chess, and lose all my pieces bar the king, I don't turn around and say "omfgzor chess is teh sux", and then claim a balance issue, demanding a change so that the King can win on its own............. no, I instead ACCEPT THAT I PLAYED STUPIDLY.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

How can you possibly compare being unable to overcome defenses with top level technology to being unable to win a game of Chess with just a King? I mean, <i>where do you come up with this garbage?!!</i> The problem under discussion is that the team with MORE stuff is having trouble winning, not the team with LESS stuff.

Next, I dare you to name one RTS where you can make yourself an unkillable fortress, even given 15 minutes undisturbed to build it, on a small portion of the map. The "stronger position" in RTS games in general is not a particularly defensible position, but having a position including more sources of income than your opponent so that you can generate a larger and more powerful army. Every RTS game I've ever seen has just as many counters to static defenses as there are static defenses. Not to say a game could not be programmed differently, but they haven't been, for a very good reason. Unkillable positions are bad for a game. Every position should be crackable, and destroyable, given enough time and money, regardless of how much you let someone set up first. And this logic is reflected in the counters you see in virtually every single RTS.

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Cxwf

Necrosis: Despite spewing thousands of words to attempt to prove that Slayer is an idiot and that the Alien team made horrible mistakes that cost them the game, you have come up with exactly one thing the Aliens failed to accomplish that would have made any difference:

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If you can't be bothered to read a considered and thoughout reply, then you shouldn't be posting in a forum. Take the time to read my replies, not skip them because you find their size intimidating.

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Just on the vague hope that you might actually care, I will let you know that I did in fact read every post you wrote in it's entirety, with the sole exception of the last 10% of the 5000 word post, because I had read the post you were quoting there and it had gone beyond the topic I was interested in. But I'm sure you only said that to sound important, so it doesn't matter much.

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At the VERY BEGINNING OF THE GAME, when EVERY MARINE EXCEPT THE COM RUSHED CARGO BAY, the alien team couldn't get through the medspam fast enough to kill them all and stop the relocate.
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Assuming thats what happened....... rines wasted a ton of res. Keeping them under skulk pressure would have meant more expenditure, with relatively little income. Skulks would gain RFK for no loss. Economically its great for the aliens. While the rines are still pressured in their attempted relocate, other aliens can close, perhaps putting up an OC, or fast-track to fade in order to make a decisive attack. ESPECIALLY WHEN THE MARINES ARE ON A HIVE'S DOORSTEP.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

I don't have to assume that's what happened, I know, because that's what the original poster said. Now, once the marines beat off the initial wave of skulks, it takes less than 30 seconds for them to set up a com chair and an IP. Once they have done that, attacking the relocate is no easier than attacking marine spawn when marines build there instead.

Now, I admit this doesn't make it unkillable, but if it was as incredibly easy to bleed marines in their own base that early in the game, wouldn't aliens send constant skulk rushes to the marine base every game and win that way? And wouldn't any Marine team that dared to send any marines away from the base to gather res be wide open for a devastating counterattack?

Again, I am not saying that attacks on the marine base never work, but the simple fact that you are attacking does not mean that the marines will be completely pinned down and unable to accomplish anything themselves. They can fight back, and they tend to get good kill ratios when in their own base among their own IPs.

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you seem to have missed the very simple concept that when an alien and a marine fight, sometimes the marine can shoot the alien and kill him, even without turrets for backup.
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So you just give up, is that it? Five rines pile into a room, some turrets drop, so the aliens should just pull back and let them build? Not in my games. The rine shows up, you try to kill him. You tell the team, the team reacts. If the team neither reacts or cares, then it'll soon be GG due to THE SHEER LACK OF ALIEN TEAMPLAY.

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Simply getting the alien team to attack Cargo bay ... does not guarantee by any means that you will stop the relocation.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

It'll stall it. Push it back. It may happen eventually, but it'll cost marines more than aliens - especially when 5 aliens can rush the relocate while the 6th can cap nodes unimpeded. The marines either keep going at their relocate, or write it off as a loss and fall back. Aliens can do the same - but when you're OUTSIDE A HIVE, the only intelligent option is to attack.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

If you kill that wave of marines and force them to respawn and come again, then you HAVE stopped the relocation. But even that is NOT GUARANTEED!!! Sometimes, the force of aliens that you bring to push back the relocate gets killed! Imagine that! And no, I am not recommending that you give up after that, but you have to realize that once they have made it their base, rushing it is NOT EASY.

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Trust me, it does not take much skill to realize that a particular corridor that is very famous as a great relocation spot might be an ok place to drop a com chair.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

So what does that say for the alien team which fails to spot it? What does it say for the alien team who let it happen? What does it say for the alien team who left this relocate alone until endgame?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Sometimes it says that the aliens weren't paying attention and didn't move to stop it, like you say. But NOT ALWAYS!! If the aliens also realized that this was an important relocate spot, and they moved there to fight the marine relocation, and they lost the fight, all it says is that they lost one fight vs marines. So should this one fight a mere 30 seconds into the game decide the ultimate winner already? If so, why not just tell everyone to f4 at 2:00 every game, since you already know who will win?

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Now, actually getting into redroom to build the sieges takes some skill, but if you will recall, the marines did not actually manage to do that for TWO HOURS!!
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In a slow res situation, with no upgrades, it could take some time to research and employ JPs. We can only speculate on the exact timescale because we have so little details. All we can say is that the marines did not ATTEMPT to try it for two hours. And who knows what was attempted in that time?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

True, we can only speculate. But I will have you know that my speculation includes personal experience of siege situations like this on only one resnode, starting with almost no tech, and researching max tech somewhere around 45 minutes into the game. If it took them much more than an hour, thats just bad play on the part of the marines. This is why I made the statement below.

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On two res nodes, it doesn't take nearly that long to tech everything out even while periodically replacing defenses, and so that means the marines sat around unable to get out or take redroom, even with jetpacks, for most likely well over an hour, before one marine FINALLY managed to sneak past the defenses and clear out redroom.
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Laming up a base, teching up the weaponry and armor, researching.... it could take a while. How long DID the "stalemate" last? In his first statement, the ACTUAL GAME TIME was 2 hrs, not the stalemate. We don't have much info on the marine team's actions, do we?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

The info we have on the marine team's actions says that the relocation to Cargo was the very first thing they did, and that the aliens subsequently crushed everything they tried to do outside of cargo. So the situation changed very little through the course of the game, but its probably safe to say that by 15 minutes the aliens had 2 hives and 6 chambers, right? As well as all the undefended res? Since we do know that the marines did not control any res outside of Cargo for any length of time, that means the real stalemate probably started sometime around the 15 minute mark.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>And all this is dancing around the issue that aliens permitted the relocation to take place.

"You have also repeatedly assumed that redroom was completely undefended."

The original poster has not countered this. He has not commented on any defenses. Considering however that the marines were permitted to lame up in (by your own admission) a well known location, its reasonably valid to say that redroom was either lightly defended or completely undefended. And there's not much difference between the two.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Not quite. A single JP GL could clear that room out by himself regardless of how many Chambers were in there, unless aliens came to kill him first. All the OCs really do is give the aliens longer to respond. But with level 3 upgraded Grenades, even a room full doesn't give them very much time.

It's also fully possible that a JP GL reached the point several times, and picked off a few chambers each time before dieing, and the aliens, being bored stiff, didn't want to waste the time gorging in there to replace them. The final time he showed up, the last one or two OCs go down so fast the warning message hardly flashes onto the Kharaa screens, and is easily swamped by the warning messages from the battles still being fought over at Cargo.

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But EVEN IF leaving redroom open was a flat-out stupid mistake, its a mistake that had NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on the ability of the aliens to win the game.
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It's been cited as an example of flawed alien play. Reading the first post gives the idea of inexperienced play. The bare basics are known. Perhaps 1-2 good players. But no idea of good solid teamwork or reaction to the relocate - all we hear is a story about a final coordinated assault on a relocation near hive. Not IN hive, because hives are easy to penetrate, but NEAR hive, in an extremely defensive location.

The aliens did not try to exploit the marine movement to redroom. They just sat back, when a competent alien player would have realised that their forces were split.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

That flaw has been claimed to be a product of the boredom that comes with a two hour stalemate. Accept it or not, thats the only explanation you are going to get. Just remember that they did succeed in defending it for a LONG time before the JPer finally made it in there.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>So we have a TWO HOUR GAME, which started with some failed marine strat, moved to heavy defensive and teching up, (all weapons, all armour, then the expansion, and probably enough res to be able to afford to expand) and then ended very quickly because marines made a decisive lightning strike. I don't see an imbalance, other than the quality of strategy.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Why do you say it started with a failed marine strat? It started with a <i>successful</i> marine strat: relocation to cargo. After that, the marines lost the majority of their battles in the field, until the Aliens controlled the map. After that, the aliens attacked the marine base over and over and over for at least an hour and a half with no change on either side, before the Marines finally made a successful attempt at expanding, which most likely came after large numbers of unsuccessful attempts at expanding (not specifically mentioned, but then an alien wouldn't know about all the failed marine JPers trying to expand).

Forlorn · October 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Where's the rest of the team? Why don't they rush the relocation again now that the only marine there is in the CC? Why not upgrade with the RFK from the marines? There are so many followups that its not funny. If aliens don't bother their backsides following up their attacks then yes, they deserve to lose. You don't give the enemy a break - you keep the pressure on so that they have no time to adjust their plans. This is elementary shock assault theory.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

The rest of the team? All the aliens are in the spawn que. The aliens first hive is also powersilo.

The marines are all dead save one as well, but he manages to get up the spawn portal. Even though aliens spawn in faster, the marines only have to defend, and by the time one skulk can reach the marine base again there are two marines. The skulks could not have rushed cargo, because rushing marines with skulk is 100% luck; if the player is bad, you win, if the player is good, expect to get OWNED. Rushing marines as a skulk is a big no-no. If the marines manage to pull of the relocation, good for them, however, it should not be something that can completely win the game for them. That's just retarded logic.

Anyhow, there aren't any follow ups for the alien team. The only choice left for the alien team in this case is to deny the enemy the map from res and the other avalible hive.

Which they did in the main post's example. And the aliens won the res war as well as getting two hives (a big acomplisment by all means against any competant marine team). And the marines turtled. And the marines could not lose, in fact, they ended up winning.

You don't need to be a genius to see this, but there is a definate map imbalance.

And the worst part is, the marines were outskilled, and still couldn't be beaten. It's terribly pathetic.

Necrosis · October 2003

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"I'll start by saying that I have seen FAR more evidence of twisting words. taking things out of context, and not reading all of your opponents post in your arguments than in Slayers. That said, lets move on to what seems to be your biggest absurdity, and then to what you said to me.

</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Odd considering you haven't read my posts fully (or have selective amnesia), but nonetheless I'll entertain your position. Actually, perhaps more accurately its that I respond in detail to Slayers posts, as opposed to their consistent ignorance of simple statements in my own.

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How can you possibly compare being unable to overcome defenses with top level technology to being unable to win a game of Chess with just a King? I mean, where do you come up with this garbage?!!
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

I can't help it if you can't/won't understand the simple comparison. If I let all my pieces be taken in chess, it is no different to letting marines build right on my doorstep- I am setting myself up for a huge fall later in the game. And NEITHER situation is a balance issue. Its down to poor play. If you whine to someone about kings being underpowered, they'll just laugh at you.

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"Next, I dare you to name one RTS where you can make yourself an unkillable fortress, even given 15 minutes undisturbed to build it, on a small portion of the map."
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

ANY RTS has that capability when it is a GOOD player against a POOR one. Thats why you get tons of identical posts on RTS game forums about how X Y and Z is over/under powered. And its usually some silly little idea such as "I can't kill a tank army with anti-infantry infantry. They keep getting run over! This game is unfair".

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The "stronger position" in RTS games in general is not a particularly defensible position, but having a position including more sources of income than your opponent so that you can generate a larger and more powerful army.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Its not that either, but many things. Consider that the aliens had more sources of income, could generate a more powerful army, but THEY DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT. No doubt of course you believe that aliens lost from the "stronger position" - but they stopped being in the stronger position once the rines got in a position to lock down a hive. And they kept going down the losing path the longer they left the marines in their base.

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Every RTS game I've ever seen has just as many counters to static defenses as there are static defenses. Not to say a game could not be programmed differently, but they haven't been, for a very good reason. Unkillable positions are bad for a game. Every position should be crackable, and destroyable, given enough time and money, regardless of how much you let someone set up first. And this logic is reflected in the counters you see in virtually every single RTS.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Entire white army vs black king is an unkillable position. Black king could find it impossible to even take a pawn. Does that make chess a bad game? No, it means a bad player let himself get destroyed. Likewise in any RTS, where a player could play badly and effectively put the enemy in an unkillable position. For example Dune, where you can destroy the enemy power structures AND the factories, and leave him totally powerless. He can't win from that position - would you call that a bad game?

BTW, you may have observed in my other, earlier posts that I listed a detailed and effective solution to this perceived imbalance. Looks like YOU are not reading MY posts - despite claiming otherwise:

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Just on the vague hope that you might actually care, I will let you know that I did in fact read every post you wrote in it's entirety, with the sole exception of the last 10% of the 5000 word post, because I had read the post you were quoting there and it had gone beyond the topic I was interested in. But I'm sure you only said that to sound important, so it doesn't matter much.
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I don't judge my own importance by whether or not people read threads. I couldn't care less whether you read or not, other than to say if you can't be bothered reading then you shouldn't be participating.

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Now, once the marines beat off the initial wave of skulks, it takes less than 30 seconds for them to set up a com chair and an IP. Once they have done that, attacking the relocate is no easier than attacking marine spawn when marines build there instead.
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And attacking rine spawn is pretty easy stuff. And IF the relocate goes up, what exactly is the logic in LEAVING AN IMPORTANT MARINE LOCKDOWN IN PLACE UNTIL ENDGAME? They may take 30 secs to drop their IP and CC, but defending it is another thing - knowing the marines plan an aggressive strat, an alien player could have dropped upgrades. The relocate would need to be continually ATTACKED, not left alone or walled in with OC.

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If you kill that wave of marines and force them to respawn and come again, then you HAVE stopped the relocation. But even that is NOT GUARANTEED!!! Sometimes, the force of aliens that you bring to push back the relocate gets killed! Imagine that! And no, I am not recommending that you give up after that, but you have to realize that once they have made it their base, rushing it is NOT EASY.
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If you kill the first relocation wave, yes. You're talking about one rine and his CC - which is not stopped until the CC is dead and no marines are there to build. Then, and ONLY THEN, has a relocation been stopped. Once they have it made it their base, regardless of how easy it is to rush you MUST keep the pressure on - not leave them alone to lame up happily. If they stop trying to break out, then they put res into base defence. Leave them long enough and you will NEVER get back in. Happened to us in a game on Origin. Rines got to dbl res, nobody bothered their backside moving them. Rines successfully attacked vent hive over and over. Eventually onos rushed cargo - taking down a lot of stuff. Of course, rines counterattacked into EVERY hive, forcing the onos to run about like headless chickens. Marines spent the next twenty mins rebuilding cargo even more heavily - totally unimpeded by aliens other than one onos (me) trying to at least pretend to pressurise them. What happened? Marines lost when we ALL rushed cargo.

That wasn't a balance issue, it was poor alien play, and despite the loss of multiple onos, the base went down. Skulks might die in droves but if the enemy is LAMING UP BASE then you have zero choice but to act FAST and DECISIVELY, otherwise marines will lame it up to ridiculous levels - which is YOUR FAULT if you let it happen.

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If the aliens also realized that this was an important relocate spot, and they moved there to fight the marine relocation, and they lost the fight, all it says is that they lost one fight vs marines.
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They lost a fight at a hive AND allowed marines to dig in at a good defensive spot..... and you try to brush it off as a minor setback? Do you have any grasp of NS strategy? You may well comment that you can lose a hive and retake it.... but this wasn't a hive relocation - this was a relocation NEAR hive in a very defensible spot. It was a colossal setback, and one that should have been countered early. As it stands, aliens COULD have still broken it but clearly lacked the strategy to do so.

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So should this one fight a mere 30 seconds into the game decide the ultimate winner already? If so, why not just tell everyone to f4 at 2:00 every game, since you already know who will win?
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30 seconds into a game, aliens rush MS and kill their only CC. Should that decide the ultimate winner? And yes, letting marines build in somewhere like redroom IS tantamount to letting your CC get toasted. You COULD still win, but you're making it harder for yourself.

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But I will have you know that my speculation includes personal experience of siege situations like this on only one resnode, starting with almost no tech, and researching max tech somewhere around 45 minutes into the game. If it took them much more than an hour, thats just bad play on the part of the marines.
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Possibly. Or they were replacing people lost in breakout attempts - lets not forget that the alien player claims marines were locked into base - perhaps the spent the first half hour holding off skulk rushes and building, and THEN settled into a hour long stint of teching up, before clearing enough of a path to get to redroom, and say 7 minutes to build it up and begin the JP rampage.

The fact remains that despite the alleged timescale, it was a virtually flawless strat considering the situation marines were in.

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Since we do know that the marines did not control any res outside of Cargo for any length of time, that means the real stalemate probably started sometime around the 15 minute mark.
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I was thinking within the first half hour, yes.

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That flaw has been claimed to be a product of the boredom that comes with a two hour stalemate. Accept it or not, thats the only explanation you are going to get. Just remember that they did succeed in defending it for a LONG time before the JPer finally made it in there.
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The flaw that the marine got there unimpeded, yes. Second, if the aliens WANTED THE GAME TO END THAT BADLY then why not F4? Suggest a draw to the marines? If half the rines left their base, it could have been ripped open by aliens, needing only a gorge to put up cargo and another to OC up the remaining hive. With no IPs, the marines could be bled in minutes.

That would ALSO end the game in a more entertaining manner. To me, as a player, I find it somewhat ridiculous that the aliens "coincidentally" got bored when a JPer got out of base.

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Why do you say it started with a failed marine strat? It started with a successful marine strat: relocation to cargo. After that, the marines lost the majority of their battles in the field, until the Aliens controlled the map.
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A relocation is an opening move, not a full strategy. Marines would have had to do something AFTER their relocation. So while the relocation succeeded, the initial strategy failed (if it was expansionist) or was severely impeded (if we assume their opening strat was to take RwT, Redroom, then JP rush Silo)

I still can't see any sign of imbalance other than player experience.

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Forlorn

The rest of the team? All the aliens are in the spawn que. The aliens first hive is also powersilo.

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Regardless of where the aliens spawn, they can't afford to let the rines get dug in. Thus they must actively pressure the relocation over and over. Rush the marines while 1 skulk hits the tf before its built. Perhaps he hits the IP. You don't just sit back and content yourself with stopping rines getting out - you have to get in there and KILL THEM IN BASE.

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by the time one skulk can reach the marine base again there are two marines.
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Still decent odds for an average skulk. He could run around the buildings and buy time if he lacks the ability to kill the rines.

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because rushing marines with skulk is 100% luck;
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Thats a joke.

And regardless, that doesn't mean you let them dig their heels in. You keep the pressure on and upgrade to higher evolutions if need be. Lerk would be the first, and can spore quite happily while skulks keep pushing in. If there are few rines, the lerk can spike. Pretty average alien strategy, no leetness required.

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Anyhow, there aren't any follow ups for the alien team. The only choice left for the alien team in this case is to deny the enemy the map from res and the other avalible hive.
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They can rush the relocate continually and chip it down. They can lame the rines into base with OC. They can patrol the area with skulks. They could rush for lerks and fades and try to smash the base in one go. And again thats only a limited selection from a large number. If they leave a clever relocation alone then they're a foolish alien team.

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And the aliens won the res war as well as getting two hives (a big acomplisment by all means against any competant marine team). And the marines turtled. And the marines could not lose, in fact, they ended up winning.
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And rines can win the res war and lock down two hives - but kill their IP and CC and they can end up losing. Thats not imbalance, but poor play. As I keep pointing out.

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You don't need to be a genius to see this, but there is a definate map imbalance.
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That some areas favour aliens and some favour marines? You consider that an imbalance? If you think thats an imbalance, that marine defense is unbalanced, and that attacking with a skulk is luck, then there's very little ANYONE in the community can do to help you.

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And the worst part is, the marines were outskilled, and still couldn't be beaten. It's terribly pathetic.
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Marines were outskilled despite two textbook relocation/siege attempts that the aliens refused to counter? Sounds like the aliens were outclassed - thinking that holding res and two hives is somehow better than a strong strategic position.

And thats why people start whining about an imbalance - aliens had res, hives, and zero wit, how could they lose? Rines had steady res, a good defensive spot and some intelligence.... how could they win eh? You know there are res **** out there who cry because their unkillable onos gets diced. Does anyone listen to them when they scream imbalance now? Generally no, because most of us are fully aware that being a smacktard with an onos does not make you invincible.

Kenichi · October 2003

i love how people think large posts make them better than each other.

3-D · October 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kenichi @ Oct 10 2003, 11:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> i love how people think large posts make them better than each other.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
My post is much larger than your post which makes me much better than you.

See? I have TWO lines.

So there. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'>

SlayerOfSkulks · October 2003

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"Yeah, it's fairly obvious at this point that you're choosing to argue against any point I say without bothering to read it on it's merits, without bothering to acknowledge some of the more important points, so at this point, I'm choosing not to continue this. If you ever decide to debate based on fact, not on trying to rip someone's character, e-mail me, because your diversion tactics are tiresome, and something I can't be bothered to wade through."
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Sorry, I believe you're talking about your own posts - with the heavy off topic bias, refusal to acknowledge the Comm's intelligence ("it was good but just luck") and blind insistence on "imbalance". I've cited many examples of games with differing races and how you cannot consider balance to be a black and white issue - but you just don't want to know. Or can't understand.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Well, you believe wrong. Let's go over things.

Off-Topic bias? Everything I said has linked in with the topic. Please tell me which bits you feel aren't on topic, and I will gladly explain how they are.
Refusal to acknowledge the comms intelligence? Let me see here...

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The TSA, in a clever position with full tech, managed to hold off the aliens, also with all evolutions and chambers, for as long as was needed.. <snip> A complete n00b marine team, if they had a single clever marine to be comm, could've pulled off that defense effortlessly?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

My first statement involving the comm. I said they were in a clever position, and I also a clever comm could've put them in that position. In fact, you were the one twisted it later to imply I talked about the comm being lucky... I talked about the JP escaping as lucky, not the relocation move.

As for imbalance, that's what our little part of the debate is *about*. I'm well aware of gamies with different races and abilities, but when one ability of a race can be used or exploited to give almost complete protection against anything another race can throw at them, short of some overly-complex multi-player super technique, that's an imbalance. (And no, that isn't off-topic. The very title of this thread has the words 'balance issue' in. Note it des not contain the phrase 'solution wanted', so perhaps you'll stop claiming that's all the thread is about.)

By the way, seeing as you've drawn me in again (Yup, I took the bait, hook line and stinker,) can I ask exactly what was going on here?

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>"Those of us with a grounding in strategic gaming will know that ANY POSITION CAN BE FILLED WITH TURRETS. Anywhere on the map that a rine can get to, can be turreted. Yes? The marines can set up anywhere on the map. Do you disagree?"

"Noo, I don't. That's why I kinda brought it up. I'm not in the business of saying things I don't agree with."

So why do you defend a point you disagree with? That sounds like trolling. You agree marines can setup anywhere.... yet you would claim they can't?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

hat's a direct quote of what you quoted, by the way, so if it was taken out of context it was when you quoted it... but anyway.

The situation here, as far as I see, is this... I made a point, or maybe you made it and I agreed with it. Then you asked me if I disagreed with it. Well, I didn't, that's why I stated it like it was fact. So then you turn it around to sound like I'm being hypocritical (When did I say marines couldn't set up everywhere? Of COURSE they can, that was kinda my point...) even though I wasn't... and THEN, as an added twist, you then keep refering to it later on in your post, to make it look as if I can't make my mind up about things and contradict myself, even though I didn't! If it wasn't so offensive, it'd be clever.

Well, this cut-down post should be a little easier to keep track of. We can but hope.

Julien · October 2003

I can't resist the chess metaphor.

There are games in chess where one side is lured into taking pieces and gaining a material advantage. However, as a result of all this going after pawns and rooks and a queen, they allow the other side to gain a positional advantage. Such as just one knight and one bishop in a superior position. Result: checkmate.

And there are games where you can be the lone black king surrounded by many white pieces, yet manuever yourself into a position where you cannot move without being attacked, yet not be checkmated either. When this happens, it's a stalemate, gg, and a draw. Each player gets 0.5 points instead of 1 point for being the winner.

Be thankful NS allows for an eventual victory if you don't give up?

Either that or we need an option to draw the game besides F4'ing.

im_lost · October 2003

I just thought I would bring up another point. In a pub game, aliens need time to coordinate what they are doing, even if they are hardcore veterans that are great team players. It takes time to decide who is going to gorge (probably 2 in a 6v6 game) and who is going to watch which side of MS. Also, by the time you get to MS at least one of the marines has probably already left, which means one skulk has to go through and check gen room and room with things. If you expect a relocation before you know anything about what is happening you can rush to the important areas (gen room and room with things), but then you aren't watching MS and you will be slower to counter anything else they do. If you have 1 skulk on each side of MS, one skulk in gen room and one in room with things area, you are so spread out that you are completely ineffective at stopping the marines. This leads me to the conclusion that marines can relocate without a coordinated attack on the relocation until it is too late (in many pub games). So, if turtling in a good area within siege range of a hive is all that is needed for marines to win, I believe that it will lead to an increase in the use of the strategy, create more boring and frustrating games, and kill the pub environment.

Edit: As far as the chess metaphor goes, here is a better one. Let's say that one player has their king, 2 knights, 2 bishops, and a rook (representing aliens), while the other player has their king and 3 pawns (marines). This goes on for a long while with nothing really changing. Suddenly, all 3 of those pawns appear at the end row and turn into queens, giving this player quite an advantage.

Necrosis · October 2003

Slayer -

Not leaving the thread now?

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Off-Topic bias? Everything I said has linked in with the topic. Please tell me which bits you feel aren't on topic, and I will gladly explain how they are.
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Did so, no need to repeat myself, you ignored them then and you'll ignore them now. Why bore other posters with it? BTW, you are of course aware of the irony that asking for clarification on the OT areas is in itself OT.

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My first statement involving the comm. I said they were in a clever position, and I also a clever comm could've put them in that position. In fact, you were the one twisted it later to imply I talked about the comm being lucky... I talked about the JP escaping as lucky, not the relocation move.
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You're the one continually stating and implying that comm was lucky, and by sheer chance utilised arguably two of the most well known relocation points on the map.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
but when one ability of a race can be used or exploited to give almost complete protection against anything another race can throw at them, short of some overly-complex multi-player super technique, that's an imbalance.
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The tactic described is not overly complex - its simplistic and basic. It merely requires teamwork and observation - something you should learn quickly in NS. Its laughable how your words imply that using your strength is exploiting, and additionally how you claim the marines were completely protected.

If you find the teamwork strategy overcomplex, then you're in the wrong game. If you believe that the tactic was a "super technique" then you're woefully inexperienced.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
By the way, seeing as you've drawn me in again (Yup, I took the bait, hook line and stinker,) can I ask exactly what was going on here?
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If you say you're leaving a thread, leave a thread. Throwing one post hissy fits helps noone.

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The situation here, as far as I see, is this... I made a point, or maybe you made it and I agreed with it............
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Is there a point to your "lets make this thread a 'you're harassing me' thread" OT diversion? No.

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i'm lost

This leads me to the conclusion that marines can relocate without a coordinated attack on the relocation until it is too late (in many pub games). So, if turtling in a good area within siege range of a hive is all that is needed for marines to win, I believe that it will lead to an increase in the use of the strategy, create more boring and frustrating games, and kill the pub environment.
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I don't believe its all that is needed for rines to win - the slashburn strategy involves little to no sieging and is a tricky strat to counter if you're not coordinated. I play on pub servers and we've broken tough relocations with patience and a team effort.

I do however wholeheartedly agree that inexperienced teams will get destroyed against things like slashburn or stealth sieging - but you learn from the experience and next time you'll rush RwT, or Redroom, or gen, or you'll go to MS and see if they've left. Rines will improve their game, and you'll respond in kind. Thats generally how it'll work, and I don't think its fair on the long term NS players that the game is nerfed so that an inexperienced uncoordinated team should pull off a win against an experienced and coordinated one.

And frankly in terms of this thread, I don't believe the alien team were experienced, and certainly not coordinated until the endgame rush to smash the relocation.

Nice chess analogies so far..... though I hesitate to encourage further discussion of the chess analogy since it'll take this thread seriously OT. I used it once for a simple comparison, kind of hoping it can be used like that <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Cxwf · October 2003

Gah...you insult Slayer, insult him again, insult him some more, and then when he dares to respond to some of your accusations, you dismiss it as being offtopic?

I'm going to have to agree with Slayer's earlier post now, and say you are completely immune to logic, and leave the thread myself.

(If anyone wants proof that logic has abandoned Necrosis...simply notice that in his chess metaphor, the alien team with two hives and 7 res towers is represented by a lone king with no other pieces)

Forlorn · October 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kenichi @ Oct 11 2003, 12:01 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> i love how people think large posts make them better than each other. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
I like how people think that one word statements make them look cool.

I also like how people think that trying to make others look bad on an online virtural board shows that they aren't pathetic.

Necrosis:

All I can say is that you are wrong. It's not hard to arrive at the conclusion that yes, the ventialation chamber near the cargo bay hive is an invincible fortress, if not a boring one. It's also not very hard to conclude that this part of the map needs to be changed, if not for the fact that it's a double res point which is also a hive (poor map layout), then it's also because it has such campage potential for the marines.

ObsidianAtheme · October 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Necrosis @ Oct 7 2003, 05:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Onos aren't endgame material. They're HA killers, TF smashers, not base rapers.

Observe how the fade not only kills but RAPES marines with terrifying regularity.

Rines die, buildings can't be replaced, and eventually you'll be able to run in unhindered for the grand final rape.
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I think somebody has an obsession with violent sex. (o;

Necrosis · October 2003

Cxwf, its a simple analogy - screwing your own side and then expecting to win. You can have all the hives and res in the world, but if you've no notion of how to use it then you'll rarely win. Honestly, next it'll be an 85-like "Kharaa don't have any kings though" comment. Anyhow, toodle-oo, have a nice time elsewhere.

Forlorn - if its so obvious, why does an alien team let it happen? Why do they merely contain rather than clear it out? Why wait till endgame when the marines have the clear edge in defensive terrain? Flawed alien play, and without flawed alien play this situation would A) Not have happened and B) Been easily resolved by pushing rines back from cargo hive, putting it up, then screaming and xenoing their way into the marine relocate.

Rather than blame the map, its much more logical to blame the players, since most other teams would have cleared them from the area (regardless of how hard it is to rush from one hive to the other, you just don't let marines dig in on your doorstep). Any point on a map can be sufficiently lamed up - its the job of the players to PREVENT that outcome.

Verus · October 2003

Heh, you guys provided me with at least an hour of humor or more, reading all of that. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

Anyways, I left out all of the game details in the first example because:

A. My question was not really "how do I win in this example?" it was more is it unbalancing that there are times in which Aliens are brought to a stalemate situation? I tried to further this discussion by bringing up another possible example (although not quite the same) so that we wouldn't dwindle on the first example rather than on the hypotheticals that create the above example.

B. Because I knew putting to much information into the original thread would bias the outcome of the thread. Although, now I feel like I have to because it has gathered so much import in the conversation.

C. Because I didn't want the thread to turn into a solutions to solve THAT particular example, rather solutions in general to solve any situation given the hypotheticals. (Thus, as has been so clearly pointed out, would prove that no imbalance exists)

Now to fill in some of the details (which have seem to have become important):

The game did last for approximately 2 hours, not exactly 2 hours as I did not time it with a stop watch. (For this, I do not apologize)

The marines were not entirely on the defensive for the entire duration of that 2 hours. After we failed to stop them from their initial relocation we began to have to meet them on other fronts rather than just in their base. As is the typical marine strategy of today, once you have established minimal base needs, you venture out to slash/burn for res. So, in an effort to combat this strategy, we wound up doing battle to stop the marines from garnerning further resrouces as well as protecting our own. This fight lasted for some time (although not the majority of the time.) During this time, was when the marines had the resources to begin "teching up."

As the battle progressed from keeping the marines contained to our own team making sure we had the resources and the second hive to sustain a constant battle with the marines, we began to win. We drove the marines soundly back into cargo when it occured that they began to "turtle." Although, it is not the base defenses so much as the positioning of marines that led to this stalemate. As with many of the above mentioned solutions to this problem, a handful of marines with GL's and HMG's have absolutely no problem (nor is any skill required) to lock down such a "tight" base. It was then at this point when the marines were fully teched out with HA and whatever weapon they wanted that we began to run into this stalemate situation. Our alien team could successfully keep them contained (and did so) for the better part of an hour. Any marine attempt to leave their base was met with a swift, decisive death blow. Any alien attempt to unroot marine prescence was also swiftly met with a decisive death blow. Over the course of the hour the marines began to attack outward less and less (no doubt due to their dwindling resources) and the attack began to shift towards the aliens constantly assaulting their position. It was then that we began to try a wide variety of tactics to defeat the marines. This included combined arms, hit and run tactics, and a variety of other means. In effect, the entire alien team was working together at every possible solution they could think of to destroy this marine encampment.

The eventual end of the game occured when the marines finally succeeded in sneaking a jetpacker to the red room. This was not an instanteous event as it was tried many times unsuccessfully. Just before the end game occured, most of the alien players (including myself) were growing quite bored with the circumstance. Unwilling to continue such a fruitless operation, a few of the alien players simply left the server to find a more interesting game. It was at this time, the marines then began to outmatch us (outskill us as so many people seem to want to believe) and we lost.

Now as for strategies that weren't tried, I have already conceded that we did not try to constantly slap up the third hive as the notion of such a wasteful strategy was reasonably set aside. If the game had proceeded for even more hours without players growing bored, this may have been tried and the game would have ended with an Alien victory.

Now, that you have a little more detail into what should have been the least important part of my post, we can continue on to the hypotheticals.

I would like to point out that many people have brought up the idea that the balance issue occuring here is a map issue. After much consideration, I have begun to agree with this....

Hypothetically speaking, if I designed a map such that each hive had around it a very defensible spot where each spot contained one or even two resource towers which could be easily if not indefinitely defended from the same position. Now, if at any point in a game the marines relocated to one of these spots they could set up this "marine advantage" strategy to defeat the aliens since the aliens could not have this third hive with which to get their turtle defeating abilities. Given that there are multiple spots of interest, that the battle does not stay confined to this particular area for the entire length of the game, and that there are multiple places for this to occur (since there would be no way to 'predict' which spot the marines were going to take) I would without a doubt, consider this to be an unbalanced map. (As I have purposefully set it up to be.)

Now that we have this hypothetical unbalanced map, how would you defeat this marine strategy? I would contend that you could not defeat it. (At least not in a reasonable amount of time) The reason you could not defeat it is not only because the map is unbalanced it is also because the Aliens do not have a reasonable means for dealing with the situation. So, in this case, the real prevention measures would be to fix the unbalanced map rather than fix an unbalanced Alien side. (Which is the point I am conceding on.)

Now that I have said that, (although to many of you that probably wasn't important) I will continue on with the discussion.

First, saying that you can always do something (such as stopping a marine relocation) is a vacuous statement. As many have pointed out, declaring a prevention strategy does not always guarentee 100% success. By assuming that any game can be won with simple prevention measures, then of course everything you say afterwards will be true. It is this assumption that is flawed not the conclusions from such assumption. In the event that said event occurs, there should be a way to deal with this situation. As is integral in any good strategy "game" (emphasis on game as this is not real life and thusly real life situations do not apply) there needs to be a counter measures for every strategy. If it is the case that there is no counter-measure, then it is up to the game designer (not some fabled leet players) to make sure that the event that causes this unassailable strategy to occur does not occur. (In my particular case, a map fix would suffice.) Furthermore, creating hypothetical examples in which this is not the case is automatically null and void because we are arguing THE CASE AT HAND. In the case of marines, this hypothetical stalemate can not occur, thus the game designer have succeeded in balancing this issue. In the case of aliens, this situation CAN occur and thus there is no success in balancing this issue. Saying something can't occur when it has already been stated that it HAS/DOES occur is what we call denial. Saying that I or any of the other people here are in denial because these situations can't occur is equally vacuous. (For those of you who don't know what I am saying when I use the term vacuous... it is a term refering to a situation in which no matter what is said, an event can not be proven false because the assumed truth proves its own truth. For example, those of us who are religious have faith. Faith is a vacuous truth because Faith is an assumption which vacuously proves its own existence. Faith is real because you have faith that it is real.)

As many have repeatedly said including myself, stop pretending like this situation doesn't occur. It does occur or myself and others wouldn't be here arguing the point. If you still don't believe that it occurs, then let me refer you to my hypothetical map design. (or even better, let me design a map in which it will occur in almost every round)

Now for one counter point because the absurdity of it just begged for this:

1 skulk vs. 2 marines is IN NO MEANS good odds. In fact, this is a laughable statement. If you honestly believe you can kill 2 marines with one skulk so successfully, then I state (as so many have stated about me not having "good enough fades') that you aren't fighitng good enough marines. Furthermore, by stating that one skulk is worth two marines you are inherently stating that this game is unbalanced since every Alien player is now worth 2 Marine players thus requiring the game to have twice the number of Marine players to defeat a simple skulk rush. As I have read into what you write as much as you have read into what I write, I contend that you honestly think that Alien players have some kind of superior advantage over Marine players regardless of skill. This is what the aforementioned statement implies, and it is what other statements that have been made imply as well. (One fade could have just blinked over the turrets and hacked marines to pieces if he was leet ninja fade) <---- Yeah right.

A valid marine strategy is slash and burn. (Which happens to have a balance issue thread on it as well.) I have argued there that this is not a balance issue. A invalid marine strategy is using poor map design to their advantage. It is not invalid because the marines are exploiting or because the Aliens aren't "good enough" to defeat it. It is invalid because the map (at this particular section) was not designed to be fair. As you have all repeated again and again, marines always relocate here. In this particular game, the Alien team knew as soon as the alert went up that a relocation occured, that that was exaclty where they went. This is a common marine strategy. It is common because it sets the marines up with an unfair advantage, one which commanders will use to their fullest. In an effort to make the game "funner" or more "exciting" places that are exploitable for a marine advantage should be removed. At no point should a side have an inherent advantage. (This is not because Aliens and Marines are different! This is because given their differences, a position such as this makes those differences a game imbalance.)

Having strategic positions in a map is important for a diverse game. That being said, no position in a map should ever be unassailable. (Within reason) In real life, more power to you if you have an unassailable fortress. In a game which is meant to be entertaining as well as challenging, this is not appropraite. Make sure that all strategic positions do have a means with which to be assaulted. If a position doesn't have a good means of being assaulted, make sure it isn't strategic. Does this mean take out all strategic positions and/or make no position defensible? No. It simply means that more concern need be placed on map construction so that both sides may be equally "entertained". (entertained being the key word here as it has more than one meaning.) In general, this is true of most of the maps and strategic positions within those maps in this game. (Applause goes out to the hard work that has been put into making such a great game.) Examples: marine start positions or many of the double resource nodes. This does not mean that these maps are flawless, and a few fixes here and there would eliminate the whole point of this thread and everyone would be content.

It is also not illogical to blame the designers rather than the players. In fact, it is a very logical idea. (Many people blame things on the system rather than on themsleves, and the real kicker is, sometimes they are right.) The question is not logic (as you seem to think) it is which side is more right. My side says its maps, your side says that my side just obviously isn't good enough to make that decision.

I think it is reasonable to conclude after wading through all of the political and irresponsible posts made from both sides, that a balance issue does occur. To fix the balance issue, a simple map fix would be in order (no changes to either team neccessary) and we could continue on our way.

As a further note, THIS is a solution not a prevention measure thus it has success in stopping the given issue 100% of the time, not 50%, 80% or even 99.9999999999% of the time.

SlayerOfSkulks · October 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Slayer -

Not leaving the thread now?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

What can I sy, I'm easily suckered into defending myself against wild accusations. How dare I.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Off-Topic bias? Everything I said has linked in with the topic. Please tell me which bits you feel aren't on topic, and I will gladly explain how they are.
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Did so,</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

No, you didn't. On some occasions you did, and I answered them. Let's go through it, shall we?

Start off; this topic is, basically about whether that position being so damned invincible to an average pub alien team when set up is an imbalance or not. Now, as you so strongly mention, this begs the question of whether itr WAS invincble, or whether it was down to one team simply being better than the other. That's how team skill comes into player. Next: the overall skill level of the marine team is GREATLY affected by the skill level of the comm, so it's quite on topic to discuss his skill (as you yourself have.) he JPer to the end? Many people throughout the thread have suggested his ease in escaping from the area and getting to an unguarded RedRoom was evidence of lack of alien skill... and as you recall, alien skill is one of the on-topic matters that was up for debate, beause we need to know if player skill was the problem to work out if map design was the problem. If I've missed anything, tell me where. Or just dismiss it by claiming you already said it/my points aren't valid/we've been over this before/this paragraph is off-topic.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>My first statement involving the comm. I said they were in a clever position, and I also a clever comm could've put them in that position. In fact, you were the one twisted it later to imply I talked about the comm being lucky... I talked about the JP escaping as lucky, not the relocation move.
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You're the one continually stating and implying that comm was lucky, and by sheer chance utilised arguably two of the most well known relocation points on the map.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

No I'm not! I just gave you the damned quotes that PROVED I wasn't,.and snipping them out doesn't change a thing. YOU were the one who first started implying I'd said that, and I got so caught up in defending myself that I forgot I was defending something I'd *never said anyway*. I've got to hand it to you, you had me coming AND going.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>but when one ability of a race can be used or exploited to give almost complete protection against anything another race can throw at them, short of some overly-complex multi-player super technique, that's an imbalance.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

The tactic described is not overly complex </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
It is. It really is. We're now touching on one of the base imbalances in NS that nothing can really be done about, but for the sake of working out if this OTHER thing is an imbalance, we can touch on. (I have to throw this little disclaimer in, apparently, because otherwise everything I say is OT.)
Marine tactics generally only require on one man, the comm, knowing what he's doing. If the rest of the team follow orders, they can be completely new to the game and still have a decent chance, as long as the comm sends them to the right place at the right time to build the right thing while kitting them with the right weapons. One excellent player who knows to relocate HERE and then give marines THIS, and people following orders.
But for many of the alien's counter moves, it requires MOST of the team to know theyre stuff.
It needs EVERY player to know that, to beat situation X, 1 person has to go Onos with Carapace and stomp the marines so the gorge can safely shoot bile-bombs over the top of the onos with a lerk giving Umbra defense against the turrets followed by the two fades who blink in and mop up when the others kharaa fall back, AND to have the skiills to pull it off. Anyone can point the crosshair at the enemy and pull the trigger, but it takes a lot of practice to get good at blink-slash-blink, and you're a little out-of-touch if you think the average player has that level of knowledge. It ISN'T simplistic.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>By the way, seeing as you've drawn me in again (Yup, I took the bait, hook line and stinker,) can I ask exactly what was going on here?
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If you say you're leaving a thread, leave a thread. Throwing one post hissy fits helps noone.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
I said I wasn't continuing with things *at that time*. Then you decided to bring things up, yet again. As I said above, forgive me for wanting to defend myself, but I will do so. (and before you scream Off-Topic!' I would remind you that your snide remarks in the first place were off-topic AND flames, and would also state that explaining and defending my on-topic position in order to have my on-topic points taken seriously can probably be counted as On-Topic.)

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Is there a point to your "lets make this thread a 'you're harassing me' thread" OT diversion? No.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Yes, as shown above. I'm defending valid points, and my reputation, both of which have been slandered. According to you I'm a troll who drags topics down, doesn't know the first thing about a game I've been playing since the day 1.0 came out, and doesn't have anything of worth to say. Diversion? No. Clarification. I've made On-Topic points, and I deserve them to be taken seriously, and if this is how it has to be done, then this is how I'll do it.

Now, are you going to answer that question I asked in my last post, where I asked what you meant? Or am I to take that as admission that you DID take it out of context? Note that I'm not accusing, I'm *asking*. I'm giving you the chance to defend yourself, instead of just painting you as a troll in public, as you've attempted with me.

Long, Cramped Corridor Stalemates (balance Issue)

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