here's my own take on a solution to blink: <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=63344' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...showtopic=63344</a>
as for moving blink to 2nd hive, though... you said that 1-hive blink eliminates the marines' advantage of range. It might, but it's definitely not right from the start. the fade is 50 res, so it does take a while for them to work up to that. At most, there will be 2-3 fades, where all of the rest of the team is still CQB.
(and under the same logic, what about the lerk's flying? that cuts the range advantage of marines too...)
Is this thread a bad joke? Nevertheless, it still gives a good laugh.
You say the fade is overpowered, and then go to support this with TAU, who are by <b>no means</b> the authority on NS. There are far many supperior clans out there, and to say that fades are overpowered because TAU says so is an insult to the NS clan community.
I'll tell you right now, the majority of the clanners out there couldn't care less about what TAU thinks of fades, and also the majority of clanners agree fades need to stay how they are.
I think fades with carapace might have too much armor, but a hive 1 fade with regen is FAR from a game ender.
I can solo regen fades, and so can many of my clanmates, along with other top clanners. In fact, I just did a couple of days ago in a scrim. Once you get level 2 weapons, it becomes esp. easy to kill them with a mere 3 shots.
Otherwise, at lv. 1 weapons or lv. 0 weapons, the SG kills in a mere 4 shots.
You can say all this garbage of how a good fade won't die, but I can just point out a good marine will not miss. On top of this, a good marine will PRESSURE (dunno if this is a strange term to you) and make sure the fades must risk themselves in order to save an area.
Switching meta with blink is also an incredibly bad idea that should be blacklisted in the I&S FAQ. Seriously, it's so bad, fades would become WORTHLESS without blink, it's like taking away the 'reload' function from the LMG. That's how big of a nerf it would be.
Anyhow, meatsheild, I suggest you go and join a clan, or pug a bit, (actually pugs will give you the impression fades are too good... but pugs are too unorganized tbh) or hell, go play on a GOOD public server (I recommend [CoFR] or OSS's server), and actually get some real experience in this game before preeching about how flawed it is.
I play this game every day, play in scrims, and after countless hours of experience I can assure you, the fade is NOT overpowered.
ChurchMeatshield grunt-fodder // Has pre-ordered NS2Join Date: 2002-12-31Member: 11646Members, Constellation
After giving it some thought. You're right. Switching blink with meta is too much. Also, I haven't seen that many two hive lockdowns lately, so the fades weren't forced to fight on the grounds of the marine's choosing. I will reconsider.
Last: I like your link to the dictionary in your sig as well.
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Forlorn got here before me, dammit.
As another 24/7/365 NSplayer, I similarly assure you that fades are just right.
On a separate note: Try lerking in classic more often. You only need 5 points, and on maps like ns_agora or ns_metal, you can be an instantly deployable gassing system. If you constantly dog marine expansion in the early phases of the game, the rest of your team has more time to get some res income from RTs, and get easier kills when the marines move out in groups. Also, if you're one of the smart lerks that realizes spore doesn't stack, you can fill a large room with only three bursts of spore, and keep marines dying or running from one side of the room to the other, and strip their armor to nothing for the skulks. As long as you keep in mind that you're nothing more than a flying skulk with smelly gas and avoid getting shot at as much as possible while still sporing, you can be a considerable detriment to the marine team for the time until fades or the second hive show up. And we all know that properly used umbra is the end-all-be-all support skill. Often times a lerk and fade team with a skulk or two thrown in can take anything on the map at second hive. Even shotguns at pointblank have trouble on something in umbra. Toss in a burst of spore or two after the fade retreats, and the marines have no time to regroup before the fade and umbra and respawned skulks pour in again. Just develop a strong sense of self-preservation, don't try to rescue gorges, and you'll do fine.
Also: Korean servers rock after about 11:00PM PST. Apparently that's daytime or something. Most of the asian pubbers take the game a lot more seriously than your average Stateside player, and certainly more than anyone I've <b>EVER</b> seen on EU servers.
Play the game with better people, and learn to properly identify said better people.</span>
<!--QuoteBegin-Walt+Apr 10 2004, 07:50 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Walt @ Apr 10 2004, 07:50 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> you'd think that after NS has been out for so long people would understand the ideas the game was built on.
Marines: Scary game, travel in packs. Aliens: Fast, crazy game with more (that doesn't mean total) emphasis on individuals. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> except that it's the exact opposite. Aliens need really badass teamwork, especially in the first few minutes of the game, to win... whereas marines... don't.
<!--QuoteBegin-|ds|meatshield+Apr 10 2004, 03:13 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (|ds|meatshield @ Apr 10 2004, 03:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> After giving it some thought. You're right. Switching blink with meta is too much. Also, I haven't seen that many two hive lockdowns lately, so the fades weren't forced to fight on the grounds of the marine's choosing. I will reconsider.
Last: I like your link to the dictionary in your sig as well. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> <3!
/me runs off to troll other threads!
i agree with nada: marines have a HUGE advantage in the comm, which basically does all the coordinating and teamwork for the marines, while aliens have to communicate with each other as individuals to take down targets etc.
I'm not going to say that Fades are overpowered in their current roles, because I don't think that's necessarily true. Without a good Fade marines can just walk all over aliens. I'm also not going to bother to argue with Forlorn about target audience because I learned long ago that penetrating his oh-so-familiar clan bias is impossible. He'd like us to believe that as long as an organized clan in a scrim can counter something, there's nothing wrong with it because pubs don't matter, and he can go on thinking that for all I care.
I think that 3.0(really 2.0 and beyond) places too much emphasis on a single Fade. This isn't nearly as true for larger games, but I'm talking about the moderate sized ones that NS has thus far been balanced for. With the relatively small number of people on the alien team and the importance of many of them gorging to spend their early res, the always combat-ready marine team outnumbers and overpowers them in the early-mid game. That's why aliens need a Fade, just one Fade to match wits with the entire marine team and slow their otherwise effortless expansion.
Given the current circumstances of the alien team, the Fade isn't overpowered. It's necessary for them to be as powerful as they are in order to compensate for the weakness of the rest of their team. If you believe that one player should be the hero of their team as Fade, then they're of rather appropriate strength right now(assuming the player is very good, which comes to the skill gap issue which I won't go into now). Later in the game, marines are more capable of dealing with single Fades and aliens are more capable of producing multiple higher evolutions, so the significance of individual players balances out a little better.
So, I'll cut to the chase; I believe aliens need to be rebalanced in order to rely more heavily on multiple combat classes in the early/mid game, and less heavily on multiple gorges. Just a basic idea here, so don't get on my case about the specifics; what if gorges were given faster res(not divided like in 1.04), and early game Fades were subsequently weakened to be more reliant on their teammates? Aliens could produce a bunch of gorges and have very fast building if they wanted to, but they wouldn't have the firepower to defend against heavy marine pushes and sieges because their unit strength would suffer. Instead, more aliens could focus on combat like in 1.04(which is how aliens were designed to be, IMHO) with only a few Gorges covering their structure needs with the faster res flow. If balanced well that would also give aliens some additional flexibility in their strategy; either they could go heavy on Gorges and try to take over the map quickly for an early advantage, or focus on Lerks/Fades/Onoses and only cover their basic needs with Gorges. Maybe it's idealistic and it would need fine-tuning, but as a general concept I think that would be much more fun and flexible than the current Fade-reliant alien team.
The Fade issue isn't so simple as whether or not they need a nerf. There's little question that if you simply nerf them right now, the alien team will be helpless. It's not a question of their power, it's a question of their team's reliance on them.
meatshield: When I was talking about clanners, I was meaning that single uber clanner in a pub game. They are used to smart marines with good aim and a comm that has a near 100% medpack accuracy. Not a rather dim-witted marine team that likes to rambo and a comm that is decent. He will own because no one is up to his skill level. That is an entirely different point though, pertaining to skills and what not.
If you get someone like me behind the fade, then it's obvious that fades are not gods. I may get what seems like a lot of kills, but many times I have to pull out fast because of a fight going sour or I picked the wrong one. By this concept, the fade is rather fair as that a few shotguns in the mix and I or the other average fade player will have a bad day. But for the clanner, he will pick off the sger first from the flank, retreat and then kill anyone dumb enough to pick up the half empty shotgun.
The fade is a true skill class unit, much like most of the other aliens. A lerk requires someone with quick reflexes and planning skills. An onos requires a player that knows how to pick his battles, when retreating is neccesary and when teh team needs him to assault and defend. It's the fact that people as a marine want to be able to nuke aliens and as an alien, want to rip marines apart in an instant. Keep tailoring to that, and we may start seeing sniper rifles, laser gatling guns, scropians that hovar without flapping and super Onos that requires an entire marine team equipped with suicide packs to be eaten all at once and detonate inside him to be able and almost kill him...
<!--QuoteBegin-Fr05t+Apr 11 2004, 12:44 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Fr05t @ Apr 11 2004, 12:44 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Keep tailoring to that, and we may start seeing sniper rifles, laser gatling guns, scropians that hovar without flapping and super Onos that requires an entire marine team equipped with suicide packs to be eaten all at once and detonate inside him to be able and almost kill him...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Actually I like that last one. :D</span>
Comments
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=63344' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...showtopic=63344</a>
as for moving blink to 2nd hive, though... you said that 1-hive blink eliminates the marines' advantage of range. It might, but it's definitely not right from the start. the fade is 50 res, so it does take a while for them to work up to that. At most, there will be 2-3 fades, where all of the rest of the team is still CQB.
(and under the same logic, what about the lerk's flying? that cuts the range advantage of marines too...)
You say the fade is overpowered, and then go to support this with TAU, who are by <b>no means</b> the authority on NS. There are far many supperior clans out there, and to say that fades are overpowered because TAU says so is an insult to the NS clan community.
I'll tell you right now, the majority of the clanners out there couldn't care less about what TAU thinks of fades, and also the majority of clanners agree fades need to stay how they are.
I think fades with carapace might have too much armor, but a hive 1 fade with regen is FAR from a game ender.
I can solo regen fades, and so can many of my clanmates, along with other top clanners. In fact, I just did a couple of days ago in a scrim. Once you get level 2 weapons, it becomes esp. easy to kill them with a mere 3 shots.
Otherwise, at lv. 1 weapons or lv. 0 weapons, the SG kills in a mere 4 shots.
You can say all this garbage of how a good fade won't die, but I can just point out a good marine will not miss. On top of this, a good marine will PRESSURE (dunno if this is a strange term to you) and make sure the fades must risk themselves in order to save an area.
Switching meta with blink is also an incredibly bad idea that should be blacklisted in the I&S FAQ. Seriously, it's so bad, fades would become WORTHLESS without blink, it's like taking away the 'reload' function from the LMG. That's how big of a nerf it would be.
Anyhow, meatsheild, I suggest you go and join a clan, or pug a bit, (actually pugs will give you the impression fades are too good... but pugs are too unorganized tbh) or hell, go play on a GOOD public server (I recommend [CoFR] or OSS's server), and actually get some real experience in this game before preeching about how flawed it is.
I play this game every day, play in scrims, and after countless hours of experience I can assure you, the fade is NOT overpowered.
*fanfare plays*
p.s. I like your sig apocalypse.
Last: I like your link to the dictionary in your sig as well.
As another 24/7/365 NSplayer, I similarly assure you that fades are just right.
On a separate note: Try lerking in classic more often. You only need 5 points, and on maps like ns_agora or ns_metal, you can be an instantly deployable gassing system. If you constantly dog marine expansion in the early phases of the game, the rest of your team has more time to get some res income from RTs, and get easier kills when the marines move out in groups. Also, if you're one of the smart lerks that realizes spore doesn't stack, you can fill a large room with only three bursts of spore, and keep marines dying or running from one side of the room to the other, and strip their armor to nothing for the skulks. As long as you keep in mind that you're nothing more than a flying skulk with smelly gas and avoid getting shot at as much as possible while still sporing, you can be a considerable detriment to the marine team for the time until fades or the second hive show up. And we all know that properly used umbra is the end-all-be-all support skill. Often times a lerk and fade team with a skulk or two thrown in can take anything on the map at second hive. Even shotguns at pointblank have trouble on something in umbra. Toss in a burst of spore or two after the fade retreats, and the marines have no time to regroup before the fade and umbra and respawned skulks pour in again. Just develop a strong sense of self-preservation, don't try to rescue gorges, and you'll do fine.
Also: Korean servers rock after about 11:00PM PST. Apparently that's daytime or something. Most of the asian pubbers take the game a lot more seriously than your average Stateside player, and certainly more than anyone I've <b>EVER</b> seen on EU servers.
Play the game with better people, and learn to properly identify said better people.</span>
Marines: Scary game, travel in packs.
Aliens: Fast, crazy game with more (that doesn't mean total) emphasis on individuals. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
except that it's the exact opposite. Aliens need really badass teamwork, especially in the first few minutes of the game, to win... whereas marines... don't.
Last: I like your link to the dictionary in your sig as well. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
<3!
/me runs off to troll other threads!
i agree with nada: marines have a HUGE advantage in the comm, which basically does all the coordinating and teamwork for the marines, while aliens have to communicate with each other as individuals to take down targets etc.
I think that 3.0(really 2.0 and beyond) places too much emphasis on a single Fade. This isn't nearly as true for larger games, but I'm talking about the moderate sized ones that NS has thus far been balanced for. With the relatively small number of people on the alien team and the importance of many of them gorging to spend their early res, the always combat-ready marine team outnumbers and overpowers them in the early-mid game. That's why aliens need a Fade, just one Fade to match wits with the entire marine team and slow their otherwise effortless expansion.
Given the current circumstances of the alien team, the Fade isn't overpowered. It's necessary for them to be as powerful as they are in order to compensate for the weakness of the rest of their team. If you believe that one player should be the hero of their team as Fade, then they're of rather appropriate strength right now(assuming the player is very good, which comes to the skill gap issue which I won't go into now). Later in the game, marines are more capable of dealing with single Fades and aliens are more capable of producing multiple higher evolutions, so the significance of individual players balances out a little better.
So, I'll cut to the chase; I believe aliens need to be rebalanced in order to rely more heavily on multiple combat classes in the early/mid game, and less heavily on multiple gorges. Just a basic idea here, so don't get on my case about the specifics; what if gorges were given faster res(not divided like in 1.04), and early game Fades were subsequently weakened to be more reliant on their teammates? Aliens could produce a bunch of gorges and have very fast building if they wanted to, but they wouldn't have the firepower to defend against heavy marine pushes and sieges because their unit strength would suffer. Instead, more aliens could focus on combat like in 1.04(which is how aliens were designed to be, IMHO) with only a few Gorges covering their structure needs with the faster res flow. If balanced well that would also give aliens some additional flexibility in their strategy; either they could go heavy on Gorges and try to take over the map quickly for an early advantage, or focus on Lerks/Fades/Onoses and only cover their basic needs with Gorges. Maybe it's idealistic and it would need fine-tuning, but as a general concept I think that would be much more fun and flexible than the current Fade-reliant alien team.
The Fade issue isn't so simple as whether or not they need a nerf. There's little question that if you simply nerf them right now, the alien team will be helpless. It's not a question of their power, it's a question of their team's reliance on them.
If you get someone like me behind the fade, then it's obvious that fades are not gods. I may get what seems like a lot of kills, but many times I have to pull out fast because of a fight going sour or I picked the wrong one. By this concept, the fade is rather fair as that a few shotguns in the mix and I or the other average fade player will have a bad day. But for the clanner, he will pick off the sger first from the flank, retreat and then kill anyone dumb enough to pick up the half empty shotgun.
The fade is a true skill class unit, much like most of the other aliens. A lerk requires someone with quick reflexes and planning skills. An onos requires a player that knows how to pick his battles, when retreating is neccesary and when teh team needs him to assault and defend. It's the fact that people as a marine want to be able to nuke aliens and as an alien, want to rip marines apart in an instant. Keep tailoring to that, and we may start seeing sniper rifles, laser gatling guns, scropians that hovar without flapping and super Onos that requires an entire marine team equipped with suicide packs to be eaten all at once and detonate inside him to be able and almost kill him...
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Actually I like that last one. :D</span>