At 2 res, upgrading skulks was more often than not simply not worth the cash. It hurt your early economy too much. At 0 res, its not even a decision any more...respawn, immediately upgrade, every single life. There's never a question of "is it worth it to buy an upgrade", only "which free upgrade will I get this time?" But with upgrades at 1 res, the drain on early alien economy is much more manageable, but at the same time you do have to make strategic decisions again on whether that 1 res would be better spent on your upgrade or on saving for whatever you're saving for.
improving lvl2 and 3 armour against focus will just make sc at the second hive even more of a nessecity than it already is because changing armour values will effect non focus bites/ slashes too, unless the way focus worked was changed which clearly isnt within the scope of a small patch.
current balance in 3.0.3 hasnt changed much from 3.0.2, games still end up mostly alien ties, even if there is a present skill inbalance between the two teams. the seige change should have helped but it's difficult to gauge the effect accurately, the armour change only really helps in situations where the skulk doesnt perhaps have time to parasite i.e. rushing base or taking on a lone capper.
possible new fixes in a 3.0.4 patch? in order of preference (my own)
- lower the speed boost celerity gives to at least skulks and fades to 75-80% of current - remove the extra bullet given to skulks by innate regen - reimplement upgrades costing res at 2 hives and lengthen ability upgrade time by 50% (0 res at 1 hive, 1 res at 2hives, 2res at 3 hives?) - increase leap energy usage by 50%
my 50% are just ballpark suggestions, im not sure what would be an effective amount for either of those changes
also id like to add that, people may think the current aliens are lol wicked fun ye!? and would hate to see them nerfed so they would actually have to think about skulking again. but in my opinion its going to be very difficult to achieve a good balance by only using marine buffs.
The last patch helped, but it's not enough. All it really did was expose teams that don't parasite/spore/spit enough.
The early skulks still have too much of a chance versus an early marine, which gives the aliens rfk so that the second hive is building before the marines have 5 rt's up.
As much as some people here preach the free upgrades and that they make aliens more fun, what about marines? Where's the fun in getting walked over by a free lifeform ?
The other thing is the second hive aliens, which I agree, are (but have always been) too powerful. Even more so after the amazingly fun free upgraded skulks. Second hives should either be slowed down, or be less powerful. Whether you do that directly by nerfing the hell out of it, or buffing marines so they're somehow slowed down indirectly is up to you.
By the way--with A3, and 1 medpack, marines can now survive 2 focus hits. Just thought I'd mention it, since everyone seems to assume they'll still die.
Yes but who in their right mind would invest 40 res and that much time to upgrade a3 in order to bank on perfect medding allowing one more swipe? Research HA instead or drop another suit if it is researched. Then you **might** be able to take the fight to the focus fade.
I'm not offering opinions on which tactics are best vs focus, simply pointing out that it is possible, after seeing comments like these:
<!--QuoteBegin-Lump+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Lump)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Improve the effect of armour 2 and armour 3 to be more efficient in countering focus. As it is a focus fade will never need to swipe a marine more than twice to kill him no matter what armour level he has or the amount of medpacks he gets (unless he's welded of course).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Cxwf+May 9 2005, 07:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cxwf @ May 9 2005, 07:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> By the way--with A3, and 1 medpack, marines can now survive 2 focus hits. Just thought I'd mention it, since everyone seems to assume they'll still die. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
talking about focus fade, yes he can stand 2 focus skulk bites after a med (only 140 dmg each) but not 2 fade swipes (160 dmg each). As swipe is 80 damage and bite is 70.
<!--QuoteBegin-avl+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (avl)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->improving lvl2 and 3 armour against focus will just make sc at the second hive even more of a nessecity than it already is because changing armour values will effect non focus bites/ slashes too, unless the way focus worked was changed which clearly isnt within the scope of a small patch.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
avl, the armour boost wouldnt need to be much to effect focus hits and not non focus hits.. maybe reduce focus strength to 180% normal damage at level 3 instead? it isnt a necessity as it is.. just stronger than DC so people prefer it and it unbalances the game. making armour 2 and armour 3 have an effect would not hurt the game balance, they would be a small counter to focus.
tankefuglOne Script To Rule Them All...Trondheim, NorwayJoin Date: 2002-11-14Member: 8641Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
If it has nothing to do with game <b>balance</b>, leave it out of here. I'm still much more interested in the causes and effects rather than possible remedies. And remember, it's not eachother you have to convince, is us devs.
<!--QuoteBegin-tankefugl+May 9 2005, 08:38 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (tankefugl @ May 9 2005, 08:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> If it has nothing to do with game <b>balance</b>, leave it out of here. I'm still much more interested in the causes and effects rather than possible remedies. And remember, it's not eachother you have to convince, is us devs. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Well its hard to talk about balance without talking about fixes. Saying, "Celerity makes aliens move too fast" is the same thing as saying, "Celerity shouldn't make aliens move as fast." "Armor 2 and 3 are worthless." is the same as saying "armor 2 and 3 should be made worthwhile upgrades."
<!--QuoteBegin-Lump+May 9 2005, 08:24 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Lump @ May 9 2005, 08:24 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Cxwf+May 9 2005, 07:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cxwf @ May 9 2005, 07:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> By the way--with A3, and 1 medpack, marines can now survive 2 focus hits. Just thought I'd mention it, since everyone seems to assume they'll still die. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
talking about focus fade, yes he can stand 2 focus skulk bites after a med (only 140 dmg each) but not 2 fade swipes (160 dmg each). As swipe is 80 damage and bite is 70. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm talking about focus fades too. An A3 marine who gets swiped, medded, swiped, will have 2 hp left. (And bite is 75, not 70). But since A3 is apparently an extremely unpopular upgrade in clanplay, its not surprising you haven't seen it in action much.
tankefuglOne Script To Rule Them All...Trondheim, NorwayJoin Date: 2002-11-14Member: 8641Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
I am not opposing that you mention remedies, but I do not want it to get out of hand and derail into a pointless thread with a gazillion ideas. A statement such as tjosan's <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->At this moment that tech comes to slowly. Or the hive comes to quickly.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> is a nice example of highlighting what he think is a part of the problem, and it's very easy for us to work with such statements.
It is all about the usability -- we have to compile your views in a list and weight them up against eachother, and to a degree our own experience. Then we can start dealing with the changes needed. In this process, cause and effect is much easier for us to work with.
Feel free to mention the remedies after highlighting the current situation and problem, as it may help to elaborate your view (or some may simply be great ideas), but don't spend too much time or energy debating specific changes.
Wow many people say the second hive comes too early I disagree. Its more along the lines Marines are to weak to counter second hive aliens. I thought the dev were trying to make a more fast pace game not slow it down. There are many different things that can be down to improve the marine chances without effecting the aliens or slowing the game down. Little things like making scan ping the whole map. This gives marine more ability to see skulks on mini maps helping them to hold onto area more. It also helps the comm out so he doesn't have to me everywhere all the time.
Suggestions on how to determine a solution. I think the dev should try a few of these ideas out on a smaller scale then the general public. Maybe set up 2 or 3 servers so that clans can scrim on them. You may want to try having each server as a different tweak. I only say this because every tweak mention needs to be tried for us to know the full effect it will have on the game. Maybe use #nspickup as a way to test.
I think we've still got an alien favoured version - going from 2 res to 0 res upgrades was too much I think. Aliens are just getting res even faster for fades and hives.
Armour 3 still not letting you survive 3 focus swipes is dire. If the alien team have sc it literally renders JP useless. Which leaves marines with one path to go - HA.
Second hives and fades come too quickly I think.. the game is SO focused on fades now it's unreal.
For me there just isn't the variety of choices in ns - the rts part of this game is becomiing non existant as set strats become necessary to win.
<!--QuoteBegin-Cxwf+May 10 2005, 01:05 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cxwf @ May 10 2005, 01:05 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Lump+May 9 2005, 08:24 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Lump @ May 9 2005, 08:24 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Cxwf+May 9 2005, 07:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cxwf @ May 9 2005, 07:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> By the way--with A3, and 1 medpack, marines can now survive 2 focus hits. Just thought I'd mention it, since everyone seems to assume they'll still die. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
talking about focus fade, yes he can stand 2 focus skulk bites after a med (only 140 dmg each) but not 2 fade swipes (160 dmg each). As swipe is 80 damage and bite is 70. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm talking about focus fades too. An A3 marine who gets swiped, medded, swiped, will have 2 hp left. (And bite is 75, not 70). But since A3 is apparently an extremely unpopular upgrade in clanplay, its not surprising you haven't seen it in action much. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> so you can <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->, i didnt think the new changes effected that but fool on me. altho without med a3 still only takes 2 focus fade swipes which is still bad imho. It makes jp rush barely viable against any 2 hive aliens. (as they will 80% of the time get sc).
so armour 2 and 3 are still not enough when it comes to battling against focus, its a lot of res for standing up against an extra focus bite (assuming you get a chance to med the marine) which is just not going to happen with the marines need to look after any res they can against 2 hive aliens.
<!--QuoteBegin-gham+May 10 2005, 08:16 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (gham @ May 10 2005, 08:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Second hives and fades come too quickly I think.. the game is SO focused on fades now it's unreal.
For me there just isn't the variety of choices in ns - the rts part of this game is becomiing non existant as set strats become necessary to win. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I don't really agree. I think a ton of pressure has been taken off the fade since 3.0F The added power to skulks make it so that if a fade can keep marines from shotty rushing the second hive, he's got a much better chance in the current version of it going up in the face of a seige. Once that happens the life of a fade is easy.
I have felt marine strats open up a lot with the last patch. I feel its possible to pull off w1/w2/a1/w3 or an obs first strat now. Early shotguns have been popping up more often too. There just needs to be more movement in this direction towards marine freedom in tech choice.
Anyone think about removing the armor efficiency bonus that the aliens receive when the 2nd hive goes up? This was added back in, 3.0 b4 or b3??? One of the betas when the aliens had the short end of the stick, it was labeled as a big help in balancing.
I am afraid if you do that then aliens will alway get DC as second chamber. Forcing the MC/DC/SC as the same strat for all games.
As aliens I feel pressured to play defense first and when I am fade I worry about dieing because that can cause us the round. As soon as that second hive is up so much pressured is relieved. If I die its no longer a big deal. This is because I usually have close enough res to fade again, Skulks are now strong enough to defend a hive. Its alot harder to take down a hive once it is up.
I personally find lerks over powered. Either they have to much enegry or spores last too long. Sieging without HA is very difficult in most places because lerks can sit in the safety of a vent and constantly keep in spores. The comm waste tons of money on medpacks and skulks have no problem killing you. Add a fade to that and you don't have a chance.
TheAdjHe demanded a cool forum title of some type.Join Date: 2004-05-03Member: 28436Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
Making aliens more resilient in the first 3 minutes of the game and making marine midgame tech come faster will help significantly. Lowering the cost and/or time of the AA and the proto tech will help a lot, and lowering MT would help as well. Alien early game is a lot more difficult to fix, increasing node hp would likely help a lot, as the nodes are not as replacable as marine RTs.
Fixing broken marine tech has been suggested out the **** in both public and private arenas, it simply doesn't seem to be the focus for some unknown reason.
Thinking about it some(and reading Router Box comments), I change my mind about nerfing skulks. This would place more pressure back on the fade, which is bad. Same with making upgrades cheaper; this shifts importance back to the fade as well. Balance change has to occur somewhere else.
Besides making some marine tech viable, Id also like to mention that the alien tech does come too fast. Giving skulks free upgrades means that res that was going to be spent on upgrades can be saved for a lifeform or hive (recap: free upgrades puts hives and higher lifeforms on the board earlier).
Marines work off the baisis of time and res. Aliens work off the basis of time and **EVENTS.**
Aliens receive res uniformly, so you can say that events happen at res levels.
First level - 25 res - start of the game. Aliens can drop rt's.
Second level - 30 res - about 1:30. Early lerk, chambers will appear.
Third level - 50 res - about 3:30-4:30. Fades and rt/lerks gestate and the second hive is dropped.
Fourth Level - 75 res - About 7 minutes. 2nd hive is finishing. Rt/Fades appear.
Fifth level - 100 res - All fades if they die have the ability to refade, and the third hive is going up.
These levels are reached at variable times depending on the success marines have killing alien rt's. If all the rt's in the field go down, level 3 can be delayed to 6:00-7:00. There are many things that obviously disrupt this, like the early lerk being succesfull all game and dropping the third hive on the heel of the second. Or the second hive dying ect ect.
The point is that the marines are different. They use more of a straight line expansion of a slope determined by their res management, as opposed to the aliens step like expansion.
If you want to alter the alien power structure you need to change the attributes of each expansion level, or change the expansion level layout. For example if fades came at forty res but has 50 less armor, then it would create a step between two and three that would be indiviually significant. People are complaining that step 3 is too important. Everything is about keeping step three aliens from becoming step four aliens, (or if its a marine stomping, keeping step three from ever even happening.)
The other concern is that the straight line expansion of marines isn't significan't after a certain point. It appears that people are saying that if marines successfully expand at a decent pace that they should be able to contend with aliens at equivalent levels. There should be a certain amount of damage that aliens have to do to marine infrastructure to gain the dominence that they currently have at level 4. The solutions that have been suggested all seem to revolve around increasing the slope of the straight line marine expansion (besides the obvious level 4 alien nerfing)
And so ends my tirade wherein I invented a lot of terms. Hope everyone followed it.
<!--QuoteBegin-tankefugl+May 9 2005, 09:43 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (tankefugl @ May 9 2005, 09:43 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Also keep in mind that we're more interested in <b>what</b> is wrong than how it can be fixed. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Buggy+May 10 2005, 11:45 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Buggy @ May 10 2005, 11:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-tankefugl+May 9 2005, 09:43 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (tankefugl @ May 9 2005, 09:43 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Also keep in mind that we're more interested in <b>what</b> is wrong than how it can be fixed. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Read that again please
This is turning into I&S now. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Hence the sarcasm in my post!
After another week of scrimming and cal matches I must say Lerks are the key to alot of aliens wins. With MC first, Lerks can constanly keep the marines in spores. This requires the comm to spend all his res on medpacks and requires the comms attention to always be there. I think just about every team tries to get a lerk as early as possible.
Another thing I noticed. It is hard to find scrims against omega clans. Everytime my clan scrims its against delta clans. Surprisingly we have beaten some of them on aliens. Clans like obs/bah/console/wnf. None of which were easy victories but we are getting better and learning alot from them. When we switch teams with these clans we get owned as marines. My point is to show how inbalances it is. If Omega clans can hang with delta clans as aliens then something isn't right.
<!--QuoteBegin-SaltzBad+May 16 2005, 07:22 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SaltzBad @ May 16 2005, 07:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> All Delta clans you mentioned have weak marine rounds naturally - and with obscures, its pretty much hit and Isamil... err miss.
Oh burn. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> See I view the reason alot of clans have weak marine teams is because of the unbalance.
Comments
Upgrades at 1 res ftw!!
At 2 res, upgrading skulks was more often than not simply not worth the cash. It hurt your early economy too much. At 0 res, its not even a decision any more...respawn, immediately upgrade, every single life. There's never a question of "is it worth it to buy an upgrade", only "which free upgrade will I get this time?" But with upgrades at 1 res, the drain on early alien economy is much more manageable, but at the same time you do have to make strategic decisions again on whether that 1 res would be better spent on your upgrade or on saving for whatever you're saving for.
current balance in 3.0.3 hasnt changed much from 3.0.2, games still end up mostly alien ties, even if there is a present skill inbalance between the two teams. the seige change should have helped but it's difficult to gauge the effect accurately, the armour change only really helps in situations where the skulk doesnt perhaps have time to parasite i.e. rushing base or taking on a lone capper.
possible new fixes in a 3.0.4 patch? in order of preference (my own)
- lower the speed boost celerity gives to at least skulks and fades to 75-80% of current
- remove the extra bullet given to skulks by innate regen
- reimplement upgrades costing res at 2 hives and lengthen ability upgrade time by 50% (0 res at 1 hive, 1 res at 2hives, 2res at 3 hives?)
- increase leap energy usage by 50%
my 50% are just ballpark suggestions, im not sure what would be an effective amount for either of those changes
also id like to add that, people may think the current aliens are lol wicked fun ye!? and would hate to see them nerfed so they would actually have to think about skulking again. but in my opinion its going to be very difficult to achieve a good balance by only using marine buffs.
The early skulks still have too much of a chance versus an early marine, which gives the aliens rfk so that the second hive is building before the marines have 5 rt's up.
As much as some people here preach the free upgrades and that they make aliens more fun, what about marines? Where's the fun in getting walked over by a free lifeform ?
The other thing is the second hive aliens, which I agree, are (but have always been) too powerful. Even more so after the amazingly fun free upgraded skulks. Second hives should either be slowed down, or be less powerful. Whether you do that directly by nerfing the hell out of it, or buffing marines so they're somehow slowed down indirectly is up to you.
<!--QuoteBegin-Lump+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Lump)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Improve the effect of armour 2 and armour 3 to be more efficient in countering focus. As it is a focus fade will never need to swipe a marine more than twice to kill him no matter what armour level he has or the amount of medpacks he gets (unless he's welded of course).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
talking about focus fade, yes he can stand 2 focus skulk bites after a med (only 140 dmg each) but not 2 fade swipes (160 dmg each). As swipe is 80 damage and bite is 70.
<!--QuoteBegin-avl+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (avl)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->improving lvl2 and 3 armour against focus will just make sc at the second hive even more of a nessecity than it already is because changing armour values will effect non focus bites/ slashes too, unless the way focus worked was changed which clearly isnt within the scope of a small patch.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
avl, the armour boost wouldnt need to be much to effect focus hits and not non focus hits.. maybe reduce focus strength to 180% normal damage at level 3 instead? it isnt a necessity as it is.. just stronger than DC so people prefer it and it unbalances the game. making armour 2 and armour 3 have an effect would not hurt the game balance, they would be a small counter to focus.
For that to happen though, they need to have sufficient tech. At this moment that tech comes to slowly. Or the hive comes to quickly.
I know you asked specifically to not mention possible remedies, but just as a though, raise hive cost?
I love JP/HA vs hive 2 battles. That's NS at its best.
Well its hard to talk about balance without talking about fixes. Saying, "Celerity makes aliens move too fast" is the same thing as saying, "Celerity shouldn't make aliens move as fast." "Armor 2 and 3 are worthless." is the same as saying "armor 2 and 3 should be made worthwhile upgrades."
talking about focus fade, yes he can stand 2 focus skulk bites after a med (only 140 dmg each) but not 2 fade swipes (160 dmg each). As swipe is 80 damage and bite is 70. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm talking about focus fades too. An A3 marine who gets swiped, medded, swiped, will have 2 hp left. (And bite is 75, not 70). But since A3 is apparently an extremely unpopular upgrade in clanplay, its not surprising you haven't seen it in action much.
It is all about the usability -- we have to compile your views in a list and weight them up against eachother, and to a degree our own experience. Then we can start dealing with the changes needed. In this process, cause and effect is much easier for us to work with.
Feel free to mention the remedies after highlighting the current situation and problem, as it may help to elaborate your view (or some may simply be great ideas), but don't spend too much time or energy debating specific changes.
how big is the impact hitboxes have in competitive play?
i mean, celerity leaping skulks have a huge boost in speed, might their power, at least for a part relie on their pure speed and the lagging hitboxes?
would better hitboxes help competitive play noticably?
Suggestions on how to determine a solution.
I think the dev should try a few of these ideas out on a smaller scale then the general public. Maybe set up 2 or 3 servers so that clans can scrim on them. You may want to try having each server as a different tweak. I only say this because every tweak mention needs to be tried for us to know the full effect it will have on the game. Maybe use #nspickup as a way to test.
Armour 3 still not letting you survive 3 focus swipes is dire. If the alien team have sc it literally renders JP useless. Which leaves marines with one path to go - HA.
Second hives and fades come too quickly I think.. the game is SO focused on fades now it's unreal.
For me there just isn't the variety of choices in ns - the rts part of this game is becomiing non existant as set strats become necessary to win.
talking about focus fade, yes he can stand 2 focus skulk bites after a med (only 140 dmg each) but not 2 fade swipes (160 dmg each). As swipe is 80 damage and bite is 70. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm talking about focus fades too. An A3 marine who gets swiped, medded, swiped, will have 2 hp left. (And bite is 75, not 70). But since A3 is apparently an extremely unpopular upgrade in clanplay, its not surprising you haven't seen it in action much. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
so you can <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->, i didnt think the new changes effected that but fool on me. altho without med a3 still only takes 2 focus fade swipes which is still bad imho. It makes jp rush barely viable against any 2 hive aliens. (as they will 80% of the time get sc).
so armour 2 and 3 are still not enough when it comes to battling against focus, its a lot of res for standing up against an extra focus bite (assuming you get a chance to med the marine) which is just not going to happen with the marines need to look after any res they can against 2 hive aliens.
For me there just isn't the variety of choices in ns - the rts part of this game is becomiing non existant as set strats become necessary to win. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't really agree. I think a ton of pressure has been taken off the fade since 3.0F The added power to skulks make it so that if a fade can keep marines from shotty rushing the second hive, he's got a much better chance in the current version of it going up in the face of a seige. Once that happens the life of a fade is easy.
I have felt marine strats open up a lot with the last patch. I feel its possible to pull off w1/w2/a1/w3 or an obs first strat now. Early shotguns have been popping up more often too. There just needs to be more movement in this direction towards marine freedom in tech choice.
As aliens I feel pressured to play defense first and when I am fade I worry about dieing because that can cause us the round. As soon as that second hive is up so much pressured is relieved. If I die its no longer a big deal. This is because I usually have close enough res to fade again, Skulks are now strong enough to defend a hive. Its alot harder to take down a hive once it is up.
I personally find lerks over powered. Either they have to much enegry or spores last too long. Sieging without HA is very difficult in most places because lerks can sit in the safety of a vent and constantly keep in spores. The comm waste tons of money on medpacks and skulks have no problem killing you. Add a fade to that and you don't have a chance.
Fixing broken marine tech has been suggested out the **** in both public and private arenas, it simply doesn't seem to be the focus for some unknown reason.
Decrease Alien starting res to 20.
Decrease Alien RT cost by 5. (or decrease gorge cost by 5)
Decrease JP and HA drop cost by 5, increase HMG cost by 5.
Decrease proto lab cost by 5.
humm.. maybe not.
Aliens receive res uniformly, so you can say that events happen at res levels.
First level - 25 res - start of the game. Aliens can drop rt's.
Second level - 30 res - about 1:30. Early lerk, chambers will appear.
Third level - 50 res - about 3:30-4:30. Fades and rt/lerks gestate and the second hive is dropped.
Fourth Level - 75 res - About 7 minutes. 2nd hive is finishing. Rt/Fades appear.
Fifth level - 100 res - All fades if they die have the ability to refade, and the third hive is going up.
These levels are reached at variable times depending on the success marines have killing alien rt's. If all the rt's in the field go down, level 3 can be delayed to 6:00-7:00. There are many things that obviously disrupt this, like the early lerk being succesfull all game and dropping the third hive on the heel of the second. Or the second hive dying ect ect.
The point is that the marines are different. They use more of a straight line expansion of a slope determined by their res management, as opposed to the aliens step like expansion.
If you want to alter the alien power structure you need to change the attributes of each expansion level, or change the expansion level layout. For example if fades came at forty res but has 50 less armor, then it would create a step between two and three that would be indiviually significant. People are complaining that step 3 is too important. Everything is about keeping step three aliens from becoming step four aliens, (or if its a marine stomping, keeping step three from ever even happening.)
The other concern is that the straight line expansion of marines isn't significan't after a certain point. It appears that people are saying that if marines successfully expand at a decent pace that they should be able to contend with aliens at equivalent levels. There should be a certain amount of damage that aliens have to do to marine infrastructure to gain the dominence that they currently have at level 4. The solutions that have been suggested all seem to revolve around increasing the slope of the straight line marine expansion (besides the obvious level 4 alien nerfing)
And so ends my tirade wherein I invented a lot of terms. Hope everyone followed it.
Read that again please
This is turning into I&S now.
Read that again please
This is turning into I&S now. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hence the sarcasm in my post!
Another thing I noticed.
It is hard to find scrims against omega clans. Everytime my clan scrims its against delta clans. Surprisingly we have beaten some of them on aliens. Clans like obs/bah/console/wnf. None of which were easy victories but we are getting better and learning alot from them. When we switch teams with these clans we get owned as marines. My point is to show how inbalances it is. If Omega clans can hang with delta clans as aliens then something isn't right.
Oh burn.
Oh burn. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
See I view the reason alot of clans have weak marine teams is because of the unbalance.