From everything that has been said it seems like the balance issue isn't so much the game as the players. The aliens are really a good fighting force if used properly.
Can marines heal each other?
Can marines climb on walls? No
Can marines cloak? No
etc
etc
etc...
You get the point.
While everyone has logged hundreds of hours playing FPS games with guns, noone has any experiance playing as an alien like these. From what I can tell ignorance is a big problem right now. Once people learn how to play aliens things will be much better.
But let's get the lag fixed first!<!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo-->
Put a good 5 hours into the game, and i agree with the other turret complainers: Marine Turrets are far too powerful, while the Alien guntowers are largely useless. It would have made more sense, while being less realistic, to have the dodgeable turret on the side of the Marines, while the "insant shot" (aka bullet) turret should be on the Alien side.
This way, aliens who attack turrets at close range can be given a better opportunity at dodging the shot.. (circle strafe). Marines could care less either way, as their guns tear into that stuff no matter what.
of course, if it's true that typically there's only a few turrets around when using the right amount of resources on the server controls.. then i dunno. But so far, every single game i've played has had more than 20 turrets. It's the single most devastating factor to the aliens too.
Anyway.. my impressions of NS, cool game, but not what i expected when it comes to the lack of variety on the marine side. That is, everyone is HMG/HA or Gren launcher. I assumed, like the movie Aliens, you'd have a couple Heavies, but mostly LMGs. Instead, EVERYONE is HMG/HA. *boggle* Also, the audio cues are extremely limited. Unlike CS or DOD, the sounds of enemy footsteps are very low-key and easy to miss. My 3d soundcard is my livelihood in DOD.. but in NS, it doesn't get put to much use.
...the hive sense circles are very annoying at times.. hope there's a way to turn it off sometime
ok if turrets would get weaker and ours more buff. and aliens get a good race that has a range attack that makes up for the nade spams. then i would say it was even. untill then poop. Oh well i am done. like i said if things dont change with gameplay mod will die. you can doubt it all you want. *leaves not going post here again* oh and btw i look forward to next patch. maybe then as i mowing down the aliens i might have a fear factor added with them becoming more powerful
Well, we should wait and see... If a month has passed aliens are still getting their ##### wooped 95% of time, then the DEV team probably would then make some changes...
Nightshade, you did personally attack Silver here. While Silver has acknowledged your arguments (as well as many developers having done the same), you attack his character by calling him a load of crap, whereas you could have addressed his arguments.
As for alien players sucking... well, it's true. Since people have not played anything like NS's aliens before, they would probably play it badly. Of course, the marine players could be a bit more helpful by evening the teams and whatnot, they're not obliged to go easy on the aliens.
I think the only fault of the NS team is not providing enough indicators (on screen aids like an alien map) or examples of tactics for alien players, and recommending that they learn everything by trial and error. Trial and error can become very frustrating, especially when compounded by other small issues that come with playing aliens.
Aliens are freaking amazing - great game guys, I have no issues with balance whatsoever, just gonna take some time to get the alien skeelz worked out <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo--> Whoever decided that a skulk's eyes are in his mouth has a very warped mind <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
Am very impressed! Can't wait to see how this game develops!
You got only 2 hives, the marines are walking around in heavy armor and HMGs. How do I kick thier ###? Skulks are outta the question. Takes like 4 bites to kill him, which by that time the marine is on to me and has taken a shot.
Lerks, only long distance needling and pestering.
Fade? How can you blink in take a few swipes, blink out and not get yer ### kicked?
Can I see a demo of you skillz please? <!--emo&:D--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--Go7+Nov. 01 2002,07:25--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (Go7 @ Nov. 01 2002,07:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->Also, the audio cues are extremely limited. Unlike CS or DOD, the sounds of enemy footsteps are very low-key and easy to miss. My 3d soundcard is my livelihood in DOD.. but in NS, it doesn't get put to much use.
...the hive sense circles are very annoying at times.. hope there's a way to turn it off sometime<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> two points.... aliens have upgrades to make them much quieter.... on my comp aliens are loud without upgrade, but with, gl hearing them. Hive sight circles annoying? You want to turn them off? That would be intelligent, because then you'd always be on top of your game...
I have to agree with everyone else here. The aliens are seemingly more difficult or challenging to play with, but ive had a couple revolutionary moments... Once i was in an upper corner cloaked and along comes a HA/HMG marine. He looks up and sees my faint outline, not quite understanding he looks a bit longer. When he finally figures it out its too late, ive pounced, and my fade friend uncloaked right next to him. He ate the dust without even a yelp. THATS HOW YOUR SUPPOSE TO PLAY. its not easy though.
I think why aliens seem to have a disadvantage is that they dont use the standard "Half-Life-shoot-em-up" tactics. Trying to use this tactic as a alien will in most cases just fail. Its simply a new way of thinking when it comes to attacking and most people arent used to it yet, but when they are, it will get more balanced.
I for instance saw <i>One</i> Skulk owning <i>Three</i> marines that just respawned. How? He ambushed them! Most other Skulks i met so far have just been running around like headless chickens, not using their <i>Strenghts</i> like stealth, wall/roofclimbing etc.
In my opinion turrets need to be toned down -- OR the resource settings need to be locked or strongly cautioned against on servers. Having 2 hives and pecking away at a wall of 6 turrets for hours while marines can rip through alien defenses is pretty obnoxious.
As far as gameplay goes, I love the aliens. With skulk vs base marine, it's ALWAYS the skulk winning in my books. See them, retreat a bit, and set up an ambush. lvl 3 cloaking is also a beautiful thing too. Nothing like a stealth-onus hiding behind a door. I only wish I could see the face of the person who runs into the invisi-rhino.
But yeah, to make this game ideal, it needs team balancing code (I've been in games of 12 on 4 before) and the resource settings need to be locked on servers. Far too often I run into fields of turrets.
imo nightwhatever is just being biased. just because he has never seen aliens win he believes they can't. have you ever seen a two-headed snake in person? no, but it exists. most of the time i play, the marines outnumber the aliens by a lot. maybe if people would actually try the aliens they would see they have a lot of potential. i myself love being aliens. i love being a skulk and just dropping in on people. i never was a fan if trying to stay alive so i just try to get as many kills as i can... anyway i think people should be more open-minded in regard to the aliens and at least try them out...
Right now I think the ping issue is causing a lot of the imbalance...when everyone has a 300+ ping, the person with a machine gun that can just spray all over the place has the advantage to the melee unit that has to be TOUCHING the person who isn't even where they appear to be.
But all in all, as a marine, I have yet to be scared by an alien. We just put up turrets in rooms they need to go through, and POOF they can't get through. Meanwhile, we upgrade and THEY CAN'T. No Onos for them, we get armor, then we win.
Even if an alien is hiding waiting to ambush, its SO EASY to just run around like crazy and shoot him before he kills you. I get insulted when i die to an alien melee.
The last 3 games I've played, everyone has joined the marines because they just don't find the aliens fun. I mean, with one hive, there is no way in hell you can take out anything resembling a marine building if it has turrets or any other defense. And if they get a siege turret then you may as well instantly lose. Lerks and Skulks don't do any damage to buildings, and a fade can never get close enough with blink never working and its slow speed.
In addition, what the hell is with blink? It almost never works at all.
For the sake of all that is good and holy and for bejeesus and osomenthe, can we do something to stop the awful grenade spam? Rushing upto a GL carrying marine does little, the self splash damage seems to hardly hurt a marine in a heavy suit.
And there is now a new 'tactic' to totally screw over aliens and it has no defense, maybe it will get fixed with the resource limit patch but here's how to win the game as marines everytime:
Plop down a hundred command consoles in the alien hive.
You'll get the aliens stuck/lagged/disconnected and all the offense chambers in the world wont save you from a solitary marine with a GL who the chambers will totally ignore.
maybe you need to limith placing command consoles to a certain radius around the main console?
And if I may ask for one more thing, give us some damage indicators, its crazy playing a skulk with these pings and to add to that, there is no way to tell if you did any damage at all!
<!--QuoteBegin--Tgire+Nov. 01 2002,10:01--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (Tgire @ Nov. 01 2002,10:01)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->Onos: 1. Don't charge in unsupported. Try and get a fade or a couple assorted aliens to follow you in. You will probably get taken out eventually, but with a couple pals, mopup shouldn't be a problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm amazed at how this guy has managed to pick up all the bext points for playing the alien team so quickly.
Just one thing I'd like to add, referring to the quote.
If you are an Onos, you should find yourself in a situation where fellow aliens <i>will follow you around</i> for the sole reason that an Onos is a great asset to have in any kind of assault. Onos's attract offenders. If you evolve into an Onos and look like you know what you're doing, you'll soon find at least two smaller critters aiding you in your attack. Use this with primal scream, and you ARE a Kharaaian mob.
This post brings back memories of when the Vampire Slayer mod was first released. Players were complaining that the Slayers were way too powerful compared to the vampires. Eventually that all changed in the minds of many once people learned to properly play the vamps and more updates were made to the game. Now at any given time in a game the Slayers or Vamps can rape the opposition if they use proper tactics and skills. I mention this mod to explain that I don't think NS's aliens suck. I just think that the resources aren't properly utilized and those alien players are not playing their roles correctly. I expect former Aliens vs. Predator 2 players will excel at this mod, especially those who played Aliens in multiplayer.
For the people like Silverfox, I just want to say, try to look at it from the perspective of a new player surrounded by new players.
Yes it seems unbalanced right now because everyone is still learning and most servers are allowing 100 turrets to be built everywhere.
I tried playing as an alien all day today and was having a hard time of it. Turrets everywhere. I remember sitting hunkering down and launching bilebombs from across the water at a turret in the water recycling place(not sure which map) and it just would not die. I'm not sure if this was a lag issue or distance was too far. Eventually it did die but it took me and another fade going at it for 2 minutes. (Edit: I just found out admins can change the hitpoints of buildings too.. perhaps that is why I was having such problems with that turret...)
So yes, lag and admins ubalancing the ressource model coupled with the newness of the game is making it HARD to learn how to effectivly counter stuff. Just give it time.
I'm with Gnu. Grenade launchers are nasty. The times I've played marines, I always ask for a grenade launcher and then get someone with a lmg or hmg to cover me. Six grenades with the power to kill (I'm not sure but it seems this way) a skulk in one hit is too much. Not to mention what they do to alien offensive turrets.
Other than that, the game is balanced. I enjoy playing aliens cause I've always been the sort of stalker/ambush type. Now I can finally do it in style.
As aliens on (god knows what map lol) we were able to capture all the resourse nodes and place offencive turrets EVERYWHERE along with webbing half the map. Great, it stopped marine expanding.
But everytime we attacked their base we got OWNED. With only 1 resourse node they pushed back wave after wave of onos/fade attacks. At one point we had 2 skulks go in, use xenocide on the turrets (5 were killed, 2 were left) then followed by 2 onos and a fade, the onos and fade were killed by the marines. Next time i went to xenocide the base looked like we never even touched it, everything was remade (only 3 turrets though). They had 2 seige turrets so we couldn't get any defencive chambers near. Anytime i tried to bile attack it from long range they'd grenade launch aroud the corner and kill me. Anytime we did mass xenocide they simply rebuilt anything we killed (takes 2 direct xenocide hits to kill a turret FFS!<!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo-->.
We had all the resourses and the entire map was ours with 3 hives for a good hour and a half, we were NEVER able to destory their base. We attacked together, we used onos, we used fade, we used bile, we used xenocide, we had all the chambers upgraded, we had web and offence everywhere, but we NEVER even came close to whiping them out, they always simply rebuilt.
Explain to me how this is balanced? We used teamwork, we had the entire map to ourselves, we had the most powerful aliens. Even a newbie should have won in this situation, so why couldn't we do it in over an hour? (map changed before anybody won). If you say that i need more practice your obviously not following my logic, because even a total newbie when having the entire map in their posestion should be able to win in this case, and i've been playing hardcore sinse yesterday, and a bunch of other people on aliens were pretty good.
At one point, we outnumbered the marines by 3 players, and we STILL couldn't win.
Explain to me how this is balanced? (if the server admin had messed with the building hitpoints, that might explain it).
Ok... I'm trying to be as fair as I can be. I have played this game pretty much since it came online. (with a few hours of sleep in between)... I have played as both marines and aliens (mostly aliens in a vain effort to balance out teams)... I have noticed some things while I played, but they definitely cme to a head in a game earlier today where I was playing alien. Now to set the stage I was playing with 3 other guys that definitely knew how to play aliens (ambushing, stalking, evolving accordingly) , and the teams were 4 on 4. But here is what I observed:
1) With an equal amount on both sides and players that know how to play aliens, the aliens can hold their own... but only that... even after playing that game for an hour and a half straight, aliens never really made any progress.. they just held the marines in place... seemed to be a total stalemate...
2) Turrets seemed too strong and numerous on the marine side... now I have just read how that is probably due to some admins altering files.. so I figure that is the case... I figure the resources for marines were off-balanced, and that the turrets had their hp and attack pumped up.. cause both me and a teammate where both fades and were attacking a turret group, circle stafing and everything, and could never take a single one down... but like I said I figure it is due to some hacking... so hopefuly it will be fixed in the next patch...
3) I honestly don't see the aliens having anything that can attack well at range... the marines have grenade launchers that are incredibly difficult to dodge, even when I am used to AvP 2 and circling a hallway (on to wall, on to ceiling... on to other wall, you know big circles to make me hard to hit) but the aliens don't really have any way to counter grenade launchers or to attack in any way that compares.... Onos are definitely a force to be reckoned with but they are still killable and easy to see coming... a grenade is only air-borne for a second and even if you see it your too late, best you can hope for is just getting it by the concussion blast.... now I am not saying to remove the grenade launcher... what would marines be without grenades? but maybe make them less effective on units... I have never made a mod so maybe that isn't even possible, to differentiate between units and buildings and how much damage they take from specific attacks.... but that is me trying to make a suggestion...
So overall the aliens seem just slightly underpowered... but that could mostly be because of the resource and building hacks that will be fixed shortly... and the fact teams are usually not equal... it is a great game and I hope the patch fixes the hacks so maybe it will be balanced like it was created to be... till then I almost feel bad ever playing marines cause I am never sure if the server has been altered...
oh well.. I hope even people that disagree with me can at least see where I am coming from... and please no flames... <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
Luckily, the servers I have played on do not have the resources bumped up. Yay for me.
I have also been in 4 winning Alien games, and several games where we were winning, but the time ran out.
We non-playtesters have only been playing for like a possible 24 hours. You absolutely cannot make informed opinions on the balance of any game in that short of time. Period.
IMO, the only problem I have noticed is the uneven teams.
Aliens have a sharper learning curve than marines do (except maybe for the commander). They have to know the maps a better (since that is their early advantage), they have to know which class ability to use in which situation, they have to mix and match classes to get access to multiple powers (don't have 8 Onos on your team), and most importantly have to have good builders (and not 5 builders).
Heck, most of the games the builders have no idea what they are doing. The upgrade process takes a bit to get used to. A skulk with Carapace is pretty nice against turrets and marines (granted, not against 1000 turrets).
Give it time. Ask advice from the testers. Don't argue with them as if you have learned everything in one day of playing time. Nobody will take you seriously.
havok, no offence but i REALLY hate the argument that "well if your not winning your no good." It's a non-falsafiable argument and i REALLY hate those.
I agree that it's too early to judge the game, but we can make early observations, if they prove to be true we get to say "told you so!" and if not then you get that option.
The fact is there isn't anything really new in this game. All that is new is that the aliens depend much more heavily on meelee attacks than any other game we've played, but we've still played games with meelee attacks. Learning to play like an alien is easy, learning to ambush is easy, it can be done in a hour, so i believe i <i>can</i> make informed decisions since this game is just a splicing of other games that i've played. The fact that i can't kill anything after spending hours practicing with aliens really irks me. I'm a very quick learner, i'm the type that can pickup a game and start owning people (other new people) in the first 5 hours of playing. I've spent at least 10 hours on NS, and still fail to kill things as aliens. The only time i can kill things is when i get bile (the only decent non-onos attack).
So sorry if i'm comming off a little strong, but as a fast learner i expect to be able to play well faster than others, and getting owned is not something i'm used to. I expect to at least have a 1:1 kill/death ratio after a day of playing, but i'm nowhere near that now. Maybe i do need more practice, but as far as i can tell this is not the case. Maybe the meelee attacks are not working because ping is bad, that's a very big posibility. But insted of saying "your no good and that's why you loose" lets try and keep an open mind. It could be lag, it could be practice, or it could be server admins screwing us over, or it could *maybe* be that the playtesters that played aliens were simply better players. Or the marine playtesters used the same tactics (less than 3 gazillion turrets). You never know, so please stop saying "you suck, get better before you whine" because even after we get better you'll be trying to tell us the same thing.
This is my peleminary thoughts and i'll try and practice more, but i hope it's a ping related issue and not unbalance issue (i think meelee is not helped by lag-comp in the valve netcode, only ranged attacks, which means marines can land many more attacks with 300 ping than alien can).
<!--QuoteBegin--R32+Nov. 01 2002,07:21--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (R32 @ Nov. 01 2002,07:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->From everything that has been said it seems like the balance issue isn't so much the game as the players. The aliens are really a good fighting force if used properly.
Can marines heal each other?
Can marines climb on walls? No
Can marines cloak? No
etc
etc
etc...
You get the point.
While everyone has logged hundreds of hours playing FPS games with guns, noone has any experiance playing as an alien like these. From what I can tell ignorance is a big problem right now. Once people learn how to play aliens things will be much better.
But let's get the lag fixed first!<!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> i know how to play an alien i played gloom they just suck stop trying to deny it.
ive had a chance to play 6-8 games thus far, and though i am in no way "leet" or even very good, i think i have a pretty good handle on things. this being an open forum, i think ill say my piece.
like most people, my first game as an alien was a DISASTER. i left, joined another game as marine, and started getting a feel for the game. the game was fast, exciting, and a wholely unique experience. the instant feeling of a real team that MUST work together was very gratifying. i think that session ended about even between marines and aliens.
several hours + sleep later, and i was ready for my sophomore experience. i joined a server and found the teams grossly uneven. so, it looked like it was time to take another stab at the "useless" aliens. how wrong i was. i can honestly say that those games were some of the most fun ive had online... ever. our team functioned so well we even joklingly thought about creating an all-alien clan(DN - Darwinian Nightmare) just to show all those alien-haters. when things started, we were very loose though. not too much unity as we scrambled around bitting and dieing, ignoring warnings of attacks all the while. we got tired of that quickly, and it was on.
a massive war took place that next round. we controled resources, we locked the marines into a hole-in-the-wall base, we held all hives w/ full movement/defense/sensory abilities. we crept around corners unleashing ambush assults leaving foolish scouts in shambles. it was exciting. a very fulfilling experience. "We got enemies incoming!" "Where?" "Waterworks Hive. If someone doesn't get down here, we aren't gonna last long!" "Roger that! Let's move!" An army of HA marines, fully loaded, was ripping our prescious third hive apart. The calvelry arrived as the two Fades and the Onos gored and slashed their way through flesh and metal alike. the area was secure, but the battle was far from over.
Its moments like these that will keep me coming back to the game. To fight like the beast you must think like the beast. EVERY part of the beast serves its purpose(I was a Lerk that took out 4 or 5 marines in seconds. I don't think he died more than twice that game. As Lerk the entire time). I've never had more fun in an online game. A massive "thank you" goes out to the developers and playtesters alike. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
And, on the note of balance:
What real-life forces are balanced? I expect the aliens to be almost 100% different. Just another point this game has over other HL mods in which the sides are practically identical.
My only advice: Don't give up, and don't let the fun slip away. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
if you have a good commander like me the aliens suck if you have hmg heavy armor and 4 guys and all you do is build base all over the map with hundered of turrets WHO WILL WIN <!--emo&???--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='???'><!--endemo-->??
I don't feel the teams are unbalanced right now. The altered resource model may make it seem that way, but when a single turret takes a decent chunk out of your resources, I'm sure we'll stop seeing these overwhelming numbers of turrets. If you think about it, marines have to build a turret factory before they can start building the turrets, while aliens can build their turrets anywhere they want.
I also see tons of players neglecting basic alien powers. Alien players NEED to get upgrades if they expect to stand any sort of chance in the later game. Defensive chambers are an absolute must to have around when placing turrets. Movement chambers in every hive are necessary to quickly get to the battlezone. Sensory chambers I have less experience with, but the upgrades they give are terrific...
I was playing fade, running out shooting acid rockets to lure the marines towards me, running back around a corner and standing still to cloak... I had level 2 cloak, and a marine was staring right at me... He finally turned around, and I hacked him to pieces. Level 3 carapace makes you a force to be reckoned with, especially as an Onos or Fade.
People also don't seem to realize that in a non-altered resource model game, marines in HA wielding HMG's would be alot less common. Individual HMG's cost around 20 points, and 200 is a high number according to Silver... So HMG's for 3 or 4 marines PLUS heavy armor is a huge investment.
I really think you people should wait for this new patch to come out before judging balance. It seems like a lot of people complaining about balance are complaining about it because the marines have huge amounts of rp. A rough comparison would be playing as zerg against marines using show me the money in Starcraft (not that NS is anything like SC).
PS- Bridger, I was a marine in the game you were talking about, and the resource model had in fact been altered. When you guys first started attacking we had around 1500 rp's, and by the time the match ended we had around 600. We could rebuild everything simply because we didn't have to worry about rp's. In a unaltered game you guys would have probably beaten us within the first or perhaps second assault.
This is what I've picked up so far, seeing as Lerks are definitely my favorite alien species, and noone seems to have covered them so far..
As soon as possible get Regeneration, Cloaking and Adrenaline upgrades.. this way you can fly for longer, hide better, and regain health after a skirmish.
If you are just out to disrupt those pesky marines.. HIDE. The mappers have handily placed piping, roof girders, vents, stray bricks, all over the walls and ceiling of every map. Find a perch, hopefully near a blind corner, and wait (cloaked hopefully) for a marine to run by, and turn so he is running away from you. Let him get a little distance, and then attack.
In the above situation, what I reccomend is hopping and gliding to get some momentum, all the while spraying the marine with spikes. He should stop and turn to shoot you - make this his fatal error. When he stops, or when you near the ground if he doesnt, flap your wings again and propel yourself forwards. Bring out the teeth and bite his head off. One dead, very shaken marine. If the bite fails, RUN LIKE CRAZY. It doesnt matter that you havent finished him off.. you've either made the job easier for your teammates or you've forced their commander to spend some cash patching him up. If the guy just starts running away, however, give chase! Your spike gun has a fair range, and you are the fastest of the fast (make sure you dont go too far and overtake him) so just gun him down as he runs.
In my opinion, Lerks are the ultimate in single-man turret removal services. Either hide in a crevice and take them out while they cant hit you, or spray umbra in front of them, fire as much as you can, and run. Rinse and repeat.
Its important to get used to accurate flying - if you shoot for a vent, hit the wall and drop down you are as good as dead. Also, use yourself as a distraction while defending bases.. flap about, spray spikes, spores and umbra, and generally make a nuisance of yourself. Sometimes entire teams of HMGs will get taken out by babblers or respawning skulks because they were shooting at that "f**king flying thing".
Question for the devs - is the Lerks bite damage related to how fast its going? Before, I was chasing a marine around a corner, and as I tried to bite him I hit another marine, in heavy armour. The guy was killed instantly. I was pretty far from my base, is there a chance that it was my momentum that caused the one-hit kill?
It was nice to see the little "wtf!" message appear shortly afterwards :P
Comments
Can marines heal each other?
Can marines climb on walls? No
Can marines cloak? No
etc
etc
etc...
You get the point.
While everyone has logged hundreds of hours playing FPS games with guns, noone has any experiance playing as an alien like these. From what I can tell ignorance is a big problem right now. Once people learn how to play aliens things will be much better.
But let's get the lag fixed first!<!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo-->
This way, aliens who attack turrets at close range can be given a better opportunity at dodging the shot.. (circle strafe). Marines could care less either way, as their guns tear into that stuff no matter what.
of course, if it's true that typically there's only a few turrets around when using the right amount of resources on the server controls.. then i dunno. But so far, every single game i've played has had more than 20 turrets. It's the single most devastating factor to the aliens too.
Anyway.. my impressions of NS, cool game, but not what i expected when it comes to the lack of variety on the marine side. That is, everyone is HMG/HA or Gren launcher. I assumed, like the movie Aliens, you'd have a couple Heavies, but mostly LMGs. Instead, EVERYONE is HMG/HA. *boggle* Also, the audio cues are extremely limited. Unlike CS or DOD, the sounds of enemy footsteps are very low-key and easy to miss. My 3d soundcard is my livelihood in DOD.. but in NS, it doesn't get put to much use.
...the hive sense circles are very annoying at times.. hope there's a way to turn it off sometime
As for alien players sucking... well, it's true. Since people have not played anything like NS's aliens before, they would probably play it badly. Of course, the marine players could be a bit more helpful by evening the teams and whatnot, they're not obliged to go easy on the aliens.
I think the only fault of the NS team is not providing enough indicators (on screen aids like an alien map) or examples of tactics for alien players, and recommending that they learn everything by trial and error. Trial and error can become very frustrating, especially when compounded by other small issues that come with playing aliens.
Am very impressed! Can't wait to see how this game develops!
Annwas
<!--emo&::siege::--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/siege.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='::siege::'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::onos::--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tiny.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='::onos::'><!--endemo-->
You got only 2 hives, the marines are walking around in heavy armor and HMGs. How do I kick thier ###? Skulks are outta the question. Takes like 4 bites to kill him, which by that time the marine is on to me and has taken a shot.
Lerks, only long distance needling and pestering.
Fade? How can you blink in take a few swipes, blink out and not get yer ### kicked?
Can I see a demo of you skillz please? <!--emo&:D--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'><!--endemo-->
...the hive sense circles are very annoying at times.. hope there's a way to turn it off sometime<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
two points.... aliens have upgrades to make them much quieter.... on my comp aliens are loud without upgrade, but with, gl hearing them. Hive sight circles annoying? You want to turn them off? That would be intelligent, because then you'd always be on top of your game...
I have to agree with everyone else here. The aliens are seemingly more difficult or challenging to play with, but ive had a couple revolutionary moments... Once i was in an upper corner cloaked and along comes a HA/HMG marine. He looks up and sees my faint outline, not quite understanding he looks a bit longer. When he finally figures it out its too late, ive pounced, and my fade friend uncloaked right next to him. He ate the dust without even a yelp. THATS HOW YOUR SUPPOSE TO PLAY. its not easy though.
I for instance saw <i>One</i> Skulk owning <i>Three</i> marines that just respawned. How? He ambushed them! Most other Skulks i met so far have just been running around like headless chickens, not using their <i>Strenghts</i> like stealth, wall/roofclimbing etc.
As far as gameplay goes, I love the aliens. With skulk vs base marine, it's ALWAYS the skulk winning in my books. See them, retreat a bit, and set up an ambush. lvl 3 cloaking is also a beautiful thing too. Nothing like a stealth-onus hiding behind a door. I only wish I could see the face of the person who runs into the invisi-rhino.
But yeah, to make this game ideal, it needs team balancing code (I've been in games of 12 on 4 before) and the resource settings need to be locked on servers. Far too often I run into fields of turrets.
But all in all, as a marine, I have yet to be scared by an alien. We just put up turrets in rooms they need to go through, and POOF they can't get through. Meanwhile, we upgrade and THEY CAN'T. No Onos for them, we get armor, then we win.
Even if an alien is hiding waiting to ambush, its SO EASY to just run around like crazy and shoot him before he kills you. I get insulted when i die to an alien melee.
In addition, what the hell is with blink? It almost never works at all.
how may you ask? Jump, crouch and then fire, I get blink to work about 9/10 times
For the sake of all that is good and holy and for bejeesus and osomenthe, can we do something to stop the awful grenade spam? Rushing upto a GL carrying marine does little, the self splash damage seems to hardly hurt a marine in a heavy suit.
And there is now a new 'tactic' to totally screw over aliens and it has no defense, maybe it will get fixed with the resource limit patch but here's how to win the game as marines everytime:
Plop down a hundred command consoles in the alien hive.
You'll get the aliens stuck/lagged/disconnected and all the offense chambers in the world wont save you from a solitary marine with a GL who the chambers will totally ignore.
maybe you need to limith placing command consoles to a certain radius around the main console?
And if I may ask for one more thing, give us some damage indicators, its crazy playing a skulk with these pings and to add to that, there is no way to tell if you did any damage at all!
1. Don't charge in unsupported. Try and get a fade or a couple assorted aliens to follow you in. You will probably get taken out eventually, but with a couple pals, mopup shouldn't be a problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm amazed at how this guy has managed to pick up all the bext points for playing the alien team so quickly.
Just one thing I'd like to add, referring to the quote.
If you are an Onos, you should find yourself in a situation where fellow aliens <i>will follow you around</i> for the sole reason that an Onos is a great asset to have in any kind of assault. Onos's attract offenders.
If you evolve into an Onos and look like you know what you're doing, you'll soon find at least two smaller critters aiding you in your attack. Use this with primal scream, and you ARE a Kharaaian mob.
Yes it seems unbalanced right now because everyone is still learning and most servers are allowing 100 turrets to be built everywhere.
I tried playing as an alien all day today and was having a hard time of it. Turrets everywhere. I remember sitting hunkering down and launching bilebombs from across the water at a turret in the water recycling place(not sure which map) and it just would not die. I'm not sure if this was a lag issue or distance was too far. Eventually it did die but it took me and another fade going at it for 2 minutes. (Edit: I just found out admins can change the hitpoints of buildings too.. perhaps that is why I was having such problems with that turret...)
So yes, lag and admins ubalancing the ressource model coupled with the newness of the game is making it HARD to learn how to effectivly counter stuff. Just give it time.
Other than that, the game is balanced. I enjoy playing aliens cause I've always been the sort of stalker/ambush type. Now I can finally do it in style.
As aliens on (god knows what map lol) we were able to capture all the resourse nodes and place offencive turrets EVERYWHERE along with webbing half the map. Great, it stopped marine expanding.
But everytime we attacked their base we got OWNED. With only 1 resourse node they pushed back wave after wave of onos/fade attacks. At one point we had 2 skulks go in, use xenocide on the turrets (5 were killed, 2 were left) then followed by 2 onos and a fade, the onos and fade were killed by the marines. Next time i went to xenocide the base looked like we never even touched it, everything was remade (only 3 turrets though). They had 2 seige turrets so we couldn't get any defencive chambers near. Anytime i tried to bile attack it from long range they'd grenade launch aroud the corner and kill me. Anytime we did mass xenocide they simply rebuilt anything we killed (takes 2 direct xenocide hits to kill a turret FFS!<!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo-->.
We had all the resourses and the entire map was ours with 3 hives for a good hour and a half, we were NEVER able to destory their base. We attacked together, we used onos, we used fade, we used bile, we used xenocide, we had all the chambers upgraded, we had web and offence everywhere, but we NEVER even came close to whiping them out, they always simply rebuilt.
Explain to me how this is balanced? We used teamwork, we had the entire map to ourselves, we had the most powerful aliens. Even a newbie should have won in this situation, so why couldn't we do it in over an hour? (map changed before anybody won). If you say that i need more practice your obviously not following my logic, because even a total newbie when having the entire map in their posestion should be able to win in this case, and i've been playing hardcore sinse yesterday, and a bunch of other people on aliens were pretty good.
At one point, we outnumbered the marines by 3 players, and we STILL couldn't win.
Explain to me how this is balanced? (if the server admin had messed with the building hitpoints, that might explain it).
1) With an equal amount on both sides and players that know how to play aliens, the aliens can hold their own... but only that... even after playing that game for an hour and a half straight, aliens never really made any progress.. they just held the marines in place... seemed to be a total stalemate...
2) Turrets seemed too strong and numerous on the marine side... now I have just read how that is probably due to some admins altering files.. so I figure that is the case... I figure the resources for marines were off-balanced, and that the turrets had their hp and attack pumped up.. cause both me and a teammate where both fades and were attacking a turret group, circle stafing and everything, and could never take a single one down... but like I said I figure it is due to some hacking... so hopefuly it will be fixed in the next patch...
3) I honestly don't see the aliens having anything that can attack well at range... the marines have grenade launchers that are incredibly difficult to dodge, even when I am used to AvP 2 and circling a hallway (on to wall, on to ceiling... on to other wall, you know big circles to make me hard to hit) but the aliens don't really have any way to counter grenade launchers or to attack in any way that compares.... Onos are definitely a force to be reckoned with but they are still killable and easy to see coming... a grenade is only air-borne for a second and even if you see it your too late, best you can hope for is just getting it by the concussion blast.... now I am not saying to remove the grenade launcher... what would marines be without grenades? but maybe make them less effective on units... I have never made a mod so maybe that isn't even possible, to differentiate between units and buildings and how much damage they take from specific attacks.... but that is me trying to make a suggestion...
So overall the aliens seem just slightly underpowered... but that could mostly be because of the resource and building hacks that will be fixed shortly... and the fact teams are usually not equal... it is a great game and I hope the patch fixes the hacks so maybe it will be balanced like it was created to be... till then I almost feel bad ever playing marines cause I am never sure if the server has been altered...
oh well.. I hope even people that disagree with me can at least see where I am coming from... and please no flames... <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
I have also been in 4 winning Alien games, and several games where we were winning, but the time ran out.
We non-playtesters have only been playing for like a possible 24 hours. You absolutely cannot make informed opinions on the balance of any game in that short of time. Period.
IMO, the only problem I have noticed is the uneven teams.
Aliens have a sharper learning curve than marines do (except maybe for the commander). They have to know the maps a better (since that is their early advantage), they have to know which class ability to use in which situation, they have to mix and match classes to get access to multiple powers (don't have 8 Onos on your team), and most importantly have to have good builders (and not 5 builders).
Heck, most of the games the builders have no idea what they are doing. The upgrade process takes a bit to get used to. A skulk with Carapace is pretty nice against turrets and marines (granted, not against 1000 turrets).
Give it time. Ask advice from the testers. Don't argue with them as if you have learned everything in one day of playing time. Nobody will take you seriously.
I agree that it's too early to judge the game, but we can make early observations, if they prove to be true we get to say "told you so!" and if not then you get that option.
The fact is there isn't anything really new in this game. All that is new is that the aliens depend much more heavily on meelee attacks than any other game we've played, but we've still played games with meelee attacks. Learning to play like an alien is easy, learning to ambush is easy, it can be done in a hour, so i believe i <i>can</i> make informed decisions since this game is just a splicing of other games that i've played. The fact that i can't kill anything after spending hours practicing with aliens really irks me. I'm a very quick learner, i'm the type that can pickup a game and start owning people (other new people) in the first 5 hours of playing. I've spent at least 10 hours on NS, and still fail to kill things as aliens. The only time i can kill things is when i get bile (the only decent non-onos attack).
So sorry if i'm comming off a little strong, but as a fast learner i expect to be able to play well faster than others, and getting owned is not something i'm used to. I expect to at least have a 1:1 kill/death ratio after a day of playing, but i'm nowhere near that now. Maybe i do need more practice, but as far as i can tell this is not the case. Maybe the meelee attacks are not working because ping is bad, that's a very big posibility. But insted of saying "your no good and that's why you loose" lets try and keep an open mind. It could be lag, it could be practice, or it could be server admins screwing us over, or it could *maybe* be that the playtesters that played aliens were simply better players. Or the marine playtesters used the same tactics (less than 3 gazillion turrets). You never know, so please stop saying "you suck, get better before you whine" because even after we get better you'll be trying to tell us the same thing.
This is my peleminary thoughts and i'll try and practice more, but i hope it's a ping related issue and not unbalance issue (i think meelee is not helped by lag-comp in the valve netcode, only ranged attacks, which means marines can land many more attacks with 300 ping than alien can).
Can marines heal each other?
Can marines climb on walls? No
Can marines cloak? No
etc
etc
etc...
You get the point.
While everyone has logged hundreds of hours playing FPS games with guns, noone has any experiance playing as an alien like these. From what I can tell ignorance is a big problem right now. Once people learn how to play aliens things will be much better.
But let's get the lag fixed first!<!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i know how to play an alien i played gloom they just suck stop trying to deny it.
ive had a chance to play 6-8 games thus far, and though i am in no way "leet" or even very good, i think i have a pretty good handle on things. this being an open forum, i think ill say my piece.
like most people, my first game as an alien was a DISASTER. i left, joined another game as marine, and started getting a feel for the game. the game was fast, exciting, and a wholely unique experience. the instant feeling of a real team that MUST work together was very gratifying. i think that session ended about even between marines and aliens.
several hours + sleep later, and i was ready for my sophomore experience. i joined a server and found the teams grossly uneven. so, it looked like it was time to take another stab at the "useless" aliens.
how wrong i was.
i can honestly say that those games were some of the most fun ive had online... ever. our team functioned so well we even joklingly thought about creating an all-alien clan(DN - Darwinian Nightmare) just to show all those alien-haters.
when things started, we were very loose though. not too much unity as we scrambled around bitting and dieing, ignoring warnings of attacks all the while. we got tired of that quickly, and it was on.
a massive war took place that next round. we controled resources, we locked the marines into a hole-in-the-wall base, we held all hives w/ full movement/defense/sensory abilities. we crept around corners unleashing ambush assults leaving foolish scouts in shambles. it was exciting. a very fulfilling experience.
"We got enemies incoming!"
"Where?"
"Waterworks Hive. If someone doesn't get down here, we aren't gonna last long!"
"Roger that! Let's move!"
An army of HA marines, fully loaded, was ripping our prescious third hive apart. The calvelry arrived as the two Fades and the Onos gored and slashed their way through flesh and metal alike. the area was secure, but the battle was far from over.
Its moments like these that will keep me coming back to the game. To fight like the beast you must think like the beast. EVERY part of the beast serves its purpose(I was a Lerk that took out 4 or 5 marines in seconds. I don't think he died more than twice that game. As Lerk the entire time).
I've never had more fun in an online game. A massive "thank you" goes out to the developers and playtesters alike. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
And, on the note of balance:
What real-life forces are balanced? I expect the aliens to be almost 100% different. Just another point this game has over other HL mods in which the sides are practically identical.
My only advice: Don't give up, and don't let the fun slip away. <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
Its time for FPSs to evolve...
... They just did.
See ya in the servers.
I also see tons of players neglecting basic alien powers. Alien players NEED to get upgrades if they expect to stand any sort of chance in the later game. Defensive chambers are an absolute must to have around when placing turrets. Movement chambers in every hive are necessary to quickly get to the battlezone. Sensory chambers I have less experience with, but the upgrades they give are terrific...
I was playing fade, running out shooting acid rockets to lure the marines towards me, running back around a corner and standing still to cloak... I had level 2 cloak, and a marine was staring right at me... He finally turned around, and I hacked him to pieces. Level 3 carapace makes you a force to be reckoned with, especially as an Onos or Fade.
People also don't seem to realize that in a non-altered resource model game, marines in HA wielding HMG's would be alot less common. Individual HMG's cost around 20 points, and 200 is a high number according to Silver... So HMG's for 3 or 4 marines PLUS heavy armor is a huge investment.
I really think you people should wait for this new patch to come out before judging balance. It seems like a lot of people complaining about balance are complaining about it because the marines have huge amounts of rp. A rough comparison would be playing as zerg against marines using show me the money in Starcraft (not that NS is anything like SC).
PS- Bridger, I was a marine in the game you were talking about, and the resource model had in fact been altered. When you guys first started attacking we had around 1500 rp's, and by the time the match ended we had around 600. We could rebuild everything simply because we didn't have to worry about rp's. In a unaltered game you guys would have probably beaten us within the first or perhaps second assault.
This is what I've picked up so far, seeing as Lerks are definitely my favorite alien species, and noone seems to have covered them so far..
As soon as possible get Regeneration, Cloaking and Adrenaline upgrades.. this way you can fly for longer, hide better, and regain health after a skirmish.
If you are just out to disrupt those pesky marines.. HIDE. The mappers have handily placed piping, roof girders, vents, stray bricks, all over the walls and ceiling of every map. Find a perch, hopefully near a blind corner, and wait (cloaked hopefully) for a marine to run by, and turn so he is running away from you. Let him get a little distance, and then attack.
In the above situation, what I reccomend is hopping and gliding to get some momentum, all the while spraying the marine with spikes. He should stop and turn to shoot you - make this his fatal error. When he stops, or when you near the ground if he doesnt, flap your wings again and propel yourself forwards. Bring out the teeth and bite his head off. One dead, very shaken marine. If the bite fails, RUN LIKE CRAZY. It doesnt matter that you havent finished him off.. you've either made the job easier for your teammates or you've forced their commander to spend some cash patching him up. If the guy just starts running away, however, give chase! Your spike gun has a fair range, and you are the fastest of the fast (make sure you dont go too far and overtake him) so just gun him down as he runs.
In my opinion, Lerks are the ultimate in single-man turret removal services. Either hide in a crevice and take them out while they cant hit you, or spray umbra in front of them, fire as much as you can, and run. Rinse and repeat.
Its important to get used to accurate flying - if you shoot for a vent, hit the wall and drop down you are as good as dead. Also, use yourself as a distraction while defending bases.. flap about, spray spikes, spores and umbra, and generally make a nuisance of yourself. Sometimes entire teams of HMGs will get taken out by babblers or respawning skulks because they were shooting at that "f**king flying thing".
Question for the devs - is the Lerks bite damage related to how fast its going? Before, I was chasing a marine around a corner, and as I tried to bite him I hit another marine, in heavy armour. The guy was killed instantly. I was pretty far from my base, is there a chance that it was my momentum that caused the one-hit kill?
It was nice to see the little "wtf!" message appear shortly afterwards :P